“Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company.” – Mark Twain

If you need proof that the second half of this statement is true, look no further! The overture to Jacques Offenbach‘s first opera, Orpheus in the Underworld, is all the proof you’ll need.

The opera is based on the Greek myth where Orpheus travels to hades to bring back his dead wife (spoiler alert: Orpheus is a dolt and screws the whole thing up). Now, when Mozart drags us to hell, it’s genuinely frightening. When Wagner descends to the underworld, the music is sinister and fiery. But ignore those examples. Take the big journey down with Offenbach, and you get … the CAN CAN!

If you haven’t seen the movie Amadeus, stop putting it off and go see it!

The movie stretched the facts a bit in order to craft a good drama; you can read about that by googling it. However, there were two things in the movie that were spot-on: first, Mozart was a dirty man who was obsessed with poop; second, his insane genius for composition. Even his farts sound as good, if not better, than the average classical symphony.

One of his most famous operas, Don Giovanni, opens with an equally famous overture. The music is out-of-this-world (standard for Mozart), but even more impressive is the fact that he wrote it 24 hours before the opera’s first performance. Legend says that he woke up drunk on the day of the premiere, rolled out of bed and wrote the piece. It’s more likely that he wrote it the day before. Still, that’s not exactly timely, especially in light of the fact that, in 1787, after writing a piece, the score was sent to a copyist who would have to hand-write the individual parts for the musicians to play – and even then there’s the not-so-small matter of the musicians rehearsing …

So the next time someone tells you not to procrastinate, remind them that one of the greatest pieces of music ever was a drunken last-minute quickie written by a potty-mouth.

It might be bloody miserable blazing outside, but at least the humidity is only 95%. It’s the kind of hot where the air feels so thick that going outside feels like walking into a curtain of steam.

If you haven’t seen the movie Lawrence of Arabia, I cannot recommend it enough. The exotic story, the gripping characters, and naturally, the brilliant film score by Maurice Jarre (who also wrote the gorgeous music of Doctor Zhivago.) Everything about that movie makes me feel hot to the core – but you can watch it indoors, in the AC, with a cool drink in your hand.

In this video, there are two very contrasting main themes – the wild, exotic sounds of Arabia, and the sweeping, lyric sound representing the legendary Englishman who became so powerful there. Try to ignore the fact that it isn’t politically correct, and just enjoy the music.