This is Michael Strickland's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following Michael Strickland's activity
Michael Strickland
Recent Activity
I finally read the program notes today, and apparently we were not seeing a modern dance distillation of Monteverdi's opera but instead a meditation on the millions of refugees in the world today who cannot go home. Honestly, the only thing that kept me riveted was the bearded strongman acrobat who I wanted to twirl me through the air with ease and grace like he did everyone else on that stage.
Circa's Il Ritorno
* Notes * Following a decades long tradition, Cal Performances presented yet another fascinating hybrid work, this time a combination of contemporary circus arts and Baroque opera last weekend from the Australian troupe Circa. Those expecting to hear Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in patria...
I'll miss you, Ms. Hattie, and even though we've never met, I can't stop crying. Much love.
Update
This is Alice, Marianna's daughter. The cancer has progressed and is no longer treatable and Marianna is starting hospice care at home. She says she is thinking of all of you. She is comfortable at home with her family, visiting close friends and her kitty. I will keep you all updated.
And how do you want the novel to end? I've escaped the clutches of death a few times and gone onto new cat lives, and during the last episode I thought, "Is there anything I regret not doing?" and realized there was not, which gave me great, peaceful joy. Sounds like you have had a pretty full life yourself, with an amusing, inquisitive mind to keep you company. The mantra that keeps going through my consciousness these days, directly from somewhere in the ether, is "It's all about love."
Trying to catch up
My energy level has been zilch, and for the first time in months I'm feeling mentally weary. Maybe a bit mentally unbalanced, too. Terry and I now have to face what's coming. I am thinking of my life as a novel. How do I want it to end? But what I want to do is link to Ronni Bennett's blog, ...
Leave Hawaii to be medically tortured in Seattle during the winter? Nah. I think you're making the right, wise choice, for what it's worth.
A lovely day today is re-activating me. Terry and...
A lovely day today is re-activating me. Terry and I were in a slump, and Mary came over and rescued us. She and Terry fixed steak and potatoes and green beans and a salad. In the evening we watched Rachel Maddow and a couple of Star Trek episodes and then slept well. We are at one of those noda...
Good rant. And yes, if I hear another old white male leftie (and I am one) go on about how we need to organize the people, I roll my eyes with you.
Rantish
What I saw of the eclipse: 6:35 a.m. HST. Just humid; couldn't make out anything, really. I'm feeling pretty good. The codeine drugs I'm taking keep me comfortable. They also make me indolent! No wonder so many young addicts are lounging around instead of being productive. Why bother? Life...
Actually, I'll be there on Saturday rather than Friday so we may be two ships in the night.
Ars Minerva's La Circe Preview
For the first time in more than a decade, I am going to skip to San Francisco Opera's opening weekend, as Ars Minerva presents the modern premiere of La Circe, an obscure Baroque opera this Friday and Saturday. I, of course, have a soft spot for Baroque operas and am not particularly interested...
See you there. And I had no idea Kyle Stegall was going to be in this. Hurray!
Ars Minerva's La Circe Preview
For the first time in more than a decade, I am going to skip to San Francisco Opera's opening weekend, as Ars Minerva presents the modern premiere of La Circe, an obscure Baroque opera this Friday and Saturday. I, of course, have a soft spot for Baroque operas and am not particularly interested...
I hate liver, but if you're trying to heal tissue, there's probably nothing better in your diet. Go for it, repeatedly.
Happy Monday
I'm on the upward trajectory now, after my last chemo treatment. That platinum based stuff is so toxic, and each time I get it it takes longer to recover from the side effects. The maintenance drug I'll be on now is not so hard on the body, luckily. It targets the reproductive system of cancer ...
Sorry to hear about your gory mess, but glad it was you and not your kitten. I tripped and spilled boiling water on my cat Tina years ago and I'm still feeling guilt about it.
A bad incident, some important matters attended to.
The other night I was half snoozing in my big recliner when the cat began nipping at my feet. I leaned forward and lowered the footrest, and he got pinched between the seat and the floor and started howling and crying. There was blood all over the place! I tried to raise the seat, but that just...
