Materialism? Meh. PC Naysayers? I Can't Stand Those!

So we've witnessed "Black Friday" and all the stresses and horror stories associated with it.  There's talk about people fighting to get to the stores just so that they can get bargains on things they want to get.  Along with that are the usual complaints of the retailers who whine about the greed of the general public during the Christmas season and stories of customers who are insufferable.  I tend to ignore this sort of thing simply because it's mundane and happens only once a year.
I agree that materialism is bad.  It causes a ton of stress for people and once you have one thing of course you need something else.  But it's an issue that is relatively easy to deal with.  The thing to do is just not to spend a ton of money in silly ways and to just think about what you really have to deal with that isn't related to money and material goods.

What I get upset about this time of year is not materialism.  It's the Politically Correct naysayers trying to blot out Christ's name from Christmas just because " it will offend people of other religions".  Come on!  I have hardly if ever heard a Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or anyone from another faith say that Christmas offends them.  I have heard people ask that people wish them well on their holiday, but nothing about Christmas offending them.  Which means that they are okay with (some actually celebrate it along with their own holiday). 
Case in Point: The shoutloud about calling the Christmas tree at the Capitol building a Christmas tree.  Some people are asking for it to be called a "holiday tree" to keep from offending people.  But it is a Christmas tree because there really isn't another major religion that uses trees during their holiday.  
These PC naysayers are clearly never satisfied.  They are people who constantly make themselves unpleasant to others and in the end get nothing.  Also, you can't go without offending someone no matter how hard you try, because some people get offended by you simply saying hello.  And that's what happens with these naysayers.  They people to avoid because they are unpleasant and cannot enjoy themselves.  Why can't they just go and make a nice batch of delicious cookies and muffins?

Tips For Christmas Shopping And Decorations (Or Any Celebration)

Around this time of year we get people rushing furiously trying to do their Christmas shopping.  I've heard enough of the "Black Friday" horror stories to last me a lifetime.  Well, I happen to love shopping and Christmas shopping has become a habit for me.  However, I don't like rushing about trying to make every perfect.  With that said, I would like to offer a few tips for people who want to shop and make everything perfect for Christmas:

1) First and foremost, don't aim for perfection when you shop and prepare.  Too often I hear of people trying to out-do the previous Christmas or other celebrations (birthdays, Thanksgivings, Easters, etc.).  If you do, you'll only break your brain and cause trouble for those around you. 

2) Check your budget.  You may want something big and extravagant, but you will find that you might have to go for something a lot smaller; which brings me to the next tip:

3) Keep it simple.  This goes for both parties and decorations. 

     a.  Use what you have in terms of tableware.  Okay, so you don't have any good China or fancy pitchers but you do have plates that are plain but presentable.  So use those instead.  They may not be super nice, but if their at least presentable and clean, you'll be just fine. 

     b.  Plan the meal carefully.  Buy the turkey, ham, beef, or whatever big roast you want to serve at a reasonable price.  Don't try to buy something that costs too much, and you'll want to inspect it when you bring it home to make sure that it's okay.  And you'll need a back-up plan in case you can't serve the meal the way you wan to.

     c.  For Heaven's sake, if you want decorations, don't go for some ostentatious kitsch-palace decor for the lawn or home.  It's hard on the eyes and makes you look like a spendthrift.  Go for something smaller.  Pine boughs are okay and Christmas lights are somewhat useful for outdoors; but inflatables, store-bought standees of Christmas figures, etc. are silly and look weird.  Nativities are excellent, but if they're huge and right there on the lawn, even they become hard to look at and annoying, and as a Christian, I don't want that to happen.  Nativities are best if they are small and inside.  Indoor decorations should be kept small. 

4)    You can have a big party, but don't overload yourself.  Limit yourself to only a few people, don't try to invite your entire extended family.  They may not be able to.  This same goes for if you want to go visit family.  You have to check the budget, and be sure that everyone's well enough to even do this sort of thing.  Often your best bet is to just send a greeting card or call the relatives on the phone.

5)   Don't go shopping on Christmas Eve unless you have no other choice. 

6)  And when you shop, bear in mind the budget and what people want.  Here are a few ideas:

     a. If your child wants a toy but they have so many already, you're not required to not buy the toy.  But you will have to talk to your child and let them know that they may not get it this year.  it may be that you don't have the money, or the child is too young (or too old) to have it, or it could be that they already have enough.  It may also not be safe for them right now.  They need to know that you love them, but that you won't be able to get a new time for them every Christmas. 

     b.  Practical does not mean boring.  People seem to think that useful gifts are always dull and not fun.  Well, if all you can afford is to buy socks for your family, get them socks that are cute, cool, interesting, etc..  If your daughter likes interesting pink and purple combinations, get her socks or something else she needs that have those colors in curious patterns.  If your son is a Packer's fan, do the same thing.  Make a seemingly uninteresting gift into something interesting.  

