Insect Politics

So in all my pissing and moaning about how no art blew me away last weekend, I was gently reminded of the one artful experience that was especially enlightening, that of witnessing the The Fly at the LA Opera.

I've always wanted to see opera. As I get older (and poorer) my tastes become more and more refined (read: bourgeois) and what challenges me intellectually becomes more and more esoteric and complex. It seems. The world of opera and its rich history was daunting, and I sought some entry way to its grand world. And so it was that on the back of a bus I was driving behind on my way to Secret Headquarters one Saturday did I see an ad for an operatic adaptation of David Cronenberg's The Fly.

After swiftly sharing this information with the only person I knew who had the requisite taste and panache to appreciate such a boldly ridiculous postmodern endeavor, I went broke for this month in the best way possible: I bought opera tickets.

Now, my admiration of Cronenberg and his various cinematic treatises on the betrayal of the flesh are well known (well, to people who, uh, know me). The Fly in particular, having its slick Hollywood finish and effects budget, remains a truly horrific but thoughtful speculation on how we are all, in the end, mere blobs of flesh, fluid, entrails, piss and shit, waiting to fall apart and be disposed of.

So me and my friend, plastic money in tow, sat down among the upper crust and took in this all-new, all-different Fly. Calmly ridiculous at first (no doubt partly due to the way opera sounds in English), it rolled along smoothly and dramatically, and everything had a vaguely anachronistic but considered aesthetic. Self conscious enough to laugh at itself at times (particularly when the acrobat stunt double fucked up his backflip), I found the whole thing a worthy and compelling spectacle. It was like a some kind of live-action European sci-fi cartoon. And at intermission I think I may have found a blended scotch I like. Maybe.

Anywho, it was fantastic time. And with fantastic company. But now I got a hankerin' for some real opera. Some Italian shit. I don't know what my tastes think I do for a living, but safe to say the LA Opera will be getting a chunk of one my part-time brain whore checks. I think my friend said they're doing Carmen soon (that's French, but close enough). Really. Opera.