Browsing Project Gutenberg
last night, I ran into a translation into French of Edgar
Allen Poe’s The Raven,
by Stéphane
Mallarmé
1842-1898, and illustrated by Édouard
Manet.
There’s also a recording by
Thomas Edison of John Phillip Souza’s band playing The
Stars and Stripes Forever.
Last modified: Fri Feb 10 10:22:46 EST 2006
I was toy-deprived last year, so when I got some money for Christmas,
I went on a toy-buying spree. The latest item is a Bread
Machine. I got a used one from eBay, on the theory that lots of
people get them and turn out not to use them, so an eBay one would
be a savings and likely to be fine.
It arrived Tuesday afternoon, so I threw in the ingredients for a completely
whole-wheat, one pound loaf. It was a little low and misshapen, but the
flavor was good, and almost all of it disappeared after the
Renaissance Band rehearsal.
So Wednesday, I tried another version. This time I followed the
directions for adjusting the consistency at the
bread machine digest. In my case, the dough was too gooey,
so I added an extra tablespoon of flour. It’s definitely the
best all-whole wheat bread that I’ve ever baked. Well-risen
(almost but not quite fluffy) and
not at all dry.
So now I have the ingredients for a loaf of French Bread, which I’ll
take (assuming it isn’t a disaster) to the friends I’m having
dinner with tonight.
I also bought some barley flour and some carrots at the store last
night. There’s a carrot cake recipe I might take to the
homebrew club meeting tomorrow. The barley flour is for the
next whole-grain bread experiment.
Last modified: Thu Feb 2 11:24:42 EST 2006
I wrote another review for mstation.org, of
Ending Spam, by Jonathan Zdziarski. In the
course of writing the review, I played around with some of the
programs the book described, and did manage to get my own spam
filtering working better.
Last modified: Sun Jan 29 10:27:47 EST 2006
Report on January 24 meeting
We played:
We’ll be doing our usual drop-in sessions every Tuesday until late
March/early April, when we’ll have a play list for the Walk for
Hunger and will be restricting meetings to people planning to
perform.
So:
In spite of all the work we’ve been doing, we still have
eight Ingalls
pieces to try, as well as several that we’ve already tried and
need to do in different keys or with different arrangements of
parts. But we do have both Friendship and
Hope in the form we’ll probably sing and play them
in.
In addition, everyone’s welcome to suggest spring music for the Walk
for Hunger or dream music for the June performance.
Last modified: Wed Jan 25 09:19:11 EST 2006
Report on the January 17 meeting
We played:
Regular drop-in meetings until further notice. So:
We’ll be continuing to read through the Ingalls that Tom Malone has
suggested we try, so those who have the book are encouraged to
bring it. Anyone who doesn’t have one and would like one should
talk to me or Ishmael. They cost $16.
We’ll also be working on Spring music for the Walk for Hunger and
Dream music for the June 21 gig; suggestions are welcome.
In
addition to the already announced performances, the Boston Recorder
Society is planning a Play the Recorder Month event sometime
in March or early April.
I had been sending regular announcements only to people who were
coming, or at least telling me why they weren’t coming. But
we’re getting better attendance the last couple of meetings when
I was sending them to the whole list, so I’m going to resume
doing that. If it’s a problem, let me know, and we’ll work
something out.
Last modified: Wed Jan 25 10:33:59 EST 2006
Report on January 10 meeting
We played:
I don’t know of anything getting in the way of weekly dropin
meetings. So:
We will continue trying out the Jeremiah Ingalls pieces that Tom
Malone suggested, and working on Dowlands and Ravenscrofts that
might fit our June gig. And requests are welcome.
Anne Kazlauskas,
assisted by Ishmael Stefanov on fiddle, will be singing 4 Scottish
ballads as part of the annual MIT Library Staff concert, sometime
during the 2-3PM hour on Wednesday, 18 January. This is at Killian
Hall, the small concert/meeting hall on ground floor of Building 14
(the main library building on Memorial Drive).
