Ordinary Nothing

It’s sometimes surprising just how narrow the focus of some people can be, when they compare themselves, or a group they identify with, to people who aren’t them.

People will tend to expect others to see them in a much better light than they would themselves see other people placed in the same situation. Or than how they would expect other people to see other people in the same situation.

An obvious, and loaded, source for examples around here (Israel) is how many Israeli citizens see the neighbouring Arabs and Muslims. All too many times people react quite severely to bad/improper/unacceptable behaviour from them, while fully admitting they’d behave very similarly in the same situation. And they don’t see a problem, because it’s different. Somehow. In a way they can rarely articulate.

I’ll probably, laziness permitting, write a lot more about quite a few conversations like this that I had in the past. But this particular post is about a single issue, though I did talk with several different people who feel the same as the single example I’ll present here.

This one is not about any issue specific to Israel, but rather about the rise in Islam, or in the amount of Muslims, in Europe.

I was talking with this person, an Israeli Jew, and he mentioned reading about the “problem” of Muslims in Europe. He kept on for a while about how the Europeans^[1] are having a problem, how it’s becoming a large issue there, and how it’s going to end in riots and violence.

So far nothing you can’t find in the headlines of a lot of newspapers, though his opinion was certainly on the anti-Muslim side.

Then he went on to explain that he completely understands why the Europeans don’t like the Muslims . It’s because they live in their own segregations, keep their own different culture and their own different customs, dress differently, and generally try to keep themselves different and unique instead of trying to completely blend in and assimilate themselves in the local culture of the country.

Funny that. Seems to be nearly identical reasons for Anti-Semitism against Jews. Let’s say circa World War II ? Separate communities? Check. Keeping their own different culture? Different religion? Different rituals, special days, behaviour codes? Check. Different cloths? Check^[2].

But according to him (another reminder, this “him” is actually several people), not liking Muslims because of these reasons is fine and understandable. Not liking Jews because of these reasons, though, was/is bad, racist, and completely unjustifiable.

I was already staring incredulously while listening to this, when I was exposed to another gem. It’s not just that these Muslims keep themselves different, you see. It’s that they plot to make everyone be like them, to take control of Europe by any means necessary, and then take over the rest of the world.

Seriously? All these people, many regular everyday people, all planning together to control the world?

No, I was told. Of course it’s not all of them. But they do what their elders and religious leaders tell them to. And those, who lead them, they have a plan, and are driving towards it.

Ahem. Right. I heard about that somewhere. A while ago. I think it was a little bit different when I heard about it, though. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, anyone?

After being persecuted and attacked by people believing such nonsensical hoaxes, I’m talking to Jews (some religious, some old enough to have personal experience) who have no problem believing the same things, based on the same proof (none whatsoever), because it is about some other group that they don’t like.

And no, I was told, of course it’s not the same. How isn’t it the same? Because The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are vicious lies, but these Muslim leaders really are out to control the world.

I admit that as a Jew living in Israel I’m not feeling very happy about growing percentage of Europe’s population being Muslim. Especially since the lack of love really does go both ways, and most of them are maybe being taught to hate me a lot more than I personally don’t like them. But this sort of tortured logic (or lack thereof), wild accusations, and outright hypocritical nonsense… appals me.

You don’t like people because of who they are, or what they believe? Fine, that’s your right. But be frank about it. And stop it there. For someone who has been, or whose parents have been, in the exact same situation, and thought it horrible, to now be on the complete other side? And to feel fine and justified about it? Not to notice the similarities? Not even after they’re pointed out to you, though it’s obvious enough that it shouldn’t be required? Enough to get me depressed about humanity.

1. Ignoring the fact that these Muslims are Europeans, and citizens of their respective countries. None of the people I talked to seemed to pay attention to this apparently minor fact.[back]
2. In many places, though not all. Which I suppose is the same for the Muslims.[back]

Everyone wants to feel good about themselves, and marketers want people to feel good about their products. So it’s understandable that people will tend to present things in the most impressive and positive way possible. At some point, though, this can get too much, and too annoying.

When you want to get someone to cut your hair, you go to a barber, right? Well, wrong. Has anyone even seen a barber shop in the last few years? We have hair stylists and hairdressers, and go to them in the hair salon. Sounds much more impressive. Also longer, heavier, and (for most of them) somewhat ridiculous.

Some people have gardeners who come over occasionally to take care of their gardens, right? Wrong again. These guys are now landscape engineers, landscape artists, or landscape designers. Sounds very important, for someone who often just maws the lawn, pulls out weeds, and trims the roses, doesn’t it?

When a pipe leaks at your house, do you still call a plumber, or are you already surrounded by various sanitation engineers ?

There are plenty of occupations that get the same treatment, and the amount is growing. Someone feels that the label for their work is not prestigious enough, not impressive enough, doesn’t make them feel as important as they think they are, so instead of just getting over it they decide to do something and reinvent themselves. Except not really. Because reinventing yourself involves changing what you do, but here they just change how they call what they’re already doing.

In the case of occupations, this is somewhat aggravated by the fact that sometimes those fancy sounding names are actually used for something. As in something else, a different profession, implying a different skill-set or training. Doesn’t stop anyone, though.

And it’s not only occupations. It’s spreading to other fields, sometimes to an absurd level.

For example, ingredients. Take a look at the ingredient list on a shampoo bottle, or shower gel. These things contain a large percentage of water. Except that you won’t find water listed anywhere. It sounds mundane. Cheap. It comes out of the tap, after all, so why would anyone pay for a concoction that includes it? No, instead all these bottles proudly list aqua as the main ingredient. It sounds much more dignified. Even if it’s just the Latin term for… water.

OK, rant over. Maybe I’ll go see if there’s anything interesting on TV^[1]. Oh, sorry, I meant on the Home Entertainment Centre.

1. Well, not really. I already know there isn’t, so why waste my time?[back]

The basic concept behind reviewing books is fairly simple. You read the book, then you write the review. Not that complicated.

The details may vary, of course. How much of the plot should be included? What does the review focus on? How much of it should be subjective opinions, and how much objective descriptions and analysis? There are plenty of things that can change from reviewer to reviewer, and from review to review.

But the main and basic details, these never change:

1. Read the book.
2. Write the review.

Now, without the second part, there won’t be a review. So obviously you can’t write a book review without, well, writing the book review.

The first part isn’t quite a tautology as the second, though. But it sure seems to be required, no?

Well, no, apparently not for everyone.

A book reviewer on a Swedish newspaper has got himself into hot water for writing a review of a book that has not been written. To make matters worse, Kristian Lundberg claimed the book’s plot was “predictable” and said the characterisations were one-dimensional.

It was supposed to be a real book, by a real author. It was announced in the catalogue of the publisher. But it wasn’t actually written. Meaning that it wasn’t actually published. Meaning that nobody, including the reviewer, read it.

I do hope that this is an isolated case by an isolated jerk, and not a common phenomenon. Blah.

A few days ago was the new year’s eve, by the Gregorian calendar. These days the Gregorian calendar is very common, so I expect it merited some new year’s eve celebrations even in places that officially go by other calendars.

Like here in Israel, where there’s the Jewish calendar. Officially, anyway. The Gregorian calendar isn’t official, but it is the de-facto calendar used almost anywhere. Large parts of the public sector (Meaning anything government related) use the Jewish calendar on official documents, but even those usually come with the Gregorian dates.

Because hardly any person uses the Hebrew calendar, or care about it, for any reason beyond knowing when the holidays are, or for religious purposes. It may not be very politic to say so, but that’s the case. Almost anything and everything goes by the Gregorian calendar.

One of the dates which people do notice in the Hebrew calendar is our very own new year’s, “Rosh HaShana”, for the start of the Hebrew calendar. So people feel very uncomfortable calling December 31st the new year’s eve. It’s the new civic year’s eve, or something like that. The new tax year’s eve, if you’re an accountant with a sense of humour.

Many people don’t bother celebrating. Many more do celebrate, but like to pretend they don’t. It’s not really celebration, just a special meal, or meeting with a few friends for a party and drinks. Not a celebration at all. Honest.

It can be quite amusing.

What is stranger is another term for the evening. Sylvester. Which has a very curious position here.

Globally it’s not a very common name for new year’s eve these days. It is named after pope Silvester I, who died on December 31st.

But that term is currently popular, as far as I know, in only two places. Germany is one. And Israel is the other.

And what makes it so strange that his name is used to refer to the new year’s eve in Israel? Beside the (not insignificant) fact that Christianity isn’t a big religion here, it’s the fact that pope Silvester was a very big anti-semite who was responsible for a large amount of prosecutions of Jews.

Not the kind of person who usually get happy events celebrated in his name. Not in a country mainly full of Jews, anyway

So the name always strikes me as peculiar. If it was the common term world-wide, that would be obvious. But it’s not. Ask most Americans, or most non-German Europeans, about Sylvester, and they won’t have a clue what is it that you refer to.

That’s not hyperbole. I tried. I also know Israeli people who wished friends abroad a happy Sylvester, only to be met with a question of what is it exactly.

And the name is so prevalent here that it always surprises people. That is what people here know as the term, the only official term, for the Gregorian new year’s eve. So when you wish a foreigner to have a happy foreign holiday, by the name of that foreign holiday, you expect to be understood. And you rarely are.

It also causes problems, of course. Because enough people here actually know who pope Silvester was, and so refuse to celebrate Sylvester. An understandable enough position.

Which can be seen expressed in different ways. Some just refuse to treat the new year’s eve as if something happened. These are the same ones who actually don’t celebrate it at all, not even with a token nod, or a happy new year’s wishes. Others just make doubly sure that they always use the full title of “new civic year” whenever they mention it, emphasising the civic, as if it makes the distinction itself rather than mentioning the new year instead of the name of Silvester.

The large waves of immigration from former USSR countries also drastically increased the scope of the celebrations of new year’s eve. Here it was given token celebrations, while there it was celebrated full-scale. And since the celebrations are, in a large sense, civic and not religious, people keep celebrating it here with the same enthusiasm.

Though there is one problem with this that I never managed to get a good explanation of. The main calendar in most USSR countries when these people emigrated was the Julian one. But here they celebrate on the Gregorian one. Doesn’t it feel like they’re holding the celebration a few days too early? Sure, the Gregorian calendar is the one used here. But by this logic the Jewish calendar is the one used here, so why not celebrate new year’s eve together with Rosh HaShana? It seems inconsistent.

Then again, celebrations and holidays don’t have to be consistent, do they?

Another important aspect of the new year’s eve celebrations, as in many other places in the world, involves drinking a lot of alcohol. That is true for a very large percentage of all those who celebrate. Any excuse for a party. Which makes January 1st one of the non-holiday (officially acknowledged holiday, anyway) days with the highest work absence level in the year.

Quite a lot of people take a vacation, because it’s either that or get to work late with a killer hangover. My office was half deserted when I came to work, and that was the general case throughout the country.

Also, this year a lot more people celebrated new year’s eve than in the previous years. It’s a bold statement, I know. But I base it on facts. Well, on deductions from fact. Mainly, on the fact that the cellular telephony networks were unable to cope with the amount of “Happy new year” SMS messages that were sent close to midnight. Almost anyone I spoke to, and who tried to send such messages, reported getting back a notice that the messages were not sent, and had to retry.

Make me wonder how the systems will cope with wide scale messaging in cases of emergency. Not so well, I believe. Oh, well, here’s a wish for the new year then: May there be no large scale emergencies.

There, that should cover that.

Oh, right, new year’s resolutions. A widespread tradition, where people make bold statements on what they want to do differently, and better, next year. And which people rarely follow through, and usually sheepishly renege on but promise to do better next year. Hmm… OK, new year’s resolution: Not to make any new year’s resolutions I will fail to follow through on. Heh, I think I finally succeeded. Cool.

West End, London, where the best musicals and theatre shows are performed. Where the best singers, dancers, and actors go on stage every evening to entertain the audience.

Tell people that you’ve seen a show in West-End, and they’ll naturally assume it was good. West End implies class. Quality. Careful consideration.

Or at least, all that was true until now. Apparently the standards are falling. And falling very very low.

Ashlee Simpson, also known as the pop singer who officially can’t sing live, has joined the cast of a West End musical.

And not a minor one, some fringe show nobody cares about. Oh, no. She’s now on the cast of Chicago. Chicago, for crying out loud.

And not as a minor character, someone on the swing team who has to stay out back. Oh, no. She’s to be the new Roxie Hart.

What were they thinking?! Were they thinking?!

One of the problems I’m having with the posts about this opera program is that they get a lot of hits by people searching for the singers by name .

Some searchers are probably just people considering whether to pay a ticket someplace to hear them sing. But some are possibly by people considering casting/hiring these singers, and some may be by the singers themselves or their family members.

Many of these may not be particularly happy with running the name and just getting a paragraph or two of very short and inexact personal opinion on the singer’s performance, followed by some details on what the teacher in the master-class said to them and worked with them.

So I figured I should give a short explanation on what am I trying to cover, and why nothing here should be taken too seriously by the people I’m writing about.

[Update: This paragraph is another very important reason, which just seemed to me to be too obvious to mention. But since it may not be, I'm stating it explicitly] Most of the posts I make in these opera program series are about master-classes. Where the singers practice an aria in front of a teacher/”master”, and receive comments, tips, and lessons. The singer will almost never choose an aria they know very well, and which they practised to perfection, for two main reasons. The first being that if the lecturer won’t have anything to add then it will be boring for the audience. And the second being that it will prevent them from learning something they maybe didn’t know before.

This means that on a master-class the singers will almost always, by definition and intentionally, not be at their best. So me perhaps stating some of their faults in this setting does not imply it will be a real fault when they actually sing on a concert or in an opera. It doesn’t mean they won’t, but it also doesn’t mean they will. It is just what impressions I received during the master-class, where they were more taking a lesson than performing for an audience.

