WWTBAM Bored

A long long time ago far far away ( 20 years and about 5 km) I was driving down the street on a Saturday in early December with the Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcast on CBC FM.

The Opera Quiz experts came on, and were asked by a reader to give the name of an opera whose principal character had been a real-life writer, and he expected answer was Italian, a writer who lived maybe in the Renaissance (I dont remember)

What I do remember is thinking, and perhaps shouting towards my cheap GM radio:

Hey, I can think of somebody who really fits:

An author (books may not have been very good, but all IIRC got reviewed on p1 or p2 of the Sunday New York Times Book Review)

Alive (at the time)

Principal character in an opera.

BEST KNOWN FOR SOMETHING ELSE.


Who was I thinking about?

etaoin22 wrote:A long long time ago far far away ( 20 years and about 5 km) I was driving down the street on a Saturday in early December with the Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcast on CBC FM.

The Opera Quiz experts came on, and were asked by a reader to give the name of an opera whose principal character had been a real-life writer, and he expected answer was Italian, a writer who lived maybe in the Renaissance (I dont remember)

What I do remember is thinking, and perhaps shouting towards my cheap GM radio:

Hey, I can think of somebody who really fits:

An author (books may not have been very good, but all IIRC got reviewed on p1 or p2 of the Sunday New York Times Book Review)

Alive (at the time)

Principal character in an opera.

BEST KNOWN FOR SOMETHING ELSE.


Who was I thinking about?

I don't care about the writer, what was the name of the street you were driving down?

Richard Nixon

I look forward to the answer on this one...

Richard Nixon

Somewhat forgotten nowadays essays in book form on foreign policy: "Why We Were in Vietnam", "Real Peace", etc. And of course his memoirs.

"Nixon in China" is the opera.

John Adams (the minimalist composer AFAIK no relation to the Pres) is the composer.

I used this material before, in the format of "Guess the title of the opera with principal character Richard Nixon". The options I offered were

1 - Nixon in China
2 - Nixon in California
3 - Nixon in Hades
4 - Nixon in the Oval Office with Elvis.

#1 and #3 were the most popular answers, IIRC.

Oh, and the street: Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges.

Could be Botched-Up-MeMERy syndrome, otherwise known as a bummer, but I think I am right.

I know now, however, one of my two or three favorite New York Yankee historical moments of all time never happened, though. Cuz I checked it in baseball-almanac. That is nother story, though.

etaoin22 wrote:
I know now, however, one of my two or three favorite New York Yankee historical moments of all time never happened, though. Cuz I checked it in baseball-almanac. That is nother story, though.

I find this comforting. I have vivid memories of being in grade school and developing a rather convincing fake cough so I could stay home to watch Jeopardy! with Alex Fleming in black-and-white. Except, it turns out, J! had not yet been created.

Perhaps I was truly ill, and that daytime quiz show was a fever-induced hallucination of prophetic accuracy. Yes, that must be it!

silvercamaro wrote:

etaoin22 wrote:
I know now, however, one of my two or three favorite New York Yankee historical moments of all time never happened, though. Cuz I checked it in baseball-almanac. That is nother story, though.

I find this comforting. I have vivid memories of being in grade school and developing a rather convincing fake cough so I could stay home to watch Jeopardy! with Alex Fleming in black-and-white. Except, it turns out, J! had not yet been created.

Perhaps I was truly ill, and that daytime quiz show was a fever-induced hallucination of prophetic accuracy. Yes, that must be it!

If you're going to hallucinate that story, you should also hallucinate recording Jeopardy on your DVR, so you won't have to miss school.

TheConfessor wrote: If you're going to hallucinate that story, you should also hallucinate recording Jeopardy on your DVR, so you won't have to miss school.

No, my hallucinatory prophecies aren't that good. It's enough that I had to climb a 5,000-ft. mountain to go to school every day, and they'd turn it upside down before 3:30 p.m., so we had to go uphill to walk home, too.

silvercamaro wrote:

TheConfessor wrote: If you're going to hallucinate that story, you should also hallucinate recording Jeopardy on your DVR, so you won't have to miss school.

No, my hallucinatory prophecies aren't that good. It's enough that I had to climb a 5,000-ft. mountain to go to school every day, and they'd turn it upside down before 3:30 p.m., so we had to go uphill to walk home, too.

How deep was the snow?

Wouldn't Jerry Springer also be a valid answer?

---Jay (Note to self, take out a dollar bill, start crossing off each number in the serial number, one a day - when you get to the end - there is something that you need to do that day - try not to forget)

frogman042 wrote:Wouldn't Jerry Springer also be a valid answer?

---Jay (Note to self, take out a dollar bill, start crossing off each number in the serial number, one a day - when you get to the end - there is something that you need to do that day - try not to forget)

No. Not in 1988.

But,now, Springer would be an answer to the question of operas with living main characters. Which might be worth sending to the Met broadcast, if only to get "a year's subscription to Opera Guide" and a bunch of DVD's. Or whatever they are giving now.

Incidentally, I got the Nixon book thingie wrong but only in part. "No More Vietnams" is the Nixon title, Podhoretz wrote the other one.