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RAGE BEFORE BEAUTY
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Free Things
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Automate everything with AutoHotkey
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Edit images with The GIMP
Draw with Inkscape
Record and edit sound with Audacity
Make nonsense with JanusNode
Replace Microsoft shit
Here are around 2000 rss feeds for your reader of choice.
For Mac folks:
Edit text with Textwrangler
Everything is easier with Quicksilver
For Windows folks:
Automate everything with AutoHotkey
Use Launchy instead of navigating folders
31 comments:
Watch this, or trudge through the snow to go to work.
Hmmm.
Do you Vancouveronians still need snow?
~
Really the Canadian premiere?!! Nixon in China is from 1987!
You live in Massachusetts, do you not? Canada has around ten opera companies, all of which struggle for funding and so rely on the bluehairs who want their Tosca. Contemporary music doesn't see to many performances from the various symphonies either.
Dunno how many universities here are capable of staging such a thing: few I'd think, whereas the US state university system has a bunch.
I am kind of surprised that it never made it to Toronto though...
Note also that Nixon in China is part of the Cultural Olympiad. FUND THE OLYMPICS!
Yeah, and Mass is not so great for opera either; much better for early music. But Vancouver is bigger than Boston, isn't it? And aren't Toronto and Montreal pretty arty? I guess I'm surprised 1) that's it's the national premiere and 2) if modern opera is unpopular enough that it's premiering this late, why they're doing that one instead of, say, Dr Atomic?
The metropolitan areas are about the same population-wise, but Vancouver is a much newer city than Boston and the growth has been outwards, fast. Outside the West End there aren't that many venues that could put a show like that on, and the West End is small.
And aren't Toronto and Montreal pretty arty?
Yes. It is, however, understandable that a Montreal opera company might pass on an opera in the English language. As for Toronto I dunno what the deal is apart from maybe poor funding = the same old productions.
if modern opera is unpopular enough that it's premiering this late, why they're doing that one instead of, say, Dr Atomic?
It's for the Cultural Olympiad, it's about cultures meeting, it's a premiere (woo-hoo!), 350000 folks of Chinese heritage live in Vancouver.
350000 folks of Chinese heritage live in Vancouver.
In the metro area that is.
I canNOT get used to Substance being a Canuckinoid.
Here's an interesting historical note. I am most assuredly NOT an opera fan. I find it litterally painful to listen to, like fingernails on chalkboard. However, for quite a number of years I worked for a media duplication company in Sunnyvale, the owner of which was the chairman of the board of Opera San Jose, and he used his company resources profligately in support of the opera company. As a result I was their first webmaster (along with the chamber orchestra GAAHH), did much of their tech implementation and developed most of the marketing collateral pieces, print and later interactive.
The people were cool. But the shows were unpleasant experiences to say the least.
The operatic voice is generally pretty unpleasant to me as well. It's a weird and often ugly or ridiculous artifact that I can sometimes forgive from the right singer in the right setting. And I like John Adams.
Same kinda thing for Lamb of God.
In Vancouver's defence, there was that run of Evil Dead: the Musical last month.
I like some composers, hate others. I liked Dr Atomic immensely, I've hated just about everything I've seen by Rossini. There's been a lot of variety in the music and in singing styles through the ages, unfortunately that variety doesn't always make it into actual performance.
Now that I look at Boston I see the metro area's twice Vancouver's, and the money floating around is Boston is gonna be far beyond that of Vancouver's residents - barring Chinese zillionaires running from the law of course.
Durr...the metro population. Wikipedia page seems to indicate 8 million people to draw on for a special occasion, which is about a quarter of Canada's population.
Google tells me that's more than the population of the whole state, so now we're talking about people driving a couple hours to see something... which of course they may do for some things, but opera ain't one of them.
And MenD I was going to make a stupid AC/DC solar+inverter joke at your place, but your blahg eated my comment.
Men D's got the shit comment form.
But in Metro Vancouver at the wrong time it's gonna take you quite a while to get across the city.
The number I was looking at for Boston was the CSA statistic on the right.
Certainly if I lived in Philly I'd show in New York for something I wanted to see.
Men D's got the shit comment form.
