Come to an exhibit

My Brother-in-law, John Lawson has an exhibition opening Friday Feb 16th.
And the Gallery is owned by a cousin, Michel Allen .  (We are ubiquitous we Southerners !)
Come one Come all!
 


“Local Color
” Southern color photography and Alex Katz prints
Opening Reception: Friday, February 16th from 6 – 8
Exhibtion dates: February 16 – March 7, 2007
 
Allen Gallery
547 West 27th Street
5th floor, Chelsea
New York
hours: Wednesday – Saturday 11 – 5 or by appointment
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Changes afoot at BBC Radio 3


BBC Homepage
BBC Music

BBC Radio 3

 

Below find the text of a recent email sent from the BBC Controller regarding the upcoming changes to BBC Radio 3’s format and programming.

I guess it had to happen – it was too good to be true.  There are MUCH fewer programs (Stage and Screen and Voices are both GONE as are a number of others…) 

Ilya Repin's paiting of the duel scene from Eugene Onegin - photo credit AKG images

And it seems now that the Tchaikovsky/Stravinsky Experience running this week is their buffer between the old and the new.

Well at least they are keeping the Wigmore Hall concerts and other live broadcasts – Its STILL MUCH better than ANYTHING in the USA. 

So I for one will keep listening.  (Listening to one of the first T/S programs right now–there are tidbits sprinkled through out the music – Stravinsky just talked about seeing Tchaikovsky at the Opera and three days later he was dead!

So here is the letter – emphasis is mine.

I am writing an extra message to you this month, since our new schedule (described recently as a ‘spring clean’) begins this weekend. It’s the first time in five years we have made significant changes to our programming. All radio stations change their programming from time to time, adapting to changing tastes and developing ideas. If Radio 3 hadn’t changed since its first day in 1967 we would still be broadcasting sailing, swimming and football in addition to speech and music! We wanted to respond to specific listener comments in revising the schedule on this occasion – not least the view that there should be more classical music in the late evening and that the Composer of the Week repeat should be earlier.

We also wanted to build room for sixty hours (Weekdays, 4-5 pm in the summer) devoted to the history of western classical music, in collaboration with Radio 4. More news on this nearer the time.

At the same time, our interactive colleagues are overhauling the website (in common with other BBC stations). It will be good to have your responses to the site once you have had time to explore, and do look out on the message board for references to external sites featuring discussion about Radio 3

We are looking forward to the arrival of our new programmes – and not least to having Rob Cowan as our breakfast show presenter (along with Sara Mohr-Pietsch who now joins Martin Handley as the third morning presenter). We are also welcoming Iain Burnside to his new slot on Sunday mornings. Try and catch his occasional ‘Music 101’ moments when we hope to encourage strong debate by playing classical music which some distinguished guests would gladly consign to oblivion!

We hope you enjoy our new sequence of classical music (Monday-Thursday 10.30 pm) beginning with programmes featuring the remarkable pianist Angela Hewitt. There has been great interest in our new non-presented programme of words and music at 10.15 on Sunday evening; it is thrilling to have Derek Jacobi and Juliet Stevenson launch it.

Listen out also for the first four programmes in ‘The Essay’ for different views of Auden in his centenary year.

We welcome back Alyn Shipton to a regular slot in the new programme Jazz Library on Friday evenings – a response to those seeking a jazz equivalent to CD Review’s popular Building a Library.

The amount of specially recorded live music increases in our new schedule. So I’m particularly pleased that the afternoons presented by Penny Gore, Louise Fryer and Fiona Talkington bring a greater breadth of music to listeners. We will range from recitals to operas, so look forward to an exciting spring ahead with performances by the New York Philharmonic; the Berlin Philharmonic (including Mark Elder conducting  Hansel and Gretel . Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony Orchestra; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and opera afternoons including Opera North’s Peter Grimes, Les Troyens from Paris, Gergiev conducting Shostakovich’s The Nose and that ‘Alagna Aida’ from La Scala!

Finally, talking of Britten and opera… I hope you enjoy our new ten-part series (Sunday 3 pm), Performing Britten, which will examine each of his operas and their performing traditions with interviews with the interpreters most closely associated with the roles in the operas. I trust you will find much to enjoy.

All best wishes
Roger Wright
Controller, BBC Radio 3  

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Knitters Review: Addi Turbo Lace Needles!

the new Addi Turbo Lace needles

Needle Profile:
Addi Turbo Lace Needles

These needles are a perfect example of what happens when knitters tell manufacturers what they want, and manufacturers actually listen. Over a four-week period, Skacel received more than 1,000 emails from avid Addi fans requesting that the company offer lace-gauge needles with sharper tips. These needles are a direct result of those emails. They have much more going for them than just sharp tips.

