Got back from La Boheme a little while ago. Loved loved loved it. I may not be the most impartial judge, though, because I have an art crush on Baz Luhrmann... meaning that I'm completely crushed out on the art, but not on the artist. (A distinction I have learned to make through life experience, particularly with one painter -- also called trial and error). I also happen to be not much of a purist or preservationist and so am a big fan of trying to update classics, especially when it's done to make a piece more relevant and to bring in new audiences into the art form. So if you don't agree with that for starters, I understand how his work might not work for you. For me it's all a spectacular spectacular!

Paul sent me this article on the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, and I'm delighted to know that "ass-backwards" has made it in, as well as "spokesmodel" and "dilithium crystal." I'm not sure how I feel about the phrase "body dismorphic disorder," but I guess it's an outcropping of our "identity politics" movements (a phrase I know very well). I am curious about the story behind the phrase "bunny boiler" (a woman who is vindictive after having been spurned by her lover)... on second thought, maybe I don't want to hear that story. But nothing beats the fact that "up to eleven" is now in there! Spinal Tap will live on!

--cianna, who's now waiting for the inclusion of the phrase "as if" because she's interested in hearing the definition