My listening post this evening is with the TV series Grimm in the background, a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon to my left, and a fresh page of a note pad to my right. (If you’ve never seen Grimm, you owe it to yourself. It’s a great cop show set in Portland, Oregon. It’s like a … [Read more…]
My listening post this morning is at a table, quite early in the morning, in a local franchise of the Restaurant-Chain-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. An Asiago bagel (toasted twice) with plain cream cheese, and this establishment’s signature Light Roast coffee are poised on my left. My trusty note pad and pen are similarly poised on my right. Both … [Read more…]
My listening post today is in the living room while the Disney movie Tangled plays in the background. The background is not for me. It’s for my wife. She’s in the kitchen cleaning, organizing, arranging (her love languages), and preparing for Thanksgiving dinner later this week. We are hosting it again this year. I’m sitting … [Read more…]
My listening post this morning is Baker Book House, the largest theological book store in the Midwest. This is an amazing place to work, get coffee, eat a scone, and browse rows and rows and rows and rows of books, especially used books. Anyway, here I am listing to Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989), … [Read more…]
My listening post this morning overlooks the early November snow and the increasingly more iced-over lake. Global Warming, my ass. Anyway, as I sit here freezing my aforementioned ass off, I’m listening to Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) from his legendary 1963 Beethoven cycle, Berliner Philharmoniker, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major. … [Read more…]
My listening post this morning is in a tiny house in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. If you look really closely at Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night, just to the right of the steeple, you can see me. I’m wearing a red beret. Just kidding. Actually, my listening post this morning is inside a steamer trunk. It’s … [Read more…]
My listening post today is overlooking the lake on a bleak, cold, snowy early November. The temperature is 28° (that’s -2°C to all my overseas friends). It may not be the coldest November in Michigan history. But it ranks right up there. This winter is going to be a bitch. Thankfully, it’s the perfect day … [Read more…]
This morning, my listening post has actually been three places – this, a local bagel shop, then a local car dealership to swap my snow tires with my regular tires, and now…my actual office. Yes, I’ve had a hectic morning. And that’s okay. Because, in each place, I listened to German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954), … [Read more…]
My listening post this morning (with Iron Maiden’s Powerslave album on low in the background) is overlooking the snow-covered balcony. The temperature outside is 30 degrees Fahrenheit, which is -1 Celsius. No matter how you measure it, it’s cold. Because I can barely hear Maiden in the background (it’s at the same level as music … [Read more…]
This morning, while I eat my tasty Midwestern Scramble at New Beginnings Restaurant, I look outside to see our first major snowfall of the season, sip quite tasty coffee that doesn’t seem to have a bottom because of the crack team of wait staff here, and I listen to Austrian conductor Karl Bohm, Wiener Philharmonica, … [Read more…]