So the missus and I went on a date last Saturday morning. (Actually, it wasn’t really a “date,” since we’re far too old for such nonsense.) Anyway, we parked our butts in the super-comfy recliners at Regal Northtown Mall Stadium 12 and watched the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcast of Strauss’s Elektra.

Director Patrice Chéreau’s austere staging added nuance to the story; soprano Nina Stemme owned the title role; under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Met orchestra never sounded better.

Interested in catching the next broadcast? Next season’s HD Live schedule has already been set. And no, not all operas are expressionist takes on early-20th-century Freudian psychology with a side of blood sacrifice and a lust for vengeance. Sometimes there’s illicit sex, too.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

from The Waste Land, by T. S. Eliot (1922)

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Premier and premiere are, respectively, the masculine and feminine forms of the word for “first” in French. But is there a difference in English? Glad you asked.

Only premier is used as an adjective:

Aaron is the premier chess player at helveticka world headquarters, due in no small part to his gigantic intellect.

It can also be a noun:

Philippe Couillard, Premier of Quebec, signed into law a bill mandating the consumption of poutine and maple syrup during all Canadian high holidays.

But then, premiere is also a noun…

The premiere of CK’s one-man show, “Chewelah Chewbacca: My Struggle with Hypertrichosis,” promises to be the must-see production of the season.

…except when it’s a verb:

Shirlee will premiere her bold line of camouflage business casual attire later this spring.

So:

adjective = premier
noun = premier/premiere
verb = premiere

Or, to wrap it all up in a tidy little sentence:

Premier Couillard premiered Shirlee’s premier clothing line at the premiere of CK’s one-man show.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

It’s the classic David-and-Goliath story: The widow Yolanda Signorelli von Braunhut, “isolated, cash-starved, often without electricity or running water on a palatial estate on the Potomac River in southern Maryland,” against—and I swear I’m not making this up—Big Time Toys, represented by the national law firm Epstein Becker & Green.

And that’s not all. There are knockoff Sea-Monkeys from China, scientific breakthroughs, 1960s bondage films, Jewish neo-Nazis, and “Cupids Arrow” Mating Powder. At stake: Nothing less than the late Harold von Braunhut’s mail-order aquatic-pet empire.

You’re gonna have to read the article to see how it all connects.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Envelope? Or ahnvelope? Pretty sure I’m the only one at helveticka world headquarters who pronounces it without the nasal French affectation. Must be something they teach at those fancy design schools.

But which is correct?

Well…the word was borrowed into English from French some time in the early 18th century. Like envoy, encore, ennui, ensemble, entree, entourage, and entrepreneur, it retained its pseudo-French pronunciation—at first. But these days it’s pretty much completely anglicized, such that less than a third of the population says ahnvelope any more. That number is likely dwindling.

Both pronunciations are acceptable, though. So if you want to be a pretentious twit, say ahnvelope. But if you’re a patriotic American, well…you know what to do.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Tired of all that “obligatory mutual admiration,” Sadie Stein has a proposition: that we “proceed under the assumption that we all look great.”

News from the world of archaeology: On Glastonbury, King Arthur, and “spiritual resonances.” Also…

“Despite thousands of years of hard work by brilliant scholars, the great enigma of where Hannibal crossed the Alps to invade Italy remained unsolved. But now it looks like we may just have cracked it – all thanks to modern science and a bit of ancient horse poo.”

Professional designers weigh in on some of the best movie title sequences ever.

Wanna watch a philosopher, three theoretical physicists, and a cosmologist debate whether the universe as we know it is a computer simulation? Catch the 4 p.m. live stream here.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Sure he lowered the rim and partially deflated a child-sized ball in order to appear as if he could dunk. But damn, he looks good doing it.

photograph courtesy of the now-former Mrs. CK Anderson

Fashionable Clark Wallabees in maple suede? Check. Michael Jordan tongue extension—six years before it was a thing? Check. A wild and untamed mane that all the Chewelah girls yearned to run their fingers through? And…check.

Lest you think this was a staged photo, consider that, in addition to playing as power forward (#32) on the Jenkins High School basketball team, Mr. Anderson was the quarterback on his school’s state championship-winning football team, the triple jump record-holder until just a few years ago, and a pitcher on the baseball team. (And King of the Prom, naturally.) Really, you can’t make this stuff up.

But we digress. Back to the Final Four. So who won it all that year? Duke beat Kentucky, 94–88. As for this weekend, helveticka is rooting for the underdog. Go Orange!

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)

Thanks to Lars Müller Publishers, the principles that shaped the career of the late Massimo Vignelli (1931–2014) into one of the 20th century’s great design masters have been made available to us mere mortals. The Vignelli Canon is loaded with the truths he and his firm established and so doggedly followed.

Here’s just one:

We are for a design that lasts, that responds to people’s needs not to people’s wants. We are for a design that is committed to a society that demands long-lasting values, a society that earns the benefit of commodities and deserves respect and integrity. We like the use of primary shapes and primary colors because their formal values are timeless. We like a typography that transcends subjectivity and searches for objective values, a typography that is beyond time—that doesn’t follow trends, that reflects its content in an appropriate manner. We like the economy of design because it avoids wasteful exercises, it respects investment and lasts longer. We strive for a design that is centered on the message rather than visual titillation. We like design that is clear, simple and enduring. And that is what timelessness means in design.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)