Hamilton (an opera review post, part one)

Okay, let's talk about the elephant I just brought into the room: I called this an "opera review post." Why would I do such a thing when Hamilton is clearly not an opera.
Right?
I'm just gonna guess that you don't actually know what an opera is. You just have a vague cultural idea of opera as some snooty upper class thing full of boring classical music and languages you don't understand.
And, well, unfortunately, that's kind of what opera has become, but it's not what it actually is. Oh, and when I say "kind of" what it's become, I actually mean that's not at all what it's become, but I can understand why so many people think of that way: It's how I used to think of it, too.

So what is opera, then? And what makes it different from musical theater?
Or from a play?
Well, both opera and musical theater fit under the broader category of what a play is. We tend to think of plays as the things without music, but they're all plays. If you add a few songs (or more than a few) but the play still consists of mostly spoken dialogue, you get musical theater. If it's a completely sung work, it's an opera.
Don't look at me like that, I'm talking about definitions, here, and definitions are important.

Look at it like this:
When opera was the entertainment of the day, opera was not a snooty upper class thing. Opera was entertainment for the masses and full of popular music. Classical music wasn't written to be classical -- there was no such thing at the time -- it was written to be popular. It's only "classical" now because it has endured. That's how popular it was. You'd probably be surprised at how much of the music you'd recognize if you became an opera-goer. (Just sayin'.) This was Top 40 stuff, is all I'm sayin'.

Also, opera wasn't written in other languages to be inaccessible to people. They were written in the languages of the people watching them. So, you know, French and Italian, especially. Some German. Other languages, too, just not much English. Look, I don't know why the British didn't get into opera writing. If they had, maybe we'd have different ideas about opera these days, but they didn't. Probably something to do with their "stiff upper lip" personality thing. It's a mystery to me. What it means, though, is that all of the big, famous operas from the past are mostly French or Italian, which means that when we think of operas, we get this idea that they have to be written in some other language.

It's the Three Wise Men, okay. It's all assumptions with no facts to back it up.

Hamilton is a sung work. There's really nothing spoken in it. A line or two here or there for emphasis, if you want to get all technical about it, but one word spoken without music doesn't make it not a sung work, so don't try to go all musical theater on me. And, no, the line between opera and musical theater can be blurry, but it's not so blurry that it extends to a word or two.

Hamilton is full of popular music. It's very singable. I know, because 2/3 of my kids know the entire thing by heart. It's also in the language of the people, which I'm just gonna say again, older operas were not written in some special "opera language," they were written in the languages of the audiences and the composers. It's not surprising, then, that Hamilton is in English.

So, Hamilton is an opera, which means that if you've seen Hamilton or listened to Hamilton, you've been interacting with opera. If you enjoyed Hamilton, you're enjoying opera.
It's not my fault; I'm not making this stuff up.

It also means that Lin-Manuel Miranda is the most famous opera singer in America.

My family's involvement with Hamilton began in the fall of 2015. NPR did a piece about it which my wife heard on her way home from work. She came home and played a bit of it for me, sure that I wasn't going to like it. Hip-hop isn't exactly my style of music. She was astonished when I liked it and told her to let it play. Maybe it was that I already liked Alexander Hamilton and had thought since high school that he's kinda gotten the short end of the stick. Maybe the music is just that catchy. Maybe it was a double-full blue blood moon and the tides were both extremely high and non-existent. I suppose it doesn't really matter why, but I liked it and, because, at that moment, I told my wife to let it play so my daughter heard it and she liked it and, well, it just cascaded from there.

We were all very disappointed that it only won 11 Tony awards.

All of which is to say that we didn't just go see Hamilton because it was a thing to do and people talk about it a lot. It was a dream-fulfillment thing, especially for my daughter. And it was her birthday present, which we will probably never be able to top.

None of which has anything to do with the performance that we saw, but that will have to be next time...

The Book of Vice (a book review post)

I'm going to be honest: I only picked this book up because it was written by Peter Sagal of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me! fame. I love Wait, Wait, and Sagal is great, and the book looked amusing, at least, and, since I was getting it on, mostly, trade at a used book store, I figured I didn't really have anything to lose. For the price I paid, I'm sure that's true.

