I started doing Hebrew calligraphy while I was working at Parke Math Labs in 1978, give or take a year. A born-again woman who worked in the same building said “I just found my name in the Bible, as a heading over a verse in a psalm.” I explained that her name, Beth, was the …
Author Archives: deanb
Listening to chamber music
I went to a concert last night, part of the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival, in a renovated carriage house on one of the old sea captain estates along the main road into the town. If the festival hasn’t changed its home page since I set up that link, the picture on the festival web site …
Making musical instruments?
I was starting on this story last night — When I was in graduate school I got the notion that I’d like to learn to play “Turkey in the Straw” on the fiddle. Being a starving graduate student, I couldn’t afford to buy a fiddle. Maybe I could make one? While I was thinking about …
Two New England Churches
Last weekend (July 24 and 25) we were, uncharacteristically, in two picture-postcard type New England churches. Being Jewish, of course I don’t go to church as such. Synagogue now and then, but not church; but when I was in college, I went to chapel services at the college enough to become comfortable with Protestant services. …
Arbor
I’ve been working on a garden arbor for our place in Maine. It’s one of those gateway arches with trellis sides and benches on the inside of the gates, so you can sit down under the vines that are supposed to grow up and around the thing, if you want to and there aren’t insects …
Greenhouse
Our favorite place to buy garden plants in Maine recently has been Reinhart’s garden center in Naples. They’re not on a main road, so it took us a while to find them. I guess Arlene saw their ad in the local newspaper once and wanted to check them out. At any rate, they have a …
Werido?
About a week ago I noticed that the rear window of our new car sported some graffiti. It must have been done by someone who spends less time on gravel roads than I do and doesn’t appreciate the futility of keeping a car washed if you do travel on gravel roads. As best I could …
Klezmer Jam
Last week Tobie invited the klezmer band and other friends who play klezmer music over to her condo for a jam session. Well, with sheet music that she had. I got there (which is to say, just over the Watertown line, in a 5-year-old condo complex) a little early. The driver who parked behind my …
Concert report – SideCar Heroes
Last Saturday evening we went to hear SideCar Heroes at Music on the Hill in Windham. They’re a six man a capella group. Most of the six have formal college-level training in music; several are secondary school music teachers. They have an amazingly full big sound for six people. There are music and video links …
Quicken Tip
I’ve been keeping a checkbook on Quicken for years, and it’s great. The problem is with keeping a paper checkbook, which is necessary if you’re going to write checks when you’re away from the computer, synchronized with the Quicken checkbook. Once they get out of step, it can be very confusing to know what’s not …