Monday, November 5, 2007
News / Chicagoland Around the Web: the business of booze tasting, data centers, the architecture of the Edens, and more.
Posted by Whet Moser on 11.05.07 at 03:38 PM
* The Lyric Opera's sexed-up, critically acclaimed Julius Caesar (a Bollywood-style dance number?) features the first female conductor in the company's history, French harpsicordist Emmanuelle Haim. My date to see it isn't for a couple weeks, but from the opening-night WFMT broadcast on Friday, it sounds like a hit.
* Blair Kamin had a great piece this weekend on the architectural renaissance along the Edens. "Why three towers? Because . . . you can start getting income from the first tower while you're still building the other two."
* Crain's checks in on the business of booze tasting in Chicago.
* The secret of the MRSA superbug's success? Weird bacterial sex. Science writer Maryn McKenna has a blog about MRSA.
* Microsoft is building a $500 million data center the size of eight football fields in Northlake. As the Web gets bigger and milliseconds of loading time become a competitive advantage (think of how fast Google searches load), the speed of light is actually a constraint, so the physical location of these data centers becomes increasingly important.
* In related news, if some guy tries to sell you a Dell server out of a van, don't buy it.
Comments (4)
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I see Julius Caesar tonight! I'll let you know. John Von Rhein said it was the most entertaining opera in years.
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If you are hoping for a 200 dancer Bollywood spectacular, you will be disappointed. It's only 3 people. The dancing was entertaining, to the point where people were chuckling over the singing, which is bad form, IMHO. Danielle DeNeisse is an outstanding singer and a darn good actress. I was a bit put off by the countertenor, David Daniels. He kept blinking his eyes and bobbing his head while he was singing. It must be very difficult to sing those roles (it could be made easier, I suppose, by castration - I doubt if wants to go that route, though!) Christophe Dumaux did a better job with his countertenor role as Ptolemy. Some nice acrobatics, too. One thing that needs to be said: Handel needed an editor! It's a LONG opera and sometimes he repeated sections one too many times. The old vaudeville line "Leave 'em wanting more" should have applied. We always expect the best from Lyric Opera and we got it here again. Any criticism is a trifle compared to the product they put on night after night. /Some of the subtleties in the acting may be missed if you are back a bit - Handel had a 1200 seat theatre in mind when he wrote this and the Lyric is 3 times larger. /HA! That's not true. I just wanted an opportunity to brag about sitting in the third row! You'll be fine!
