As is our custom we started out the watching of the SuperBowl with Brie and Chardonnay (sometimes it is Sherry). And no we weren't dressed elegantly for the occasion. The game (in case you didn't know, there was one yesterday) was pretty exciting.

We watched The Who in the half. It is pretty amazing that this band that first played in 1964 still exists and Townsend and Daltry are still in it. Since I'm not really a fan of this style of music I don't know if they are still "any good". There were no "wardrobe malfunctions". This was somewhat different than the concert of Schubert, Schumann, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Debussy played by Richard Goode and Jonathan Biss (on one and two pianos) at Jordan Hall earlier in the afternoon. The light show (not at Jordan Hall) was pretty good - modern technology certainly makes doing fancy stuff quite possible.

Some of the commercials were amusing and it's amazing that in some of them the product name only appears at the end for a brief moment so I don't really remember what they were for (not true for the BudLite ones).

Apparently I forgot to turn on my brain completely this morning. I came down to make our traditional Saturday morning blintzes and discovered that there wasn't enough milk to make the batter. I made an executive decision to make pancakes (supposed to be on Sunday) and do the blintzes tomorrow (I certainly wasn't going to go out shopping then). The pancakes seemed a little strange and they I recalled I hadn't added oil (not much needed) to the batter or put in baking powder! Amazingly enough they did rise a bit - perhaps aided by the fact that they were made with corn, rice, and soy flours and the liquid is fruit juice.

I bought milk this afternoon. The blintzes don't need baking powder; I hope I don't put some in.

Yesterday we went to Gloucester for the memorial service for Margaret Wilmot. We knew her because she and rsc sung in the Boston Cecilia and the Cape Ann Singers some years ago. Among other things she had been a teacher in Manchester Public Schools, and then did some work in the Gloucester Public Schools. I learned via my Facebook post about this yesterday that persis had been one of her students in Manchester. More recently she served on the Gloucester School Committee for several terms.

After retirement she sailed around the world in a small (not very) boat for several years on an incredible voyage - her role in addition to enjoying the trip was to teach the two kids from the family because they were missing school.

She was a charming person, I knew her mostly from various parties, often at her house. She was born in England and still had a touch of native accent. She was very articulate about lots of subjects and I can still "hear" her voice (accent and manner of speaking) - my memory of this was even stronger in the UU church where the service was held.

Readings included a poem of hers and other things that she liked. Various chorus members led by Don Teeters sung: How lovely is Thy dwelling-place from the Brahms German Requiem. Also Britten's A Shepherd's Carol and Chrales Villier Stanford's The Blue Bird. Several of the readers remarked how she enjoyed single malt scotch so last night for our evening drinks we toasted her with some of ours.

Among the photos was a caption with a quote by her:

Middle Age is when you see clearly all the things that need to be done just in time to lack the energy to do them.

I take that as more proof that I am not middle aged since I still have the energy to do all the things that I should be doing but am not.

So in memory of a lovely person who lived a full life I can only smile as I am sure is true for her family members and friends.

Yesterday I went to the Project 10 East (the GSA at the Cambridge High School first formed in 1988) meeting as representative of the GLBT Commission. P10E had gotten into an almost dormant state but a new Diversity Coordinator was hired in September and he and the faculty member assigned have been revitalizing it. This meeting was well attended - mostly 9th graders, and there was a lot of talk about how to reach out to other students and get more people involved in the organization planning events. The kids were pretty energized, talked a lot (I got to talk too) and were happy that there were some boys there because most recent meetings were all girls. The moderators worked hard on trying to get more of the kids to take more responsibility for this organization so it wasn't only staff. I'm going to stay plugged in and go to some more meetings - I'm now on the mailing list.

