Author: DJB

A Note of Thanksgiving As I Enter My 58th Year

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I had difficulty getting out of bed today…the last morning wake up of my 57th year. For some inexplicable reason my life is full – on the verge of overflowing – on the eve of my 57th birthday.  (I had to ask Candice, and she confirmed – when you turn 57 you are beginning your 58th year.  I never was great at math.)  First and foremost, Candice is wrapping up her stay in the hospital after successful hip replacement surgery on Wednesday.  We head home today to continue the recovery.  Both children are getting ready to go overseas (Claire by herself to Sweden; Andrew to Costa Rica) over spring break. Yikes!  How did that happen? My sister texted me last night to say my father went to the emergency room with a lung infection, high enzymes, and low sodium…and the news got worse when she called to say he had a mild heart attack this morning. I just spoke with my brother and Dad just came out of surgery where they found 95% blockage in one …

If I Had a Vote (Or “Quest for the Best, The Final Chapter”)

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Tonight is when the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announce their awards, and for once I’m ready! Friends who have known me for a long time will find it impossible to believe that I’ve seen eight of the nine Best Picture nominees BEFORE the Oscars are awarded…much less that I have an opinion on them.  I’m just not a film junkie. But empty nestdom brought a change in habits, and Candice and I made a pledge to see all the nominees.  We made it through eight before life, health and work kept us from closing out our pledge…but since Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is NEVER mentioned in all the pre-Oscar write-ups as having a chance of winning, I think we’re on safe ground here. Number eight in our marathon was The Tree of Life – which we watched today thanks to iTunes.  Easily the most complex of the nominees, Terrence Malick’s film was not among my favorites even though it attempted to explore greater depths on issues of life …

A Day at Joshua Tree

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National Parks are all unique.  They have different histories, different stories of how they were saved, different challenges in today’s world. I was fortunate today to be introduced to one of the most unusual:  the Joshua Tree National Park in California.  With a half-day to myself, I stuck my toe into the vast park where the Mojave and Colorado deserts converge and was fascinated with what I saw. What follows are photos from the northwestern edge of the park – from the village of Joshua Tree down to Key’s View, where one gets a remarkable panorama of the San Andreas Fault.  Here’s a bit from the park’s brochure about what one sees in this part of Joshua Tree: Amid the boulder stacks are pinyon pines, junipers, scrub oaks, Mojave yuccas, and Mojave prickly pear cacti….What tells you most you are truly in the Mojave Desert is the wild-armed Joshua tree.  It isn’t really a tree but a species of yucca….Joshua trees can grow over 40 feet tall – at the leisurely rate of an inch …

Baseball in America (Academic Edition)

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I have found a place in America where February baseball lives! For the Presidents Day holiday, I’m in Southern California for Family Weekend at Claire’s college.  We’re new to this whole Parents/Family Weekend deal, but if today is any indication I could definitely get use to these trips! This morning, I visited two political science classes that were very interesting.  One compared the works of Luther and Calvin; the other focused on the U.S. Congress.  Claire joined me for lunch at her favorite dining hall  (most of her classes – of the science variety – weren’t open to parents).  But as she prepares for the conference championships this weekend for her swim team, I’ve found myself with choices for how to spend my time that are entirely up to me. Which takes me to Baseball in America. That’s the title of the class I attended after lunch.  It was a synopsis of a fall semester interdisciplinary class that was designed to introduce freshmen to the rigors of college-level writing.  Taught by a life-long Dodgers fan …

In praise of Gallagher Guitars

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Gallagher Guitars have been in my consciousness – if not my life – since first putting the landmark Will the Circle Be Unbroken album on the turntable in 1972 and hearing the most famous words ever uttered about a Gallagher: Merle Travis:  That guitar, by the way, rings like a bell. Doc Watson:  It’s a pretty good little box — a Mr. Gallagher down in Wartrace, Tennessee made it. So I was thrilled to open the most recent issue of The Fretboard Journal and see a story and photo essay on Gallagher Guitars.  Regular readers know that I eagerly await the sight of The Fretboard Journal in my mailbox. The Circle album gave me the flat-picking/bluegrass bug, and I began thinking about a new guitar.  The first Gallagher I played for any length of time belonged to my long-time friend and clawhammer banjo player John Balch, who still plays his 1975 G-50 on a regular basis.  It was a beautiful sounding guitar which whetted my appetite for one of my own.  The first picture below …

Quest for the Best Part II (Or Have We Just Seen the Winner?)

