Welcome to a World of Spiritual Harmony

An opera to swoon over, the French version of Lucia di Lammermoor has many changes from the Italian version, though done by the same composer, Gaetano Donizetti, nearly 200 years ago.

Swoon number one is the beauty, power and emotion of Lucie, sung by Sarah Coburn, who had not sung in Cincinnati before. She is also a great actress, and, since she’s small and beautiful, she looks the part - not always true in opera. Incredible singing in an incredible performance. Everyone else disappeared from the stage.

It is, as so much of opera, an awful story. A woman forced into marriage because of her brother’s ambitions, though she loves another. There is blood all around, represented by red sparkly confetti. By the end, everyone we care about is dead.

Also included are a stag and doe - or The Horned God, Cernunnos and the heroine - whose dance both presages and moves the action forward at critical moments.

The stage set was strange - seems to be the year for that at opera - but was soon forgotten as the story heated up.

A fabulous evening of tragedy, with the sound of Lucie’s voice as she descends into madness continuing to echo in me. I can almost understand why people love stories like Romeo and Juliet. Almost.

I’ll have to get out an August Wilson scorecard soon - not sure how many plays of his I’ve seen. I know he wrote one for each American decade of the 20th century, and wrote others as well.

Jitney, the play for the 70’s, set as many are in Pittsburgh, his hometown, is the story of the men involved in running and working in a car service - what we would call gypsy cabs here in Cincinnati.

His work always rings true. The sounds of the African American community are presented clearly, directly, with great understanding. Only one woman in the play - she also rings true, and is excellent in partnering with her man.

With this play, I was enjoying the interactions of the characters - but began to wonder where the climax was. Where was that pivotal action moment after which everything would change? It was well disguised, and when it came I was surprised.

The action resumed with changes in all concerned. The outcome is very hopeful and headed in the right direction.

Technically, the play was very well done. And the acting, even through re-organized casting due to an actor’s illness on this, the very last performance, was outstanding. The play was held in the just recently opened Madisonville Arts Center.

Excellent all around - and much credit to director Lyle Benjamin. Cincinnati, already a great theater town, needs more theater like this.

I ran into Joseph-Beth yesterday, in between a baby shower and a house party event for Barack - wanted to see what new magazines might have him on the cover. Fun as usual - I just like how J-Beth feels - open, friendly and cozy all at the same time.

Yesterday’s list: National Review with a picture of the mid-20s Barack, titled The Organizer. Noticed Kathleen Parker has a column on Hillary’s End - so I suppose it’s a conservative screed - good to be forewarned.

Then U.S. News and World Report of June 23, with Barack and McCain on the cover, title: Who Can Keep America Safe? You know how I’m going to answer that. I assume this one is middle of the road.

And last but surely not least (in fact, I’ve already read it!), Rolling Stone - a great and fun and often outrageous magazine - definitely progressive. Nothing on the cover but a fabulous picture of Barack, looking down and to the right, with a wonderful smile - and a flag pin on his lapel.

The story is about Barack, then a good piece about his Brain Trust, with a final piece titled: The Team Obama Built had little experience electing a president - and that was exactly the point.

There’s also an excellent story about Greenland Melting: The End of the End of the World.

Meanwhile, I found a previous U.S. News from February 25 I had bought - and another friend borrowed the Us with Michelle and Barack on the cover. And when I got to my friend’s home for the Barack house party - I found she had a table covered with selected magazines featuring Barack on the cover. Maybe it’s becoming a movement. I wanted to borrow a couple immediately!

I’ll keep you posted as I read the two I haven’t yet looked at - my biases are showing, of course.

Now I’m buying every magazine I see with Barack on the cover. I know I’d have a lot more if I had started sooner. It’s also, as I’m discovering, a good way to review the current state of American magazine culture.

I bought the Newsweek in mid-May with Barack and his campaign staff, obviously watching results coming in, likely from North Carolina. The title on the cover is: “The O Team: Obama has shown he can run a campaign. He’d better get ready for a war.” On the table of contents, there’s a picture of a couple of staffers wearing Tshirts that say Stop the Drama, Vote Obama, and in small print, Change We Can Believe In.

The story itself is good, full of great pictures, and with profiles of the team members. There’s one picture of him waiting - easy to tell Barack is not good at waiting. Patient, yes - but not at standing around and waiting for the next event to begin. Also included in the issue is a letter to Senator Obama from Newt Gingrich, who certainly sounds like he admires Barack - and gives strong advice about getting specific.

