This is in response to Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #274 where the given word is OPERA and the word count is 95.

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I really tried, but with 95 words, and only five lines, and knowing little about opera, and adding more commas than I ought, I failed to write an acrostic poem. So…….

Otello, a resounding success but sixteen years in the writing.

Porgy and Bess, ten years to write, in English, and great success for one song in particular.

Eugene Onegin, a lyric opera, dramatic music, love, a duel, regret, what more is there?

Rigoletto, Verdi’s masterpiece, a randy hunchback and a nubile young lady.

Aida, the history of Egypt, sung over 1,100 times since 1886.

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I have already devoted two posts to the Spectacled Weaver (Ploceus ocularis) yet cannot resist doing so again if only to highlight the joy I feel every time one visits my garden. Unlike the other weavers, this one retains its bright plumage throughout the year. It appears to prefer the tangled growth of the Cape honeysuckle that twines through other indigenous vegetation on the edge of the area I have set aside for the bird feeders. At first I have seen one only after the ‘breakfast rush’ is over, however, it has become bolder over the past three years and so I am featuring pictures of it venturing out into the open. Here it [there is actually a pair – I generally only see one at a time though] has ventured out of the bush to find a titbit to eat on the feeding tray. This is a…

Plans for Japan – click to enlarge

The original idea for the invasion of Japan was approved in July 1944 and received constant, precise detailing up until the actual signing of the surrender. Operation Downfall was broken into two separate plans, Operation Olympic which would be followed by Operation Coronet.

With all the devastation already incurred on Japan, a forceful occupation would still be very costly. The Japanese Army controlled the government and their wish was a fight down to the last man, woman and child. Later on, members of that army stated that it would have been an all out suicide effort of every person in Japan to fight to the death.

Women pose for propaganda poster as “beachfront kamikazes”

Operation Olympic, which included 750,000 troops were to land on Southern Kyushi 1 November 1945. In the first wave, Army, Navy and Marine personnel – 436,486; the second wave…

Lineage is a fragile thing. I think about that every time I think about ballet, and I probably learned more about what it takes to maintain and nourish a lineage through having been a dancer than in all the studies and religious work I’ve done since. Lineage is connection, power, tradition, rootedness, identity, culture, and that culture is directed at maintaining and expressing something precious (be it devotion in our case as polytheists, or beauty and art, a different type of devotion, in the case of the dancers I’m discussing here). It is passed through bodies, through the stories, material culture, and lived experience of one generation to the next.One generation takes the next in hand, carefully forming them, teaching them, helping them, and entrusting to them whatever lineage and tradition it is that one carries. That is a sacred trust, something to be cherished, reverenced, protected.

In ballet, it’s…