It Ain’t Over Till the Wagner Classic Opera Valkyrie Sings [Ice Cream Sundae]

This newsletter was originally published via email on the 3rd January 2016. You can also sign up to receive Ice Cream Sundae on the Ice Cream for Everyone website.

I hope you had a great time for New Year’s Eve! I’m just back from the Pyrénées Mountains where I spent a few days for a tabletop gaming getaway with friends. We had a fantastic time playing games, hanging out, drinking champagne and eating cheese fondue.

Next year I might take an end of year holiday break for the newsletter but I figure I’ve only started recently so keeping my own habit of consistently writing it every week is more important than taking a break at this point.

I mentioned New Year resolutions last week. I don’t tend to make these kinds of resolutions. That said, I wrote about liking game designer John Wick’s habit of New Year mottos and I’ve been giving some thought to it.

My favourite motto in life so far is “what goes around comes around”. I like the implicit ideas of karma and cycles. As much as I like it, I probably have space to add something new now.

As I was thinking about what could be in store for 2016, I browsed a few sites for quotes and sayings. I was thinking of themes like pursuing things, finishing what I start or something along the lines of perseverance. I’m thinking of the various things I’ve started last year like this newsletter and the podcast.

I’m usually pretty good at getting excited for new projects, and not necessarily so great and pursuing them over time. I get bored after a while and want to move on. There’s probably some measure of stopping when things get too difficult, when the real work starts. This also means I don’t often (or even ever) invest enough time to master anything. On one hand I enjoy learning all sorts of different things and being a Jack-of-all-trades, but that of course also means I’m not mastering much.

As these various thoughts were rolling around my head, this phrase suddenly came to mind and is taking hold: It ain’t over till the fat lady sings. (or The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings)

That’s what the year 2016 is about. It’s my New Year motto.

I like the sound of it, and the idea(s) associated.

Don’t assume anything is over and done until it really is.

Give things everything I’ve got until the very end, and then more.

Don’t readily give up.

Don’t presume to know the outcome of an event that is still going on.

Shake out of being resigned or cynical, there’s more that can be done if it’s not over.

It’s playful and can be applied to many situations.

I find it encouraging.

The proverb is often applied to sports, and that’s apparently the environment in which it was first coined. According to this article it was the sportswriter Dan Cook around 1976 in the San Antonio News-Express. “He was trying to to buck up local basketball fans who were dejected because the San Antonio Spurs were down three games to one in the playoffs against the Washington Bullets.” Others attribute the saying to the famous baseball player Yogi Berra.

The “fat lady” comes from opera stereotypes, in this case it is believed to be down to Wagner’s famous quadrilogy of epic music dramas: Der Ring des Nibelungen. A full performance of the cycle takes place over four nights at the opera with a total playing time of over fifteen hours. The fourth and last part is Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), the name is a translation of the old Norse phrase Ragnarök, basically a huge war amongst gods and heroes leading to the end and rebirth of the world. One of the main protagonists is Brünnhilde, a valkirie of the Norse mythology. The opera and whole of the Ring cycle ends with her singing a 10 to 20 minute long solo in a scene where basically everything ends in flames.

That’s when it’s over and not a second before.

I enjoy the opera. I’m not a specialist at all, but I like listening to some of the famous ones. I’ve had the chance to see La Traviata in Perpignan last year. I’ve also seen Cosí fan tutte, Tosca and Le Nozze di Figaro on stage. I haven’t seen any of Wagner’s Ring cycle. I’ll look out for what’s on at the opera in London this year. Perhaps a topic to explore in another Sundae.

I’ve also written a blog post expanding a little on one of the previous newsletters about what went on for me in 2015, and rather than repeat myself too much I’ll probably copy another version of this newsletter in my blog.

I also published the last podcast episode of 2015, an interview with James Wallis, a British game designer, writer and consultant. If you listen to and enjoy the podcast I would greatly appreciate if you could give it a rating and review on iTunes or Stitcher.

I asked this last week already but that was before the New Year. Do you have a New Year resolution or motto? Keep in touch if you have one, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks for reading, I wish you all the best for 2016! Have an amazing year!!

Cheers
Willem