We have a number of people planning to come to the meeting tonight,
and a bunch of new stuff to try out. Of course, be sure to think
about whether there’s something you’d particularly like to request.
Last modified: Tue Jan 10 12:34:42 EST 2006
Report on January 3 and December 27 meetings
Last week we played:
This week we played:
We’ll be meeting every week for the forseeable future. (I can usually
forsee at least two weeks.)
The Delight Consort, directed by Judith Conrad and including Paul
Ukleja, will be playing this Sunday at the Loring-Greenough
House. More details about the program
here.
A Dufay concert with both instruments and voices by a number of
good people including Tom Zajac will be on Sunday at Saint
Peter’s Church (details)
Convivium Musicum, including Anne Kazlauskas, will be singing
William Byrd on January 21, 22, and 28.
The Boston Recorder Society Performance Group, including Bonnie Rogers
and Barney Gage, and coached by John Tyson, will be performing a
concert on January 22 (details)
And don’t forget the Boston Recorder
Society on January 22 and the West Gallery Quire
on January 8.
Last modified: Fri Jan 13 14:40:18 EST 2006
Plans for December 27 meeting
The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band will be on Tuesday,
December 27, at 7:45 at my place.
Note that this week we decided that the party on Sunday counted as
a meeting, so you are encouraged to attend one of the many
concerts that are happening this week instead. I’ll be going to
the Renaissonics
concert and CD release party at First Church in Cambridge.
It was as usual a very good party. Thanks to those who came, and
commiserations to those who had other commitments which
prevented them from coming. More food was left over than
usual, so we’ll be eating better than usual after the next few
rehearsals.
Nobody brought us any new Christmas music to try, although there were
a couple of suggestions for things to add to the book, which I
have now forgotten. So if you want your idea in the MMVI
addendum, either tell me about it, or bring it to one of
the next couple of rehearsals.
I don’t know of any reason not to have regular drop-in meetings for
the next several weeks.
Both December 27 and January 3 are within the Christmas season, so
we’ll probably do at least some Christmas music on both of those
dates.
We’ve started learning some dream-music for the June performance.
We’ve also been running through the new Ravenscroft rounds that
Bonnie’s transcribing for us.
We have a list of Jeremiah Ingalls pieces that Tom Malone thinks
would lend themselves well to our group’s forces, so we will be
running through those over the next few weeks, to select the
ones we want to perform in July. If you have the Ingalls book,
please bring it to rehearsals. If you don’t have it and want
one, let me know, or order one from Tom directly. I would like
everyone who performs to have a legally purchased copy; we will
be xeroxing a small number of copies for drop-in players.
I’ve added a number of people to the list over the last few weeks,
so here’s what you need to know to find out about our schedule.
The group information page is at windband.html.
This includes pointers to the FAQ, and
the blog.
I used to send email to the whole list after every meeting,
describing what we played and announcing when the next meeting
would be. The list is quite large, and at any given point only
a few people are coming regularly, so I now put all that
information up on the blog (often as two entries; a
report describing the last meeting, and a
plans entry for announcing the next meeting). I
attempt to email the whole list when the schedule changes in any
major way, but otherwise just email the regulars. I assume
anyone else who’s interested in what’s happening can look at the
blog, or email or phone me.
Last modified: Tue Dec 20 10:15:31 EST 2005
Report on the December 13 meeting
We played:
The party is Sunday, December 18, starting at about 5 PM.
We have decided to skip next Tuesday, December 20, so the next regular
meeting will be Tuesday, December 27. We have a suggested list
of Jeremiah Ingalls songs for the July concert, so we’ll be
trying one or two of those per meeting for a while. We’ll also
be trying out songs with a dream theme in preparation for our
June 21 performance. But it should be a while before we have to
start seriously putting programs together.
Last modified: Wed Dec 14 09:20:51 EST 2005
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