Well, many people might have known, but I didn't. If I don't make a blog post for a month, my blog seems to vanish, replaced by a link to its archives, which is what some of you may have seen, if you've been to the blog recently. You might have thought my blog was defunct.But it isn't. I've only been on vacation. I've redated the last post I wrote before I left, to create some activity here. And in a couple of days, I'll be back home, and posting again, full of vacation tales about renegade cows -- and news about my long-delayed book. Some of … [Read more...]

Eva Hoffman, Appassionata. It seemed at first like a quiet novel, but lovely and honest, about a concert pianist beginning a tour. All the music she plays is old music (the standard piano repertoire), and all the feelings she has about it seem inward-turning, emotions not strongly connected to the world outside. Of course that's one of the things I don't like about classical music now, but still I was drawn to the book, because, as I said, it's so honest. And the honesty is both emotional and musical. This is one of the few novels I've read … [Read more...]