And

7) Seriously, appliances don't really make good gifts.  I've heard the old cliched story of a husband buying his wife a dust buster  or some other appliance for Christmas, Valentine's Day, etc., and the wife is not impressed.  Dust busters were never meant to be given a gifts; they were meant to be something you clean your house with.  And you only buy one if you need it. 

Pots and pans only work they happen to be fancy and/or unusual (like the fancy ebelskiver pan my aunt gave me last Christmas).  And usually I only hear about people getting kitchen supplies for Christmas if they happen to love cooking.  

  

If anyone finds this at all useful, feel free to comment. 

Ancient Rituals: Many Cultures Seem To Have Similar Ways Of Doing Them

I've been boning up on information about or related to Peru since this summer.  The other day I got a book out of the library about the Incas.  While I was reading it, I came across a passage that talked about the sacrifices performed when a new ruler, or Sapa Inca, was crowned: Two hundred youths would be sacrificed and then buried with specific items (the book did not say precisely what, unfortunately).
I found that to be quite similar to the Shang Chinese royal burials.  When the king died, hundreds of prisoners and slaves would be beheaded and buried with him in the tomb.

These two cultures were thousands of years and one ocean apart.  But there's something about those two rituals that makes me ask a couple of questions:
1) How common was this kind of ritual in the ancient world?

2) Why was it done?

The trouble is that I haven't read much about either the Incas or the Shang in a long time so I'm very rusty on their history and just beginning to learn some more about them.  For years the only things I remembered about the Incas were their sacrifices (National Geographic has several really good articles about those), Macchu Picchu, and the Conquistadores.  And all I remember about the Shang were their sacrifices and the bronze making.  So, I've got a lot to read about them still.  Heck, the last time I read about Macchu Picchu before this summer was back when I was twelve and my mom got a book about it out of the library. 
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Extra: I noticed that the same principle applies to art as well.  That is, I noticed that some of the jewelry found in the tombs of the various native Peruvian cultures is similar to the ones belonging to the ancient Egyptians.  Not that I think that they are related; however, I do like noticing things that look similar. 

UNTAMED AND UNCUT: Animals Behaving Badly and Unexpectedly

Animal Planet, a channel devoted to nature, has a show called Untamed and Uncut.  It's a show that specializes in unexpected animal attacks ranging from unprovoked to the What-In-The-World-Was-That-Person-Smoking kind of stupidity. 
Here are the four that I personally find interesting:

1) Double Great White Attack: A surfer is suddenly attacked by TWO great white sharks.

2) Crocodile Death Roll: A young man performing a stunt unknowingly pulls out the wrong crocodile.

3) Lion Bites Owner: A wild animal trainer's beloved lion attacks when the man makes the mistake of turning his back on the animal.

4) Boa Bites Owner In The Face: A man who doesn't know how to properly care for snakes gets bitten in the face by his boa when he shows her off at a party. 

So these four go from the unprovoked to the provoked.  Feel free to comment.

Stupid and Incomprehensible Bumper Stickers

I saw a strange bumper sticker on my way to an appointment.  It was written in green and blue letters and it read "WHEN A FAT GIRL FALLS IN A FOREST, DO THE TREES LAUGH?".  If you ask me, that makes about as much sense as a Megalodon volleyball team.  What exactly does someone mean when they ask if trees laugh when a fat girl falls in a forest?  I would love to know the answer.

And then of course you've got your general share of idiotic "Coexist" bumper stickers.  These bumper stickers are popular with people who assume that education will end prejudice.  You'd have better success trying to get a great white shark to give up seals in favor of seaweed (their teeth are not designed for eating plants). 

I'm getting fed up with the "RECALL SCOTT WALKER!" stickers.  Come on!  He hasn't been caught with hand either in the till or down someone's pants.  That's the only legitimate reason to recall an elected politician.  I'm also utterly sick of all the noise people are making about him, so the moment I see a "RECALL WALKER" bumper sticker I always say "GO SIR WALTER SCOTT!", simply because I'm tired of all the shoutloud.  

If there is a political bumper sticker that actually makes sense, let me know. 

EUGENE ONEGIN: Tchaikovsky's Masterpeice

I first heard Eugene Onegin when I was fifteen and a sophomore in high school.  I also had a boyfriend at the time.  The opera was being broadcast over the radio as part of the Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang the title role.

Last night, I went with my dad to see Eugene Onegin at the Overture Center in Madison. Baritone Hyung Yun sang the title role and he's pretty good. Tatyana was sung by soprano Maria Kanyova.

