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.

Link to Safari Condo R (retractable roof) Trailers

They stopped by Saturday, 2.May

We had brunch at Denny's

Danielle of Conscious Crossroads

We first met in the Spring of '24. I was looking for someone to sit w me through a "heroic dose."

Despite her extraordinary story of near death and her near-death-experience, she seemed, at less than 40 years of age, too young.

When i hired Dr. Fatima to sit w me I paid Danielle's fee too. I wanted them to have time together and thought the experience might be useful in future work w Danielle. 

So when, on the 18th, i was hugging the throne and feeling desirous of some hand-holding and realizing hospice was busy, i called Danielle. Though her response came quickly, she was on her way back from Switzerland after accompanying a couple who utilized the Swiss option for self-deliverance to check out together.

Yesterday we spent an hour and a half talking about that trip, navigating the roller-coaster of good and bad days and different ways to approach one's death. 

She described how the roller-coaster actually defines the parameters of quality of life and provides a state of ambivalence that encourages someone to explore how to die.

We scheduled for once a month through July.

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.

Harbingers?

 3:37 am Sat

This is the 3rd "spell" in 24 hours. The one about this time yesterday, then again this evening around 9 pm and now, at 3:30 am. I'm thinking of emailing Dr Hawk (administers the MAID) to ask him to be on alert.

It spirals really fast. I have about 10 minutes from the first twinges until it's full-bore headache, right shoulder & arm start to hurt, pain begins to impair my ability to function. 

We had the syringe loaded w .5ml (of morphine) but i had to go to the kitchen to put in koolaid. Otherwise i throw it up. With the koolaid i can keep it down...at least so dar. 

It's easing off now, but these feel like harbingers.

Flowers Everywhere

A VIDEO even!!!

Banned Books

 

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO02/20220407/114616/HHRG-117-GO02-20220407-SD018.pdf

Including four by Patricia Polacco, renowned childrens' book author/illustrator.

The Golden Hour

 

Into Great Silence by Eva Saulitis

From Wiki:

Eva Lucia Saulitis (Latvian: Eva Lūcija Saulītis; May 10, 1963 – January 16, 2016) was an American marine biologist and poet, based in Homer, Alaska. With a career spanning decades, she primarily focused her research on marine life and environmental impacts. Her contributions to and passion for environmental research and conservation can be seen woven into her books and poetry. By blending her love of nature with her artistic ability, her texts have received notable recognition.

The image is a link to Abe Books

(I'm not monetized)

Sixteen hours before the Valdez struck Bligh Reef, fisherwoman Rikki Ott (her website) testified to the Mayor's Oil Action Committee in Valdez argued for more industry oversight and disaster preparation (p. 60). Her Wiki page.

https://dec.alaska.gov/water/water-quality/evos-lingering-oil/

Jenna McClintock, Ballerina

Early exposure to ballet triggered unbridled enthusiasm when I chanced upon Marta Becket's Armagosa Opera House outside Death Valley.

Ms. Becket was 91 in 2016 and I could not get an audience. Jenna was dancing frequently and the experience was magical. Here's a link to my blogpost with some details.

A few days ago randycofer-r3n8i left an appreciative comment on the Youtube video I made of Jenna dancing. It is one of the amazing things about travel...stumbling upon artistry and beauty.

Here she is dancing her original work, Bailar.

Here's a link to a current website about her.

If Only I'd Waited!!!

 

Enough

Lack of greed has continually kept me from making as much as I could've. I've repeatedly sold too soon, when I thought enough was enough. But I admit that it's been hard to watch sums that could've been mine disappear.

Anticipating a surge, I began watching when the pre-market trading began at 2 a.m. I can't trade in the After Market, but I can in the pre-market and I've usually done well. But as I watched the climb from $63 - 66.72, I decided, at 4 a.m., to wait.

The drop had begun from 72.00. When I awoke at 11:30 it was at 67.66. At 67.74, with the day's increase at 19.81%, I sold. The auto pilot bumped me up to 67.75 and I made an additional $0.66. 

I've yet to determine my profit, but it was William J. O'Neil wwho advised selling at the 20% mark.

Tapping the image will, as will the link above, take you to the Amazon site. (i'm not "monetized." It's a good book. Most libraries have a copy. For real-time insight, check out Haley Zhao's LEGS Meetup.)

I recouped the $600 loss when ZEPP plummeted and a few more. Enough.

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Return of SOXL

I'm not gonna say I'm inured, but after more than six months of close observation, I have a (small) level of confidence. This is the third "drop" I've followed down, running out of money well above the lowest price. My hope is, of course, the next time!🤑

12:26 p.m. (no sleeping through this one)

It continued to $39.37.

                  ---------------------------------------------

9 p.m. today

I thought I'd see how things were going

Open P&L is from when I opened the account in January of last year. I was a little over $700.00 ahead when this drop began and about $1,500.00 ahead for the 15 months of trading.

Poor as I am, I can't really afford to lose and have regularly pulled off my meager gains. As a means of containing myself, I've kept my trading amount around $3,000.00. This time I went to $4,200.00.

It began on Feb, 27th at a little over $73.00/share. Previous weeks had seen drops of $2 - $4 and I had been making small amounts of $40 - $70.

As the drop continued, I added an additional $1,200.00 and made my last purchase, when I ran out of money, at $52.75. I sometimes suspect I am an average player and the powers-that-be know exactly when to shear the sheep. 

                  -----------------------------------------------

At 1:24 a.m. Weds

$94.00 profit after

 five weeks of not being to trade

when I was averaging $100/wk.

