Our year in photos – 2010
2010 was the year of the college tours, the acquisition of a new guitar, and much more.
All posts filed under: Random DJB Thoughts
Images in Black and White
I’ve always loved black-and-white photography. In college I learned my way around a dark room and can still remember the thrill of seeing a photo appear on a blank piece of paper submerged in a tray of chemicals. So naturally, I was overjoyed when our daughter Claire – then a freshman in high school – expressed interest in learning old-style black-and-white photography. Over the course of the past three years, she’s produced some wonderful pictures. She has a great eye and has become more adventuresome each year. Now as she wraps up her work in high school, she’s put together a small gallery of 12 photos from her class. Click on the link and you’ll see what she’s posted. And I’ll end below with a photo of Claire’s that’s now on prominent display in her school’s gallery. This is a picture she took this summer at Mohonk Mountain House which looks like a time piece out of the 1940s. Can you tell…I think she’s great! More to come… DJB
Ave Verum Corpus – Music Made for a Cathedral
Yesterday Andrew and Claire were confirmed in a magnificent service on a beautiful fall day at the National Cathedral. There’s so much I could cover: The pageantry. The three bishops. The time spent with godparents and their families. The wonderful discernment process that our Assistant Rector, The Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson, led the twins through over the past two years. The personal thoughts that ranged from a baptismal service with two infants some 17 years ago to confirmation with two beautiful and talented young adults whom I admire for their thoughtfulness and integrity. Instead (no surprise) I want to talk about the music. The Cathedral Singers – comprised of women sopranos and gentlemen in the counter tenor, tenor, and bass roles – were in residence for yesterday’s service. Their work was beautiful throughout. But when they sang William Byrd’s Ave Verum Corpus, I just closed my eyes and listened to the wonderful melodies that come together in that magnificent piece reverberate around in the acoustics. When they finished, I turned to Claire’s godfather and said, …
Bush, O’Brien and Froggy Bottom
Two of my favorite musicians – plus one of this era’s best guitar builders – are all featured in the Fall 2010 issue of The Fretboard Journal which landed in my mailbox last week. Let’s begin with those musicians. I’ve been listening to New Grass Revival founder Sam Bush (on the right in the picture by Thomas Petillo at the top) since about 1973. A few years later I began to hear Hot Rize member Tim O’Brien in a number of venues. Both are multi-instrumentalists who have stretched the boundaries of bluegrass since coming on the scene. The Fretboard Journal has a laid back yet informative “conversation” between Bush and O’Brien as the cover story of the most recent issue. The topics are wide-ranging, from playing with jazz pianist Bill Evans at the Blue Note to the night when Bush and Mark O’Connor joined the Hot Rize alter ego band Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers for a set. When the conversation turned to hearing someone for the first time, my mind went back to the …
War Horse
I saw my first London theatre production this evening. Wow! I picked a great one to start. A colleague on the Executive Committee of the International National Trusts Organisation (INTO) pulled together a group of six of us to see the New London Theatre’s production of War Horse, at the end of two days of meetings at the National Trust’s London headquarters. After a late afternoon tour of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (motto: it is amazing what you can build when you have the world’s treasures at your disposal), we walked past St. Martin’s in the Field, the National Gallery, and into the theatre district. London is a great place at night! War Horse is an incredibly moving story of horses conscripted to fight in World War I, told in a remarkable way with life-sized puppets. The trailer that I’ve attached to the end of the post gives an idea of the realism these actors and puppeteers achieve, but seeing it live tops any video. As one of my colleagues said, “I knew I …
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
My daughter Claire goes to a wonderfully creative and nurturing school, where the administration and faculty are especially thoughtful as they work to bring important issues before the students and their families. Which is how I came to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. At the beginning of the summer, the Head of School sent out a letter to the entire school family – faculty, rising freshmen, and high school students – and asked everyone (faculty, students, and parents) to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. This is not the type of book I would normally read. As a former history major I generally run from books about science. (I still remember my high school biology teacher grabbing my ears in class one day to demonstrate to my classmates how ear lobes differ from individual to individual. I wasn’t in favor of involuntary testing on human beings then and I’m still not!) But I’m so pleased we were “required” to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks because this is …
Three Days in the Tetons
I’m trying to remember the beauty of Grand Teton National Park as I face a two-hour layover in the Denver airport. With Sunday NFL Countdown and FIBA basketball competing on the airport television screens, it isn’t easy…but pictures always help. We just spent three terrific days in the park, studying the work to save both natural and cultural resources. As a first time visitor, I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s work with the National Park Service to save the White Grass Dude Ranch demonstrates how the country can achieve a proper balance in saving and reusing its historic legacy in a place of stunning beauty and critical environmental preservation issues. The dude ranches were instrumental in proving that this land could be attractive to tourists visiting from the east. The places that remain in telling that story deserve to be preserved. So take a look at a few of the hundreds of photos I took at Grand Teton National Park – beginning with the Snake River shot …
Hiking to Phelps Lake
Photos from a cool, rainy day of hiking in Grand Teton.
First Day of School
For the past thirteen years, we’ve taken a picture of our twins, Andrew always on the left and Claire on the right, as they head out for the first day of school. We began this practice as they took off for Kindergarten, looking smart in their new uniforms and not a little bit apprehensive. Candice and I love this picture at the top of the post because it captures this time in their lives so perfectly. Yesterday, we took the picture below of our two seniors in high school, heading off once again for another year of school. There are so many wonderful memories between these two photographs. Later in the day, I was headed to the airport in a taxi with a driver who told me he was from Togo. He couldn’t stop talking about his daughters – the oldest is a student at St. John’s University, the next is a high school junior in Washington, and the youngest is in elementary school. It was clear that they had achieved a great deal, with …
Finding my new Running Dog guitar
I’ve been thinking about a smaller guitar for some time, to take my music in different directions and to help move beyond what has been a rather long plateau of musical mediocrity when it comes to playing. But the time was never right, the funds were always tight, and I had other priorities. A couple of months ago I broke through a personal logjam, and in the process started focusing more on enjoying my music. (I am good enough to know that I’m not that good, but I decided not to worry about it anymore.) Candice and I talked, and I told her my dream of getting a new guitar. She said, “Let’s go for it.” Of course I had a plan and even discussed it with some friends. I had a builder in mind and even sought out some of their guitars to test drive. But then I stumbled across a beautiful Running Dog guitar and decided to seize the day. Two weeks ago we were in New England with our twins for college …