To the Point
But first, the tip. Why all the fuss over a sharper tip anyway? Lace knitting requires a lot of detailed manipulation of stitches—knitting multiple stitches together, passing stitches over one another, knitting through the backs of multiple stitches, etc.—using an extremely fine yarn. A sharp-tipped needle helps you navigate and manipulate your work more easily.

But the tip can't be too sharp or it becomes potentially dangerous to both your yarn and your hands. So the goal was to create a pair of needles with sharp enough tips to do the job without requiring that you cover all your fingertips with band-aids to keep from getting blisters.

I knit a sizeable lace swatch trying all sorts of knitting techniques that introduce more contact between finger and needle tip, and I didn't experience any irritation at all. I'd say they got the sharpness just right here. They're a wee bit less sharp than the same gauge of Knit Picks circulars.

more at Knitter’s Review

OH DEAR.. must.order.now!

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this day…

The Panopticon does it again – his witty list of the Ten ways to love a knitter are wonderfully charming and delightful – so where’s my benefactor?

The Panopticon: Ten Alternative Ways to Say \I.

Its hard being single on this day – ugh ugh ugh.

But we had a lovely (if wierd what will all the ice and sleet) snowstorm – finally more than 2 inches of snow…

Snowstorm 001

That was taken around 1 pm today.  And since then its snowed and sleeted a bit more – still coming down slowly out there (just checked).Snowstorm 004

Around noon I shoveled the sidewalk and the steps and went for a walk in the blowing windy snow and then did some grownup things like clean the kitchen and the bath and some deskwork (and well read some blogs too).

Then made Lidia’s Meat Sauce which is simmered on the stove for most of the early evening – love the smell of good sauce!  Then practiced almost three hours– Chopin and Mozart and a little Brahms (good for the soul he is).  Need a really good long session tomorrow!

 

 

KC
ALERT – Berkshire Sister is ASKING for wool sweaters for my nephew!  hmm.  I only have the sleeves and the edging to do to finish the Tomten Jacket – but maybe will do a seamless raglan …I need a mindless knit what with my other projects

  • my Aran (Welcome Back Friend – Kathy Zimmermann)
    Back is ALMOST done – as in 5 rows away from finishing.  (photos later after the battery recharges)  Then on to the front.  I am thinking of doing the sleeves top down after sewing the shoulder, etc together – they are a simple cable pattern and it would save sewing (which I try to avoid when I can)

 

  • the Fireman sweater for Mr. W
    N
    o I haven’t abandoned it.  Just need to do the charts and print them out and do the swatch again and …. well. you get the idea
  • socks. 
    my first ever! – oh dear this is nervewracking cause there are SO many patterns I like and well, I guess I just have to DIVE in.  But the yarn is GORGEOUS – these skeins of  RED (three different ones !) leapt off the shelves of my LYS (Flying Fingers) and into my arms – and well, I couldn’t disappoint them now could I  (photos later after… you know)
  • and a pair of Anne’s Delicato Mitts  (I have some Elann baby cashmere but maybe I will use one of three Red sock yarn – see above)
  • UFOs… sigh I am supposed to be going thru these – one a week; I am about four weeks behind – well, I better get a move on.  OK I need to list them first so maybe I will do that for tomorrow’s post.

Posted in Knitting, UFOs, WIPs | Leave a comment

Bayreuth Star Goes on to Ovations in Her 60s

Robert Caplin for The New York Times
The soprano Anja Silja is in New York to sing in “Jenufa” at the Met.
Published: February 13, 2007

Upon greeting her interviewer at the Metropolitan Opera recently, the first matter the soprano Anja Silja wanted to take up was her birth date. She reached into her handbag and produced her passport for inspection.

This luminous and controversial soprano, sometimes called the “German Callas,” has long been bothered by questions about her age. For years, most reference works, including the authoritative New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), gave her birth date as April 17, 1935.

“They stole me five years,” Ms. Silja said. “I hate that. I’m old enough.” Indeed, her passport gives her date of birth as April 17, 1940, in Berlin, which would make her 66.