In the evening I went to a filming organized by the GLBT family liaison in the school department (mostly focusing on K-8) where they showed Straightlaced. This was a film composed of interviews of a large number of teenagers about gender and sexuality issues - now it affected what clothes they wore, how they talked, and as the film developed they got into more issues such as those faced by transgender people. I thought it was a very well made film and well worth seeing. Afterward we talked a while about how to get more exposure to the film. The Diversity Coordinator is planning on showing it to the HS gym classes. We talked about how to get the teachers to see it because discussion afterwards would be valuable to help address how to deal with bullying, name calling, and other such things.

Today was lobby day at the Massachusetts State House for the Transgender Equality Bill: "An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes" that adds the category "gender identity or expression" to our hate crime laws as well as to the employment, housing, credit, public accommodations, and public education non-discrimination laws.

It looks very likely that it will pass this year so that Massachusetts will join 13 other states who have similar laws. A majority of the legislators are listed as sponsors but there are many potential slips between the cup and the lip with legislatures. The Mass Transgender Political Coalition organized this session. It commenced with a rally and speeches by lots of people - some of which I missed because I was late from another meeting - and then there was the opportunity to talk to legislators and other people.

( Talking to Bruce Tarr, the Gloucester Senator (R!) )

( Talking to Ann-Margaret Ferrante, the Gloucester Rep )
I will send email to Tarr and Ferrante.

I didn't bother talking to my Cambridge reps (I have no senator since my ex-senator is in prison) with the special election to replace a few months away. The Cambridge reps are all OK and I confirmed this with Carl Sciortino, the (cute, gay) rep from Somerville who is the chief sponsor of the legislation; we had nice chat about various issues. Actually I think the western senator is not OK.

I still don't know what the GLBT Commission can do to help, but I intend upon checking into this before next week's meeting.

( The Somerville GLBT liaison )

One of the consequences of living in the same place for a long time (43 years) is that one accumulates stuff. That coupled with the fact that I don't often throw things away has yielded a rather full spice rack with many unused items - some of which are antiques. Rest assured that most are recent.



For example, the ginger on the lowest shelf near the middle has 47¢ stamped on the bottom and the container doesn't have a bar code. The expiration date on the baking soda on the top shelf is 01 28 91; this baking soda still works for odor control and rising (one recipe we use) has baking powder and baking soda. The ginger has a faint smell but of course it hasn't been used since we use fresh ginger. It is possible that one or more of these items predates moving here.

I'm actually going to throw out some of this stuff since we want to relocate some other stuff to the top shelf.

Last night we had the 14th Anniversary of our Gender Free English Country Dance (ECD) series. This dance was started by Michael Cicone and Rob Dobson after their visits to the Heather & Rose Dance group in Oregon where Gender Role free ECD started and has continued for every 2nd, 4th, and 5th Tuesday since they started it. We dance in the UU Church in Jamaica Plain. For last night's dance Graham Christian was the leader and our band was Jacqueline Schwab on piano and Edan MacAdam Somer on fiddle. It was a great night with good attendance and Graham's selection of dances and the music was superb.


When the dance first started Michael and Rob were the organizers and leaders and the music was recorded. There are some really fine recordings available. Later on they got a grant and were able to pay for musicians some of time. Now we've expanded with quite a few regular leaders and a number of musicians who volunteer their time so it is rare that we use recorded music. Occasionally such as last night we are able to pay the musicians. We don't earn quite enough at the door to pay the rent but since we as part of Lavender Country & Folk Dancers participate in a massive fund raising effort at the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA) where volunteers run a food booth we are able to keep the dance going - although sometimes attendance is pretty sparse.

