Domingo conducts Verdi

International opera legend Placido Domingo took a prominent place in the orchestra pit last night as he conducted a performance of Washington National Opera's new production of Giuseppe Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani at Washington's Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

I had a fabulous view not only of the stage but of Maestro Domingo and his conducting—my seat was on the right side of the first row, just about even with the side line of the proscenium opening. With the orchestra below me, I was right by the tympanist, and my feet could feel his playing through the vibration of the floor. Because of the curvature of the pit and front row, I had an excellent profile view of Domingo. He loomed over the orchestra, sometimes cajoling them, sometimes singing to them, sometimes making love to them; he must be a singer's dream conductor, because he was very engaged with the stage during the difficult ensembles.

I Vespri Siciliani opens the 50th anniversary season of Washington National Opera. The season opener was a week and a half ago, but I didn't have the $650 for the ticket or the $1500 to contribute to be able to be eligible to buy a $650 ticket (plus my tuxedo is dirty). Even after the gala openings, though, WNO is very expensive—the "good" tickets at a Saturday night performance usually run about $290 (which is more than the $268 the Metropolitan Opera charges in New York City!), so I felt fortunate to have been able to score a front row ticket yesterday at a reasonable cost, especially since the house was nearly full last night.

The Washington National Opera Orchestra was in fine form last night. They play very well and very responsively for Mo. Domingo. After the overture, Domingo even took a moment to have them stand and acknowledge the audience's substantial applause.

This is the 150th anniversary of the premiere of I Vespri Siciliani, but it remains a relatively unknown opera in the United States, overshadowed by other Verdi works such as Aida, Rigoletto, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, and many others. The storyline is typically Verdian: it's a convoluted love story with a tragic ending, in five acts. Set in French-occupied Sicily in 1282, nationalistic Sicilian patriot Procida returns from exile to lead a rebellion. Procida's young lieutenant Arrigo gets himself arrested by the French governor Monforte, who shocks Arrigo when Monforte reveals that he is Arrigo's father. Torn by his long-time hatred of the French and his uncertainty over his filial duty, Arrigo saves his father from assassination. His compatriots—including Duchess Elena, his fellow rebel and the woman he loves—are arrested and condemned to death, while they condemn Arrigo as a traitor. Monforte agrees to pardon the rebels if Arrigo will acknowledge him as his father. Once Arrigo finally breaks down and acknowledges Monforte, Monforte declares that Arrigo and Elena shall be wed as a sign of the unification of the French and Sicilian peoples. Procida uses the wedding, though, as an opportunity to complete his rebellion. Now, the title of the opera translates as "Sicilian Vespers," but I really have no idea how that title ties in to the plot.

As with many Verdi operas, this opera is led by four primary singers with huge, difficult singing roles. Leading the cast as Elena is mezzo-soprano Maria Guleghina, a sturdy singer from Armenia who seemed a bit too old to me to be playing the ingenue. She had an absolutely amazing voice, though, and a great mastery of technique which a younger singer would not have had. The voice was heavy but huge; in one scene (the fourth act finale), the entire chorus, all of the principals, and the large orchestra were all singing and playing full blast, and I could hear Miss Guleghina's voice soaring above the din. I was particularly impressed with the voice of Ukrainian bass Vitalij Kowaljow, who sang the role of Procida. His soliloquy to open act two was powerful and virtuosic, earning him a prolonged ovation and plenty of bravos, including, I noticed, some applause from Maestro Domingo. Procida is a big part and it really exercises the lower range of the bass, a task which Kowaljow made simple and fluid. The baritone singing Monforte was Lado Ataneli, yet another eastern European, from Georgia. Verdi baritone parts can be misleadingly simple, sometimes soaring up into tenor registers, sometimes having a punishing tessitura, but Ataneli's interpretation just oozed with the smarmy self-confidence of a wealthy political despot. While his voice carried the timbre of a cavalier baritone, he handled his high notes easily and never appeared to be covering above the passagio. His soliloquy opening the third act also met with audience bravos. The tenor role of Arrigo was sung by Frano Farina (an American, name notwithstanding). The leading tenor role in a Verdi opera is always so demanding and so difficult, I hesitate to say that I was disappointed or unimpressed with Farina, so I will have to leave it at saying that he was not quite in the same league as the other three principals. In many of the ensembles, Farina's voice was buried under the other Russians. At one point, Farina was staged right by me and Miss Guleghina was standing on the opposite side of the stage and facing away, yet still her voice overpowered his. I wonder, also, if maybe he didn't get a little tired during the performance: his fourth act opening soliloquy was rather blasé and met only lukewarm applause from the audience.

