When words leave off, music begins. Heinrich Heine

Yes, it is June. As any parent can tell you, it is crunch time for parents. The halcyon days when you can sit in a crowded and hot and sweaty auditorium awaiting your child's few minutes of fame. Of course, no school district is different when it comes to inconvenient timing, (not enough time to eat dinner), length, (at least 3 hours), and date, (but John, Paul, Mag and Veronica have something on that date, too.) But then the girls sit down at the bench and all those inconveniences are tossed out the window. Just the girls and the piano keys!!! Enjoy.

Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. Robert Heinlein

I rather enjoy making my children's lives difficult. However, it does pay off for them.



A little known fact is that some 15 years or so ago, Maureen, too, played the clarinet. She came to hate it.

Lost in the Music?

If you have ever wondered what music for soundtracks is made of, I think you'll like the video clip you can find here . An aside: Gone "viral" is a show called Glee. Maureen and Claire both love the show, primarily because of this:
and this:

Hank Jones RIP

"To me, music consists of melody, rhythm and harmony, and if it lacks any one of those three elements, then it's not music anymore." - Hank Jones Hank Jones, whose self-effacing nature belied his stature as one of the most respected jazz pianists of the postwar era, died on Sunday in the Bronx. He was 91. By the 1980s, Mr. Jones’s late-blooming career as a band leader was in full swing. While he had always recorded prolifically — by one estimate he can be heard on more than a thousand albums — for the first time he concentrated on recording under his own name, which he continued to do well into the 21st century. He is survived by his wife, Theodosia. Mr. Jones was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 1989. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2008 and a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2009. And he continued working almost to the end. Laurel Gross, a close friend, said he had toured Japan in February and had plans for a European tour this spring until doctors advised against it. “I never tried consciously to develop a ‘touch,’ ” he told The Detroit Free Press in 1997. “What I tried to do was make whatever lines I played flow evenly and fully and as smoothly as possible. “I think the way you practice has a lot to do with it,” he explained. “If you practice scales religiously and practice each note firmly with equal strength, certainly you’ll develop a certain smoothness. I used to practice a lot. I still do when I’m at home.” Mr. Jones was 78 years old at the time.

Jon Anderson

When we saw Jon Anderson at B. B. King's Blue's Club we saw a lot of guys my age re-living the old glory days of the 70's when "Yes" was one of the great concert bands and bell bottom jeans and tank top shirts were the rage. If I remember it, I'll try to get my SUNY at Buffalo freshman ID posted and you'll see how much a hippie Uncle Joe really was. I sort of looked like a friendly Charles Manson. If you ask Paul what his favorite thing in NYC was, he'd tell you the nachos platter that had shredded beef up to the ceiling at B. B. King's. Meanwhile, while Paul was immersed in his nachos platter, this rather overweight 50 ish guy, (no, not me!) leaned over and told me that this was his 950th concert in his life. So, the guy has, in effect, for three full years of his life, been going to concerts. Given the fact that many of us spend one-third of our lives sleeping, (n.b., in Paul and John's lives it is about 2/3rds sleeping!), going to see concerts for 3 years of your life isn't something to be dismissed easily.

Jon Anderson

The boys and I were lucky enough to get to see some plays, (West Side Story and Wicked) and some music, (Jon Anderson and also The Bad Plus) at some great places. John and I went out to play at the Blue Note in the Village and saw the Bad Plus. Through great seating, we were right up against front and center stage. A dream come true for me... If I had the time and money, I would have gone from the Blue Note, over to the Village Vanguard, then to Birdland, then to Dizzy's Club and then to Iridium. A lot of history there. But we also really got into Jon Anderson who is the lead singer for Yes. Paul was able to get some video of Anderson during the evening, and what a smoothie and what a great concert!!!!!!!!!

We were in the Big Apple because Paul had an appointment with the Perkins School for the Blind -- a weekend program to help prepare for life after High School. Yes, there is life after high school! We had a great time. If anyone would like to go to NYC just get in touch with me and with Paul and John and we will take you down. Time Square, Radio City Music Hall, the Apple Store, Central Park, the Met, the MOMA, the U.N., the Village, Battery Park, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, ESPN Zone, etc.

More Later...

Good Friday

From time to time we have all prayed the Apostle's Creed. In the Creed there is a disjunctive and shocking statement: "He desended into Hell", that is, after His crucifixion, after His death, Jesus went to Hell. What does that mean? Well, here is what the catechism says: "The frequent New Testament affirmations that Jesus was "raised from the dead" presuppose that the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the others in the realm of the dead. But he descended there as Saviour, proclaiming the Good News to the spirits imprisoned there. "Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell" - Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek - because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received into "Abraham's bosom. It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Saviour in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into hell. Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him. "The gospel was preached even to the dead." The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfilment. This is the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places, for all who are saved have been made sharers in the redemption. Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth." Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. . . He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him - He who is both their God and the son of Eve. . . "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. . . I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead."