Category Random Musical Encounters
The Shriner, a Drummer
Long ago I worked for a Shriner. We were involved in law enforcement – private contractors, if you will, operating out of the Shriner’s home basement office. I was the office grunt for the mercenary operation; we provided electronic monitoring to people who had some resources and who gamed the system well enough to avoid […]
Two Weddings: to “Happy”
Another wedding (sort of) last night brought my second encounter (according to Michael) with what might be the first pop song that I’ve noticed in years. The song is so popular anyone reading this will already know it – Pharrell has over a billion YouTube views – over 500 million of them for this song, […]
Maestro, by David Donnely
The orchestra is in decline. Apparently this decline has been conventional wisdom since at least 1969. I don’t know much about this disaster, nor do I know if ½ of orchestras went out of business between 1969 and 1973, as so glumly predicted; I suspect not. Alarmism is alive and well in all fields. But […]
Improbability
I started re-reading The Black Swan yesterday, a 2007 book by Nassim Taleb (updated in 2012 after the events of 9/11). The book is brilliant; it’s an exposition on the problems, beauty, and impact of the highly improbable. Taleb is not exploring improbability in the absurd but brilliant way that Douglas Adams did with the […]
Closing the Book on the Lipinski Heist
Earlier in the year I wrote about the theft of the Lipinski Stradivarius, currently on loan to Frank Almond of the Milwaukee Symphony. The instrument was recovered and the responsible parties identified as Universal Knowledge Allah and Salah Salahadyn, previously reported as Salah Ibn Jones. Allah was sentenced earlier in the year to 3 ½ […]
An Old School Musical Party Favor
Last weekend was my 20th high school reunion – the Wichita High School East Class of 1994. As it was for many people, high school was an odd time for me. My school world was never my real life when I was a child; my church world was my real life. But, like most of […]
There’s an Ap for That
This morning’s New York Times includes a story about the Japanese – apparently good old shiny plastic CDs still account for about 87% of music sales in the country, long on both progress and nostalgia. As such, they still have a 9 story flagship Tower Records in Tokyo. Here at home, the article reports that […]
Musical Dupont Circle
We’re just back from a great vacation, splitting our time away being tourists in Washington, D.C. and visiting family in Montpelier, VA. In D.C. we stayed at a great flat in the swank and hopping Dupont Circle neighborhood, and as we explored we encountered some folks sprucing up the place musically. It’s always good to […]
King of the Road
I wrote a post on how I feel about various musical genres a few days back, and with one category in particular I always choose my words carefully – country. I have a nostalgic love for old country music, including folks like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams Sr., Roger Miller, and Dolly Parton. While […]
Who Played the Oldest Flute in the World?
I love antique instruments. Old things in general interest me, as they do most people – some of my most memorable experiences in museums come from standing in front of an object that was never intended to last as long as it has, that has no equals, that, for this modern epoch of history at […]
Ryan Libel 