know thyself, said the Greeks

Friend: You're a good person.
Me: What?! I'm Attila the Hun in an estrogen suit!

Don Giovanni dress reh, minus the Mozart

The nice thing about grand opera is, if the visuals suck, you can close your eyes and listen. If the singers suck, you can watch the stage action and listen to the orchestra. If the conductor, however, manages to somehow drain Mozart of all shape, crystalline structure, coherence, in sum, whatever it is that makes Mozart Mozart, and turns the music into Muzak, this is a profound problem. When it occurs in an ugly, ugly stage set than sees most of the action taking place in what seem to be brickwalled underground spaces, and a production that despises all the characters, well ... it makes for a long, sad night at the opera.

I heart Jon Stewart

Yes, it really takes Jon Stewart, basic cable comedy news host, to call out Tony Blair for conflating Hezbollah AND Hamas with Al Qaeda. Jesus, as they say, wept.

Random thoughts

• Regarding Ratmansky landing at ABT instead of City Ballet: If you had a choice of working for Peter Martins or Kevin McKenzie, who would you choose?

• Perhaps there is a case to be made against General Jaruzelski for actions after the imposition of martial law in Communist Poland. But it can be argued that the only instance in which the military stepped in to displace a Communist government made the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union more likely, not less so. Perhaps, just perhaps, Jaruzelski, who did have military divisions (pace Stalin), deserves some of the credit that is generally reserved for the Polish Pope? Can his patriotism be questioned?

• If teevee won't give airtime to idiots who run onto the baseball field during a game, why oh why do the "news" channels show, interview, and generally reward the moronic behavior of people who disregard "mandatory" evacuations during hurricanes?
  

I was Ras'ed

Phone rings. Pick it up. It's a recorded female voice. Almost hang up before I hear that it's a Rasmussen poll. OK, I'll play.

Good track/bad track, Obama/McCain, and a TON of questions about "illegal" immigrants. Sheesh, guys! The poor folks who pick our lettuce, cut our absurdly subsidized sugarcane, and work as builders and gardeners without any rights or protective equipment are heading home or seriously considering heading home since, in case you haven't noticed, economic activity in the U.S. is feeling unwell at the moment.

One question asked if Obama's choice of Biden made me more/less/no change likely to vote for Obama. I hit the button for "less" even before I read this Kinseyian quote:

“Make no mistake about it Hillary Clinton is as qualified as or more qualified than I am” to be vice president, Biden said. “And quite frankly, she may have been a better pick than me.”

Whimper.