ByGD
As a general rule, I think safety culture has gone too far. Or at least I did before the pandemic, when my kids were little and I worked in the public sector. Then it seemed like literally anything, no matter how inane, could be justified with the words, “It’s for safety,” and no one was allowed to question it. But as we’ve learned this year, sometimes there is danger. And it’s only fair to have a warning so we can make informed decisions.
ByGD
I am not a particularly superstitious person. And even very superstitious people usually think of fortune cookies as just-for-fun. But thanks to a very accurate fortune cookie I got in high school, I tend to pay a little closer attention to them than they probably deserve. But not this time. This fortune cookie was clearly meant for someone else.
ByGD
Armchair travel is the only kind of travel these days. But even when times are normal, most of us can’t hop on a plane every time we feel like it. That’s why there’s travel TV. I recently wrote about my love for inflight movies, and mentioned that on my last trip, I watched a Chinese travel show. It was a surprisingly educational experience.
ByGD
One of the most frequent – and most valid – arguments against the contemporary relevance of classical art forms like opera and ballet is their heroine problem. Misogyny is an unfortunate and unavoidable conclusion when the canon is littered with stories whose female characters are subjected to the virgin/whore binary and who usually end up dying for love regardless of in which category they are placed.
But then I watched the Met’s stream of Norma – a bel canto exception filled with strong, complicated women. In that opera, Pollione, the male romantic lead, starts out as one of the most obnoxious men in theater, a real dick. But he repents and redeems himself with an act usually reserved for the soprano – dying for love. His character development is so unusual that it got me thinking about men in opera. Women might get short shrift, but men aren’t portrayed very nicely either. Normalizing their bad behavior is another facet of misogyny, but the fact remains – if you believe the classics, men are just dicks.
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