Wonderful photo essay.
Monday, Monday
After a wonderful weekend, I learned today that I have another friend down with cancer. Same stuff I have. Same late diagnosis. A person with a million things to do, a new grandchild, a new love, plans for travel...damn! She does not want contact with people now, but I will call her in a couple...
Glad you got the kitty. Please keep the photos/anecdotes coming.
Sparky at home
He has broken a few things. He jumps on the dining room table. He likes to drink out of my water glass. He tries to claw me. He is either running around getting into mischief or or is zonked out on the bed. He is endlessly entertaining. I guess you could say we are fools for the little guy.
I love the name Sparky.
It's all a matter of education
I know it's wrong, but I couldn't help but laugh and laugh at this! Trump Voter Feels Betrayed By President After Reading 800 Pages Of Queer Feminist Theory pic.twitter.com/TZX9uaANRc — The Onion (@TheOnion) May 2, 2017 Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions for naming the kitten. We had just ...
I had never thought of the song as a dirge, but of course you are correct. And it's my favorite John Lennon solo tune by a long shot.
My favorite dirge
"I understand why people in this situation panic and take to strange diets and other advice from strangers" is such a wonderful phrase. And I too am in awe of your level-headedness in this situation.
Monday report
The weekend was lovely. I felt better yesterday than I have in months, I think mostly due to the effects of the digitalis. Cousin and Robert came over, and Robert and Terry fixed a real Sunday breakfast with pancakes and bacon, fruit, good coffee, and we ate out on the deck. Today a little tire...
Yikes. Sounds scary.
Happy Lunar New Year of the Rooster, and I hope you will be around for many more.
A new development
Dear Friends: I am going to be posting less in the coming months due to a health crisis. I will perhaps say more about it when I have a better idea of where this is going. Aloha, Marianna
Dear Hattie: I love Sharp Golf Course in Pacifica, and play there with my Bad Golfers Club all the time. The 1920s clubhouse is frozen in time and totally cool.
Can't get that mojo working
Don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. I never watched his reality show, although I did walk by Trump Tower once. Joy Ann Reid says he is cut to the quick that pop culture is rejecting him. She is astute. Yes, Americans have exported pop culture to the world. Yes, our political life ...
Dear Hattie:
I play bad golf occasionally as a moderately poor person, on inexpensive municipal layouts, and thoroughly enjoy the game as both a social activity and a good, long walk with something amusing to focus on. (I hate hiking, for some reason, possibly because I start daydreaming and fall off cliffs and things.) Plus, you don't have to play AGAINST anyone in golf, unlike tennis for instance, but can play with/against yourself. It's a great older person's game, and at a certain age, the difference between genders shrinks. I've played with 70+ women who didn't hit it very far but they were usually accurate and had great short games, and very often beat me.
Having said that, the aspiring rich, corporate, toxic masculinity, power structure of country club golf is an entirely different kettle of capitalist fish, with its tendril offshoots of expensive resort courses in Hawaii, Palm Springs, Florida, etc. If you want to find out what the old power structure really thinks, get a subscription to "Golf Digest" and read between the lines.
Sorry to read about your kitty. I can't even think about it or I'll start crying.
Can't get that mojo working
Don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. I never watched his reality show, although I did walk by Trump Tower once. Joy Ann Reid says he is cut to the quick that pop culture is rejecting him. She is astute. Yes, Americans have exported pop culture to the world. Yes, our political life ...
Well, you might want to stop shopping at those monstrous places, which makes you a collaborator to their awfulness. And that's your Holiday Guilt Trip for the season.
Plug-along Monday: another hard hitting on the ground report from the American Paradise
Around Christmas time at our place, 2008. We have gotten older, but we still wear the same clothes. Since we hang our wash on the line, the clothes never wear out. Oh, and the breadfruit tree is now gigantic. We braved the horrors of Christmas shopping yesterday with a trip to Costco. Yikes. ...
Love tne Potluck Wall photo.