If you don't know what English Country Dancing is but you've seen a Jane Austen movie then you've seen it in action. In Gender Free dancing it doesn't matter which role you dance in so the terminology has been modified but all the classical and newly created dances can be done that way.

a fragment from our Household Operating Manual is here:

Elegance Level definition
E4: Dining in Dining room with fresh cooked food
E3: Dining in Kitchen with fresh cooked food
E2: Dining in Kitchen with "original" leftovers
E1: Dining in Kitchen with "storebought" leftovers
E0: Dining in front of TV set for sporting events

Plate Service
E4: "Heirloom" dinner, salad, & dessert plates
E3, E2, E1, E0: Regular plates, salad served on same plates, no dessert served

Beverage Service
E4: Wine in wine glasses, water in water glasses with ice; water pitcher on table
E3: optional Wine in wine glasses - generally left from prior occasion;
if no cocktails before dinner: beer glasses on table, beer bottles on table;
if no beer: water in water glasses with ice; water bottle on table
E2, E1: water in plastic glasses, water bottle on table
E0: water in plastic glasses, water bottle on tray

Bread Service
E4, E3: Fresh bread required, unsalted butter in butter dish
E2, E1: If fresh bread, unsalted butter in butter dish
if not fresh bread, bread is toasted, butter optional, but usually always served in E2
E4, E3, E2, E1: loaf of bread nearby on bread board for extra slices
E0: not fresh bread, no butter, no bread loaf available

Napkin Service
E4: cloth napkins
E3, E2, E1, E0: paper napkins

Meal Cooking and Cleanup
E4, E3: person who shops, cooks
E4, E3: person who cooks puts away uneaten food, other person does dishes
E2, E1, E0: person who sets up, puts away uneaten food and puts dirty dishes in sink; dishes get washed only at breakfast by whoever gets up second

Here's a sad tale of an alcoholic. Those of you in the Boston area may have been reading about this. Anthony Gallucio, my state senator (he just resigned), was sentenced to a year in jail for violating probation.

His probation had confined him to home for 4 months remaining alcohol free but when a daily testing device was installed he tested positive. He first blamed it on the sorbitol in his toothpaste. Expert witnesses didn't help him in his hearing on Monday.

This probation was because of a hit-and-run case where he was caught because among other things his license plate made an imprint on the car he hit. He was presumably drunk and fled because he didn't want that to be discovered. It was revealed that 12 hours before he had showed up on foot at a gas station too drunk to drive and a cop drove him home (difficult because he had forgotten where he lived).

He had three DUIs as priors but was pardoned once and another case dismissed because of lack of evidence. The hit-and-run did injure a passenger; the prior accidents apparently didn't injure anyone. There is no doubt that he has received some favorable treatment by members of the police force, perhaps the courts, and his pardon was by once-Governor Weld (who had campaigned on a theme that prisoners should be crushing rocks).

Prior to being State Senator he was State Rep and before that he was a Cambridge City Councillor and served as Mayor for one term as well.

I've seen him in action and talked to him a few times. I haven't always agreed with his positions but in one-on-one discussions he listened to the opposing points and responded rationally and articulately. He is a smart guy and is extremely passionate about what he believes in. (Some people think he sometimes poured oil on troubled waters that he created so as to get credit). He devoted lots of effort to helping mostly-troubled youths get better lives through legislation, programs, and personal intervention. I suspect that there are a bunch of young adults now living productive lives that might well have been in jail or be dead without some aspects of Anthony's help.

The Boston Globe editorial today said that this whole saga was a good example of friends, fellow politicians, constituents, and law enforcement official's attempts to help him actually harming him. I think his letter of resignation yesterday was the first time he admitted publicly that he was an alcoholic.

It will be interesting to see what happens to him in the future. Can he conquer his addiction and resurrect a career?

There are an awful lot of things wrong with the medical care system in the US, some of which may be repaired by Congress this year. One of the oddest things is the variation of prices for drugs. In the AARP magazine they published the following data for the purchase of 30 days of 80 mg Simvastatin (an anti-cholesterol drug - a pretty high dose at that) somewhere in CA:

$7.71 at Costco
$24.36 at WalMart
$63.59 at CVS
$89.99 at Walgreens

Also $145-$213 for Zocor - same drug - but since the patent ran out several years ago it is available in generic form.

What other kind of products are there with such price variability? The Walgreens price was almost 12 times the Costco price.

