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Welcome to my outpost on the Interweb! I write SF, fantasy, and horror for fun and profit. Other interests include music, nature, science, humor, food, bib overalls, and pie throwing (metaphorically AND literally). About Me Comments Policy Photo Gallery My Books: The Song of Forgotten Stars
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Books Read in 2020
Well, one area for me in which this year did not drink deep from the Keg of Suck was in reading: I read a lot of great stuff. My goal each year is 52 books, averaging one a week. This year … Continue reading
Beethovens Choral Fantasia: or, What Happens When You’re An Immortal Composer Who Needs a Piece for Piano, Vocal Soloists, Chorus, and Orchestra
Now here’s a very unusual work indeed: a single-movement piece, roughly 25 minutes long, that features orchestra, solo piano, vocal soloists, and a chorus. Why would Beethoven have written such an oddly structured piece? Most likely, I figured, he wrote … Continue reading
Close Encounters of the Beethoven Kind
I was fortunate in my music-making days to get to actually play Beethoven on three different occasions. The first came via my piano teacher in high school, a lovely old woman named Margaret Hooker. She lived alone in a nice-sized … Continue reading
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Beethoven: the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos
In a typical classical music concert today, you might hear a short work–an overture, perhaps–followed by a concerto, then an intermission, then a symphony. Or the concerto might be the featured work after the intermission, especially if your soloist is … Continue reading
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Pics or it didn’t happen!
I haven’t done a grab-bag of recent photos from my adventures of late, so…here we go! These next few are in a special category, because they’re photos I took with my phone and then processed through a cool app called … Continue reading
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor
Beethoven wrote five piano concertos, and only one of these is in a minor key. I don’t want to reduce these things to the easily-refuted notion that “major key equals happy music, minor key equals sad music”, but there does … Continue reading
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Your Daily Dose of Christmas
It’s here! I hope that all of your Christmases are merry and bright, even in a year as grating and dark as this has been.
Your Daily Dose of Christmas
On the Eve, here are a few favorite entire albums of mine!
On Jeff Smith, problematic people, food, and memory
Back when I was in college, I decided that I needed to start learning to cook. One of the cornerstones of that effort was to buy all the cookbooks by Jeff Smith, also known by his PBS brand name … Continue reading
Your Daily Dose of Christmas
The Polar Express is rather a polarizing movie, mostly because of the style of animation Robert Zemeckis used in making it. The landscapes and a whole lot of the film’s compositions are frankly gorgeous, and the story is (for me, anyway) … Continue reading