corvus

Happy Aussie Day! On a completely unrelated note, I can't believe the platypus has ten sex chromosomes.

Very sad; it's a horrible loss. It's both unsurprising and disgusting how some of the media has decided to report this.

It depends. I can imagine someone creating a magnum opus that he would want finished no matter if it's by his hand or someone else's. It's like those cathedrals in the Middle Ages that took centuries to build and had more than one master architect. At the same time, I can also see how an artist's work really cannot be continued -- he might have such an individual voice that it is impossible to duplicate, he might not have put down any notes for anyone, etc. I can think of examples of the first scenario. JRR Tolkien's The Silmarillion was published posthumously; a lot of it was old material by Tolkien, but some stuff was written by his son Christopher Tolkien. Mozart's Requiem in D Minor was completed by Sussmayr, and nobody knows how much is Mozart's and how much is Sussmayr's. IMO, I'm glad that the Requiem was completed and rendered in a form that audiences can enjoy, rather than kept in a skeletal limbo that belongs only in museums. Lastly, the great Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber is subject to tremendous controversy regarding authorship problems. In every situation, I think authorship has to be acknowledged -- i.e., finishers shouldn't pass themselves off as the original, but declare that they're trying to continue a tradition, help complete a work of art, etc. I am less certain when it's a good idea to actually try to finish something. In Tolkien's case, Christopher knew a lot of the mythology, and much of the work was already done. With the Requiem, at least Sussmayr was good enough that the final product is listenable. I don't know enough about DotRC to give an evaluation on that, but... in these situations at least, I'm glad that the work was completed.

If you're searching for quality films... My Beautiful Laundrette. A Pakistani immigrant opens a little laundrette with the help of his boyfriend, a former gangster from the other side of town, and deals with everything that comes with an inter-racial and inter-cultural relationship during Thatcher UK. This films was made by the same guy who made The Queen last year, and co-stars a really cute Daniel Day-Lewis. Maurice. EM Forster, of A Passage to India and Howard's End fame, wrote this novel about a gay English lad growing up and becoming a gay man in the shadow of Oscar Wilde. It's a sweet, though-provoking story, made by Merchant & Ivory, who are famous for their period adaptations (Howard's End, Remains of the Day, etc). Wedding Banquet. Before Ang Lee made Brokeback, he made this gem of a film, which is about a Taiwanese man living in New York with his American boyfriend. His mom wants him to get married, and she wants a huge banquet to go with it. What's a filial son got to do? Farewell My Concubine. This isn't exactly gay-themed, but it's an incredible film anyway. A boy is abandoned by his mother and forced to join the Beijing opera troupe, where he specializes in the role of the concubine. This stage identity takes over his life, and he has to deal with falling in love -- during the Cultural Revolution -- with a very straight guy. (Can't blame him -- he's in love with the luminous Gong Li.) None of these films are gay the way Latter Days or Eating Out are. But they're amazing and deserve to be watched.

That might be true in some instances, but not always. It wasn't when I was the one at the receiving end. :wacko: If I had to choose, I might choose the opposite. Though ideally I'd go for mutual, of course.

Yeah, those all look to be very definite and very positive signals... Good luck! I hope there will be soon. Let us know how it went!

That really sucks. And casual skin to skin contact? Contaminated surfaces? The whole toilet seat thing is going to come true...

Happy birthday!

Hey, misery here loves company. You're obviously not miserable with your finals over, so you can shoo. Interestingly, I've been doing research on the college that serves as the setting for my current story, and it has the same academic calendar as yours. Maybe the dates are common? The college that I'm writing about, by the by, is supposed to hate Stanford.

I admit, this is sort of off topic... but not by much! My friend and I were discussing the relative merits of "I love you"s in different languages. If you extrapolate that into accents... I must go with French. "Je t'aime" is beautiful. I rather like "Ich liebe dich," even though there's a bit too much tongue action. Sadly, "I love you" is kind of bland. I don't really like Finnish ("mina rakastan sinua"), and I've heard (please correct me if I'm wrong) that in Spanish it's "te quiero"... isn't that more like "I want you"?? Isn't that a bit crude? But, well, it's honest.

On that note, I'd like to point out that most of the recent major American classical composers are or were gay: Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story, Candide), John Corigliano (Red Violin soundtrack, Symphony commemorating AIDS victims), Aaron Copland (Appalachian Spring, Fanfare for the Common Man), Samuel Barber (Adagio for Strings), and others. We've a lot to be proud of.

