@riverlover Replacements would probably make your life better. Replacements are also sometimes expensive. Welcome to planned obsolescence.

Here's hoping you get the tools you need to make talking to us more pleasant!

I have an unharvested Hen of the Woods, was bright yellow. Now a melted puddle of white. Cooler are the flowers that root-sprout from oaks.

I have a still-unlively keyboard, a non-scrolling mouse. Plus internet
stalls (thanks Frontiernet!)
All parts have been threatened with replacement.

@mhagle You're welcome, Marilyn! Nice to see you.

read and listen to the music.

Awfully nice way to start the day.

Thanks!

@Lookout I think we just found the nervous system of the forest.

Even individual plants are more "awake" than people give them credit for, though. I really hate the way the dominant culture makes everything it can into insensate objects.

is largely unseen and underappreciated.

Researchers have found that some of the ectomycorrhizal hyphae around the root of one plant travel to the root of a neighbouring plant and surround and enter it, too. In addition, one plant may form mycorrhizae with several fungi. In a community of plants, such as a forest, a network of plants connected by hyphae is formed.

A plant-fungus network based on mycorrhizae is referred to as a wood-wide web or a common mycelial network (CMN). Scientists have discovered that the fungal connection allows chemicals to be transferred from one plant to another instead of only between a single plant and its root fungi. The CMN is still being explored, but some scientists are already saying that a field of plants or a forest of trees connected by mycorrhizae could be viewed as a superorganism instead of a collection of individuals.

It's already known that in at least some plants a chemical can transmit a message from one individual to another through the air. It will be very exciting to discover the types of information that plants transfer via chemicals travelling through mycorrhizae. Some people are jumping to as yet unsubstantiated conclusions about the extent of the transferred information, however.

https://owlcation.com/stem/Truffles-and-Trees-The-Benefits-of-Mycorrhiza...

In his TED talk, Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe: cleaning polluted soil, making insecticides, treating smallpox and even flu viruses.
https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_...

As far as opera and jazz, I'm no help...not much of a sophisticate I suppose.

Have you ever seen the movie Fitzcarraldo? It is a 1982 West German surreal adventure-drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.

The reason I mention it is the music... The soundtrack album (released in 1982) contains music by Popol Vuh, taken from the albums Die Nacht der Seele (1979) and Sei still, wisse ich bin (1981), performances by Enrico Caruso, and others. The film uses excerpts from the operas: Verdi's Ernani, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci ("Ridi, Pagliaccio"), Puccini's La bohème, Bellini's I puritani, and from Richard Strauss' orchestral work Death and Transfiguration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo

It's a bizarre film and the opera music fits the story well.

Hope all is well with all of you. Have a good day!

@Lookout You had me at Werner Herzog.

I have a side interest in vampire literature and movies--or I did before Twilight came and spat up all over my fandom--and Werner Herzog made the best vampire movie I've ever seen: a remake of Nosferatu. I've also seen a very compelling but weird movie he made in which he had all the actors hypnotized before they did their scenes. I think it's called Ludmilla.

is largely unseen and underappreciated.

Researchers have found that some of the ectomycorrhizal hyphae around the root of one plant travel to the root of a neighbouring plant and surround and enter it, too. In addition, one plant may form mycorrhizae with several fungi. In a community of plants, such as a forest, a network of plants connected by hyphae is formed.

A plant-fungus network based on mycorrhizae is referred to as a wood-wide web or a common mycelial network (CMN). Scientists have discovered that the fungal connection allows chemicals to be transferred from one plant to another instead of only between a single plant and its root fungi. The CMN is still being explored, but some scientists are already saying that a field of plants or a forest of trees connected by mycorrhizae could be viewed as a superorganism instead of a collection of individuals.

It's already known that in at least some plants a chemical can transmit a message from one individual to another through the air. It will be very exciting to discover the types of information that plants transfer via chemicals travelling through mycorrhizae. Some people are jumping to as yet unsubstantiated conclusions about the extent of the transferred information, however.

https://owlcation.com/stem/Truffles-and-Trees-The-Benefits-of-Mycorrhiza...

In his TED talk, Paul Stamets lists 6 ways the mycelium fungus can help save the universe: cleaning polluted soil, making insecticides, treating smallpox and even flu viruses.
https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_...

As far as opera and jazz, I'm no help...not much of a sophisticate I suppose.

Have you ever seen the movie Fitzcarraldo? It is a 1982 West German surreal adventure-drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known in Peru as Fitzcarraldo, who is determined to transport a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory in the Amazon Basin. The film is derived from the historic events of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.

