Sunday, April 06, 2008

Cool Maps

One: Hillary's Travels (as first lady) (link). She's traveled to more places than I have, but she hasn't been to Kashgar. H/T: Talking Points Memo.

Two: news coverage maps (link). I want to look at these more carefully on a bigger screen. H/T Carpe Diem.

2 comments:

The New York Crank said...

I'm usually not one to comment on operas I haven't seen, but the Metropolitan Opera is souring me fast on any production it does.

My issue is miscasting. I recently ranted on a notably – shall we call her "tubby?" Carmen –– which made the whole seductress premise a trifle, umm, dubious. You'll find my whining about it here:
http://thenewyorkcrank.blogspot.com/search?q=opera

This weekend, I caught a bit of Romeo and Juliet, on the tube. (With so-so-tickets going for a couple of hundred bucks, I don't often rush out to see what the cable brings me free. I tuned out and turned off when I noticed that Romeo appeared to be in his late 40s.

So much for teen aged, star-crossed love.

Yeah yeah, I know. I'm suppose to use my imagination. Suspend my disbelief. Pretend. All of that. And besides, how ya gonna find a voice in an appropriate bod, or an appropriate face with a real voice behind it, when it takes 20 years of training and 40 trillion calories to make an opera singer great?

I dunno, but that's not my problem, bub. All I know is, they could roll these middle-aged tubbies up to the microphone, record them and play them on the radio (or an audio podcast) and it would be a much better experience for the audience. We could pay attention to the music, instead of giving ourselves corneal hernias trying not to notice what is evident to anyone who can see.

Yours crankily,
The New York Crank

The New York Crank said...

Somehow, I misplaced this comment. It should be at the La Boheme post, several inches below.

Yours dislectically,
The New York Crank