Fort Worth Blogs

After watching College Girl pretty much take over the blog in the last two weeks, I have to try to assert my presence as someone who does more than takes fire for watching Shah Rukh Khan movies and being afraid of the plague. What I’d like to tell you is that the plague squirrel story wasn’t actually over this morning, because half of that animal was discovered in the middle of the yard, not far from the barbecue. Yes, it was the half that has the tail. The dogs, apparently unconcerned about the dangers of plague, rabies, or anything else (perhaps they know there’s antibiotics and that they’ve been vaccinated) apparently consumed the other half.

I carefully waited until College Girl came home from the store and then alerted her to the need for “clean up on aisle 7.” But when she got there, the squirrel wasn’t there. Apparently her 13 year old brother and his friend had tossed it over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. Or so she claimed. “Which neighbor?” I did not ask. I assume they meant the 90 year old lady with the forest in her huge back yard that runs all along our back fence. She never comes out, so there’s no danger of her getting the plague. Nevertheless, I did feel a little bit sheepish about the whole affair.

It’s all a sign of what I told an old friend the other day: when you live with other people, there’s bound to be some chaos.

Oh, and yeah, I saw that mug featured below the other day in Ross and had to buy it for College Girl as a gag gift. She accepted it graciously, as you see, which probably means she’s not really that bitter after all.

The Dallas Opera: February 12, 14, 18, 20, 26, & 28, 2010

Winspear Opera House

Review by Dean Cassella

This second production in the Dallas Opera’s first season in its new home was just what the doctor ordered, especially after the sumptuous and heavy fare served up with Verdi’s Otello at the season premiere.  Although one could certainly could not label Mozart’s last opera buffa collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte musically light, it does deliver laughs in some of the most sumptuous and delightful music that Mozart composed.

Originally set in eighteenth-century Naples, the plot centers around a case of deliberate mistaken identity between two pairs of lovers.  Two young men, Ferrando and Guglielmo are in the throes of young love with Fiordiligi and Dorabella.  A cynical old man, Don Alfonso, taunts them that it is impossible for women to remain faithful, should the men leave the scene for a while.  The resulting argument ends with a wager: Ferrando and Guglielmo will pretend to be called off for military duty, only to return in the guise of two Albanians and each actively try to court the other’s belle.

Jeffry Jones as Austrian Emperor Joseph II in the famous 1984 movie "Amadeus."

The opera was commissioned by none other than the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, best known in popular culture from the play/movie Amadeus.

This was Mozart’s third and last collaboration with Lorenzo da Ponte, a Venetian Jew who, as a child, converted to Christianity, took holy orders, and was eventually ran out of town for taking . . .liberties . . .with certain lady friends.  He then led a semi nomadic life, cutting a swath across Europe to London, and eventually settling in New York City as a greengrocer, and as the first professor of Italian at Columbia University (he also established the first Italian opera company in New York).  His collaborations with Mozart occurred early in his wanderings, when he was living in Vienna and trying to make his inroads in the Imperial court as a poet and librettist.  The story of Così was a allegedly based on a real incident that was making the rounds in Vienna at the time.

Last time around, the Winspear Opera House demonstrated marvelous acoustics with a full-sized late Romantic era orchestra.  The current production makes use of a comparatively tiny chamber orchestra, which poses a different set of resonance challenges.  I am delighted to report that the new opera house was able to handle these to remarkable effect.  Graeme Jenkin’s stately phrasing was carried with both a volume and a warmth that I have rarely heard in a full-size opera house.

Così is unusual in that there are only six roles which are very carefully balanced.  Soprano Elza van den Heever and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway, as Fiordiligi and Dorabella respectively, have beautifully matched voices.  Miss van den Heever also displays considerable skills as an actress, and Miss Holloway, who graced the TDO stage last season with her interpretation of the love-sick Cherubino in La Nozze di Figaro, treated us to her wonderfully lilting vibrato.  Italian soprano Nuccia Focile sang a beautiful rendition of Despina, the cynical, deadpan maid who serves as a female counterpart to Don Alfonso, and who often reminds me of Alice Kramden on the Honeymooners.  Her petite stature helped to enrich the comic potential when she dresses up as a quack doctor and a notary during Act II.

