Saturday, August 15, 2020

You never know what rabbit tracking will start

While contemplating a tiny spider the other morning I wondered: are there any vegetarian arachnids?

Spiders and scorpions and ticks and even horseshoe crabs (new addition--or maybe a very old one). The latter sometimes eat algae, harvestmen eat anything handy, mites eat--it depends on the species, but anything handy, but ticks--no, scorpions--no. Spiders: Bagheera Kiplingi sometimes eats insects but more often eats "protein- and fat-rich nubs called Beltian bodies" on Mimoseae trees. I like the name, but it isn't appropriate for a largely green vegetarian.

After looking up the first link, I looked up Donald Swann. I had no idea anyone had tried to make an opera of Perelandra. Some time after Lewis’ death, however, the film rights to the Perelandra story had been sold and as a result, an embargo was placed on commercial dramatic adaptations. Following this, the Perelandra Opera vanished into obscurity for another 50 years, until the Oxford CS Lewis Society arranged a limited reproduction of it in 2009. There are no commercially available recordings of the performance, but it was recorded and high-quality archive CD-sets made available at selected research institutions."

Unfortunately, the UW-Madison doesn't seem to be one of them. Wheaton looks like the nearest And I wonder who owns the film rights--or if they reverted from disuse They reverted. (I can't imagine a successful film version. Too much of the story involves interior reactions to sights and sounds and tastes that the rest of us, in a bent world, would have different reactions to.)

Three short selections.

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Opera is not a genre I understand well or warm to easily. I have to give this a look, though for obvious reasons. I liked the illustration of Piebald