Beyond that To start with, I am not a musician. I like classical music, and I like Opera. But I go to these things to watch and listen. I have no formal training. Nothing more beyond any regular member of the crowd in any similar performance.

I also don’t even try to provide a serious musical review. These posts are a combinations of personal notes, to help me remember what and who I heard, and recaps of the interesting parts of the master-classes.

And I mean interesting in the most basic ways, the things which are non-standard events, the crowd pleaser events, the highlights. I omit a lot of things that may have had a place in a musical review of the singer, or the aria, because they’re not interesting to a non-professional, and possibly not interesting to me.

I also lack the proper terminology. Or, more correctly, often I do know enough to understand the exact terms and descriptions if I hear them, but cannot recall them on my own without some time and effort. So I use the closest regular word I can find. Which is sometimes accurate, and sometimes not.

Things can also get repetitive, a few singers per evening, every evening. It may be important for each individual singer to hear about all the things they have done right, but a large part of it is very repetitive, so I don’t bother.

And, perhaps most importantly, I write these posts at least a few days after the master-class, based on very bad notes. During the show I just scribble a few reminders on a piece of paper. I go to these things because I enjoy them, so I mainly want to listen and pay attention, not write. This results in even worse handwriting than my usual, and in clipped and non-grammatical lines. Often I can’t use a lot of what I wrote, because I can’t recall whatever some obscure line was supposed to remind me of. And I often don’t manage take notes even on things I’d like to mention.

So, to make it short, if you’re a singer, doing ego-surfing, landing on one of my pages, and discovering all I had to say about you was “had a clear voice but a little screechy”, and that then I proceeded to detail the harshest things the teacher told about you in the maser-classes, don’t take it too seriously. I don’t hate you, I probably don’t even think you were really bad unless I explicitly said it. And even if I did, you really shouldn’t care. OK?

The International Opera Program/Workshop will soon be here for another year.

And hopefully this time Joan Dornemann, the wonderful organizer and moving force behind the program and the International Vocal Arts Institute, will manage to finish everything without getting sick like last time.

The organization on the local side, at least as far as arranging a program and selling tickets, is sorely lacking. The website of the program had the general dates for the Israeli program published for quite a while now (Though I think the page with details on the people involved is somewhat more recent). But the exact list of shows, and prices, has just been sent to people who are on the regular subscriber’s list to receive it.

Together with a notice that sales only begin on the 22nd. Coupled with the policy of providing tickets by order of the receipt of faxes, I’m not sure if they mean that order faxes sent from now to the 22nd will be discarded, or just that they won’t be handled until the 22nd but will then get priority.

And this is pretty close for something starting on July 10th. Very close.

A few weeks ago I even called the agency responsible of selling the tickets, asking if they know when will they have details and be selling tickets. They didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. They guy I was talking to actually told me that they don’t sell tickets to the Opera, and that I’ll have to contact the Israeli Opera directly for that.

I had to explain to him that this program isn’t related to the Israeli Opera, and that his company was responsible for selling tickets to it for the last few years, and according to what I know is also responsible this year.

He checked with a superior, who apparently didn’t have a clue what I was talking about either since the reply I received was a half-coherent explanation that it’s really too early for something starting as far away as July 10th.

Another issue I have with the technical aspects of the program are the increasing ticket prices. They didn’t raise them from last year, and yes, these are still cheap prices for opera around here. But it’s still not the token payment it was in the early years, but real ticket price like for other types of shows.

Not a problem for people wanting to sample one or two evenings, but cause for serious reconsideration for anyone who might have otherwise wanted to go to about everything. It also makes it harder to convince people who aren’t sure if they like opera to come and try.

Still, as long as they manage to sell out most evenings, I suppose I don’t have a real case. It’s not realistic to expect people on the administrative side to put more effort into making the same, or less, money.

And I have no complaints at all on anyone involved in the artistic side. They’ve done an excellent work so far, and will probably continue to do so.

One thing that I do regret, though hard to say if it’s creative or administrative, is that there are only two weeks of master-classes. Their aria concerts, and operas, are nice, but the heart of the program are IMNSHO the master-classes.

Not that I have much to do about that either. And since it seems they’re still having a hard time convincing people to come to Israel, as Joan passes about half of the classes herself (Not that I’m complaining, she’s brilliant. It’s just that it’s hard work, so seems to indicate lack of additional people to take more evenings off her hands), that’s probably not going to change.

Anyway, now comes the part of deciding what do I want to go to beyond the master-classes (To all of which I want to go, but will settle on less for lack of willing partners), and of trying to get friends and family to accompany me.

Should be fun.

An Islamic group in Indonesia decided to aggressively object the publication of a local Playboy Magazine edition.

Two policemen were injured Wednesday when about 100 demonstrators, most of them Islam Defenders Front (FPI) members, attacked the Playboy Indonesia editorial office in South Jakarta.

Protesters pelted the building with rocks, shattering windows and panicking the tenants.

A very violent reaction. And while 100 aren’t that large a group in general, it’s a very large group if they’re all actually taking part in the riot and not just standing and looking.

There are legitimate ways to object to things you don’t like, but this sort of violence isn’t one of them. If they think there are legal issues, and they claim they do, then they should have used the courts. If they object to the content they should avoid buying the magazine, and encourage others to do the same.

The demonstrators earlier visited National Police Headquarters to complain about the publication of the magazine. They made a bonfire of about 100 copies of the magazine.

Burning about a 100 copies of the magazine is also not the way. And not only because book (and by extension magazine) burning is bad in general. It’s also because in order to create a bonfire of a 100 magazine they had to first purchase those 100 magazines.

This happened before the riot. So these weren’t copied found in the offices by someone breaking in.

Buying the magazine is a good way to encourage publication. It’s demand. Playboy doesn’t care if people read the magazine, or burn it. They earn the same amount of money either way. And either way they can claim the buyers think it’s hot (OK, lousy pun there, sorry).

Plus, imagine how this looks like in the organization’s expense account. Going over the general ledger of an Islamic organization and finding a purchase order for 100 Playboy magazines is bound to make some accountant giggle.

Imagine that, since it’s related to the organization’s goal, they ask the Indonesian equivalent of the IRS for a tax refund…

The Independent Journalists Association (AJI) condemned the attack. AJI secretary-general Abdul Manan said

…

“According to press regulations, the FPI could face a maximum Rp 500 million fine,” he said.

500 million Indonesian Rupiahs are a little less than $53,000. On the one hand it seems like a small amount of money compared to the damage described. On the other hand in local terms it may be quite a lot, I’m really not sure.

I’m also not sure why someone from a journalistic association is a reliable source in determining the maximum fine the organization may receive for the damages they caused. Even if the lawsuit for damages will be done by the AJI, and not directly by Playboy Indonesia, or the country (remember, policemen were hurt), their lawyer should make these kinds of comments, and preferably base them on what they request in the lawsuit. This, however, just seems pulled out of nowhere.

And just how seriously do these guys take it? Was that just a one-time riot because people got in a frenzy? Well, no, it’s more serious to them than that, according to their leader:

“If the magazine continues to be distributed, the FPI is ready to go to war,” he said

Of course, saying war when you’re an organization, rather than a country, carries a different meaning.

Still, it’s a shame that people can actually consider going to what they consider war for a purpose as important and crucial as preventing publication of a magazine.

Chief editor of Playboy Indonesia Erwin Arnada said

…

“Playboy Indonesia is in full compliance with Indonesian law and does not, and will not, contain any nude photography. We have also …

What was that? Playboy Indonesia magazine will not contain any nude photography? Hmm…

I never actually opened an issue of Playboy, but aren’t these things supposed to kind of be about… nude photography? Isn’t that like the whole point?

Or is this supposed to be the version where people finally, finally, actually mean it when they say they only read it for the articles?

A research by the department of sociology in the University of Minnesota claims that Atheist are the most distrusted minority group in America.

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

I’d really like to see some more technical info about this study. Sociology isn’t exactly my field, but this thing is just so strange that I have a very strong feeling they haven’t done something, or quite a few things, right.

Starting with the poll. Telephone sampling? For these type of questions? How exactly does that work?

Imaginary phone call:

Q: Hi. I’m calling from the department of sociology in the University of Minnesota. Can I please ask you a few questions for a research project we’re having?

A: Sure, go ahead.

Q: Would you say Muslims share your vision of American society?

A: What? Those terrorists?! Heck, no!

Q: How about recent immigrants?

A: Yeah, coming to steal our job with their cheap labor. Sure they share my vision of American society. Land of opportunities, right?

Q: What about gays and lesbians, do they share your vision of American society?

A: Those darn *censored*?! No way! They should get their head examined, and go find themselves a good woman. Err… Except for those lesbo *censored*, they should go find themselves a good man. No way they share my vision of American society!

Q: I see, sir. What about atheists then?

A: Atheists?

Q: Yes, atheists. How much do you think they share your vision of American society?

A: Those dumb *censored* don’t even notice that God exist. Even those crazy *censored* Muslims knows God exist, even if they have this funny name for him, and they don’t have a clue what he wants them to do. But the atheists, they don’t even believe there’s a God. I don’t want to live in an America where people can deny God. This is a shame. They should all be shot the damn *censored*, before they ruin America for all of us. And it would be fun to see the look on their face when they realize that they do have immortal souls, and that they got sent to hell because they’re dumb *censored*.

Q: I see, sir. And how do you think are they in comparison to gays and lesbians? You expressed dissatisfaction with both minority groups. Can you say which one do you think is further from sharing your vision of American society?

A: Are you *censored* kidding me? There’s no question! Compared to a *censored* atheist I’ll take a lesbo any time. Heck, I’d marry a lesbo before letting one of those atheist creeps through the door. I’ll have my daughter marry a lesbo, a lesbo named Muhammed even, if it was that or marry an atheist!

Q: Thank you very much sir, you’ve been a great help.

A: You’re most welcome. God bless you, dear.

How does one even start such a conversation? Calling people and asking them who share their vision of American society more? Heck, who will seriously answer someone asking them a question like that on the phone?

And I’d really want to know who they asked in order to surmise the answers they got are representative of the entire US population. Spread evenly across states, or by population size? All states, or selected states? Large cities, or small desolate towns? On a question like this I think they’ll find very big variations, so not controlling for a lot of factors, or separating the data sets, is problematical.

I also really don’t think that their idea of comparing these “minority” groups is sound, if that’s really the way they did it. I mean, comparing atheist to gay people? WTF?! Didn’t it occur to anyone that maybe some of those gay people are not exactly good Christians, and are not spending their lives being worried if they’re really going to hell for breaking some obscure biblical verses?

I’m not saying gay people can’t be, or aren’t, religious. But we get lots of press from religious figures going on and on about how being a homosexual is an abomination unto god and so on. Stand to reason that the gay people at least don’t follow those specific streams.

There will be a correlation. Which makes a question about preferences very complicated. Did they ask more specific questions about lesbian Muslims, lesbian Christians, and lesbian atheists?

The press release actually mentions “other minority groups”. The possibilities for interactions here are immense. Second-generation Puerto-Ricans are probably a minority group, but nothing stops them, or any other minority memeber, from being gay, or from being a Muslim or an atheist.

So claiming atheists are the most distrusted, compared to other groups which contain atheists… Doesn’t sound too good to me.

Also, with the amount of prejudiced people around, I have a hard time believing that most Americans will be happier having their kids marry Black/Hispanic/Muslim/Wiccan/Gay/etc, or a combination thereof, before marrying an atheist. My belief is of course meaningless from a statistical standpoint. But a sample size of merely 2,000 people can’t be that much more significant.

Even though atheists are few in number, not formally organized and relatively hard to publicly identify, they are seen as a threat to the American way of life by a large portion of the American public. “Atheists, who account for about 3 percent of the U.S. population, offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance over the last 30 years,” says Penny Edgell, associate sociology professor and the study’s lead researcher.

I was also surprised by that 3 percent figure. I know most Americans are religious, but I didn’t think it was by that high a majority. Though it’s important to notice that they very probably don’t include agnostics here. Still, the way they define Atheist for the research can have quite an effect. A pity they don’t make it more clear on this press release.

And being a threat to the American Way of Life(TM)? Did they really get that without asking extremely leading questions?

Oh, well, what do I know? I’m probably just a *censored* atheist myself, most of the time.

Not really a post, I just thought that since it’s Purim again, I’ll link to my post from last year, So what is this Purim all about?.

The post is a humorous recounting of the story from the Scroll of Esther. There is one extra character not included in the original bible version of the story, but what makes the post funny is how very very close the rest of it is. Except the interpretations of course, those aren’t in the original. The actual deeds and happenings are, though.

I do realize that it could use some extra styling and editing, but I’m too lazy to do that, so it will just stay as-is for now. Maybe next year…

On the same article regarding the guy being jailed for denying the Holocaust there were some responses. One of which, from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, I find totally objectionable:

The verdict was welcomed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which also highlighted the issue of freedom of speech.

“While Irving’s rants would not have led to legal action in the United States, it is important that we recognize and respect Austria’s commitment to fighting Holocaust denial, the most odious form of hatred, as part of its historic responsibility to its Nazi past,” the center’s associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, said in a statement.

First, countries don’t have responsibilities to their past. They have responsibilities to their present, and should have responsibilities for their future. Nothing Austria will do today will ever change its Nazi past (inventing a time machine and going to kill baby Hitler excluded). It will only have an effect on how the country looks today, and will look in the future. And throwing people in jail for thinking something contrary to current doctrine, even if I believe that doctrine to be absolutely correct, doesn’t seem responsible to me.

More importantly, there are much more odious forms of hatred than Holocaust denial. Killing people, for one. Saying otherwise is greatly belittling every other sort of hate crime in the world. Against Jews, or otherwise. There’s plenty of hate to go around, unfortunately.

