Mr. Hamm at Grant Park High School gave me the keys to the music room. Not permission for Tuesdays between three and four. Not supervised access, conditional upon good behaviour. […]

A former student wrote to me late one night: “If a shadow realized it was merely a shadow, would that invalidate its position?” Then added: “Do you see this as […]

I returned to an old song this morning, the equivalent of opening a suitcase sat untouched in the basement for thirty years. The chords were wearing the same clothes, waiting […]

Strike a chord on a piano. We say the music is “out there,” but half of it is manufactured in a dark factory behind the eyes. I sit at the […]

I have always felt a debt of gratitude to Randy Newman, showing me that the “I” in a song does not have to be the songwriter, naked beneath a single […]

I am seriously close to breaking down and buying an older Mac to replace my ancient Mac. This means I will finally move closer to the year 2026, although I […]

This is how the headliner becomes a policeman. You walk toward the stagewearing the invisible badgeof contractual responsibility. You become Officer No Encore,Sergeant That’s Enough,Chief Inspector We Discussed This. You […]

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be playing in Dorchester and Stratford. The Dorchester show is also connected to a television production reminiscent of Channel 13, which makes the whole […]

The Jews are ancient enough to have negotiated a private arrangement with time. According to the Hebrew calendar, it is now he year 5787, which means history is older than […]

She said “Yorkton” in the careful tone people use when reminding you of something from that other century when telephones stayed home. But right away I remembered. I played Yorkton […]