Good Morning

It's quarter to 7 a..m. I'm watching Washington Journal on C-SPAN.
Sometimes I call in and put in my two cents.

Anyway, I'm retired, an RN. I have Redwood trees in my backyard. I'll

Florida...

:) Now, there's something you don't hear every day. If I had
redwoods in my back yard, I'd carry a picture of them in my wallet.

be dropping in on your topics and posting once in a while. Looks like
lots of interesting topics here.

Florida...

Yes, and there's a lot of sincere passion expended in discussing
them, too. We're always interested in a new voice and new opinions.
The topics change over time, and stay heavily centered on politics, but
this group also cares deeply about everything from quantum physics to
who's running for dog catcher in Dogpatch.

Carol :)

Rita...

Welcome, Carol.

We are happy to hear from a new voice in our ongoing reflections
on the matters of mice and men. Seems from your interaction with
Washington Journal you keep up on current events.

George Z. Bush...

Welcome aboard. It won't take you long to notice that we have copious numbers
of both uniters and dividers and although we freely exchange views, rarely are
any altered in any way.

IAC, since you're an RN and one of my sons is an RN, that gives you extra
brownie points on my list of those with whom I feel obliged to remain civil.

As I said, welcome aboard. Feel free to sound off whenever the spirit moves
you.

George Z.

rg...

Hi Carol. I'm rg.

Boot...

Hi rg, thanks for the introduction and the headsup somewhere else. :)

I don't eat breakfast cereal, Olly, cause I am on the Atkins diet.

Boot...

I already do that myself! Would love to duet it, tho! Two pianos, of
course. I'll have to start looking for another one. I have a Steinway
console.

Violin, on the other hand, strictly for listening, altho I have taken
lessons on the dag-nab-bit thing. I now stick to old time music with
the fiddle, and mandolin.

Itzhak Perlman is my current fiddle idol. Have you ever seen him play
on TV? Joshua Bell was on TV this a.m. being interviewed. They
wanted to yak about his Stradivarius. We already know every fiddle
player of that caliber is playing a Strad or Amati, let's just HEAR it.
But noo, for the TV audience they have to talk about how its worth 2
million for about 20 minutes. I should save up my money and go to a
concert.

Did I mention I'm teaching my cats to talk? I was never successful
with my cockatiel so what makes me think I can get a cat to talk?

Rumpelstiltskin...

I have a Steinway console too, which seems something of a
coincidence since I guess not very many people have that
exact piano. Mine has a medallion above the keyboard on
the right-hand side indicating that it was made in Steinway's
centennial year, 1953.

Boot...

That's special. Mine was made in 1965. I love the sound of it. It
has the Steinway sound, just not as resonant in the air as the grands.

Rumpelstiltskin...

I'd been looking for a piano, and had tried out a number of them
in a used piano store, many of which I liked but I hadn't come to
any decision yet. On my way out, I idly struck a few notes as I was
passing on a keyboard along the exit path, and turned around in
astonishment at what I heard. That piano was of course what is
now my Steinway.

Who do you like to play? I'm obsessively stuck on playing a Bach
invention over and over. I used to play Beethoven, but he's too full
of anger for me now. I like Bach. Altho Tchaikovsky is grandly
romantic, his music is soo soulfully beautiful. I want to learn how to
play jazz now.

Rumpelstiltskin...

I've been playing less the last couple of years than I used to, but
am starting to get back into it. I haven't played at all since my
operation, nor have I done much of anything else and probably
won't until I feel better, but before the operation I took up again my
all-time favourite piece of piano/clavier music, which is the g-minor
fugue from book 2 of the Well-Tempered Klavier. A fairly close
second is the f#-minor fugue from the same book, but I'm not as
happy with my performance of that since I can't handle the trill in
the fugue theme - I substitute a mordant for the trill, which works
well enough, but the trill would be better.

I'm kind of stuck on fugues. The Mozart I most like to play is
the fugue from his Fantasy and Fugue K.394. That fugue comes
across to me as just about as perfect as any fugue could be. I'm
sure Bach would have been filled with joy at it if he could have
heard it.

If you have the software program "Noteworthy Composer",
there are a couple of things I've written under "Geoff Arrowsmith"
in the archive, but I think you have to have the program to
hear them. (It's a great program for setting out your music in
neat printable form, and for making midi files out of it, and it only
costs $29. It's much easier to use than most sequencers if you
write on paper as I do rather than recording directly keyboard-
playing.) The most recent piece of mine in the archive is a
quasi-jazz/quasi-classical piece, named "18th street" because
that's where I live, and while I was writing it, it was running
through my head as I walked around because the pace of it is
perfectly suited to my walking pace.

Noteworthy Composer is at:

and the archive of music ("scriptorium") is at:

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves" -- Wm. Pitt the Younger

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves" -- Wm. Pitt the Younger

But if you ask me about my cats, I guess we could have a non-flammatory
conversation. I'm trying to teach them to talk, after viewing the
"talking cats" video that's on the web.

I'm not anti-semitic. I judge each person in the totality of their
individual being, and whether or not they are nice to me.

Anyone who plays Mendelssohn's 5th on the fiddle is OK with me.

Carol :)

Gary James...

There are several of us cat people here. El Castor, Alan
Lichtenstein and myself.

Rumpelstiltskin...

And me. Since the last couple of nights have been cold, I've
constructed a temporary sleeping area for my cat that sits on
top of my own temporary bed. My cat's temporary area is a
cardboard box inside which is a heating pad covered with a
folded-up towel. He loves it.

Sordo is the leading bird lover of the group.

Sordo...

Although a cat owner and cat lover, I'm not noted as either..

Gary James...

I'm terribly sorry. It's been so long since we discussed them I
wasn't sure who had cats.

I remembered El Castor because he also has a bird, and I always
wondered how he managed. And it was only recently that Allan lost
his old cat and now has a new one.

I knew you, Sordo, fed a lot of wild birds. I now recall that Rumpel
has a cat.

So that means cathood has a lot of friends on this group.

Rumpelstiltskin...

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves" -- Wm. Pitt the Younger

Gary James...

You must have a big backyard.

California Poppy...

Welcome, Carol. Join in on whatever topics interest you. You will
find a variety of opinions on any topic.

Alan Lichtenstein...

Nice to see a fresh voice. Hope you post often.