Teachers' Lounge

The greatest jazz opera ever?

Or, the the greatest piece of music ever created?

Hmmm. That's quite a leap, isn't it? I mean, how many jazz operas were ever created? And then to compare this particular work with the greatest music ever penned...

When I got divorced and headed for New Mexico in 2001, I left all my record albums and tapes with my wife. Since then I've acquired many of my favorite albums on CD (and at the same time discovered some artists new to me such as Melanie Zipin, The Arcade Fire, and goodness gracious me! Patti Smith and Horses)... Paul Simon's Graceland, Cat Stevens's Tea for the Tillerman, Kiko by Los Lobos, Dread Zeppelin's Un - Led - Ed, Love/Devotion/Surrender with Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts with Brian Eno and David Byrne, anything by Sun Ra...

I can live without Miles Davis's Bitches Brew. But my heart would grant me no peace until I was reunited with the one I left behind. On Wednesday, finally, after months of searching and waiting and canceled orders, I got my hands on a new CD of Escalator Over the Hill.

Truth Lies here maybe.

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Master Cellist, Conductor Rostropovich Dies at 80

Rest in peace, friend.

Riverbend is leaving Iraq

On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?

The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

The Great Wall of Segregation

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