The real star of this performance, though was the illustrious bass-baritone Sir Thomas Allen who, after almost 40 years on the boards of the worlds major opera houses, boasts a rich, powerful voice and a magisterial presence whenever he is on stage.  Tenor Brian Anderson as Ferrando, and baritone Michael Todd Simpson also did commendable jobs in their roles.

Robert Perdziola’s sets recast the time to around 1910.  The main set resembles an Egyptian-style casino, or hotel, lends itself to the time period it seeks to evoke.  I generally prefer sticking to the librettist’s original intentions, but the change in question does not seriously interfere with the work’s enjoyment in any way.

All in all, this is a fine production and one definitely worth seeing.

Next up: Donizetti’s Don Pasquale!

It’s been a long time since I’ve accepted that a lot of stuff happens to me that I don’t think should be happening. In writer’s group a couple of years back someone called me “the girl whose life was one long emergency,” but believe me, by then I was was slowing down and thinking things over before taking action. You’d have to go back when I was in my twenties to find me amidst a chaos that seemed to reign supreme. The phrase stuck with me, though for a while I couldn’t remember where it came from. I knew it was a song, just couldn’t remember which. But then just this morning I dragged it out again on YouTube, somehow, without even meaning to.

The original song is For You, by Bruce Springsteen. I don’t listen to Springsteen much nowadays — among other things, Dean hates him and always tells the most unflattering stories about The Boss’s personal life if he hears his music — but I have, always, had a soft spot the tunes nevertheless. I was listening to “For You” this morning before the boys left for school, and one of them asked

“What happened to his voice?”

“He’s from New Jersey.”

“Yeah but — that raspy sound. It’s horrible.”  And this wasn’t even the infamous rendition of “Santa Claus is coming to town.”

Well, you either like that voice or you don’t, you either accept his music style or you don’t. But what does the song mean? Looking at the words, they’re even less coherent than “How Does it Feel” by Bob Dylan but the overall sentiments are the same: there’s this girl, she’s messed up, she’s trouble, she doesn’t like the guy too much but he loves her anyway and he wrestles down his feelings of rejection by pointing out her vulnerabilities.  Some of the song is made of lyrics that Dean, the opera buff, would call “throwaway” such as “my electric surges free.” Now what does that mean? But other lines are pure genius. Even at the age of 15 I was struck by the image of the girl being carted off to Bellevue, which is the mental hospital, and the guy wanting to rescue her himself. It’s a repeated theme in literature, the story of the crazy girl.

I’m pretty sure I’m not as deranged as the original girl whose “life was one long emergency.” Nevertheless, I have felt that sense of continual emergency at times. I have overstated my own importance, too, I’m sorry to say. And overall, looking back, I feel a certain poignant sense of recognition when I hear this song.  There’s so much of youth and confusion and desperation in there, it makes it pretty nigh on to universal.

This appeared to be the tag on an email I received this afternoon. “Wow,” I thought, “after all this time, someone had finally found out God’s email address and is passing it around, perhaps with an admonition not to break the chain or you will be struck dead by lighting.” On closer inspection, the email turned out to be tagged “submit your questions for the Golden Globes” a much less interesting proposal, since I barely know what the Golden Globes are.

I was so disappointed. I do have a few questions to ask God about. Some of them, not surprisingly, I can’t publish. But I think I could come up with a few that aren’t too personal:

Dear God, why won’t you just let us reach our goals and have some peace?

Is it really fair that those we love are free not to care about us in the least?

Why are there so many bad people in the world, anyway?

I mean, couldn’t we have gotten by with only about half the current number?

Could you at least get rid of half the bad people in my life?

And finally, could you just put to bed the question about whether there are dogs in heaven or not?

How about you, readers? Do you believe God may have an email address somewhere? If he does, do you think he had it ten years ago, before everyone else, or do you think he was a late adopter? Do you have any questions you’d like to ask God? If you do, would you dare to put them in the comments below?

