It’s a slightly embarrassing day for someone like me with claims, or perhaps pretentions, to love the arts. The world is mourning the death of Luciano Pavarotti, one of the supreme practitioners of an art about which I’m rather thick-headed. I’ve never seen an opera, or listened to a complete one. I admired his obvious talent but, even outside the vivid extremes of the opera world, I’m not really a “singer guy”. What’s most shameful, yet still bordering on hilarious, is that I can’t think of Pavarotti without having John Candy come to mind in an SCTV sketch from the 70s. The Pavarotti TV record commercial has Candy hitting the high C, but unable to stop (the record was skipping, I think that was the gag). His face turns pink, then purple as he holds the note beyond human scope. It was rather mocking of opera, and I enjoyed that. Mea culpa. Perhaps someday I’ll know that world a bit better.