None of the singers in the production were familiar to me, which kind of surprised me. Usually there's at least someone with whom I've previously sung. Anyway, other cast members included Erin Elizabeth Smith as Ninetta, Robert Baker as Danieli, Corey Evan Rotz as Tebaldo, James Shaffran as Roberto, John Marcus Bindel as Bethune, Benjamin von Atrops as Vaudemont (watch for this fine young bass in the future!), and J. Austin Bitner as Manfredo.

The Washington National Opera Chorus had a major presence in this production, with some 70 singers on stage, supplemented by two dozen supernumeraries. The singing was pretty good, with only one spot where the men were getting out of sequence with the stick. My complaints with the chorus, though, were with the stage director. The "acting" was that bad "opera stage business" which always looks so fake and I kept seeing recognizable personalities even though the chorus had changed costumes to portray different characters. The biggest problem, though, is that this stage director just doesn't have the gift of handling crowd scenes. The stage was too crowded and people were on top of one another. I think the actors were uncomfortable with all the steps (including some principals!), because they often looked uneasy moving around had to look down and lift their skirts and capes so as not to trip. In some of the party and dance scenes, the chorus, supernumeraries, and dancers were trying to move around and be active, but they were constrained by the vast numbers on stage, the set design, and bad direction, and they ended up looking like they were running in circles.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the opening of act five must have been a lady chorister's dream. As Elena prepares for her wedding to Arrigo, she and all of her "friends" (some two dozen-plus female members of the chorus) sing and dance all over the stage, each wearing a unique, gorgeous, cream colored wedding dress.

Paulo Miccichè served as both stage and visual director of the production. I think he spent too much time worrying about the "visual" direction and not enough time thinking about the stage direction. The Sicilian Mr. Miccichè is known for experimenting with moving lights and film projectors to create "virtual sets" and backdrops on stage. Well, I hope he gets over his experimental phase soon, because I hate what he's doing. It was extremely distracting and it very much detracted from the singing and the music. His vision no doubt forced set designer Antonio Mastromattei to meet Miccichè's bizarre requirements, leading to an absolutely hideous, difficult, and undesirable set. And I have no idea when this opera was supposed to be set. Verdi and his librettist set the work in the 13th century. The costumes all appeared to be 19th century. The sets appeared to be almost futuristic.

So, let's talk about the set. A series of five stark, "stone" black, contemporary, rectangular arches framed the stage from front to back. Runs of three to four steps in black, stage-wide staircases, beginning with three steps below the first arch, continued all the way upstage, with a few landings to allow for some action, and a more substantial landing about mid-stage where two large movable black staircases could be moved from place to place. A large black scrim (scrims are those special flat curtains which can either be opaque or see-through, depending upon the lighting) was hanging in the first arch. During the overture, the stage lights came up a bit, revealing through the scrim three enormous empty picture frames floating over the set: a horizontal frame centered up stage, a vertical frame down right, and a vertical frame set on the diagonal mid-stage left. During the course the evening, the frames would appear and reappear. The horizontal frame was on ropes, so it could go up and down. The two vertical frames were on rollers, but rather than being mechanically controlled, they were pushed on and off by stage hands in "costume" shirts, but with their blue jeans and work boots visible underneath. As the overture came to a conclusion, a stage-wide, transparent portrait of Verdi was rolled up and projected on to the front scrim.

