From Scholastic Trammels Free

Since I'm taking J-Term off to hopefully regain a state of good health, I've had a quite a bit of time to fill. I've been doing so in the past week by hanging out at operetta rehearsals. It is a Saint Michael's tradition for the upper school (grades 7-12) to perform a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta every January, this year's being the Mikado. I participated in five of them (Sorcerer, Gondoliers, Patience, Ruddigore, Yeomen) in my SMA years, but this is the first time I've had a chance to watch one of the productions. Considering it's not a voluntary affair (which means even the kids who would normally be "too cool" for theater have to don tights, wigs and facepaint and twist their tongues around Gilbert's tricky lyrics), it's not bad at all. This is the first time I've heard the Mikado (except for Three Little Maids, which practically everyone knows), and it's definitely funny, but probably the most politically incorrect G&S I've encountered. The directors found it necessary to expurgate several instances of the n-word, rewriting some lyrics in the process. My question for you, dear readers: is it right to engage in clandestine editing of an author's work to render it palatable to modern audiences? Should there be an "official" expurgated G&S? Should it be left as-is for authenticity? I am undecided, though I think especially for a high school performance it would be inappropriate to leave such an offensive word in the lyrics. Ponder, ponder.

I leave you with one of the fun new words I've learned from Mr. Gilbert:

persiflage |ˈpərsəˌflä zh |
noun formal
light and slightly contemptuous mockery or banter.
ORIGIN mid 18th cent.: from French persifler ‘to banter,’ based on siffler ‘to whistle.’

Old Dog, New Tricks

I've been taking a mental health break from blogging for the past few months, but I'm (hopefully) back! I put a new toy on here to motivate me: snapshots from snap.com. If you hover over the little speech bubble next to a link, a window will pop up and give you a site preview. I find this fun, but if you find it annoying, bring up a snap preview window, click on the gear in the top right corner, and you can disable it for this site or all sites. That's all for now.

RLS (Really Lazy Syndication)

I have dragged my feet about using RSS feeds for a long time. "Really simple" indeed - sure, they keep everything in one place, but you need an extra application or web application to do it, which has always felt extraneous to me. (But I am oversensitive to redundancy, I think.) Plus, it strips everything down - it doesn't matter what I've set up my blog to look like if you read it as a feed. So I've just kept the links to blogs I read in my bookmarks bar and clicked through them two or three (or twenty or thirty, depending on my level of procrastination) times a day. I don't read many blogs anyway, so it works. But I just bought a new Macbook (more stuff on that probably coming later, once I've used it for a while) with OS X Leopard, and this version of Mail lets you add RSS feeds in the sidebar with your other folders and alerts you when you have a new article, just like a new email message. OK, so not that revolutionary, I'm sure Google figured this out long ago, etc. - but this is RSS for the really lazy. I don't have to go online at all, I'm in my mailbox all the time anyway, and it's completely automated. I may have just been converted to the RSS way of life.

Dear Math

This abusive relationship needs to stop. For all the time I devote to you, I'm not getting the love and respect I deserve. We've been going steady for a while now - it's time to stop playing hard to get. I can't hold this relationship together by myself. I need some positive feedback from you. You've got me on an emotional roller coaster. Most days I just don't understand you at all; you keep me up at night trying to figure you out. I'm tired of crying over you. I want to quit you, but every time I'm ready to walk away, you remind me how interesting and beautiful you are. I remember how great life is when we're getting along, the exhilaration I feel when I discover something new about you. I want it to work between us, but I can't do it alone. Enough with the enigmas - open up and let me know you love me back!

Love and confusion,
Hallie

Czech-xas

On most days of the year, absolutely nothing happens in Caldwell, Texas. Then there's the second Saturday in September, when the town is flooded with visitors, local and out-of-town vendors, and kolaches for the annual Kolache Festival. It's enough of a happening that it even rates a mention on Wikipedia's kolache page. At this point you might be wondering, what is a kolache? A) It is delicious. B) It is a traditional Czech pastry consisting of a bread roll and filling, usually fruit and/or cream cheese, but sometimes sausage (though apparently these aren't technically kolaches). C) See the picture on the right (those are Caldwellians in Czech costume for the Kolache Festival). Though my town lays claim to the title "Kolache Capital of Texas," there is actually a large Czech community throughout Texas. (If you want to know why, you can check out the Texas Almanac entry on Czech-Texans.) You can listen to radio broadcasts in Czech in parts of central Texas, and the other dance (the one being two-step, of course) that most people where I live know is the polka. But my favorite part of Czech heritage, not being Czech myself, is definitely the kolache. Tasty!