Interconnected Artists

The second issue of Illo magazine finally arrived! I am pretty jazzed. I learned something really interesting - James Gurney, the Dinotopia guy, was college roomates with the infamous Thomas Kincade, "Painter of Light." Even better, they worked together painting backgrounds for a Frank Frazetta-produced animated film. Frazetta is basically the guy who invented fantasy art as we know it, with muscly men, volumptuous ladies, and raging monsters, all naked or nearly so. To top it off, the film was directed by Ralph Bakshi, known to me as the guy who also directed an animated version of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings. I have fond childhood memories of watching this, which I've been informed by my brother I am completely incorrect to have, so I'm thinking I'd rather not see it again so I can continue to enjoy the memories.

The film in question was called Fire and Ice, and it sounds terrible.

Voice Range

I'm partial to Mozart's operas, though I have very little music theory or history foundation to speak of. A few days ago I was idly pondering how far apart the standard voice ranges are - for instance, tenor and mezzo-soprano. Wikipedia to the rescue! There is a lovely chart comparing not only human voice ranges, but also a number of instruments. The answer to my query - they overlap by about one and a half octaves.

In the same article, I was amused to see the note about highest and lowest notes in standard singing repertoire - both are in Mozart operas! The highest is in both arias sung by the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, and the lowest is sung by Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. So, not only Mozart operas, but specifically German Mozart operas.