A story that arrived in my head nearly fully fledged, as I sat on the deck on June 12th.
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Somebody Else's Son, Too
A song for the Christian Passover, coming up soon.
Read MoreThe Smartie Pants School of Music
For all those things the Baldwin Wallace University Conservatory of Music doesn’t quite cover, there’s the Smartie Pants School of Music.
Read MoreShed A Little Light
Performed in 2006 at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory.
The Phantom of the Conservatory
Guess the identities of 5 scary Phantoms!
Read MoreTwo sides of the Hudson (part 2)
The next morning we woke up to a world washed clean – glorious blue skies! Part two of our adventures along the Hudson.
Read MoreTwo sides of the Hudson: West Point & "Hello, Dolly!" (part 1)
This year, after our 8 days at Lake George, New York, we moseyed down the scenic Hudson River Valley and took in a couple of things that have had a large impact on my life. The first is the United States Military Academy at West Point.
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Book challenge, part 2
Books, books, books. Our house is bursting with them, and for better or worse, when we visit our children there's reason to think it might be hereditary. I love getting lost in a good book, and could effortlessly recommend several hundred. The book challenge is seven. That seems cruel. I haven't counted these, but there might be more than seven.
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Yup. That's me.
How I Learned To Bow
In the late 1970s (perhaps 1977?), the Los Angeles dance world gathered to honor Lilian Alice Marks and Sydney Francis Patrick Chippendall Healey-Kay, the two brightest stars of 20th-century English dance, better known in the ballet universe as Dame Alicia Markova and (eventually, knighted in 1981) Sir Anton Dolin.
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Paul Cary's book challenge
I couldn't limit it to seven, and I couldn't do it on Facebook. So I'm showing them to you here, Paul, the books that shaped my childhood. (A future installment will cover the adult years.)
My mother introduced us to the Carnegie Library in New Castle, Pennsylvania, even before we could read, and it was a temple of science and magic and art and learning. I still remember the smell! And the date stamps and the library cards, and the librarians. It for me. We got our card as soon as we could write our name.
Read MoreThe Story of "The Songs Of Ascents"
I could almost believe the whole thing never happened, except for 2 things.
First, the whole thing was recorded on audio and video (thank you, Bill Hartzell), and I revisit it at least once a week. Second... well, we'll get to that.
Read MoreCheese Bees!
What better way to start July 4th than to make a batch of cheese bees for Thea? Usually they're for somebody else, but today she doesn't have to share. Charlie Dog thinks otherwise...
This is a recycled blog from June 2014 [I'm better looking now], when Kevin David Thomas and I did a cabaret at Cain Park called "The Tenor And The Tuner". I could always bribe Kevin with cheese bees, so I made him some and handed them to him during the performance. He said, "If you don't have enough for everybody, don't give them to me." Under the piano I had 4 double batches I'd made and we passed them out to the entire audience. People got grabby! But there were still plenty. People wanted the recipe, so I posted it on an old blog I had. Hope it inspires cheese beesery all over the place.
My new podcast – Tales From The Tuner
in Podcast
I've been taking a media technology class taught by Megan Poletti Kuhar, and this was a fun assignment. There may be other episodes as the spirit moves. I have LOTS of stories. This one is about Mr. Forester.
A Piano Selection Collection
Our parents weren’t performers themselves, but boy, they sure filled their house with music. Dad played Hawaiian guitar as a boy, Mom had a genuinely pretty voice and could play piano, and they both ended up in church choirs, but mostly they put their money (literally) on their five children. We all turned out musical, and grew up thinking everyone sang in the car and gathered around the home pianos (we realized some poor families had only one) or campfire for a family singalong in 2- or 3-part harmony. I found it odd if a classmate said he didn’t take piano lessons. Church WAS music for us – I heard my dad say as much on many occasions – and we owe our sight-singing abilities to all the hymns and choir music growing up.
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