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ale i kid you not that i had to choke back tears it is something i would love to experience again a st paul surprise after crossing the country for concerts on friday and saturday nights i was back in minneapolis by 8 00 am on sunday and then i realized i had a subscription ticket for a st paul chamber orchestra that afternoon happily i rallied because it was a pretty spectacular way to finish out the weekend now this was decidedly a program i would not travel for but quite appreciated when it s played in my own backyard selections from handel s water music bach orchestral suite no 4 and beethoven s symphony no 4 the often conductorless orchestra was led by richard egarr who doubled on the harpsichord on the handel and the bach and let me tell you the spco really laid that shit out they absolutely dazzled it was a bit of a palate cleanser after the previous two nights the handel is something i loved as a teen but had never heard it live bach is someone who i have a hard time sitting through in concert much like the mozart reference earlier but i found it to be a bit of a revelation the spco was joyous and precise and just alive the beethoven was also a delight from beginning to end i should note the concert was not at their lovely purpose built hall in st paul pictured above but rather at one of the many other area venues they play at regularly it just so happened to be at the university of minnesota school of music s tedd mann concert hall the venue inside and out is nothing to look at institutional design at it s most bland however the acoustics in the hall are amazing particularly for this kind of concert the whole experience made me happy i can call the spco one of my hometown bands phamily in phoenix a few days later i hopped on a plane to visit my parents who live in the western suburbs of phoenix last season i heard the phoenix symphony play a great hovhaness symphony no 2 i decided to try and squeeze in a concert with them on this trip you can see me above taking light rail from my airport hotel to the concert public transit in phoenix very handy you won t be surprised to know that the ives was my favorite part of this concert originally written for organ when ives was 17 this orchestration by william schuman is brilliant makes you wonder if you will ever like the original version again the gershwin piano concerto was brilliantly played by stewart goodyear but i m not sure why they they only did two movements i ve heard other things by mason bates that i ve liked but this rhapsody of steve jobs doesn t do much for me the copland was of course wonderful but i do sometimes think that all of copland maybe sounds too much like copland new york philharmonic tuesday edition couple days after returning from phoenix i find myself in new york for two different concerts both conducted by mirga gražinytė tyla the first was on a tuesday night and started off with a ravishing performance of vaughan williams fantasia on a theme by thomas tallis such a glorious moving piece of music especially with the small chamber group set way back on the stage in dialog with the much larger string section of the full orchestra i think the vw is a hard one to follow it s a flawless expression of beauty and then a piano concerto by john williams i was kind of looking forward to something fun and cinematic alas it had none of the williams flash and it didn t make much of an impression seeing emanuel ax also made me think that a lot of old people need to enjoy their retirement nothing wrong with his playing but i m tired of old people in every field who won t retire and let successive generations have their shot of course i am an older gen xer who at 56 is realizing that by the time the boomers finally give up the reins we will all be on the cusp of retiring or dying whenever there is a full symphony by a lesser known played composer i am likely to consider traveling for it even if i know nothing about it and so weinberg s symphony no 5 was the impetus for this trip definitely worth the trip if not exactly a highlight of my season new york philharmonic thursday edition most orchestras don t play tuesday concerts so the fact that i could hear a different program in ny separated by only one day it was a little hard to say no and the fact that they were doing elgar s violin concerto sealed the deal i had never heard it live and i must say as much as i love elgar recordings of the piece never really did much for me after having heard this amazing performance by the norwegian violinist vilde frang in person i m now hooked what an epic piece the kurtag falls into what dave hurwitz might call the bleep bloop school of composition i m all for modern music but this i don t need to hear again you may note the composer is 100 years old the schumann could have been a palate cleanser but it started off a bit sloppy and was just so so cleveland is an astounding gem of an orchestra this was my sixth time hearing the cleveland orchestra at severance hall in addition to hearing them at the royal albert hall and the kennedy center i am nowhere near being an expert on the relative quality of orchestras but when you know you know as soon as they started playing the brahms i was astounded once again at how good they are although i have heard a ton of very fine orchestras there is something about cleveland and boston and berlin that transcends all the others instead of the us big five i think there should be the top two and then the rest can just fight it out for the next tier it has been a long time since i ve heard chicago so maybe it would be a top three never that excited about brahms cleveland made me a believer what a gorgeous performance the martinů was the main reason for the trip and was well worth it the icing on the cake was the rousing closer by vítězslava kaprálová a prolific czech composer who died when she was only 25 the military sinfonietta was written around the time hitler was annexing the sudetenland kaprálová said that the piece depicts the psychological need to defend that which is most sacred to the nation as an exhausted minnesotan all i can say to that is amen sister uncategorized classical music concert music orchestra piano these un christian times january 25 2026 thomas 2 comments faith leaders demonstrate against ice tactics in the departures area of terminal 1 of the minneapolis saint paul international airport friday jan 23 2026 in st paul minn rns photo jack jenkins aside from weddings and funerals i haven t really gone to church in about 30 years this morning despite my non belief yes i m still going to hell i felt a strong need to be part of a loving community and took myself off to hennepin avenue united methodist church it was the warm welcoming consoling hug that i needed a congregation unafraid to fight for what is right and just and moral it was rage and anguish fashioned into love and a firm resolve to help end the occupation and support our neighbors among the clergy who spoke was karen larson a presbyterian minister who told her story of being arrested for civil disobedience at the minneapolis airport in 22 degrees on friday morning read more about clergy organizing here as i sat in the pew and wept for alex pretti renee good george floyd and the state of our country my own resolve crystalized into what i need to do support my community and help save our democracy the latter may sound a bit melodramatic but the moment many of us have