The reason I mention it is the music... The soundtrack album (released in 1982) contains music by Popol Vuh, taken from the albums Die Nacht der Seele (1979) and Sei still, wisse ich bin (1981), performances by Enrico Caruso, and others. The film uses excerpts from the operas: Verdi's Ernani, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci ("Ridi, Pagliaccio"), Puccini's La bohème, Bellini's I puritani, and from Richard Strauss' orchestral work Death and Transfiguration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo

It's a bizarre film and the opera music fits the story well.

Hope all is well with all of you. Have a good day!

@TheOtherMaven You know a lot more about this than I do--please keep bringing this stuff up in future weeks!
I am actually not a middlebrow, but an exceedingly low-brow opera lover in a rather wretched I-know-what-I-like kind of way. Really, I got seduced by Puccini, particularly Turandot, which despite its unfinished nature I still regard as his masterpiece, and one of the finest operas I've ever heard--I can really feel the nineteenth century straining to make the leap into twentieth-century modernity, a leap that I don't really believe the music world made, exactly, though there is Stravinsky. But overall it feels like a tradition of European music that was progressing from the 1600s through the early 1900s got abruptly derailed. I've often wondered whether that was an effect of the Great War.

This is all just rambling that I'm pulling out of unresearched hunches, so feel free to correct me!

Anyway, the point is that I just got sucked into opera, first by Don Giovanni, then by Turandot. Mozart piqued my interest, but Puccini really sealed the deal. Someday I guess I should expand beyond those two!

so I'll put a few words in. When most people hear the name "Pavarotti", they think of the late stages of his career, when he had become a great big self-indulgent ham. Early Pavarotti was quite promising - a big voice with a lot of potential to go in a number of different directions. Too bad the one he chose eventually turned him into a caricature of himself.

Have only heard a few snippets of Tito Schipa, but find him quite interesting, He rolled his Rs very noticeably, much more than most other singers, and I wonder if that was due to his Arbereshe background (the Arbereshe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB_people are immigrants from Albania who colonized the spike-heel of Italy and used to be known as "Albanese" - which makes me wonder about the deep ancestry of Licia Albanese, but that's another story).

Beniamino Gigli was known in his time as "the thinking man's tenor". He didn't have an enormous voice, but made optimal use of placement and inflection, and studied his roles both dramatically and musically. (He is said to have been the first tenor to come up with the idea that Cavaradossi, in Tosca (act III), doesn't believe he's going to get off scot-free and is just playing along with Tosca to keep her spirits up. It gives the scene a chilling twist.)

What ruined di Stefano's voice was not so much technique problems as pushing (or being pushed) into drammatico roles before he was ready to sing them. It takes a rather heavyweight voice to handle e.g. Calaf or Radames, and it takes both time and the right kind of range. He should be a Horrid Example to Joseph Calleja, who has a similar basically-lirico voice that is slowly extending into the spinto repertoire(spinto is heavier than lirico but not as heavy as drammatico). If Calleja doesn't rush it he could have a nice long career. But if he does....

Speaking of Calaf (and "Nessun Dorma"), another fine rendition is Jussi Bjoerling's - one of a very few tenors to have no noticeable problems with the octave drop in the opening bars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbA5y1hnFg He didn't have quite the vocal weight for the role, knew it, and never sang it onstage - just in one studio Turandot recording which is still used as a benchmark against which others are measured. (Having Birgit Nilsson, Renata Tebaldi and Giorgio Tozzi as costars helped a lot!)

@HenryAWallace I was about to play some Muslimgauze for you--which actually, I just found out, was a project of a white British guy--when I discovered that the dude died of a rare fungal infection at 37!! Geez. I had no idea. Really sad, because I love his project:

I also just found out, to my horror, that Sheila Chandra has burning mouth syndrome, and as a result, is rendered entirely mute. That's one of the more horrible things I've heard.

This is what she used to sound like:

This sort of thing is why I don't believe in an omnipotent Deity. If there was one, he'd be an absolute fucker.

I don't know how you do it. (As an aside, that may be the longest, most obscure screen name I've ever seen. I like it!)

Artists of all fields borrow, if they study the history of their field, as they should. Another way to put it is that they have been inspired by this predecessor or that. So, it's not about whether one borrows, but, rather, how well one does it and also how well one makes the inspirations his or her own. If, for example, a fashion designer has been inspired by Christian Dior, the garment should not look like Dior designed it on one of his rare bad days.

I once heard Michael Buble say he'd grown up listening to his grandmother's Sinatra records. That didn't surprise me at all. I'll leave it there.

FWIW, someone I worked with listened to classical music all the time,including in his office. He, too, mentioned that Pavarotti wasn't considered that good However,my colleague added that, in fact, Pavorotti was quite good. And I also once heard Pavorotti say something like "Well, excuse me for appealing to people who do not otherwise listen to opera." (very loose translation: I don't remember his actual words.)

