Doctor Atomic

"Live at the Met" is showing, right now on PBS, a production of John Adams's opera "Doctor Atomic," about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the first atomic bomb test in 1945. My wife was watching it and called me in, thinking that I might wish to get a taste of what it is like. I watched as the Oppenheimer and Teller characters sang at each other--very atonally, with no melodic resolution whatsoever--about the advisability of testing "the gadget" before using it on the Japanese.

"Not really very hummable, is it?" I said.

"No," she agreed.

A little later, I couldn't help but say, "Why the hell did anybody write an opera about this?"

Then after watching a while more, I said, "It's very interesting, but it ain't what I call rock'n'roll."

She said, "It ain't what I call Verdi, either."

The Current Status

Hung down, brung down, flung down.  Folded, spindled, mutilated.  Rode hard and put away wet.  Stomped on, tromped on, trodden upon.  Chewed up and spat out.  Wrung out, crumpled up.  Beaten up, beaten down, beaten around.  Ready for the light at the end of the tunnel to come back on.