April 25, 2022

I just posted my new piece on Medium, and first in almost a year, about all the anti-trans garbage being shoved through red-state legislatures (PA's has tried, but hasn't to date succeeded), and why it's imperative that Dems and allies take the gloves off and start pushing back hard against it.  (NB: The image below is a screenshot, not a link.)

 

April 20, 2022

One thing the meteorological vagaries of the past few weeks have driven home to me: daffodils are badass.

 

April 15, 2022

I spent the better part of two hours this afternoon at the Carnegie Science Center's "Pompeii" exhibit. It did not disappoint. (Full disclosure: The fact that one chapter of my diss was devoted to Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Last Days of Pompeii predisposed me to like it.)

Theatrical masks ancient and modern (the black one was not part of the exhibit)

 

Drinking vessels (I would really like one of those horn shaped glasses,

though I wonder if they make cupholders that could accommodate them)

 

 Lamps

 

 Marble versions of theatrical masks

 

 

A description of a popular seasoning of the day called garum (If you throw up

a little in your mouth reading it, I don't want to hear it—been there, done that)

April 6, 2022

It's hard to overstate the absurdity of the ending punctuation of this subject line.

 

 

March 27, 2022

As the program behind me suggests, I saw Carmen last night. It was my first time seeing it, and while I loved the music, it took me some time to process the final act, in which the powerful, independent heroine allows herself to be stabbed to death by her jealous lover after his tantrum over her refusal to take him back has consumed the latter half of the act. The best thing I can say about this ending is that it begs for a 21st century reboot, because in its original form, Bizet and his librettist crafted the mother of all #MeToo stories.

 

 

March 26, 2022

Today is the fifth anniversary of my first eBay sale: $300 for this LP. The market for vinyl has grown even more frenzied since then. There are currently two copies of this LP for sale on the Discogs site, for example, the lesser of which is listed for $615. My copy was sealed. Clearing out most of my collection was necessary for a couple of reasons, and of course there was no way of knowing how things would develop, but nonetheless it's hard not to wonder what if I'd held off for a few more years?

 

March 12, 2022

Outside Heinz Hall last night.  #StandWithUkraine