Monthly Archives: February 2009

In Honor of Abe

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I don’t get a lot of good ideas.  I really don’t.  I’m halfway good at recognizing the good ideas of others.  But it’s not all that often that a good idea appears inside my own noggin, all on its own.  But here’s one of those rare instances when I actually came up with a good

Broadened Horizons

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My opera class has a ratio of music majors to non-music majors of 2:3. . .  and  and in this case,  the non-majors are “non” with a capital “N”.  By that I mean that none of them are theater or communication majors who have snuck over to opera because of its connection to their own

The Friendly Hermit

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I don’t know if it’s a sign of the tumultuous times in which we are living,  but Bobbi - the younger of our two Golden Retrievers - has been spending an awful lot of time all by herself in our downstairs bathroom.   Most often Kathy and I will be sitting in the family room, with

A Job To Do

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I spent my last blog entry bellyaching about Subway, but a moment from this past weekend puts that brief inconvenience in proper perspective.  Saturday afternoon I saw a few minutes of the Metropolitan Opera Simulcast of “Lucia di Lammermoor” at Tinseltown Cinema in Kenosha- and as I made my way to my seat next to

Closed Doors

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I am afraid that as I start describing something that happened to me tonight,  it will sound as though I regard what was a relatively modest inconvenience as a towering tragedy.  It’s not - and I know that - and I will really do my best to keep this in proper perspective.  (If I was

Home Again

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This afternoon was the homecoming concert for the Carthage Choir, which spent most of January touring Europe under the able leadership of Eduardo Garcia- Novelli.  I was their accompanist for most of the fall semester, but did not play for them for Christmas Festival - nor was I along for their trip to Europe.  (The

Operation Opera

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Yesterday was the first meeting of my opera class at Carthage,  and it was a bit surprising to look out at the class and see two young women and thirteen young men.  I seem to attract males to my classes, for some reason,  and almost every class I have ever taught at Carthage has had

Hooked

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One unfortunate quality which my wife and I share is a tendency to get hooked on certain games. . .  and I am downright addicted to a word game found on Facebook- a game called Pathwords.   My sister Randi introduced me to it when I was in Decorah,  and part of what sold me so

Varsity Blues

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I took a trip down to Batavia, Illinois today to visit the Varsity Choir at Batavia High School,  directed by none other than my former student and now good friend Paul Marchese.  Paul is in the midst of his first year at Batavia and enjoying some fine success already,  but he was feeling a little

Bobbi & Me

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This is also about Ellie,  but I was trying to play off of the mega movie hit “Marley and Me,”  based on the wonderful book by John Grogan.  (I interviewed him on the morning show and it remains one of my very favorite conversations) and also because the photograph is of just the two of