Music has been on the agenda a lot recently. I went to hear Too Hot to Handel, a jazz/gospel version of Handel's greatest hit. It's been presented at the Auditorium for the past several years, but this was the first time scheduling allowed me to go. It was wonderful, particularly the mezzo, Karen Marie Richardson. They had some video, the first ( Read more... )

I think winter might be really and truly over. (Having said that, it will probably snow ( Read more... )

I went to a pre-retirement workshop earlier this week, with a speaker from our pension system as well as someone from Social Security. Much of what they told us, I knew, but I did learn some things. I'm back and forth in my head about whether or not to start taking SS now, or wait until full retirement age. I'm leaning towards the latter, as, ( Read more... )

Both my sisters are in town because this afternoon we are attending a 90th birthday party for an old family friend. Cathy arrived Thursday evening, so I picked her up at the airport on my way home from work. She had a gorgeous day to walk around the neighborhood on Friday (mid-60s!) and took full advantage of it. Among other things, she did some ( Read more... )

You may remember that I wrote a while back that I had attended a poetry workshop at my local library. While there, I recommended to the group Stephen Fry's book, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within. Yesterday when I was there returning books, she came over and said, "I ordered that book you recommended!" Maybe I should make a list ( Read more... )

Friday night at the opera, first. None of the various people I go with could make it. Jamie was teaching at a seminar in Springfield, and wouldn't get back in time. Beth & Duncan's son was in a soccer tournament. And Jim & Kevin were headed to Michigan on Saturday and so had to change their Newberry Consort tickets to Friday night. Lyric has ( Read more... )

On Monday, instead of our regular session, my Italian class went up to Northwestern University to see Corpo di Stato: Il delitto Moro, a theatrical monologue by Marco Baliani. In 1978, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped and, after 55 days, murdered by the Red Brigades. This event had a significant impact on the ( Read more... )

( The Cultural Stuff )

There's a guy on LibraryThing who is a conspiracy theorist, and he's posted on a couple of the loonier groups about an anti-Obama video we're all supposed to watch. I looked at his profile. He has 666 books catalogued. Coincidence? [Cue eerie music] (I was going to comment thus on one of those threads, but I figure he probably has no sense ( Read more... )

The Newberry Consort, with Piffaro, did a fabulous concert last night, called "What a Difference a Day Makes: Venetian Music for Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday". It was the first in what they hope will be annual concerts in memory of Howard Mayer Brown, the University of Chicago musicologist who is known as the godfather of the Chicago early music ( Read more... )