Who wrote that Christmas Song?
You might be surprised to learn that many Christmas songs were written by Jewish songwriters! Check out the story on the Jewish Publication Society blog: Jews and Christmas music – not such an unlikely mix!
Adon Olam
The tapestry created by weaving music and poetry together can be stunning. Let me give you an example. You can listen to Fortuna’s mesmerizing rendition of Adon Olam, a beautiful hymn in the Jewish Liturgy, here. This song is on the album Cantigas. If you do a Google search, you can find other sites to [...]
You might be in New Orleans if…
you have someone playing piano at breakfast in a street café. Great little place found in Uptown New Orleans: Oak St. Café.
New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival
Got some time and want some terrific local food (and plenty of drink)? Head to Uptown and check out the New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival today. We observed some of the set up (and the aromas of the food being prepared) while out and about for breakfast. Looks like some GREAT music will be here [...]
New Orleans Street Music
Daytime street musicians in French Quarter.
Theological “training” outside the box (way outside)
If you read Fred Putnam’s piece about teaching/learning that I mentioned the other day, then you would probably be interested in looking over his very detailed proposal for The New School of Theology. Here’s a snippet from the proposal, which gives a a basic overview of the vision (later in the proposal are more details): [...]
Gödel, Escher, Bach: Session 7
A day late. Sorry folks. But I think I may be talking to myself by now. So, since we are at #7, I think I’ll let that be the perfect ending of our little discussion group (for now). I know this was a little ambitious to take on (schedule-wise), so I will re-think another book [...]
Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB): Session 5
I’ve been a bit under the weather the past few days, but I don’t want to get behind on this project. So… onward! Current Assignment: Thursday, September 24 (where is the month of September disappearing to!!??) Read: Contracrostipunctus and Chapter IV: Consistency, Completeness, and Geometry Listen: Contrapunctus 19 from the Art of Fugue (BWV 1050). [...]
Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB): Session 4
We spent the weekend at Bald Head Island with family… what a great way to say goodbye to summer. In the BHI Conservancy shop we found a tempting book/kit: M. C. Escher Kaleidocycles: An Illustrated Book and 17 Fun-to-Assemble Three-Dimensional Models. , According to the publisher: A Kaliedocycle is a three-dimensional ring made from a [...]
Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB): Session 3
I hope the MU puzzle didn’t discourage too many of you from continuing to read this book (see here for explanation of what we are doing and here for a schedule). I’m going to assume it was a busy weekend and people just didn’t get around to posting anything about the last section. That’s ok. [...]
Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB): Session 2
Well, we’re off and running (pun intended). I hope you are beginning to see that this book is about much more than the intersection of mathematics, art, and music. Current Assignment: Monday, September 14 Read: Three-Part Invention and Chapter I: The MU-puzzle Listen: The Three-Part Ricercar, from the Musical Offering (BWV 1079), introduces the King’s [...]
Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB): Session 1
On Thursday of this week we will begin our group discussion of Hofstadter’s book, Gödel, Escher, Bach (see here for more details). I’m posting this a little early since it is the first assignment/discussion. The plan is to post on Thursdays and Mondays so that participants can start commenting (this means you will have to [...]
And now, for something completely different: GEB virtual course
I’ve been thinking of finding some folks to “take” one of MIT’s OpenCourseware classes together. After thinking through various possibilities (face-to-face bookclub, social networks, listserv, etc), here’s my proposal: Use my blog as the meeting place and record of conversation for the MIT course: SP.258 / ESG.SP258 Gödel, Escher, Bach The Penrose triangle, also known [...]
