Monday, January 20, 2025
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...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
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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.
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Blog archive
Labels
- art ( 6 )
- Bollywood and beyond ( 139 )
- Bollywood and beyond - Amrita Rao ( 6 )
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- books ( 278 )
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- books - lists ( 6 )
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- books - Six months with Austen ( 12 )
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- dance ( 26 )
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- favorites ( 55 )
- favorites - Bollywood and beyond ( 16 )
- favorites - books ( 19 )
- favorites - dance ( 3 )
- favorites - movies ( 17 )
- favorites - music ( 28 )
- favorites - opera ( 28 )
- favorites - television ( 11 )
- following a train of thought ( 6 )
- In memoriam ( 17 )
- journalism ( 51 )
- movies ( 113 )
- movies - Barbara Stanwyck ( 12 )
- movies - film noir ( 12 )
- movies - Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ( 4 )
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- music ( 130 )
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- personal ( 15 )
- Six Victorian marriages ( 6 )
- Suggested reading ( 17 )
- television ( 33 )
- theater ( 7 )
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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