Dave gave me permission to rewrite the ending of La Boheme. I don’t have that kind of chutzpah but who can resist permission to change a masterpiece? La Boheme? No way! But...Bizet’s masterpiece? Why not? Here goes..a bit of chutzpah for lagniappe:

Reiss

I was eight years old when my sister took me to her college production of the opera Carmen. Great fun! The ending, however, was not my favorite part. I thought someone should change it. I felt Carmen was too strong, too smart and too wily to die at the hands of that soldier guy, the kind of guy with whom she played like an easily discarded toy. I was under the impression that Don Jose was simply a young soldier who, far away from home and Mama, was too weak to cope with the masterful and magnificent Gypsy. Soldier or not, I believed he was not strong enough to overpower and stab her to death. Not this lady! My ending would have Carmen fight with him, outwit him, take the knife from him and stab him to bring the opera to an end. I even considered, if he managed to stab her, having her pull the knife from her chest and stab him with it before she dies! Unreasonable and unrealistic as that might be, this lady was capable of many things beyond the ordinary. She was Carmen!

Some fifty plus years later, I thought it might be wise to take a second look at the story on which the opera is based. Prosper Mérimée’s novella is a revelation. The basics of his story are intact in Bizet’s opera. Carmen is a wild, cunning, street-smart, smuggler’s moll who does what it takes to get what she wants. Don Jose, however, is not a simple, nice soldier boy away from home. He’s been around the avenida a few times and was, in his own way, a small town bad boy who left home after a fight over a game in which he fought with another young guy and, when the fight, using iron-tipped sticks, was over, he was the victor but “had to leave his provence.” He went away and joined the military. When he got involved with Carmen, he took to the wild life easily. There is no mention, in the novella, of the young girl we meet in the opera or the letter she brings to Don Jose from his Mama suggesting he marry her, this same sweet, small town girl, Micaëla. Interestingly, in the opera, Bizet honors this young woman with a show-stopping aria. For those few minutes, the opera is hers!

Mérimée’s Carmen is a feisty one. She has the need to be free, to move about as she wishes. She will lie, cheat and use men, including soldiers, to get what she wants. She is not an easily intimidated lady. For a character who lived in Monsieur Mérimée’s 1845 story, she is a liberated woman. There is, however, one issue that denies her total liberation, indeed it is the master of her fate; her superstition. She believes in the cards, fate and in whatever else her prophesies are based. She believes she was fated to die at Don Jose’s hand and puts up no fight. She accepts her murder. In the Novella she says to him, “I could easily tell you another lie, but I’d sooner spare myself the trouble. Everything is over between us. As my rom (husband), you have the right to kill your romi (wife). But Carmen will always be free...”

So, Don Jose explains, he “stuck her twice..”

“She fell at the second thrust without uttering a sound.”

He, “watched her great dark eyes that stared at me, then grew clouded and closed.”

Pity she didn’t fight back. She would have won and the curtain would fallen on a very different ending.

What's in a word? by Cecile Betts
Most people agree that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, it should be apparent that smut is in the mind of the reader. Words in themselves have no meaning except that which we assign to a particular grouping of letters. Sometimes a word has several meanings depending on the context. The culture of the time also defines which words are acceptable and which are "dirty." The National Scrabble Association has an official word list used in tournaments. A few years ago, after much debate and soul searching they removed 200 "dirty" words from the edition of that word list which is used to promote SCRABBLE in our schools. This expurgated list may also be used by squeamish people who are offended by words which have become commonplace through their frequent use in movies, plays, television shows and in books by our leading best-selling authors.

I am attending the fiftieth reunion of my high school graduating class of 1939 at the Northfield, Minnesota Country Club. The host committee is making awards. The award for the class member who traveled the greatest distance goes to Dave McGuire of Auburn, California. He wins the door prize--a real, hollow core bedroom door provided by classmate Paul Kump of Kump Lumber Company.It stays in Northfield.

I bet you can guess my award. The baldest. My prize: A GIANT COMB. I vow that if I ever win another huge comb for having a bald head, I will smash it into smithereens on the spot and sprinkle the teeth on the dinner plates of all those sitting at the head table. I’m serious.

