实话别跟我说

一顿摸着黑吃的烛光晚餐和一客甜食之后，我们瘫坐在椅子上说实话。实话是没有理想的爱情，现在人人都爱自己多一些，不肯为别人伤了自己的羽毛。虽然是实话，但是让人伤心和难受。我们对于爱情的想象和夏日的余晖一样消逝，剩下的都是伤心的人。如果换了是我，我会怎么做呢？ 昨天晚上在网上和舅舅舅妈聊天，他们感叹幸亏投资正确买了现在的房子，否则在北京五环之内的房子没有低于10000元/平米的了。什么？如果我回到中国的大学里工作，每月月薪3000元，那么三个月不吃不喝下来，还买不了一个平方米的住房？我得认真的考虑一下我现在的职业选择了。这实话叫人听了真难受，现在是“报国无房”的年代了！ 妈妈现在改用手机了，据说是因为她总是在北京和天津两地之间旅行，用手机方便大家找到她。 周四的网上面试一塌糊涂，连续两个晚上都沉浸在self destructive behavior--在网上看韩剧。知道什么叫没出息了吧。有不知趣的人两次打电话来,先说吃晚饭,被拒绝之后又说不如饭后去喝一杯。我假装没听见电话。比看韩剧更没劲的就是假装谈一次恋爱。不能因为孤独就找个人就伴儿。我不想把自己现在的生活复杂化。这一点我不知道该怎们跟人家说，所以不如装聋作哑了事。 这个学期的瑜伽课结束了。 休倒立着做头顶倒立的示范，顺便炫耀一下他的身材。嘻嘻，要是我到了38岁也能够保持那样年轻的身体，我也愿意和魔鬼谈谈。

Russianmania

(Dmitri Hvorostovsky) The shining Christmas Tree before the Met Opera always reminded me the old fashined comedy, The Moonstruck. In the end of the movie, Nicolas Cage waited there for Cher to come and join him for an opera night. Everything is incredibly romantic and real! I always get this kind of transformative feelings after a night at Met. I never figure out it is due to the music, the liboretto, the stage, or the audience, or the mixture of all. The opera brings the past to the present, bring the alien country before our very eyes, and most importantly allow us to explore the foreign feelings of love, loyalty, and pain in their full glory. Comparing to the climax of emotional turbulence on the stage, our daily life becomes trivial. You feel you live through the history and the moment of eternity at the ultimate end of the drama. That is I always feel this big vault in my mind after an opera night, in the meantime, I feel grateful because there is no other chance I could have been with Don Carlo at his fateful day, with Madam Butterfly at her exotic garden, or met Rigoletto at crossroad of his love and death. Don Carlo at Met this season is a masterpiece. According to Wikipedia, “Don Carlos is a five-act Grand Opera by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi with a libretto written in French by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien ("Don Carlos, Infanta of Spain") by Friedrich Schiller. It received its first performance at the Paris Opéra on 11 March 1867.” The musicality of the work is so carefully designed and the five major roles are played by top singers. I particularly like the two Russian musicians. Olga Borodina is a Russian diva and Mezzo-soprano, and she plays the tortured mind Eboli in Don Carlo. Three of her arias are so beautiful and in totally different mode. In Act I Scene I, Princess Eboli sings the Veil Song ('Nel giardin del bello') about a Moorish King and an alluring veiled beauty that turned out to be his neglected wife. Olga gives her figure the playfulness and flirtation character and her voice is full of temptation and desire. In Act II Scene I, Don Carlo rejected the love of Eboli, Eboli was so crazy and she committed to take revenge. Olga played the moment of madness so well that her regret in the end of Act III only becomes real because of this. After confessed her secrete passion for Don Carlo and involvement with the King, Eboli resolves to try to save Don Carlo ('O don fatale'). Olga’s voice changes its tune, plain and beautiful. Dmitri Hvorostovsky , as the fateful friend Rodrigo, give another wonderful performance. Also from Russia, Dmitri is a top baritone of our time. According to Wikipedia, “ Hvorostovsky was born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. He studied at the Krasnoyarsk School of Arts under Jekatherina Yofel and made his debut at Krasnoyarsk Opera House, in the role of Monterone in Rigoletto. He went on to win First Prize at both the Russian Glinka Competition in 1987 and the Toulouse Singing Competition in 1988. Hvorostovsky came to international prominence in 1989 when he won the Cardiff BBC Singer of the World competition, beating local favorite Bryn Terfel. His concert recitals began immediately(London debut, 1989; New York 1990). His operatic debut in the West was at the Nice Opera in Queen of Spades (1989). In Italy he debuted at La Fenice as Eugene Onegin, a success that sealed his reputation, and made his American operatic debut with Chicago Lyric Opera (1993) in La Traviata. He has since sung at virtually every major opera house, including the Metropolitan Opera (debut 1995), the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Berlin State Opera, La Scala and the Vienna State Opera.” Hvorostovsky played Rodrigo, the Marquise de Posa, Don Carlo’s faithful friend and a symbol of liberation movement at the time. In the duet with the King Phillip II at the garden, he described the sufferings of Flanders people under the King’s cruel ruling. Refusing to listen to Rodrigo's pleas for Flanders, he nevertheless places his trust in him, while advising him to beware of the Grand Inquisitor. Here, Dmitri uses his voice to represent a brave soul for his own cause. In Act IV Scene I, Rodrigo decided to sacrifice himself to Grand Inquisitor to save Don Carlo. Dmitri expressed his complex feeling in such a delicate way that you almost feel the clash of his reluctance to die and his sense of duty to friend and his cause. Hvorostovsky will return to Met in Feb in my all-time favorite Eugene Onegin as the title role. My first time to listen to Onegin was back in college in an elective class. Pushkin’s sense of live and death, love and honor, immediately grasped my young soul. It is my first love of opera and the encounter is unforgettable. I also enjoy the beginning of the Study scene in Act IV, where the aging king complains he never has the love of his queen and his life is close to its end. He demands the power of God to see human’s mind and feels the powerlessness of his current state in the struggle between church and state. He fights two wars at the same time and has no hope to win either of them. The tragic feeling he has about his role as a king and a husband is a huge contrast to his grand performance in ACT III, where he disarmed his son and represses the rebellion from Flanders. All the figures in Don Carlo fight two wars, their public war and private war. Their fates interact each other at both levels. Verdi put his compassion for liberation of Italy in 1860s into this play in 1560 Spain, and gave each character emotional depth which was not otherwise possible in an epic play like this. Each figure had a chance to present themselves not as a symbol, but as a human being. Eventually it is the human struggle that makes this play earns its everlasting charisma.

