Friday Viewage

It's Friday, which means everyone wants to kick back and watch videos. Here at DarwinCatholic, we're always happy to provide some mind-numbing entertainment to go with the economic analysis and interminable posts about sex.

So first up, for Brandon and Matthew Lickona, the future of internet advertising is: CATS!



Pass me the Doritos.

Whenever I get a chance to catch up with my brother Will, we waste our valuable sibling time in syncing up on Saturday Night Live videos. Here's what we were laughing at the entire last week of December.

1920s Party


Darwin is probably going to throttle me if I say "Don't make me sing!" one more time.

And here's the sequel: 1920s Holiday Party


I love Jimmy Fallon when he can keep a straight face during a sketch.

Let's add some culture to the diet. Darwin and I saw the operetta The Merry Widow in Vienna when we were schlepping around Europe with backpacks. (I remember that we misread our tickets and sat in the wrong seats, and then it turned out that the right seats were high up in the very first box to the left of the stage and some of the action was cut off by the proscenium arch.) The production we saw was in German and set in the 1920s, and some of the action included characters rolling across the stage on wooden office chairs. We understood no German and the comic plot wasn't quite intelligible to us (though I do remember several characters exclaiming "Zwanzig millionen!", which referred to the amount of the widow's fortune).

The most memorable moment of the opera for me was the Vilja-lied, in which the merry widow sings of a legend from her native land about a man who falls in love with a nymph named Vilja. Here is Beverly Sills performing this aria very slowly but beautifully.




And this is what I sing to Diana now that she's learned to walk and is padding all around the house in her soft leather slippers: O Mistress Mine, where are you roaming? from Twelfth Night.



O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
O stay and hear! your true-love's coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting, 
Journeys end in lovers' meeting—
Every wise man's son doth know. 

What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
What is love? 'tis not hereafter; 
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,—
Then come kiss me, Sweet-and-twenty, 
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

An Opera-tunity to Support the Arts

First, listen: "I'd Like To Go Away Alone", composed by Philip Koplow as part of the cantata "We Are Here!" The lyrics come from a poem by Alena Synkova, an inmate of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. This recording is from the world premiere on May 2, 2010, in Cincinnati.

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I'd like to go away alone.
Where there are other, nicer people,
Somewhere into the far unknown,
There, where no one kills another.

Maybe more of us,
A thousand strong,
Will reach this goal
Before too long.

Now, meet the singer:


This is Anna Egan, a 20-year-old soprano studying Vocal Performance at Northern Kentucky University. She's taking that voice on the road, too: this May, she's heading to Salzburg, Austria for a six-week summer session in Opera, Music History, and all the other esoterica the young artist needs to be rounded. Though the program covers the cost of tuition, she has to raise more than $4000 for plane fare, room and board, meals, etc. And the first $1000 is due by March 15!

So if you've ever wanted to be a patron of the arts but didn't know where to begin, here's your chance: a real live starving artist!

There are approximately 51 meals that are not covered for the duration of our trip. That's a lot of food to make up for, so I need to call for reinforcements.

For 15$, you can sponsor a meal that I eat in Austria. You can even get a group together and sponsor multiple meals or just send a donation towards the total cost of my trip. (Either way you have my love and undying belief in your awesomeness, which I already have. ;) )

For 20$, you can sponsor an entire day, and any sight-seeing or activities that I do I will take photos of, especially for you!

For every meal or thing that you sponsor, I will send you a photo of that meal, as well as an anecdote of my time in a foreign culture and a progress update as to my studies and performances. You will have a direct impact on the life of a budding young artist, as well as a little "taste" of life in Europe.

Every little bit helps. Even a dollar adds up when there are many of them.

Read more about her trip here, including details of how to contribute.

(Full and honest disclosure: this is my little sister, guys. But the girl can sing.)