The character of Eugene Onegin is nothing new.  He is every upper-class twit who believes that the world exists for his own personal amusement.  And in Act Three when he has come to St. Petersburg after wandering all over the world, he still hasn't grown up even at twenty six.

He snobbishly rejects the love of the humble country girl Tatyana Larina, but six years later after she's already been married for two years, he tries to get her to abandon everything for him.  And he rightly deserves the emotional smack in face he gets when Tatyana tells him to leave her forever.

Act One, Scene One opens in the provincial countryside.  Madame Larina, a widowed landowner, is making jam with Filipevna, her daughters' old nurse.  Tatyana is seventeen and her sister Olga (played to perfection by mezzo-soprano Jamie van Eyck), is sixteen.  They sing about love and passion while their mother listens and recalls the time when she felt those those feelings too.  The peasants come in from the harvest bringing tribute to Madame Larina and they dance. After they leave, the shy and dreamy Tatyana starts to read from one of her romantic novels, while the vivacious and coquettish Olga laughs and teases her.  Madame Larina notices Tatyana looking pensive and quiet and asks if she is ill.  Tatyana tells her that she is caught up in her novel.  Madame Larina tells her that it is all fiction.  Suddenly Olga's fiance Vladamir Lensky arrives with a friend from the city, Eugene Onegin.  While Lensky courts Olga, Onegin goes for a walk with Tatyana, who falls immediately in love with the handsome stranger.  Later, Madame Larina calls them in for dinner, and Filipyevna suspects that Tatyana has fallen in love.

           Scene Two finds us in Tatyana's bedroom where she asks Filipyevna about her first love.  Filipevna tells her that her marriage was arranged when she was only thirteen; being in love was out of the question.  She asks Tatyana if she's okay; Tatyana simply says that she's is love and asks her nurse to leave, but not without asking for a pen and some paper.  After Filipevna leaves, Tatyana, flushed with a wild compulsive love for Onegin, writes him a letter and fantasizes about who she believes him to be.  In fact, she stays up all night writing the letter.  In the morning, she gives it to Filipevna, whose grandson will take the letter to Onegin.

         Scene Three takes place in the garden where peasant women are picking berries and singing about flirting with young men.  Tatyana enters and sees Onegin approaching.  She is afraid of how he will think of her.  Onegin enters and tells her that while he moved by her sentiments, he is not a man made for marriage and will cease to love Tatyana after a while.  Translation: "I'm a man of great importance, you're just a coltish little country girl who reads too much."  Tatyana is crushed.

  

Act Two, Scene One takes place a few months later.  It is Tatyana's eighteenth birthday and her family is throwing a grand ball for her.  All their neighbors have come to celebrate, including Eugene Onegin.  Lensky persuaded him to come with.  Onegin dances with Tatyana, but some of the neighbors have heard about what happened in the garden.  Onegin gets fed up with their talk.  He's bored and blames Lensky for his boredom.  To get back at Lensky, Onegin flirts with Olga and dances many dances with her.  This arouses Lensky's jealousy and he confronts Olga.  She tells him that he is overreacting.  This encounter is interrupted by Monsieur Triquet; a French neighbor and Tatyana's tutor.  He serenades Tatyana in French.  Afterward, the dancing begins again and Onegin dances with Olga again.  Lensky decides that he's had enough and challenges Onegin to a duel.  Madame Larina begs them not to fight in her house.  Lensky believes that Olga has betrayed him and dumps her in front of everybody.  Although Onegin asks Lensky to not make a scene, he accepts Lensky's challenge, and between the two of them, they ruin Tatyana's birthday.  Olga pleads with Lensky but her words fall on deaf ears.

                  Scene Two takes place at dawn.  Lensky and his second, Zaretski, are present.  Zaretski wonders why Onegin is late (he follows the rules of dueling to the point of absurdity).  Lensky muses on his short life and imagines Olga going to his grave to mourn him.  Onegin enters with his valet, Guillot, acting as his second.  Both Onegin and Lensky believe that they have acted foolishly and wish they could reconcile and be friends again, but they are both too proud do so.  The duel proceeds and Lensky is killed.

Act Three, Scene one takes place six years later at the palace of Prince Gremin where a grand ball is in progress.  Onegin is twenty-six and depressed.  He has been wandering the world in search of entertainment and escape from the memory of Lensky, whose bloody ghost Onegin believes still haunts him.  He has no job, no wife, no obligations, and no purpose.  Suddenly, the elderly Prince Gremin enters with his beautiful young wife on his arm.  Onegin recognizes her as Tatyana, the same girl he rejected all those years ago.  Tatyana recognizes him and prays for strength.  Gremin tells Onegin that Tatyana is his wife and he is just crazy about her.  He got fed up with all the phonies he saw around.  Then Tatyana came along and she is the complete opposite of the aristocrats and he saw it.  He then introduces Onegin and Tatyana, but Tatyana says that she is tired and leaves with her husband.  Onegin suddenly realizes that he has fallen in love with Tatyana.

