It's been resting inside the book for 82 years, and you can tell where it sat all that time: they clearly gave up at the end of Act 2 of Lohengrin.

This scrap fell out of my new/old Wagner. From the review of Jennie Tourel's performance as Carmen at the City Centre Opera Company, I date it to Feb 1944, which is corroborated by a reference to Operation Hailstorm (17-18 Feb 1944) on the reverse. Can anyone suggest which NY paper this is?

Excited by this new arrival: Librettos of Wagner Operas (1938), parallel-text, with 'principal airs'. I know what I'm doing for the rest of the week! 🎼🎶🎭

Currently reading The Epic of Gilgamesh, which, I'm pretty sure isn't as old as everyone thinks, mainly because it was clearly written by Samuel Beckett.

Really excellent, except this (hilarious, perfectly pitched) description of the feeble husband of the woman our protagonist is having an 'affair' with. Feels a little too... me 😬😅

Finally getting to Luke Kennard's #BlackBag, which is so brilliant already and I'm only a few chapters in.

A young vixen has taken to sleeping in our garden during the day. We have to be extra quiet in the kitchen; the slightest noise wakes her up and then she skedaddles. Cunning little vixen, she certainly is not, just very sweet. #wildlife

Lucas, along with George Lisle, was shot in Colchester's Castle Park on Fairfax's order, after surrendering in August 1648. There's a memorial on the site today. John Milton celebrated Fairfax's conduct of the siege, writing that 'Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings / Victory home...'

Joseph Haine's appeared with one in epilogue to The Unhappy Kindness (1697). Also worth looking at this: scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/rectr/a...

Next month (20 June), #Colchester Choral Society performs G&S's Iolanthe. I'm singing Strephon, a fairy from the waste up and mortal from the waste down. He's in love with a shepherdess, ward to a Lord. Parliament gets involved. It's a riot. Come along! colchesterchoralsociety.co.uk/etn/gilbert-...

I've been looking forward to this for a long time. See you in 6(ish) hours... 🐉

Just picked this up from the library. Always enjoy @joemoransblog.bsky.social's stuff, and this is no exception. '[T]o have failed, to have plumbed the depths and know that one cannot fall further, is not so bad.' Fail better, indeed.

Also spotted in troll-country, not so long ago: trolls in Tromsø's Norli Bokhuset 🧌 Is that the farthest north they've reached so far?