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I’m sure I posted this years ago, but this is one of those fun (and now, for me, classic) Christmas shorts with which to mark the season, Ornaments by Aaron Rogers. :)
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Beautiful image of the Holy Family.By artist Ruth A. Stricklin of New Jerusalem Studios, Phoenix.
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Nate Bargatze & SNL crew sharing George Washington’s dream … for a country of many measures. :’)
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Norm Lewis sings “Make Them Hear You” from the musical Ragtime. As performed in the PBS production, American Voices with Renee Fleming.Outstanding, simply outstanding. Of the vocalists I’ve heard sing this song, Lewis does it the best, and just love his voice in many others contexts as well. Man.Hope you enjoy too, gentle reader. :)
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Reno Is Beating the Odds in Solving HomelessnessInteresting take on the growing issue of homelessness in cities.(Update: Article in similar vein from Baltimore Sun)
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The feeling for this moment. :)(Ben Rector’s “Thank You” from his latest album, The Joy of Music)
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Been a fan of Einaudi’s for a bit now and ran across this 2019 performance at Steve Jobs Theatre – Great to listen to in background while doing something requiring concentration.
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Been a fan of Einaudi’s for a bit now and ran across this 2019 performance at Steve Jobs Theatre – Great to listen to in background while doing something requiring oc
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Seems I learn, and then promptly forget, the easiest way to access alternate letters when composing in another language on the computer.So hopefully this bookmark will be helpful to me and to you, gentle reader.
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Combat the Sleep Problems That Hit in Middle AgeDon’t think I was aware that sleep patterns changed as early as 40s - interesting to read and compare to experiences, and perhaps helps someone out there too. :)
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ebookporn:• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.• A question mark walks into a bar?• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out – we don’t serve your type.”• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.• A synonym strolls into a tavern.• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar – fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.• A dyslexic walks into a bra.• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony- Jill Thomas Doyle Just have to reblog - Parts of speech explained. :)
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Baseball vs. Football“Baseball is different from any other sport, very different. For instance, in most sports you score points or goals; in baseball you score runs. In most sports the ball, or object, is put in play by the offensive team; in baseball the defensive team puts the ball in play, and only the defense is allowed to touch the ball. In fact, in baseball if an offensive player touches the ball intentionally, he’s out; sometimes unintentionally, he’s out.Also: in football,basketball, soccer, volleyball, and all sports played with a ball, you score with the ball and in baseball the ball prevents you from scoring.In most sports the team is run by a coach; in baseball the team is run by a manager. And only in baseball does the manager or coach wear the same clothing the players do. If you’d ever seen John Madden in his Oakland Raiders uniform,you’d know the reason for this custom.Now, I’ve mentioned football. Baseball & football are the two most popular spectator sports in this country. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.I enjoy comparing baseball and football:Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium.Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.Football begins in the fall, when everything’s dying.In football you wear a helmet.In baseball you wear a cap.Football is concerned with downs - what down is it?Baseball is concerned with ups - who’s up?In football you receive a penalty.In baseball you make an error.In football the specialist comes in to kick.In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.Baseball has the sacrifice.Football is played in any kind of weather: rain, snow, sleet, hail, fog…In baseball, if it rains, we don’t go out to play.Baseball has the seventh inning stretch.Football has the two minute warning.Baseball has no time limit: we don’t know when it’s gonna end - might have extra innings.Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we’ve got to go to sudden death.In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there’s kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there’s not too much unpleasantness.In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you’re capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy’s defensive line.In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I’ll be safe at home!”-(believe attributable to George Carlin)
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Podcast #905: Become a Morning Workout PersonThe arrival of kids, and the connected disruptions to the morning and evening schedules, threw off some exercise routines I had been in and have lined to return to ever since.Lately (and post-COVID), it’s seemed like a the right time to get back inertia in that area, and this podcast episode with related linked sources seems a good way to spark the fire and open the path.(A post for another day: How life seems one continuous series of adaptations.) :)
How to Cook Bacon in the Oven
Keeping with the Tiny Desk concert theme, here’s Ludovico Einaudi’s appearance from 8 months ago.
I came across Einaudi’s music probably around a decade ago at this point, very atmospheric and skillfully composed. (Alongside another favorite of mine in this genre, Olafur Arnalds.)
From NPR’s write up:
Ludovico Einaudi was on a North American tour, playing before audiences in the thousands, when he stopped by the NPR office to play a far more intimate setting: a Tiny Desk set. It’s the first tour for the Italian pianist and composer since the beginning of the pandemic, following the release of his 2022 album, Underwater. It’s an album that captures how many have felt in the pandemic — feeling underwater, or trapped in another world.
It’s that relatable feeling — like we’re treading water trying to remain above the surface, powering through the adversity of the last two years — that makes Einaudi’s music so emotional and reflective. The pulsating strings of the opening song to his Tiny Desk concert, the track “Experience” from his 2013 album In A Time Lapse, demand attention, captivating the audience. The fact that the song recently went viral due to a TikTok trend only proves how welcoming Einaudi’s music is — and why he is the most-streamed classical pianist of all time.
Ludovico Einaudi’s presence at the piano keeps you waiting for more. His fingers glide over the keys effortlessly, but he never seems rushed. As he plays, his eyes are closed. And in this concert, you can tell his music moves him as much as it does his audience.
Cheers. :)
“Fred again…” performs a Tiny Desk concert for NPR.
From the video description:
When Fred again.. first proposed a Tiny Desk concert, it wasn’t immediately clear how he was going to make it work — not because he lacked creativity, but because translating purely electronic music at the Desk is a daunting task for anyone. How would an artist, whose performances take the form of DJ sets in front of massive audiences, curate an intimate and unique experience? But what the British songwriter and producer came up with is a reminder of what a Tiny Desk is at its best: an opportunity for artists to challenge themselves in such a way that it almost feels like they’re making new music, all while sticking to what feels true to them. For Fred again.. that meant re-learning the marimba, playing the vibraphone, singing at the piano and looping sounds and beats — all at the same time. He began his set with “Kyle (i found you),” recreating the song’s melody on the marimba while clips of featured poet Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre reciting the work “Love In The Time of Undeath” appeared on-screen. Sitting at the piano, he faded the remnants of “Kyle (i found you)” into “Roze (forgive),” which features Fred again.. triggering vocals sampled from the artist I am Roze, whose powerful facial expressions were magnified on a screen.In a surprising pivot, the primary vocals on the following track, “Me (heavy),” came from Fred again.. himself, with no manipulation, creating a vulnerable sense of intimacy in the space. A flurry of looped piano keys marked the transition to “Delilah (pull me out of this),” with guest vocals pulled from pop singer Delilah Montagu’s 2021 track “Lost Keys.” By his set’s end, concluding with “Faisal (envelops me),” Fred again.. was back at the piano finally resting after moving seamlessly through a jam-packed Tiny Desk.
This created a fascinating aural, and even video, experience.
Hope you enjoy too, gentle reader. :)
Gotta post this one of course: After two hard-working years, Kirby Ferguson has released in full the new-and-improved “Everything is a Remix”, herewith provided in a single hour-long video.
It represents a capstone of his many years of filmmaking before transitioning to new frontiers - Thanks Kirby!