predicted is here this is not happening to minnesota this is happening to the whole country whatever they get away with in minneapolis will just be the start of what they do in other parts of the country this is the moment all of us need to stand up for what is right and just and moral and dare i say constitutional we all have things we can do no matter what state you are in call your congressional delegation red or blue and let them know how you feel be vocal with your independent and republican friends and family sometimes i think in an effort to respect varying opinions we stay quiet while all the oxygen is sucked out of the room by the lying liars i m not suggesting you get into arguments with maga turds you will never win those but don t let their bullshit go unchallenged in front of others there are plenty of organizations here in minnesota that can use your help check out the donation links on the stand with minnesota website in your own community look for immigrant support groups defense funds the aclu and others that are fighting the good fight and give them your time and or money you don t have to believe in the divinity of jesus to be a decent caring moral human being and belief doesn t automatically make you any of those things i wish more christians understood that uncategorized bible christianity faith god jesus getting moody about my library december 23 2025 thomas 14 comments since i moved back to minneapolis in august 2024 my books have been smooshed into a den in the condo i m renting i was lucky to find a rental that had that much book storage not sure what i would have done if that had not been the case way back in april of this year i found a townhouse to buy that is just two blocks from where i am currently living i really love this neighborhood so i considered it a huge score after hiring an architect to help me turn it into something that suits my needs and aesthetics i pulled together the mood board above to help explain to her what i wanted to do with the attic space at the top of the house the overall vibe is meant to be cosy and cluttered and the perfect room for reading puzzling listening to my cds yes i still buy them and watching tv the previous owners were using the space for a bedroom and had a murphy bed up there and two clothes closets those have all been torn out and i will be replacing with a big chunk of bookshelves on the gable end and various kinds of shelves and storage on the bits where the ceiling slants down on the front and the back the storage units will have a vibe similar to the white painted drawers in the lower right corner but they will be tucked under the eaves like the two middle bottom photos regular readers will recognize the big image in the upper left which i blogged about earlier this yea r that s 13 feet 3 9m wide so about 91 linear feet 27 3m for books initially i was going to have the shelves go all the way to the edges similar to the gable end shelves in the lower left of the mood board but when i decided to add bookshelves to the living room see below i thought i could pull back a bit up in the attic did i mention the attic has four skylights so the room is quite bright even on a gray day with the wall of books to the left this shows the elevation of the back wall larger shelves for larger books and nine drawers custom sized for my cd storage with these cabinets shorter than counter height you can see how low the ceiling slopes down on this side on the opposite wall you can see the configuration of drawers that will be near my desk since this drawing i have added more of those shallow drawers so i can treat them a bit like flat files for art and ephemera the bit in the bubble is the wall of bookshelves furniture layout is conceptual the sofa is the one currently in my living room it is low and deep and perfect for napping i mean reading the round table is the one i had in my kitchen in dc and will be perfect for laying out larger books for closer study and for jigsaw puzzling my guess is i m going to spend a lot of time in this room as i worked with my architect the design for the living room on the main floor was starting to seem like it was going to end up being a museum room you know one of those spaces that looks good but no one ever uses while i was feeling that way i stumbled across this image and decided to add books to my living room not only would this warm up the living room and make it a place i would spend more time but it would also more than double my bookshelf capacity you can t really see it in this elevation but there was a long niche in the living room that i decided to fill with bookshelves this adds 135 linear feet 40 5m for books i m toying with the idea of having one whole row be dedicated to various objets bric a brac and bibelots but even taking that out of circulation i will still have tons of room for books for years i ve pared books back and given so so many away now i have room for all of those and then some i m already thinking of book buying projects i might undertake once i move in march if i can wait that long uncategorized books home interior design reading writing reading for two december 22 2025 december 22 2025 thomas 7 comments in january i take a bucket list trip to chilean patagonia i m going with a good friend i ve known since college days our friendship was forged in the early 1990s period adaptations galore forster austen wharton book talk the new yorker and no internet having not dissimilar tastes in books and deciding to not check any luggage i am in charge of making sure we have enough reading material over the course of 12 days we will be spending eight of them in the middle of nowhere and have made a pact to stay as disconnected as possible from our phones and the outside world this stack should hold us we are also bringing recent back issues of the new yorker and the atlantic to fill in the gaps recapitulation by wallace stegner in general i like stegner s work and i think i first read him in the early 90s so this one feels appropriate it also helped that i had a mass market edition that i can leave behind to lighten the load convenience store woman by sayaka murata i got a few pages into this one a few years ago but for some reason put it down my friend lived in japan for a couple of years so this seemed like a good choice for something on the contemporary side the luck of ginger coffey by brian moore i recently sent moore s the doctor s wife to my friend and she loved it as much as i did not sure this one will strike the same chords for us but it will be fun to see what the versatile author does in this novel train dreams by denis johnson every one of these 116 pages is brilliant i m not interested in seeing the adaptation but i am interested in a reread and would love to have someone to chat with about it the professor by charlotte bronte one always needs something 19th century on vacation and this one harkens back to our days watching the austen a week adaptations that we went to religiously in the 90s austen is overrepresented in that space so mixing it up with one of the brontes family album by penelope lively my favorite literary penelope never disappoints cassandra at the wedding by dorothy baker nancy pearl says reader reaction to this novel is a litmus test for whether she is likely to get along with someone all shot up by chester himes i haven t read himes and this one was described by newsweek as pungent violent and mordantly funny doesn t really seem to apply to a...