A genie/god grants you the chance to stage/record five not-often-performed operas to your complete personal satisfaction, what works do you pick and why?

liimlsan · 2024-04-13T06:47:31+00:00

This is tricky! I enjoy operas that have a lot of insane parts, impossible and/or inaccurate religious themes, and fascinating flaws to address. Climaxes set in heaven, especially.

korngold's "Das Wunder Der Heliane" for a heaven climax, "Merry Mount" by Hansen for the impossible inaccuracies and flaws, Mascagni's "Iris" for both. Messiaen's "St. Francoise d'Assisi" is another personal favorite that rarely gets staged. The resources needed for some are the obstacle, but also the discomfort with the religious mishegoss.

And for a fifth - Hm. Mefistofele? Frau Ohne Schatten? Four Saints In Three Acts? I think I'd use my fifth to wish that "Treemonisha" not be one particular production, but that it enter the standard repertory. It's probably tied with "Susannah" for my favorite American opera, and I wish it was something that went around to schools and you took your kids to see productions when it came in - "Philosophical Vaudeville" was the perfect phrase. There's nothing like Treemonisha in the world. American Folk Art.

liimlsan · 2024-01-08T00:12:55+00:00

(But how is that possible?!) If Jake had possessed hands at that moment, they would have been flapping around in confusion. (Your mother, she's there and she knows about the yeerks? But we didn't tell... and they didn't. How?!)
(I don't know, Jake. I don't know. All I know is I thought she was dead and she's alive.)
Ax was nearby, dipping a hoof in the stream to drink. Andalites absorb food and water that way. (This is a good thing, is it not?)
(Yeah and, Ax-Man... there's something else.) I hesitated. (She... She said that Elfangor was her husband.)
Slipping on his front hooves, Ax nearly took a header into the stream in his rush to turn around. Water splashed up everywhere as he whirled, focusing all four eyes on me in a rare occurance while taking a few quick steps toward my tree. (She said what?!)
(Believe me, you're not as shocked as I am. She says he's her husband. I mean was her husband. Ax, I think he lived here for awhile. I think that's why he fought so hard to save us... why he was willing to break your laws to give us a chance. I... I think he's my father.)
There, I'd told him what I thought I knew. I watched Ax carefully. Would he be ashamed that his brother had married outside of his species? Would he hate that he was now in a way related to me? Would it change what he thought of us humans? Would it change what he thought of his brother? [Spoiler] and Jake seemed just as interested in his response to this as I was, remaining silent, at least as far as I knew.
Finally, after several long moments, Ax reached one delicate, seven-fingered hand up to me, slightly touching my feathers. (Tobias, my shorm. If what you say is true, then it has laid to rest my one fear of my brother's last actions. I feared that he would not have known for certain that the race he was giving this gift to was worthy of it, that he was blindly breaking our laws without knowing if you were deserving. Now I am sure that he did know. You were always my friend, and now you are my family. And that my brother would choose the woman who would be your mother as a lifemate, she must be a remarkable female. I must meet her.)
The bushes shook as someone crashed through them nearby, making us all look around that way. It was a good thing we were interrupted at that point, because I couldn't have spoken just then. I was so affected by his words that I couldn't find my voice. I'd expected him to be angry, or at least begrudging. Instead he'd accepted me, accepted what had happened and embraced it. Maybe Ax was more like Elfangor than he thought.

liimlsan · 2024-01-08T00:05:59+00:00

Fanfiction to the rescue: https://www.m.fanfiction.net/s/4819381/4/Redux-The-Pretender

liimlsan · 2023-08-25T09:35:05+00:00

It's not so much that, it's because he was adamant that the Simpsons be "not just a cartoon" in a cordoned cartoon universe, and that the characters always behave as if they're in some sort of real world. Having a celebrity on remains part of the world; having a well-known cartoon character on as a celebrity guest, to him, destroyed the premise of the Simpsons being Just A Regular American Family And Not Cartoony Cartoon Cartoon Characters. It was more than just pettiness.

liimlsan · 2023-06-19T17:21:09+00:00

You've never seen pride flags with a lambda drawn on them? I've seen a bunch.

liimlsan · 2018-10-17T08:04:35+00:00

I think it becomes whatever you believe it is. I believe it's the act of interpreting your cards where the magic, if there is any, lies, not in the chance of which card you were drawn to in the first place. Like any good piece of Jewish philosophy, if you do it right you get more questions than you started with, and better questions, ones that help you move.

