Aporia, or The Gap

Friends, readers, passers-by:

I am going off line for the rest of the summer. Look for me after Labor Day, here and at some of my haunts like Giornale Nuovo and Laurelines and outside the windows. Since I have several large projects to do before fall and many summery interruptions scheduled--ferryings of children to camps and to workshops and to stays elsewhere, nights at The Pirates of Penzance and Janácek's Jenufa (directed by Jonathan Miller!) and the premiere of Stephen Hartke and Philip Littell's The Greater Good, as well as fêtes for returning Byzantine travelers and more fêtes for visiting twins and for my visiting mother and for visiting people-I-once-knew, and picnics and plays and music on the lawn and the great etcetera (whew!)--I am going to gather my shards and splinters of free time and make an airy chamber of them. Going inside and turning the key, I'll wield the scepter of a pen over a kingdom of paper.

Thank you for coming to visit me here--feel free to wander the remote and disused portions of the Palace. You may find a dusty old stuffed owl, a surprise behind a door, a box of treasure. Who can say, unless the journey has been tried?

I am re-posting the Fried Phoenix below this post, for those who are interested in hard-boiled acceptances, stewed reviews of stories, and meringue links elsewhere.

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July 8 A Night at the Opera

The evening was pleasant and cool, just right for an opera house by a lake. And it was a delicious night at Glimmerglass Opera: Gioachino Rossino’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia / The Barber of Seville, based on one of Beaumarchais’ plays, so fertile for opera. We should all look so good, so joyful, so gleeful, so full of verve and style after nearly two centuries.

I’ve been veterinarian,
Egalitarian,
Heathen comedian,
Pious tragedian,
Orator, poet,
And pirate and prophet,
A man for the ladies
And father of babies,
Drunken and sober,
A husband and sailor,
Banker and brother
And barber and lover.
Diplomat, acrobat,
Teacher of etiquette, me!
Satirist, pessimist,
Surgeon and Calvinist…
Student and swordsman,
Spy and musician…
Spanish economist,
Clockmaker, pharmacist.
I’m Figaro!

--Figaro in John Corigliano and William Hoffman’s The Ghosts of Versailles