The annual tour of the grizzled folkie singer-songwriter luminaries came to the Freight yesterday. Last year I went because my beloved Christine Lavin was among their number. She wasn't there this year, but the other three were the same, and I had enjoyed them too, and the fourth was an equal luminary. Very popular show, biggest crowd I've seen ( Read more... )

Last Friday I went to hear Brocelïande, Saturday the Palo Alto Philharmonic, and on Sunday, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, which I reviewed, and which has today been published. I wrote "nor do they" in the first sentence, but my editors changed "nor" to "or." I guess that's one of their newspaper editorial preferences, like avoiding Oxford ( Read more... )

Turkeys, the bird, are not from Turkey, the country, but they're named for it from a mistaken association* similar to the one by which American Indians, who are not from India, are nevertheless named as if they were ( Read more... )

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson & Margot Melcon, Theatre Works Silicon Valley

This play is a sequel to Pride and Prejudice, and its spirit is pure fan fiction, the open wish-fulfillment of finding an appropriate mate for the neglected Bennet sister, Mary (who has succeeded to the formal title of "Miss Bennet" now that both ( Read more... )

I attended an online session in which half a dozen Tolkien scholars gave brief presentations discussing aspects of the second season of Rings of Power. I had figured - correctly, by the combination of the experience and the thrust of the talks - that this would be not only a quicker but a more entertaining way of finding out what happened in it ( Read more... )

I've been to this local community orchestra before, and I might have gone to this concert anyway, but I had a special reason: our niece E. has joined it. She plays double bass. In fact all three of the double bass players in this orchestra are women, and if you're reminded of the Netflix documentary The Only Girl in the Orchestra about the first ( Read more... )

1. Because it would be silly to call a building "The Pentagon" if it wasn't shaped like a pentagon.
   
2. To signify the five branches of the military: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard.
   
3. To evoke the shape of 15th-century fortifications.
   
4. To confuse any potential assailants, like the ones on 9/11, as to which face of the building to attack.
   
5. To best ( Read more... )

This review of the new War of the Rohirrim movie, which like other reviews I've seen describes as dull and forgettable this attempt to fill out Tolkien's brief backstory of Helm's Deep, gets one important thing critically right. The author writes, "Game of Thrones ... and others have assumed that fantasy will only appeal to modern audiences if it' ( Read more... )

Sunday I went to a Harmonia California concert. As with the previous time, I was impressed with the strong and heavy sound of this tiny (17-person) string orchestra, perfect for Baroque-period works in the minor (a Handel concerto grosso and an oboe concerto variously attributed to one or the other of the Marcello brothers - soloist Laura ( Read more... )

Every time one of our cats wanted to snuggle in the last couple of weeks - and they've wanted a lot of it - I felt guilty, knowing that today we would betray their trust and take them to the vet. Maia did her damndest to avoid being locked up in the cat carrier, while Tybalt sort of gave up. He's a very bright and personable pussycat, and I think ( Read more... )