New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

This will be the last announcement of posts at Prufrock's Dilemma here at Raining Acorns.  I hope you'll consider following me directly at PD, if you haven't done so already.

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

New post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

I'll be phasing out notifications of new posts on Raining Acorns this month.  I hope you'll consider following me directly on Prufrock's Dilemma if you would like to know about new posts.

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there.

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

New post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

 There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

A new post is up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope you will join me there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

 

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

New Post Up at Prufrock's Dilemma

There's a new post up at Prufrock's Dilemma.  Hope to see you there!

Where We've Flown To

Susan Scheid (a/k/a Raining Acorns) can now be found at her new blog, Prufrock's Dilemma.  The first post, about Patti Smith and her book Just Kids, is up today and can be found here.  Hope to see you there!

Time to Take a Break

The Raining Acorns writing collaboration with Carol-Ann and Wide Open Spaces has been a wonderful adventure.  I can’t imagine any two better writing colleagues than they have been.

Photographing Birds in Flight

A few years back, I received a handsome tripod as a gift.  I’ve tried repeatedly to use it, but I always seem to point it in the wrong direction.  Bottom line, I don’t want to carry it when I’m out walking.  As it is, I look like a newbie journalist, my many-pocketed vest bulging with stuff I can never find and a camera and pair of binoculars criss-crossed like bullet holsters over the top.

“A Community of Expressers”

Excerpt from Hudson Space Sonnet #1
© Dylan Mattingly.  By kind permission of Dylan Mattingly.

David Bloom walked into Bard Hall, where a recital of student work was to be performed, and did a double-take.  The place was packed out, with people standing all around the perimeter.  He hadn’t been expecting such a crowd.

Just Some Poems: Du Fu in Translation

In translation, even Du Fu’s name is not a constant.  At the time Kenneth Rexroth translated him, the name in English of this Tang Dynasty poet was “Tu Fu.”  Or, as poet Charles Simic put it, “Du Fu, eh?  I knew him when he was Tu Fu.  A swell guy!”

Sailing Past Lachenmann: Why I'm Ecstatic

I may slouch along no longer.  The Ecstatic Music Festival, several concerts of which I had the good fortune to attend, has ended, and Helmut Lachenmann, who provided the frame for my “Slouching” series, recently received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Contemporary Music, with 400,000 Euros in prize money attached:

The jury singled out the importance of his creative works, which “based on an intimate knowledge of the musical past, have enlarged the world of sounds during the last fifty years in a way unmatched by any other contemporary composer."

Dali for the Ears: The Sound World of Derek Piotr

The first I knew of Derek Piotr was his response to a post.  I’d commented about Björk's remark that minimalism was her “abyss.”  I hadn’t seen Piotr's name before, so, of course, I had to look him up.

Slouching Toward Lachenmann: Transfiguring the Night

The only person who can help poor Schoenberg now is a psychiatrist.

-Richard Strauss

"You're a slouch not to like it," he said to me one day.  "Studying ordered relationships is ultimately the best there is.  Order is everything."
-Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus

When I was in high school, the curriculum included a mandatory music appreciation class.  In addition to being mandatory, the class marshaled all the worst features of classroom instruction to make its case:  a huge amphitheater of a classroom, an otherworldly teacher who wasn’t able to communicate his love of music to the class, and an approach of pure lecture with the odd bit of listening thrown in.