Sunday Salon 9-16-12

Hello, Sunday Salon readers!

This has been a hard week to do much blogging, although I did manage a few things. Much of my recent writing, however, resides on a hard drive that may have failed. While some of the files were saved in my last backup, a few may have gone to computer file heaven. I’ll know in a few days. The lesson: back up your computer today!

Reading time has also been at a premium in the last week, although I’ve made some further headway in Thomas Christensen’s 1616: The World in Motion. And I’ve read the Kindle preview, and may have to invest in the entirety of, Sayings of the Buddha: New translations from the Pali Nikayas, translated and edited by Rupert Gethin, encompassing some of the earliest Buddhist writings in existence.

The early part of this past week was spent preparing three podcasts for my employer, the Reno Chamber Orchestra, relating to its 2012-13 season-opening concerts, one of which was last night and the other this afternoon. You can check out the podcasts, and the program notes I wrote for the same concerts, here, although they may not have much interest unless you want particularly to find out about Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, the Second Symphony by Saint-Saëns, or Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. In a proper radio studio, recording and editing short podcasts would be a relative snap. In my spare bedroom, however, with little space, no sound insulation, and kids, cars, planes, and other noise sources outside my non-soundproofed window, it took rather more time than it should have. If you listen carefully to the podcasts, you can hear at least one car alarm and one shouting child in the background!

For the coming week, the plan is to carry on with reading the books mentioned above, and blogging on them before very long. I also have some more nice photos lined up, as well as a post on a style of old church that I find particularly attractive. Until then…