Category The Past
Las Mañanitas
In school, I studied Spanish from the third grade through college. My high school Spanish teacher is the person I credit with being my best teacher ever – I had four years of Spanish with him, and proctored for him as well. He helmed the National Spanish Honors Society, of which I was a member, […]
Rocky Horror Light
Campy musicals are more or less defined by The Rocky Horror Picture Show – I first saw the classic supported by all its pomp and circumstance at an old theatre in Wichita, KS more than 20 years ago. It’s a Halloween favorite, though I don’t think the season had much to do with my and […]
Perlman at the Opera House
I’m going to see Itzhak Perlman – the recital is 9 months away – April 23 – but, as I told my partners in the excursion, the best violinist in the world has to plan ahead. He will be 71 years old at the time of the show. He’s playing the Civic Opera House, home […]
Pride Day 2016 – for Pulse and for Humanity
Early in my young gay life, one gay club meant everything. The part of my coming out in Wichita, Kansas that didn’t happen late nights at Denny’s with friends happened at a place called “The Our Fantasy Complex,” which everyone called “Fantasy” for short. From its opening in the 1970s until closing for good just […]
On Getting to 40
Teacher cancelled last week’s lesson, and when I wrote her back to confirm I mentioned that our next lesson would happen on my 40th birthday, which happens to be today. I said that I couldn’t imagine a better way to start my new decade than with a lesson – beginning the violin was undoubtedly one […]
Dreaming Up Movement
I’ve been busy. Very busy. But though I’ve been away from the blog for almost ten days (perhaps a sad record), I’ve definitely been playing my new Gavotte and trying to work up vibrato. The Becker Gavotte is coming along much better than the vibrato – I’m not making very rapid progress at all there. […]
Fanny Crosby
I’ve written before about my background making music for God when I was a child – my church life was my real life, while school and the rest of the world were secondary passions. One of my favorite things to do at church was sing – whether it was congregational worship choruses, The Great Hymns […]
And All the Boys Sing Mahler Eight
While in Wichita last week, I mentioned my interest in digging up more information on the boys choir in which I participated when I was about ten years old to my mother. So on Christmas morning we took a few minutes to go hunting through our family ephemera for whatever we could find. Though we […]
Juice Newton Live in Haysville
I have not seen many concerts. It’s never been a priority for me, and I’ve written here before about a lack of initiative in seeking out live music. That’s starting to change somewhat, but as far as pop acts go the list of folks I’ve seen live is extremely short. All the same, about 20 […]
Puff the Magic Dragon
I don’t know much about the folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, except to know that they were part of the counterculture of the 1960s and they recorded Puff the Magic Dragon. My dad loved “oldies,” and it’s the genre with which our household was the most familiar as I was growing up. When I […]
Ryan Libel 