The Place to Take a Humor Break
Muffins, bread, bagels and Danish pastries are good. Crumbs are bad. Unfortunately, the good stuff contains the bad stuff. Some people can eat anything and never suffer falling crumbs, spots of marinara sauce on a […]
How we deal with a stuck zipper can tell us about how we deal with not moving forward. Years ago, my tailor, a 6 foot elder Ukrainian woman, former ballroom dancer, scolded me, “You have […]
THE FRENCH AND THE RUSSIANS Once everybody else saw that the Italians had come up with a Good Thing, other countries wanted to get in on it. I already covered the Germans in an earlier […]
Dear Lord, please forgive my total outrage toward my CDL (Commercial Diver License) OTR (Over The Road) 18-wheeler driving, away-from-home-for-weeks-at-a-time husband, when he told me he’d signed up for the company’s free STD insurance. How […]
DEATH, OPERATIC STYLE In most operas, somebody dies. Usually it’s the hero or the heroine, or both of them. Occasionally, someone else will get in on the act, too, not wanting to be left out […]
Those Crazy Germans In my last lesson, I mentioned opera plots and how they are reminiscent of lurid cable TV channels that specialize in re-enacted crimes. As an example, I gave the plot of Verdi’s […]
The Stories Opera is more than just middle-aged fat people in period costumes making funny sounds. An opera is a play, with a plot. The only differences between operas and spoken plays are: (1) operas […]
I can’t walk into any retail establishment and come out with only what I intended to buy. I must have inherited this trait from my father, because all of my immediate female ancestors were great […]
The Men (i.e. Tenors, Baritones and Basses) Male opera singers are just as crazy as the females, and just as likely to flay you alive if you get them mad, especially at performance time. Add […]
Female Opera Singers and Other Wild Animals Most people think female opera singers look like this: Some of us look more like this: Most of us are somewhere in between: We’ve all heard the saying, […]