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What it looks like

                     --------------------------------------

Seeing the number of transactions for

hundreds of thousands of shares prompts:

there's a lot of wealth out there.

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April 8, 3:35 a.m.

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After each drop it's risen beyond its prev high, in this instance $72.36. We're still a ways from there, but it went up over $10.00 this morning so Imma hold.

Common Thrasher

 

Never Mind Dollar

In 1885, Captain Joshua Slocum set off, alone in his sloop, to circumnavigate the globe.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6317/6317-h/6317-h.htm#CHAPTER_VI

After leaving Tierra del Fuego, he landed, 72 days later in Samoa where, in the company of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, they embarked, together, on a sight-seeing tour.

He wrote:

As I sailed farther from the center of civilization I heard less and less of what would and what would not pay. Mrs. Stevenson, in speaking of my voyage, did not once ask me what I would make out of it. When I came to a Samoan village, the chief did not ask the price of gin, or say, "How much will you pay for roast pig?" but, "Dollar, dollar," said he; "white man know only dollar."

"Never mind dollar. The tapo has prepared ava; let us drink and rejoice." The tapo is the virgin hostess of the village; in this instance it was Taloa, daughter of the chief. "Our taro is good; let us eat. On the tree there is fruit. Let the day go by; why should we mourn over that? There are millions of days coming. The breadfruit is yellow in the sun, and from the cloth-tree is Taloa's gown. Our house, which is good, cost but the labor of building it, and there is no lock on the door."

While the days go thus in these Southern islands we at the North are struggling for the bare necessities of life.

For food the islanders have only to put out their hand and take what nature has provided for them; if they plant a banana-tree, their only care afterward is to see that too many trees do not grow. They have great reason to love their country and to fear the white man's yoke, for once harnessed to the plow, their life would no longer be a poem.

Many years ago, I've yet to find who it was, I read of one of the great orators who went to Washington to speak on behalf of his people. I've searched many times for the transcript the eloquence of which I cannot approach, but to paraphrase:

Until you came our lives were spent hunting and fishing, enjoying the company of our wives and children and other pursuits of leisure. If we accept your ways, all our time will be taken up by hoeing and weeding. No thank you.

In 1927 the global population was 2 billion (see the bubble in In Nomine Terra Calens)

Along with the influence of two phenomenal perversities, christianity and capitalism, we've managed to decimate not just what once were veritable paradises, but the entire planet!

Captain Slocum visited a mere 139 years ago. And, as evidenced by Mrs. Stevenson's behavior and the Chief's exhortation, the Big Two had yet to make a full impression. 

Now, as science hopes to save us by colonating Mars and beyond, I'm reminded of a cynical friend's saying:

"It's pretty to think so."

Russian Easter Song

Georgy Sviridov. "Zorya is beaten" (Pushkin's wreath).

Soloists - Alexey Mikhailov, Nikita Zakharin.

This translation was lifted from a Youtube comment and proffered in response to someone's Reddit request for a translation. I equate the dawn with the coming of spring. There are, in other comments, suggestions that Sviridov was describing a bugler or drummer announcing the day (reveille) and the book by Dante falling from a sleeping soldier's hand.

The distant church bell ringing at the dawn, The old Dante book is falling out of my hand, The last words are still on my lips, but reading unfinished, And my soul flying far away, This sound, so familiar and so vividly alive, which I’ve heard so many times, Takes me to my childhood, to the place where I grew up, Long long time ago

Easter

In South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray, he mentions Papa Holman's "shuffle-stepping" jazz (p.162) band as playing it the way it's supposed to be played.

Checking Youtube, no Mr. Holman, but instead, this exotic duo

which, with their 2nd number, a Howlin' Wolf cover, convey the wonderfully erotic side of Easter's traditional celebration of fecundity. 

I asked Chat for an image of rabbits celebrating the pagan tradition of fecundity and got this:

We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our guardrails around nudity, sexuality, or erotic content. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt.

Oh, well. You can hear it in these guy's voices.

        🎉🎊🐇🎊🎉 Happy Easter

Lucy Jones, seismologist

Natalie Angier has a great sense of humor. Part of the enjoyment of this phase of old age is having the time for tangents. So when Natalie mentioned Lucy, I went to see.

Come to find out, from her wiki article here, Lucy plays the viol de gamba and composed this piece based on the increase in the planet's temperature from 1880 to 2017.

It's pretty nice. And we had a very mild winter here in Albert's Turkey.

In Nomine Terra Calens

(In the Name of a Warming Earth)

A 26.March.2026 article about Dr. Jones.

Dr. Hawk & MAID

The liquid morphine has been causing nausea. At my last recertification (for hospice) he'd told the MAID concoction included 15,000 mg of the stuff. If .20 ml - a minuscule amount - induced vomiting, i wondered how i was gonna keep 15,000mg down long enough to expire.

It, the MAID kit, came in this black bag. It would've been nice to have a raven and the word Nevermore on it.  Dr. Hawke said he had directed them to use a blue bag. 

Here's the "kit."

The coded entry releases the steel cable.

Inside is a single bottle containing a blend of morphine, phenobarbitol & something specific to stop the heart, a relatively indefatigable organ.

To obviate any possibility of trouble, we settled on rectal delivery. You'd uh thunk I'd uh gotten details, but Hawk said it's actually his preferred method. The "usual" way is to create a solution and drink it. But everyone says it tastes terrible. 

I'm not planning to use it soon; just like to be prepared.

35th Anniversary

 April 1st.