The audacity of this Rabbi Abraham Cooper to claim that nothing worse can be done than denying the Holocaust is something I find much more objectionable than someone denying the Holocaust. The latter I can define as an idiot and be done with it. Rabbi Abraham is Worse. Listen Rabbi, when someone murders a Jew for being a filthy Jew, or burns a synagogue, do you find yourself saying “oh, well, at least they didn’t deny the Holocaust?”. Because that’s what you apparently just said.

Heck, one of the reasons for founding Israel was to prevent such events as the Holocaust from happening again. But here we hear that doing similar things is not as bad as denying they happened in the past. So maybe we should just close shop, because we already have Austria guarding that particular front?

But don’t worry, Rabbi. Even though you’re saying far worse things, I don’t think you deserve to go to jail either. You just deserve some contempt and disdain.

An Austrian court sentenced a man to three years in jail, for denying the holocaust existed. Or, as the case may be, for trying to grossly misrepresent the events that occurred as something not even close in scope to what actually happened.

The historical evidence seems pretty overwhelming, so it never ceases to surprise me how some people can choose to ignore so much of it just because of their own personal views. Of course, my own opinion isn’t without bias, me being a Jew (though a secular one) and living in Israel. But still, I do believe that the evidence clearly shows that most of what we believe happened during the holocaust really did happen.

Therefore I do most sincerely believe that this guy, David Irving, is an idiot.

What strikes me as being too much, though, is throwing him in jail for it. Yes, the guy believes in quite a load of… manure. On the personal front I’d probably hate him, and it would very probably be mutual. None of that should be something worth being jailed for, though.

Many people believe in all sorts of totally wild nonsense, much of it extremely easier to prove wrong than it is to prove the holocaust happened (hint: That’s quite easy to prove), and yet nobody throws them in jail for it. Usually they’re not even thrown in asylums.

Many other people (though a large overlap probably exist) believe in all sorts of really offensive stuff, and yet they don’t get thrown in jail for it either.

So why this particular stupid belief, and even the attempt to propagate it in public, should be considered so much worse, is beyond me. I may personally find it more offensive than a lot of other stuff but, until the day I get to rule the world with my iron fist, that shouldn’t really count for much.

That said, the reason Austria has these laws forbidding holocaust denial is understandable. Germany and Austria suffered quite a lot of backlash over the actions of Nazi Germany under Hitler. And the Austrian governments, whether out of political expediency or actual feeling that they should carry a shame over the actions of someone who happened to get born in the same country they live in, wanted to make it obvious how badly they feel about it.

Fine. We got that. You think Hitler was really bad, and what he did was really bad. That’s alright, most of the world agree. Now get over it. Seriously.

Explaining during history lessons what went wrong, and why those views are wrong, that’s fine. Quite welcome, even. But making it illegal to hold a belief, as misguided as it may be, as long as nothing is done about it (Going out killing Jews is doing something. Merely thinking that a good Jew is a dead Jew, isn’t doing something. Not that denying the holocaust is exactly wanting Jews dead, but I think that passes the semantic point well enough), that’s misguided itself.

Yes, it would be much harder for someone with such views to rise to a position of political power where mentioning those views is illegal. That’s true. But is that worth running laws requiring what’s effectively a thought police?

There are so many other bad ideas people believe in. This one got into law because they had one such person who eventually managed to act on it on a large scale. So is that really the main worry they should keep carrying?

Historical events leave scars, and effect laws and culture for many years. The bigger the event, the deeper the scars, and the longer the effect lasts. But as some point people have to separate between laws that have a positive influence on current and future events, and laws which only hurt those and their sole benefit is making people feel better about the past trauma.

Speaking of which, I think it’s quite possible we have similar laws here in Israel. And such laws are even more understandable here than in Austria, since it’s to be expected a country of Jews will be a lot more touchy on the subject. And yet I think even here holding such a law is misguided. Not to mention silly, since those views really have no chance of catching on here.

Let the idiots rave. No need to turn them into martyrs for the few other misguided people who believe them. Heck, most racist and anti-Semitic people (assuming that’s the group the Austrian legislators worried about) don’t deny the holocaust. They may think it was a very good event, and should have gone out longer, but from there to denial the way is long. Not to mention, denying the holocaust takes away from such people the biggest example they have of how things should run.

Which is why I think holocaust deniers aren’t, and shouldn’t be, anything too exciting. Nobody much cares about them and their views, on both/all sides. There’s no much difference between them and people who want to deny other historical events, except that this one is more loaded culturally and politically.

Throwing someone like that in jail is bad on two totally different front. The first is that it simply gives the issue too much attention. Why fight over whether it’s allowed to deny the holocaust? It happened, and anyone insisting the earth is flat (Though I do admit there’s a bit more evidence for that) should be of no interest.

The second is that it’s a bad precedent for arresting people due to simple beliefs and opinions. If people think that such a law is a good idea, the distance isn’t that great until other stupid thoughts and beliefs become illegal as well. And from there it’s a slippery slope. I like my freedom of speech to much for that. To be wholly inappropriate and paraphrase, I don’t want it to end in cases of… First they came for the holocaust deniers, and I did not speak up, because I wasn’t a holocaust denier…

On Thursday was the last International Opera Program in Tel-Aviv’s master-class that I went to. The last actual one was on Friday, but since I couldn’t get to it (a pity, since Paul Sperry would have been very interesting to see, I think), I don’t count it.

Before I go on, though, there’s one comment I want to make. Something that came up because I did not really expect the amount of ego surfing (”Ego-surfing” is the term for when someone runs an Internet search for their own name, or possibly other close people, to see what people write about them) that I’ve been seeing from singers in the program. I got plenty of such hits.

Now, the general rule when posting is be aware that anyone may read it, and I generally follow it, but if people are going to fall on these on purpose, there is something that I think may not be entirely obvious to someone who goes looking for stuff about herself (or himself, but so far the statistics of hits I got here say otherwise). I’m not a music reviewer. More importantly, while I am actually capable of providing much more accurate review of their singing and performance, I don’t. I can go on for each one about how they sang specific notes, how well they did their staccatos, how bright or dark were the notes, and plenty of other musical and singing parameters. But it isn’t interesting. At least, not for the purpose of me posting here.

I don’t expect anyone considering hiring the singers to take my words for anything. And this is why I only say some very few words about how they actually were, and go on with what was done with them. The result is that I may seem to be rather harsh and very critical. That’s not the point. I just want to write about the interesting bits from the class that I remember, and for a class those would invariably be what got mostly mentioned on the stage. Which would be exactly the things that the singers did wrong.

So if I start by listing a singer’s faults, and go on about how much work they got during the master-class, it doesn’t necessarily imply they were bad. It doesn’t necessarily imply they were good either, but they could have been. Most of them are good, or very good. But if someone read these posts thinking (mistakenly) that the point is to review the singers, they could get the impression that I think most of them are really bad. So if you’re one of the a singers who came here ego-surfing, don’t assume I wrote anything about you beyond what’s explicitly there. OK?

Now that’s that out of the way, back to the business at hand. The maser-class was supposed to be another one of Joan Dornemann’s, but she came on stage and informed us all, in a hoarse voice, that she has a sore throat and can’t really speak. She sounded convincing. Although, of course, if she just wanted to bail out, I’m sure given the circumstances she wouldn’t have had a problem faking a very convincing sore throat, or getting vocal coaching to help her do it if she can’t on herself. Not that I’m saying she did that, but it’s an amusing thought. I hope she got better, and after all this is indeed one of the risks of speaking a lot.

So instead of Joan we got Lucy Arner. Something which surprised me a bit, because while on some of the past years she did have a few master-classes, she didn’t officialy get one on this year’s program. So I originally assumed she just didn’t come. But since obviously she did arrive, she was right there after all, I’m not sure why exactly was it that they didn’t schedule her originally.

I did see two previous master-classes with her in the past, once of which was alright, and one which was bad since in it she was very technical with the singer and didn’t pay much attention to the audience. So when Joan announced the switch, I was somewhat apprehensive. As it turned out, though, she was excellent and interesting, so my worries were entirely unfounded. Still, I must not have been the only one, since there were a few people who up and left when Joan got off the stage. Their loss.

The first singer was an Israeli mezzo-soprano called Maya Lahyani. She sang Must the winter come so soon?, from Vanessa, by Samuel Barber. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I was a bit concerned for purely prejudicial reasons, when I saw the name Lahyani in connection with opera. I am however glad to say that those concerns were unfounded, and she was a really good singer. She had a very lovely and clear voice, and while her diction was a little flaky it was still possible to understand everything. Of course, with the way many people around here speak English, it’s not such a surprise that it’s easy to understand English regardless of how it’s pronounced, but that’s not her fault.

And in case anyone cares, according to Lucy this is a very good audition aria, short and beautiful. It’s also one of Lucy’s favourites, apparently, but that means it’s a bad piece if she’s giving the audition, since she’s bound to notice every little thing.

In this case they just worked on diction. Lucy said that English is a hard language in this regard, all full of not only diphthongs, but triphthongs and quadriphthongs as well. Well, I’m not entirely sure about those last, but that’s what she said, even if in half-jest. She also said some of them are ridiculous, which is really no way to speak about a language, is it? Even one having ridiculous sounds.

Lucy also corrected some cases where Maya drew the sounds beyond where the word ended, telling her that there are no vowels there, so she shouldn’t sing them. And in an amusing twist gave an example of a famous singer, but one who does it wrong, instead of one who does it right “You may have heard Pavarotti sing like that. Pavarotti has all these extra vowels”.

We also received two comments related to other languages. One was that “French is a very good language for singing in English”, since it has vowels which correspond well to the sounds required when singing in English. The other was about parts of the song where the singer blows air which isn’t used directly for the note being sung “Air that doesn’t support the tone is a big no-no in Italian. But a yes-yes in English”.

There was another part where Lucy wanted Maya to sing more slurred R consonants. She asked her “How do you make a slurred R?”, and when she couldn’t give her a good answer responded with “People don’t think about that. I think about that… I have too much free time on my hands”. And went on to explain that you can make a slurred R by pulling the tongue out a bit, and the lower sides of the cheeks (She used a better terminology, but since the proper words elude me at the moment, that will have to do) inside. Now you know.

The second singer was Karina Lucas, a mezzo-soprano from England. She sang Il padre adorato, from Idomeneo, by Mozart. She had a nice voice, but a little flat. Mostly Lucy worked with her on staying closer to the score, stating that in this case, especially given the recitative parts, Mozart does not give the singer a lot of leeway, “go with the orchestra”. At one point she did say that in some cases, had it been another composer, then the change Karina made might have been a good idea, but in this case “Mozart, him I trust”, even if he was just 24 at the time.

Lucy also told her that in cases of recitatives she must pay a lot more attention to the consonants. Something which singers don’t do a lot when singing Italian, since “Italian is a vowel’s language”. Which I think is somewhat amusing considering Italian only has five of them, but it’s true that they are still what you mostly hear, and often the consonants get smoothed over.

The original third singer did not arrive, with Lucy saying something I didn’t quite hear, but which resulted in her stating the singer was just too tired. Instead we got a duet, The Cherry Duet, from L’Amico Fritz, by Mascagni. The singers were Talia Or, who as usual had a great voice but was somewhat lacking diction and acting, and a tenor whose name I didn’t manage to catch. When he said it the name sounded a little like Pierre, but he didn’t look like a Pierre, so I really don’t know. He was nice, but gave me the impression he was more speaking, than singing, his aria.

When they announced what they are going to sing, Lucy said “Oh, too bad!”, going on to say that it’s one of her favourite arias (yes, again. She must have had a good day. Or she really likes a lot of arias). As another side note, this was one of the very rare times when the pianist received a mini-lecture as well, about something which he (Rolando Garza) apparently didn’t do right. Lucy is a known pianist herself, so it makes sense she pays attention.

In the aria Suzel and Fritz are meeting when she is picking cherrys, and he offers to help. Or as Lucy put it “They are talking about picking cherrys… Yeah, right!”. And tried to get the two singers to look a little more like there’s something going on beneath the surface. She went on in great length about the movie Continental Divide in which there is a scene where supposedly the two main characters have a discussion about ornithology which just barely mask that “they are actually making love with words”. Nobody in the hall seemed to have seen the movie, though. Including the singers. Still, the idea should have been easy enough to get. But neither of them seemed to be able to hold it for more than a few seconds.

There was another one of those pick a hot actor parts, and Lucy got Tom Cruise’s name back as an example. She wasn’t too happy with it, though, saying that “Everybody says Tom Cruise. Can you please be more original?”. Eventually I think they settled for Harrison Ford.

At another part she said that they needed to be a little less focused on the exact singing, and go with their instincts. That it’s a problem for them because the teachers “nag them all the time about their a vowel, and double consonants”, during which Talia Or started to very dramatically nod up and down with her head to show that they are indeed getting nagged a lot about their a vowels. Goes to prove that she does have the dramatic acting ability, she just needs proper motivation.

We then went on a break. The cue for the audience was the usual one: half the singers were gone, and nobody else rushed immediately on-stage when the duo left. Lucy took a little longer to get it, I think because she didn’t have a master-class in a while, and this was indeed a last minute thing. So kept yelling backstage for them to send the next singer. But soon enough people from the audience shouted at her that there’s an intermission, and she was kind enough to allow us (well, the half that didn’t reach the doors of the hall yet) to take a 10 minute break.

During which I saw the last duo and a couple of other singers leave. Usually the singers stay to watch the other master-classes and students, so I noticed that they leisurely went away. Not sure why, but it doesn’t matter much, I suppose.

The first singer after the intermission was Amit Friedman, an Israeli baritone. He sang Herr Gott Abrahams, from Elijah, by Mendelssohn. He had a good voice. But I feel sorry for the guy, because even if he was a totally amazing singer, which he wasn’t, he’s still going to have a hard time finding someone who will want him on stage. He’s very very tall, and thin. In addition to that he also stands very hunched and tucks in his chin, possibly due to years of talking to people who are shorter than him. The overall effect is that he looks extremely awkward and out of place. There may be a few roles he could fit into, but in most places he will look very inappropriate when on stage.

