Month: March 2024

I vividly remember about 25-30 years ago, artworks by this artist adorned the walls of our dorm. Boris Vallejo (although correctly Vallejo, he’s Peruvian). I checked where he is now. First, “alive and kicking!” An American. Secondly, his work was always a collaboration with his wife, fantasy artist Julie Bell. Moreover, their entire family is the same way. He has two children from his previous marriage to artist and writer Doris Vallejo, and also two stepsons. His son, Dorian Vallejo, also draws in the fantasy genre but is currently working as a portrait artist. His stepsons, Anthony Palumbo and David Palumbo, both artists, work for fine art galleries and also as illustrators in the science fiction/fantasy genre. His daughter, Maya Vallejo, a professional photographer, apparently has not yet found any dragon models.

Today at the traffic light

🤦

Yesterday, I revisited Mozart’s Don Giovanni directed by Michael Grandage at the Metropolitan Opera. The MET has the best opera video productions imaginable. It feels as though a separate run was made just for filming, as if a cameraman is running around on stage, but in reality, it’s just excellent equipment and direction of the video version. A camera over the orchestra glides on tracks, the sound is crystal clear—reverberation? Hard to tell because there’s sporadic applause, close-ups from various angles, excellent lighting.

One of my favorite operas. A perceptive critic once noted that in Don Giovanni, everyone is miserable except for Don Giovanni himself. “He who adores one, offends the others.” A mix of genres, there’s something to laugh at, and something to ponder. Overall, highly recommended.

By the way. The librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, was a real-life Don Giovanni, and Casanova was his close friend and helped Lorenzo. So they literally wrote from their own lives 🙂 For the audience of that time, there surely were many recognizable characters and references. Lorenzo was expelled from Venice and the church because he was a lady’s man and led a rather unchurchly lifestyle) Mozart understood him quite well too. Incidentally, Lorenzo Da Ponte eventually emigrated to the USA, organized the first performance of the opera “Don Giovanni” in America, and is buried in Brooklyn.

#operasrauflikes

It all started when I learned that Étienne is the French equivalent of Stephen/Steven, meaning they share the same origin. Istvan and Isteban are in the same boat. And I did a little research!

I also found out that William and Guillermo have the same origin too.

Moreover, Zhena and Yana are actually variations of the same name.

It also turned out that Zeus and Jupiter essentially mean the same thing — father of the sky (Dyeus-pater).

It also turns out that the names Joel and Elijah are from the same root. In Hebrew, these are two words “Yahweh” and “God”, just in a different order.

Hansel and John are also from the same root. Both mean Lord is gracious. The same goes for Ivan, Hans, and Juanita.

The names Agnes, Nancy, and Inez, it turns out, have a common root.

Diego and Yakov – are from the same root. Moreover, from Yakov also come Jacob, Jack, Cobey, James, Jamie, Jim, Jacqueline, and Santiago.

Dorothy and Theodore – are from the same root (mean god’s gift).

Isabel, Elizabeth, and Lisa – are the same. These names stemmed from the Hebrew name Elisheva (Elisheva), which means “my God is an oath” or “my God is abundance”.

Iskander and Alexander — are from the same root, but that seems obvious.

Patroclus and Cleopatra — both mean “glory of the father”, although, of course, they are not related (Greece and Egypt).

Gauthier and Walter — are from the same root, “ruler of the army”.

Neil is essentially Cornelius.

And here’s another cool fact. The name Audrey (Audrey Hepburn, for example) originated from (attention!) Old English Æthelthryth, which has a couple of other spellings – Æðelþryð or Æþelðryþe).

Interestingly, if a person is called Jacob Santiago, it essentially means Jacob, Saint Jacob 🙂

My name is constantly confused by taxi drivers, and they call me either Ralph or Raul. So, Ralph and Raul are from the same root, and mean “wolf-counselor”.

My name (Rauf, رَؤُوف)- is a separate story, translating as “Forgiving/Merciful” from Arabic, and is one of the 99 names of Allah from the Quran and Sunnah. For example, if robbers repent of their misdeeds, the prescribed punishment is not applied to them, relying instead on the following statement from the Quran: “This does not apply to those who repented before you gained victory over them. Be it known that Allah is Forgiving, Merciful!”. The mention of these two names indicates that Allah forgives such people and shows compassion, relieving them of the prescribed punishment.

A separate big topic about non-names. I need to make a separate post about it. For starters: galaxy and lactose come from the Greek word for milk, gala. Genitive – galaktos. It seems that the Milky Way was not a strange choice of name after all…

Re-listening to The Magic Flute opera, this time performed by The Royal Opera House. It truly is a bizarre piece of work.

The first half for some reason brings to mind “The Fifth Element” (Papageno<->Ruby Rhod) and the first Shrek (quite a pair there). It’s somewhat like a kindergarten round there. The motives of the characters are utterly obscure. Better not to ask questions.

The second half starts with a hint of Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut”. Then initially, Pamina threatens to kill herself over unrequited love and waves a blade about, about to commit suicide, but at the last moment, three boys stop her and lead her to Tamino, and then it’s all lovey-dovey. Soon after, Papageno considers hanging himself over Papagena; again, at the last moment, the three boys intervene, Papagena appears, and all ends in lovey-dovey. An interesting message to the audience about how to act when things aren’t going as you want, to make them turn out as you desire.

Possibly, the plot looks skewed from today’s perspective: it’s packed with a huge number of hints and references that aren’t perceived now due to a different context. All those Masonic symbols, Zoroastrianism, initiations. Surprisingly, in the end, the Queen of the Night and Monostatos didn’t marry for total absurdity.

The music, of course, is beautiful, and it allows one to overlook the skewed plot.

#operasrauflikes

At the competition, Masha and Nadya receive thermoses as gifts. On the left – American size. On the right – Turkish size and Taiwan size

There were times when you could turn on the TV and not want to turn it off right away

For instance, take “Prozhektorperiskhilton”

You can’t just take and eat a treat