Blood Diamond

The Holiday

Blood Diamond and The Holiday

I went to cinema with Fang's parents and Fang. The first one we saw is Blood Diamond. A new production about illegal diamond trade in western African region, the film tried to communicate too many things simultaneously. I feel the movie is, therefore, very crowded. Aside from its political correctness, it is quite interesting if you compare Danny Archer (by Leonardo DiCaprio) from this film to heors from Out of Africa (1985). Denys George Finch Hatton (by Robert Redford) is a grown-up Danny. Although they live in different time period, they face the same dilemma: the passion for the Africa and the passion of love. In the end of the film, Danny killed his boss and the guy said "T.I.A, right?" THAT IS AFRICA! It sounds like a curse, for all the resource-rich African countries are all in wars and their people are suffered. Unfortunately, the semi-happy ending of the film does not offer a solution to current situation; instead, it leaves the task to each audience. The Holiday is a good choice for holiday season. The major element of the comedy is to reverse the gender role in relationship. The story begins with two thirty-something who suffered from their relationship and decide to exchange their houses for the Christmas. Amenda from L.A. ended up in a small town near London and met Graham (a single dad with two daughters). The plot is simple. Amenda is head-strong and tough in relationship and very practical, but Graham is soft and romantic and live the moment. The reverse role of male and female in this relationship makes it funny and sweet. When you watch the film, you know their relationship won't last long as Amenda had correctly pointed out, however, I enjoy every moment of watching it as Graham would suggest.

Kinsey! After the two film, I see Kinsey the day after. Such a moral challenge even for today's audience. It is not about the open discussion of sex in the film, but the tension between Kinsey and his wife. The film portrated Kinsey as a scientist and his scientificness made him churchy and dogmatic in his life. I wish to learn more about the controversy and its association with the sex liberation in 1960s and 1970s. I wonder have anyone done similar study about chinese population.

柳永

“凡有水井处，皆歌柳词”。仔细翻了翻宋词，了不得，宋朝的风气好开放。柳永的词三句不离离愁别绪，都像是写给情人的十四行诗。他的生活好像充满了浪漫的邂逅，激情的碰撞和无可奈何的离别，好像宋朝的时候大家都不生产，而是一味的谈情说爱。这般淫词艳曲充斥在市井之间，只有两种解释。第一，物质生活的确是极大的丰富，温饱思淫欲。第二，思想控制太厉害，除了无伤大雅的诗词歌赋，没有其他的可以谈。人人自危，所以转而把所有的智慧投向了措辞的讲究和布章的工整。不知道哪一种猜想更接近于历史的本来面目。 ----梦还京 ----柳永 http://www.shiandci.net/lyc.htm 夜来匆匆饮散，欹枕背灯睡。酒力全轻，醉魂易醒，风揭帘栊，梦断披衣重起。悄无寐。追悔当初，绣阁话别太容易。日许时、犹阻归计。甚况味。旅馆虚度残岁。想娇媚。那里独守鸳帏静。永漏迢迢，也应暗同此意。