There’s also an excellent article on the current lending market, which I missed altogether until a friend pointed it out to me. I was fixated on Obama. The magazine is much skinnier than I remember Newsweek being, more pictures, more personal level info.

I bought an Esquire with an article about Barack by, I think, Charles Pierce. Excellent, excellent piece. But I loaned it to a friend, and it hasn’t returned yet. I also bought an Utne Reader (which I used to subscribe to) with a picture of Barack on the cover. With no story about Barack inside! Just their statement that the theme of the issue made them think about the Senator. Lowered my opinion of Utne enormously.

Earlier this week, I bought the Summer issue of Uptown, which I’d never seen before - an upscale Esquire-sized African American magazine, with a painting of Barack on the cover - good work. And a story on an interview with Spike Lee about his feelings on Barack and the current political situation - he is sure Barack will be the next president . Another striking painting of Barack inside, in the pose of Lincoln leaning forward in his armchair. Spike’s opinions are clear and hard hitting. The article also includes a rundown on the African American opinons of Barack’s Dream Team.

This didn’t feel like the Utne bait-and-switch. It’s a slick magazine, good work, well done. A big step up from Jet and Ebony as I remember them.

And then - who’d have thought? - I bought US Weekly, with Michelle and Barack on the cover (which also includes a wedding picture), with the title Michelle Obama: Why Barack Loves Her. A very nice piece, with lots of inside scoop personal stuff from friends, a friendly tone in the article, photos of the kids, talk about the Obama romance. Nice and cozy and very enjoyable.

And then there’s the rest of the magazine - just what you’d expect. Hulk Hogan’s ex-wife dating a 19 year old, etc, etc, etc. Pix of two stars wearing the same outfit, with readers rating them as to which looks best. Not nice, and not nicely done. Thank heaven this one is skinny.

I love the Mercantile Library. The way it looks, feels, smells. Entering that door, after leaving its private elevator, is always a pleasure.

It was definitely a pleasure last week to hear the 2008 Harriet Beecher Stowe Lecture, whose purpose is to ‘highlight the work of individuals who wrote or are writing to change the world’.

Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a syndicated columnist, whose work appears in more than 70 newspapers, was the chosen speaker. Definitely a woman whose writing has changed the world.

As an African-American and a woman, running the op-ed pages of one of the most important newspapers in the country, she has already changed the world - and reflected in herself the changes we as a country have made. After having been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize several times, she was the recipient for commentary in 2007.

Her lecture was based largely on several of her recent columns, and the themes she had addressed in them. The long primary campaign season, with its shifts and learnings, was much on her mind. And a thoughtful and thorough mind it is. And her steady, calm pace fit right in with the Mercantile’s overriding ambience.

I’m thinking I’ll sign up to receive her commentaries on line. A good writer and thinker is always a pleasure, no matter the topic.

I had never seen Madame Butterfly until Friday evening at Music Hall. I knew the broad outlines of the story, and disliked it - as I dislike Romeo and Juliet. So wasteful. Dying young without cause. And in Butterfly’s case, as I found out, dying in front of her son - leaving him to strangers. Ugh.

And yet - it might well be the most beautiful opera I have every heard. I was, of course, familiar with the music, particularly Un Belle Di, which runs its thread throughout the story. Heart-wrenchingly wonderful, and beautifully played.

The singers were excellent. The shortness of the tenor and bad guy Pinkerton was off-putting, but the performances were exactly right. A great treat - but I am never going to like that story.

And it seems to me there’s a general anti-American trend to the story, perhaps prevalent in Italy at the turn of the century before this. It wasn’t off-putting, but was noticeable. We were as a country definitely flexing our war muscles in several locations around the planet - so perhaps other countries were feeling as many of them are right now.

I’m glad I saw the opera once - it is a masterpiece. And I need to come to terms with the fact that the new paradigm now coming is not yet reflected in opera, though it is in many arts. Can’t wait til it shows up in opera, one of my favorite art forms!

One of my favorite things to do is to buy myself specific and perfect birthday presents. I love presents from all my friends and my family - but it’s also fun to pick out just the right present for moi.

When I met some friend of mine at King Arthur’s Court in Oakley, where they were shopping with actual children, I took the opportunity to check out their jigsaw puzzle section. And they have a good one.

I found absolutely a great puzzle - and now that it’s finished, I second that motion.

