skip to main
|
skip to sidebar
...books, opera, Bollywood, and other indefensible obsessions
"...Italian opera, an exotick and irrational entertainment..."
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
"[Mozart's music] is as good an excuse for mankind’s existence as we shall ever encounter."
—Samuel Johnson
"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."
—Emma in Jane Austen's Emma
"[Mozart's music] is as good an excuse for mankind’s existence as we shall ever encounter."
—HC Robbins Landon
Licensed under Creative Commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Please respect its terms.
For better or worse, every word of every post on this blog is written by a human.
About me
- Pessimisissimo
- I'm a librarian who spends way too much time thinking about this stuff.
Subscribe
Please send a message to pessimisissimo [at] gmail.com with the word "Subscribe" in the subject line
Most popular posts this week
-
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (A Match Made in Heaven, 2008) is a film that divides people. At least it divides me from most other people, who hated ... -
The entrance of the Queen of Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute ( Die Zauberflöte ), designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1815. ... -
Bollyviewer commented on my post on Silsila and Lamhe that every Yash Chopra film has a fatal flaw. After seeing Chandni (Moonlight, 198... -
I'm a Bollywood-loving white guy. I want to make it clear that I'm not some hipster whose ironic or camp "appreciation" is... -
Silsila (The Affair, 1981) and Lamhe (Moments, 1991) are Yash Chopra films about thwarted love. Both were box-office failures when first r... -
What follows is an expanded version of a comment originally posted on Bollyviewer's review of Bimal Roy's Devdas (1955) : Since e... -
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke ("Quietly, Secretly") (2001), like Kya Kehna (1997/2000) (a previous Preity Zinta film that also cente... -
Can a mediocre movie also be brilliant? After seeing Dil Hai Tumhaara (My Heart is Yours, 2002), I'm compelled to say "yes." ... -
Based on the story of writer Khalid Mohamed's own mother, Zubeidaa (2001) tells of her unhappy life and untimely death in the early yea... -
As I watched Prakash Jha's Raajneeti (Politics, 2010), I began to experience a strong sense of déjà vu. Bhanu Pratap (Jahangir Khan),...
Blog archive
Labels
- art ( 6 )
- Bollywood and beyond ( 139 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Amrita Rao ( 6 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Deepika Padukone ( 17 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Hrishikesh Mukherjee ( 3 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Preity Zinta ( 11 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Satyajit Ray ( 10 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Shah Rukh Khan ( 21 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Shyam Benegal ( 3 )
- books ( 275 )
- books - Ada Leverson ( 6 )
- books - Alison Bechdel ( 4 )
- books - Angela Carter ( 6 )
- books - Anne Lister ( 6 )
- books - Anthony Trollope ( 12 )
- books - before Jane Austen ( 25 )
- books - Eleanor Marx and Madame Bovary ( 3 )
- books - Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning ( 6 )
- books - George Eliot ( 9 )
- books - George Sand ( 6 )
- books - Gustave Flaubert ( 3 )
- books - Haruki Murakami ( 10 )
- books - Jane Austen ( 44 )
- books - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ( 7 )
- books - lists ( 6 )
- books - Machado de Assis ( 8 )
- books - Maria Edgeworth ( 4 )
- books - Samuel Richardson ( 9 )
- books - Six months with Austen ( 12 )
- books - The Bronte sisters ( 8 )
- books - Zadie Smith ( 9 )
- dance ( 26 )
- dance - Mark Morris ( 8 )
- favorites ( 53 )
- favorites - Bollywood and beyond ( 16 )
- favorites - books ( 18 )
- favorites - dance ( 3 )
- favorites - movies ( 16 )
- favorites - music ( 26 )
- favorites - opera ( 26 )
- favorites - television ( 10 )
- following a train of thought ( 6 )
- In memoriam ( 17 )
- journalism ( 51 )
- movies ( 111 )
- movies - Barbara Stanwyck ( 10 )
- movies - film noir ( 12 )
- movies - Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ( 4 )
- movies - Hitchcock ( 7 )
- movies - Jean Arthur ( 4 )
- movies - Pre-Code ( 7 )
- movies - Preston Sturges ( 8 )
- movies - Rene Clair ( 6 )
- music ( 127 )
- music - Beethoven string quartets ( 7 )
- music - Berkeley Early Music Festival ( 7 )
- music - Boston Early Music Festival ( 13 )
- music - lieder ( 14 )
- music - punk rock ( 23 )
- opera ( 145 )
- opera - Ars Minerva ( 14 )
- opera - Glyndebourne ( 12 )
- opera - Handel ( 41 )
- opera - Lorraine Hunt ( 5 )
- opera - Mozart ( 25 )
- opera - Mozart - Cosi fan tutte ( 4 )
- opera - Mozart - Marriage of Figaro ( 9 )
- opera - Purcell - Dido and Aeneas ( 9 )
- opera - Salieri ( 5 )
- opera - Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier ( 6 )
- opera - Vittoria Tesi ( 7 )
- opera guide ( 6 )
- personal ( 15 )
- Six Victorian marriages ( 6 )
- Suggested reading ( 17 )
- television ( 32 )
- theater ( 7 )
- web issues ( 17 )
Works discussed on E & I
E & I blog favorites
-
-
The Candidate (1972) - Directed by: Michael Ritchie Music: John Rubenstein Writer: Jeremy Larner Starring: Robert Redford, Don Porter, Peter Boyle, Allan Garfield, Melvyn Douglas...2 months ago
-
Ten of my favourite Dharmendra duets - RIP, Dharmendra. After the recent fiasco—when several news sites (including some which are supposed to be responsible) posted the erroneous news of Dharmen...5 days ago
-
We’re Doubling Down on Digital Rights. You Can, Too. - Technology can uplift democracy, or it can be an authoritarian weapon. EFF is making sure it stays on the side of freedom. We’re defending encryption, ex...5 hours ago
-
Critic’s Notebook: RSO & Poschner - The Harmonists Strike Back - Also published in Die Presse: Poschners Gebet für die Seejungfrau: Das RSO im Musikverein E-S.Tüür, Piano Concerto, Sy.#7, P.Järvi / Frankfurt RSO, NDR Cho...2 days ago
-
‘Le Nuits d’été’ in Australia and New Zealand - This November, Joyce brings her “ravishingly sung” (Classical Source) interpretation of Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été to orchestras in Australia and New Zealan...4 weeks ago
-
Gran Colombia Redux - The US can bomb Venezuelan military and civilian targets from the USS Gerald R. Ford but it’s difficult to imagine anyone signing off on a ground...19 hours ago
-
Parwana (1971) - The tagline on the DVD cover caught my eye first: “A Murder Plan That Forced Indian Railways To Change Their Train Timing!” I am not sure that Indian Railw...8 years ago
-
‘But Not Yet’ - “For those people who feel that they haven’t accomplished enough yet—which is to say, almost all of us!—Amy Clampitt’s life provides an allegory of persist...2 days ago
Other favorite sites
- American Bach Soloists
- Ars Minerva
- Boston Classical Review
- Chicago Classical Review
- Chicago Opera Theater
- Guardian UK | Classical music & opera
- Lieder Alive!
- London Review of Books
- New York Review of Books
- Notes on Indian popular cinema
- Open Magazine
- Opera News
- Opera Theater Unlimited
- Opera Today
- Paris Review
- Pocket Opera
- San Francisco Classical Voice
- Tehelka
- The Fantomas Website
- The Nation
- The New Yorker
- Washington Classical Review
- West Edge Opera