And the book was amusing, at times even fascinating. But...
But.

By the end of the book, I was really wondering what it was supposed to be about. Because it's presented in such a way as to be about something, and it looks like it's supposed to be about something, but, at the end, I failed to see whatever that something was. Or is. I mean, beyond it being a list of "naughty things" people do. And I think it fails to be even that.

Or maybe I just missed the point since the book is supposed to be something of a parody of, or response to, The Book of Virtues, a book I haven't read. What I do know is that Vice didn't live up to its title: The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them).

It's that "and How to Do Them" part that is the problem because, at no point, does Sagal ever go into how any "normal" person could go about doing the things that he's talking about. Not that I was looking for any instruction on how to pick up some vices, but it's right there in the title, man! Plus, he seems to have some confusion on what a vice really is, which is weird since he spends part of the introduction defining it, something you do for which you feel shame about later. In other words, something you don't really want other people to know you do.

Of course, at least half of the book is about sex.
And, let's face it, at least half of America would be more than fine if children grew up believing they were the products of spontaneous generation and that sex didn't exist at all.

The problem, though, is that after the first chapter... Wait, let's deal with the first chapter:
The first chapter is about swinging. And the first chapter is about regular people who swing. Mostly because, I think, he spends a good portion of the introduction talking about Power Exchange, a swingers' club in San Francisco (nope, never been there and, though I think I've heard of it, I didn't know that's what it was until I read this book), at which no actual swinging happens. In essence, he was forced to find some "real" people who do it to be able to talk about it. That said, I'm not sure it qualified as a vice for any of them since they had no secret shame over it. True, they didn't want it spread around that they spent weekends at a private swinging event, but none of the people he talked to treated it as if it was something wrong or bad that they were doing.

After that, though, each chapter dealt with the... providers...? of said vices.

The second chapter is about food but, rather then deal with people who, say, eat packages of Oreos on the sly, he dealt with high-end foodie restaurants, specifically with Alinea, and what goes into making very expensive food. I'm not really thinking that people who eat at places like that think of that as any kind of vice. You go to that restaurant, you brag about it after, not try to keep people from finding out you went.

The chapter on gambling deals with the establishments and how they know they'll win. Though the question is raised about why people would gamble knowing they're going to lose, he never actually talks to the regular people who go deep into debt from gambling addictions. The chapter on strip clubs approaches it from the perspective of why would a woman do that for a living, not a vice, rather than the perspective of the man who can't keep himself from stopping at a club every time he has a few dollars in his hand.

The chapter on consumerism... Honestly, I'm not even sure what that chapter was about. There's no "vice" for that. Unless breathing is a vice. Or drinking water.

The chapter on lying dealt only with some high profile liars and, since the book came out in 2007, we don't even get to see his take on Trump (#fakepresident), possibly the biggest lying liar ever. But I have a hard time classifying lying as a vice, too. Maybe it qualifies in some cases, but, at that point, I think it would more likely be called a pathology.

And the chapter on porn is all about porn stars, not the people who have their porn stash hidden away and only get it out when no one is around.

Substance abuse, including cigarettes and that "one" glass of wine after dinner every night, isn't even mentioned.

So, yeah, it's mostly amusing and, like I said, bits of it are fascinating, but, in the end, I'm not sure what he was trying to get at, especially since his own judgements about any particular "vice" are glaringly obvious:
Porn is bad.
Gambling is fine as long as you're the smart guy (him) who plays the one game where the odds are in the favor of the gambler; otherwise, your stupid to gamble.
High-end eating establishments, like Alinea, are dumb and people who spend their money at them are even dumber. Find a Jack-in-the-Box (his idea) and be satisfied.

Hmm... That sounds a bit more harsh, maybe, than I intend it to sound, but, well, that's how it ends up coming across. But, you know, if you want a light, amusing read with some interesting character studies, this may be the book for you.