Called Summer Hummer, it features a pair of hummers sipping nectar from two beautiful flowers. Great colors, lots of green (always high on my list), a variety of shadings - and really phenomenl hummers. It took me nearly 2 weeks to do, which is fairly long for me - but I was savoring it.

I work on puzzles when I have long phone calls, when I’m switching from one thing to another and when I’m arriving back home - a few minutes to settle in and transition.

It may be a while before I tackle another puzzle - this one is beautiful enough to remain on the table as long as the hummers stay here with us - they tend to depart right around September 1. So this wonderful picture of full summer will stay with me through the season.

I had not been to the May Festival in a long time - it’s all those plays I keep going to, and then I’ve often been otherwise committed at that time - with my birthday and Memorial Day in that time frame.

This year, I managed to see two performances. And, of course, totally loved both of them. The first was a rendition of Verdi’s The Force of Destiny, with just a bit of stage blocking to give us the sense of the opera. The music and the singing were glorious. It might well have been better presented this way than fully staged. The plot, once set into motion, falls down a long spiral of misery and pain, beyond coincidence. But those powerful and lyrical voices brought us through.

The second performance was mainly sacred music sung in Latin, which I still love. Faure’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria in D Major and Bach’s Gloria, Cantata 191. It was wonderful to just close my eyes and be in that sacred space with that etherial music.

Each performance got a well deserved standing ovation. Great orchestra, great singing, great audience - the place was nearly packed.

I’ll have to keep room on my calendar next May. Maybe I’ll even make the performance in the Cathedral Basilica, which always sells out early. Can’t wait to see what delights will be on the progam next time.

The method I had used all my life to get rid of ants was the old-fashioned technique of laying down a powdery line of boric acid wherever they were entering. It’s tres effective - the stated reason being that the boric acid damages their hard exoskeletons / shells, they know that - and avoid the stuff.

But then, of course, I encountered Buddhism - awareness of sentient beings - and became a vegetarian as well. It just became harder to threaten the lives of these and other small creatures.

That wasn’t a big problem in most places I’ve lived. But when I moved here, into my house in the woods, I found out very quickly just how many kinds of ants there are. Never mind that since there’s just me, and I mostly eat out or eat leftovers, there’s not much for an ant to find - they show up and check everything out just to be sure.

They are industrious and persistent - two great qualities. I had to be industrious and persistent to get rid of them. Boric acid didn’t feel right, and I wasn’t about to use earth poisons / chemicals. If it can kill an ant, it isn’t good for me. Everything is already clean, though I worked at being scrupulous about that.

Then I just started to talk to them, and explain that I didn’t want to cause harm, but there was no food and they’d be smart to search elsewhere. I also would pick them up and carry them outside. Sometimes that was a day’s work.

And when I had clients and groups over, we could be pretty busy just ferrying ants out the various doors.

But it actually began to pay off. I would talk to the little red and black guys for a day or two, and then they’d disappear. The big black worker ants would show up, and I’d hold the same conversation with them. The first year I invented this, I noted 16 different tribes of ants.

The next year, the first ants woke up in February - so I thought it would be a long hard ant year. Not so - only two or three tribes required the conversation.

Only one group has shown up this year - and they are not leaving - it’s been about three weeks. I’ve been pretty casual with them, haven’t really sat down for the serious negotiations, because I haven’t had to for several years.

These are teeny tiny little black ants, very hard workers and faithful to their tasks. But! I’m thinking I may have to bring in the big ant deva in the sky to back me up. I’ll keep you posted!

I’ve been feeding my Teresa of Avila addiction with a number of books lately. This one is a brand new novel titled Sister Teresa: The Woman Who Became Saint Teresa of Avila, by Barbara Mujica.

Having read a number of biographies, written over the centuries, of Teresa, I found this novel to be the best of the bunch. All of the material in the biographies is here, presented by a master storyteller. Teresa’s temper, her arrogance, her social butterfly behaviors are not glossed over as the biographies often do. And the daily miracles often not presented in biographies, because they aren’t scientific, are here as well. Her raptures, often happening at inopportune times, when the nuns would sit on her to keep her from floating.

Her businesslike approach to being an administrator over the more than 17 convents she founded, her participation in the daily work, her starving and scourging herself for her Bridegroom, her smartness, her occasional silliness, her illnesses, her deep spirituality - all included, all part of her complexity. The novel format gives us a chance to see Teresa whole, to experience the 16th century Spanish life she lived.

Skip the biographies - to really know Teresa, read this book.

P. S. I still argue with her - but had fun getting to know this side of her life.