Another recommendation

After hearing the work in church today, I’m completely enamored afresh of Faure’s Cantique de Jean Racine, a piece I’ve played the violin for before, though I have no idea when or where.  The melody came back to me like an old friend.
Here’s a good arrangment I found on YouTube.  Sit quietly for a minute in [...]

How "on the go" changes us

The April 12 issue of The Economist had an outstanding special report called “Nomads at last.” It examined the sociological implications of mobile technology like cellular phones, BlackBerrys, Wi-Fi hotspots, the ubiquity of the internet, etc.
While there is much to say regarding the technology itself, the report focused on how these devices change where and [...]

Worth the read

I started reading the blog Stuff White People Like when it had only one million hits. Today, that number is rapidly approaching twenty million.
The blog is witty, funny, and well-written (excepting occasional grammatical errors). It gently pokes fun at generic white culture. The format is simple: Identify a fairly common facet of white culture, parody [...]

A slushy day in NYC

This year, evidently, has been unusual for very little snowfall in New York City. Last night as I walked to the fitness center at Columbia (of which I’m a new “guest” member), a “wintry mix” fell lightly from the sky. This continued through the night and during the day, so by the time I left [...]

My new computer

Tempted as I may be to start this post with apologies to my loyal readers (I know you’re out there, E.K. and M.G.!!!) for writing so infrequently this January, I will instead begin with praise for my new computer which arrived today.
It’s a Dell Inspiron E1505 notebook. The sleek Intel Core Duo processor and a [...]