Once the singing started, old-style photographs of Sicily were projected on to the backdrop up stage. As the action shifted, the photographs moved laterally to reveal different sections of the panorama. It made me seasick. Later, when the director was wanting to reflect the emotion being sung by a soloist or small ensemble, he would project photographs of old medieval and Renaissance era Sicilian paintings or sculptures. During a love duet between Elena and Arrigo, the painting was of two medieval lovers locked in a deep kiss. When Monforte gave Arrigo a letter from his mother explaining that Monforte was Arrigo's father, "handwriting" was projected over the entire stage. Sometimes sections of paintings would be highlighted and projected on shades which rolled down from the tops of the frames, while the full painting was projected in back. In several sections of the show, a white scrim with multiple vertical cuts along the bottom (to allow for the occasional "dramatic" entrance) was lowered about mid stage and used as both scrim and projection screen.

I found all the "high tech" and projections to be highly distracting, and I would discard Miccichè's concept. I think Verdi is a good enough composer to be able to convey his message and the emotion of the characters without needing projected visual clues to tell the audience what to think or feel. Yes, the opera was sung in its original Italian, but the English translations were projected on to the top of the downstage proscenium arch (and I seldom looked at them). Sometimes the high tech malfunctioned, though, and that was disasterous: in one particularly poignant fourth act quartet, the projector shining a painting over the entire stage was shaking, and I could not look at the stage without experiencing vertigo.

Some of the basic technical aspects of the staging were also disappointing, given the stature and expense of Washington National Opera. Now, we know that it is common practice to use a scrim to hide scene changes while other singing is going on down stage. People and props have to get on and off stage. And, of course, you can't expect an opera singer to walk on and off a stage set (especially one with a lot of stairs) when it is pitch black. For those of you unfamiliar with stagecraft and the operation of a scrim, a scrim is opaque to the audience when there is a light shining on it from the front and the set is dark in back—you make whatever is behind it visible by illuminating the scene back there. So, we certainly know that if stage lights are raised enough to allow actors to get on and off the set, the audience is going to be able to see a hazy vision of what's going on. The simple solution to that is to use what we call a "black out curtain"—typically a rubberized sheet—in conjunction with the scrim that is flown back out as soon as the scene is set and the lights lowered again. Well, they didn't use black out curtains last night, so many of the scene changes were faintly visible and that distracted us from the singing in front. And, at the end of several acts, the lights came down and curtains began to come in from the top, only to have to stop midway down to allow the actors to clear the stage before they could finish closing. Now, how unprofessional does that look?

So, I think I can sum up the performance by saying the music was divine and the staging and sets sucked.

A great deal of the opera experience, though, doesn't happen inside the auditorium. I love to people watch! And the Kennedy Center is a perfect place for that, because not only do they have an opera house, they have a concert hall, a big stage theater, and several smaller theaters, plus a couple of gourmet restaurants and a big gift shop. During major concerts and performances, additional tables are set up to sell refreshments and drinks, including a new martini bar I discovered last night. The lobbies are so huge they are often used for receptions and other gatherings, and last night was no exception.

I'm not sure exactly who was doing what, but the press was teeming all over the place, because actress Angelina Jolie supposedly was coming for some event. There were crowds behind ropes outside the doors waiting for a glimpse of Miss Jolie, just like at the Academy Awards. I'm not sure if I was supposed to have gone that way, but I walked on the red carpet, straight up the stairs, past the crowds, and into the Hall of Nations. As I went up the stairs, I heard someone behind the ropes calling "Mark! Mark!" and turned to see one of my condo employees, who wanted to know if I was there for "the Event." Joan Rivers wasn't there to stop and interview me, but had she asked, I was wearing Armani: I'd chosen a navy pinstriped suit and white broadcloth French-cuffed shirt by Brooks Brothers with a light grey tie spotted with blue mitochondria-like figures by Giorgio Armani.

Fashions were very mixed last night. Of course, it wasn't opening night, so the formality wasn't there and it was a typical night out in Washington. As is so unfortunately typical these days, one sees a broad variety of clothing at these public events. I only saw two men in tuxedoes, but their accompanying women were quite unfortunately attired in outfits which were not only way too casual for black tie but hideous in and of themselves. Most of the men seemed to be in dark blue or grey suits, a pleasant thing since I've been to the opera in places like St. Louis where most of the men were in tacky brown suits or blue blazer and khaki trouser combinations (if they were even wearing a tie). Suits are still standard two piece numbers with no vests, and most of the men are avoiding that currently vogue three-buttons buttoned up look on ventless suit jackets. I also saw probably a majority of the men in blue shirts, though I'm not seeing as many French cuffs as I was earlier in the year.