A large part of the lesson was therefore spent trying to get him to stand straight, and not look all hunched and tucked in. Which didn’t really help. At best he’s extremely used to standing like that, and at worst it’s now physical. This may be alright when talking to people, but is a great problem for his stage presence. Lucy did get him to force himself to straighten up a few times, but it never held.

Elijah is also an oratorio rather than an opera. So this aria is “an oratorio aria, not an opera aria. The singing is the same, but the details are different”. Meaning that they worked on several points done a little differently. It also has sequences which start in the high notes, and culminate in the low notes, with the climax at the lowest. This is the opposite of what usually happens in Italian, and most arias, so takes some practice to do right. Which he did after it was pointed out to him and he tried it a couple of times.

The last singer was Shlomi Wagner (not related AFAIK, but definitely raised the musical expectations), also a baritone from Israel. He sang Bella siccome un angelo, from Don Pasquale, by Donizetti. He’s still young, and lacking both his very high notes and very low notes, but he has a beautiful voice, strong vibrato, and will probably become an excellent singer once he’ll grow up some more and keep practising.

In this aria Dr. Malatesta tries to describe to Don Pasquale a women he wants him to marry. The women is… not impressive, to say the least, so the aria is in essence a sales pitch, full of empty compliments and outright lies. Much of what they did in the lesson was trying to get Shlomi to put it more in this perspective, mostly from the acting angle. As she told him, he’s trying to sell damaged goods, and should present the aria like the stereotypical slick used-cars salesmen.

They went on with him singing, while all the time she was throwing various metaphors at him related to what is going on in the aria. At one point the aria goes on about how the women is as fresh as the lilies, so Lucy pointed to one of the large flower pots at the side of the stage saying “as fresh as the lilies over there…”. Except those are plastic flowers, so she went straight on with “Fresh NOT like the lilies over there. Looking a bit fake”.

At another point the aria goes on about her enchanting smile, and Lucy added “The most beautiful smile… hiding the worst dental works in history”.

As for singing, there was a time when he held a note for a too short duration. After telling him to lengthen it, for a few times, she jokingly exclaimed that “You’re twenty. You’re into instant gratification”.

Also, when he needed to sing a note he couldn’t quite reach, she told him how to sing so it will be less noticeable “want you to do that soft, since your voice don’t have these low notes yet, and we don’t want them to know that”. And later “We’re going to take out the g-flat. For now. Next year, you get the g-flat.”

There was one more incident, going on during the time Shlomi was singing. I heard a cell-phone ringtone from behind me. I looked around, and saw some lady starting to rummage inside her bag. It seemed like she started to press some buttons, since the phone beeped in a manner fitting a cellphone keypad, but it didn’t quite stop the ringtone played. The lady got a lot of attention, and eventually managed quiet the phone down.

A few seconds later, that’s right, her phone rang again, but this time she quieted it rather quickly. About a minute after that… Anyone cares to guess? That’s right, her phone rang, and she once again started to fiddle with it inside her bag. Apparently the concept of shutting a phone down, or disconnecting the battery if they can’t locate the off button, is beyond the intellect level of some people.

Oh, and the best part? When she did that on this last time she quietly (But I was close enough to hear) and angrily uttered to herself “Nimaas li!”, which can be roughly translated as “I had enough of this!” or “I’m tired of this!”. She, you notice. Because she’s the one being bothered. Not the rest of the audience, and the singer and coach on stage. She had enough… These people still manage to amaze me every time, though I should really get used to it by now.

A very enjoyable evening, overall, and a good master-class. As far as the program goes, I’m scheduled to go to one of their aria concerts, and one of the operas, but I’m not sure there will be anything warranting a post. Until next year, then.

On Tuesday I’ve been to another master-class in the International Opera Program in Tel-Aviv. The second, and last, one by John Norris for this year.

There were only five singers on the program this time. Not only that, but John started off by mentioning that two of them wouldn’t show up and will be replaced by others.

And of course, right after I used the previous post to say how there is an oddly high ratio of female sopranos compared to the other singers, on this class there was only one female singer. Though a soprano.

The first singer was Andrew Sritheran, a tenor from New Zealand. He sang E lucevan le stelle, from Tosca, by Puccini. He had an excellent voice, clear and deep. He might have had a slight problem on the high notes, but overall sang very well. His main problem was being too tense and rigid, which mainly affected his pose, but also, a little, his singing.

John worked with him to have him relax, and to get into the rhythm of the piece. The singer was also acting like he was singing to the back wall, while the aria should have been directed more inside, as if singing to himself. This probably came from basic singing lessons where singers are often told to sing out to the audience. By the time they reached the end of the aria together, there was a very noticeable improvement.

The seconds singer (not listed in the program page, so may be misspelled) was David Baumine. He sang Avant de quitter ces lieux, from Faust, by Gounod. His singing was good, but he was acting too indifferent, without clearly expressing what was going over the character.

John said he needs to “bring the aria to life”. He worked on developing a spatial relation to the piece, choosing specific direction on stage where Marguerite would be, and where the other fellow soldiers would be. They then worked on the proper pose and expressions suitable for when speaking to each of these and when praying to god, and later on the transitions and places where more complex things needed to be expressed. Since this is a class, John had him go a little overboard, including putting his hand to his chest when turning to Marguerite, something he said he’d never let him actually do on stage in a performance.

The third singer was Andrew Heggie (Yep, we had two Andrews on stage), a Baritone from England. At least, on the program he’s listed as coming from England, but he deemed it important enough to inform us that while he does live in England for several years, he’s originally from Australia. He sang Deh vieni alla finestra, from Don Giovanni, by Mozart. He was alright, but not impressive at all. He sang too weakly, didn’t hold some notes for the correct length, and had a slightly brittle voice. He also seemed much too bored for someone singing a serenade to a women in an attempt to seduce her.

As it turned out, he was also not entirely aware what was happening in the aria, thinking Don Giovanni was going after Donna Elvira. John reminded him that he’s not serenading to her, he already has her and she just left for some time, but instead was trying to seduce her maid. He told him he should act more like a scene of seduction “One girl out of the way, another in the way”.

Trying to get Andrew to look like he’s lusting after a women didn’t work, so John introduced the theatre concept of substitution. Finding something else which can act as a substitute to what is needed. And decided to go with food. Probably because the two things do tie together, and the reactions are somewhat similar, and not just because Andrew looked like he really likes food.

So John said to Andrew “Tell me some things you really like to eat, which are really bad for you”, and then proceeded to indicate three separate area on the stage which Andrew was supposed to pretend contained one a pile of pizzas, the second a pile of spring rolls, and the third a pile of lemon-meringue pies. Some older lady sitting a couple of rows behind me said to someone in a low voice that they have very similar tastes.

And then John had Andrew sing the aria again, while constantly drawing his attention to the imaginary piles of food. Which did wonders, since the guy really did manage to put on an expression full of desire, as he was directing his gaze from one food to the next on John’s cues, “Feel the oil, the oil!”. As John commented “Sometimes substitution is better than the real thing”.

The fourth singer will have to remain a mystery. The guy didn’t bother presenting himself when he came on stage. Actually, he didn’t even presented the piece, which is a big huge no-no. With most other teachers, for example I explicitly remembering it happening with Joan a couple of times, he would have been stopped and instructed to do it properly. Now, normally I’d assume he is who the printed program said he is, Nimrod Grinboim, a tenor from Israel, except that we were told there would be two changes, and the following singer was exactly the one on the list. The guy was an Israeli, though, so it’s possible it was indeed him. In any case, what he sang was Una furtiva lagrima, from L’Elisir d’Amore (Love Potion), by Donizetti. He sang reasonably, but looked too happy and smug for the aria.

John tried working with him, as usual, on getting into the mood of the aria, and connecting to it emotionally. And failed miserably. Whatever John tried to do, the guy just wouldn’t get it. I seriously got the impression he came on stage wanting to sing to the audience, but wasn’t interested at all in learning anything.

The first thing John did was the tried-and-true method of getting him to say the words in his own language. The intention is not to provide a translation, but to “say it in your own words”, to get something with the same semantic meaning, but which it will be easier to relate to. Anyone who saw practically any of these master-class would have gotten the concept, anyone studying a little singing should have, and even the friend who came with me to this evening (and who was seeing something opera related for the first time ever) got the concept. Yet this singer didn’t. He used a translation which resulted in sentences so archaic that nobody would have been able to relate to them emotionally. Later on, when he had to do the same for some other words, he had very hard time of coming up with anything that he would say to a women who he loves and knows loves him back in turn.

It went like that for the entire lesson. Horribly bad translations, and total failure to connect emotionally on any level. Nothing, Nada, zilch. He just didn’t bother trying, and only kept going through the motions until he’ll be released. Either that, or he just finds the entire concept of love so foreign that there is nothing for him to relate to. Laziness and lack of care seem more likely, I think and hope.

The last singer was Rinat Moriah, a soprano from Israel. She sang Glitter and be gay, from Candide, by Bernstein. She has a good voice, and good vocal control, but she sang a little too quietly and weakly. At one spot during the aria she stopped for a second as she forgot the words, and John came to her rescue and provided it for her. Apart from that it was a good performance, and she did make an effort to show some emotions and match her mood to the aria. Very good potentional here, I think, once she’ll learn how to get more breath.

One thing she didn’t do quite right, but rather easily corrected once it was mentioned, is that she sang to the audience (as Joan Dornemann said on a past master-class, they should sing for the audience, but not to the audience), while in the aria Cunegonde was talking to herself. Other than that they worked on making the acting even more connected, and more appropriate to the nuances and changes in the aria. When the aria went about her looks and clothes, John told her to imagine a large mirror between herself and the audience, and observe herself in the mirror. Later on a similar part he had her examine her supposed jewellery, since even though the master-class was done without costumes, the character has them, and will have them during a performance.

Some of the ways to elicit the proper behaviour and emotional mood were somewhat amusing. Like the part she had to go from the self-reassuring happy thought about her clothing and looks, to a more sad and introspective mood, and he said “And then we see the first wrinkle…”.

A very good evening overall. Though we did come out confused over that mysterious singer who came for some unclear goal…

Monday evening I went to yet another master-class in the International Opera Program in Tel-Aviv.

The well established fact – that it’s impossible for my father to go anywhere without meeting someone who knows him, was demonstrated once more, as we came across no less than three different people who said hello to him. At least this solved the problem of how to pass the time until the show started.

Another change was that they started selling those T-Shirts of the opera program. White shirts with blue prints. The money supposedly goes to support the musical studies, so a price of 50 ILS per shirt is understandable in that regard. Yet they did raise the actual ticket prices a lot over the years, so we weren’t too inclined to donate more.

The master-class was again by Joan Dornemann. On the latest years, when it becomes harder to bring extra talent to teach, Joan shoulders more of the burden herself. She does bring John Norris, but if I recall correctly he does exactly two master-classes on each years.

On this particular evening all the student singers were Israelis.

The printed program only listed five singers for the evening. The first one on stage was not on the list (ergo I may have misspelled the name), a girl called Lauren Yelinkovitz. She started by singing Oh Mio Bambino Caro, from Gianni Schicchi, by Puccini. She had an overall nice voice, good pronunciation, but sang too weakly and without any expressions of emotions. The hand-clapping of the audience were a bit mild, and Joan told her that she needed to show more personality, and act a little more. Joan then asked her if she had also prepared a different piece.

It does happen sometimes when for some reason the teacher doesn’t want to go over the aria which was just sung, but in this case it appeared to be out of the blue. Lauren said that she had, and shortly started to sing Popular from the musical (yes, that’s right, musical) Wicked. Not only that, but she sang it like a musical piece rather than an aria piece. And she acted it as well, instead of just singing. She certainly did show a whole lot more personality. It was quite obvious something a little fishy was going on. And indeed after she finished, and got plenty of cheers (she sang well, and it was fun, though her voice did tend to be a bit squeaky when she went to the higher notes), Joan said that it’s a preview for the Broadway evening. After that the singer went off the stage. She wasn’t really there for a master-class.

As one of the aria concerts in the series, there will be one where their singers will sing songs from musicals, instead of arias. Since they haven’t yet sold all the tickets, they decided to give us this song as a sort of a self publicity effort. It’s sadly understandable why it wasn’t sold out. The opera crowd they usually attract isn’t exactly interested in musicals, many of them are very old, and old fashioned in what they want to hear. And people interested in musicals may be reluctant to hear those songs performed by opera singers. Which is also why I’m not going to be there myself, since my one friend who realy likes musicals does not like opera, and so preferred to stay clear of this. It’s even sadder, considering that as hard as it is to see operas in Israel, it’s much much harder to catch a musical in English around here.

The first actual master-class singer was Shira Raz, a mezzo-soprano. She sang Svegliatevi nel core, from Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar), by Handel. I’ve heard her in the past, and she’s a very good singer. I really liked her voice, and her singing. Her only problem was with the pronunciation and diction. Joan thought so too. She started off by saying that this is a very difficult aria, and that it’s usually sung by a contra-tenor. That the piece is bouncy, and very personal, and listeners usually either really like it, or really don’t like it. She went on to say that as far as this aria is concerned, singers are divided clearly into two groups, “Those who can sing it, and of those who can’t sing it. Those who can, there is nothing to say to them about it, and those who can’t, well, there is nothing much to say to them either”. And that Shira certainly can sing it.

And then of course came the heavily emphasized “However”, followed by a lot of criticism on her pronunciation and diction. She said that what Shira sang wasn’t Italian, it was an amalgamation of all sorts of languages, including bits of ancient Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and so on. She turned to the crowd, and asked how many people speak Italian. There were something like 3-5 people who raised their hands, including my father. She then asked if they understood the words Shira sang, to which the replies ranged from occasionally to sometimes. Certainly no yeses.

