Copied from Debi's blog "Seriously Seeking Answers," which has one more picture -- of a bumblebee chowing down on one of the native wildflowers she sets out to attract pollinators. (I couldn't get the formatting to behave.) To see the bee, click HERE. While you're there, take a look around. Her blog promises a "spiritual … Continue reading Our annual Christmas letter for 2022
Would Trump accept a plea deal? Not likely. But how about a nice dacha on the Moscow River? There’s precedent
Can former President and would-be tsar Donald Trump get around his mounting legal problems with a plea of no contest and a promise to retire to private life? I'd rather see him retire to a nice dacha on the Moscow River -- he's certainly earned that accolade -- and I don't think either outcome is … Continue reading Would Trump accept a plea deal? Not likely. But how about a nice dacha on the Moscow River? There’s precedent
‘Watchman, tell me does the morning …’: A rousing African diaspora version of a shape-note song I like to play for Advent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yxfMq9yh20 Posted to YouTube (two years ago) by Zippie Elijah. Content advisory. Some very nerdy notes about playing this song the mountain dulcimer are tacked on at the bottom, which may be of limited interest. But it's a fine old hymn in the 19th-century "Sunday school" tradition that in later years would give rise to … Continue reading ‘Watchman, tell me does the morning …’: A rousing African diaspora version of a shape-note song I like to play for Advent
British tech writer reads Elon Musk’s Twitter dump so you don’t have to — ‘a big, hyped, coordinated’ partisan hit job
Enemy of the People? (Wikimedia Commons) A British tech writer and UK technology editor for the Guardian took time away from covering the FTX cryptocurrency scandals to post an item today to the paper's website with the intriguing headline: "I read Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ so you don’t have to." That head's a fair summary … Continue reading British tech writer reads Elon Musk’s Twitter dump so you don’t have to — ‘a big, hyped, coordinated’ partisan hit job
In dir ist Freude: A German chorale with roots in madrigal tradition that just makes me happy (especially this performance)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMcKrSjmo4s Capella de la Torre (https://www.youtube.com/@capelladelatorre7664) Dec. 8, 2020 Kind of a trifecta here. I've been posting YouTube videos lately of music that just makes me happy when I watch them, and this one hits at least three of my criteria: It's by one of my favorite early music groups, Capella de la Torre. It … Continue reading In dir ist Freude: A German chorale with roots in madrigal tradition that just makes me happy (especially this performance)
‘Money Musk’: A classic New England contradance tune that just makes me happy every time I watch this video
https://vimeo.com/2310136 Parked here until I can figure out how -- or whether -- to revive my old blog Hogfiddle (which may be a while). In the meantime, this video just makes me happy whenever I watch it. I posted it on Aug. 8, 2010, to the original iteration of the blog. Took me a while … Continue reading ‘Money Musk’: A classic New England contradance tune that just makes me happy every time I watch this video
Improvisations on Gerhardt’s chorale ‘Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadow’
d r a f t Christof Fankhauser - Nun ruhen alle Wälder (Instrumental, Piano solo) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DncWJvFgl4 xxx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf_lgk2it1Q&list=RDXf_lgk2it1Q
Quotable (!) notes & quotes: Creolization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELu_Nwblkgc Found when I was following up on an Imani Perry interview on the Washington Post website and Googled into a very quotable reference to créolité -- "The origins of everything American twist and shout their way through history." Shades of Chubby Checker! So I kept on reading. Turned out I had it in a … Continue reading Quotable (!) notes & quotes: Creolization
Imani Perry on history, Faulkner, ‘settler colonialism’ and the (Southern) soul of America
Notes from two interviews with Imani Perry. The first is about her new book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. The second, last year in the New York Review of Books, followed her review of a biography of Lorraine Hammond, author of Raisin in the Sun. … Continue reading Imani Perry on history, Faulkner, ‘settler colonialism’ and the (Southern) soul of America
Ordinary Time 