tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62694922011-04-21T15:42:08.307-07:00Amy's Book BlogA Taoist Libertarian's look at Books, Opera, Philosophy, and -- yes -- Religion and PoliticsAmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comBlogger251100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1164768917007597772006-11-28T18:54:00.000-08:002006-11-28T18:55:17.026-08:00Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1159229139280985072006-09-25T17:04:00.000-07:002006-09-25T17:07:00.113-07:00Apropos of nothing:Supposedly ' visited="AZCACODCDEFLIDILINKSMDMNMOMTNVNMNDOHOKORPATXUTVAWAWVWIWY">this will show you all of the states I've visited.Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1147471201337447662006-05-12T14:53:00.000-07:002006-05-12T15:00:01.346-07:00The Year of Magical Thinking and A Month of Sundays: Searching for the Spirit and My Sisterare both very good reads. Coincidentally both are about the effect of the death of a loved one on the writers, both women. But I enjoyed A Month of Sundays a lot more.Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1145983975688756102006-04-25T09:49:00.000-07:002006-04-25T09:52:55.700-07:00OK, I gave "Atlas Shrugged" a good try but gave up on it about halfway through. The plot dragged, the characters were caricatures, and I felt she was preaching to me.Other books I've enjoyed in the past month: "Billy Budd" (Melville); "Miss Lonelyhearts" (West); "Bobos in Paradise" (Brooks); and "The Good Soldier" (Ford).Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1141943736901326422006-03-09T14:31:00.000-08:002006-03-09T14:35:36.916-08:00I know, it's been a while.My younger son wanted to read Ayn Rand, so I bought and read "The Fountainhead" while he worked on "Atlas Shrugged." He gave up on "Atlas," but I finished "Fountainhead." I can't actually say I enjoyed it, but found it an interesting read. I'm not sure I could say I'm looking forward to "Atlas Shrugged."On a much more positive note, I passed a wonderful Saturday Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1132087409318399772005-11-15T12:43:00.000-08:002005-11-15T12:43:29.326-08:00I had to read "Swimming at Suppertime" by Carol Wasserman twice, and though I've never been to Buzzards Bay, Mass. (I've never even been to New England), I feel I have known both the locale and the author for many years, perhaps for all of my life. From the delights of cranberry bogs, and quahogs, and the sadnesses of middle age and widowhood ("Men in Geese" was my favorite) each of these is not Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1127428734091932042005-09-22T15:37:00.000-07:002005-09-22T15:38:54.096-07:00One of my favorite authors, Ian McEwan, writes in an essay "Hello, Would You Like a Free Book?" in the Guardian that the novel is a feminine form:In the mid-60s, when I was a sixth-former studying English literature for A level, one title we were all required to study closely was Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel. This wise and lucid book instructed us that the readership of the early novel was Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1124762029238959762005-08-22T18:43:00.000-07:002005-08-22T18:53:49.246-07:00Seattle's "Ring"Finally, a year after buying my tickets, I attended my first "Ring"!Seattle Opera's production of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" was ecstasy. Here are my observations about all four operas:"Das Rheingold" -- I loved Stephanie Blythe as Fricka, Eva Podles as Erda – very distinctive voice and perfect for her mysterious part -- and Stephen Milling as Fasolt. But the best male voice in Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1117483027815039002005-05-30T12:53:00.000-07:002005-05-30T12:57:07.820-07:00J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello defies categorization. It's not really a novel, and it's not really non-fiction either. Some will love it, and others will turn away in the first chapter. (Coetzee won a Booker Prize for Disgrace.)Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1115000134307267422005-05-01T19:13:00.000-07:002005-05-01T19:15:34.306-07:00Best fiction book I've read so far this year: Gilead . It won a Pulitzer prize this year.Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1106967048374915132005-01-28T18:42:00.000-08:002005-01-28T18:50:48.373-08:00I am spending much of the next few months with two books, preparing to attend this summer's Seattle Opera production of "Der Ring des Nibelungen."
The two books are: "Wagner's 'Ring' and Its Symbols: The Music and the Myth" by Robert Doningtonand
"I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring" by Deryck Cooke.Donington's book is a Jungian interpretation of "The Ring," and Cooke's book is a look Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1100113663063967402004-11-10T11:07:00.000-08:002004-11-10T11:07:43.063-08:00Quote of the Day:
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. -- C.S LewisAmyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1099358070280604762004-11-01T17:11:00.000-08:002004-11-01T17:14:30.280-08:00Saturday night at Benson High School auditorium in Portland, we were treated to a FREE concert by "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Corps Band on a national tour. This is the same band that was conducted by John Philip Sousa in the late 1800s and early 1900s. That their performance was polished is an understatement. Most of the members have graduate degrees from music conservatories.
Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1098650787186759952004-10-24T13:38:00.000-07:002004-10-24T15:23:08.893-07:00My husband, Mike, has written neo-baroque music for the past 30 years. That is, he writes music in the style of Western Europe from 1600 to 1750 A.D. You can listen to his music at the following sites:
Classical Music Archives
Download.com
His publisher is Cantica Nova
Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1098301149052380862004-10-20T13:35:00.000-07:002004-10-24T22:00:06.353-07:00I have a huge collection of operas on tape, and am trying to make it through the whole collection in the next year. Over the past few nights, I've been watching Verdi's Otello (1995, Metropolitan Opera). I've seen other productions, and I don't think I've ever heard a better Otello, Desdemona or Iago than Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming and James Morris. The Metropolitan Opera orchestra is, as Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1098147193682988192004-10-18T17:52:00.000-07:002004-10-18T17:56:04.133-07:00The best book I've read so far this year: Atonement by Ian McEwan.Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1097544702007463142004-10-11T18:29:00.000-07:002004-10-18T17:57:19.870-07:00 In the past few weeks, I have laughed myself silly over Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, both by David Sedaris.Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1096668723179789672004-10-01T15:08:00.000-07:002004-10-01T15:12:03.180-07:00As a Beaverton High School Marching Ensemble band mom, I'll be spending three of the next six Saturdays watching my trumpet-playing son and 129 other members perform at three competitions in Oregon through the Northwest Marching Band Circuit.
Oct. 2 is the Sunset Classic in Hillsboro.
Oct. 16 is the McKenzie Classic in Vancouver.
Nov. 6 is the University of Oregon Festival of Bands in Eugene.
Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1092102400381421852004-08-09T18:37:00.000-07:002004-08-09T18:46:40.383-07:00I bought two tickets to Seattle Opera's Ring cycle next summer. I will be attending the second cycle Aug. 15, 16, 18 and 20. This cost me a small fortune and required that I become an opera donor, because the tickets will all be sold out before they go on sale to the general public. But you only turn 50 once, right?
Next, I hope to get on the waiting list for the Ring cycle in Bayreuth, Germany.Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1088571576532377432004-06-29T21:49:00.000-07:002004-06-29T21:59:36.533-07:00Since the title of my blog implies that I am an opera fan, let me just say for the record: I am an opera fan!
Here are Amy's favorite 10 operas (subject to change):
Boris Godunov (Mussorgsky)
The Ring of the Nibelung (Wagner)
Elektra (R. Strauss)
Der Rosenkavalier (R. Strauss)
The Flying Dutchman (Wagner)
Jenufa (Janacek)
Rigoletto (Verdi)
Carmen (Bizet)
Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky)
Otello (Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1085770042792631602004-05-28T11:46:00.000-07:002004-05-28T22:11:13.436-07:00Yesterday at work, I discovered that all three of the people who work in my pod had also read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera." What are the chances of that? Twenty-five years, almost nobody read Latin-American literature.
Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1080705884824995392004-03-30T20:04:00.000-08:002004-03-30T20:09:02.560-08:00What am I reading right now?
Don Quixote in a new translation by Edith Grossman.
Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1074052574812586112004-01-13T19:56:00.000-08:002004-01-13T19:58:05.903-08:00What am I reading right now?
The Round-Heeled Woman
My resolutions
This isn't book related, but I looked over my list of New Year's resolutions, and nearly all of them were the same this year as last year, and again, most of them will have to wait until my kids are raised:
1. Get both kids through college
2. Do volunteer work
3. Memorize and then master the seven tai chi forms I've learned Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1073099935822555402004-01-02T19:18:00.000-08:002004-01-02T19:23:58.543-08:00Here is my second-favorite Web site, where I find books I want to read:
Arts and Letters Daily
My favorite Web site is Romenesko Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6269492.post-1072926171705048662003-12-31T18:49:00.002-08:002004-01-02T19:14:34.816-08:00What am I reading right now?
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Here's a list of my favorite old book friends. I've read most of them in the past 15 years. Maybe there are some on this list that you would like. A top 10 list is too short, so I've divided it into an A list (must read), a B list (great books), a C list (if you have the time), and a D list (don't waste your time).
A LIST: (Must Amyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08821207115367442492noreply@blogger.com