All posts filed under: Random DJB Thoughts

This is where I put anything that is not easily categorized…

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

Nats vs. Mets – On Any Given Night

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One of the great things about baseball is that on any given night, the worst team in the league has a decent chance at beating the best teams in the league.  You may believe that’s true in any sport, but think about how often you see a lousy NBA team give a top-notch NBA team a close game.  I can’t think of many times.  However, with baseball you see it virtually every night. And tonight’s no exception.  I’ve been doing chores and keeping my eye on the televised game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Metropolitans .  The last time I checked, the Nats were battling the Mariners and the Padres for the worst record in baseball.  The Mets, on the other hand, had the third best record in the National League and were leading the East. So the Mets jump off to a 2-0 lead and you think to yourself, “Uh-oh, it is going to be a long night.”  Well, that’s true, but not for the reason you think.  Everytime the Mets pull …

In Praise of Independent Coffee Houses

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Dolores emailed me this morning to say that our neighborhood coffee house here in Silver Spring – Kefa Cafe – was having a customer appreciation day with free food.  Candice and I had been looking for a time to have a coffee together, so we braved the remnants of Hanna that are making their presence felt in Washington today and enjoyed our coffee, pastries, and good company. There’s a nice post on Kefa on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s This Place Matters site where Dolores tells why this is her Third Place in Silver Spring.  Run by two sisters since 1996, it is a great place to hang out, enjoy good food, and meet interesting people.  Candice and I shared our table today with two middle age guys who just returned from their weekly basketball game at a local gym…a tradition they’ve continued for 20 years. Support that special independent coffee house in your town.  Like all unique and special places, they are going too fast. More to come… DJB

How do those bluegrass guys (and gals) play so fast? The true story!

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(NOTE from 2021: Since I wrote this post way back in 2008, the website referenced is no longer active. Nonetheless, since it saw some recent traffic, I decided to keep it here as I think you can get the gist of the report from this now-departed Onion-like online site.) Thanks to a heads up from The Bluegrass Blog, I was introduced to the perfect post-convention antidote that puts all the postings from The Daily Kos (or insert your favorite right-wing blog) in perspective. Want to know how all those bluegrass phenoms play so darn fast?  Steroids!  Check out this stunning revelation from the incredibly funny Bluegrass Intelligencer which reports on the government-funded study to uncover rampant performance enhancing drug use among all the major bluegrass bands, including Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder (see photo at top).  As one “fan” put it, “I mean, when you go to a festival and you see Cody Kilby playing those guitar solos with Kentucky Thunder, you know that it’s not naturally possible, yet everyone just looks the other way,” …