Dec 21
I saw and liked this set of lyrics in an ad in The Nation magazine some years ago. Yesterday, the eve of winter solstice, I tried to find it online so that our little group of family and friends could sing it together. It wasn’t indexed in the magazine’s online archives. I also combed through …
Dec 08
On Saturday Dec. 6, I was part of an impromptu group that got together on the steps of the endangered Berkeley Main Post Office and sang a version of “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Hali Hammer, with the guitar, center, was the sparkplug for the event. I’m a row behind her, three people to the …
Feb 04
Monday evening began with a combined Tax the Rich and Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline rally on upper Solano Avenue, Berkeley. Then the crowd lined up outside the Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse in downtown Berkeley, where Holly Near organized and MC-ed a two-hour memorial for Pete Seeger. This video contains a few short samples. The …
Jan 30
OK, so I’m an old softie. I cried during the first act of Giselle last night. Thanks to a donation to KQED, we had tickets to the San Francisco Ballet’s performance of this venerable classic. They weren’t great tickets — next-to-last row in the Orchestra section — but even from there, the show had its …
Jan 28
Pete Seeger is dead at 94. He set a shining example of life as an artist and activist and a warm, loving human being. I weep for him, and because of him I’ll go out on the street again and sing the good songs. Good bye, Pete Seeger. You’re missed.
Dec 20
The earth wobbles. Fortunately, it wobbles slowly and regularly. Tomorrow morning, December 21 2013, its axis stops tilting away from the sun and begins to tilt closer. Result: in the northern hemisphere, the days get a bit longer. In the southern hemisphere, the opposite. For folks on the equator, all the hoopla above and below …
Dec 09
San Francisco Chamber Orchestra leader Ben Simon took classical music forward into the multimedia age this evening at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. He led the Palo Alto (Youth) Chamber Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s Great Fugue accompanied by YouTube virtuoso Stephen Malinowski projecting a synchronized visual animation of the score. The effect …