The New Civil War

240 years ago, we fought a war that we say was a war for freedom. For independence. But it was only a war for white freedom and white independence. From other white men. At least, that's what it became because the Founding Fathers couldn't work their way through the issue of slavery.

So we had to have another war 150 years ago to finish the first war and state that freedom is for everyone. Freedom is for everyone, no matter their skin color.

Evidently, not everyone got that memo, so, now, here we are again in the midst of another Civil War, the New Civil War. Sure, this time it's not being fought on the battlefield with guns and bullets (yet) because this war is more like a spiritual war. Last time, the Civil War was fought with actual bodies, but, this time, it's being fought for the Soul of America and what kind of soul it will be, and it's mostly being fought in the information realm.

Will we be an America filled with hate and fear, or will we be an America filled with respect and tolerance?
The irony? Those who claim to belong to the religion of love -- and not just love, unconditional love -- are the ones preaching hate and fear the loudest. I suppose they think "god" is racist, too, just like them. I don't think you can come to any other conclusion if you look inside their churches.

Of course, the "Christians" tend to forget that it is the Jews who are "God's" chosen people. I don't seen anywhere in the Bible where it says "God" changed his mind about that, so, maybe, white people shouldn't be so stuck on themselves about how cool and important they are.
But I digress... [Actually, I do digress, because that's for an upcoming post. Sort of.]

But it sort of brings me to my point, and the point is this:
All of this is still about slavery and race. Still.
I mean, Fuck. What the fuck, people? It's been 150 fucking years since the Civil War. It's time to get over it and quit idolizing your fucking moments to racism and slavery. Tear that shit down.
Look, if Germany can do it, so can you.

And my other point, which is that you can't actually talk to those people, and it's time for liberals, those on the left -- whatever you want to call the people who aren't part of the 25-33% of the country who make up these hardcore Conservative GOP asshole Trump-followers -- to stop trying to reach over to the 25-33% of the country who make up these hardcore Conservative GOP asshole Trump-followers and convince them of the wrongness of their ways. They're NOT going to be convinced. Ever. You're wasting your time and, frankly, everyone else's time, too.

Look, these "people" know that Trump is a lying pile of shit -- which is an insult to lying piles of shit, but they don't make words that go low enough to accurately describe what Trump is (and my mind just isn't degenerate enough to make that kind of stuff up) -- and they have repeatedly shown that they don't care. They don't know or care anything about what "America" means or stands for (the fact that there were people who got upset about NPR's presentation of The Declaration of Independence on fucking Independence Day is proof enough of that). They have repeatedly shown that all they care about and, thus, all they know is some deranged fantasy where white people rule the world and they get to lay waste to it as they please without suffering any of the consequences. They are not going to be talked out of that delusion.

The truth is that this is a war. An actual war, and we on the Left need to start treating it as such. This is really not a time for debating. We're long past that. The world is teetering on the brink, a lot of brinks, actually... Maybe it's better to say that world is currently finely balanced on the head of a pin. Anyway, we're all teetering on the edge of destruction, environmental destruction even if there weren't other things, and we have to stop letting asshole idiots make the decisions. Decisions which have as their sole goal of making them more rich and damn the consequences because they won't be around to suffer them.

I'm not saying we need to arm ourselves and take to the streets or anything like that (though it would be disingenuous not to point out that a significant portion of those on the Right have been stockpiling weapons for decades), but it is time to quit pussyfooting around and trying to engage in conversations. Get the fuck out and do things like voting. It's not hard! [There is no reason that Ossoff should have lost in Georgia or that Measure C should have failed here in Sonoma county other than that Liberals didn't get out and vote. And that's just messed up. At that point, you're basically just -- and I'm going to be crude here, even for me -- bending over and taking it.]

Here's the deal:
If you're Liberal or anti-Trump or whatever you want to call yourself and you're whining about how things are going, but you're not doing anything about it, then shut the fuck up! Seriously, if you're not going to take action and do simple things like voting, then you don't have the right to complain. It's time to take this shit seriously. It's not a game.
For all intents and purposes, this really is a war. The New Civil War.