Joan went on to say that there are basically two reasons for lousy diction, that the singer is “either lazy, or dumb”. She then went on about how industrious and hard working she knows Shira to be. But before the crowd got too full of mirth, Joan also said she doesn’t think Shira is dumb either, “which leaves one thing, you didn’t think about it”. Joan went on to explain to her that paying attention to diction is important, and that she should take it seriously and work on it.

Joan then went over the aria with her, in the typical master-class fashion, correcting various diction errors as she went along. The thing is, Italian only has five vowels. A lot less than many other languages. So very often you hear singers who aren’t native Italians singing Italian arias with all sorts of sounds which just don’t exist in the language. On a master-class some years ago Joan called it “singing Italian in French”. And she said, with some hyperbole, now “Italian has 5 vowels. French has 27 vowels. And German has 528 vowels”. By the end of the lesson, my father said Shira’s words became a lot more understandable.

Then came Assif Am-David, a male (The only one this evening. Actually, most classes feel skewed towards females, and sopranos. I’m not entirely sure why) baritone. He sang Tutto è disposto, Figaro’s third aria, from Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), by Mozart. He had good voice, and good clear diction. Basically a very impressive performance, except that he seemed to get too harp at times. More so than I noticed at other times I heard this Aria performed. Joan described it better, by saying he sang it as if Figaro was angry. She started off by asking him a little about how much he worked on the aria and if he practice it a lot (yes). She said that it looks very structured and formed, like it was already very fine-tuned by him and his teacher, to reach a very specific and well crafted performance. She said she doesn’t really want to work with him on any specific part, since doing so may shake something of the structure of the aria he has established for himself, and make it all tumbling down forcing him to learn it from the start.

Yet she did tell him that he should try to do it less angry. That “Mozart did not write angry people”. The style at the time in Italy, and the way Mozart wrote, was more witty. Figaro does rant against women in the aria, but it’s all slightly veiled and hinted. Figaro doesn’t go around screaming in anger, but more circumspectly tries to warn his friends about the dangers of women. They went over parts of the aria where he tried to sing and act a little less angry, and it was an improvement.

The next singer was Gal James, singing Mi chiamano Mimì, the first Mimi’s aria, from La Bohème, by Puccini. She has a good deep voice, dark high tones, and barely passable diction. Mostly Joan worked with her on fitting her acting and tone to what is going on in the opera. Joan had Gal sitting on a chair, and brought a guy to sit in front of her on a second chair to pose and Rodolfo. This was slightly more complex than the similar things from the previous master-classes I listed here, since he also had to move a little according to the aria’s progression.

They elaborated on the situation on the aria. Such as that Mimì isn’t originally as shy as Gal portrayed her, since she did come to Rodolfo of her own accord on a made-up pretext. Or that in two points during the aria Puccini inserted the same note he used by the end of the opera when Mimì died, and this can be used to show a little hint that not all is entirely well.

There was also a little joke from Joan, coming up as part of the discussion, going something like “Of course it’s possible to fall in love in half an hour! You don’t believe me, go to Italy, you’ll see… Of course, you may also not stay in love for more than half an hour.”

Dana Marbach, another Soprano, sang Saper vorreste, from Un Ballo in Maschera (Dance in Mask? I don’t think I encountered an official translation in English), by Verdi. A very short aria, with plenty of “Tra la la la la” bits. She was very nice, but the “la” words sounded half swallowed sometimes. The character played, Oscar, is a guy. Joan told Dana that she crossed her hands like a women does, and to go get some sessions with John Norris to work with her on walking like a boy.

Joan also tries to make her stop pulling her shoulders up whenever she was drawing a breath, stating that her lunges are more down, and that it doesn’t help the singing a single bit. She did say that dancers sometimes breath higher than singers, but then asked Dana if she thinks she’s a singer, the answer to which was of course a No. Joan put hands on her shoulders to remind her to keep them down. Later on she had her singing while standing on one foot, to help her concentrate on her body’s position and balance.

Joan also mentioned the “La” words, saying that in Italian she needs to make a sharper “L” sound with the top of her tongue, not a think one with the back of it.

The last singer was Anastasia Klevan, also a soprano. She sang Donde lieta uscì, the second Mimi’s aria, from La Bohème, by Puccini. She sounded alright, with decent diction, but nothing too exciting or inspiring. She also occasionally went on notes that weren’t according to the text. Another big problem with her was that she was being very much out of character, since (as we found out once Joan asked her about the story) she was wrong about what is going on in the aria.

This aria occurs after Mimì discovers that her love Rodolfo broke up with her. Joan asked Anastasia why is that, and she said that she thinks Rodolfo is jealous. At which point Joan went on about how some singers just read their own text, and the pages of the opera they need to sing, without reading the rest. Mimì is very sick at this stage of the story, and Rodolfo earlier in the story said to a friend he cannot stand being with her, watching her dying, knowing that he cannot help, and does not have the money to get help for her. But since Anastasia didn’t read this part, she was only aware of the official excuse, that Rodolfo was jealous. And so the whole aria was sung differently. The aria should have been more tragic, with internal desperation, not with annoyance.

Anastasia also sang a few notes longer than specified. And some notes differently from what was written. Joan said something like “You don’t get to do that. There are rules. You park here. You sing this note that long. You don’t do that, they take away your car, they take away you job”. Later on, on a more general note to all the singers there “You guys don’t read the music”, or “You poor composers. You make up these things, thinking I won’t notice”.

When going over the aria, someplace near the end Anastasia smiled, eliciting from Joan a comment of “That’s a very big smile for a very sick girl”. There was also a point where she tried the method of getting Anastasia to say some of the words in her own language, in this case Russian. She told her to say in Russian “Listen to me!”, to which Anastasia replied that there aren’t words for that in Russian. Joan dismissed that with “I was in Russia. And they said Listen to me! They had no problem with that.”

Reading this post of mine again, there is just one thing I think I need to explicitly clarify, about Joan Dornemann. I quoted (From memory and hastily half-scribbled notes, so all quotes are approximate) plenty of stinging and sarcastic comments. She isn’t really like that. She does use barbed words sometime to drive a point home, but she’s extremely nice, warm, and friendly. A lot of it is a matter of tone, but I can’t say anything that would be clearer than read those quotes with a Joan Dornemann voice. Since most of the people reading it doesn’t know it, assume it sounded totally without malice, and with underlying humour. Plus, of course it’s mostly those type of sentences which stick to my mind well enough to quote, so the sample you get is already biased. All the totally nice and happy things may matter more for a singer, but lack any… journalistic appeal from me side. You’d be bored senseless from this post if I quoted those.

Overall it was still a nice and enjoyable evening, but not the best master-class I’ve been to.

Oh, and as we were leaving we saw the fire hydrant outside leaking a lot water. Despite telling someone from the staff about it last week…

On Thursday I have been to another master-class in the International Opera program.

As before, due to reasons of traffic, I had to arrive some time before the actual show started. It being a warm day (outside. The AC inside worked fine, but I did have to cross from the car to the hall), and me being a little thirsty, I decided to take a risk and sample the food stand they opened up in there.

So I went for the iced-vanilla drink. On the good side, it didn’t taste just like chicken. On the bad side, it wasn’t all that iced, and worse – it wasn’t all that vanilla. It did have an odd sweet and sticky taste reminiscent of cheap artificial-vanilla-flavour powders that I didn’t get to try for years and years. Next time, I’ll drink before going out.

There was a fire hydrant outside which was spilling a lot of water all over the place, making a huge pond in the park’s grass (The conservatorium is located inside a small public park). We went to look for someone in charge of the facilities, and failing to find anyone we went to the musical admin instead, and informed a guy who said he’ll pass it on. [update:Been there again today for another master-class. As we went out, we saw the same fire hydrant happily leaking water]

[update: Forgot to mention the bit in this paragraph on the original post] When we entered the hall we found two women sitting in our seats. And the seats are numbered, and issued on the ticket. We double checked the row and seat numbers, which matched what we recalled. One of the women pulled her own tickets, and showed us they listed the same row and seats. What she didn’t notice was that her tickets had the wrong date. Once we pointed out this minor detailed they found their actual tickets and moved. They didn’t show any inclination to go do something about the already torn tickets, but I hope they did or they won’t be able to use them on the actual date.

The master-class was taught by John Norris. He does not work with the singers about their singing, but rather on acting, and pose. While some of the older members of the audience seem to be stuck in the opinion that nothing besides singing matters, thing beside singing do matter. The singers have to appear as if they’re convincingly singing what they’re actually singing. Seeing a passionate love song sung in a completely indifferent face is bad, and quite jarring.

Not only that, but by making the singers concentrate on what the aria is about, they also sing it better, in a way which is more fitting of the mood and atmosphere. So while he doesn’t directly work with them on the singing, it is still affected.

This time all the singers, except one, were not Israelis. The all came from the area of the Americas. There was also one less singer, since one did not arrive due to reasons which were not specified to us.

On a further technical issue, the lighting were arranged wrong, and it was hard to see the singers, so after the first one we took an early recess while it was being taken care of.

Lea Friedman, from Hawaii, was the first singer, singing Juliet’s Waltz from Romeo and Juliet by Gounod. She had a very clear voice, but sang a little bit too quietly. She was also too wound up and tight, and this is what John worked with her on, trying to get her to loosen up, so she could express more of the joy that the aria should have.

The first trick included letting her fall backward a bit, let him catch her, and push her back up. The sensation of falling is liberating, and it’s enough of a shake to make it hard keeping too tight. He told her to just drop back whenever she felt the need, and that he’ll catch her. This worked very nicely, except this one time when he a little farther than usual, and gave her a start when he only caught her up a bit after she expected…

Also, to get from her the proper posture and behaviour she should have when thinking of a handsome guy she may meet at the ball she’s invited to, he told her to imagine that someone she believes attractive is standing there, and they settled for Brad Pitt. It was amusing, and she did perk up properly.

Another thing the did near the end was to get her spinning several times, and at a point he had her throw off her shoes before spinning. Not something she should do on an actual performance, of course, but a good way on practice to get into the feeling of the proper mood.

Pascale Beudin from Canada came next, singing Pamina’s aria from The Magic Flute. She had a bit of an overly squeaky voice. Mostly John worked with her on getting a more emotional response, fitting the different stages in the aria.

He used a common technique, getting someone else to sit on the stage, to serve the role of Tamino. Since the point in the aria is for Pamina to get Tamino’s attention, Tamino sat with his back to her, and she had to act like she’s trying to get him to notice her and turn around.

They went over the aria, going through the several different emotional states, pausing occasionally for her to say and act in her own words what Pamina says in the aria. This is also a very common technique, and helps the singer see how their body language relates to the words. It’s easier to connect to emotional phrases in your native tongue. Since she’s a Canadian he gave her the option of going with English or French, and she decided to go with English.

He went with her over several different kinds of moods/attitudes that could fit. One was an attempt to show Tamino what will be denied him. Which rolled the crowd in laughter with her modern version, “No nookie for you!”.

Another amusing part was near the end, at the death threat. After saying “I’ll kill myself!” in the spirit of the aria, there was a comment (I don’t remember if from Pascale or someone else) “I’d actually rather kill him”. After the laughter subsided John replied that it may be so in “modern times, but in the olden days” it was different.

Rachel Mondenaro, from the US, sang Violetta’s first aria from La Traviata. She had a strong and deep voice, but somewhat too breathy, and she mostly looked like she was singing to the floor. John worked with her on trying to appear more dazed, more shocked, as she contemplates Alfredo and the discovery that he so deeply loves her. During the aria he had her act like she’s almost fainting and falling on a chair (which she did far too carefully and daintily, but it’s a start). Later on they went through sobering up, and at the end of the aria, when Alfredo arrives, he said that she should show some strong reaction. It can be either a good one, or a bad one, to be suddenly confronted by Alfredo and the reality, but there should be a reaction.

Angel Ruz, from Mexico, sang Quanto è bella, quanto è cara from L’Elisir d’Amore (Love Potion). He was the only male singer this evening, and a sole Tenor against all the other Sopranos. Even the singer who didn’t arrive was a soprano. His singing originally wasn’t entirely smooth, like there was some noise in the background of the sound (A poor description, I know, but the proper terms seem to elude me for the moment). He also seemed totally unconvincing as he sang the self deprecating love song from Nemorino to Adina.

Here John also used another person to sit on the stage as Adina, and give him focus. For most of the, very short, aria they worked on getting Angel to say the words in his own language, so he could put himself on the proper posture and expression.

One amusing part was when john, trying to help him understand what he wants him to say, told him to say in his own words something like “I’m pathetic, I suck”. To which Angel, the Mexican, replied with “What does it mean suck?”.

Most of the times his Spanish versions of “you are so beautiful” etc, were very much inane instead of passionate, but on some cases he did loosen up with his Spanish ending up with much more… er… powerful descriptions, which amused the crowd to no end.

Most importantly, the guy did improve noticeably afterwards. Not only did he looked to be far more into it, but his voice became more appropriate and more clean.

As a side note, someone looking very much like him (Well, it was him, but since I’m not 100% sure I don’t want to say it) was wandering around before the performance started, holding tightly and kissing some good looking girl. So supposedly he should be capable of expressing his love.

Next on the printed plan for the evening is Gal James. [update: fixed an uncertainty about her name I had in the original post]She sang Adriana’s Aria – Io son l’umile ancella, from Adriana Lecouvreur by Cilèa. She had a good deep voice, but sounded like she tried to avoid going to the high notes.

She did well, and John mostly worked with her on properly portraying the Diva part. There were improvements, but nothing too exciting happened during that part of the performance.

Overall, again, a good and enjoyable show.

On Monday started the annual International Opera Summer Program, aka International Opera Program in Tel-Aviv, aka (as they call it in Hebrew) International Opera Workshop in Tel-Aviv. Yes, they’re having a hard time deciding on a name, and keeping the same name in all the publications, in both English and Hebrew.