Women's fashions were far, far more varied. I really only noticed a few trends. First, I saw a lot of knee-length black dresses and black suits topped with very colorful shawls and oversized scarves in both solid and multicolor blues, greens, and fuschias. Soft, smooth, thin woolens with elegant tailored lines also seem to be in, and I noticed a lot of dresses and skirt-top combinations with jackets, all in the same fabric. Some of these suits were black, but I also saw a lot of grey, beige, and soft pink. Chiffon-type fabrics also seemed popular for dresses with full skirts and high heeled shoes dyed to match. The vast majority of the women were in knee-length dresses, with the younger women wearing mid-knee hemlines and the more mature women's hems resting just below the knee. No one seemed to be wearing sequins, beaded fabrics, or shiny things (though it is still a bit early in the season for that). Hair is a little longer and smoothly coiffed. Jewelry was restrained, and simple pearl stands seemed popular again. Brooches were popular on suit jackets (hints of Madeleine Albright). There were a few ladies in long skirts (not dresses), but I didn't find them looking particularly formal or elegant. Most were ankle length and very, very colorful with boring tops. Those ladies particularly seemed to have difficulty selecting stylish and appropriate footware to go with their long skirts. I also saw a few older women in evening pants, typically with very colorful tops with long, draping sleeves and back. There weren't many young women in the audience at all. The few I saw obviously have not yet acquired a sense of taste or style, and neither had their boyfriends. I also saw some younger stag females wandering around in ill-fitting pant suits, and all I can say is fat and sloppy isn't going to land you a husband, sweetie. I sat next to an English lady now living in Canada who had a short, coiffed hairdo and wore simple diamond clip-on earrings to offset her cocktail length, pink chiffon dress, matching pink light woolen cape trimmed in pink fur, and dyed-to-match shoes with grosgrain bows. She was very interesting, and seems to be quite a Domingo fan. She's also gone to every performance of I Vespri Siciliani, and says she plans to see the remaining four performances.

I don't know about seeing all four of the remaining shows, but if you get a chances, this is a great opportunity to see a dramatic and rarely performed opera, and the soprano and bass alone make the ticket price worth the expense. Steel yourself for a long evening, though—running time, including two intermissions, was three hours and 45 minutes!

Tuba Mirabilis

It was a bit of a rush getting to the church tonight for Evensong and an organ recital from Chinatown to Foggy Bottom. The trains were running particularly slowly tonight, plus there are still a lot of protestors in town wandering lost on the subway, so I didn't walk into St. Paul's K Street until just after 6 when the choir had just started singing the introit back in the narthex.

I don't usually go to Evensong at St. Paul's, since they always do both Solemn Evensong and the Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament (what R.C.s call "Veneration of the Host," something my Protestant sensibilities find rather "popish") which makes the service a full hour; unlike Trinity Episcopal back in Tulsa, they don't have tea and sherry or wine and cheese afterwards as a "reward" for sitting through a long second service. Tonight was a special occasion, though, so that's why I went. In addition to this being Michaelmas, they were blessing and dedicating their new tuba mirabilis for their pipe organ, and there was a mini-recital featuring three organists slated after the service.

For you non-organ people, the tuba mirabilis is a special set of organ pipes which is similar to a state trumpet or a trompette en chamade, except they are much bigger and have a little lower register than the trumpet stops. Most organ pipes are tubular, but tuba pipes are conical and very long. These special ranks of pipes are used for fanfares and as a "solo" stop designed to soar over the full organ. Both trumpets and tubas (particularly tubas) are a typical characteristic of the English-style pipe organ, and generally these pipes are located in the back of the church. It would be a bit of an understatement to say that the tuba mirabilis is rather loud.

