Monthly Archives: September 2010

Frozen Dinner ≠ French Laundry

I’m not proud of it, but I must admit that the combined pressure of the many hats I wear often mandates that I make short shrift of dinner, at least during the school year/concert season when I sprint continuously through … Continue reading

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The Joy of Rotundity

The food nannies just never let go, never give up, never retreat, despite the overwhelming evidence that their pleas, exhortations, recommendations, and downright threats are falling on deaf ears. An article in today’s New York Times adds yet another faggot … Continue reading

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Dot the ‘i’ in Blaspheme

I just love it when nannies get their knickers into knots about something publicly sexy. In the case of the scandalous Antonio Federici Gelato ads that have whipped up such a scrum across the pond in England, the panjandrums of … Continue reading

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Clueless from the Top

Joseph Ratzinger has been visiting England of late. He’s having a lousy time, what with a fusillade of accusations pelting him at every turn. The professional bashers are having themselves a fine time and the piles of invective just keep … Continue reading

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Kid With a Piano

Some of my earliest memories are faulty, or at least unreliable, thanks to my dad’s penchant for filming family activities with a wind-up Bell & Howell 8mm camera, a whirring device which required tons of light to achieve a decent … Continue reading

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Three Jim-Dandy Symphonists

Buckets of composers have written symphonies over the years. Some of them were quite good at it. Some of them weren’t. For every Beethoven there were dozens of Ferdinand Ries-es, each scribbling away at threadbare glosses on the vastly greater … Continue reading

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Rach Two: Victim Becomes Victor

Rachmaninoff’s awe-inspiring Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27 is one of Western music’s innocent bystanders, a casualty of 20th century priggishness that is finally coming into its long-overdue own, a century after its birth. What happened was this: … Continue reading

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Greetings from Your Friendly Inspector Guardian

Recently, on a whim, I took an online personality test, one of those puppies based on the standard Briggs-Meyers questionnaire and using the terminology developed by David West Keirsey to put a friendly and metaphoric face on a bunch of … Continue reading

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Snip

Giuseppe Giuliano de la Terra de la Castelluccia kneels humbly at the feet of Their Most Illustrious Lordships and begs them to be kind enough to admit him a student of the Royal Conservatoire of Santa Maria di Loreto, being … Continue reading

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