Lately we’ve been on a passage to India around here almost every night — Bollywood India. I wrote about it before — see the reviews of Om Shanti Om, Eklavya, and Jodhaa Ackbar. Now most recently we have watched Veer-Zaara (2004) the story of a star-crossed love between an Indian pilot and the daughter of a Pakastani politician.

The usual Bollywood elements — beautiful scenery, exotic characters, plot-driven narrative, song and dance numbers — are all present. What makes this film most unusual is its utter unpredictability. You really don’t know what is going to happen next. And you do care, because the characters somehow, despite their initially stock nature, do seem more human than the usual. The framing of the story from 22 years later, after one character’s life has been, it would seem, utterly destroyed only adds to the suspense, as does an included courtroom drama involving an ethical woman lawyer and a member of the “old boy” network of India.

Also typically Bollywood in its length — about three hours — the star of the film is Shahruk Khan, Indian movie star and billionaire film producer known for posing with his shirt off in tight jeans as well as for portraying romantic heroes for whom no suffering is too great.

Bollywood seems flooded with love stories, seemingly doomed love stories between Muslims and Hindus, rich and poor, people whose families hate each other, people who were already promised, by their parents, to someone they hardly know — the plot possibilities are endless, especially when you throw in the Hindu belief in reincarnation. But I can’t remember any such movie we’ve watched — we must have seen more than a dozen now — with more surprises than this one.  And it’s the surprises, somehow, and the characters, that make movies worth watching.  So hats off to Indian film for providing these dramas that last longer than American films, believe in more than American films, and aren’t afraid to layer on the glamour and pathos — sometimes you need a little bit of that. Viva Bollywood! Here’s the trailer — only in Hindi, sorry, couldn’t find an English version. The movie itself, of course, is subtitled.

Well, I asked my grandmother for a topic and I got one: what am I doing to prepare for med school? This should be easy, since the topic fills my brain, either on a front or a back burner, a lot of the time.

So, what am I doing?

1. Treating my transcript like a “sacred shrine of gold.”

My mother’s words, not mine. This means paying what can seem like way too much attention to my classes, and, by extension, to my grades. It means paying attention and staying organized. It means getting things done before they have to be done – that’s new this semester. It means going to class, analyzing what I’m doing right or wrong, and preparing for exams as thoroughly as possible. But, above all, it means giving my classes the highest conceivable priority. If it’s important for school, I take care of it. Work, social activities, goofing off, hobbies, or things lower down on this list will just have to wait. Years, possibly, maybe more than a decade. I can take it.

Thanks to jesuscm at Flickr Creative Commons

2. Planning ahead…way ahead.

I have been doing this for a long time, but recently I sat down with my adviser and made a plan, from now until fall 2012, when I will hopefully begin med school. We made a chart of when I will take all my important classes and what I will do in each  summer. We chose an MCAT test date over a year in the future, carefully early enough and late enough, so that I will have the information I need but also have time to take it again. I have been attempting this kind of planning for a long time, always thinking ahead  to “what’s next?”

3. Volunteering:

This is one aspect I truly enjoy. In high school, community service was done “because I have to.” Now, it’s not mandatory, and perhaps for that reason, I get a great deal out of it. The main things I have done so far are being involved in TCU Leaps and, very recently, volunteering at Cook Children’s. My plan is to continue both, and hopefully get more involved in the summer.

4. Getting experience talking with and observing actual doctors

I have done and plan to do this mostly in two ways, both through the Health Professions group at TCU. Firstly, going to meetings where doctors come to speak about their specialty and other aspects of their profession; also, “shadowing,” where an interested student follows a doctor around their place of work to get an idea of the day to day aspect of that specialty, and the health field in general. I have done this once, in 2008; I actually shadowed a nurse practitioner and a registered nurse at a children’s hospital in Austin. I plan to do more next semester.

5. Staying involved in health-related opportunities in the community

Slightly different from straight community service, this is also something I enjoy a lot. Fulfilling this goal could encompass going to meetings and presentations about health fields, such as this fall, when I attended the 2009 Synergy Infant Mortality Forum, which concerned the high infant mortality rate in Tarrant County. It could also be getting involved in organizations I am a part of in a health-related way; for example, I just completed training to be a Hospital Minister for my church, and soon will start visiting patients in a nearby hospital as a representative of my parish.

Also, I follow health-related news on a regular basis.

6. The nitty gritty.

This is basically bookkeeping, tying up ends and making sure things go smoothly for the above to work. This includes some crucial tasks, such as:

-Getting enough sleep every night. It may seem absurd as I am a college student, but I get to bed regularly before 10pm and wake before 7am. This allows me to actually be conscious most of the day, and to get to school early.

-Making sure I have enough money. I have worked during school when possible, and over breaks similarly. Last summer I worked, and while I have not done so this semester as it just wasn’t going to jive with number 1 above, I will start working again this winter break, likely as soon as finals are over. Also, this fall I made the decision to live at home, taking into account financial realities: by saving money on housing, I can take classes in the summer.

-Staying stable: This is paramount. Getting enough sleep, eating enough, trying to exercise somewhat regularly, and so on, are important to all of the above. Keeping up connections with supporting friends and family is very helpful in this regard, also.

In closing, I would like to make two points. First, doing well in my classes is important for many reasons, too many to count. The “sacred shrine of gold” concept is fairly tongue in cheek. The first thing on the list is simply making “preparing for the next step” a priority in general. Secondly, for the most part I do the things above because I like to, not because it “fits the bill.” To be sure, I love my classes, and when I look at the requirements for my plan, I see classes I am excited to take, that I would probably choose out of interest anyways. Volunteering is something else I just really enjoy; I love being at the hospital, I find it fascinating and fitting, “the place I want to be.” I am hard pressed to come up with something that fits the heading “I am only doing this for my preparations, I wouldn’t do it otherwise, and I don’t like it.” Even things like working or studying in the summer, while difficult decisions to make, jive fairly well with my inclinations.

So, that’s it. Hopefully I haven’t bored anyone to tears. My grandmother suggested the topic. I hope this fits your idea, GA!

I have been considering a question lately: is the road to success paved with working on what you love?

Some seem to believe that you should only do what you like – implying that  it is done to the exclusion of things you don’t like to do. In the abstract, this sounds about right – who would spend hoards of time doing something they hate? One argument is that anyone who has been forced to work out of some necessity will likely scoff, as necessity is the mother of the unpleasant.

However, if the work is to be tenable in the long run, it must be relatively pleasant, lest it become the bane of one’s existence – a situation that I could relate to, a situation that could hardly be defined as success in any way.

However, let us point out, success is NOT “doing your dream job.” There are not enough dream jobs in the world for that to work. For example, take writers. There are mountains of people who would love to write for a living, yet every major city generally only has one newspaper; every state only so many magazines. Only so many books can be printed as people will only demand so much. Thus, those who wish to write for a living are generally foiled. Some succeed; most don’t. Or take poets. Is it humanly possible to make a good living writing poetry? How about writing music? Even these pursuits must encompass some of the tedious, the belabored, the demeaning. And even those who find more ordinary jobs and manage to love them – can they really love every minute? If they don’t, are they a failure?

I wrote this post because I feel there is sometimes resentment against pre-med or Med, I suppose) students. We are seen as the opposite of those doing only what we love, instead we are sometimes seen as competitive raptors, chasing a high salary and relatively high social standing, those gods of men. We are narrow-minded, greedy even. We somehow choke down all the information we must know to proceed, all for a one-way path to financial success. However, there are other ways to financial success, ways that probably don’t require the entire decade spanning your 20’s to fulfill. It’s true, without having some toleration for the material and the work, one might be doomed. without aptitude for it, certainly. The chances of someone who loathes all things medical, biological, chemical, and statistical making it out of their residency at the usual age of about 30 are pretty slim. They might even be pitied, as their life, one of disliking their work, will not be success. On the other hand, one who loves those studies will likely still find they embark on unpleasant activities all the time.

Our decision to go down that path is multifaceted, bound up in interest for work itself, perhaps feeling a penchant for it based on experience. Yes, we know the other benefits, but that is not all we are after. For we pre-meds have a job in mind, one that we want, and one that we are pretty sure we’ll enjoy. We want to be doctors, and we do what we must to get there.

