Cheesecake A Success!

It could have been sweeter, but it had the same texture as cheesecake, which I think is the most important thing about it. Next time however... white chocolate and macademia nuts! Have also been contemplating making homemade cheesecake chocolates, wherein I will make cheesecake batter, put it in the itty bitty latex cupcake pan, and cook it. Then I will dip it in chocolate, let that harden, and gain some chub.

My Ongoing Projects:

• Essay on Ancient Roman food
• Essay on The Name Of The Rose
• 'Lascia Ch'io Pianga' for my extracurricular vocals class
• 'How Could I Ever Know' (from The Secret Garden) for my intracurricular vocals class
• Slideshow about 30s music for my intracurricular vocals class
• French essay...
• Possibly rehearsing Tartuffe for a community theatre company
• Metropolis in the style of Metamorphosis

I am not stressed. Not me!

I was nominated for an award within my school that honours students in the arts. I was nominated for the vocal honour, along with two girls. Should be interesting, though the others are far better than I am. I can't go to the ceremony; working on the stuff that will let me graduate.

This is my idol Máté Kamarás in a new treatment of Franz Wedekind's play Erdgeist, most commonly known to us because of the silent film Pandora's Box (starring the fantastic Louise Brooks), or Alban Berg's opera Lulu. This particular adaptation is a musical, a very strange one that I'm on the fence about liking. But, the cast is so good and the score so agreeable that I may be sending away for a soundtrack soon.

Also, you know who's adorable? Shirota Yuu. He is a Japanese-Spanish theatre actor who recently played Der Tod in the Toho theatre company's umpteenth production of Elisabeth, and will be playing in the first Japanese production of Presgurvic's Romeo et Juliette with both genders featured, that is. He has a lovely voice. And he's adorable.

So beautiful...

Spring Has Sprung

All the depressing weather yesterday has paid off; today I woke up and looked out the window to find that the grass was green, the trees were bedecked with leaves, and the lilacs were blooming! My littlest brother was running around telling anybody who would listen about the purple flowers. My other brother was lying in bed and trying not to upchuck, like he has twice today already.

Working on a song I will be singing for a recital in June. It's very difficult for someone of my range and ability, but it's Handel, so some effort must be made. It's called 'Lascia ch'io pianga', from an opera called Rinaldo. Here is the wonderful Philippe Jaroussky singing said aria:

Rediscovered my ancient English-German dictionary (the dictionary is ancient, not the English). It's from 1949, and therefore it is distressingly diplomatic. According to a sticker in my book, it was also sold in Melbourne before it came to the second-hand bookstore I acquired it from. What stories these books want to tell.

The spine of the German-English, English-German Dictionary



The Australian booksellers' sticker. Angus & Robertson, I have your book.

 On the Ancient Roman cheesecake front, I executed the recipe with little fuss and put it in the oven looking like this:

It looks like it might actually bake!

The green leafy stuff you see around the edges are grape leaves, to line the spring pan and avoid leakage, which would have been a tragedy considering the amount of ricotta and honey that went into this recipe. When it is served, the grape leaves will be on top, making a crust. I'm not sure how that will taste. We'll see tomorrow.

When it came out of the oven, it looked like this:

Hey look at that! It baked!

Once again, will it be delicious? Only time will tell.

Rainy Saturday

Went to the store and found ricotta cheese and grape leaves to make a cheesecake in the Ancient Roman style. The former comes in plastic tubs, like margarine or sour cream, the latter comes in a big glass canister like pickles. What a rich country I live in. Incidentally, the Ancient Romans would have used fresh bay leaves, but I've never seen a bay leaf that wasn't completely dehydrated, so grape leaves seemed the best substitution. I'll probably blog on how this recipe goes tomorrow, when I make it.

Watched Doctor Who. This episode was written by Neil Gaiman, and, wonderfully, it showed. I also detected some similarities to the works of Beckett, but I feel that this may have more to do with the fact that I'm taking a studies in literature class right now, and so cannot look at any media from after 1957 without seeing magic realism or existentialist motifs.

For that selfsame studies in literature class I must write a version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis in the style of Franz Kafka's stories, preferably The Bucket Rider, but I feel Metamorphosis is more appropriate.

Not to mention the ongoing essay on The Name Of The Rose, which turned into a bloody university thesis.

The Scriptorium is my thesis [insert evil half-crazed laugh]!!!



And now for lists.

List Of Things I Need To Read:

• Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
• The Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges
• House Of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Name Of The Rose, by Umberto Eco
• The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
• One Hundred Years Of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Butcher Boy, by Patrick McCabe
• The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh
• The Poems of Sophia Parnok

Things I Am In The Process Of Reading

• The Name Of The Rose, by Umberto Eco
• A Brief History Of Time, by Stephen Hawking
• The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, by Martin McDonagh
• Beowulf, with Seamus Heaney's brill translation.
• Tartuffe, by Moliere. I can't find a very brill translation, at the moment, so I've taken to reading it in French.

I see maybe a slight imbalance in ratio. Er.

Have some Janelle Monáe, singing her song 'Metropolis'. I enjoy this artist because of her aesthetic, true, but unlike most artists who have a great look (I'm looking at YOU, j-rock bands), her music is actually excellent as well.