Anyway, I missed the prelude, which the program said was going to be the "Prélude" from Widor's Symphonie III, Op. 13. When I got there, the choir was singing the introit a capella, which was "Duo Seraphim clamabant" by Jakob Handl. After the collect was chanted, they did Psalm 150 using a very unusual antiphonal technique with the odd-numbered verses being sung by the choir and congregation and the even numbered verses being "sung" by the organ. I suppose it gave the organist a chance to do a bunch of improvisations, but I guess you could say the organ pipes need to work on their verbal diction. ;-)

As soon as the pipes and cabinets were blessed, aspersed with Holy Water and censed with incense, we got to hear a fanfare with the new tuba mirabilis pipes speaking for the first time. We had no problem whatsoever hearing them. That fanfare segued into a processional hymn, Parry's Laudate Dominum, to get the choir and clergy out of the narthex and up to the chancel. From that point, we were into "Evensong." The Preces and Responses were by Richard Ayleward. Caelites plaudant was the office hymn. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis were from The Gloucester Service by Herbert Howellls. The did all 35 verses of Psalm 104, plus the Gloria Patri, to Anglican chants by Joseph Barnby and Samuel Wesley. The anthem was "Let the people praise thee, O God" by William Mathias.

After a plainsong Marian antiphon, "Salve Regina," we got to the Benediction service. They started with the choir singing Marcel Dupré's hymn, "O salutaris hostia" as the Host was prepared, and then after the blessing, they sang Charles-Marie Widor's hymn, "Tantum ergo sacramentum." There was a bit of a magical moment when the priest blessed the congregation with the Host. The lights were extinguished in the nave. Dim lights supported the eighteen candles on the altar. After the Host was displayed in a large, silver, jeweled monstrance on the high altar and "adored" for a while, the priest (who was already wearing a festal cope) was wrapped in a humeral veil and then he stood to pick up the monstrance and turned to face the congregation, holding the monstrance above his head. The sanctuary was already filled with smoke from all the incense, and had quite an ethereal look about it. The organ had been playing mysterious chord progressions, and as the priest made the sign of the cross with the monstrance to bless the congregation, crescendoing dissonant, yet glorious, chords were played. I got shivvers up and down my spine!

At last, the service was over, and we got to the organ recital. St. Paul's assistant organist, Mark Dwyer, played John Cook's "Fanfare" as the first selection, which also served as an extended postlude to the Benediction service. He made more than ample use of the new tuba pipes. The most interesting piece of the evening was played by St. Paul's organist and music director, Scott Dettra. He chose Resurrection by Larry King, a work in four continuous movements, "The Lament," "The Rising," "The Ecstasy," and "Reflection." It was difficult to discern the end of "The Rising" and the begining of "The Ecstacy," though the other movements were fairly obvious. Clearly a work in the contemporary idiom, King created a series of quiet and unusual dissonant chordal progressions with "The Ecstacy" rising to a great climax. This piece gave Dettra an opportunity to show off some of the more unique stops and mixtures on the parish's impressive 54-rank, four manual, 3,500 pipe, Schoenstein instrument. The final work was Mendelssohn's Sonata IV in B-flat, Op. 65, performed by J. Reilly Lewis (he is organist at Claredon United Methodist Church in Arlington and conductor of the (Washington National) Cathedral Choral Society). His registrations were very straightforward, though I did notice the third movement "Allegretto" was very flutey. I was grateful that he only made limited use of the new tuba during the final movement "Allegro maestoso e vivace."

It was a tough audience tonight. There was no applause after the first two pieces. Even after the third work, there was silence until the three men came out for a curtain call, and then I found the ovation to be rather restrained and short. Not much credit for what seemed to me to be considerable work to learn difficult organ music. Nonetheless, St. Paul's now has their tuba, and it got a good workout tonight.

Emmy "fashions"

Right now we're watching the Emmys. William Shatner and the famed opera singer Frederica von Stade just finished singing the Star Trek theme song, and I am.....speechless.

