In the first season of 30-Rock, Jack Donaghy staticizes Liz Lemon as “New York, third wave feminist, college educated,” a bunch of offensive stuff, and “Every two years you take up knitting for a week.” I have tried to learn to knit at least half a dozen times.  Within that demographic,  that’s roughly twelve years  Read the Rest…

On my recent stint as a water-colorist on board a cruise ship, Nancy, my traveling companion and occasional container for my mental health, took photographs to preserve her impressions.  I wrote.  Here are some vignettes: *                            *                            Read the Rest…

(written aboard the S.S. Wish I Was Home, June/2011) A cruise ship operates on a feudal system.  The peasants smile, say good morning, look exhausted and serve the Revenue Guests until their wide feet ache.  The RGs have so many needs that I understand why room service sometimes brings the cream but the water is  Read the Rest…

There was a regular rodeo at the OK Chorale last week when a TV crew filmed a rehearsal.  Joe Fryer from King-TV and I had been in negotiations for a week about a story on the Chorale.  A week ago Tuesday he asked if they could film us the next day. Up until then I  Read the Rest…

Every few months, my adult students get together for the Terrified Adults and Spotlight Whores Sunday Afternoon Musicales.  These could easily last all day what with my more confident students wanting to pull out another and another piece.  “And now for my fourteenth song.  .  . . I schedule the recitals for my young students  Read the Rest…

Here’s a cheap trick: I’ve learned that traffic on my blog shoots up when I have a titillating title.   Now you’re here, you might as well hear what I have to say about Sigmund Freud because his birthday was May 6, 1856.  He no longer has that much to do with the way analysis is  Read the Rest…

I’ve got this lovely piece of music in front of me and I am musing about loss of innocence in a post Thomas/Hill world.  It’s called “Matona, Lovely Maiden,” and I first heard it on a long playing LP of the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir.  I was probably eight years old.  On the album cover was  Read the Rest…

Most of us of a certain age have heard that “Every Good Boy Does Fine.”  It was de rigueur for learning music notes on the lines of the treble staff.  I must rant about the inherent sexism but before I do, I want to launch the news that piano isn’t taught that way anymore. When  Read the Rest…

Winston and the late Edwina and were five year old cats when Freud and Artemis joined the household.  Just six weeks old, they were stray pieces of fluff, one orange and white, one jet black; with flat baby noses, pink tongues and soft paws.  They pounced on anything that moved and stalked single grains of  Read the Rest…

It was a six Xanax quarter with the OK Chorale.  They always pull it off in the end but three pieces made me wonder if this was the quarter when we would break our streak: I didn’t know much about Abba.  My popular music education stopped in 1972. (See https://www.elenalouiserichmond.com/2011/03/piano-students-part-2-the-adolescents/ )  Then one of my  Read the Rest…