Of course, this means that she was 16 when she made her operatic debut as Rosina in “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” and 20 when she made her sensational debut in the demanding role of Wagner’s Senta in “Der Fliegende Holländer” at the Bayreuth Festival in 1960. But who’s arguing? The mild-mannered British musicologist Stanley Sadie, who died in 2005, was sufficiently persuaded by Ms. Silja’s representative that her birth year was 1940 that he changed the information for the latest edition of the general Grove dictionary, which came out six years ago.

for a refreshing and very interesting interview – read the rest

Posted in Met Opera, Opera | Leave a comment

Snow Day

I have a nice long post but Typepad is down… check back later.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

this day…

Its hard being single on this day – ugh ugh ugh.  But we had a lovely (if wierd what will all the ice and sleet) snowstorm – finally more than 2 inches of snow…

Snowstorm 001 

That was taken around 1 pm today.  And since then its snowed and sleeted a bit more – still coming down slowly out there (just checked).Snowstorm 004

Around noon I shoveled the sidewalk and the steps and went for a walk in the blowing windy snow and then did some grownup things like clean the kitchen and the bath and some deskwork (and well read some blogs too).

Then made Lidia’s Meat Sauce which simmered on the stove for most of the early evening – love the smell of good sauce!  Pacticed almost three hours– Chopin and Mozart and a little Brahms (good for the soul he is).  Need a really good long session tomorrow!

And drifted in and out thru the day listening to the various operas on Sirius today – Callas as Lucia, Soderstrom and Battle in Figaro and then tonight Moffo, Gedda, Tozzi and Schippers in Manon… can’t wait to have time to listen to the whole thing – one of my top ten operas and what a cast!

Snowstorm 004

 

 

Posted in Audio, Knitting, Met Opera, Opera, Radio | Leave a comment

Snow Day

I have a nice long post but Typepad is down… check back later.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nothing to wear?

I couldn’t pass this up ….

Nothing to wear? Shop your closet
By Susan Wagner, 8:56 am, Tue 13 Feb 2007

There is nothing more frustrating than standing in front of a closet full of clothes and thinking, "I have NOTHING to WEAR." Admit it–you do it. So do I. Our solution, most often, is one of two things: we either wear the same things all the time, or we shop for more things. Either way, we still find ourselves looking at our wardrobes without any idea what to put on.

Today we're going to break the cycle. Let's talk about how to shop your closet.

closet

You will need three boxes (or bags), one marked DONATE, one marked STORAGE, and one marked ALTERATIONS, a full-length mirror, an hour or so of interrupted time, and a friend whose style sense you trust and admire.

Nothing to wear? Shop your closet | BlogHer.

- its not really knitting related but file it under the “Organizational Tools” category.

After I moved to this apartment in Sept 2005, the closet and bedroom were kinda avoided as to organizing. … other than installing shelves in the very high up ceiling storage space (with sliding doors) that can only be reached with a step ladder and buying two more chest of drawers and creating a “dressing area/closet” under the loft bed – and a bit of cursory unpacking…. well I kinda left it til sometime .. ahem late summer and early fall of 06.   

Anyway, I did some cursory initial weeding of clothes and sent six boxes to Village Sister’s attic the winter before so that I could get to the piano (as they were in the music room).  So when I finally got around to the bedroom – it was the second to last room to finish – I took everything out of the upper shelves – mainly boxes of sweaters and then the rest of the sweaters that were in one of the chests…and took them to the music room (its right next door) and sorted them all out – cotton ls, cotton ss, wool ls, etc.  cardigans, pullovers, etc.  and then sorted out which to put in the chest (like crewneck wool and cotton sweaters which i wear instead of blouses) and casual type sweaters to wear around the house, etc.  And the more dressy, sweaters and bulkier sweaters, handknits, etc were stored in plastic bags with zippers (and yes the air can get in) and labels on the fronts (usually two per bag).

Then the sweaters for the season (winter was coming so the wool)and ones that i like were stacked on the shelves right above the hanging rods (below the closed sliding door shelves) and then the rest were stacked behind the sliding doors.  

This whole project took a few weeks to do – as I washed every sweater .  The laundry facilities in my previous apt were four floors down and back and I tended to hand wash a lot instead.  And the storage was so tight in that apt that some of the sweaters hadnt been worn in ages … so a good wash was needed by all! 

Its been an experience rediscovering these sweaters – some have such memories that its amazing when I take them out to wear as the memories flood over me– a sweater that I wore pretty much exclusively one winter when dating a certain fellow in Chicago – a walk in Lincoln Park, a meal at a German restaurant, meeting for the first time face to face at the Chicago airport – come flooding back when I take it out to wear … and then I create new memories. 

Now, where was I … oh yes, the blog article. – read it – it gives a good plan for realistically dealing with your closet and clothes.  Soon to be put in place here at Southern Gal’s  Closet.

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Dreams of Warmer Days..

Copy of IMG_0641

Posted in Landscaping | 1 Comment