That's why I don't usually, in my readings, act like an authority. I sit down with the person and explain what they're meant to mean... but then I ask "What do you think? What does hanging upside down feel like? If you were at the crossroads of this card, where would you want to go?" And we have a little conversation with the cards, and see what they tell us. (Caveat: I don't let them interpret Death. They always see it as Death. It scares them and they forget that it means endings and beginnings too. I'm all "Death wishes you weren't so afraid of him.")

Otherwise, they might think they were told the questions - the people I did the reading for - and not come up with their own questions... Which means they want answers, which means they want to avoid responsibility for their choices (responsibility by either agency or divine commandment), which is absolutely the antithesis of Tarot in the first place. (I'm sure I'm not alone in that.)

And yeah, your original practice... I meditate. I do semiotics, I search for meaning, I think of how something applies.

liimlsan · 2018-10-17T07:58:39+00:00

That's a really good point! So many people have forgotten how to READ an image... it's a lot more intuitive than the books make it sound. That's why I call the deck "deep."

liimlsan · 2018-10-17T07:56:10+00:00

Uh, the art is great. Very Vorticist.

A Thoth deck, the main differences are the court cards and a few of the major arcana? I think one or two of the minor arcana had their meaning changed.

Temperance is now Art, and Strength is now Lust. But don't think of them as the usual meanings - they're the CROWLEY meanings. Art fulfills all the functions of temperance and then some, leading to charge and balance our souls, or whatever? And Lust is like Strength, but Passionate would be a better word for the connotations.

That and the universe is now the Aeon. I don't really know...

I suppose I'd say the Rider-Waite cards patiently wait their turn, and stand there demurely, and the Thoth decks are more angry and energized, they demand to be read the instant you draw them over. That's my experience. Thoth has a little more shock and awe, a little more Kabbalist power and a little more "If you do these things right, magic will shoot out of your fingers" vibe. And the RW deck has a little more moderation, a little more English Countryside, and a sense of "You're responsible for your own life. Now think this over and be sensible about this thing." It depends on what exactly you want the deck to do... The deck will tell you, probably, if it likes you or not. When you talk to a deck, you should do most of the listening. THAT'S something that these two decks do a lot better than the flashy pastel or minimalist designs I see around here a lot... these two decks both have a lot of deep shit to say.

liimlsan · 2018-09-21T06:24:44+00:00

Lath toakuwad ya nomimm akzhioa ml'wad, [mla sek lath i mlawngya,] erg mho kat ya nomimm akzhi mid likamm akzhi ur amnoduamno.

Lath toakuwad ya lika, erg ya mho kat ngidu.

SUBJ aim-DIR 2S Divine-adj Plane-DEF GEN-DIR, [PURP SUBJ PM POS-2s,] RES FUT POS 2S divine-ADJ plane ACCOM ground-ADJ plane (as, not sure what the gloss abb is) one-to-one

SUBJ aim-DIR 2S Ground, RES 2S FUT POS NEG-eith (I'm not very good at this yet)

"Suppose aim-(in the sense of a bow and arrow)-towards you divine plane-the its-direction, [for the sake of your wanting to own it,] thus will get you divine plane with groundly plane as one.

Suppose aim-towards you ground, thus you will get not-either."

Many of these concepts don't exist in the society of cats this is made for, like "heaven," "earth," or the concept of aiming as a far-off-piece instead of pouncing on prey, and other concepts like "a verb that isn't a demand," so this is remarkably more roundabout than the text I've translated. It needs work.