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When last we visited, dear readers, Candice and I were on a quest to see all the nominees for Best Picture. Tonight, I think we saw the winner.  Or at the very least, my choice. I know, we still have four movies to go (who in the world came up with NINE nominations?!), but Hugo is such a wonderful story, told in a loving way, with that terrific 3D look…well, I’m ready to place my bets. (Column interruption:  I really don’t bet.  Every monetary bet I’ve ever made in my life, I’ve lost.  My good friend John Lane said it best:  “I have the same chance of winning the lottery whether I buy a ticket or not.”  Now back to the regularly scheduled blog post.) It doesn’t mean the other movies aren’t worth seeing.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all five.  I went to see The Artist with minimal expectations, but found it enchanting.  It didn’t hurt that we caught that movie in the restored AFI Silver Theatre here in Silver Spring – a perfect place to …

A Quest for the Best (Picture, That Is)

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Never in a single one of my 56 (almost 57) years have I seen all the films nominated for the Academy Awards Best Picture category.  Heck, most years I’m lucky to have seen one! This year will be different. What’s the use of having an empty nest if you don’t do things differently now that the kids are away, right? When the Academy announced its nominees for 2011 earlier this week, a light went off in my head.  Heck, I’d already seen two of the films:  War Horse and The Descendants.  How difficult could it be to see the others before the Academy Awards show late in February? How many do they nominate anyway, five? So I shot an email off to Candice and suggested we try to catch all the nominees before the show.  Candice – who would say my major failing as a human being is the fact that I seldom (read almost never) go to the movies – eagerly accepted. Okay, we’re on!  So let’s go to the Oscar website and make …

Celebrating 40 years of preservation

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(Editor’s Note:  The following are excerpts from my keynote address at the 40th anniversary of Historic Staunton Foundation, delivered on Sunday, January 22, 2012.  To read the full address, go here.) Anniversaries are great times to reflect, celebrate, and resolve. I’d like to do all three with you this afternoon. Let’s begin with some reflection.  I’ve always enjoyed the movie It’s a Wonderful Life – for the dramatic (some might say cheesy) way it showed the impact people have on others and on their community.   And while I’m no Clarence Odbody, the guardian angel who showed Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey the transformation of Bedford Falls to Pottersville as if George had never lived, I would like for all of us to reflect on how Staunton might have developed if HSF were not formed 40 years ago. Let’s begin down at the Wharf – where generations of visitors initially saw Staunton as they stepped off a train. The first thing you would notice is that there isn’t any Wharf…for the buildings that make up that unique historic …

Claire Lynch: A wonderful songbird keeps singing

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At one point in Monday night’s thoroughly satisfying concert by The Claire Lynch Band at the Institute of Musical Traditions, the band leader mentioned that she started in the music business 33 years ago.  It doesn’t seem that long ago when I heard her play at the Shenandoah Valley’s Oak Grove Music Festival, but in fact it may have been two decades since I saw her with the Front Porch String Band. Thirty-three years is a long time to be on the road, but Lynch and her band of hot young phenoms supported by veteran bass man Mark Schatz, had the energy and sound to more than satisfy the sold-out IMT crowd. Lynch has been an impressive band leader, prolific songwriter (truth-in-advertising: some co-penned in the past with my musical cousin, Hershey Reeves), and all-around pioneer in the acoustic music world…but she’s still most impressive as a singer. She showed us all time and again on Monday evening why she won the 2010 IBMA Female Singer of the Year award. Standouts from a wealth of …

Fiddle Heroes

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I’ve always enjoyed Mark O’Connor’s 1992 album Heroes – a series of fiddle duets that O’Connor plays with his musical idols and mentors.  There’s great music on the album – from jazz to bluegrass, western swing to world music – and listeners can easily see the range of O’Connor’s interest and his amazing ability to play comfortably in any idiom. The players are – to put it simply – amazing.  Ponty, Grappelli, Clements, Zukerman, Gimble and more. So I was thrilled to stumble across this clip on YouTube of behind the scenes footage of the recording of this album. Take ten minutes, sit back, and soak up the amazing musicianship of a dozen top fiddlers of their day.  Then if you don’t know the album, find it on iTunes and download it.  You won’t be disappointed. More to come… DJB