Fashions are kind of boring tonight. I continue to have strong feelings that tuxedos require black bow ties. The long black four-in-hand ties several stars are wearing (or white/silver (Brad Garrett), or purple (Hugh Jackman) or no tie, open collar (William H. Macy, who looked like a waiter who'd just gotten off work)) just do not have the fabulous look (or the formality) of the bow tie, and they always remind me of the characters in that Men in Black movie. Did you see how fabulously elegant Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather looked? Bow ties, guys. I don't care what the tasteless top designer du jour says or charges you, you want to wear a bow tie.

Many of the women are wearing absolutely hideous dresses tonight. Halle Berry looked fabulous (doesn't she always?), but she was the only one in a tight, form fitting dress who looks good tonight. The best dramatic actress winner, Patricia Arquette, has a great '40s style hairdo, but the dress is awful—Leo thinks she'll be on the worst-dressed lists tomorrow. And what was Whoopi thinking?? The really, really good look tonight seems to be the full, strapless, classic ball gown, such as the beautiful dresses worn by Patricia Heaton and Sela Ward (black) and Marcia Cross (emerald green).

Of course, as Ellen DeGeneres said during the show (whose comedy was rather flat, I thought), the big prize is the Oscar, so we'll just have to wait until Oscar season for some decent fashions.

Movie review: Bear Cub

Since my roommate Leo subscribes to Netflix, we are inundated with dozens of DVDs every month. I don't know if he picks them or they just come based on a profile or what, but I can't imagine watching that many movies. Nevertheless, he does occasionally prevail upon me to watch a specific flick, and this month he referred to me the 2004 Spanish film Bear Cub.

You should be advised that the R-rated Bear Cub is not a subtitled nature film (do they even have bears in Spain?). If it's not a nature film, well, about what could it be? Have I mentioned that is a (:::whispering:::) hoe-moe-sek-shal?

Bear Cub is a good movie. It's touching without being maudlin. Almost all of the characters are gay males of the "bear" variety. It also reflects real life without resorting to standard movie formulae and token happy endings.

José Luis Garcia-Pérez stars as Pedro, a gay bear dentist living in Madrid. As the movie opens, Pedro's bohemian sister is preparing to travel to India for a three-week vacation with her equally bohemian boyfriend, and she is leaving her nine-year-old son, Bernardo, with his Uncle Pedro while she is away. Even though Pedro is completely out to his family and they accept him, he busily tries to "de-gay" his home and makes sure his gay bear friends behave themselves while the child is around. Uncle and nephew have a great time together and quickly develop a strong, loving family relationship.

One morning, the doorbell rings, and Bernardo's paternal grandmother has shown up, wanting to see her grandson and to try to establish a relationship with him. Apparently, five years ago, her only son, Bernardo's father, died of a drug overdose, and Bernardo's mother had refused to let the grandmother see her grandson after that. Bernardo did not want to spend time with his grandmother, so she left, disappointed and angry.

Meanwhile, Bernardo's mother has been arrested in Asia for trying to smuggle drugs across a border, and she is in prison. Now, Pedro and Bernardo have to make new plans to live together on a permanent basis. Things get complicated, though, when Bernardo's very wealthy grandmother hires a lawyer to get custody of Bernardo.

I don't know if Bear Cub was ever released commercially in the United States or if it's available at Blockbuster or other video rental shops, but if you can find it, I can recommend it to you. It's a short movie, only about an hour and a half in length.

Prison chic?

The Criminal has launched her new television series this week, and all I can say is that she's gone from model to stockbroker to caterer to writing "picture books about gracious living" (with apologies to Jeffrey) to America's favorite obstructor of justice to being the doyenne of prison chic.

Thanks to all of the cross-ownership of channels by the corporate multimedia conglomerates, we have plenty of opportunities to see the eponymous new show, Martha, all hours of the day. I have to admit, it's kind of like watching a major car wreck—so horrible that we can't keep our eyes off of it.

