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The Presidency of Jimmy Carter

It wasn’t exactly Jimmy Carter’s finest hour. He was lost, searching for answers, and had called a number of political advisors to the...

Salt--the rock we eat

Too much salt can kill you. Not enough can kill you, too. Until recent times, when modern geology literally unearthed the earth’s...

The Music of a Gentle Man

Perhaps it was the success of “Carmen.” Overnight, Spanish music was all the rage of Europe, particularly in Paris. Everyone was...

Animals, Orchestras & Abraham Lincoln

Every composer finds himself doing hack work once in a while; it’s called paying the bills. Tchaikovsky was loathe to write “Dance of...

Pastor-in-Chief

The last thing I needed was to read another Lincoln biography. But a Lincoln biography given to me by my brother Charles, continued to...

Frank Sinatra and the String Quartet

When Frank Sinatra wanted to listen to music---sit down and really listen--he listened to string quartets. This was a side of Sinatra...

Music to rival the Himalayas

Is Classical Music being written today? Yes. Sort of. What is being composed today, and for most of the 20th Century, is less...

An Encyclopedia of Los Angeles

“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl...

As Contemporary as the Cell Phone

Johann Sebastien Bach was fooling around on the great organ in the Leipzig Cathedral when he composed the most hair-raising sounds ever...

The Well-Tempered Mind of J.S. Bach

Thomas Jefferson played violin and was familiar with the music of Vivaldi, Handel and Mozart, but it’s unlikely he ever heard of Johann...

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