Dallas Buyers Club (a movie review post)

I heard this interview with Matthew McConaughey on NPR a while back about how his family lost a lawsuit because he won the most attractive award (or some such) his senior year of high school. [It's an amusing story about his early high school issues with acne.] You would never be able to tell that from the way he looks in Dallas Buyers Club.

Seriously, McConaughey looks awful, and that's saying a lot considering who he is. He looks like he's wasting away, which is appropriate to the character of Ron Woodroof, who is dying of AIDS.

In the 80s, when I grew up, we were going to die of one of two things:
1. "Russia" (in quotes because it wasn't really Russia; it was the USSR) was going to destroy the world in nuclear fire (or a computer mistake was. It was probably 50/50 which direction that would go).
2. We were all going to die of "the AIDS."

Dallas Buyers Club completely captures the horror of discovering having HIV in the 80s and the prejudice that went with it. [Like when I was in middle school and all of my friends told me (completely seriously) that I was going to die because I sat in the same chair as someone with AIDS that had visited our classroom.] McConaughey is absolutely brilliant. The wail he releases in his car once he has actually confronted what's going on is... I have no other word than chilling.

Seriously, I have never thought much of McConaughey other than that he's mostly a pretty boy that can memorize lines. He's never stood out to me as more than someone with a charming smile, but, in this, he is amazing. His willingness to destroy his body for the part rivals anything Christian Bale has ever done, and he brings a stellar performance along with it. If he doesn't get best actor for this role, it will be a huge injustice.

Jared Leto's performance is also incredible as the fictional conglomeration character Rayon. The relationship between Woodroof and Rayon is demonstrative of Woodroof's changing views as he formed relationships in the community suffering from the same fate as he.

AIDS and the fear of AIDS doesn't carry with it the same weight as it used to, and I don't think people growing up in the 90s and later have the same understanding of HIV as people who went through the 80s when it suddenly became an epidemic. Safe sex has become normative, at least, the idea of it has. Prior to the 80s and HIV, the idea of using "protection" during sex was mostly to prevent unwanted pregnancies. At least, that's my perception of it.

At any rate, Dallas Buyers Club is a powerful movie, the most powerful movie I've seen in a long time, and I highly recommend it. It might be the best movie of the year, but I don't think it will get the Oscar for it.

A Preface to Confidence

Tomorrow is the monthly Insecure Writer's Support Group post, and I will have a word or two to say about confidence, what it means, and how to get it. The last few months have been interesting for me, because it seems that just as I started talking about reviews and the overly positive reviews that have been flooding the bookwaves, so did a lot of other people. "Real" people that get to talk about these things on Slate and in the New York Times and a score of other places. I've been reading these articles which have echoed my thoughts on the matter, which has been nice, because, initially, I thought I might be off my rocker. Not only have people been talking about it but there have been being some serious studies done on the tsunami of (almost only) positive feedback flooding our world. Recently, NPR had one of these psychologists on one of their shows, so in preparation to tomorrow's post, I figured I'd let you guys listen to it, since it doesn't fit into my post the way I want it to. So go listen to this. It's short.

And, because they talk about it, I just want to mention something related to this "sandwich" method of delivering negative news. A totally separate study (which I don't have the link to) recently found that about 80% of people have virtually no retention of things they view as negative. The study had to do with gambling addiction, the economic collapse of '08 and other things of that nature. We look back and wonder how "we" can lose so much, but, going into a situation, most people (because 80% is most) literally can't see the possible negative outcomes, even when presented with them. Especially when presented with them as an option weighed against some possible positive outcome. The negative outcome completely evaporates from their minds.

All of that to say that another study showed that that whole "sandwich" way of delivering negative criticism (No, that's not redundant, because a criticism is looking at something in a critical manner, which, then, delivers positive criticism and negative criticism. Potentially.) is completely ineffective, because, well, 80% (or more) of people can't retain the negative part of whatever was said when it's presented with the positive stuff.

I'll leave that for you guys to work out. Or you can come back tomorrow and see what I have to say about it.