For the music history course I’m teaching in the fall, I decided to look at how songs can have political influence. One section will be devoted to propaganda songs and […]
Watching an interview between Andre Previn and Oscar Peterson. Oscar says when he was a late teen he had become arrogant about his piano capabilities and his father, a man […]
I saw a trailer for a new film about Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was tortured and hung by Hitler for not behaving like a Nazi. Trailer looks very Hollywood […]
My cousin is 96 years old. If my father was alive he would have turned 100 this year. They were friends since childhood. I called him recently recalling how Gershwin […]
Finished Gad Saad’s Parasitic Mind. The part about Batesian mimicry stands out a lot. Creatures that imitate the look of other creatures but do not actually have the particular talent. […]
a student writes in their journal that they are trying to quit smoking and that they keep failing then realized they also keep practicing new scales on piano and do […]
I noticed an advertisement outside the Revue Cinema on Roncesvalles that they were playing Roadkill tonight, so I went. Don McKellar and Valerie Buhagiar did Q&A afterwards. I saw it […]
One of the big discussions in AI is whether robots can ever become conscious. I like how it assumes we humans are conscious and not also machines. Are we not […]
I am so amazed by many Iranian people on X and Instagram and even people I meet teaching at Seneca and at Western who articulate the repression and restrictions of […]
Bob Dylan’s sagacity is very present in his memoir Chronicles, Volume One. I particularly liked recounting the Oh Mercy sessions with Danny Lanois, who urged Dylan to delve into weightier […]