All posts filed under: Random DJB Thoughts

A few more Memphis Highlights

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A few quick observations after spending the last 24 hours in Memphis… Any first-time visitor to the city has to make time to see the National Civil Rights Museum.  (Photo at the beginning of the post.)  I spent an hour on a tour with the museum’s curator and the head of Memphis Heritage this morning, and I’ve seldom been as moved as when standing between the restored rooms 306 (Dr. Martin Luther King’s room) and 307, viewing the balcony at the Lorraine Motel.  One listens to excerpts from his final “Mountaintop” speech, delivered the night before, and then looks up to see the boarding house across the street where history changed.  Later in the tour, the view is reversed, as you stand next to James Earl Ray’s bathroom and see the balcony, with the historic cars parked outside beneath a large wreath.  Very powerful. Tracey gave us an insiders tour.  We talked a great deal about the decisions behind the original exhibit and the thinking now underway for future exhibits.  I was pleased to see a section added with the support …

Passing 1,000

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Sometime between leaving Memphis this morning and arriving home this evening, More to Come…the DJB Blog passed 1,000 page views.  I started this blog less than 45 days ago as a way to update family and friends on our western trip this summer, but it has become a bit of therapy over the intervening six weeks.  Some fun stats:  the highest day of activity had 73 page views; the lowest had two.  I only started to figure out how to use this tag thing to attract visitors in the past two weeks, so my numbers since then have been much higher.  I realize 1,000 page views isn’t a lot in the blogosphere, but I’m okay with that.  Thanks to you for reading and for passing along some great comments. More to come… DJB

Tough Time to Be a Nats Fan

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Last night’s game between the Nationals and Padres was tough.  It is bad enough when two of the three teams with the worst records in baseball are playing.  But when the Nationals enter the game needing to win 5 out of the remaining 8 games to avoid losing 100 games for the season, there’s extra pressure. The pressure won. Routine grounders that should extend a shutout pitching performance turn into 3 unearned runs.  Balls lost in the lights turn into triples.  And the explanation for the latter shows just what we’re facing.  In this morning’s Washington Post, Nats left fielder Willie Harris provides the following explanation for his adventure in lights: “They’re among the brightest (lights) in the league, he said.  Sure, they’re a problem for opposing outfields, too, ‘but, I mean, we haven’t been hitting many balls in the lights.  They’ve been hitting the balls in the lights.’” Say no more, Willie.  It is a tough time to be a Nats fan.  But hey, let’s go win 5 out of 7.  And remember, the …

NEA Heritage Fellows Bring Back Memories

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On Friday, September 19th, the National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowships free concert will be held at Bethesda’s Strathmore Music Hall.  Each year the NEA awards one-time-only awards to traditional and folk artists, and I have special memories of the music of two of this year’s recipients. Bluegrass master Mac Wiseman has one of the great voices in bluegrass music.  Back in the early 1970s, I had stopped listening to rock and pop and was acquainting myself with all types of acoustic and traditional music.  I decided to attend a bluegrass festival, and the one I chose was Mac Wiseman’s Bluegrass Festival in Renfro Valley, Kentucky.  This was a time before the huge festivals and the Wiseman affair was definitely small scale.  However, it was very friendly to a young college student eager to soak up the music.  I remember hearing Wiseman, Martha and Eddie Adcock (they were also doing the sound), the Lewis Family, and more.  Mac Wiseman’s tenor and Adcock’s innovative banjo playing stuck with me through the years, and when I hear Wiseman …

Montpelier Restoration Celebrated Amid Praise for Madison

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Chief Justice John Roberts (left) was the keynote speaker on Constitution Day at James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange, Virginia.  Under a beautiful late summer sky, several thousand people came together this morning on the front lawn to hear of Madison – the Father of the Constitution and one of the most under-appreciated Founding Fathers – and to celebrate the completion of the restoration of his home, Montpelier.  It was a wonderful day that, as National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard Moe said, doesn’t get any better if you’re in this business. All the speakers rose to the occasion, but I found the remarks of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine especially thoughtful as he highlighted a Madison accomplishment, thought, and character trait.  The accomplishment was his role as Father of the Constitution.  To appreciate that accomplishment, Sir Christopher Wren’s epitaph at St. Paul’s Cathedral was recalled, “If you seek his monument, look around you.” Governor Kaine then referenced Federalist #10, which he described as one of the most influential political thoughts in American history.  This emphasis on the pluralism …

Random Ridge

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I just heard from my good friend Susan in California.  Her note reminded me of a wonderful time that my daughter Claire and I had a couple of years ago at Susan and her husband Bill’s vineyard and winery on the Sonoma/Napa border.  Susan was writing to say she enjoyed the blog and that she loved baseball, acoustic music, historic places, and teenagers.  Hey, she’s my target audience!  This is a post to connections and friends. Susan is a preservation lawyer.  Bill is a surfer, poet, and winemaker.  Their wonderful wine is Random Ridge and Claire and I enjoyed a delightful lunch and afternoon at their winery a year or two ago with the staff and families of the Western Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The day was rainy (hence the appropriateness of Susan’s photo of the double rainbow at Glen Ellen) but the friendship was warm.  Claire and the other children enjoyed playing with Susan’s dog and marveling at Bill’s ceilings made of surfboards.  The adults enjoyed the wine, food from …

Searching the Internet and Finding Miss Music Nerd

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One of the unexpected joys of starting a blog is that as you move around the Internet to find information or connect links, you stumble across interesting blogs that catch your fancy.  These blogs may or may not be connected to your topic(s), but you find the writing or subject so compelling you want to share with others. So every now and then I’ll share a discovery with you.  And the first such find is Miss Music Nerd!…because nerd is the new cool .  Last evening after posting a story on the new Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile CD, I clicked on the tag I established for Edgar Meyer and was taken to Miss Music Nerd’s blog.  There I found a wonderful posting entitled Music Vocab:  Catching Some Bass .  Here was a witty take on the "lowest instrument or voice part in an ensemble, whose name is spelled like a fish but pronounced like a foundation: the bass."  Miss Music Nerd is classically trained, but lest you think she’s boring (or too nerdy), read some more from Catching Some Bass …

Help End Breast Cancer

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My mother died of cancer more than 10 years ago at the age of 68, so like just about every American family ours has been touched by the disease.  A colleague from work is participating in an upcoming 3-Day walk to raise money to fight breast cancer.  I’m posting her most recent email on the topic to encourage you to donate…but also to encourage you to take a look at her blog from last year’s walk, which is a joy to read.  Click on her personal page and read Dolores’ stories from the Boston walk (begin at the bottom and work up). More to come… DJB I write this email tired but happy — I actually trained today!Yes, that’s right, I’m back in training for the Breast Cancer 3-day to raise money for Komen for the Cure. Some of you saw my email of about a month ago announcing my 3-Day redux. This email is just a short update on how things are going — and oh yeah, a fundraising request of course!As I last reported, …

Speaking in Memphis

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Later in September I’ll be in Tennessee to speak as part of the Memphis AIA’s Architecture Month Celebration .  My talk will include an overview of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual listing of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places (see 2008’s Boyd Theatre listing at left) and I’m looking forward to seeing friends and colleagues from Memphis Heritage. I wouldn’t want to return to my home state without letting family and friends know I was in the area.  (“In the area” is a bit of a stretch, I’ll admit.  Here’s a bit of useless trivia for you:  Bristol, TN is closer to Canada than it is to Memphis, TN.  It is a looooong state.)  So if you can drop by Memphis on September 24th, it will be great to see you. More to come… DJB