Thursday, September 27, 2007
At first you think it's...
In the Circus of the Charge of the Light Brigade, Michael Conley will be third. Before the lions. After this guy.
Verdi's аида
Mose and I attended the opera last night, my first in Russia. The experience was notable for two reasons:
1) We sat in the gods, where the price of tickets was 100 rubles—approximately $4.
2) During the intermission, we drank tea from plastic cups and openly ate homemade meat-pastries. Others did the same.
On the way out, we sang old Russian folk songs. Mose explained that an opera is only singing, while an operetta has both singing and words. We all agreed that operettas are finer.
1) We sat in the gods, where the price of tickets was 100 rubles—approximately $4.
2) During the intermission, we drank tea from plastic cups and openly ate homemade meat-pastries. Others did the same.
On the way out, we sang old Russian folk songs. Mose explained that an opera is only singing, while an operetta has both singing and words. We all agreed that operettas are finer.
Pitch & Toss
I found this today. If I could ever get Mose out for drinks, I'd suggest we play.
"Pitch and toss, known as The Hoy, was very popular with miners in the fifties, perhaps later, and had a little specialised vocabulary of its own. The hoyer or chucker of the two pennies sometimes had an assistant who collected the coins after each throw. He was known as a bevver and for his bevving might get a little tip if the chucker made a profit. The three possibilities were known as 2 heads (chucker wins), 2 tails (chucker loses) and 1 head, 1 tail (no one wins). The last combination, I never knew why, was called '2 bikes'.
If more than one gambler wanted to be the chucker (this could be a very expensive business, as the odds are even on winning and there could be several big bets against) then the choice was made by having the candidates throw a penny towards a marker on the ground. The mark might be a piece of paper, a little mound or a stone showing through the soil..."
from Les Gorse (courtesy of here)
(In a related side-note: "Pitch and toss" is also cockney rhyming slang for boss.)
"Pitch and toss, known as The Hoy, was very popular with miners in the fifties, perhaps later, and had a little specialised vocabulary of its own. The hoyer or chucker of the two pennies sometimes had an assistant who collected the coins after each throw. He was known as a bevver and for his bevving might get a little tip if the chucker made a profit. The three possibilities were known as 2 heads (chucker wins), 2 tails (chucker loses) and 1 head, 1 tail (no one wins). The last combination, I never knew why, was called '2 bikes'.
If more than one gambler wanted to be the chucker (this could be a very expensive business, as the odds are even on winning and there could be several big bets against) then the choice was made by having the candidates throw a penny towards a marker on the ground. The mark might be a piece of paper, a little mound or a stone showing through the soil..."
from Les Gorse (courtesy of here)
(In a related side-note: "Pitch and toss" is also cockney rhyming slang for boss.)
Vincent Wilhelm Van Gogh II
"Every Sunday, the family clad in black and bearing flowers, set off to the little cemetery at Groot-Zundert, where they went directly from the gate to a grave marked 'Vincent Wilhelm Van Gogh 1852.' A single date to mark a birth and a death, for this was the grave of a child six weeks old. As the father, mother, two sons and three daughters prayed, the eldest of the boys--also called Vincent Wilhelm--stared intensely at the gravestone and the name, his brother's, that was also his own.
"The young Vincent Wilhelm was born March 30, 1853, a year to the day after the death of his brother."
Pierre Cabanne, Van Gogh, Terrail, 2006, pp. 7-8.
"The young Vincent Wilhelm was born March 30, 1853, a year to the day after the death of his brother."
Pierre Cabanne, Van Gogh, Terrail, 2006, pp. 7-8.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
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