Monday, December 29, 2014

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo Group Think

Group think or lip think, you decide. The reverse engineer question: what did Sven-Eric Bechtolt give for direction, if anything? or is the expression spontaneous. Memoir writing and time alone may tell.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Annie Proulx Writing and Thoughts

Annie could certainly comment on my writing; that said, her novel The Shipping News won a Pulitzer Prize. Each chapter contains an illustration and quote about knot tying, fairly interesting. I compare her technique to Wool, where the middle chapters have fairly short quotes from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The struggle for me is the characters are somewhat grotesque. Her metaphors are outstanding: she describes ice breaking up in a river looking like broken dinner plates. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to give The Shipping News another read.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

lldebrando D'Arcangelo in La Cenerentola 2003

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo = excellent. Talent. Voice. Choreography. You should watch. He plays Alidoro, the godfather. US-St. Nicholas, Santa, Kris Kringle, Cinderella, godmother. Europe-La Cerentola, godfather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td8cNANJkw8


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Brokeback Mountain Great Opening

If you're writing, you need to read the short story by Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain. One reviewer notes every sentence is a jewel. You need to read the ~10K word short story to understand the competition! Excerpt:



Ennis Del mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames.  The shirts hanging on a nail [important image at the end] shudder slightly in the draft. He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan, the flame swathes it in blue.  [swathes,brilliant word choice-jr] He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on. The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he can hear the scratching of the fine gravel and sand. It could be bad on the highway with the horse trailer.  He has to be packed and away from the place that morning.  Again the ranch is on the market and they’ve shipped out the last of the horses, paid everybody off the day before, the owner saying, “Give em to the real estate shark, I’m out a here,” dropping the keys in Ennis’s hand. He might have to stay with his married daughter until he picks up another job, yet he is suffused with a sense of pleasure because Jack Twist was in his dream.

The stale coffee is boiling up but he catches it before it goes over the side, pours it into a stained cup and blows on the black liquid, lets a panel of the dream slide forward.  If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong. The wind strikes the trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, eases, dies, leaves a temporary silence. [wow, great simile for kinesthetic and auditory detail, appeal to all senses-jr]

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Austria's Highest Cultural Honor



Probably same as Kennedy Center Awards. Link to article


Wikipedia lists the people who've received the honor. Ildebrando definitely belongs on the list with Placido Domingo and Elina Garanca, great singers as well.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo as Attila

Congratulations to Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, Ruggero Raimondi, and team. Four successful performances. The Youtube preview was bright and brilliant. Here's the link to ABOA-OLBE. Look for Opera Attila to enjoy the scenes:

http://www.abao.org/