This program has been going on for 19 years now. The moving force behind the program is the amazing Joan Dornemann from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. For all these years she manages to arrange and bring a great team of singers, musicians and choreographers, who give a series of public master-classes, and raise several arias concerts and operas. The student singers who perform, and take the master-classes, come both from Israel, and from many other countries, and are usually very good, and right before (or during) embarking on actual performance careers.

The city of Tel-Aviv is partially funding the program, and ticket prices are lower than the excessive amounts one need to pay to see an actual opera production. Despite that over the years the prices have climbed pretty high. Originally (Not when the program started, but when I started going, about 12 or so years ago, give or take a few years) they took prices which were about a third of the current ones. Still, 45 ILS for a master-class, and 90 ILS for an opera production (even if the music is usually adapted for a single piano), are relatively not expensive these days.

Over the last several years, as in this year, the first two weeks are master-classes, and the last two are arias concerts and operas.

Sadly as time goes by less and less people seem willing to come here to give master-classes, and Joan herself carries more of the burden. This isn’t that bad, because Joan is quite amazing. She’s interesting, entertaining, and very nice. While she does wonders with the student singers, and seem to be able to give ideas for improvement for each one, she is well aware that she is appearing in front of an audience, and fills the master-class with explanations, stories, background information, and even opera gossip.

And yet, less artists who give master-classes directly translates to less master-classes. Overall I enjoy these, and certainly learn from these, a lot more than the actual operatic productions they make. Plus, this becomes less and less of a way to get exposed to artists I would normally not get to ever see and hear, even if they’re not singing themselves on the master-class. Like for example this one year she managed to bring here the incredible Federico Devia, on the year before he died.

I’m booked for several master-classes this year, as well as one opera and one concert. I’d have gone to more, but finding people to go with to the opera is difficult. As it is, there are very rarely any people in the crowd in my own age group, not including other student singers on the program who come to see the others perform. The crowd is mostly comprised of people around their 80s, and some people around their late 50s. So I can go to a few master-classes with my father, but his work hours overlap most shows (19:30 on the evening of workdays. That’s way too early). Occasionally I manage to drag a friend for one of the evenings, but most years that’s a problem, and even when I do it’s not many.

One of the master-classes I did book was the first one, on the opening night.

That 19:30 hours is also a problem, since it’s high traffic time in the Tel-Aviv area. I had to leave work early to make sure I have enough time. Happily the roads were not very crowded on this specific day, though I still have some more to go, which statistically would be. But as things were, I didn’t need all the spare time I allocated for the drive, and I arrived about half an hour early, as did my father

Before entering into the hall we saw in the crowd a local well-known actor, Moni Moshonov. The guy looked… horrible. Baggy pants, T-Shirt with a large print, in desperate need of a haircut, and bloodshot eyes. I myself don’t ever go as far out as to wear a proper suit and tie, but I’d still never would have gone to a cultural event like that looking even half as bedraggled as he did. It took me a while, and several repeated looks, to make sure it’s really him. But I suppose actors and artists make their own rules, eh?

His presence may have been explained by the fact that one of the student singers on the master-class was named Alma Moshonov. True, there are more Moshonovs in the country than him, but the name isn’t very common. So I assume a relative. But I may be mistaken, maybe he just likes opera. Or maybe he was there for a different reason, the hall was one belonging to a conservatorium, after all. [update: She's his daughter. Plus, her mother's brother is an opera singer himself, Gabby Sade]

The hall itself was jam-packed. It looked like there were only two unfilled seats on the entire place (and that hall can contain about 500 people, by my own rough estimate), just on our two sides. Yes, really. Hardly an empty chairs, except nobody sat near us. One has to love these little ironies. In any case the extra elbow space was welcome, since the chairs are slightly too small, and this provided us with some more room.

As the master-class started, and Joan started to speak, the sounds of shutting-down cellphones started. For some obscure reason many of the cellphones refuse to shut down quietly, and must chime to let everyone know. Mine does so as well, but if I want to shut it down quietly I just pull out the battery. Some people didn’t think of that, though. Heck, those same people didn’t think to maybe turn the phone off before the show started, instead of waiting until it’s too late. So Joan stopped, and repeatedly asked everyone to turn their cellphones off. In her way she did it very nicely, making a joke of the thing, but it was obvious the phones should be turned off. This, though, did not stop a phone from starting to ring later on while one of the singers were singing their aria. Sadly, we do not have anything like the death penalty in this country, not even to idiots who keep their phones open during a performance.

The format of these master-classes is fairly standard. A singer comes on the stage, introduce themselves and the aria they will sing, sings the aria, and then the teacher running the master-class goes with them over it. This can include, depending on the person and the aria, and on how the actual singing went, tips, pointers, explanations, and corrections. Normally the singer will practically sing the aria a second time, but in small pieces, some with repetitions, going over specific aspects and points with the teacher.

This one went like that as well, except that Joan opened up with something slightly different. She had all the six singers appearing that evening in a line, letting them sing a scale, the same scale, one by one. She then turned them around, and had one sing the same scale (She also asked the audience to close their eyes, but you can guess how well that went). She did that a couple of times, asking the audience after each time which of the singers sang the scale, based on how they did it the first time. With some it was fairly easy, since some aspects of their voice and singing were very unique, and with some it was a bit harder. Harder not necessarily because the singer was like another one, none of them exactly were, but because it’s hard to remember six different voices after one hearing, and the similarities are more than the differences. Still, overall the audience did well.

This was of course also a way to show the students that their voices are indeed different enough to separate, to help illustrate the point that they should sing in a way that fits their own voice. You’d be surprised how many singers don’t do that, but tend to assume there is just one way to sing an aria and they have to totally standardise themselves.

For musical accompaniment in the program they usually use a single piano, and all the scores are adapted for piano. The adaptations are usually very good, though. The piano player this time was John Lidal, and I’m afraid I can’t say much more beyond that he sounded quite well, since I was listening to the singers and not the music.

Noa Danon sang an Aria from the opera L’Amico Fritz by Mascagni. She has an amazing voice, and I think could be a great singer once she’ll smooth out her technical problems. Smooth being the key word here, since while her voice is incredibly smooth and flowing, she goes on to smooth everything too much. When the aria needs to flow, this is excellent. But when she needed to make stops and sudden changes, she went smooth instead. And when she needed to exactly pronounce words, she smoothed syllables over. It was very pleasant to hear her sing, but it wasn’t always the way the aria was supposed to sound, and was hard to understand many of the words. She also kept herself a little bit too quiet, on the few times she needed to go louder.

Another problem she had, actually a problem that all the singers that day had to some extent, was on the acting bit. Many people think, entirely wrongly, that singing opera is only about the sound. That it doesn’t matter how you look like, how you act, what you do, and how you move. But acting is a big part of it. A person cannot sing about the love of their life, and look slightly bored. A person shouldn’t lament on their great suffering, and look bland. And those few standard hand gestures that singers like to endlessly repeat while singing about anything, they don’t look even mildly convincing. When you understand the words, seeing improper acting hurts the performance, since things don’t feel natural. When you don’t understand the words, seeing improper acting makes it much harder to understand what is going on. The difference acting can make is huge. But I’ll talk more about this on a future report, on one of the master-classes of John Norris, who is a choreographer for the Met and works with the singers on their acting. Joan herself overall works on about everything, including sometimes acting, but this time focused almost exclusively on the singing (except for one of the singers, on one of those repetitive movements. She went over with her on what is going on in the aria, moving her hand with her saying something like “and you give him the bowl of cherries, and you give him the bowl of cherries, and give him the bowl of cherries. How many times can you give him the same bowl of cherries?”. It was much funnier when she did it, honest).

Moran Abouloff sang the worst version I ever heard of Una voce poco fa, one of the loveliest, and well know, arias from Rossini’s opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). I know, it sounds harsh, but I heard this aria quite a few time, I really like this aria, and yet this performance didn’t to anything to me. Bland voice, screechy high notes, badly mispronounced words, and inappropriate acting. I know it’s not nice to say that, but I really think she needs a lot more work before she’s ready to go on stage. Either that, or she was having a really bad day.

Limor Ilan sang an aria from the opera Roberto Devereux by Donizetti. Nice singing overall. She seemed to had some problem holding her breath. Her main problem, and what Joan mostly worked with her on, was the she sang too slow and static (probably not the right term here, but the best description I have). She held her voice on the same notes and tone instead of letting it flow and revibrate. Joan made her sing the aria again, only while she sings she also had to fastly rotate her hands in circles over each other quickly. It’s a simple movement, but doing it makes you keep going. And again and again Joan stopped her and had her repeat the part, since whenever the went to higher notes, or had to hold a note, she very noticeably slowed down the hand movement. This is actually a very neat trick. When she slowed down her singing, the hands naturally slowed. When she really tried to keep the hands going, her singing went on as well.

Rinnat Moriah sang the first Queen of the Night’s aria from Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). It was very nice singing, enjoyable, but somewhat week. Joan started off by asking her “How old are you, 44?”. All the singers were on the 20-24 range (mostly around 23), so this was a rhetorical question. Rinnat answered that she’s 20. So Joan said something like “come back when you’re 30″. She complimented her on having a low and sweet voice, but said that this aria requires a much more strong, high, and metallic voice to do right. “This is not the dress for you”. For a practical advice she told her that this is a nice aria to do at a party, or a fund raiser, but if she’ll do it now on an audition she doesn’t have a chance. Some of the singers work on several arias, and arrive when they have some sort of either fallback, or some other aria they’re less practised on but can try. When Joan asked her is she has the score of anything else with her, she said she didn’t. So they went over this aria again. Basically Joan tried to make her sing it much louder, even if, as she told her, it would feel to her too loud and coarse. It did sound better like that, and when she was done she looked like she really worked hard.

Alma Moshonov sang Monica’s Waltz from Menotti’s opera The Medium. This one was in English, so the words were much easier to understand. At least for me, that is. I do manage somewhat with Italian operas, since many of the words are similar to English and Latin counterparts, but it’s not nearly as clear as hearing English. And I usually don’t get many words from the German ones, though there are exceptions as well. Still, English is easier to understand, though the amount of good operas in English is much smaller. Family relations notwithstanding, Alma has a good and strong voice. She has some serious potential. On the first run the aria sounded a lot like something from a musical, though, instead of from an Opera. I liked it, since I like musicals, but some of the parts were not like they were supposed to sound. As Joan put it to her, she has a very big voice, and felt like it won’t fit into the aria, so she tried to make it sound more nice and elegant by limiting her voice, causing her to extend her breath too much and making it sound like a Broadway musical. Joan encouraged her to sing it as it’s supposed to be, and stay within her own voice. It did sound much better, which I suppose is the whole point.

Talia Or sang another aria from The Magic Flute. She was simply excellent, good voice and excellent control. The words were well pronounced, and she reacted very well to all the dissonances and jumps in the piece. Her only problematical side was the acting, when during the entire aria she had an expression and pose like my mum would have had if as a small boy I’d have left dirty laundry on the floor. Not appropriate for what she was singing. Still, if I remember correctly, I saw her on master-classes in the opera program two years ago, when she had problems with her acting as well. Her singing is, like I said, excellent. In fact, as she, with Joan’s encouragement, let us know, she was performing for real during the last year. Actual paid jobs, as well as participating in a couple of large contests and getting into very good places there.

This time all the singers were Israelis. I expect there will be variation over time, since they do have other singers.

Overall a good show, and I certainly enjoyed the evening.

Christianity Today, the Evangelical Christian periodical, also publishes various specific studies and publications, which they sell for a modest fee to pastors. Not being an evangelical Christian, I never noticed them until I stumbled upon the page for this study, titled Sex as God Designed It. Catchy name, and since I find it hard to take such a thing as designed, I decided to take a look.

I did not actually pay for the article, but there’s plenty on the product page to explore. Now, I know that Christianity is a big supporter of marriage. And I know that it probably isn’t too enthusiastic about free sex. But from there, to what this study seems to claim, well, there’s quite a bit of a distance.

The church has a vital part to play in spreading the good news about sex.

Good news? News? As in something new which people didn’t know until now, and was just recently discovered? And here I thought the church was somewhat conservative and old fashioned, not running cutting-edge research on topics like sex.

Overview:

Western civilization is overstimulated and oversexed, says Philip Yancey. We are thoroughly saturated with sexual images and constantly surveyed about sexual attitudes and practices.

I don’t know about Mr. Yancey, but personally I am not (unfortunately) overstimulated and oversexed. Not only that, but I am not constantly surveyed about sexual attitudes. Come to think of it, I think I was never once surveyed about my sexual attitudes. So who the heck keeps coming back to Mr. Yancey to survey him?

But something essential and precious has been lost. Sadly, a persuasive Christian approach to sexuality is missing that could act as a balance to secular cynicism and obsession and help believers rediscover the elements of sacredness in a healthy sexual life.

I know sex should be great, but people who refer to it as sacred, or holy, are usually taken away by the nice people in white jackets, and hospitalized. Besides, if the purpose of a sexual relation was to be sacred and worship god, it would have been, like other things in that category, even more exciting and fulfilling, right? Sex might have been as fun as taking communion, maybe even as exciting and uplifting as praying, or going to confession. But since sex really pales in comparison (Right? Be honest, which would you rather do? So there you have it), then it should be obvious it can’t be nearly as sacred.

In this study, we’ll endeavour to understand God’s design for sex and discuss how the church can help spread the word.

About the only seriously good thing I have to say about this study, is that at least the author think that it’s possible, and desired, to understand God’s working and decisions. There are plenty of religious attitudes that claim trying to understand and analyse God is wrong, and thankfully this isn’t one of them.

Still, there’s really no need for the church to spread the word about sex. People know. It’s one of the worst kept secrets of all times.

