Diary of a Grad Student: Leap Year, Cartoons, and Opera
Google Doodle for Rossini and Leap Year
I looked to the coming of the leap year with dread. It was supposed to be the deadline of my thesis proposal’s first draft. But, maybe the leap year has its magic. Alas, the deadline was extended. With a sigh of relief, I wasted time again.
If you’re a reader of this blog, you will know of my fondness for google doodles. I wanted to write about it during the day, but as it was, I was terribly busy. My voices column went out in The Shakespeare Standard, then spent part of the day procrastinating. It’s an extra day of the year after all, right?
And so it was, it was also the 220th birthday of Gioachino Rossini. Unfamiliar with his music? You’re not. Listen to this…
The things we learn everyday, right? Gives us some Loony Tunes and Lone Rangers memories. I was reading comments on YouTube, saying that if Rossini was alive, he’d be so rich because of all the royalties due him. They’re right, of course. It’s probably why older, popular cartoons choose “classic” music instead of contemporary ones. Not that I’m saying it’s a bad thing. At least children of the generation are familiar with the music and are regularly exposed to it. Nowadays, sigh…
Who didn’t have cowboy fantasies? Especially after listening to that? And of course, in another incarnation, is Mickey Mouse! As I said, it’s very educational and helpful for children to listen to such music. I grew up with it. It makes me sad that children today rarely see this. It’s just one spectacle after another today.
Going back to Rossini, he’s also the composer of The Barber of Seville. Yes, you are familiar with that. It’s the first part of The Marriage of Figaro trilogy. Yes, it’s good with cartoons too. I only wish we could still be as cultured as before. Even cartoons were thinking cartoons. We were geeks without even knowing it.
Here’s a leap, to another year.
Related articles
- Google doodle twofer: Leap year, cartoon opera composer (digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com)
- Gioachino Rossini and “Leap Year” Google Doodle (iused2be.wordpress.com)
- Gioachino Rossini Google Doodle Leap Year 2012 (ktrmurali.wordpress.com)
- Google Doodle hops into leap year (news.cnet.com)
- Google’s leap day, Gioachino Rossini b’day doodle (ibnlive.in.com)
- Google-Doodle Honors Gioachino Rossini – Leap Year (femaleimagination.wordpress.com)
- Frog Google-Doodle honors Gioachino Rossini/Leap Year (techie-buzz.com)
- GIOACHINO ROSSINI ‘LEAP YEAR’ GOOGLE DOODLE: A high note! Musical ‘Leap’-frog logo celebrates Italian composer’s birth (elizabethkarlsson.wordpress.com)
- Google’s Frog Doodle (presurfer.blogspot.com)
- Google Leap Day doodle celebrates composer Giochino Rossini (slashgear.com)
