Mira wrote about having a grudge against optimism in a recent essay that has left me wandering lost in my own mind. See, I agree with just about everything she wrote. I largely agree with her worldview. But I am a persistent optimist. I am an optimist in the face of considerable clear evidence that optimism is irrational.
Posts
Today Mom, Victoria, and I went to Part 2 of the de Young Museum’s big exhibition of art on loan from the Musee d’Orsay, entitled “Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay.” It was much the same as Part I: an amazing exhibition but too damned crowded to be enjoyable. […]
People ask me about which Mac to buy often enough that I thought I might as well post here a recent reply I wrote to a friend who is looking at a career change from corporate programming to consulting, possibly, or another corporate gig, or who knows what.
We all have computer problems, and that doesn’t stop with Mac, but it sure gets easier. I find myself telling one friend after another to switch to Mac. Sometimes the objection is, “but I absolutely have to have Windows for my job” because of some Windows-only application or another. If that’s the case, then you […]
I’m excited to announce a new blog, “kaddish in two-part harmony.” If you’ve been following my blog lately, you’ll know that I’ve embarked upon a collaborative project with Mira Z. Amiras that we’re calling “kaddish in two-part harmony.” This whole thing started when I happened upon a blog posting Mira had written about Kaddish, the […]
Mira, Where is the place that you get lost? Is it the stopped horn bit? The fourteen notes with a distant, pinched, buzzy sound, and then the normal horn tone returns? Then there’s a phrase, then a restatement of the second big line of the piece, then the climb to the ending? I’m doing musicology […]
While I was running along Skyline with Kjersten tonight, I got to thinking about how I’m actually thinking about taking a pheasant-hunting lesson in November. To kill animals for the sake of my animal. I am perplexed.
a kaddish in two-part harmony – I wasn’t in the mood to make yesterday’s Kaddish, but honoring my promise to keep a ritual brought blessings I couldn’t have thought to desire
Yes, you are welcome to listen along. We would like to make this available as a podcast and also put links in the blog timeline. However, until we secure permission from the publisher to record and podcast, we can only share the recordings privately. If you would like to listen in the meantime, please do […]
announcing and explaining the ground rules of “a kaddish in two-part harmony,” a collaborative project lasting a year and a day