To add to this mess there are several other "statins" that are not available in Generic form and some are even more expensive. There is little clinical evidence that any one is better than another or that any have more or fewer possible side-effects although for some people it may well make a difference.

What people or their insurance pay is a whole other piece of confusion to this can of worms.

We had a nice quiet evening at home. Watched La Bohème - the Movie that we'd Tivo'd a few days ago and between acts had this "champagne" and nuts and Brie. Should have had it during the Café Momus scene, I suppose. This bottle reflects the event that starts in a few minutes where the Bruins play Hockey in Fenway Park - and mimics the scoreboard. (I'm still waiting for the Red Sox to play in the Garden).

Today we go to the annual party of an old work colleague and later to the monthly Contra Dance for experienced dancers in Concord.

Last year was a very nice year; uneventful and no health crises to deal with. I turned 71 and in spite of the fact that I've been officially a "senior" for a few years have not yet reached middle-age.

We travelled to Guana Island (BVI) for our close to 20th time, to the Bay Area for a visit to the Big Sur, some friends and Queer Dance camp, to Portland (OR) for the motsscon, camping in Vermont, to LCFD Dance Camps in Woodstck (CT) and Becket (MA) and to Philadelphia to visit Robert's father, brother and sister in law - and yes they are my in-laws too.

Our garden was pretty good this year - the lettuce bed thrived now that it has been moved from being in the middle of the woods (the trees grew a lot since we started it); the blueberry crop was good, and the strawberries were fine in spite of our being away for a few days at their peak.

We went to lots of concerts in Jordan and Symphony Halls; Rusalka, Don Giovanni, and Carmen at the Boston Lyric Opera; about 15 games at Fenway Park; over 30 Contra dances in JP, Cambridge, Concord, and Montague; and about 25 English Country dances in JP and Cambridge; and 3 weekend dance camps including the 20th anniversary LCFD dance camp in Becket.

In the fall the newly renovated Cambridge Public library opened; I'm proud to say I was part of the process that led to this design. The architects and contractors did a great job and we have a wonderful facility - even better than I expected and my expectations were high. Also the West Cambridge Youth/Community Center opened - I was also very involved in that process - and is a very nice building. There was one contra dance there, and another is scheduled in mid-February. There still is a chance that the Thursday night dance could more back there if the city is willing to lower the rent (a good idea since then instead of the hall being empty most of the time it will be in great use). The GLBT Commission of which I am co-chair got an award from GOAL, Gay Officers Action League, for our work to get GLBT training into the Cambridge Police Force.

Cambridge, MA
San Juan, PR
Guana Island, BVI
Big Sur, CA
Aptos, CA
San Francisco, CA
N Woodstock, CT
Gloucester, MA
Portland, OR
Stillwater St Park (Groton), VT
Becket, MA
Philadelphia, PA

---
or
-the couch
-in bed
-in a dorm at camp
-in a tent

---
and of course, I don't do memes.

I wanted to transfer some stock from my Fidelity Account to State St Bank for a charitable gift annuity.

- I called Fidelity - they said contact State St it was better if they initiated it
- I called State St Bank - they said go to Fidelity because they must initiate it
- I went to Fidelity (Cambridge) to deliver a letter of instructions with the State St information; they said to go to State St
- I went to State St and they said go to Fidelity
- I went to Fidelity (Boston) and they accepted my letter of instructions.

There were several - you could FAX it - suggestions in this. The State St bank person that I conferred with was the correct person. Of the three Fidelity people I talked to, the last one seemed to actually know what he was doing.

Downtown Boston remains confusing, but having GoogleMaps on my phone helped. State St Bank is not on State St. The MBTA gained by selling me two extra rides and Finagle-a-Bagel gained by selling me lunch.

Detailed listing over here:

I'm a big fan of Adam Gopnik who writes columns for The New Yorker. A few years ago he lived in Paris and his book Paris to the Moon, a collection of articles while he was there is hilarious and quite insightful as well.

