Don Giovanni, Ave Verum, Poetry & Friends

This weekend was packed to the gills with music and poetry.
First on Saturday morning, with Edwin Taylor and his singers, and with other singers from St Mary’s, I rehearsed f the Rutter Gloria or two and half hours. This is Edwin’s the First Congregational Church (Ridgefield) “Concert Choir.” It’s a tough but beautiful and engaging composition with lots of time changes and spates of 5/8 just to drive us crazy. The concert which includes a brass and percussion ensemble, is Nov. 2.

Later that day, I saw the Hillhouse Opera Company’s first production – Mozart’s Don Giovanni with baritone Michael Trinik in the lead. He is a long-time student of tenor Perry Price, and at 36 years old, – and after years and years of hard work and study – this singer is really coming into his own. On the stage his voice just rolls out of him in a big grand fashion. He seems really in his element, really at home on stage, 100% engaged with his character. Another singer, really blooming in this production is soprano Victoria Gardener who’s high notes were lush and lovely. Besides sounding elegant, Ms. Gardener, all in red, tall and stately, looks like some legendary diva in training. She is also the person who made this show happen along with her parish, clergy, donors, and friends, especially Nicole Rodriquez and Regina Wagner and many others The church, St Mary’s in New Haven, is big, with its own natural reverb. There was a small orchestra under the direction of Mercy OBourke, and it was a pleasant surprise, being not only in tune but quite skilled — not a small feat for a volunteer, startup company production… I wonder if they tapped the Yale School of Music.
The score was uncut and the production was three hours. I enjoyed it all and had the company of fellow Shijin poet Eli Cleary to make the evening companionable as well.

The next morning back in the loft at that other St. Mary’s choir Mass, we sang Ave Verum and a choral version of Eye Hath Not Seen. Both seemed to go particularly well, so the experience was a good one, but I still terribly miss Rob Ayotte, our former Music Director who died in June.
Later that day there was poetry in two languages at a house warming party for Reggie and Marionela Medrano-Marra. What a lovely home, and lovely lively set of folks there to celebrate the occasion: poets, professors, artists, a college president, a radical intellect or two, not to mention the resident poet-therapists of this lovely new space. The vibes were good, the conversation lively and the food fresh, the wine, subtle, the company warm. Great day!

Unbelievable!!!

Read this Reuter's Article!: I can't imagine what they do with it all.


Banks borrow record $437.5 billion per day from Fed

GET MAD! AIG's ENORMOUS insurance payouts on Lehman bonds will come dueTuesday!

OK Cramer is a wild sounding guy - but he is so often right.

OCT 21 - next Tuesday is the day "insurance" ie credit default swap payouts on defunct Lehman Brother's bonds are due, according to Mr. Cramerica (Mad Money on CNBC.)  He said AIG is most likely the major underwriter and will have to pony up such enormous amounts of money that it will take what little value is left in the stock.  Once that is gone, the government - ie taxpayers -  us, will be writing big fat checks for AIG to very same hedgefund fat cats that acted together to "short" Lehman into oblivion. 

(Shorting is a bet that a stock will go down - and apparently you don't even need to own or even borrow shares of it - to short them. This is called naked short-selling. Though illegal, this rule was almost never enforced under the corrupt Bush SEC  and its fellow travelers in both houses and both parties in congress...)

According to a piece broadcast on NPR a few weeks ago - the thing that makes no sense and is apparently a fact of business is that "insuring"  bonds with credit default swaps is like fire insurance on STEROIDS.   Say you own a barn. You are the one who can insure it. Not so with bonds.  If a barn were a bond you could "insure" it for its full value and so could an UNLIMITED NUMBER of your closest neighbors.  Naturally they have torches and your barn burns while they stand by fanning the flames. That's what happened to Lehman Brothers, according to Cramer. And he has the contacts to know....

What kind of idiot insurance company would insure the same thing for full value over and over?    An un-regulated one.   They didn't call it insurance, either because insurance IS regulated.   Oh AIG!!     WHY would they do it?   Simple -the cost of credit default swaps  for a bond in the billions,  is in the millions! And they could collect those millions over and over again. And there was no requirement for them to have billions in cash on hand to pay up later.  As long as the barn didn't burn - the ponzi scheme continued. Just Thank your congress. Thank Henry Paulson. And remember - thanks to Paulson's AIG bailout - WE get the bill.   Not only for the $150 billion in bonds, but that times however many times the insurance was sold to whoever bought it.  It's nuts. REGULATE THESE GUYS...   and It wasn't just AIG selling this crap or buying - almost every major financial firm had a credit default swap desk with a dozen or more personnel manning it.

