Earl’s Oil – Photographs
Tweet On Friday March 8 my friend Earl allowed me and another friend to accompany him as he made his daily rounds. Earl is an oilman. He started in the business when he was 17. He’s a lean and taciturn West Texan except when he sees an oil well – then he recites the well’s…
› Read more ...
What Makes a Great Tenor
Tweet That’s the title of a 2010 BBC program narrated by Rolando Villazon. I don’t know how long it will stay on Youtube, but here it is. It’s almost an hour long and leaves out a lot of great tenors; but it’s worth watching.
› Read more ...
Liudmyla Monastyrska
Tweet Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska made her Met debut last month in the title role of Verdi’s Aida. She is scheduled to repeat the role in Saturday’s telecast from the Met. Though only 37, she has been singing for 16 years mostly in her native Ukraine. Last minute appearances in Berlin and London brought her to…
› Read more ...
Hepatorenal Syndrome – Slide Presentation
Tweet Below is the PowerPoint presentation of a talk on the Hepatorenal Syndrome that I gave today to the Fall Medical/Surgical Conference sponsored jointly by the Lubbock-Crosby-Garza Medical Society and the Covenant Health System. Click to download the PowerPoint presentation Hepatorenal Syndrome
› Read more ...
L’Elisir d’Amore in HD
Tweet The first of this season’s Metropolitan Opera’s TV broadcasts was transmitted around the world today. Donizetti’s Elixir of Love is in my opinion one of the five best comic operas ever composed. The other four are two by Rossini and one each by Verdi and Puccini. Donizetti’s take on comedy tends towards the sentimental whereas Rossini…
› Read more ...
How Much Does the New Healthcare Tax Cost?
Tweet Now that we’ve been informed that the Affordable Care Act’s penalty for not purchasing health insurance is a tax rather than a real penalty, I thought it informative to see how much this tax might be and what the consequences of opting to pay it rather than purchasing medical insurance are. I’ll go through the weeds below; but briefly the take away…
› Read more ...
Doing Nothing – New Revised Edition
Tweet A new Edition of Doing Nothing has been released. I can be purchased at Amazon as either a paperback book or in a Kindle edition. Go here for more details. Below is a new review of the novel: Kurtzman, Neil DOING NOTHING CreateSpace (708 pp.) $23.35 Paperback $9.99 e-book January 6, 2012 ISBN: 978-1461096535 Kurtzman’s…
› Read more ...
Beethoven in Excelsis
Tweet He came, he played, and he conquered. Adam Golka played all five of Beethoven’ piano concertos before two dazzled Lubbock audiences on Friday September 23 and on the following Saturday. Actually, he played the cycle twice. There were dress rehearsals Thursday night and Saturday morning. This feat, unique in my experience, requires prodigious doses of stamina,…
› Read more ...
Second Law of Thermodynamics Held Unconstitutional
Tweet A deeply divided Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, held the Second Law of Thermodynamics to be unconstitutional. In a decision released Monday the 4th of July, the first time the court has ever met on the nation’s birthday, the court ruled that the law violated the due process section of the 5th amendment. The case (ACLU v….
› Read more ...
The 51st State
Tweet I don’t know how anyone could have missed this, but many seem to have not noticed. I’m referring to the newest state in the union – the state of Denial. Most of our population seems to have already moved there or are about to do so. It will soon have such a large population…
› Read more ...
Il Trovatore in HD
Tweet Verdi’s Il Trovatore is the transcendental Italian opera of the first half of the 19th century. It is the culmination of that style of operatic writing introduced by Rossini and further advanced by Bellini, and most importantly for Verdi’s development Donizetti. That Verdi was moving in a new direction was shown by Rigoletto (1851)….
› Read more ...
Lucia Di Lammermoor in HD – Again
Tweet Today the Met brought back its production of Donizetti’s masterpiece Lucia Di Lammermoor. It was telecast just a little over two years ago with Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, and Mariusz Kwiecien in the principal roles. This time the opera had a new set of performers – Natalie Dessay, Joseph Calleja, and Ludovic Tézier. The…
› Read more ...
New Data on the Treatment of Breast Cancer
Tweet Axillary node dissection has been the standard of care for patients with breast cancer who have early metastatic disease as indicated by a positive axillary lymph node biopsy. In other words, an axillary lymph node is biopsied; if it contains cancer cells the axilla on the affected side is dissected and its lymph nodes are removed. A…
› Read more ...
Una Furtiva Lagrima – A Baker’s Dozen
Tweet Donizetti’s comic opera L’Elisir D’Amore is a great masterpiece, yet great as it is it has been overshadowed by it’s wildly popular tenor aria ‘Una furtiva lagrima’. There are more recordings of it than there is time to listen to them. I picked out 13 of them performed by tenors past and present which…
› Read more ...
Una partita a poker
Tweet Talk to any theater person and he’ll tell you that the second act curtain should descend on the show’s strongest scene. Nobody was better at ending the second act than Giacomo Puccini. With the premiere of the Met’s revival La Fanciulla del West less than a month away, I thought I’d present a few versions of the opera’s second act finale. This the scene where…
› Read more ...
Greenland to Toronto Aboard the Clelia II
Tweet [All photos in this and subsequent posts about this trip were taken by me unless otherwise indicated.] For some reason that has fled like vigor I decided to go to Greenland. I stumbled across a listing for the small ship, the Clelia II, that offered at trip from Toronto to Greenland and one in…
› Read more ...
E Lucevan le Stelle
Tweet Everybody know this tune and every tenor sings it. Below is the Italian text followed by an English translation. Just in case anyone is new to opera, the aria occurs near the beginning of the third act of Puccini’s Tosca. E lucevan le stelle, ed olezzava la terra stridea l’uscio dell’orto ed un passo…
› Read more ...
Tutto Verdi: I Due Foscari
Verdi’s sixth opera was first performed in Rome in November 1844. Its libretto (by Francesco Piave) was based on Byron’s play The Two Foscari. Despite much beautiful music, the work has to be judged a failure. Three years after its premiere, Verdi himself summarized the reasons for the work’s failure. “In subjects which are naturally…
Zinka Milanov’s Birthday
Today is the 107th anniversary of the greatest Verdi soprano I ever heard – Zinka Milanov (1906-1989). Milanov was the Queen of the Met where she sang 449 performances between 1937 and 1966. In the core Verdi roles I have never heard her equal. She was a unique artist. The only words that can do…
More on Salt – Medicine is Hopeless
A study by the the Institute of Medicine at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control has shown no benefit from sharply decreasing salt intake in preventing strokes and heart attacks even in high risk patients. You may recall that I wrote about the American Society of Nephrology’s recommendation to sharply restrict salt intake in everyone…
Doing Nothing: "Doing Nothing by Dr. Neil Kurtzman takes us through the education of Richard Grollman, from his first day of medical school through his last day as chief resident on the medical service of a busy city hospital. Through his experiences, the reader is taken through a wonderful journey as we see the highs and lows of his life during his “education.” One is taken through the trials of medical school and the challenges faced during residency. This story examines the human side and art of medicine. This is a wonderful book that would be appreciated by most people, but would be greatly enjoyed by physicians who can certainly relate to Richard. It is reasonably priced and very well written. It is very difficult to put down. I would recommend this book without hesitation." - JASON LIFSHUTZ, M.D. › More ...
About Neil Kurtzman
Neil A Kurtzman MD is the Grover E Murray Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. He has combined careers in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 30 years.› Read the biography
› Archives: Older posts and additional material
