The G Sequence in Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Klavier is up. I'm planning to record the 4 in each set (Major Prelude & Fugue, Minor Prelude & Fugue) each mo...

One of the many blessings of this quarantine season is the discovery of virtual musicianship - the sight of 69 members of the Royal Choral Society crushing T...

On Sunday, The Observer ran a story on a Finnish man who had to cut his tree down. He dressed his two brothers in images of celebration and mourning (a wedd...

Update: A week after these events, the author left Finland himself, and is happily at home with his quarantined spouse. It all starts with Karkku. Karkku i...

Finished! For links to the music, click on the image above. The recordings are now available as a continuous album - for that, click on "WTF: The Album,"...

Update: For the music and commentaries to this project, go here: "The Well-Tempered February" You'll find a recording of each piece and a further link to a ...

TOP TEN REASONS TO LIVE IN FINLAND 10. They Color Code Everything When you pay for a bus pass they ask you to choose between an entire box of different colo...

The Icelandic people are fed up with me leaving things behind in buses. This time it was a hat and a turtle (a kind of circular neck warmer, very good in hi...

The 12 Days of Retirement On the first day of retirement, my new life gave to me: A puzzle of Notre-Dame in 3-D! On the second day of retirement, my new life...

I have bionic ears. I can hear the song on the car radio three streets away. The bass two seats down is actually singing in tune. I can even hear when peo...

The first of a series of short essays based on the 24 Preludes and Fugues in Book I of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Taking Flight "It sounds like a beach." ...

Update: After two weeks of fruitless searching, it's now clear that Lionel was picked up by a trucker and is now in Arizona. Or that he decided that the li...

So I’m in the bath listening to some retired admiral on CNN say that Mattis should step up and testify on the Hill when suddenly his voice changes and he’s t...

(This post is dedicated to Mark Conroy, Nan Johnson, and Chris Zacher, English Department colleagues who died this summer shortly after their retirements. D...

Ludwig II was framed. His father, Maximilian II, died three days after falling sick, and was probably poisoned by his uncle. That same uncle became Regent ...

Our first meeting of the Beckett Reading Group was today. We missed Chere and Todd, who have moved to St. Paul, so this is a record for them of what they mi...

One may as well begin with Theodore's text messages to his father. "The dates" are Thursday September 19 - Wednesday September 25, when Teddy and I were plan...

Fragments of a poem, found in a bottle at the foot of the Okjokull Glacier in Iceland in 2066. Ulysses in Greenland It little profits that an idle king, By t...

In most civilized countries, August is a time to take the family on a long vacation. Here in the United States, it's transition time: kids getting ready fo...

"Divorcing your university? I'm just trying to get one to propose to me," said Yonina Hoffman, the future of English Studies. Yonina Hoffman (English) and ...