Heiaha! Heiho! Hoiha heiho!

(I'm attempting to recreate the phonetic shoutings of some of Wagner's characters, but I don't think I can quite match their rancor.)

Quick updates:

-Anyway, after much delay, my musicological friends and I finished watching the Ring cycle. Götterdämmerung certainly had its powerful moments, and the Met's production was very well done, but good lord it was long. There's no reason for any spectacle to last four and a half hours. It took a lot of endurance just to sit and make it to the end. (A cadence! How novel!) At least now I can check one more thing off the list of Cultural Things That Are Probably Edifying but Demand An Awful Lot of Attention.

-My second go at "Where's the Beat?" was also a success. My co-host found these cheesy old ambient LPs of recorded nature sounds like thunderstorms and animal noises and heartbeats that we used underneath us when we came on mic.

-I finished Life of Pi a few days ago. It was highly recommended by a couple friends, so I was expecting a little more out of it, but it was only slightly above average. It must have been a lean year for Man Booker Prize nominees.

-R.I.P., Jean Baudrillard. May your soul be transported to the great Disneyland in the sky.