“Oh, you look just like the guy on ‘Everyone Loves Raymond,’” the corpulent lady in the Leisure World Fitness Center exclaims. Yeah, right. Just like bald Peter Boyle, the ugly schmuck. I never watch this stupid, award winning TV sit-com.

I experience premature baldness at the sadistic hands of my father’s brother Chuck and my playful grandfather Charles Webster Blodgett. They give me a fee haircut when I am six years old and at their mercy. Ultimately, all my locks lie on the grass. I am hairless.

With my shaved head I am the centerpiece of the five Blodgett children being captured in the lens of an itinerant photographer to enter into the Grand Theater’s contest to select the best looking family of children in town.All photos are projected daily on the town’s only movie screen. Here I am--the sad sack with shirttails out, pigeon toes in and the target of spontaneous ridicule and laughter by the entire community. Not the high point in my life.

We are not winners, although my three older sisters, Mary, Jeanne and Elaine in their neat dresses and pleasant smiles and my little brother Fritz in his smoothly combed locks and sailor suit are adorable.

Here are three historical portraits of the real me. The first is my official high school graduation photo.“Why aren’t you smiling?” someone asks. Obviously, she is not of my generation. In l939, smiling faces of high school graduates are inappropriate. We are to look serious, pensive.

Now you know why all the girls are on the chase after this 18-year old with his full head of wavy hair and long eyelashes. In the middle is me at thirty-six flanked by Old Baldy at eighty. Three different people--spring, summer and fall--“The September Song.”

Although I accept my dandruff-free state, what bothers me is the unfair pricing practice in barbershops. My few strands grow as fast as yours, but a haircut for me--including eyebrows and ears--is a two-minute operation and costs me the same as the guy in the next chair who wants a little more cut here and there and warms the chair for twenty minutes. So, I bought a $10 kit set at 1/8" and do my own.

On these cold, wintry nights I lose all my body heat through my chimney head unless I wear my trusty nightcap.

Hair. Billions of dollars spent each year on dead keratin. Hair and how we wear it have deep historical, social and cultural significance. Long-haired hippies. Hairless, heartless and lice-free skinheads. Peroxide blonds, henna redheads and sculptured Mohawks. Braids, cornrows, knots, headbands and buns. Bangs, wigs and marcelled waves. Permanents and pixie cuts. Find a good hairdresser and hang on to her for dear life. Bond with her or him. Once you find a compatible and competent coiffeuse, never let her go. Hair is a damn nuisance and a bottomless financial sinkhole.

Thank goodness I’m bald. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. says, “So it goes.” And it does, and I reply, I’m glad it went. As a Pisces, I’m just not comfortable in the age of Aquarius with all that hair.

FRUSTRATED BY CECILE BETTS (eDITED)
Several years ago I wrote a story titled Her True Love describing my love affair with my computer. I described my indifference to computers, my feeling that I did not want to use a computer, even that I did not want to learn to use one.
I described how I did eventually learn to use a computer and enjoyed being able to communicate with friends by email, enjoyed being able to write essays, short stoies and poems as well as articles for publication in various journals.
My advanced age and various health problems limit my activities and mobility. But, at least, so far they have not affected my mind. I enjoy sitting at my computer and composing a story. Imagine my dismay and grief when my
my computer died about five weeks ago. I felt helpless, isolated and very unhappy. I did manage to get to the community's computer workshop to submit a few assignments, but felt bereft, and helpless most of the time.
I met Cassandra at a Nelly's birthday party. I mentioned how unhappy I felt without my computer. Cassandra said, "I'm working with GoodWill now and we are getting some grant money, we might be able to get you a new computer." How wonderful that sounded. Yesterday, Kevin, who taught me to use Zoom Text, the soft ware program I use because I am legally blind, brought me a "loaner" to use while the agency completes the paperwork and red tape in order to furnish me with a new computer. This will be my third computer.]
I bought the first one, my children and grandchildren bought the second one.
I am so happy to have a functioning computer again, although I had to delete nearly a thousand junk email messages. I must look into learning how to block messages from anyone who is not in my mail box.
Why in the world did I ever say I didn't want or need a computer.