PEACH IN OUR TIME!

Lieber Herren und Damen:
It’s the Return of the Peach!
Now I know what the fabulous Donna Barr has been moiling at all these months. The Desert Peach is my hero: suave, courteous, self-controlled, brave, tender-hearted, with a core of steel (if you’re a gay officer in the Afrika Korps, you better have that) and an earring [...]

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Spring Training

Every time I train someone just for friendship’s sake — in this case, my little engineer friend, who is somewhat plump and claims to wish he were less so — I remember why I don’t do it for a living.
People are always telling me I should. I’m good at it. I throw myself into it, [...]

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Late Night Thoughts

My father played the French horn. It would be tiresome to narrate the events that surrounded his buggering off out of the area in 1976, except to note that he made some recordings for the US Library of Congress, on historic instruments, shortly before doing so.
According to my snakey stepmother, up until having a stroke [...]

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T-Shirt and Socks Friday, 3-27-09

Last month a nation’s nostalgic cat lovers said goodbye to one of the few cats who has ever occupied the White House (for some godbenighted reason, our Presidents tend to get dogs; yappy, goopy, drooly dogs).

I own at least three Socks the Cat T-shirts but this is the most personal. Back in late 1992, when [...]

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Atholl Brose

I own a bottle — well, at this point about a half bottle — of a parlayed whisky spirit known as Atholl Brose, which involves Scotch whisky and oatmeal “brose” (the brew that results from steeping oats in water without cooking). One thing and another, I decided to go spelunking on the Net for a [...]

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Paradiso

Died and went to heaven last night, so this post is late.
Once upon a time in 1982 I chanced to see a handbill stapled to a phone pole for a “Schubert, Schubert and Schubert” festival scheduled for three nights at Georgetown University’s acoustically magnificent Gaston Hall. One of those best kept secrets, up on the [...]

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Don’t Make Me Get Out My Flying Monkeys

Since Christmas, I have been the proud owner of a flying monkey and one of the cats is in love with it.
Because of the two teenage siblings whom I count as friends — the only “kids” I can really stand for longer than it takes to draw a breath and yell “fuck off” — I [...]

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And Other Musical Matters…

An exchange on a rare visit to Facebook moved me to look up this delicious old piece of ersatz Strudel. It’s as good as ever.

For my sins, I once sang in a chorus of ex-pat Germans who loved to push back the furniture after rehearsal and put a good polka on [...]

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Questions That Madden Me

Every time I wander into the room where the radio is on and chance to hear the last few bars of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, I think I’m hearing a Bruckner symphony until the announcer comes on.
This has happened twice since New Year’s, and I’m certain it happened back before Christmas.
So: should I wonder why [...]

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Fold on the Dotty Line

I’m partial to the Trader Joe’s chain, despite promotions so twee as to induce a diabetic coma. The grub is good, cheap and crap-free, and if you hit the place around midday you can even get through the aisle without having to run over one of those goddam kiddie carts.
Today I dashed in there after [...]

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