At least I don't have Captchas. Although I probably ought to.
tigris: I've switched to the full-page comment view, which may be less sucktastic.
On a related note, I got an email from Haloscan informing me that they were ceasing operations. Yes, I laughed.
But in Metro Vancouver at the wrong time it's gonna take you quite a while to get across the city.
I think that's a pretty universal facet of city living.
Certainly if I lived in Philly I'd show in New York for something I wanted to see.
Well, yes, but Philly's a big town with fabulous train service to NY, and the Met would be at the end of your journey. Heck, I've driven to NY to see the Met from here. For the most part, a good number of people up here will drive to see the Red Sox and the Pats, fewer but still lots to see the Bruins or Celtics, even fewer to watch college sports, and very few indeed to see the BLO.
At any rate, I wasn't so much surprised it was the Vancouver premiere as that it was the national premiere. Bluehairs are the scourge of the arts all over, I guess. Bless their hearts.
Men D, I think the time for my comment, if it ever had one, has now passed. In other words, I forgot what I wrote.
I think that's a pretty universal facet of city living.
Depends on how you distribute it though. Outside the West End the population density's pretty low here, so that means a larger chunk of your audience is gonna have to drive, and drive a long distance. A more urbanized area like Boston - been a while since I was there - is likelier to have a ready audience closer.
Tangentially when I used to skip high school I used to be able to drive for a half-hour and be in some place where I was unlikely to see people at all. Western Canada's just not the same as the Eastern seaboard.
One of the reasons I'm an Atrios fan is that he writes about that stuff.
I canNOT get used to Substance being a Canuckinoid.
BOOGA BOOGA!
I don't understand what you're getting at; if high population density and not having to drive is a help to the arts, the city population of Vancouver is comparable to that of Boston. If long driving is not a hindrance, the Boston metro area is more populous, but Vancouver is no slouch(also, the northernmost point of the CSA is not much closer to Boston than Seattle is to Vancouver). Either way, one would think Toronto is big enough in both ways to provide a happy home for the arts.
I'm probably just jabbering about nothing. One of the cities I think of as a sort of hell is Phoenix, which when I'm there appears to be all driving all the time through featureless nothings in shitty traffic.
Wikipedia tells me they have two opera companies, so we just must suck more. Mind you, lotta bluehairs...
I'm not complaining, and I enjoy jabbering with you, I just wasn't sure what you were saying. Phoenix is odd: pockets of nice spread out over all creation. If you hated it for that reason, DON'T GO TO ATLANTA. Seriously, EW.
I've been to Atlanta, but had business near a university so the area was nice. Particularly the store that was selling machine guns.
My favourite memory of Atlanta is getting a flat and going to Tire Mountain. Met an acquaintance there who was shocked. "TAYER MOUNTIN'? HOW DO YEW KNOW ABOUT TAYER MOUNTIN'?"
Also Ernie Dale, at The Point, sound guy, relative of Dick Dale, guitarist. Hilarious asshole.
Areas around universities don't count, they're always nice. I grew up in GA but always tried to avoid Atlanta, so I don't know Tire Mtn. I could steer you to the best Brunswick stew and enough good BBQ places that you'd never want to eat pork again, though.
My first serious girlfriend was from Georgia. She said cocola.
Don't think I'll be in Atlanta soon though. BOO HOO.
You know, I've never actually heard anyone say that, though I've heard people say it's fairly common. May be a more localized thing. It is pretty common that we ask for Coke or Sprite or whatever by name rather than for "soda" or "pop" or whatever in general.
Also: OR WHATEVER!
She was a rich girl from Atlanta so maybe it was ONE OF THOSE PRISSY AFFECTATIONS SNOBS HAVE! [Cries into pillow.]
Toronto in the not too distant past did an enormous production of the Ring Cycle so it's safe to say that it is the bluehair crowd. The Canadian Opera Company (that's right, COC) has a venue now that is very modern and very nice, though. The money they spent on the building has been taken out of the set budget, since the last time I visited T-Dot they had a production of Madama Butterfly, the set couldn't have cost more than $400 spent via the Ikea catalog.
It was a good performance, though.
Gee whiz, Madama Butterfly's on the schedule here. Go figure.
One secret to Canadian culture may be that the anglos are really goddamned dull.
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