Opera Basics - Mozart's The Magic Flute

As part of their efforts to entice more attendendees (and appreciation), the Santa Fe Opera offers informative lectures on the season's repertoire.

They're, the lectures (it's plural so it's THERE'RE, not there's), in the Presbyterian Church

New Mexico Sky!!

The Placitas Artist Series helped sponsor

 in Placitas, a Hispanic Land Grant hamlet on the NW side of the Sandia Mountains.

The View in the Window

Back in the '70s, besides the church, the plaza and a few houses, it was open space. But in the 'early '80s they started building. Mostly custom homes, the 3,200 sq ft ones are the hovels.

Back in the day, over 35 years ago, when I was living w One El, she characterized Mozart as "sewing machine music." 

I was expecting performers from the opera company or, maybe, if not real performers, apprentices? It turned out to be a guy who's been doing this - he said - for 29 years. And the first time was for The Magic Flute.

He quoted from Wagner and I paraphrase, "This, The Magic Flute, is a timeless piece (he makes it sound as if he's gonna throw a compliment) that will appeal to the suburban Viennese..the hoi polloi."

And so it was. If you heard Bill Cosby's story about the go karts

you'll know the sound:

nnuh, nnnuh, nnuhh, nnnuhh, nuuuuunnhhhhHHHH!

nnuh, nnnuh, nnuhh, nnnuhh, nuuuuunnhhhhHHHH!

The lecturer was great! Funny and knowledgeable, but it was Mozart. I lasted 45 minutes, came home and baked cinnamon rolls to some real music,

We used to get standing room tickets for $10.00 (they're now $25). Then, at intermission, when the old people couldn't stand to sit any longer (tha's a joke...stand to sit any longer...get it?), we'd go out to the parking lot and ask 'em for their tickets. They always seemed pleased to be able to hand 'em off and we'd sit through the remainder, sometimes in choice spots.

Nowadays, and even then, if the performance isn't well-attended, the ushers'll turn a blind eye as the lights go down and you slide into open seats. Cuz iffen you aren't seated by then you have to wait 'til intermission to goto yer seat.

New Ride & Accomodation

Volvo XC60 T8 and Alto trailer.

New Adventure - Utah

Bittersweet are the memories. This time of year we used to meet in Bluff, Utah to begin our explorations, our expositions, similar to Pooh.

This year she's traveling with Edmond and they're on their way to pick up their new trailer in Durango. They stopped in Bluff for a day of rest and sightseeing.

The east side is Butler Wash and has rolling hummocks of white slick rock; the west is a sheer, 300' face of red rock interspersed w thin layers of white. The "road" is doable from highway 95 SW of Blanding.

If you can find Butler Wash Interpretive Site on MAPS you can see where 95 cuts through the ridge. It's pretty sandy in spots, a bit much for me, but Subaru Foresters and the like made it okay. 

Kristen's blog has some nice pictures and the geology.

https://kristenmendenhall.blogspot.com/2019/11/one-thing-leads-to-another.html?m=1

The Women by ChatGPT

 

Janine & Alan

Janine is Michele Budny's little sister. They're 7 years (?) apart. Janine and I have been excommunicated from One El for reasons too innumerable to enumerate, but we continue to be concerned for her. 

Janine closed down her apartment in D.C. and consolidated into her condo in Cleveland, Ohio (not Tennessee).

She and paramour Alan were in Denver for a wedding and decided to see White Sands. Albuququerque's on the way.

Catzilla t-shirt

By the afternoon I was on an even keel and fetched food from Golden Pride. 

The burrito was okay, but the fried chicken & ribs didn't have the jenny say qwah of repasts of yore. Sigh!

The conversation was fun and afterward i slept from 3 pm - 11 pm when I was awakened by a fecal accident. I miscalculated the amount of laxative needed to offset the constipating affects/effects? of the opiates and when i contracted my stomach muscles to roll over and check the time, there was an expulsion.

There's an elaborate layering for just such occassions and along w frequent pauses to let the nausea subside, it took 2 hours to change the bedding.

Despite the sublingual ondansetron's quik-dissolve, it still takes about an hour or so for it to take effect. One does what one can while waiting. 

My right ear gave out a couple of days ago. I'd been treating it w dexamethasone, a general purpose steroid that's $174.00 for 5milliters.

Reynolds Price mentions it in his tale of woe A Whole New Life as giving him a nice boost from the fatigue and relief from the nausea etc.

When i mentioned it to Jessica she said they prescribe it a lot at the end as it relieves all the symptoms the other drugs are supposed to but don't. Problem is, in about three months steroids cause your bones to become so brittle they break at the drop of a hat. The list of side/effects, many serious, and their qwik onset, mean the-powers-that-be save it for the end. 

But, Jessica said, for those three months a patient's quality of life can (maybe) be improved. She wondered though about a woman who died a couple of days ago. She was bedridden, so aside from the relief of the nausea and breathlessness, she didn't get much else. And they cause "moon face," a self-explanatory affect that makes a person look fat. The worst!!!

Here you've spent your whole life restrictively eating in order to be visually stimulating only to lose it at the end. A bum deal to say the least!

Morning Light

After dealing w yesterday's "entertainments," i'm quick to latch onto the day's early offering. Daytime temps are still cool and nights are still chilly, just like Spring, but the leaves are darkening as if, overnight, we've arrived in Summer.

Harbingers Indeed!! - Infarction

It started around 4 pm and within a half hour I was hugging the bowl. The angina escalated to what felt like a full scale infarction. I was screaming.

I called hospice hoping to get some hand-holding. There's not much to be done unless you're willing to have an i.v. and I'm not. 

There's liquid morphine, oxygen and maybe some aspirin to try and break up any clots...and just ride it out. Yuh either live or yuh don't. 

I lived.

But at 8 pm it's starting to gear up for another.

To the bulwarks, knaves!

I'm taking strong(er) measures this time starting w a full ml (still a small dose) of morphine w a 4mg tab of hydromorphone (dilaudid) capped w 1mg of clonazapam, an anti-anxiety (benzodiazapine) that works synergistically w the opiates to help w shortness of breath and relieve angina. 

Earlier, at the peak, i was ready to check out. But it's by appointment only. As horrible as it is, once I come down (Hey!!! I survived!), I'm focused on having another few hours with no terminal date or time.

This is the next battle...to have the cocktail available to people for when they're ready. This business of having to schedule is bullshit.