Happy First Ladies Day To Everyone Except Melon Trump!

Blech, gross!

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Declaration of Human Rights. Public domain.

Robyn had yesterday off, so it falls to me to have Thoughts about first ladies, which ones are cool (you’re cool, you’re cool, you’re cool, you’re cool, fuck you, you’re cool) and which ones are Melon Trump.

Of course if Robyn were here, she would have found an opera about Eleanor Roosevelt for you and GUESS WHAT SUCKERS!

BAM!

Let’s see what UCLA has to say about the opera, about two weeks in the life of Eleanor Roosevelt:

The First Lady is a new [2010] opera concerning two weeks in the life of Eleanor Roosevelt from the death of FDR to VE Day.

The work uses text and music in the public domain: the first verse and tune of “Yankee Doodle Boy” by George M. Cohan; portions of Truman’s radio speech on VE day (Truman Presidential library); portions of the tune from “America”, based on “God Save the Queen”; a variation on a theme by Antonin Dvorak from the New World Symphony; verses 1-3 and the tune of “Faith of our Fathers”, words by Frederick W. Faber, refrain by James G. Walton; music, St. Catherine, arr. by James G. Walton; sections of the Book of Common Prayer from the Order of the Burial for the Dead; and verses 1, 3, and 5 and the tune for “Onward Christian Soldiers”, words by Sabine Baring-Gould and music by Arthur S. Sullivan. Facts and themes were obtained from a variety of sources and materials in the FDR and Truman Presidential Library, including two letters from Lucy Mercer Rutherford located in the FDR Library and reproduced in other published sources. This is a work of historical fiction, and while based on historical events, takes liberties in depicting characters, names, situations, timing of events, and circumstances and alters or paraphrases these sources to convey the work’s artistic themes. The libretto was copyrighted in 1992, and revised in 2006. The music was written between 1996 and 2006, and the complete, revised work was copyrighted in 2007 – 2010.

UCLA should know to put the commas inside the quotation marks, is what I have to say about that!

If you’re going to slag on the terrible first ladies whom we hate in the comments which we do not allow, please leave out Nancy Reagan’s reputed world-class hummers and Melon’s whorenudes. We are sex-positive at Ye Olde Wonkette! Also Laura Bush didn’t mean to kill her boyfriend and she’s mostly fine, compared to this new-and-old-and-new-again horrorshow. UGH.

If Robyn were here she’d probably give you a whole bunch of other First Ladies in Pop Culture, but she is not and I don’t want to. I GOT YOU AN OPERA, FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

You’re welcome.

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