Very, very enjoyable day. I picked up Mary Ann at 7:30 and drove to the opera lecture at Westminster Choir College in Princeton. It took two full hours because there was a detour at Allentown and I got somewhat lost negotiating it. No matter; we got there just in time.
I was pleased to be greeted with a hug from Scott H., whom I had known and liked when I was at Rider's main campus and had an office at Westminster. Went upstairs to get the same warm welcome from Nancy F., Scott's wife, who runs the lecture series. It had been too early for me to eat breakfast before we left, so the coffee, bagels, and grapes offered hit the spot.
The program itself was superb. On the overhead, we actually saw the major parts of the opera Anne Bolena* (Gaetano Donizetti), interrupted at appropriate spots by the lecturer. It was so informative and added greatly to my understanding and enjoyment of opera--what to look for and so on. He interspersed that with a short history of Edward VIII, his various wives, and the "tone" of the period. Interestingly, the titles were in French; the lecturer mentioned he couldn't get an English version.
It occurred to me that appreciating opera or anything in the arts, I guess--rather than just pretending to--is similar to learning to appreciate prose and poetry. When you understand the elements of it and can automatically apply them (but not be pedantic about it), you can more fully enjoy a poem or a painting or an opera.
Anyway, it was damn good.
There were about fifteen people there and we were comfortably seated at tables set up in a "U." Chatted with the lecturer's wife, a lovely young woman from Taiwan. The session took two hours. I showed Mary Ann a bit of the campus before we left, then we drove down to Rider and I showed her a bit of that by car.
We stopped and ate at the Plumstead Grille, just down 639 from those who live up north; had a chicken panini and a Heineken and they were darn good.
Home about 4:30 after a lovely, wonderful day.
*Italian spelling of Anne Boleyn.
WIDER: This is a comment from my friend, Rob Payne, on our blog "Dead Horse", concerning why we're in Afghanistan:
--To sum it up the plan was permanent military bases all along while all the crap about nation building was a ruse for the rubes at home. Us. The only two rivals we have in the world, though they are distant rivals, are Russia and China. And that is why we will never, ever, leave Afghanistan or Iraq because control of the oil flow gives the U.S. some leverage over them. So from this perspective the U.S. wars in those two nations are a great success because we did what we set out to do, create permanent military bases. We are there and there we shall stay at least for as long as we are able to.--(emphasis added)
Finally! For me, the light dawns...
For Rob's full comment, go here:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=38514871&postID=2091263938499266250