But, when they should transform to newts, are naughty and erratic

[sovay]

Yesterday I felt optimistic enough about this cold to go out and meet ratatosk for lunch at Dave's Fresh Pasta and then hang out until the evening, trying not to cough on anyone too badly and mostly succeeding. (He has two books of Walter Garstang. I got to watch a puppet feed a cat. It was great.) Today I am back to drinking soup and sounding like a TB ward. Rabbit, rabbit. Other less festive noises. Links.

1. I didn't know anyone had written a revamp of Five Children and It. Can someone who isn't me read this first and tell me what on earth it's like?

2. I have tickets next week for Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse at the Boston Lyric Opera. I've never heard the opera, but it's based on the mystery of the Flannan Isles light (and I got a discount for being an ex-Opera Boston subscriber). I am looking forward.

3. I hope people do come to refer to this work, academically, as the Whoopensocker Dictionary.

4. cucumberseed: Cookiethulhu.

5. This documentary really sounds like porn for me.

Comments

[sovay]

I do not have the same history with the "Embroidery Aria," but I did perform it two years ago for a benefit in October, which is the season where it belongs.

Peter Grimes (1945), Benjamin Britten’s first full-length opera, takes place in the insular world of the Borough, a small coastal town in Suffolk near the beginning of the nineteenth century. The title character is an outsider among the fishermen: solitary, not much liked, an unpredictable mix of visionary and taciturn, with a brutal temper. It is widely believed that he murdered his first apprentice, although the coroner’s inquest cleared him. Now a second boy has gone missing and local opinion needs very little encouragement to turn ugly. Grimes’ sole ally in the Borough is the widow Ellen Orford, whom he dreams vaguely of marrying, respected and rich, safe. She knitted his new apprentice a jersey. It has been found washed up at the tide-line. Looking at the anchor she embroidered on it, Ellen tries not to admit what this discovery might mean.

Embroidery in childhood was
a luxury of idleness.
A coil of silken thread giving
dreams of a silk and satin life.
Now my broidery affords
the clue whose meaning we avoid.
My hand remembered its old skill—
these stitches tell a curious tale.
I remember I was brooding
on the fantasies of children
and dreamt that only by wishing
I could bring some silk into their lives.
Now my broidery affords
the clue whose meaning we avoid.

Its melody is like a needle dipping and sewing through cloth, its halting, half-beat rhythm the thought she cannot force herself away from. The whole opera is filled with the sea, the heave and drag of tides, the dazzle of light off the waves, undertows and murky swirls of storm. It is not an allegory; its antihero is too complicated for that. The sea outlives everything, but we remember and are scarred.

I hope that gives you some idea.

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

You are a star. Thank you.

[sovay]

You are a star. Thank you.

You're welcome. If you like the music, I will be glad to send you both operas entire.