Somebody needs to be indicted on this one. There should be a conspiracy investigation of the multple hedgefunds who drove Lehman down while buying "insurance" ie credit default swaps on the bonds that they didn't even own!     What a racket!  AL CAPONE MOVE OVER~

The trouble is, you can't even root for the hedge funds to fail. If they all fail at once the DOW will be at ZERO. There would be so much stock for sale nobody could by it all....

Phooey on politics!

There are some things in the world that require a direct address not a remote vote.  The polite request of  dog who wants something is one of them. Shown here is Oggi who's is now around 11 years old.  Her muzzle wasn't so white when I got her from Danbury Pound.

Below is her sort of friend, the cat Miet, also adopted from an unknown past......  When they want something they sit one on either side of me and stare at me intently.  Maybe we could go to Washington and stare at congress until they get the idea!!! haha! Oh well, we'd all be staring for different reasons....

At Sub-Q an emergency verse arrives!

At Sub-Q this morning, Alice-Anne Harwood gave us a writing prompt - a quote from Eli Cleary who was not there today.  Apparently, under circumstances too complex to explain here, Eli said the following words ---  "Can you hurry this up? I have to call 911."  Naturally Alice-Ann wrote it down. It's always a danger when your friend is a writer, that something you have said will appear in print at a later time..... Of course you can always quote them right back....   Eli is a writer too.

     Based on that line-prompt, I wrote following. It's not what I consider a poem but it's really a verse....

I hear the doorbell,

see the truck.

(Don't driveway pavement

sellers suck?)

Yet over there

my neighboor's door,

- a hole that wasn't

there before!

And smoke 'n flame

in minor form

now billow from

his upstairs dorm!

Can we speed this up?

No sale! We're done!

I need to go

call 911!

Birthday Baritone, the lead in Don Giovanni 10/17 & 18

After a depressing afternoon watching the DOW sink like stone once again – I went out on a birthday celebration. I had a fine time tonight at TK’s in Danbury celebrating the 36th Birthday of baritone Michael Trinik, a fellow musical employee of St Mary Parish, and a long-time student of tenor Perry Price.

I first met Michael quite a number of years ago, (when he was still a student at WestConn) during a summer production of the Mikado in New Milford CT. Michael was the Grand PooBah, I was the oldest, fattest little maid in the chorus, and also understudy to Katasha. (If I recall more names from that production I will add them later. I am in my late 50s and cannot be relied on to recall everything.) Dramatic tenor John Shackelford was the music director and Arlene Begelman directed the theatrical aspects of the production.

In any event, a few folks came down to TK’s tonight to help Michael celebrate including his friend and fellow WestConn Alumni Keith who was also having a birthday, and a very pleasant couple whose names have escaped my aging brain. Coloratura soprano Cheryl Hill, (whose lovely high notes are a delight to the ear) her father Braxton (a bass) and her very sweet mom were also there. (I had a great time taking with the Hills.) Everyone had a few of TK’s special wings because Michael said that was his tradition. We sang happy birthday to Mike and Keith in four-part harmony…. And the bar actually paused and clapped.
Later in the evening David Baranowski, who accompanied him at his most recent recital at the Danbury Music Center, and another fine singer – who so beautifully sang O Mio Babbiono Caro from Puccini’s Gianni Schicci at that recital, (might be David’s wife? Not sure.) were also in attendance.
Anyway, after all that long-winded business – I am finally getting to the reason I am making this post. Mike will be singing the lead in Don Giovanni later this month with the fledgling Hillhouse Opera Company in New Haven, started by Victoria Gardener and a few other folks. Performances will be October 17 & 18, 7:30 pm at (yet another) St Mary’s Church, 5 Hillhouse Ave. New Haven. See the Don Giovanni link website for ticket info and directions. Note: It’s fee….

Another black day for the DOW

While Fed Chair Ben Bernanke spoke this afternoon (I watched on CNBC) the DOW, steamed and churned down 300 points - then they broadcast George speaking. Tut Tut. The day ended down 508 points. We are all holding our breath, waiting for the shoes that will surely drop.

    This hat-clad person, is a drawing from my little leather book that I write and doodle in during meetings and events. It's really a method of translating experience directly to a page...  or a way to shut out experience - that depends on the day. Sometimes these sketches are persons in the audience. Sometimes they are images evoked by what is going on.