About Smorg

Hello!

In a nutshell: I am a generation x'er living in Southern California on the American west coast. I have great love for classical music, opera, good rock music, nature, science (especially when it involves the finicky photon), thoughtful and well-written books and magazines, and most of all - solitude. I speak English, Thai and French, as well as a bit of German. 

Lately I'm more known as an opera reviewer/enthusiast with predisposition for expressive dramatic music (and I do think Mozart was one of the most drama-oriented composers there ever was) and musicians who use everything they've got to make their performance communicative rather than just look or sound pretty. A few of these (Vesselina Kasarova, Astrid Varnay, Joyce DiDonato for instance) bewitch me more than others... as reflected in the lopsided number of posts about them. Most of my reviews are at Epinions and AssociatedContent.

Rigoletto at San Diego Opera

I do attend live classical/opera performances, though I rarely ever approach a performer after the show (and when I do I don't tend to say who I am). So... if you are a performer, please feel free to hit any 'Smorg' that pops up unannounced in the green room with the hardest thing you have on hand before calling in security!

It's hard not to follow politics in such politicized time in America. I am independent with libertarian leaning (but definitely neither an anarchist nor a fascist by any stretch of imagination). I insist on not letting any political party be able to take me for granted.

I have not owned a car since 2006 and commute everywhere by bicycle and/or public transportation, though that doesn't stop me from going off on recreational cycling adventures every now and then. You can find my cycling-related ramblings at SmorgCycle.

I like:

Straight forwarded open-minded people who value learning how things truly are more than to just presume to know the truth, sunflower, clear mountain air, good books, cats and most other animals that won't try to eat or sting me, American Midwestern autumn, hot cocoa, good music, solving puzzles...

I dislike:     

Pompous fools who can't be bothered to research and learn about the subject before trying to pontificate or pronounce judgment on it and others, hot and humid weather, banana, malice (I don't mind honest mistakes, but I do mind ill-wishing others), mosquitoes, things that have too many legs, things that ought to have legs but don't, malfunctioning Coulter Counter, foaming AxSym analyzer, stinky pseudomonas (especially when the lab's AC isn't working), doctors who order blood tests on people who haven't got any intact superficial vein left in their body, ... etc. :oP