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Showing posts from August, 2013

Strange Day at Work

This past Friday, we took a moment at work to honor our office manager's birthday.  Everyone piled into our rather modestly sized conference room for the surprise.  Another worker ran inference by calling her over to the nearby annexed office space we use for deliveries. The office manager was turning 59 and those in charge of the event (I was occupied with other work matters but designated two of my employees to handle all the arrangements) decided that instead of the all too common practice of placing a "5" candle and a "9" candle on the cake we would put 59 individual candles on the medium sized sheet birthday cake. When I entered the room to join in the surprise the candles were already lit and burning furiously.  I don't recall ever seeing such a fire on top of a birthday cake before.  You could actually feel the heat as you walked past the cake.  As it often goes with such things, we were successful in getting the office manager out of the space so thi

Lutoslawski at 100

I posted in 2009 and in 2010 about my enthusiastic appreciation for the great modern Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski . At those times I had few online examples of his music to offer in my posts. His work continues to interest me and I listen to some sort of Lutoslawski piece periodically throughout each year. In 2013 I am in general listening to more contemporary classical music than anything else music-wise. I intend to make some future posts on new compositions I purchased for my collection this year. Classical music is not dead, nor is it devoid of fresh material. New compositions abound but it is a challenge for a listener such as myself, living in a rural area largely isolated from the cultural vibe except for random snippets I find on the Internet, to keep up with what new CDs are coming out by my favorite living composers. Lutoslawski is not one of them. He died in 1994. But his music still surpasses most of what I listen to from composers today who are obviously infl

Vermeer at the High

Yesterday I saw the  Girl with a Pearl Earring .  She was not as vibrant as most of the printed and digital renderings I have seen of her.  Her colors were muted by light and time.  Her background had changed from dark green to black.  She looked a bit more stated and brighter when Johannes Vermeer painted her around 1665.  But her mystery and expression and marvelous technique was as fresh as ever.  She is timeless, as is  Vermeer . She was alone in a darkened medium-sized museum room, except for some historical explanation of the work printed on the walls.  The room had more people in it and felt more crowded than the rest to the exhibition at the High Museum .  She is so young and sensual and alluring.  Her eyes and lips seem to want me from 350 years ago; that is how I felt when I saw this masterpiece in its first appearance ever in the southeastern United States. Little is actually known about Vermeer, no self-portrait of him exists.  Only about 35 of his paintings survive, tho

Noodleology at Dream Lake

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Jennifer floating on Dream Lake.  The water was silty this year from all the summer rain we have had in the region.  The house in the distance is rarely used.  So we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. Some readers might recall that the getaway Jennifer and I planned last year to Dream Lake was overwhelmed by unexpected interference from our daughter . This year we took our daughter and her cool new boyfriend with us. For both Jennifer and I it was four days and three nights of relaxing off the grid. No cell phone. No iPad. No TV. Almost nothing, though some friends that joined us remained lightly connected and I used their devices to keep track of the Braves playing in Philadelphia . Dream Lake is about 3 acres in size and is situated amidst the thick woods and large open fields of a rural area of northwestern South Carolina, where the state has rolling terrain. Jennifer and I spent several hours each day down at the dock the owners built on the small lake they made