O.K., friends: The world got just a little bit bigger today. Thanks to my high school friend, Angela Renee Simpson—no singing slouch in her own right—I now know the name of countertenor Matthew Truss, an ’06 Boston Conservatory grad, and apparently one of the hottest new talents out.
If, like me, you get to the opera about once a kalpa, or you confuse the word “countertenor” with “counterterrorist,” prepare to be stunned by Mr. Truss’s rendition of “Addio, addio miei sosprir,”from 18th century Bavarian composer Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, Orfeo ed Euridice.
Sumthin’ he can feel: Recreation of Viking woman’s outfit
A recent archaeological find of colorful, even sexy, Viking era (750 – 1050 AD) women’s clothing have led to new ideas about how Norse women got down for theirs. Continue reading →
She clearly didn’t expect to be followed so closely: Oprah Winfrey
Since starting January 1st, a Chicago performer, writer, and artist, Robyn Okrant, 35, has committed a full year to living her life as Oprah Winfrey suggests on her highly-rated TV program, The Oprah Winfrey Show. So, if Oprah says buy white pants, Okrant buys white pants. If Oprah says visit an animal shelter, that’s where she goes.
NPR interviewed her, and she’s writing about the experience on her blog, Living Oprah. No word on whether Oprah approves of this, however.
On New Year’s Eve Daniel went to a party and by the time he got home I was already asleep. I was extremely sleepy when he crept into my room and curled up on my bed, which was something we’d both done for years, especially if we wanted to share some snippet of gossip. When he started stroking my hair and face it was a surprise, but I could feel myself drifting pleasurably back to sleep as he caressed me gently. Then I became aware of his hand drifting lower and suddenly I was wide awake as he stroked my neck and started sliding his hand down my vest top. I wasn’t scared but I was surprised as he started stroking me, though my overriding sensation was one of sheer pleasure. I instinctively lifted my mouth to his as he kissed me and then he hugged me very tightly and left.
Then I saw the article had generated 347 comments, but, even more, many actually approved of the arrangement, or at least were tolerant of it.
But even that was before I watched an Australian 60 Minutes video (via Jezebel) of John, 61, and Jenny, 39, Deaves, a father-daughter / common-law husband-wife couple from that country, and their granddaughter / daughter / half-sister, Celeste, 8 months of age, above.
I was starting to drown. Is incest, somehow, becoming hip? How did so many otherwise sane, normal, adults come to agree that the hottest sex is with one’s next-of-kin?
But the weight of this didn’t hit me until last week, when I flew round-trip, New York-to-Austin, on Oprah’s favorite carrier, American Airlines (“Something special in the air!”).
During my sojourn, I was charged $15 each way to check a duffle bag; nasally assaulted upon entering Flight 732 to New York—a plane that when boarded smelled like a combination of lavatory sewage, stale cigarette smoke, and moldy jockstraps (something special in the air, indeed); and, with a great deal of fanfare, served the drink in the above photo.
One heck of an alternate timeline: Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest planned skyscraper, shown for scale in a New York City skyline where 9/11 never happened
In it, both man and beast are awed by the dawn of the Burj Dubai hotel and residence, which, at a yet-unfinished 2,087 feet and a planned 160 stories minimum, is the world’s tallest structure. (I say “planned” because the building’s final height is being kept secret, in order to intimidate would-be one-uppers.) Let’s hope that, along with the Giorgio Armani-designed hotel, the $4,000-a-square-foot office space, and the 700 private apartments, they put in one unbelievable bungee cord.
Some of Barack Obama’s idealistic young supporters are taking endorsement of the candidate to an eerie new level, one familiar to fans of the 1960 film, Spartacus, above, says The New York Times: They’re informally adopting his middle name, “Hussein,” to refute right-wingers who “use it to falsely assert that Mr. Obama is a Muslim or, more fantastically, a terrorist.” (Thanks, Afi Scruggs, for the tip.)
(In the Stanley Kubrick classic, fellow slaves all identify themselves as “Spartacus” when Roman soldiers come looking for the rebellious leader.)
Edelgard Clavey, 67, December 5, 2003, then one month later
What is death?
Or, let me ask it this way: When, one moment, a person is alive, then, a moment later, they die, what has “happened,” or changed? Where have they, the person you knew and loved, “gone”? What is it that makes the difference between a person that you love and touch, and the shell you avert?
Questions of this sort inevitably course through one’s mind when contemplating German photographer Walter Schels’s and collaborator Beate Lakotta’s earthy, profoundly emotional portraits of terminally ill patients, before, and, their very first pictures, shortly after dying. (Thanks to very.fm for the heads up.)
