vilaine fille

Pensée du dimanche 25 juin

Homosexuality is not “normal.” On the contrary, it is a challenge to the norm; therein rests its eternally revolutionary character. Note I do not call it a challenge to the idea of the norm. Queer theorists—that wizened crew of flimflamming free-loaders—have tried to take the poststructuralist tack of claiming that there is no norm, since everything is relative and contingent. This is the kind of silly bind that word-obsessed people get into when they are deaf, dumb, and blind to the outside world. Nature exists, whether academics like it or not. And in nature, procreation is the single, relentless rule. That is the norm. Our sexual bodies were designed for reproduction. Penis fits vagina: no fancy linguistic game-playing can change that basic fact. However, my libertarian view, here as in regard to abortion, is that we have not only the right, but the obligation to defy nature’s tyranny. The highest human identity consists precisely in such assertions of freedom against material limitation. Gays are heroes and martyrs who have given their lives in the greatest war of them all.
—Camille Paglia

[Okay, so vilaine fille is “word-obsessed” and likes the fancy linguistic games. Well, she also reveres mother Camille, a proud Italian-American woman and one of this planet’s great prose stylists. The annual Heritage of Pride march takes place today in New York, and vilaine fille sends loving greetings to all her LGBT sisters and brothers. G-d bless us, everyone!]

Pensée du dimanche 18 juin

So I will walk without care,
beat my snare,
look like a man who means business…
go to all the poshest places
with their familiar faces,
terminate all signs of weakness…
Oh, all for the sake of a foolish love…
—Rufus Wainwright, “Foolish love”

Quoth Rufola: “It’s about the type of person you fall in love with who… you know you can never really have him… It’s rather up-tempo and happy-sounding but still sad. I remember writing it almost like a mantra, saying to myself, ‘Lighten up and trudge on.’ That’s all you can do. Get out with class, the way Cole Porter would.”

Rufus at Carnegie

All nature seemed to be
in perfect harmony…
Zing! went the strings of my heart!

Rufola had a hard time with the first few songs, but all in all, it was a glorious evening. Full report to follow.

Baby Angela II

Baby Angela’s dad reports that when the family arrived home from the hospital, a buck and his clan—normally quite skittish and shy—were waiting peacefully in the backyard to welcome Angela.

“It was a very St. Francis-of-Assisi-ish moment, with touches of Dr. Doolittle thrown in. Joy to the world, to all creatures and little babies everywhere.” Amein!

Pensée du dimanche 11 juin

Nothing ages a woman like living in the country.
—Colette (Sidonie Gabrielle Colette)

It’s been a gorgeous, gorgeous weekend in New York. vilaine fille hopes that you are having a good time, wherever you are.

Ma Carmen adorée

Thanks to la sor romana, vilaine fille learned that the luscious Rinat Shaham has her own blog, sing’rin. I had the great joy of profiling Rinat for Time Out New York back in 2004, when she sang Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites at New York City Opera. In September, she will return to the company in the title role of Carmen, sure to be one of the season’s hottest tickets.

Rinat has triumphed as Carmen at Glyndebourne and Montréal; she will portray the zingara in Rome in December (notate bene: right around the time of mlr’s birthday); and she just scored a great success in Miami. I sent one of the executives at my day job to see the Florida Grand Opera show. A sober and soft-spoken man, he stopped by my desk several times upon returning to New York to say:

Elle est jolie, votre amie. Très jolie !

P.S. Please welcome a new member to vilaine fille’s extended family of bloggatrici and bloggatori, Oh! Ma Belle Tasse Chinoise.

P.P.S. The countdown continues: Rufola is this week’s cover story in TONY. Clang, clang, clang, vilaine fille can’t wait til Wednesday!

Link dump: 5 June 2006

• Yes. It. Was. (2000, too.)

• I loved the San Francisco Chronicle review of An Inconvenient Truth:
  
  Most ominous of all is evidence that the Antarctic ice shelf and the glaciers of Greenland are breaking up at a rate well beyond anything even scientists anticipated. If either were to melt completely—or if each were to melt halfway—the consequences would be dire for every coastal city, including Shanghai, New York and San Francisco. Indeed, about a fourth of Florida would disappear, though why Gore should care about that is another question entirely.

• Some good news for a change: Le français fait une rentrée !

• Michael Pollan on the so-called “Food Police”:
  
  To describe critics of agribusiness as cops or police is to imply that their messages are somehow repressive, while the activities and competing messages of the food companies represent the opposite: freedom, a word they dearly love. When a journalist writes critically of the cooking or marketing practices at McDonald’s, he is somehow interfering with people’s freedom to enjoy their chicken nuggets—the journalist stands for control. Yet for some reason the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by McDonald’s to market its food represents not control but freedom. Keep in mind that this marketing involves the routine manipulation of children—bribing them with toys, enticing them to eat more with cleverly designed packaging and portion sizes, and deploying the arts of food science to exploit their inborn cravings for fat, salt and sugar. So who exactly is the more “controlling” party here?
  
  P.S. Join the Slow Food movement. (It’s headquartered in Piemonte. Are you surprised?)
  

• Read kos on how really to “protect” marriage. And get involved.
  

• Up in Boston, opera and the good fight come together in the North American premiere of Peter Eötvös’s Angels in America. Opening night, 16 June, is a benefit for AIDS Action Committee, an organization that gave precious help to a friend of vilaine fille’s while he was losing his battle with that stinking disease. The blogosfera’s very own Tom Meglioranza stars as Prior Walter.
  
  vilaine fille will be there for the 17 June performance. Bloggatrici e bloggatori bostoniani, che ne dite ?

Baby Angela

Angela Rossanna Maria M. A. came into the world on 27 May 2006 at 2:50 a.m. in San Francisco.

Isn’t my g-dchild beautiful?

Pensée du dimanche 4 juin

…quanto era bella la città
piena dei tuoi colori
e tu che mi tenevi fra le dita…
com’era bella la città
e com’è lunga la città
senza di te…
—Gianmaria Testa, “Città lunga”

Shavuot 5766

Synagogues are decorated with foliage on Shavuot, and several reasons are given for the custom: to represent the fringe of growth around the edge of Mount Sinai, beyond which it was prohibited to go; to represent the harvest festival; to represent the reeds of the Nile from which Moses was plucked by Pharaoh’s daughter, which, according to the sages, was also on Shavuot.
—Scott-Martin Kosofsky,* The Book of Customs

* [Yes, the very one from Titanic Records and BEMF! He also designed the gorgeous fonts in The Book of Customs.]

And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy G-d my G-d: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.
—Ruth I:16-17

From Jewish Heritage Online Magazine: Sivan and Shavuot and The Many Faces of Ruth.

Chag sameach, and enjoy your cheesecake and ice cream!