Archive by Author
Look at business writing differently
Good business writing requires us all to think a little differently.
Good writing is not complex and dense. It does not require someone to work hard to grasp the message. It should not require a dictionary.
It should sound like conversation: business people talking with business people. That can happen if you picture [...]
Plain Writing and the Act of 2010
Everyone is talking “Plain Writing” these days. It comes from a federal mandate (a Congressional law, actually, The Plain Writing Act of 2010) requiring government writers to use a language the rest of us can understand!
This concept is not new, but the law itself is. The prolonged budget battle in Congress this year [...]
Recommendations for 2010-11 Met “Live in HD” broadcasts
Many people new or unfamiliar with opera may look at the 12 live transmissions scheduled for this upcoming season (beginning October 9) and ask, “So, what would be worth attending?”
My first answer would be, “all of them!” But realistically, some are better “first opera” experiences than others. Some of them might require a little preparation [...]
My lifelong Chicago Blackhawks love affair
This week’s spectacular (and satisfying) Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup win, ending a 49-year drought, has caused me to pause and think about my own following of this team and franchise dating back to my freshman year at college.
During the past three or four weeks, and particularly Wednesday night, when Patrick Kane slipped in the Goal [...]
First-ever staging of Wagner’s first opera
Pasadena, CA: June 2010
At 11:40 p.m. last night, it was over. The curtain dropped on North America’s first ever staged production of Richard Wagner’s first opera (written was he was 20), DIE FEEN, at the historic Pasadena Playhouse in California.
I’m not sure how, but Lyric Opera of Los Angeles’s Laura Sage somehow pulled this off [...]
Connecting Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky
I have ticket stubs to two special NHL games. One is from March 12, 1966, the other from March 23, 1994. For the first (second balcony standing room, Chicago Stadium) I paid $2.50. The second, in the corner in the lower bowl at the Los Angeles Forum, was $125 from the friendly scalper in the [...]
Full StoryIn (futile) pursuit of Pete and George’s quests
I have been fortunate in being in the right place at the right time for some significant sports accomplishments. Some have been by accident (the no-hitters, Gayle Sayers’s six touchdowns); others have been by design (Randy Johnson’s 300th , Wayne Gretzky’s 802nd).
To accomplish something by design requires some false starts, some adjustments, and more than [...]
A Whale of a Hit at Dallas Opera
In the early bars of the haunting, brooding prelude, what appears to be a dark sky filled with stars emerges onto the animation screen.
As the music continues, short white lines begin to develop from the “stars.” Sometimes they intersect, sometimes they form shapes. Some of them disappear and others slowly grow. Suddenly, several lines come [...]
Target Field in Minneapolis: Major League Park #58
Continuing my lifelong collection of major league parks, I spent the first part of Memorial Day Weekend 2010 in Minneapolis, home of the Minnesota Twins and the newest “new” park in baseball.
After two and a half decades in the Humphrey Metrodome (of the ear-splitting decibels and “Hefty Bag” right field wall), the Twinkies have ventured [...]
Young women making a difference in opera
Grassroots opera. It’s out there.
Meet Laura Sage and Elisa Jordan.
I spent the weekend in Southern California attending an old opera (Verdi’s NABUCCO, in San Diego) and a new one (Kenneth Wells’s THE FIRST LADY, at UCLA). Both events were followed by enjoyable visits to local eating and drinking establishments with friends old and new, in [...]
