Category Archives: Uncategorized

Berlin, Beethoven, and Band Camp

Due to a complete lack of college counseling and a great love of marching band, I started my undergraduate career in 1972 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, thrilled in addition to have been admitted to the … Continue reading

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A little look at Leipzig

So the muse clearly has been…hiding out for the last while. That being said, it certainly hasn’t been much of a time to travel for most of the world, no exception here. My summer teaching was finally over a week … Continue reading

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Roots and Wings: Janet and Jim

This won’t be a travel piece. This will be a homage to two very special people in my life who left the planet in the fall of 2021. If you want to go on a short geographic excursion today, just … Continue reading

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A Brush with Brandenburg

Everyone knows the Brandenburg Gate, that iconic symbol of Berlin, known in German as Das Brandenburger Tor. You can see a detail of it on the front page of this blog. But it wasn’t until I started looking more deeply … Continue reading

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“Wending” our way through the borderlands…

The travel muse has been on holiday for much of the past year, sitting on some tropical veranda sipping some adult beverage and waiting for this challenging season of lockdowns and quarantines to pass. I’ve been applying myself to studying … Continue reading

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The power of a portrait’s gaze…and the power of an artist

If I were to try to explain my relationship with my father, I would have to fall back on that useful and time-honored Facebook status phrase, “It’s complicated.” To his everlasting credit, however, at approximately the mid-1950s time period represented … Continue reading

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A Christmas like no other…

It’s December 15th here in Berlin, and tomorrow we start a hard lockdown, or, I should say, we start another hard lockdown, where all shops except basically groceries and pharmacies will be closed up tight. My friends in the Netherlands … Continue reading

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Wandering and wondering in Warsaw

The days are shortening and the temperatures are dropping – on this side of the Atlantic at least. T and I took advantage of a mild early fall and a seeming absence of coronavirus spikes to make a quick trip … Continue reading

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Too much or too little

Greetings. I’m posting on Saturday night March 21st, just around the time of the spring equinox. Normally this time of year, celebrated in the Old Calendar as the moment when light and darkness are in balance and light moves into … Continue reading

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Dreams come true or “60 past 60”

I’ve given a lot of thought as to whether or not to write this post, but I have come to the conclusion that I have a message that deserves to be heard. The reason for my hesitation is that, in … Continue reading

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