Courtesy of The Fact Site, the number 2 is the first prime number, and it’s either the third or fourth number in the Fibonacci sequence–and that’s significant because math is beautiful and everywhere. Courtesy of Three Dog Night, “2 can be as bad as 1; it’s the loneliest number since the number 1,” followed byContinue reading “Who’s Counting? Two”
Tag Archives: listening to music
#395: Poem on April 22, 2021
On April 16 of 2020 I wrote a poem about turntables. I even used this image as an illustration. Having forgotten about that poem, as one does, I set out today to write another poem about turntables–a little bit in keeping with today’s prompt from Napowrimo to write a poem in which an object becomesContinue reading “#395: Poem on April 22, 2021”
Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XVII–The Impactful Album Challenge
What follows, dear reader, is a revised and slightly expanded version of my participation in the Facebook Album Challenge that’s been making the rounds of late in this merry, merry month of May in the year of our pandemic, 2020. I include it here so that it’s all in one spot for quick reference forContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XVII–The Impactful Album Challenge”
Thank You, Neil, Part 2: On Becoming a Rush Completist
I pinned down the year I stopped listening to Rush to 1983. Totally immersed in the New Wave and Punk movements of the day, listening to progressive music I found more avant-garde, like Zappa or Adrian Belew-era King Crimson, it was the year I graduated from high school, the year after the Signals record cameContinue reading “Thank You, Neil, Part 2: On Becoming a Rush Completist”
To Be a Life-Long Listener
In education we often bandy about one of our most sincere hopes for our students and aspirations for ourselves, to be life-long learners. I’m a huge fan of this concept. I never want to be complacent about my learning, about expanding the horizons of my brainiac: I want to read new things, write new things,Continue reading “To Be a Life-Long Listener”
Concert Review Confessions: St. Vincent at the Keller Auditorium, Portland, Oregon, January 20.
In part because I have listened to all five St. Vincent albums over recent days in preparation for the live appearance this last weekend here in Portland, I have made no new progress on the H section of my CD collection, on my alphabetical listening and blogging project that seems to go on forever. Instead,Continue reading “Concert Review Confessions: St. Vincent at the Keller Auditorium, Portland, Oregon, January 20.”
Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XV–Here Comes Everybody Survives the 20th Century
Back again so soon? I’ve got about a day and a half to fulfill my Pre-New Year’s Eve New Year’s Eve resolution of writing about the entire Here Comes Everybody catalogue before 2018. In case you’re just stepping into the fray, in short, it has been my project over the last three years or soContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XV–Here Comes Everybody Survives the 20th Century”
Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XIV–31 Years of Here Comes Everybody
Oh my. It’s been almost an entire year since the last time I added an installment to this series. Maybe I will make a New Year’s Resolution not to wait another year before the next one! I did not intend to write about my own music in this series, only tangentially as it related toContinue reading “Notes Toward a Musical Autobiography: Volume XIV–31 Years of Here Comes Everybody”
#259: Thirteen Views of Listening to A Song
I With my eyes closed, the lyrics become more vivid– like icicles in my fingers. II Bouncing up and down on a pogo stick, the drummer has all of my limbs and I have hers. III I watch that wave come up, a shimmering, a crescendo: some nonsense makes me cry a little. IV A man and a womanContinue reading “#259: Thirteen Views of Listening to A Song”
Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light
Last year, I remember talking in my classroom about the terrible news, the deaths of two British cultural icons, both personal heroes of mine, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, both dead at 69. And from that discussion, this has remained in my memory: a student actually said these words to me, “So you’ve got about twentyContinue reading “Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light”
michael jarmer 