Monday's premiere began with a rather self-serving, quarter-hour long tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, starring The Criminal herself in pre-hurricane archival footage in New Orleans and Mississippi. We got to see all of the cast and crew on the set thumbing their noses at the federal justice system and all wearing ankle bracelet monitors so The Criminal could "keep track of them." Her celebrity guest for the day was Marcia Cross from ABC's hit show Desperate Housewives, and they did such exciting things as fold t-shirts and make scrambled eggs. The egg segment was particularly shocking. It started with Miss Cross putting her butter in the eggs instead of the skillet, pretending total domestic ignorance. Then, The Criminal opted to have them serve the eggs in egg cups holding hollowed-out egg shells—and in the process of filling the egg shells, The Criminal let it slip that she'd never done that before!

Yesterday's show was no better. Remember the fellow-inmate-crocheted poncho The Criminal was wearing when she was released from her brief incarceration that she later made such a big deal about in her press interviews? Well, she was wearing it again. And not only was The Criminal in a poncho, her entire studio audience was wearing ponchos they had knitted or crocheted themselves (including the limited handful of male guests), and she announced a new product for sale—a crocheted poncho in either blue or red yarn, just like The Criminal's! The celebrity guest for the day was David Spade, who showed up on the set dressed in "Criminal" drag, and they showed clips from the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted where he did his Criminal sketch. And what did they do? They folded t-shirts. Then, they made nachos and cheese sandwiches microwaved in a paper bag, a skill The Criminal learned in prison. Interestingly enough, they ended the Spade segment and broke for commercials before we got to see the end product from the microwave. The rest of the show featured another celebrity "guest," Elmo of Sesame Street and Tickle Me, Elmo fame. What did they do? The Criminal and the poncho-clad Elmo decorated lunch sacks and discussed the components of a healthy sack lunch.

I can't wait to see the show tonight. Jay Leno will be the celebrity guest and they are going to make chicken wings!

Well, K-Mart may be happy with these developments, but I already think it's time for them to have a big blue light special and clear these new Martha episodes out from our living rooms. Meanwhile, I think I need to chastise my friends at the Department of Justice for pushing the vendetta prosecution of The Criminal in the first place. If they hadn't insisted on incarcerating her, we wouldn't be forced to deal with her probation period faux-contrite tripe.

Phantom of the Opera, the movie

Watched the DVD of The Phantom of the Opera movie version for the first time. The movie was really, really bad. Now, I know that the movie was just "based" on the musical, but I really didn't like the reorchestrations at all, the scenes were confusing, and it totally lacked the magic of the stage version. What's worse, though, was that the actor cast as the Phantom sucked! I can't imagine what they were thinking when they cast him—he's not a singer! His voice was worse than flat, it was off-key, and they should have at least gone to the effort of electronically enhancing and tuning his singing, because he totally distracted me and ruined every scene in which he sang.

Book reports

One of the nice things about traveling is those long airport terminal waits and in-flight time give me a chance to do recreational reading. Here are comments on three books of recent contemporary fiction I read during my August travels. All three books are good and I recommend them to you.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is one of the more unique stories I've read in a long time. English novelist Mark Haddon writes his tale from the first-person perspective of Christopher, an autistic English teenager (with an eidetic memory and mathematical savant skills) who has decided to write his own book detailing his efforts to play detective to solve the "murder" of a neighborhood pet dog. It is Christopher's book, so we end up experiencing a number of autistic eccentricities, such as the chapters being numbered with sequential prime numbers (numbers divisible only by one and itself) and the occasional mathematical formula to help describe the logic behind a particular clue analysis. Autistics tend to be very visual, so Christopher also has included a number of drawings of diagrams, flowcharts, and illustrations to demonstrate what he's pondering. He is very thorough. Along the way, however, the reader can feel the pain and challenges of Christopher's single-parent father and teachers as they try to communicate and relate to an autistic child who often totally shuts down in times of stress, especially when faced with unknown people and locations. The story becomes particularly poignant as Christopher's dog investigation proceeds and he begins to uncover clues about his mother.

The book is a quick, enjoyable read. Haddon has masterfully captured both the thought processes and the traits of autistic children. I know some people with autistic qualities and behaviors, and he really nails it. Haddon also weaves a compelling double mystery, and somehow manages to merge the mysteries with Christopher's voice in a way that does not seem contrived. Several of the scenes made me ache for the boy, and yet, with autistics, we don't really know if they experience emotional pain the same way non-autistics do. I was also touched by the plight of Christopher's father, who strongly loved his son, but just didn't know how to handle an autistic child approaching adulthood.