Wow, this is really hard... Hmm, let's see. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It's just completely brilliant -- the story is quick, the humor is ever-present, and you just got to love the characters. The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley. It's one of those young adult books that really stuck with me. I connected to Aerin more than to any other character I've read. The Story of the Night, by Colm Toibin. It's a bildingsroman about a gay man who grows up in Argentina in the 1980s. This story really tore me up when I read it. I think I came closer to crying with this book than with any other book I've read. The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. Tolkien understands mythmaking and beauty more than anyone else. Beloved, by Toni Morrison. It made a huge impact on me, in terms of how to tell stories and what literature should feel like. The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene. Existentialist angst. Catholic angst. Romantic angst. Love it. There's tons of other books that I really like -- Lolita, Thursbitch, Ender's Game, To Kill a Mockingbird, Catch-22, etc. -- but I think these stand out for me. Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats There's nothing like Yeats. If I had to choose favorites, they'd be: "Leda and the Swan," "The Second Coming," "Circus Animals' Desertion," "The Two Trees," the Byzantium poems, "Easter 1916," "A Dialogue of Self and Soul," and a lot more.

Excellent! Someone else who loves opera! I'm not too familiar with Gluck, but I did listen to his Alceste the other day. And that is sweet, Orestes returning to rule with Pylade... That certainly ends better than the only other opera I can think of that has a gay subtext, which is Peter Grimes. And I notice you're from SF -- do you go to the SF opera? I never had the chance to, even though I've lived quite close for most of my life.

My idiot uni has finals after winter break. We get this wimpy intercession after finals and before the new semester, but it's only a week. I heard that's what they do overseas, but it's only what I've heard. Hey Kurt, good luck to you too! I know what you mean about physics....

Does anyone have finals soon? If you're already done with your finals, don't tell me, I don't need to know, harhar. I went from feeling okay about them about three hours ago to totally freaking out. agggggh. :wacko:

While those are true, I think those aren't really legitimate reasons explaining why one doesn't post. That other people do silly things and have fun should not stop you from making sensible posts. One might feel excluded or affronted by objectionable behavior, but it does not follow that one should let those feelings get in the way of trying to remedy the situation, or simply going about one's own business. [/Elizabeth Bennet] One reason I might not post is if I feel nobody would be interested in whatever it is that I'm posting. Starting a thread and getting no replies is an implicit rejection -- or, that's what it may feel like. And nobody likes that feeling. However, that isn't a big problem on this forum, thanks to the people who do reply madly to everything. I like to think that people here know how important it is to foster the sense of community that may not be available off line, and thus do more than usual in affirming that atmosphere. Nevertheless, even though a response is better than no response, a vacuous response leaves a lot to be desired. Not that I'm accusing anyone of making vacuous posts. All right, I'm scurrying back to study chem..... :nuke:

Ooh, I used to be a huge Sarah Brightman fan. In fact, she's the one who got me interested in opera. What song did you sing for the contest, btw? Was it Erlkonig? I'm trying to think of German operatic pieces and not succeeding. Hmm. I know Seigmund has some famous pieces, but I'm not very familiar with them. Although a tenor rendition of the Liebestod would be interesting... Great, Mozart. I can proudly say that I managed to turn my youngest brother into a parrot that churns out Der Holle Rache, from the Magic Flute, incessantly. It drives the rest of my family up the wall...

Hey, those are my sentiments exactly -- except for maybe the last sentence. (I might be a @ <3) I suppose it's because I experimented with someone who was gay rather than someone who was straight, and so avoided the whole pining away thing. Unfortunately, you could say that the reverse happened, and the guy I did the experimenting with is *still* rather hung up on *me*... In any case, I don't think I'd ever let myself entertain anything more serious than fantasies with someone I know isn't in my sea.

Ah, I have the gay opera gene. And I have it bad. Also, aren't musicals in general considered gay? I mean, musical theatre should be packed with gay people -- theatre in general should be. (haha -- 'should' ) And isn't Sondheim gay? For me, there's something about the otherness of the presentation of the music (ie the 'distorted' voices, having it all on stage, in a story) that actually emphasizes emotions that are extremely personal. There's more artistry and less pretense. Besides all things classical, I like Enya, Madonna, and ABBA. I must have the gayest musical taste in the world.

It tells me I'm restless, antisocial, and egocentric. I hope that isn't true.

I suppose I shouldn't let the robot do all the work. Hi, I'm an undergrad studying biochem or bioeng, not sure. I'm not entirely new -- I've lurked for a couple of years here and there, but I've decided to emerge and take over the world. I write a lot and used to be good at grammar, but that was back when I was studying for the SAT writing. Anyone who really likes Yeats or opera (esp Maria Callas) is my new special friend

I picked Irish. Interestingly, I'd a professor who had an accent and a racial mix that nobody could figure out. Finally we found out that he was Jamaican and Chinese. Then we found out he was gay.

With Callas singing, this is the most amazing aria/song ever: Italian: La mamma morta m'hanno alla porta della stanza mia Moriva e mi salvava! poi a notte alta io con Bersi errava, quando ad un tratto un livido bagliore guizza e rischiara innanzi a' passi miei la cupa via! Guardo! Bruciava il loco di mia culla! Cos