I’ve now completed three and a half weeks at my new school. Since I am now in a self-contained 2nd grade, I have to prepare instruction in all the subjects — and there are six, readng, spelling, writing, science, math and social studies — every day. We have team planning so I don’t have to write up the lesson plans, but I do have to interpret the other teacher’s plans for my students. And then do all the grading.

This is a demanding list of duties, but luckily I have a comrade in arms in my classroom all day every day — a Promethian board. This board is a touch sensitive computer screen about 6 x 4 feet in size — and is my blackboard. Every evening, I write out page after page of “flipcharts” which are the individual screens you can show on the computer.  There’s  one for procedure when students first come in, one introducing the message and words of the day, one reiterating our rules and another about who will go into what independent work center. There will probably be a chart or two I’ve cooked up for science or social studies. The longest one-day flipchart I’ve made so far was 17 pages.  Each night I go home, with the laptop that goes with the board (which because of it’s size stays at the school) and write up the next day’s directions and diagrams.

Some teachers don’t take the laptop home. The idea is that if the laptop won’t go back into the “docking station” or place where you attach it into the Promethian board, you’d be in trouble. So, what am I going to do if that happens?

Not sure. My general attitude right now is if I can’t access my flipcharts I am so dead. I do have an overhead and the math and writing and reading are still done on paper at the indivudual students’ desks. But in modern education theory, planning is everything, and if planning is everything the Promethian is huge. It makes planning communicable to students in a way never before possible. I didn’t have one at my earlier school, but I can’t imagine doing without it now.

Without the board, I’d feel like a bird with clipped wings.  Because at least for today, my instructional method is all Promethian, all the time.

Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, Dallas, Oct. 23, 25, 28, 31, Nov. 5 & 8, 2009

Review by Dean Cassella

Well, this HAD to be good, and good it was!  The event in question was not only the commencement of a new Dallas Opera season, but the premiere of the company’s new venue: the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House (see below).

The cast of this new production of Verdi’s Otello (based on the Shakespeare’s play of jealousy and revenge) is perhaps the closest I have ever seen to being perfect.  Dramatic tenor Clifton Forbis, who sings the title role, has a voice that is phenomenally rich and penetrating.  One can dream of hearing him sing Tristan, which has done with distinction in Paris and Chicago.

Baritone Lado Ataneli, a native of Georgia (the country, that is!), in the role of the scheming materialist/agnostic Iago, was the perfect lower register match for Forbis, and their duet at the end of Act II (‘Si, pel cielo marmoreo giuro’) falls short of being described as a “match made in heaven” only because of the subject matter.

Otello is very much a ‘guy’ thing, as it deals heavily with masculine responses to jealousy and ambition.  Consequently, there are only two female roles in the work, and the prima donna part, that of Desdemona, the ill-fated wife of Otello, does not really come into its own until Act III.  There, Montreal native soprano Alexandra Deshorties sang beautifully, although on a few occasions her resonant voice was in danger of being drowned out by the orchestra.  Her duets with Forbis were as well-matched as were Forbis’ and Ataneli’s.

All supporting cast members, most notably tenor Sean Pannikar in the role of Cassio, were outstanding, and no doubt deliver fine performances in heavier roles elsewhere.

Conductor Graeme Jenkins was in generally superb form, and gave the distinct impression of enjoying the sound of ‘his’ new theater—perhaps a little too zealously, at times (heaven forbid that we have been harboring a repressed Herbert von Karajan all this time!!).

The sets, designed by Brit Anthony Baker, update the story from fifteenth-century Cyprus to Verdi’s own nineteenth century.  This is vaguely reminiscent of a similar updating of Wagner’s maritime opera Die Fliegende Holländer by Harry Kupfer at Bayreuth in the early 1980’s (and available on DVD).  The stark, concrete and iron sets are also reminiscent of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, done by FW Opera last season.  (N.B. a new Heggie work, Moby Dick, will be premiered later in the Dallas Opera season)

With the Winspear, Opera House, located in the AT&T Performing Arts Center in the Arts District of Dallas (directly across from the Meyerson Symphony Hall), the Dallas Opera has ended over six decades of wandering in the desert (i.e. Fair Park Music Hall), and at last has come to the promised land.  As most of my readers are aware, there has always been a sense of competitiveness between Dallas and Fort Worth.  One area of pride for aesthetically sensitive Fort Worthians has been in the fine arts.  For those of us who patronize both the Fort Worth Opera and the Dallas Opera there could be no doubt that, although the former is a smaller company, there could be no comparison in regard to venues: Bass Performance Hall is a real opera house, while Fair Park Music Hall is a bloated monstrosity, best left to heavily amplified fare.

