Sunday, April 10, 2011

D'you Remember Tom Baker?

Saturday we went to the coast. We saw:
  • giant coastal snails
  • waterfalls
  • mating bald eagles
  • agates, jasper, and a tide line of tiny plastic bits
  • a raft of sea-lions in the coastal surf
  • real fishermen feeding real sea-lions ten feet away from us while we stood on a dock (no, lunging sea-lions never crossed my mind....)
  • a harbor seal
  • herons
  • large crows
  • seagulls of assorted sizes and shapes
  • historical, two-masted sailboats (by accident)

Because it's the first Spring Visit to the Coast, I got a sunburn on my face and the top of my head. I thought I had packed my hat, and Mark was the only one smart enough to put on sun-screen.

Lately, the leitmotif for Mime has been on my mind. As I was walking around the beach looking for agates, I tried to "recuperate" (as Chris Siosal says) the theme. The ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three-FOUR rhythm of Wagner's pensive tune turned itself to a disco tune; and I wondered if the Muse of the Opera Babes was near-by. Or else Mime's leitmotif wanted to become "Over the River and Through the Woods." I kept picking at the theme and imagining it as a strophe and antistrophe.... and out popped the theme to Doctor Who.

I am not making this up; Mime's theme is quite easy to make into the ground underneath the electronic whistling melody. (Pause to imagine how the opera might have ended if Tom Baker had been the Nibelung blacksmith.)

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