Monthly Archives: April 2011

La musique française, zut alors

I’m writing a program note for a concert of French Baroque chamber music. It’s going to be a pip of a show—works by François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, and Michel Lambert. The vocal selections—two cantatas … Continue reading

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Picky, Picky

Bookish Buddhadharma is papered with lists, from the tidy simplicity of The Four Noble Truths to the head-banging complexity of The Umpty-Million Concomitants of Consciousness. I have read and forgotten yards of such lists. But I have always remembered a … Continue reading

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Rice Krispies and Madeleines

The taste of a madeleine did it for Proust. That wouldn’t work for me. I grew up in a suburb of Houston, where they didn’t know jack about madeleines. I have my own gustatory trigger, but it lacks Parisian ooh-la-la. … Continue reading

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My Harvard Years

There lived not long since, in a certain village of the Mancha, the name whereof I purposely omit, a gentlemen of their calling that use to pile up in their halls old lances, halberds, morions, and other such armours and … Continue reading

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Not by Accident

The water off Malibu is neither as clear nor as tropically colored as the water off La Jolla. The beaches at Malibu are neither as white nor as wide as the beach at Carmel. The hills are scrubby and barren, … Continue reading

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The Promise of Music

Most of us live in a near-constant state of sensory overload. We are pummeled, assaulted, hassled, and exhausted in a whirlwind of frenetic activity as we rush to our next appointment, honk our way through rush-hour gridlock, and vie for … Continue reading

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Cans Again

I’m not made out of money. Neither am I poor. I work assiduously for my five, count ’em, five employers—one of which graces me with a full-time salary and excellent benefits in return for the lion’s share of my professional … Continue reading

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Fifteen Minutes

Jacqueline Howett is having her Warholean fifteen minutes. Even that soupçon of fame was unlikely, but she had the temerity to attack a blogger for a negative review of her self-published Amazon Kindle novel, The Greek Seaman. The subsequent Twitter-fied … Continue reading

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