Schubert's SerenadeViolinist John Clare with pianist Karen Haid play from a live recital at the Summerlin Library in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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An online literary journal
In this issue...
ESSAYS by RDM Cerello, John Clare, Joyce Corbett, and William N. Thompson
FICTION by Felicia Florine Campbell, Adam Henry Carriere, and Kim Idol
MUSIC by John Clare (violin) and Karen Haid (piano)
POETRY by Adam Henry Carriere, Elisabeth I. Riseden, and Robert David Michael Cerello
Felicia Florine Campbell...
is Professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. She is also Executive Director of the Far West Popular and American Culture Associations and edits The Popular Culture Review. In addition to sharing her splendid short stories and commentary with us, Dr. Campbell is also working on an authoritative edition of popular culture scholarship in an undisclosed location.
Robert David Michael Cerello...
is an Objectivist philosopher, author and poet presently dividing time between San Diego and Budapest, Hungary. He professes to be a scientist of the arts, lecturer, singer, actor, and fictional creator of plays, poetry (haiku and sonnet-form in particular), verse, short stories, science-fiction, westerns and mysteries. His hobbies include rights-based constitutional law, astronomy without math, playing the piano, love of animals, baseball, track-and-field and sculpture. He writes voluminously on movies, economics, theater, psychology, ancient history, and enjoys creating new songs, perfecting new recipes, challenge to power, reading, walking and world travel, whether Torture Boi Gonzalez likes it or not. He is developing an online database of his collected sonnets, which number in the thousands, and once again graces this journal with his philosophical theses and prose.
John Clare...
is the afternoon host of WITF / Harrisburg’s Classical Air. A well-tuned violinist, raconteur, founder of the Las Vegas Chamber Music Society, member of the American Music Center, and winner of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, Johannes has just days ago reached a new creative milestone: making his operatic debut in Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona. He is happy to share his many thoughts & musical ideas with you at (Classically Hip)
Joyce Corbett...
is a human holding company of unusual knowledge concerning folk arts, folk dress and folk whose name you can't pronounce. She has held Fulbright research grants in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, and has curated textile & folk art exhibitions for various museums for an undisclosed number of years. She is also a collectaholic and a professional traveler, probably incapable of staying in one place, anyhow. She currently is Curator for "Eva Zeisel, Extraordinary Designer at 100" at the Mingei International Museum, San Diego. We welcome her scholarship to Danse Macabre.
Kim Idol...
is currently an MFA student at UNLV, where she teaches writing courses. She also collects pit bulls off the street in between sessions on the gun range, where certain tenured professors are often mentioned. Ms. Idol is an obsessive rock climber, kayaker, mountaineer, and creative irredentist who recently presented her work to fellow scribes at the Far West American & Popular Culture Association's 2007 Creative Writers Panel.
Elizabeth I. Riseden...
lives and writes happily in Carson City, Nevada, with many wild things surrounding her and a panorama of the Sierra Nevadas to savor daily. One of the fine Ash Canyon poets, Liz has recently completed an eastern Nevada-centered memoir. We are happy to hear Elizabeth will be sharing her talents as KUNR-FM's Artist In Residence on Tuesday 6 March at 9:10 a.m., a popular segment on Terry Joy's classical music program.
Dr. William N. Thompson...
is a professor in the Public Administration Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Since coming to Nevada in 1980, he has been actively studying public policy and gambling. He has authored, co-authored, and/or edited The Last Resort:Success and Failure in Campaigns for Casinos, Casino Customer Service=The WIN WIN Game, Gambling in America: An Encyclopedia, Legalized Gambling: A Reference Handbook, Native American Issues, plus numerous collaborations with the Wisconsin Public Research Institute and the Las Vegas Sun, where he authored a 45 article series on world casinos. Widely quoted in Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Finanacial Post, Governing, Macleans, Canadian Business, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, and Los Angeles Times, Dr. Thompson has also appeared as a gambling authority on The Today Show, World News Tonight, Nightline, Crossfire, News Stand: Fortune Magazine, 48 Hours, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Going Places, Frontline, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, CBC's Sunday Morning, NPR's Morning Edition & All Things Considered, and TVOntario's Studio2.
Danse Macabre will be featuring Dr. Thompson's poetry in future issues.
Danse Macabre - Holidaze Issue
Danse Macabre - Horror Issue
Danse Macabre - Music Issue
Entertainment ala Francaise
Europe in Panorama!
Europe in Photography!
European Opera Days!
Kulturny?
(Michael) Palin's Travels
Parks, Reserves, and Other Protected Areas in Europe
Politically Incorrect Observations on Reporting in the German Media
The Queen has enough money - relieve Her of some...
