>...I have little taste for bombast and melodrama, but you are correct, Puccini is second to Mozart, as far as I can tell...<
Uh, well I don't exactly consider Puccini second to Mozart. To me this is like comparing the taste of steak to that of ice cream. I like them both. Melodrama? Bombast? I think of it as Passion. Oh, sure its melodramatic and bombastic, but the point is passion. Good actor/singers can really work wonders within Puccini.
>...At centuries end, even though I love many painters, I still think it is Picasso and Matisse, Matisse and Picasso, for this century...<
Yup indeed. Matisse is quite excellent. I like fellas like Pollack, De Kooning, Klein, etc, etc. also.
>...On Hemingway: Numb is good...<
(grin) Check out 'Old Man'. It is still numb, but not as much as his others. You can read it in no time, and that is nice. Too much Hemingway and I start feeling kinda down.
>...I may have been too old to have read Rand. I was already over twenty--<
Oh well dang! There you are. For a guy like you over twenty is way too late. It is too late even for many average guys. You shoulda did Rand at around 16. By the time you are twenty, you should be reading her for flaws, for fondly remembering how silly you were, for helping you understand her (perchance to fix the problems she left behind) and for garnering respect for what she tried to accomplish. However one might think of her, one cannot think of her as having been an average person.
(gotta run) |
