MUSICAL (AND SOCIETAL) SUCCESS STORIES PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE CELEBRATED musicians as varied as Franz Josef Haydn, Jimi Hendrix, and Grace Slick. Today in Part 2, a remote Scottish town is threatened environmentally. There’s a happy ending, … Continue reading
MUSICAL (AND SOCIETAL) SUCCESS STORIES PART 1
MUSIC CAN HAVE a beneficial influence on society, even sometimes a happy one. This came to mind recently when I heard the full story of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ charming … Continue reading
1947 ARSENAL CTA GRAND PRIX CAR PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE LEARNED of an optimistic post-World War II plan of returning France to the forefront of Grand Prix motor racing. Chosen to lead this effort was Albert Lory, whose … Continue reading
1947 ARSENAL CTA GRAND PRIX CAR PART 1
WHAT DOES THE post-war French Arsenal CTA grand prix car have in common with a locomotive? At first thought, it isn’t the robustness of its construction nor the success of … Continue reading
ON POLYMATHS
MERRIMAN-WEBSTER DEFINES polymath as “a person of encyclopedic learning.” This is a direct translation of its Greek origin, πολυμαθής, polymathis. I’d add “and of encyclopedic doing,” for how else would … Continue reading
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ENDORSES JOE BIDEN
THE EDITORS OF Scientific American declared, “We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now.” “This year,” the editors wrote in Scientific American, October 2020, “we are compelled … Continue reading
SCIENCE GOES DEUTSCHE POP
AN UNUSUAL EXPERIMENT was performed at a trio of pop concerts in Leipzig, Germany, on August 22, 2020. Tim Bendzko and his band performed at a 12,000-seat arena, but unlike … Continue reading
HUGO PICTOR’S SELFIE
IT’S RARE TO know authorship of an 11th-century manuscript. However, thanks to Christopher De Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, the Oxford University’s Bodleian Library’s Bodley 717 is an exception. Tidbits … Continue reading
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL—GLOBALIST PART 2
COMPOSER HANDEL WAS quite the globalist in an era when many folks only rarely left the villages of their birth. By his early 20s, he had already resided in Halle, … Continue reading
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL—GLOBALIST PART 1
FOR A VARIETY of reasons, the pandemic one of them, bullying nationalists another, “globalism” is almost a pejorative these days. However, reading about composer George Frideric Handel, I found a … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 