If You're A Loony And You Know It, Clap Your Hands!

Fig. 1. William Hogarth - The Interior of Bedlam (from A Rake's Progress), 1763

MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual. It is noteworthy that persons are pronounced mad by officials destitute of evidence that themselves are sane. For illustration, this present (and illustrious) lexicographer is no firmer in the faith of his own sanity than is any inmate of any madhouse in the land; yet for aught he knows to the contrary, instead of the lofty occupation that seems to him to be engaging his powers he may really be beating his hands against the window bars of an asylum and declaring himself Noah Webster, to the innocent delight of many thoughtless spectators.

Ambrose Bierce

Your Ears Will Orgasm #51: Peter Maxwell Davies - Eight Songs for a Mad King (MixPod Player)

If You Stab Us, Do We Not Burst Into Mournful Arias?

Fig. 1. Palace Garnier (still known to many as the Paris Opera), 1875


'Of all the noises known to man, opera is the most expensive.'

Moliere

* 'Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.' (Robert Burns)

Your Ears Will Orgasm #49: Peter Maxwell Davies - Miss Donnithorne's Maggot (MixPod Player)

When Metaphor Is The Child Of Motion And Meaning

Fig. 1. Gérard Uféras - Charlotte Ranson in Orphée et Eurydice by Pina Bausch, Ballet de l'Opéra National de Paris, 2005


'Muscular capacity is the physical means by which dances are made. But the means became available to the choreographic imagination only through the operation of a metaphor by which a moving in the muscular sense takes on the character of a doing or goings on ... Strictly speaking, then, dances are not made out of but upon movement, movement being the poetic bearer, the persistent metaphor, by which muscular material is made available for the enhanced, meaningful, and designed goings on that are dance.'

George Beiswanger

Your Ears Will Orgasm #47: Nicolai Gedda - 'J'ai Perdu Mon Eurydice', Orphée et Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck (MixPod Player)

The Fulsome And Final Missives Of Those We Miss

Fig. 1. Le Testament d'Orphée (still), 1960 - d. Jean Cocteau

'After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.'

Jean Cocteau

Your Ears Will Orgasm #15: Cello Concerto (Farewell to Philosophy) - Gavin Bryars (MixPod Player)

Addendum #1: The Delicate And Precarious Tact In Audacity*

Klaus Nomi (1944-1983) - 'The Cold Song' from Henry Purcell's opera King Arthur (Munich, December 1982)

The Cold Song

What Power art thou,
Who from below,
Hast made me rise,
Unwillingly and slow,
From beds of everlasting snow!

See'st thou not how stiff,
And wondrous old,
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold.

I can scarcely move,
Or draw my breath,
I can scarcely move,
Or draw my breath.

Let me, let me,
Let me, let me,
Freeze again...
Let me, let me,
Freeze again to death!

Henry Purcell (music) & John Dryden (lyrics)

At the time of this performance, Klaus' audience was unaware of his HIV-positive status. Although frustrated with shortness of breath and fatigue, he was determined to perform to his home crowd. Six months later, Nomi died. He was thirty-nine years old.

* 'The tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.' Jean Cocteau

Addendum #2: This Strange Weimar Version Of Mickey Mouse*

Klaus Nomi performing 'Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix' from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns:

* 'Toward the end of the show, the lights dimmed and the room was filled with a thundering musical ovation. The curtains opened and the spotlight fell on a strange, unearthly presence wearing a black gown, clear plastic cape, and white gloves. As the orchestral refrain from Saint-Saëns' Samson and Dalila was played, this strange Weimar version of Mickey Mouse began singing in an angelic voice. "I still get goose pimples when I think about it," remembers Joey Arias, who was in the audience that night. "Everyone became completely quite until it was over."'

Steven Hager (Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene)