Norman Conquest of Black Scat Books sent me this spiffy ad for The Zombie of Great Peru, written by Pierre-Corneille Blessebois and translated by Doug Skinner. Read the ad! Buy the book!

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A spirited song, appropriate for many social situations. Here’s the first verse of six.

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A set of eleven brief piano pieces, from my conservatory days. Here are the first two.  

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Here’s another excerpt from The Doug Skinner Dossier. Since it’s puzzled a couple of readers, I’ll point out that both the letters and words are complete alphabets, just not in alphabetical order. ALPHABET F is a vapor Z is an elk U is a paper S is a whelk I is a chukka W is […]

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I will be presenting three programs of “Anomalous Music” at the Morbid Anatomy Museum. They will be in the form of informal talks, with musical examples on keyboard. Wednesday, March 25: Music from the Ultraterrestrials; music attributed to fairies, banshees, trowies, gnomes, ghosts, aliens, and other supposedly nonhuman creatures. Selections include fairy tunes from Norway […]

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I write musical acronyms by taking the first beat of every measure from a given piece.  For the first one, I chose Haydn’s sparkling piano sonata in C major, XVI/35.  The result keeps much of the character of Haydn, but is shorter and a bit more abrupt.  It’s still surprisingly coherent, though; Haydn’s clarity shines […]

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Translating verse is difficult enough; it’s harder to try to retain the rhyme and meter.  Some paraphrase is always required, but it often comes closer to the original poem than a more literal rendition.  It is, at any rate, a challenging writing exercise.  Here’s my version of a verse by Jean de la Fontaine, from his […]

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There have been many hymns to belief, and to disbelief, but not enough to suspension of judgment.  Here’s one.

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On May 2, 2012, Larry Ratso Sloman and Mark Jacobsen presented a “Live Radio Hour” at Housing Works, in NYC, devoted to Coney Island.  They invited me to sing a song about the place; I arranged Harry Von Tilzer’s 1902 tune, “All Aboard for Dreamland,” for viola and baritone uke, and performed it with David […]

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