Among opera buffs, what is meant by GWOS and SWOG operas?
Gilbert without Sullivan; Sullivan without Gilbert. The name Pamela was made up by Sir Philip Sidney in his pastoral romance Arcadia in 1580. The story was set in ancient Greece and “Pamela” was perhaps inspired by “Philomela,” an actual Greek name from mythology. The name lay dormant for 150 years until, in 1740, Samuel Richardson adopted it for the title character of his fantastically popular novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded. That’s when parents started naming their daughters Pamela. Said Aleister Crowley, the occultist: “I once went from Louisville to Detroit on a train called the Big Four, car number four, berth number four. It started at 4:44 pm from platform number four, and my ticket was numbered 44444. Meant nothing. Why should it be otherwise?” Crowley was big on numerology, but unlike so many numerologists he understood that sometimes a number is just a number.
