Islands

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees. 

Andres Segovia 

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. 

Dag Hammarskjold 

Expensive Ambition

Turning the cartoon series Spiderman into a musical has so enraptured the director, Julie Taymor, and the composers, Bono and the Edge, of U2, that they have built a $70 million  show around him, replete with perspective-skewing scenery and flying sequences that are unprecedented for Broadway. That's a high goal, but the creators want even more. Being artists who dream big they compare the show’s themes to great literature and philosophy. “We’re wrestling with the same stuff as Rilke, Blake, ‘Wings of Desire,’ Roy Lichtenstein, the Ramones — the cost of feeling feelings, the desire for connections when you’re separate from others,” said Bono in an interview. “If the only wows you get from ‘Spider-Man’ are visual, special-effect, spectacular-type wows, and not wows from the soul or the heart, we will all think that we’ve failed.” Spider-Man, the musical, is scheduled to open on January 11th at the Foxwoods Theatre.

My Favorite iPhone Apps

I've been asked which iPhone Apps I actually use. Well, for a start, here's my top ten:

1) WordBook. English Dictionary & Thesaurus. Excellent. As good as any printed dictionary.

2) Wikipanion. Shortest way to gather infos on the road.

3) Shazam. I hold this app up to a song on the radio, and Shazam gives me all the information I need and even shows me the CD cover.

4) DocsToGo. This app allows me to carry and read important pdf-docs on my iPhone.

5) BrainTuner. Great little app to avoid getting nervous while waiting for a belated train or plane.

6) RadioBox. Best internet radio receiver I know.

7) Gorillacam. This photography app has a lot of great functions; I only use its Self Timer, and this alone is worth much more than the zero bucks they charge.

8) YouTube. Works really everywhere. Gives me the chance to check back on songs and even shows I wish to refer to.

9) 7 Chords. Whenever a need to know how one of these unusual chords are played on the guitar, I just look it up.

10) Things. A great organizing tool. Helps me to remember my daily tasks.

A Good Season For Babies

According to Harvard University researchers, Babies born in October and November have the longest life expectancy and best chance of good health. If you're born at this time of year you have a better chance than others to become a professional footballer or an Olympic athlete. Also, Babies born between December and February grow into taller, brighter and more successful adults than their summer counterparts. They are also less likely to need strong spectacles. 

Why-Musicals

Mary Rodgers defines the "Why-Musical" as a perfectly respectable show based on a perfectly respectable source, that has no reason for being. Why-Musicals usually come from successful novels, movies or plays. Their authors, blinded by the proven potential of the source material, never question the need to turn it into a musical. They never ask themselves what music and songs will do for the story that hasn't already been accomplished by the original work. 

Best Musical I've Seen This Year

Responsibility

You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say. 

Martin Luther 

Know What You Eat!

Sunday's New York Times reports that a slaughterhouse in Queens/New York committed to the idea that people should know where their food comes from. It lets customers select and kill animals of their choosing. They are allowed to witness the slaughter and even, for those so inclined, to wield the sharpened knife. Allegedly it’s all part of the broader cultural effort to escape the climate-controlled, linoleum-lined artificiality of supermarket shopping, in which meat magically appears all ready for your oven and animals are characters in children’s storybooks. Reading this I remembered a scene in a Woody Allan film the title of which I forgot. He sits in a restaurant and the waiter shows him various kinds of fresh fish to choose from. "Don't tell me their names," Woody says. "I don't care to be introduced to my dinner."

Only In New York

Last week at a New York department store. I took the elevator to the fifth floor. The car was packed. Among some twenty people in the car was a sturdy man in his fifties holding a big dog on a leash. Grumpily he demanded a young Asian woman to step back to allow his dog to sit. The Asian woman said, she couldn't possibly step further back because of the people standing behind her. This answer made the man hiss at her: "Why don't you go back to China!" Immediately all the other people in the car responded. "How dare you!" – "Racist!" – "Get out of here!" – "You ought to be ashamed!". The man with the dog had no choice but to leave the elevator at the next stop. And I thought, this is why I love New Yorkers. They take a stand.