I cannot stop listening to the Istomin/Stern/Rose trio.  Their playing gives me shivers.  There is a breadth, a massive overwhelming beauty to their sound that I have not heard in any other chamber group.  They overpower your senses, leave you weak and trembling, make you question your ability to control your faculties.

This is what music should

 A passage from Hitch-22 that's too good not to transcribe:

Don't drink on an empty stomach; the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food.  Don't drink if you have the blues; it's a junk cure.  Drink when you are in a good mood.  Cheap booze is a false economy.  It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone; these can be the happiest ( Read more... )

He left today.

It had to happen sometime. I just never thought the day would really come. A part of me hoped that we'd be stuck in a glorious place where time didn't exist and thus neither did reality.

The past six weeks have been nothing short of wonderful. Full of travel, food, friends, futbol, us. We knew in a way that this was our final hurrah ( Read more... )

Hiding in a remote corner of the Arthur Friedheim Library on a rainy Tuesday, most of the afternoon giving itself to the unsettling comfort of David Foster Wallace's brilliant words, makes even not-so-good days OK, almost pleasurable.

Fleisher, at 81, calls his wife "Babe" and kisses her with the casualness and affection of an enamored newlywed.

This has not been a good week.  This week, my self-worth has been compromised, confidence shattered, future questioned, loyalties tried.  I don't know what to do anymore.  I end up doing nothing.  Nothing helps nothing ( Read more... )

Sitting in lessons right now.

Fleisher (on a Chopin mazurka): It means "to reawaken". You can't awaken from something that's soft!

Snickers and cackles from all sides of the room.

My studio has a collectively dirty mind.

I like reading. I like reading about reading. I like dinner parties with select members of the academic intelligentsia where we eat pesto pasta and sip champagne and exclaim about aesthetically excessive (or excessively aesthetic?) birthday cakes and discuss music as a sexual upper-hand and microbial mycology.

I do not like video games. I do not ( Read more... )

Sigh of relief and accomplishment.  Fifth lesson today since I got back a week and a half ago.  Terrific lesson.  Inspiring, insightful, incredible ( Read more... )

Nothing like ringing in a new decade with:
FOUR. LESSONS. IN. FOUR. DAYS.
Today.  Tomorrow.  The day after tomorrow.  The day after that.
Not enough rep.  Not enough time to practice.  Madness!  Hermitry!  Why am I still awake?

My feet are cold!