Poetry is meant to be read aloud.
This is my little poetry corner, containing dead folks’ poetry (for copyright reasons), in English (because it’s my native language), starting with William Shakespeare.
This series began in 2000, when I was experimenting with the then-new technology of online audio, via RealNetworks‘ RealAudio player. For quite a while I read and uploaded one short poem a week, mainly to learn what’s involved in audio blogging. At the beginning of the project I wasn’t too keen on poetry; now I really enjoy it, and some poems now affect me deeply.
Continue reading Spoken Songs: Poetry Read Aloud →
I started watching Project Runway years ago as a guilty pleasure. My wife had watched it for a while and slowly drew me in because, unlike other reality/survivor shows, it minimized the People Behaving Badly aspect of competition.
As I watched more and more – the show has run more than 17 seasons at this point – I realized that Project Runway is really a show about how to do creative work and live the creative life. It even won a Peabody Award for using the Reality genre to inform and enlighten.
Continue reading 5 Things Project Runway Taught Me →
In the summer of 2008, the Oregon Chorale toured Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. The best party of the trip was the banquet at Bunratty Castle, with dining, drinking, and singing together.
Continue reading The Oregon Chorale on Tour in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland →
In June and July of 2001, we were back on the boards, in Stage One’s production of Guys and Dolls, as a fundraiser for Hillsboro (Oregon) area high schools’ performing arts departments. It was so much fun to perform together, and with such a talented cast!
Continue reading At it Again, in Guys and Dolls →
In June and July 2000, the Co-Presidents were reunited on stage for the first time in 18 years (too long!): Linda played Golde, Tevye’s wife, and Brad played Lazar Wolf, the butcher, in Stage One’s production of Fiddler on the Roof. Stage One is a fundraising organization for the Hillsboro area high schools’ performing arts departments.
Continue reading The Co-Presidents Reuinite in Fiddler On the Roof →
Sure, everybody claims to have seen Elvis…but how many people get to be Elvis?
It all started early in 1998 when Silverna McCall, the Drama director at HilHi, enigmatically asked me “How’s your Elvis impression?” Little did I know that she was producing the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and that, although she had assembled from HilHi’s student body the most amazing collection of singers and actors, she was short one adult baritone to play the part of the Pharaoh. Not quite knowing what to expect, I said “yes”.
Continue reading Elvis Has Left the Building →
In June of 1998, the Washington County (Oregon) Chorale spent 19 days touring Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Gunnar Serrander of Scan Travel Center in Sweden, we had an unforgettable tour and sang to enthusiastic, packed houses in spectacular sites.
Here are just a few photos from the trip. Sorry for the low resolution – this was the previous century!
Continue reading The Oregon Chorale On Tour in Scandanavia →
In the summer of 1993, the Washington County Chorale toured England, Scotland, and Wales. We sang at (among other spots), Bath Abbey, Westminster Cathedral (not the well-known Abbey, the less-well-known Cathedral), and the Pittville Pump Room. Since England is swarming with American choirs on vacation, the most common response we heard from our audience members was “If we’d known you were this good, we would have brought our friends!”
Continue reading The Oregon Chorale On Tour in Britain →
In the summer of 1989 the Washington County Chorale toured Germany (our director’s birthplace) & Austria. The most amazing place we saw was the Berchtesgaden Salt Mines, a sort of cross between Disneyland and a working museum. It was quite an adventure to dress in miner’s overclothes and careen into the heart of the mountain on picnic-bench-cum-cable-car, dodging rock walls as the bench veered left and right. “Back to the salt mines”, indeed!
Continue reading The Oregon Chorale on Tour in Austria and Germany →
Technical Writing and Self-Pubilshing