The new Dallas house now changes that dynamic, and does so in very interesting ways.  The Winspear almost seems to function as an alter ego of Bass Hall in a manner completely in keeping with the two cities’ contrasting outlooks.  Bass Hall, for example, is predominantly white, inside and out, and has a decidedly retro art-deco look.  The Winspear, by contrast, is decidedly post-modern (or post post-modern, if you will).  At night, the predominant colors are deep red and black, and the interior of the hall is very dark indeed.

And whereas the ceiling of Bass Hall sports a fresco of the daytime sky, the Winspear’s ceiling has a chandelier that, when retracted, looks like evening stars.

According to chief architect, Spencer de Grey, the transparency of the building is an attempt to break down the intimidation factor with potential new audience members.  The idea is to make opera more accessible to a wider audience.  I am not convinced that they are successful in this, because even I, a veteran culture snob, found the building to be a little intimidating upon first entering.  And although I am happy to see the giant-sized candy bars and skittles left behind at the Fair Park concession vendors, their replacements: comparatively rarified snacks such as chocolate covered strawberries, etc., only serve to up the ante in the feel of exclusivity.

In regard to acoustics, the Winspear has some of the finest I have ever heard.  During the opening ceremonies, Don Winspear asked the members of the audience whether they had ever heard opera at Fair Park.  In response to the giggles, the orchestra played a very quiet rendition of the opening bars of the Prelude to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger.  This was followed shortly thereafter by an open-throttle replay that, should the theater have been open-air, would have felled birds unfortunate enough to be flying overhead.  I don’t think that I have ever heard an orchestra located under the stage produce such well-rounded volume.  No doubt, this will keep those fortunate enough to sing at the Winspear on their toes!  By the way, the acoustics at the Winspear cry out desperately for WAGNER!!!!  It is definitely the time for the company to strut its stuff with a new production of the Ring cycle and perhaps (hint, hint. . .) the triumphant return of Clifton Forbis as Tristan.

Why haven’t I written more about teaching in the last month or so? Well, as one of my colleagues in the alternative certification program said last week, “I work 24 hours a day.” I remember when they told me I would be working nights and weekends trying to keep up with lesson planning and administratative requirements, and I thought, “that may be true for some new teachers, but I work faster than most people so it won’t be me.”

Me. It is me, and that’s the reason for the silence over the blog lines. And then there’s a second reason for not saying so much. That is that so much of what occurs during the day when you’re a teacher is protected by confidentiality requirements.  You don’t want to tell anybody’s name if you’re blogging about school, or any other identifying details. I write a lot of about the process of learning to teach — I think I’m learning to teach, at least — but it’s all in a paper notebook, where no one can see it. I feel safe writing there. Here, I have to be more careful.

I thought I might try saying things about my subjects, writing and science, in upcoming weeks, and how I am teaching them. The curriculum that we use has changed this year, apparently, and I’m rather pleased to see the way we do things is, surprise surprise, pretty close to the way I would do things if I had designed it myself. We do something called Writing Workshop and Science Journals.

But writing about these things will demand that I start to wake up earlier. I’ve decided to go to bed at ten so I can get up and write at 5. I set my alarm. But getting up is not effortless like it used to be. This morning, I was deep in a dream of some long forgotten love song when the alarm beeped its way into my consciousness.  I had an awful moment of really really not knowing where I was — in the dream, in the song, in life, and what’s more for some reason I was sleeping in the easy chair, not in the bed. This is pretty much how my life goes these days. As I said at the top of this blog, I can barely get out of bed, and when I do, something else happens.