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 I suppose that I’m like many a classical music lover when it comes to Gustav Holst: aside from The Planets, I really don’t know much about him at all. I’m a bit better off than most, by virtue of having been in the concert band in high school and college, so I’m familiar with Holst’s two Suites for Military Band (which I should feature at some point anyway, because they’re terrific), but really, that’s about it. Holst was fairly prolific, and his work had many influences: Wagnerian opera, English folksong, Indian mythology, and more. His music, in my experience, rarely fitsDown the rabbit hole….

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 Richard Feynman was an American physicist who contributed greatly to the field of quantum mechanics, eventually winning a Nobel Prize for his work. He also worked on the atomic bomb project and wrote a number of books about his colorful life and his views on science and technology, and in his time he was nearly as well-known a scientist as Carl Sagan. Toward the end of his life he notably served on the panel that investigated the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, most notably bringing focus to a hypothesis that a failed O-ring seal led to the shuttle’s demise–aDown the rabbit hole….

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 There’s something to be said for rock dance anthems that have great tunes, a fantastic beat, amazing rhythm…and, well, if the lyrics make sense I guess that’s a bonus, but let’s be honest: when you’re looking for something to play loud on the drive home from work on a Friday, something really good and loud and thumping, you don’t really need lyrics that make sense, do you? Enter The Killers and their huge 2008 hit, “Human”. “Are we human?or are we dancer?My sign is vital,my hands are warmAnd I’m on my kneeslooking for the answer.Are we human,or are we dancer?” See?Down the rabbit hole….

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 A fascinating astronomy image today! Behold: NASA explains: A spectacular set of rings around a black hole has been captured using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The X-ray images of the giant rings have revealed new information about dust located in our Galaxy, using a similar principle to the X-rays performed in doctor’s offices and airports.  The black hole is part of a binary system called V404 Cygni, located about 7,800 light-years away from Earth. The black hole is actively pulling material away from a companion star — with about half the mass of the SunDown the rabbit hole….

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 A very short work today! Less than three minutes, courtesy Soviet composer Dimitri Shostakovich. In 1943 Shostakovich entered a contest to write a new national anthem for the Soviet Union. Apparently he did not win, but he was able to repurpose his material for that project seventeen years later, for use at a war memorial dedication in the city of Novorossiysk. According to what I have found on this piece, the work Shostakovich presented for the war memorial has been played continuously there ever since. Wow. The piece is only a few minutes long, starting off quietly before building and buildingDown the rabbit hole….

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 Last week, Dusty Hill died. He was the bass player for ZZ Top. ZZ Top is one of those bands that has been a part of the soundtrack of my life pretty much ever since early-adolescence, when I first became aware of rock music. They’re one of those acts that seems like they’ve been around forever, partly owing to their look: famous for their long beards, they cultivated an air of being old when they were still quite young. But there’s also a timeless quality to their music, which plays equally at ease on a classic rock station and anDown the rabbit hole….

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 Looks like the shoe is finally dropping in Buffalo and WNY, regarding the future of the region’s NFL franchise: the team’s owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, are floating the idea of a new stadium to replace the team’s existing venue, which would be publicly funded to the tune of over $1,000,000,000. Hold on, let me count the zeroes to make sure I have that right…thousand, million, billion. Yup, that’s right. Newer reports have the team citing possible other locations for the franchise if the stadium doesn’t happen. Locations like Austin, Texas. My position on this is simple: I am againstDown the rabbit hole….