The Saga of Literacy in Europe
Tattoo Highway
Also sprach Europa
- "Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Broad, wholesome and charitable views cannot be acquired by vegetating in one tiny corner of the globe." Mark Twain (non-European unelectable in today's 'red' states)
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- "Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason." Andre Gide
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- "How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone." Coco Chanel
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- "It is good to be back in the car again and to be hammering out the miles across the German heartland, bright with spring. Driving a fast car abroad is one of my keenest pleasures - the eight o'clock departure with some distant luncheon stop as target, the intermediate pause for "elevenses" on the shady terrace or under the fruit-trees of a gasthaus, the good moment when the target is reached and luncheon comes with a schnapps and a beer to wash it down. And then the shorter run in the afternoon to the chosen hotel, the walk round the village or town, dinner and a deep sleep after planning the next day." Ian Fleming, Thrilling Cities
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- Coming back from France my brother sobbed, "Each time I hate I grow a little old. There's a bit of Stalin in my soul." James Ragan, The Hunger Wall
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- "He can speak French; and therefore he is a traitor." William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part One
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- "Ne remets pas a demain ce que tu peux faire apres-demain." / "Never put off tomorrow what you can do the day after." Alphonse Allais
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- "Le n'est pas amusant d'etre libre tout seul." / "To be free all alone is no fun." Alfred Jarry
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- "Mon amitie est vive encor, malgre l'absence. Hate-toi!" / "My friendship is warm still, despite absence. Hurry!" Guilliaume Apollinaire
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- "In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, in Australia you have to explain what a writer is." Geoffrey Cotterell
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- "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." Leon Trotsky
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- "If a little day-dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time." Marcel Proust
European Opera Days!
European Opera houses, 89 to be more specific, have joined in a weeklong celebration of opera as a form of art and as an emblem of European culture. * Opera is an art form that celebrates the spectacle. Greek in its origin, a good opera is an experience that includes dancing, choir singing, prima donnas screeching and heroes dying. As such the concept of operas cannot be reduced to ‘traditional operas’ by the great composers like Monteverdi, Händel, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and Puccini. Opera performances may also take the form of musicals or rock shows, like those of The Rolling Stones or Madonna. The genre may even encompass grand performances like the Eurovision Song contest with its mixture of small talk and high drama. * Sophisticated art-events or tasteless diversity In short, operas are grand shows. Some are carefully composed over fascinating librettos, while others are improvised music performed around a thin story line. Some of the music has everlasting impact on the public, other shows must be characterised as nothing but a bit of fun, soon forgotten. Just like a renowned theatre company may stage Shakespeare and at the same time let pupils write and direct a school play there. * An initiative organised and supported by 89 of the major opera houses all over Europe, European Opera Days seeks to promote opera. The invitation is to discover what “real” opera is all about. The initiative wishes to show how the European opera is a vibrant art form bringing together the best of all artistic disciplines in a fresh and modern way, and reaching a continually growing audience. * In order to further this, opera houses all around Europe will be organising special events to introduce their opera house and operas to new audiences. At the same time the Opera National de Paris will host a conference gathering opera professionals and opera lovers for a debate. You guessed right: how to get new fans to join the distinct club of opera lovers. * The European Opera Days website is an eldorado of information, photos and sounds for opera novices and other enthusiasts. How about opera described as an emotional fitness center by Opera Director Kasper Holten?
"Opera is special since it not only draws on the expressivity of the human voice but on a host of other art forms in its endeavour to relate human emotion and the human condition...Opera should not only entertain, it should always move us. Yet not before our emotional sentiment turns to understanding and fuels social change will the theatre resume its rightful role as platform for public discourse."
Karen Schousboe - 13. februar 2007
Rule Britannia!
- In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. In Olde England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them, "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down." It's where we get the phrase, 'mind your P's and Q's'.
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- In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase, "Goodnight, sleep tight."
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- In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have 'the rule of thumb'.
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- Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only - Ladies Forbidden"; thus did the word Golf enter into the English language. The etymology behind Pee-Wee Golf remains unknown.
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- HAMLET: Why was he sent to England? CLOWN: Why, because 'he was mad. 'He shall recover his wits there; or, if 'he do not, 'tis no great matter there.
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- Many years ago in England, frequenters of the local had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. Bob's your uncle, "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.
As Per Counsel of the Legal Department...
DANSE MACABRE is edited, produced, and published online by Adam Henry Carriere - Copyright (c.) 2007. All rights reserved. Attributed works copyrighted by individual authors or in the public domain. Contributors retain all publication and serial rights. Viewpoints expressed by contributors, in quotations used, or suggested by displayed graphics may not necessarily reflect the opinions of this online journal. Images appearing in this journal are either in the public domain or the copyright of individuals who produced the image in question. It is believed that the non-profit use of scaled-down, low-resolution images taken from references throughout the world wide web which provide critical visual analysis to writings posted on this site qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of these images may be copyright infringement.
NOTICE: Empowered by Presidential Executive Order, the National Security Agency may read this journal and/or all receiving pc units without warning, warrant, or notice. NSA may do this without judicial or legislative oversight. The President of the United States no longer (as of 11 July 2006) claims A) the right (hereforth known as Executive Privilege) to designate the sender or reader as an 'Enemy Combatant'; B) the right to detain and/or imprison him/her indefinitely without access to legal counsel, family, or friend; and C) the right to 'render' such persons to an undesignated foreign government for an undetermined period. USC revised code, 11 July 2006.
- DANSE MACABRE Feb / Mar 2007 Volume Two, Number One by Adam Henry Carriere. Copyright (c.) 2007. All Rights Reserved.
- "...my observations have always led me to find that the so-called realist moves about the world with a closed mind, ringed as it were with concrete and cement, and that the so-called romantic is like an unfenced garden in and out of which truth can wander at will..." Joseph Roth, The Emperor's Tomb