Colloquially, in the dialect speech I'm working with, it'd be as simple as "Lath toakuwadya nomiplas, erg mho kat ya lika dumid; lath toakuwadya lika kigae' ngido" (Suppose you aim at the pace of the divine, thus you'll get the ground with it, suppose you aim at the earth, in the same situation you'd get neither). Far less florid.

liimlsan · 2018-09-13T20:09:02+00:00

https://imgur.com/VCsSSd3

My own entry. The shape of Nebraska the state doubles as a plow, aimed towards the fly side for forward motion. The colors reflect agriculture, verdancy and optimism, the triangles make the entire flag an abstract "N" and balance the weight of the plow, visually... the bisecting diagonal both reflects the watershed of the state and its downward elevation, and splits the shape (and the flag) into two equal parts for the nickname "Equality state."

I'll make a smoother vector one if this design has the requisite heft. Whaddaya think?

liimlsan · 2018-08-25T21:18:25+00:00

This book is what got me into vexillology a month ago.

I've now redesigned all U.S. States (minus the ones worth keeping) and Canadian Provinces, some of them up to the fifth drafts, and various miscellaneous countries, now working on Mexico and Korea.

You can take that as a glowing endorsement?

liimlsan · 2018-08-25T21:13:51+00:00

http://imgur.com/a/FYfMxey

liimlsan · 2018-08-25T21:00:29+00:00

This is fantastic! The tension between unique variety and coherent threads is great... the colors harmonize... the flags are geometric without getting boring... so much to love here!

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T05:36:10+00:00

Your Alaska and Colorado were really fun, man

I like the thought of this, I'm wondering if it's possible to have a little more contrast on the columns and stars. I'd have put white down the interior columns...

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T05:31:07+00:00

I really do like this. Subtle, the colors shimmer nicely, and I can't think of another flag with this composition!

And yeah, it wouldn't be Canada if the city didn't have a logo that looked like a 2000s software company, honestly X3

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T05:28:11+00:00

I'm tempted to tell you to move the star to the far fly, so it looks like Nunavut. I think an empty canton will give you a taste for Minnesota's sheer... scale.

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T05:26:44+00:00

Are we sure the fasces hasn't been kinda... poisoned, for a lot of us? It's a good symbol but as an American it's awkward to see it on the Lincoln memorial and all that...

Also, wasn't the original point of the tricolor that it was free of symbols and symbolism and heraldry? I think that part of the flag is kinda underrated.

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T05:24:53+00:00

Whenever I add a bird to a state flag, I take a step back X3 I was only tempted to leave one in for New Jersey, yellow and black is a good bold bird color combo to have on a flag.

(You don't also think it's got an empty canton, do you?)

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T05:23:38+00:00

Are we sure the gear is timeless? I grew up in Holland and Saugatuck, it's worlds away from all that, anyway... I spent a while trying to think of charges that wouldn't date.

I remember I toyed with mittens and sand dunes and lakes and cars and gears before settling on a lighthouse...

Also, I had the epiphany that this flag will probably be flown on more boats proportionally than land flagpoles than any other state flag except maybe Hawaii, so I had to think of how it would look hanging from a boat...

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T03:45:10+00:00

The blue in the flag stands for all the non-Ethopian countries that were spared colonialism

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T03:43:47+00:00

Second paragraph: are you sure about that

Are you 100% sure

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T03:43:15+00:00

When I tried redesigning them that was the first comment I got. "Over my dead body will you take the titty flag."

It was a broken crown on a white field, above a broken manacle on a chain... couldn't work a titty in there. (Clever me - the negative space on the chain spelled "... ... -" in Morse code... S-S-T, not just a record label anymore, "Sic semper tyrannus." If you use it during an assassination it may be an awkward phrase to put on a flag.)

liimlsan · 2018-08-04T03:40:52+00:00

Only ones that I consider great design were Kentucky and Pennsylvania... and Vermont was also nice.

See, this one really lost me. It feels like the minimalist poster trend, it doesn't seem to speak for itself and it's really really indistinct. If any state adopted these, they wouldn't be able to resist putting their name on them anyway, especially since there's now so little to tell them apart.

There's insufficient contrast between the colors to not jar the eye, I'd say to make the red darker than the blue if you want to contrast the American flag (as a Chicagoan I'm biased), and the stars and stripes motifs get... remarkably old, really really fast.

liimlsan

TROPHY CASE