Which reminds me, that, as a kid, I loved when a relative played his *Opera for People Who Hate Opera* album for me.

All of which is to say that, IMO, people should listen to whatever they enjoy and not be intimidated by the opinions of professional critics. Their careers kind of depend upon their convincing us that our preferences and instincts are "less than." Thank them for sharing their opinions and enjoy the hell out of your own choices. (Said a lowbrow who enjoys the hell out of popular music from all eras and regions.)

Speaking of which, thanks to you and randtntx for the flamenco videos. Flamenco music and dance was heavily influenced by Arabs, whose older music--pre-heavy Western influences--is amazing. I've had Arabs play 78s for me and explain the lyrics of some of the songs to me and the lyrics are also amazing.

@HenryAWallace Sorry that was such a grim response--I had no idea Google was going to turn up such rotten news.

Got more to say about your comment, after I recover from that accidental data land mine...

I don't know how you do it. (As an aside, that may be the longest, most obscure screen name I've ever seen. I like it!)

Artists of all fields borrow, if they study the history of their field, as they should. Another way to put it is that they have been inspired by this predecessor or that. So, it's not about whether one borrows, but, rather, how well one does it and also how well one makes the inspirations his or her own. If, for example, a fashion designer has been inspired by Christian Dior, the garment should not look like Dior designed it on one of his rare bad days.

I once heard Michael Buble say he'd grown up listening to his grandmother's Sinatra records. That didn't surprise me at all. I'll leave it there.

FWIW, someone I worked with listened to classical music all the time,including in his office. He, too, mentioned that Pavarotti wasn't considered that good However,my colleague added that, in fact, Pavorotti was quite good. And I also once heard Pavorotti say something like "Well, excuse me for appealing to people who do not otherwise listen to opera." (very loose translation: I don't remember his actual words.)

Which reminds me, that, as a kid, I loved when a relative played his *Opera for People Who Hate Opera* album for me.

All of which is to say that, IMO, people should listen to whatever they enjoy and not be intimidated by the opinions of professional critics. Their careers kind of depend upon their convincing us that our preferences and instincts are "less than." Thank them for sharing their opinions and enjoy the hell out of your own choices. (Said a lowbrow who enjoys the hell out of popular music from all eras and regions.)

Speaking of which, thanks to you and randtntx for the flamenco videos. Flamenco music and dance was heavily influenced by Arabs, whose older music--pre-heavy Western influences--is amazing. I've had Arabs play 78s for me and explain the lyrics of some of the songs to me and the lyrics are also amazing.

@HenryAWallace I seem to be wandering a bit afield from Arabic music, per se, into Sufi music (does it still count?) but this man was literally a national treasure of Pakistan, and an amazing master:

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, rest in peace. What a gift.

I don't know how you do it. (As an aside, that may be the longest, most obscure screen name I've ever seen. I like it!)

Artists of all fields borrow, if they study the history of their field, as they should. Another way to put it is that they have been inspired by this predecessor or that. So, it's not about whether one borrows, but, rather, how well one does it and also how well one makes the inspirations his or her own. If, for example, a fashion designer has been inspired by Christian Dior, the garment should not look like Dior designed it on one of his rare bad days.

I once heard Michael Buble say he'd grown up listening to his grandmother's Sinatra records. That didn't surprise me at all. I'll leave it there.

FWIW, someone I worked with listened to classical music all the time,including in his office. He, too, mentioned that Pavarotti wasn't considered that good However,my colleague added that, in fact, Pavorotti was quite good. And I also once heard Pavorotti say something like "Well, excuse me for appealing to people who do not otherwise listen to opera." (very loose translation: I don't remember his actual words.)

Which reminds me, that, as a kid, I loved when a relative played his *Opera for People Who Hate Opera* album for me.

All of which is to say that, IMO, people should listen to whatever they enjoy and not be intimidated by the opinions of professional critics. Their careers kind of depend upon their convincing us that our preferences and instincts are "less than." Thank them for sharing their opinions and enjoy the hell out of your own choices. (Said a lowbrow who enjoys the hell out of popular music from all eras and regions.)

Speaking of which, thanks to you and randtntx for the flamenco videos. Flamenco music and dance was heavily influenced by Arabs, whose older music--pre-heavy Western influences--is amazing. I've had Arabs play 78s for me and explain the lyrics of some of the songs to me and the lyrics are also amazing.

@smiley7 You're welcome! It somehow turned out far better than I'd imagined. This was an OT I actually spent a lot less effort on than usual. Perhaps there's a lesson in that. Either way, I'm really grateful it turned out this way! Thanks to all of you who've participated and made it better.

your selections and writing have cheered up my day!