giornata, 5/1/25

and now you're gonna believe us

Giornata is my Thursday weekly media diary, covering whatever I read, watched, or listened to in the last week. This feature is for paid subscribers, but first one of the month is free!

Liverpool F.C. v. Tottenham Hotspur F.C. (5-1)

An embarrassment of riches to me that the Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl the same year that Liverpool’s won the league. I love Philadelphia and I love my dad and I love being a fan of the team where I live. I do not, strictly, love gridiron football.

But I love soccer. I watch as many as Premier League games as my schedule allows during the week. I picked Liverpool as a team essentially randomly. The day that I decided to buckle down and figure out soccer was the night before the Champions League final in 2019, played by Liverpool and Tottenham. I had no idea what the Champions League was, what it meant for Liverpool to be returning to that final, and I had missed the semifinal comeback (“Corner taken quickly! Origi!!”) that is the much better game than the final. I figured I would just like whoever won that game.

The next season Liverpool went on a tear, not losing a league game until February 29. This was a perfect season for a burgeoning fan. It was so easy and happy! They only needed three more games after that to win the league, but the Premier League suspended play after March 13, 2020, so they wouldn’t win the league until June 25, when Man City lost to Chelsea. Simultaneously the earliest Premier League win ever (with seven games left to play) and the latest (the season never goes past the end of May). They lifted the trophy at the end of the season in front of no fans and I watched from my apartment in Bloomington, Indiana with my dog.

The details of Liverpool’s ups and downs in the interim are very important and emotional to me, but I imagine insignificant to someone who doesn’t follow them. The most important thing is that when we won the league on Sunday is that I was at a bar with my sister, also a huge Liverpool fan, surrounded by Liverpool fans, who had been singing songs and all cried at the final whistle. I love looking at miracles with other people!

with a liverbird upon my chest

Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and Symphony No. 4, The Philadelphia Orchestra

The Emperor Concerto was not named after Napoleon, so-called after Beethoven died, though there is a concrete martial quality to the music. In fact, by this point, Beethoven hated and resented Napoleon’s imperial project.¹

I didn’t realize how much Beethoven’s life was affected by Napoleon, but his invasion of Vienna happened while Beethoven was there. He was already losing his hearing and the bombs and guns were particularly distressing to him for fear of losing more of it.

Lots of scales in the piece! The second movement was my favorite.

Someone sitting next to me let me know that the odd numbered Beethoven symphonies are the “good” ones. I had never thought about it, but of course the Fifth and the Ninth are ones that I can recall off the top of my melody-deficient head. My big reaction here was I need to read more about Beethoven and how his symphonies work and changed things.

Don Giovanni, at the Philadelphia Opera

I still don’t fully get how symphonies work, though I always enjoy them. Opera is definitely more my natural musical wheelhouse. I knew the plot just from culture and it’s place in Amadeus and I’d listened to a few of the songs before, notably Là ci darem la mano because of its reference in Ulysses.

The opera was incredibly funny—Leporello, my beloved fool. I also love how all the characters keep trying to get Don Giovanni and he keeps one-uping everyone, only to be dragged to help by a ghost-demon, but everyone still sings a self-congratulatory song about their hard work at the end.² But the laughs were definitely the focus of the production! The sinister turn at the end kind of comes out of nowhere. The centering of an anti-hero got played for broad laughs instead of sexual fear.

This was a new production and there were a few staging choices that I can’t extract any intention from. The most exciting thing was how well-attended it was, but I’m still happy to have finally gotten to the opera here.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation and Mission Impossible: Fallout

The two best ones. I was basically agnostic on any sort of action films until I saw Fallout in theaters the summer that MoviePass worked. I felt drunk when I left the theater and sat in my car for a half hour before I drove home.

This is the first time I’d watched these two back to back and I think I’ve always sort of though the worldbuilding confusion in one was answered in the other one and if only I could remember exactly what happened in the movie, I could piece together the motivations or stakes of the villains or what exactly is supposed to be happening.

It doesn’t make more sense when you watch them together, but that’s also the wrong way to watch these. Pushing the MacGuffin to the extreme, it is just really fun to watch Tom Cruise run around European capitals and laugh with his friends and have to decide whether he was going to save one (1) brunette woman or 200 million people.

The first scene of Rogue Nation (after the action cold open) is possibly my favorite acting he’s ever done.³ It’s absurd! It’s delightful!

In May, I’m once again participating in

Fran Hoepfner

’s book club. We’re reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty. I have the audiobook (hard copy on its way to me) right now and I’m having a great time! Very excited to discuss this genre fiction apotheosis with the Fran Magazine commenter crew.

McMurtry May is upon us

1. I do need to read about Beethoven and Napoleon’s cultural relationship. I had no idea how much of Beethoven’s music was responses to Napoleon.

2

3. movie where Tom Cruise talks about jazz (Rogue Nation) gf, movie where Tom Cruise talks about jazz (Collateral) bf