I Must Have Been Picking Cherries

One would think it would be a responsibility ... a paper due, an Aristotle chapter left unread.  I'm afraid it was no such thing.  I must have been picking cherries.

Our Blunders

... mostly come from letting our wish ...

"The Glory of the Lord"

I. You probably know the Handel chorus; it belongs in the suite from Messiah that they play—yes, even They—every year around Christmas.  It begins with the alto line, bald, plain, unpretentious, but doggedly determined, with the accent on the glory: And the glory, the glory of the LORD!  And of course, with LORD, all the voices sing together, like all the nations aftermentioned, and indeed, His glory is revealed.

Canticum Veterem

I'm not normally an enthusiastic Fauré fan, but there are a few exceptions ...

The Peculiarity of Ill Temper

... is that it is the vice ...

Wiggle

I sat there with my pen poised, unsure of the word I wanted.  The sonnet (Shakespeare's, not mine) stared back up at me, saucily flaunting the rather obvious pun that I had decided to annotate.  But annotate how?  One little pun didn't deserve a full-page commentary (pace Booth, whose edition I was suffering); even if it dad, I hadn't the time to rewrite Booth's commentary in the course of a single reading for a single class.

If You Go In

You may have noticed there was no music yesterday.  That is partly because Ash Wednesday ought to be penitential, and partly because, well, I had plans for this week's piece.

He That Would Have a Short Lent

... let him borrow money ...

Bother Eudaimonia

It is the task occasionally of the blogger devoted to the readers’ (as distinct from but hopefully not opposed to, her own) good, to remind said readers of an unpleasant fact or two.  Some like to refer to such unpleasant reminders as “public service announcements.”  I suspect that the usher who closed the Shrine half an hour early was merely giving the worshippers a public service announcement; and I am fairly certain that the advertisers who load my mailbox with circulars and my inbox with spam are performing a public service in so doing.  About the man who points out a smudge on my blouse of the woman who sees a spot on my tie I am less sure.  As for the professor who finds it a public service to announce the deadline for our twenty-page research papers, his proclamation may be public, and might even by a stretch be deemed serviceable; but the marriage of the two terms seems to be taking the compliment to his generosity too far.

Your Mid-Week Comedy

This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing Ponnelle's Le nozze di figaro for the first time, and remembering just how much I love the opera.  Especially this part ...

There Are Three Things Extremely Hard

Steel, a diamond ...

To the Temple

By most calendars it's no longer Christmas.  My creche is still up; but that's only because I keep it up all year.  (Well, the important parts anyway—the sheep will be going back into hibernation this weekend.)

Patience Is a Tree

... whose root is bitter ...

Mere Charity

Most of the Inauguration I did not watch, but I wanted to hear the speech.  (These things can be important, as anyone who's just seen Lincoln or done an American literature survey course will tell you!)  I must confess, it was rhetorically quite good.  They (the speechwriters) struck an impressive balance between using conservative and libertarian language at the beginning and undermining that language, explicitly, a few minutes later.  I hope the good guys were taking notes.

Come the Drums

If you've ever wondered how it feels to have loads of Bakhtin, Mukarovsky, and Saussure to read (and if you have—in the memorable words of the Light Princess—"I pity you!"), listen no further.

A Man Never Gets What He Hoped For

... by doing wrong; and if he seems to do so ...

The Rain in Spain

Google has a snow plow up.  They must not be based in D.C.  In D.C. and the surrounding areas, it is raining.  It's enough to make a snow lover wish for sunny skies and southern climes ...

A Slip of the Foot

... you may soon recover ...

Happily Unsatisfied

One of the many pleasures of having congenial roommates is that there is no need to hunt for things to do come Friday night.  For that matter, there's no need to hunt for things to do come Monday night ... or Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Between the washing of dishes after a decently timely meal and the going to bed at an indecently late hour, all sort of fascinating topics arise: from hats to denim skirts to the columns of Agony Aunts; from Mali's wars to the legitimacy of "qui" in Scrabble, with the occasional dip into the more lighthearted questions, such as how soon the Day of Judgement will come. 

My Brother Sings

As those of you who know my brother know, it's hardly shameless nepotism to post this—he's really quite good!  And the Cheese Lords aren't anything to sneeze at themselves ...