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How often does this happen to you:

You're practicing in the organ loft when, all of a sudden,—Holy GEEZ!—an enormous cat starts sniffing the facade.

Oh, wait, this is because you're in a church made of Legos (complete with its own Lego organ).

I seem to remember someone who built organs out of Legos when he was a wee lad.

Now you can have your very own diphthong.

Yes, we are also selling a shirt, but it doesn't make as much sense.

These can make great gifts for

• singers
• choir directors
• speech language pathologists
• yourself
• possibly library science majors or hydraulic engineers?

Visit the diph store today.

I can't really make any sense out of this cd cover. I think it's ridiculous.

Wait a minute. There are flowers on the chair, and Fiori Musicali means "musical flowers."

That's pushing it. I mean, Italian organs didn't even have a Chaire division, what with there flat facades and all. And this chair isn't 450 years old, is it? That's how old the Antegnati organ on this recording is.

There's not much to ridicule on the recording. The organ and performances are superb, but that cover—still ridiculous.

Tangent: Spell checker wants to replace "Frescobaldi" with "breakables." I don't think he would like this.

I can think of someone who is not going to want too many breakables around as he waits for the next Star Wars flick. Maybe he could use a chair though.

Apparently Lawrence Welk was not such a great musician. Also, the music on his show was pretty hokey, but people played for him because he paid them really well.

So one night his drummer is backstage and is telling the other musicians, "listen, I just can't take it anymore. Tonight I am really just gonna cut loose. I mean totally go nuts out there."

And the others are like, "no man, don't do that! He'll totally fire you."

But the drummer's just like, "whatever dudes. I have to do this. I am going to do it."

So sure enough, during the show, some cheesy number comes up and in the middle the drummer just goes nuts.

During the next commercial break, Welk turns around and says,

"Alright, who did that?"

Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University has taken a good lambasting this week for remarks he made about female proficiency with math and science. But is this really justified? From what I understand he was just trying to start some discussion. Well, let's continue it, shall we?

Dr. Summers cited research showing that more high school boys than girls tend to score at very high and very low levels on standardized math tests, and that it was important to consider the possibility that such differences may stem from biological differences between the sexes.

-Dillon, Sam. "Harvard Chief Defends His Talk on Women." NY Times 18 Jan 2005.

Music has been shown to have an advantageous effect on the mathematical ability of its hearers. If math and music utilize related cognitive function, maybe the differences Summers cites are also responsible for why women make such lousy composers.

I mean lets face it: Amy Cheney Beach, Elizabeth Jaquet de la Guerre, Fanny Mendelssohn, and Clara Schuman just don't cut it. Don't forget Barbara Strozzi. She's no good either. I don't think I've even met any women who like Barbara Strozzi.

The only women composers I really like to listen to are Lili Boulanger, Hildegard von Bingen, Meredith Monk, Joan Tower, and Ellen Zwillich.

This morning I heard about Dame Ethel Smyth, but she was presented as being remarkable not for being good, just for being weird. Nevertheless, I still want to hear what she wrote.

Tangents: Yes, I realize that this approach alienates more than half of the U.S. population. Maybe Larry and I need to move to Nevada.

Does Wendy Carlos count as a female composer?

Today in the Episcopal Church (motto: "We have cool feast days") is the Feast of St. Wulfstan. If I were in Holywood, I would feel the need to make this into a movie. Or at least a preview for a movie.

[Black Screen, Cue Gothic string music]

[A flash of night-time lightning illuminates a distant hill]

[White text:] From the makers of Primates of the Carribean

[Lightning flashes again with distant thunder, hill is closer, Worcester Cathedral is barely illuminated]

[text:] Comes the legend . . . [note the dramatic elipsis]

[Lightning flashes again with violent thunder crack, close-up on cathedral in the rain, there is a full moon in this shot. Why it didn't show up in the others, I don't know]

[text:] of Wulfstan.

[Interior, rectory, night]

CLERIC: The Lord be with you.

WULFSTAN: And also with Yowooooooooooooooooooooooo! [throws back head, camera pulls back quickly]

[large text:] The Werebishop

[smaller text:] Coming on the feast of the Transfiguration
August 6, 2005
©MMV Domestic and Foreign Movie Society

Do you get it? It opens on the feast of the Transfiguration because he's a Werebishop! He's transfigured. Or something.

Man, I've gotta see that movie.

Labels: film

I know lots of people worry about getting sick when traveling by plane, but this is ridiculous and totally unrelated.

5 January 2004, 12:00. Terminal C, George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston, Texas.

Labels: airports

BLOOMINGTON, IN - Sinden.org has recently learned of the purchase of a Holtkamp Martini on eBay.

The Martini, so named because it's design was developed on a napkin over cocktails, was apparently offered for sale by Penn State. Indiana University was alerted and proffered the highest bid.

Delivery was not included in the cost of the instrument, so it hasn't arrived yet. You can rely on Sinden.org to keep you updated on this developing story.

Tangent: From this Holtkamp webpage, "Here are a selection of recent Holtkamp Organ Company Projects." Yeah. Here is a selection of excellent grammar review materials from which to choose.

Labels: Holtkamp

The George Eastman House has made available online some photographs of Yousuf Karsh. Karsh took pictures of several musicians including Leopold Stowkowski, Jascha Heifetz, Portia White, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and of course, Jean Sibelius.

See also a close up and get closer still to the musical titan.

These are fascinating images which I have not seen before and know nothing about.

Tangent: Tired of black and white? Try this color photo of Pope Pius XII. Or alternately, this photo of the pope. Or lastly, this third photo of the pope.

Labels: Jean Sibelius

I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.

Letter to Eberhard Bethge 21 July 1944