So far for the overview, let’s take a look at the main points of the study article, see what it’s really about:

—Teaching point one: God created and designed sex and sexual expression to be experienced in a marital relationship.

So what Mr. Yancey is saying here, is that God is a terribly bad designer, and had no idea what she was doing during the design phase, no? Because, let’s face it, the fact that sex and sexual expression were designed specifically to be experienced in marital relationship explains a lot. It explains, for example, why nobody is ever sexually attracted to a person they’re not married to. It also explains why people always remain sexually attracted to people that they are married to. And, last but not least, it explains why nobody who is married is ever sexually attracted to anyone beside their spouses, for even the briefest of instants. Yes, wonderful design job. If you’d have bought something home with that design spec, and that actual performance, you’ll be running back to the store for a refund, and sue the company for false advertisement and sloppy design.

Ah, and let us not forget, this of course means that ever since the day of creation, everyone married. Historically speaking, there was never a time, and never a civilization, that had sex, but did not have marital relationship. The two come hand in hand. Right? Otherwise it would mean that through major parts of human history all people were just blatantly ignoring God.

—Teaching point two: When society loses faith in God, the purposes and practices of sexual expression become perverted.

Because, of course, nobody who isn’t Christian ever had a proper marriage between a man and a women, just like Mr. Yancey God likes. And we should be grateful for being notified that if society will lose faith in God then, among all the other horrors, something terrible will happen… People may come to think that sex is… fun. Dreadful, isn’t it?

—Teaching point three: The church must reclaim its teaching and pastoral role to provide a godly perspective and a well-grounded witness for sexuality.

The way I read that point, he says that priests and pastors should provide sex-ed classes in church, and should sometime sneak into people houses to make sure the sex they are having is only with their spouses. But that can’t possibly be what he means, can it?

Apply Your Findings

No, I’m not kidding. In the study about sex, and the dangers and perversion of out-of-marriage sex, one of the topics is getting the priests to apply their findings. I have nothing to say about that, except to wonder if that refers to the married evangelical priests, or the unmarried evangelical priests. Probably both. Well, have fun applying your findings then, guys. Darn, I like that euphemism, and predict it’s only a matter of time before it will hit the mainstream. I wonder how “Hi there, gorgeous. Would you like to come with me and help me apply my findings?” will go as a pick-up line…

A special committee has recently served the Minister of the Interior with its recommendations on ways to prevent violence in bars and clubs. The committee members come from the Ministries of the Interior, Justice, Education, Welfare, and Transportation, from local authorities, and from the Police. I read the article on the highlights (The full article is in Hebrew. there’s a much shorter version in English, which sadly lacks almost all of the interesting bits) of their recommendations, and overall I’m not impressed.

Bars/pubs and clubs will not be allowed to sell alcoholic drinks after 3AM. This is in order to “dissipate the effect of alcohol on those late for the ball“. Whatever that may mean in this content. I don’t recall any study pointing that alcohol has a stronger effect if imbibed after 3AM. Maybe they know something I don’t. The way I see it, even if most of the violence cases occur later than that, people will just get the same amount of alcohol sooner. Worse, since there’s a deadline, they will get it at a higher concentration as it comes near, since they know they won’t be able to order another drink later.

Club owner will be forced to install CCTV systems, and put someone to monitor it. So it will be easier for them to notice if… something… was going on. So there will be a cost for the clubs to install the surveillance cameras, and to hire people to monitor them. And since most of these places aren’t very large, it will still not provide a much better observation than simply putting someone inside the club to watch using their own eyes. Like, here’s a new thought, having the bartenders pay a little attention and call security if they see a problem. This won’t do much to help, but will raise costs which will of course fall on the customers. Not to mention that people tend to feel a lot less comfortable when they know they’re being photographed, and maybe recorded on film. Having fun, and being self concious, don’t quite go together, so this will cost the clubs plenty of customers

Those same CCTV cameras are to be placed on the entrance to the toilets. Which is supposed to help, how? Is the person observing it supposed to memorize everyone who comes in, and get worried if they stay there too long? Do they really want to bust in every time someone is having number two? No. So it won’t help. Unless they want to put the cameras inside the bathroom, since the claim on the article is that some of the violence occurs there. And this is going to be such a huge success, once people find out that the bathroom is on tape. Right.

Separate bathrooms for men and women. I don’t quite get it, since many people already have those. Some places do have some sort of a single entry/waiting chamber leading to both, but the costs of rebuilding this, or rebuilding totally different facilities for the places which don’t have these, are prohibitive. And I assume the problem they think they have (Doesn’t sound like violence, per se, but more as using the opportunity for the sake of not having people make-out over there. Something which is outside their mandate) is caused by people of different genders willingly going in together. Having different bathrooms wouldn’t stop it in that case.

Forming a group of paid cops/detectives/security-guards who will patrol in the area of the clubs, paid for by a toll the municipality will charge from the clubs. So in addition to their own security, bar owners will need to pay to people who generally patrol the street and supposedly provide security for the entire area? That’s very nice for other business and private homes nearby, I think. Not so nice for the bar owners. Or for their customers who will have to pay for it. Mostly, the problem is that those who will pay will not have any control or guidance over the actions of these rent-a-cops, they just pay the bill, and someone else will give the orders. This is never good. Hey, if having more people patrolling the neighbourhood is a good thing that customers are willing to pay for, then make such decisions public, and let the business compete by publishing how seriously they take it. Let the customers decide if they want to pay for it. But don’t put another tax on these businesses without them having anything to say about it.

Modifying the law forbidding selection, to allow selectors to prevent entry to people who may “endanger the public safety”. It was deemed unfair, prejudicial, or whatever, to allow pubs to put employees outside who will decide that they don’t want some people as customers. I don’t really get it, since it’s their business, and being far from monopolies they should certainly have the right to refuse customers, but that’s the way it is. So now they want to allow this practice, but only for people that they think are dangerous. This is far worse than either having no selection, or having full selection. First, the costs issue again, since this is in fact just a job of another trained security guard, that the bar will need to pay, but who will not provide the value that a proper selector does. Second, people who will be denied entry will raise the exact same complaints they did before. Instead of being told that they don’t look cool enough (or whatever the criteria may be) they will be told that they’re dangerous. This will certainly raise again all the ethnic discrimination issues, just as before. But people will be even more offended, because instead of just being told they don’t fit in with the rest of the crowd, they will be told they’re dangerous. This is very insulting if you don’t see yourself as dangerous, and could actually encourage violence if you really are dangerous.

Classify laughing gas as a dangerous drug. Yes, they want to change the law defining dangerous drugs to also include laughing gas. Why? Because they discovered that sometime criminal elements tend to sell laughing gas outside clubs. And this is supposed to be relevant how exactly? Making something a controlled and legally dangerous substance, just because some criminals sometime sell it near areas where sometime there is violence, strikes me as an enormous overkill and out of all proportions. As well as totally outside the scope of what those drug laws are supposed to deal with. Not everything sold by criminals is a dangerous drugs, and being sold by criminals is certainly not a reason to do classify anything as such.

People with criminal history will not be allowed to own, or be partners in, a club or bar. On the surface, this could make sense, since these people may be more likely to allow criminal activity in the premise. Is this criminal activity directly related to the violence, though? Or just people being drunk and stupid? Because most of the article implies that it’s the latter (after all, this committee was formed to deal with violence, not a crime problem with a side-effect of violence). And so this is outside their mandate again. Not only that, but officially serving prison time is supposed to be the punishment, and people who are released are supposed to be given the option to reform. And this is an explicit discrimination against ex-cons.

I saw another version of the article, on a print paper, which also mentioned something about placing cops who will measure the breath alcohol levels of people leaving bars and pubs. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, since being drunk is legal. So unless someone parked right in front of the bar, and they stop them from entering the car (All of which is nice, but again totally outside their mandate on the violence issue), this doesn’t help. The exception being if they want to put a cop who will follow every single drunk person leaving the bar on foot, to make sure they don’t drive, or get involved in violent acts, until they sober up a bit. That’s totally unrealistic, and is also not legal, so that can’t be it as well. For now I just prefer to believe that this particular tidbit may have been a mistake of the paper I read, but given the other recommendations above I’m afraid I’m not so sure.

That same printed article also mentioned showing educational films about the dangers of violence in those clubs. The popularity of which is bound to skyrocket the amount of people who will actually go there to have fun.

Overall, like I said, I’m not impressed. Or rather, I am impressed, by how badly done this is. And they intend to turn everything into laws and regulations during the next three months…

In the recent year my company started to sell a certain system worldwide. One of the systems went to a rather large company, L, which can also act as a reseller for our system as part of their own production line. And which also intended to also use if for presentation purposes, in exhibitions and the likes, as part of their product lines and solutions. L asked for a discount price, and due to the fact that we were trying to push the system, and the fact that this would also provide publicity for our own system, my boss decided this would be a good investment, and gave them a nice discount.

Fast forward to last week. My boss met with the head of a different company, G, who was also interested in purchasing such a system. And started the discussion by asking for the same price we gave L. When my boss asked what price he was talking about, the guy from G pulled out a printed copy of the email that my boss sent in the past to L’s representative.

My boss explained to the person from G that the price cut there was an investment, and that now we are also not so avid to push the system, since it’s not so new and we have sales. And that due to that we cannot sell him a system at such a low price (which is break-even, or even a loss for us. I’m not entirely familiar with the cost analysis, but it would in any case not allow us to make any profit from the sale).

The bigger problem was that the email was a private one. As a rule, individual price quotations are not something which companies are supposed to pass along to other companies. Not as a general rule, and certainly not when it is clearly specified that this is a one-time offer and is a special discount under special circumstances, as that email did specify. So G should never have seen that email.

My boss called the guy from L, to complain, and asked him why did he give the owner of G this message. The guy from L was stunned, claiming that he never did passed along that email…

As it turns out, the G boss was visiting L’s headquarters for business, a short while ago. And for some time they left him alone in the office, going to check for some data. And he used that time to open their file cabinets, browse through folders, and photocopy documents. Which included a printed copy of that email.

This was a senior of a rather large international company, during business meetings with another large international company… Lesson learned: Do not leave anyone in an office unattended, no matter how respectable he may seem.

Needless to say, he won’t be getting that discount.

A young women called in to one of those radio shows that play songs by request. The show’s host said hi, and asked her what would she like. So far so good, and quite normal.

Then she answers “Could you give me something?“, which leaves the host in a bit of confusion. You could hear it in his voice when he asked her “Wha… what do you… er… mean, give you something?“.

So the girl answers him that she wants a gift, like they give everyone. Sometimes they do give callers some semi-promotional gifts, after they ask for songs. The stunned host says that sure, no problem, they’ll add her to the list, and transfers her off the air to the receptionists in charge of taking caller’s details.

During the entire exchange, she didn’t ask for any song to hear. Talk about missing the main point.

If people make a performance which requires practice, careful choreography, and special costumes, that’s art, right? Apparently in Oslo they think so too, which is why a Judge decided that striptease is art.

Here’s a nice quote by one of the strippers artists:

“Ninety percent of the guests here tell me that what I’m doing is art.”

Sure it’s art, baby. Now please shake them for me once more, then go and see if in addition to tax exemption you can perhaps also require state funding. After all, I’m sure things like theatres, galleries, and museums get funding, so why not other art forms?

This is a long study about Gender Issues in College Student Use of Instant Messaging. But if you can’t read the whole thing, these are the highlights.

Mainly, they claim to find clear differences between the way men and women use IM. I read their differences. And you know what, I actually know college/university students who use their IM accordingly. But I also know just as many, if not more, who don’t. Heck, if what they claim was true, then I would just have to be an hermaphrodite.

Which I’m not. Seriously.

But what I find most amusing is the general claims, beside the main interest of the study, that most subjects were found to not use those obnoxious shortening of words which are so common on SMS and IM conversations (Oh, wait, did I say common on IM?! Well, guess I did… Imagine that…). And that there is an extremely low percentage of spelling errors in those IM conversations (about 1%).

So very little occurrences of "10x u r gr8", and very little occurrences of people forgetting a few letters, or slightly twisting words.

That’s absolute rubbish, you know. I use IM, and mostly with university/college students and recent graduates, considering I’m a part of that group myself. Personally, I try very much to keep my spelling, and using full words. And I fail on the spelling front occasionally. Many people don’t try, or care, to work for spelling, and some don’t care to work to write whole words. A much higher percent than this study find...

Heck, most of the time people don’t even bother commenting when they’re conversation partner shorten a word, or misspell a word, because of how common it is, and how everyone is doing it anyway.

I saw this little article in today’s paper announcing that the department of tourism declared its intent to build an hippodrome in the Negev, to be used for horse racing and bets. They expect it to be a centre of tourism, and to cause other tourist attractions to be built in the same area. The minister of tourism is quoted as saying that "The state would benefit from the bets that will take place in the hippodrome, and the Negev will enjoy the creation of many labour sources".

First, I’m really not so sure about the merit of the idea. Sure, there are horses in Israel. But we’re pretty far from being well known as the equestrian capitol of the world. So people who are seriously into horse races won’t come, due to it being too amateurish. And are people who are just enthusiasts, or want to experience a race for the first time, really expected to come to Israel of all places? This makes very little sense to me.

Unless we expect serious horse breeders and racers to bring their own horses here. A lofty ambition. Too much so, I think, considering freight for a race horse to Israel would probably cost a lot more than inside Europe or the US. They won’t bring them until we get a good reputation, and we won’t ever get that good reputation without people bringing them.

All of which doesn’t matter much, because the way I see it, and the way I can’t believe my esteemed minister of tourism doesn’t see it, the point is to allow gambling. Yes, bets on horse races are gambling.

So how come this goes on so quietly? There were discussions once about opening approved casinos in Israel. It suffered from many loud objections, citing things like increased crime rate, or people losing too much of their money. It reached such a state that on the last election we had a potential party running that was only about making gambling legal (which it now isn’t), and they didn’t get enough votes to enter the Knesset.