             The final scene takes place in Tatyana's boudoir.  Onegin has sent her a letter, just as she did to him.  Tatyana is troubled by the old passion and weeps.  Onegin enters and throws himself at her feet.  Tatyana regains herself and tells him to get up.  When Onegin declares his love for her, she questions him.  He broke her heart once before.  Why does he come running to her now?  Is it her position?  Her husband's reputation?  Why should she believe him when he's proven himself to be a self-centered young man?  Onegin says he made a mistake and loves her.  Tatyana weeps and laments that love was once so close but now the past is past.  She admits that she still loves Onegin, but she is married now and will be faithful to her husband.  Onegin tried to force her to come with him and abandon her husband, her duties, everything for him.  Onegin continually begs Tatyana to give in, but finally she shouts "Farewell forever," and leaves Onegin to his despair.

The settings and acting were something else.  The first scene of Act One was the exterior of the Larin home. Just before the curtain rose, Onegin walked out onstage looking bored and annoyed.  Then the curtain rose to reveal a transparent screen in front of the scene one set.  Onegin stood for a moment, then left the stage.    On the left was the house which people went in and out of, and there was a table on the far right where Madame Larina and Filipevna sat making jam.  This production had Olga behaving like a little girl and several times she snarfed some of the jam.  There were autumn birch trees and fallen leaves as well.  The peasants' dance was something else.

                Scene two had Tatyana's bed, bookshelf, desk, and chair simply out of a platform in front of a screen.  When the letter scene is over, the platform is removed and we're back to the exterior of the house, as if Tatyana had wandered outside while she was fantasizing about Onegin (they actually showed her becoming aware of being outside in her nightgown!).  Filipevna is simply surprised to see her out of bed so soon.

               Scene three took place in the garden.  The screen rose to reveal to the peasant women picking berries.  there were two rows of berry bushes and what looked like those log chairs or whatever they are that you'd find at a summer camp.  When Onegin gave Tatyana what is often called his sermon, she sits on one of these little chairs.  After Onegin's lecture, she runs off.

               Now this production divided the second act between acts One and Three.  The first scene of Act two took place right after the Garden Scene.  This scene was the ballroom of the Larin house.  During this scene, an amazing waltz plays.  The walls of the room were a yellowish color.  There was a refreshment table in the background and over that was a wreath that resembled  a Christmas decoration.  There were also dining tables in the scene where guests sat and gossiped while couples danced.  Some of the men left the room and came back at the end of the waltz with several bottles of wine. In this production, Monsieur Triquet looked like Harpo and Bilbo put together and clad in goofy 19th Century costume.  When Onegin and Lensky's fight really got ugly and they began physically fighting with each other, several men pulled them back and really restrained them.

           Scene two  took place in a grove of trees at dawn.  There was a little light streaming through the trees.  Now, I've seen the duel on YouTube before, but the part where Lensky and Onegin actually turn and shoot still sent shivers up my spine and Onegin's gunshot still startled me.  That's simply a function of seeing the performance live as opposed to online. 

               Act Three, Scene one began with a polonaise and had Onegin being changed onto his good clothes for his appearance at the ball.  The setting had dining tables and large columns, plus a couch on the far right.  Gremin wore a military uniform while Tatyana wore a pink dress and a tiara.

       In my humble opinion, the most beautiful love song in all of opera is not sung by a young tenor, or young soprano, or young mezzo-soprano character, but by an old basso character who has seen so much over the years.  Bass Harold Wilson was perfect as Gremin.  At the end of the scene when Onegin sings that he is now in love with Tatyana, he immediately sits down and writes her the letter.  Then he give sit to a servant to take to Tatyana.

               The final scene in the boudoir was represented simply by curtained windows, bookshelves, a desk, and a couch.  Tatyana sat on the couch and wept after reading the letter, and Onegin saw this and threw himself at her feet.  She questions him and he protests saying he loves her.  She Admits she still loves him, but asks him to leave.  In this productions she tore his letter to shreds in front of him.  When she says her final farewell, she runs of and leaves Onegin collapsing and miserable.

On the whole, this was an awesome performance.  Russian Opera is different from other European opera but it is great.  I'd suggest this one for anyone whose new to opera, or else just a Tchaikovsky fan.