Miscellany and Trivia

In the fall of 1971, Maria Callas taught a series of master classes titled “The Lyric Tradition.” Callas was 48 at the time and had not performed in public for several years. Paul Thomason, who teaches classes in opera in the Extension Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, attended these classes as an observer. Following is one of his recollections of the great Callas as teacher.

Callas had very little sense of humor. The only truly funny moment I remember came when she was working with a young soprano on Violetta’s “Addio del pasato” from the last act of Verdi’s “La Traviata.” The heartbreaking aria ends with a five-note phrase that is repeated four times, the last time going up to a high A. The score indicates that the last note is to be sung very, very softly. It is quite difficult to pull off.

In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother’s cubs, perhaps she would improve.

During the Civil War Lincoln had occasion at an official reception to refer to the Southerners as erring human beings rather than as enemies to be exterminated. An elderly lady, a fiery patriot, rebuked him for speaking kindly of his enemies when he ought to be thinking of destroying them. “Why, madam,” said Lincoln, “do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”.

With all this crap they put in meat, like hormones for fast growing, antibiotics, etc… we will all go down, there’s only the vegetarians that will survive – so let me give you a good piece of advice: if you want to eat some healthy meat, eat a vegetarian!

Addressing an audience of priests, Martin Buber said something like this: “What is the difference between Jews and Christians? We all await the Messiah. You believe He has already come and gone, while we do not. I therefore propose that we await Him together. And when He appears, we can ask him: were You here before?” Then he paused and added: “And I hope that at that moment I will be close enough to whisper in his ear, ‘For the love of heaven, don’t answer.’ ”

From Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea. Elie Wiesel. (c)1995. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

In Japan, the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages have been replaced with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules. Each poem has only 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are 16 error messages from Japan, expressing the essence of Zen:Your file was so big.