So how come betting on card games is illegal and much contended, but opening a hippodrome and betting on horse races doesn’t raise any hackles? This is the exact same thing – gambling. Or am I missing something?

Last Sunday I was invited by a friend (let’s call him H) to go to a show by an Israeli rock band, Rockfour. The performance was in a pub in Tel-Aviv, was supposed to be an acoustic concert, and was free of charge (Meaning they didn’t charge a ticket for the show, not that you could be in the pub for a long time without being expected to order something).

We arrived at about 22:00, and the show was supposed to start at 23:00. An hour in advance was supposed to serve the dual purposes of giving us some time to eat and drink before they start, and to get a good sitting place before the onrush of the crowds.

Well, one and a half out of two ain’t bad. There were still some seats by the bar when we arrived, true, but they were on the distant side of the bar, far from the stage and without a line of sight to it. Still, we could sit, and for the time until the show starts, that’s plenty.

Things starting a little late is an all too common occurrence, but this was more exaggerated than usual. The performance only started at about 23:50. Not that it was much of a problem, since we are friends, and definitely had enough to talk about. Plus, there were some amusing incidents helping to pass the time, which I’ll get to shortly.

Their songs are in English, and, at least according to my friend, who is a fan, they sang the more well-known ones. At least, he managed to identify all of them based on the first few notes. At most, I managed to recognize that some of them sound vaguely familiar…

The performance itself was good. The music is the calmer type of rock, which I like, and they play and sing well. Although, frankly, I’m not sure that I’d have labelled it an acoustic show, because apart from an acoustic guitar, it didn’t seem that anything else fit the bill. In any case, we received more than good value for our money, so no complaints there.

Before the show started we were sitting, as I mentioned, next to the bar. At some point some guy arrived to the bar, put down a glass of a 1/3 litre of beer, pointed at it emphatically, and asked the bartender for "another 1/2". She looked at him oddly and asked "Another 1/2, or another 1/3?". The guy looked at his glass, looked a larger glass of 1/2 litre that stood nearby, and pondered. Eventually he came up with "Er… a small 1/2. Like this." and pointed to his 1/3 glass again. The bartender deserves a lot of credit, she managed, though barely, to keep a straight face. A lively discussion ensued, and eventually the guy agreed that he wants another glass of the same size as the 1/3 glass he had with him (notice the lack of admittance that it may not be a 1/2 litre glass).

Another guy arrived next to the bar at a different point, and asked for "diet coke". Mind you, here in Israel, when speaking Hebrew, you call it "Cola", or in this case "Diet Cola". The only people actually saying "Coke" are some tourists. This guy wasn’t a tourist, he was local. Which places him in the different category of people who, very mistakenly, think they’re very cool.

In any case, he asked for his "Diet Coke", to which the bartender replied that they don’t serve soft drinks, only alcoholic beverages. "What, not even a diet coke?". Yes, apparently not even a diet coke. She asked him if there’s anything else she could give him. The guy gave it serious consideration, and asked for… soda. Me and H were trying very hard to avoid bursting out in laughter, I’m not sure we managed. The bartender, again, kept an almost straight face, and explained, exactly as she did several seconds ago, that they don’t serve soft drinks, only alcoholic beverages. The guy gave up, and ordered a beer.

H and I were discussing this, reaching the conclusion that it’s a silly policy, since they surely stock non-alcoholic beverages for various mixes, so why not offer to sell them if people are willing to buy? I came with the classical example of asking if they have a Bloody Mary (Vodka with tomato juice and some flavouring, if it’s news to anyone), and when they said yes, asking for a Virgin Mary instead (Same thing, only without the Vodka. Yes, technically you can call it tomato juice, but it doesn’t sounds as cool when you sit next to a bar).

But the discussion was moot. Someone else approached the bar, and asked for mineral water. We were waiting for the bartender to give him the explanation about serving only alcoholic drinks. Instead, she gave him mineral waters. We failed to see how mineral waters are an alcoholic beverage, or to understand why this, apparently available, option wasn’t suggested to the previous guy.

Later into the evening, a girl squeezed next to H to get to the bar. This was about the time the show was supposed to start, so the place was jam-packed with people. Those sitting places of ours were at a premium. The girl waved at the bartender, but she had to wait for quite some time, since there were a lot of people waiting in queue. So in the meantime, apparently to discourage idle small talk, she turned to my friend and told him that she only wants to order a drink, but she isn’t social, and so he doesn’t have anything to talk with her about. Not lacking in ability for retorts, my friend replied that if it becomes difficult they could always talk about the weather.

Which should have been the closing phrase of the conversation. Instead, this girl started to talk about the weather. With great enthusiasm. This is the first time in my life that I saw a "So, how about that weather" type of line actually working as a conversation starter. Amazing. So the girl (Let’s call her D) and H started chatting with each other, and I was trying not to snigger too much in their faces.

Since it was a long wait, a friend of D arrived, offering her a sip of her own glass. Which contained some sort of a white wine. To which D replied that wine is for nerds, and refused. An amusing reaction, isn’t it? Well, not amusing at all, compared to the fun-value of what she eventually ordered… Yep, wine.

Somewhat later, the show finally started, and H wanted to go closer to the stage. We decided to be polite, and offer our seats to D and her friend. So H stood up and went looking for her. There was a coat on his chair. And I placed my arm over his chair in a very obvious manner. Yet it took less that three seconds for the first person to arrive and ask if we’re leaving, and if he can take the chairs. I had to fight a bunch of them off with a stick, figuratively speaking, until D and her friend arrived.

H, in the meantime, offered D the seats, in exchange for her phone number… He was joking of course, and she really would have gotten the seats regardless, but I’m not sure how obvious it was to her. In any case, she gave him a number, and the number even turned out to be real…

So we moved closer to the stage, and actually managed to make our way very close, so got a good look at the band members and their equipment. At which point we did have to grudgingly give them the acoustic guitar, but it still didn’t make this an acoustic performance.

And during the show I needed to go to the toilet. I made my way through the thick crowd, only to discover that there are several people waiting ahead of me in line. The first one entered a freed booth straight away, leaving one guy, and one girl that arrived immediately after me. The girl was very agitated, and jumped up and down all the time, expressing her urgency. Eventually she knocked on one of the booths, yelling at the occupant to move it. A while later, probably longer than was necessary, just to spite, the occupant left, and started throwing choice expletives at her. The guy that was first in line wanted to enter the booth, but a cleaning guy just arrived, and insisted that he needs to go in and clean first. During the distraction of the arguments, another booth opened, and some jerk who was behind us all in line run immediately in and locked the door behind him.

Eventually the cleaning guy, who has won the previous round, went out, and the first in line got in, leaving me, the jumping girl, and a couple more guys that arrived in the meantime. The latest one asked about the queue order, and was dismayed to discover that there are so many in front of him. At which point the girl, and the guy that arrived after her, explained that they know each other, and don’t mind sharing. Yes, just what you’ve heard.

Eventually the hijacker went out, and the girl gave me an agonized look, asking me to please hurry it. I told her she can go in first, since it looks like she needs it much more urgently than I do. She uttered a thank you, and dashed over, only to be stopped by the cleaning guy that entered before her and started cleaning the booth…

But eventually he went out, and she went in. Alone.

All in all, the evening, or night, went very well. I did made the mistake of thinking that it won’t be crowded. Which was a very stupid assumption given that it’s both a popular pub on it’s own account, and had a free music show by a good band. The thing is, I really don’t enjoy crowds.

Or, what’s worse at bars, the cigarette smoke. People smoke in bars. And when you put a lot of them in a closed room… Let’s just say that the first thing to do after each and every bar visit is throw all the clothes into the washing machine, to take the stench of the smoke out.

Both facts, the crowds and the smoke, may help explain why I very rarely find myself in bars. That, and the loud meaningless noise many of them like to play as foreground music (yes, that was a snipe at it being overly loud). But the latter wasn’t a problem in this bar, at this evening, of course.

On Saturday evening I went to a performance by Shlomit Aharon. A terrific singer, with a wonderful voice (She has been at it for a number of years now, and a friend asked me if she isn’t too old by now, so to make it absolutely clear, she’s far from it).
Also accompanying were:

• Peter Wertheimer on a saxophone. He was excellent, and it’s not the first time I get to hear him play in some capacity. He usually plays (at least the bit I got to hear) Jazz, as was also evident when in some of the songs in this show he did a little solo parts and slight improvs. He’s a good player, and has a good sound. Also seemed like a nice person, but that could have just been a little stage persona, hard to tell.
• Michal Rahat on the drums. Don’t think I heard her before. She played alright. But a bass drum was set to a resonant frequency for something most people carry inside their chests, which made all the bass strokes very uncomfortable. I know that music that touches your heart is supposed to be good, but I think that sentence really did not intend for it to be taken literally…
• Dror Alexander on the keyboards. Didn’t hear him before as well, and I may have misspelled the name here, not sure. Also did good enough a job, if there were any big glitches, I missed them. He ran some small banter with Shlomit, as a part of the show, and managed to sound almost like it’s all fresh, even though the conversations were apparently nearly identical to previous shows of them together.

Anyway, the show was excellent, I like her music, and love her singing.

The show took place in the hall at our city country-club. Tickets for members were at a ridiculously low price, as usual.

This was also the night of some big sport game (soccer?), between an Israeli team and Ireland (I think). As you may sense, I’m not that much into sports…

But plenty of other people are. Enough so that the country-club also had, in their second large hall, a huge-screen cast of the game, starting at 19:30 (Local time, that’s GMT+2).

The performance was supposed to start at 21:00, but at some point they realized the game won’t be over, and many people are in the same target audience, so they delayed it to 21:30. This only took place at Thursday, two days in advance, so some people missed the notice and arrived for 21:00, but better late than never.

Of course, sport games never end on time, or so I’m told. We arrived in plenty to time to 21:30… Plenty of chair occupied by jackets and bags, but the people were all in the other room watching the game.

The performance itself started only at about 22:00. But at least people seemed happy, apparently the game was 1:0 against us (I use us for Israel here, though I don’t particularly feel for any side in this matter) from about 3 minutes after the game started, and changed to 1:1 at about 3 minutes before the game ended. Personally, it doesn’t strike me as a huge victory, but what do I know?

It was interesting to see that Shlomit isn’t more of a sports buff than I am. She mentioned the game, and seemed just as puzzled over the whole thing. I’ll hazard a guess she wasn’t too thrilled about having to sit and wait for an extra half an hour, but if that’s true, she certainly didn’t show it.

Again from the long line of people who have too much free time on their hands, so are wasting it doing idiotic research.

The latest one? Checking how much sexually explicit content is there on the MTV channel.

In 171 hours of MTV programming, PTC analysts found 1,548 sexual scenes containing 3,056 depictions of sex or various forms of nudity and 2,881 verbal sexual references

And they found a lot. So much so that it’s absolutely ridiculous.

And it is. I don’t really watch the MTV channel on television. But occasionally I do get to to tune in for a clip, or have it open for a little while in the background when I’m doing something else. And there really isn’t that much sex there. Seriously.

Heck, I doubt hard-core porn channels have so much sexual scenes on them. Makes me wonder what MTV channel they were watching, since it’s certainly not the one I have on TV…

I’m not saying explicitly that it’s a German trait, but it is the second time something like that happens to me with a German, and it never happened with anyone from anywhere else.

I needed to talk with a person in a company we work with in Germany. Couldn’t catch him the at the office all day. Finally we got hold of his boss, who informed us that he isn’t in the office. He will be sick until Wednesday.

He’s sick, but there’s already a date set for him getting better and being back. What, are German germs and viruses really that more disciplined than the rest?!

It looks like the Norwegians have joined the bandwagon.

Anyone heard of the large furniture selling network, IKEA ? Well, most of the furniture comes in pieces, as "flat pack", with instruction manuals explaining how to assemble them.

So what’s the problem? Some manuals contain drawing of human figures alongside the pieces of furniture, illustrating positions and movement needed for the assembly. And the Norwegian prime minister is furious because all the figures are either of men, or of indiscernible gender. So it must be sexual discrimination, you see?

Do you? Really?

Especially those indiscernible gender figures. Have they no shame?!

He’s absolutely right. Next time I buy something in IKEA I want the instruction manual to be jam-packed with drawings of scantily clad females. And be accurate and elaborate, so there won’t be room for confusion. We have to know these are real women, and not men in disguise. Equality is important, dammit! Are you listening IKEA?

On a side-note, the CNN news article managed to get IKEA’s name wrong in the title. The web page title, in the HTML, not the headline. The article itself is correct all the way, but on the title it’s spelled ‘Ikea". An overzealous copy editor?

Hat tip to Common Knowledge.

The Pre-Eurovision show was just broadcasted here. The supposedly best singers and bands Israel has to offer were competing to decide who will represent us in the Eurovision contest.

And I must say that so far I’m impressed. No, not with the songs, those are all seriously bad. They’re so bad, that I think it must be done on purpose.

Think about it. International relations are not too hot for us this year. We’re practically bound to lose votes due to politics, even if the song would be excellent. The result would be a lot of angry people complaining about it. Complaining about how all those countries (which would be labelled by the angry people as anti-Semitic for that) vote against us on purpose. That’s not the way to encourage harmony and peace. So instead, someone found out a way to prevent that.

We’ll send a bad singer, with a bad song. That way when we get poor votes, nobody will take it too hard when we get voted down. It’s downright brilliant.

And how do you make sure that the winning song here is bad? Easy! You make sure all contestants are bad. Which they were. Some were plain horrible, but the best were merely unimpressive and uninspiring. Either the song was bad, or the singer/s were bad, or both. Mostly both.

Very sad. We do have some good singers here, good musicians, good songs. Honestly, we do. But none of them made it as far as the Pre-Eurovision contest…