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Fri 27 Jun, 2003 10:35 pm
Link to the Guardian article - Opera: It's Better Than Sex
Quote:There are two kinds of transcendent experience: sex with someone you love and a night at the opera. I often cry at a poem or a picture, but for me, only opera and sex are full-body experiences, perhaps because they are also out-of-the-body experiences.
Quote:When we make love, and when we listen to music, nothing need come between us and the moment. The experience is not dependent on language or interpretation. It is direct and immediate. We listen. We feel.
I'm not sure I agree, but it's an interesting topic!
To judge by your title, you are seriously nutty. No, I didn't follow the links.
Someone's sex technique is seriously lacking.
I'm sorry. I know I should say something nice about opera. Whenever Frasier Crane gets moist eyed over opera, I just want to smack him.
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I am a very picky, very passionate fan of Opera. But even Hans Solo is better.
Opera. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
It used to be the Nasty, or the Wild Thing.
Inviting somebody in for Opera does sound a lot classier.
"C'mon, let's sing!" "Bravo!" "More!"
More seriously, I find the author's description of opera (and sex) to be remarkable similar to many experiences -- when approaching life in the right frame of mind. There's nothing especially different about either of those activities, except when those are the only two ways of someone uses to open up to the world.
From the article:
"for me, only opera and sex are full-body experiences, perhaps because they are also out-of-the-body experiences."
-- Obviously, a limitted scope of existence. Try going for a walk, playing music, motorcycling, sitting very still in nature, playing subsonic bass, visualizing a poem, or doing a thousand other things!
"A life of work, shopping and telly is not a life; it is a poor existence."
-- Absolutely! That's why teeming hundreds of millions of people are nothing but rats in a cage, with no expansive experience beyond their own blasting sexual fix. Harumph! Pretty sad when it takes such a big blast to knock ones self into a different state.
"We have no inner life; and without an inner life, without creativity and imagination and a sense of values beyond money and fame, we cannot be happy and well."
--- Like I said.
"music has a specific power; the left-brain can't hijack it into narrative or interpretation the way it tries to do with books and pictures. And music has something else too, not shared by books and pictures - music is not an object, it is always an experience"
--- Life itself *is* music. Every moment of every experience. In that state, sex is just sex but living is continually fulfilling.
"Sex with someone you love is discovery as well as familiarity"
--- Especially for those who can't approach their own self or the world this way!
"universality and immediacy"
"nothing need come between us and the moment"
"surrender and wellbeing that surrounds us"
--- Plenty of things just as good (or even better) than opera or sex.
It's not the activity itself, but way it is approached. The way we live.
cAnt you do both? Sex to Carmena Burana is evil. Having sex with some Gilbert and Sullivan can be righteously kinky.
It ain't over till the lady sings!
At some point -- about 15 years ago, after a life long aversion to opera -- I happened to play a Luciano Pavorotti album while seriously stoned.
Tear came to my eyes -- and that is not a figure of speech. My enjoyment of the sounds I was hearing was so intense -- I cried.
Next day -- when straight -- I listened to the album again -- and realized that a window into massive beauty had been opened to me.
I've now branched off into many different areas of opera -- and I thank my lucky starts for the accidental confluence that introduced me to this wonderous passtime.
Perhaps it is better than sex -- but only if one is getting so much sex that it is temporarily boring.
And perhaps, if Frank had heard someone other than Pavarotti at the time, he might never have listened to opera again. I'd say that it's the quality of the performers/performance that is the determining factor in this issue. :wink:
Opera doesn't do it for me. Recorded music doesn't do it for me.
But live jazz can do it - lift me right out of my skin - forget where I am - forget who i'm with - forget if i'm breathing. I once wrote about this on Abuzz. I hadn't been to a live jazz performance in about 2 years - went again, and it was as if I'd found a piece of my soul again. The most extraordinary feeling. Better than sex? Better than some sex. As good as some sex. Not even close to some other sexual experiences. An amazing experience, and I'm not letting live jazz out of my life again.
Yo Beth
I like jazz also.
Here in the New York area, we have a great jazz station -- 101.9.
Each Tueday night they sponsor a boat trip on the Hudson River -- with a live Jazz performer.
Nancy and I went on the trip last Tuesday. Kiku Masui was the performer -- and she was GREAT!!
You'da loved it -- and the skyline is stupendous.
That does sound like an amazing setting for a great performance, Frank. Jazz is something that 'holds' up well in unusual settings. You're making me jones for a jazz performance. Will have to hit one of the outdoor ones next week. Lots happening as it's Canada Day on Tuesday.
Frank Apisa wrote:My enjoyment of the sounds I was hearing was so intense -- I cried.
Next day -- when straight -- I listened to the album again -- and realized that a window into massive beauty had been opened to me.
Yup, yup.
Glad I'm not the only one!
I go through phases, Jazz, Classical, Opera, Reggae, World Beat, different things get me completely immersed depending on how I am. One thing I miss around here ... is a real blues bar. Just sittin' with it.
the Queen of the Nights aria from the Magic Flute just sets me off . . . i love the old opera, but generally don't mention it, cause people think yer weird . . .
I've just heard a most hauntingly beautiful tenor aria from Donezetti's La Favorita . . . i love NPR . . .
The aria from La Wally that is the motiv for the film "Diva"!
Enrico Caruso is still the most fabulous tenor that I have ever listened to.
I love Jazz, of course, and always will, but I have recently come to enjoy blue grass, because it's an echo from the mountains and very pure.
Hey, Mac. music of any kind isn't intended to replace sex, just enhance it.
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