Nation Magazine meeting
Far from being struck by gloom, our Nation Magazine group members were in an excellent frame of mind.We seem to be adapting very fast to the new reality. The threat from outside creates cohesiveness on the inside. Everyone was up to date on the situation. Dale, our host, made a chilies relleno...
Dear Hattie: Would you please stop with the ridiculous generalizations about "weed-smokers," please? I didn't much like marijuana when I was young (it made me sleepy and paranoid), but as an older person, it strikes me as something of a wonder drug, untangling my brain after working on a graphics computer all day in a benign, philosophical way. And for the record, the work of Ginsberg (the poet, not the jurist) is actually aging quite well which sort of surprised me. I had an edition recently of his Collected Poems in the bathroom for a couple of years and was fascinated.
Yes, it's happened here
As we start to feel better and can function again, we have to remember that we have suffered a great defeat. We were blindsided. I always thought the Canadians were not paying attention to the fascists in their midst and that we were more alert and somehow on top of the situation with our own fa...
Oh, dear, you've confirmed some of my worst forebodings. Still want to hear the music, but it's going to be hard after the perfect cast and conductor six years ago.
SF Opera's Makropulos Case
* Notes * With a monstrous but charismatic narcissist as protagonist, last night's revival of San Francisco Opera's The Makropulos Case felt timely. It was difficult to not compare our lead, soprano Nadja Michael, with the previous star in the role, Karita Mattila, especially since the latter ...
It was very "A Face in The Crowd" moment, where Patricia Neal turns up the (non-defective) mikes in the studio so everyone watching on television can hear what Andy Griffith as a proto-Trump character really thinks about all those rubes in the heartland. I only watched the second half of the debate, when Trump started losing it altogether because my spouse said, "you've got to see this, Trump keeps sniffing through his nose like he's coked out of his mind." I think we may have just dodged a bullet here because talking intelligently about the candidates this year is useless. The only way Trump can be stopped is through ridicule and he sure gave everyone in the world a lot of ammunition Monday night.
John Podhoretz: "Trump's debate incompetence a slap in the face to his supporters"
Of all the reactions to last night's debate, I thought this one was the most important. ...due to the vanity and laziness that led him to think he could wing the most important 95 minutes of his life, he lost the thread of his argument, he lost control of his temper and he lost the perspective...
The False Equivalence, as I've started thinking of it, has been a remarkably handy way to unfriend quite a few acquaintances. If they really think there's no difference between Voldemort (he shall not be named) and Clinton, then there's no reason for me to take their thinking on any subject seriously at all. Though I have acquaintances on all points of the political spectrum, it's mostly been my left-wing acquaintances who have been the seriously sad disappointments. I can't believe how obtuse they are about the obvious threat to the world that Voldemort represents. In contrast, I have a libertarian, right-wing golfing buddy who's been sounding the Alarm Against Tyranny all year in every possible forum, while advocating a reluctant vote for Clinton II.
“Progressives” in the Eighth Circle of Hell
Adapted from the Twitter feed. Posted Monday night, September 26, 2016. Down there we came upon a lacquered people who made their round, in tears, with listless steps. They seemed both weary and defeated. The cloaks they wore had cowls that fell over their eyes, cut like the capes made for th...
Fall on the Pacific Coast has always been some of the most gorgeous weather season in the entire world, but we live in a Northeastern-centric country, so it's all about Autumn Leaves Changing Color in the Northeast. Which is lovely, but really...
Heavenly days
I love tunnels! On the way from Seattle to the Washington Coast: Our old friend Debby put us up for a couple of nights at her place on Long Beach. She is a treasure house of knowledge about the Pacific Northwest, with a strong interest in the history of the area. We took a picnic lunch out to...
It must be Theo.
SF Choral's Verdi Requiem
* Notes * My review of San Francisco Choral Society's Requiem by Verdi is up on San Francisco Classical Voice. * Tattling * The adolescent girl (who was there with her little brother and their mother) in front of me in Row H of the Orchestra level, had a seat for her purse that was full of cel...
More...
Subscribe to Michael Strickland’s Recent Activity