Puccini was a punk

Katherine, Dawn, and I went to see "Madame Butterfly" at the Met last night. Excellent production. The male lead was simply fantastic and the soprano in the title role was also quite good (little too much vibrato when up top, but that's just my opinion). However, I'd forgotten just how annoying the libretto is. The opera is populated exclusively with men who are assholes and women who are completely spineless. Made me want to jump down from the box and throttle everybody. Grrr!

What could be more infuriating than "You've left me! My life is over! Take my child!" Jesus, woman, wake up. Your supposed husband is a dick and you're better off without. Equal fuel for my rant against this foolishness is the aforemention beau. "Well, I'll just have my way with this wench for awhile and then go home and find myself a real wife." Three years later... "Hey, I'm back! And oh, I got married again. I'm here for my kid..." (realization sinks in) "Oh, I'm such a terrible person! I'll never rid myself of the guilt! I must run away!"

What a prick. Thanks for making the lives of decent fellows that much harder.

Luckily, the post-show discussion did not include a great deal of male bashing (which I was dreading). It's one thing to say "Hey, that guy was a selfish dickhead" and another thing entirely to say "Hey, all guys are selfish dickheads". Fortunately, this point is not lost on Katherine and Dawn.

Yet another reason I like 'em.

Anyway, seems I've spouted enough for today.

Comforting my ears today:

Austere - Remittance
(again with the obscure guitar ambient! man, Ben, what is your problem?)

Building Castles Out Of Matchsticks - It's Raining In My Bedroom
(tasty experimental electronic from Anne Sulikowski, head of Worthy Records; soon to release my CD! Booyah!)

Scorn - Governor
(huge bass rumbles and dark downtempo from the god that is Mick Harris)

Scorn - Imaginaria Award EP
(did I mention that Mick Harris is a god?)