What with all the hype about The DaVinci Code with its internationally best-selling novel and upcoming movie, this is the perfect environment for The Rule of Four. What is particularly interesting about The Rule of Four, though, is that it was the senior thesis project of Princeton student Ian Caldwell, then reworked into the published novel form by Caldwell and his lifelong friend, Dustin Thomason. They have created a mystery novel around a group of Ivy League students fighting academic politics and crime while in their quest to resolve one of the great academic mysteries of all time, the meaning of the early Renaissance book, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, or The Strife of Love in a Dream (a contrived title built with Greek word roots), is believed to have been written by a Dominican monk Francesco Colonna in the late 15th century. The book, while written essentially in Italian, is an odd hodge-podge of languages, incorporating Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic from time to time, and it includes a now-famous acrostic built with the first letter of each chapter, spelling out the phrase "Poliam Frater Francisvs Colvmna Peramavit (“Brother Francis Colonna deeply loved Polia”). Scholars have been trying to decipher the novel and find hidden messages and clues in the text ever since its original publication. Some scholars believe that the book may have been a political statement about Girolamo Savonarola, a devout but misguided religious zealot in Florence at the time who was responsible for the burning and destruction of countless artworks and literary masterpieces because they were not suitably "Christian"—and perhaps this is a good historical record for us to heed in 21st century America. It is into this academic tradition that Caldwell and Thomason have set their protagonists in The Rule of Four.

I found The Rule of Four to be quite interesting, although what interests me might be a little too esoteric for the non-academic reader. I can see a movie version of The DaVinci Code, because the general public has heard about the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, but I don't know how the filmmakers will educate the public about the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and adapt The Rule of Four to the big screen. The pacing of the novel was good, but then in the concluding chapters, too much happened too quickly. I guess the publishers wanted to keep the novel from exceeding 500 pages. The book provides a cynical glimpse into the cut-throat politics of high level university professors and scholars (no, things are not as staid and dignified as most people believe) and also displays the academic environment of the nation's top universities (a level not reached by the vast majority of colleges and universities) and the commitment of the students, even on the undergraduate level. Of course, this novel also provides some encouragement to certain friends of mine who also wrote novels for their senior thesis requirements to consider polishing and publishing their works! (hint, hint)

One of my friends was kind enough to bring me back from one of his New York trips an advance reading copy of A Long Stay in a Distant Land by Chieh Chieng. The novel should be published and released by Bloomsbury Publishing later this year, if it hasn't been released already (the advance copy is dated April 2005). A Long Stay in a Distant Land should do well on the bookseller charts. It's an interesting narrative about the Lums, a Hong Kong Chinese family that immigrated to the United States prior to World War II and is now living in Orange County, California. While set in the present day, it has chapters which bounce around throughout the family's history to explain the events of a previous year, giving us perspective on the current motivations of the characters. We experience a lot of Chinese-American culture as well as the angst of being immigrants (albeit second and third generation) in a country that does not fully assimilate non-Europeans. We also see the multi-generational tensions of a close, extended family where matriarchal influences are still strong.

This appears to be author Chieh Chieng's first novel, and I'm assuming he's a young writer, since his credits mention the writing program at the University of California at Irvine?? It's a good start. There are a couple of things I'd like him to have strengthened. First of all, I found myself having to refer to the genealogical chart in the front of the book often, just to keep the characters straight. It's a big, confusing family. It also took me a long time to figure out that the grandson Louis Lum ultimately was the central character of the book. The historical chapters interspersed throughout the book may have contributed to my disorientation, since they happened so early and so frequently. They were also not chronological flashbacks, but jumped around in no particular order. They were useful, though, because it's always good to be able to understand why family members react and are motivated the way they are. I also loved the family meals and the vivid descriptions of the food (which inspired me to take a special trip to Chinatown to order some of these foods). A Long Stay in a Distant Land is a fascinating look into the mechanics of the modern family.