Born 107 years ago today in Springfield Mass., Theodor Seuss Geisel had an extraordinarily prolific career. Â Most people know him for the 44 books he wrote and illustrated under the name “Dr. Seuss.” Â But that’s only part of his career. Â He wrote another 13 books under the name “Theo. LeSieg,” one book as “Rosetta Stone,”
As we celebrate the birthdays of Mozart (255th) and Lewis Carroll (179th) amidst threatened cuts to arts funding, we might re-read Yuko Takao’s A Winter Concert (1995; English translation, 1997).  Rendered in thin dark lines on a white background, mice walk to a concert. As the pianist begins to play, colored pointillist shapes rise from
If you’ve played the Rovio game Angry Birds for any length of time, you’ll know Ari Pulkkinen‘s catchy theme. Indeed, the music is almost as addictive as the game –Â as some of these cover versions indicate. The Genevieve Trio‘s performance brings out a certain olde-worlde-folk-music quality that I really like. Accordion, upright bass (not pictured),
With a hectic new semester about to begin (or, for many of us, already begun) and our new governor’s proposed assault on some of Kansas’ most vulnerable citizens, let us seek solace – and inspiration – in the verse of our greatest living YouTube poet, Parry Gripp. Â As he counsels, when The world has gone
When I began this blog, I thought I would post more of the many mixes I make. I haven’t. But here’s the first uptempo mix of 2011 – a happy way to begin the year, and (for those educators and students out there) the new semester. 1)   William Tell Overture Sixth Wave (2004)     1:07 The first
1. Best novel that I missed when it came out: Guus Kuijer’s The Book of Everything (Scholastic, 2006). Narrated by a nine-year-old, this is an all-ages book about love, faith, and growing up. It has a sense of humor, too. I devoted a post to this book earlier in the month. 2. Album of the Year:
According to iTunes, these are the songs released in 2010 that I played most in 2010. As such, the list is going to skew slightly towards the beginning of the year (since those songs have been in the playlist for a longer period of time).  The number at the far right is the number of
A holiday classic for misanthropes: “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
Film Score Monthly’s newly released 3-CD original motion picture soundtrack to The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953) is a must for fans of Dr. Seuss, composer Frederick Hollander, or the film itself. The rest of you might want to see the cult classic before purchasing. And, for the record, if you’ve any interest in
The Record: Contemporary ART and VINYL, edited by Trevor Schoonmaker (Duke University Press, 2010), is both beautifully produced and delightful to read. Meditate on the photographs of phonograph-inspired art, or on the dozen or so brief essays, which are – to a person – all interesting. No kidding. I often just skip around in a book like