Last night, my bedtime reading was his What's the Recipe article from the Nov 23 New Yorker. He makes lots of fun of trends and points out the many flaws of cookbookery. Needless to say there were lots of giggles and it was hard to concentrate.

I don't think I'll take a recipe seriously from now on (not that I do anyway since I like to improvise).

An excerpt

The cult of the cooking vessel—the wok, the tagine, the Dutch oven, the smoker, the hibachi, the Tibetan kiln or the Inuit ice oven or whatever—seems to be over. Paula Wolfert has a new book devoted to clay-pot cooking, but it feels too ambitious in advance; we have tried too many other modish pots, and know that, like Elvis’s and Michael Jackson’s chimps, after their hour is done they will live out their years forgotten and alone, on the floor of the closet, alongside the fondue forks and the spice grinder and the George Foreman grill.

On Christmas morning everyone comes down to look at the tree.



( And the tree )

Today I went to an Installation of the local Cambridge Postmaster. I'm a member of the local postal customer advisory group which is why I was invited - we meet with Postmaster every month. There were speeches by the Mayor, the Boston Postmaster (who was the previous Cambridge P M), the several PMs-ago PM, a local figure: Sheldon Cohen who started the Out-of-Town News Stand in Harvard Square in 1955, and the new PM, - Kathy Lydon. The speeches were somewhat personal and OK - but still the event took about 1 1/2 hours. Someone sung the Star Spangled Banner, the PO Color Guard brought flags in, there was a Pledge of Allegiance, some 3rd graders sung several songs for the opening and closing, and there was a formal oath of office. BTW she has been in the job for a bit more than a year without being installed!

This event seems to be a relic from the early 20th century when it was important who the Postmaster was and also when the USPS was a completely government / political institution - now it is a hybrid. Why such pageantry for a promotion? And in an organization that although it prides itself on good customer service is in a huge decline of volume and loses money with these trends accelerating. The USPS is still very restricted in what it can do and how it prices its services - unlike its competitors such as FedEx and UPS, and has a strong protective employees union that makes job assignment flexibility very difficult so there is little opportunity for them to change or adapt their business to a new model. There is debate these days on going to 5 days service - I'll bet that in 20 years it'll be down to 1 or 2 days a week. Who needs all that mail to come so rapidly as people convert to other means of communication, receiving bills and making payments?

At Thanksgiving we went to Distrito, a Mexican tapas restaurant in Philadelphia (which was quite good) and had margaritas. We decided we should try making them. rsc bought some Tequila the other day and tonight was the night. I looked up recipes and found several - tequila, lime juice, and Triple Sec -- even parts of each or various combinations of 3-2-1. Cointreau was a documented substitute.

I had gotten some limes and we had some old ones so I squeezed them and a new one which had decidedly more juice into the little citrus squeezer that isn't calibrated. So I poured what I got into a small liqueur shot-like glass. Not knowing how big it was I took another one and filled with the same amount of water and poured it into a 1/4 cup measuring cup. It was full and since rsc said that 1/4 cup was two ounces that seemed like the right amount.

Not having a cocktail shaker I decided to use a jam jar as the cocktail shaker (it was clean). Robert added the tequila from our brand new bottle of José Cuervo, struggling a bit to open it - a little more than 2 ounces.

We had no Triple Sec, nor Cointreau but did have some Grand Marnier. It was quite old. I noticed a piece of cork in the bottle but there was an intact replacement cork in the bottle. That is it was intact until I tried to get it out. It broke at the bottle top. I tried a corkscrew but the cork was so dried out that the the corkscrew pulled out with a few pieces of cork. More attempts with the corkscrew and a knife finally made it's way through but there were lots of cork bits floating in the Grand Marnier as well as some stuck to the inside of the bottle neck. I poured the Grand Marnier through a fairly fine strainer into a measuring cup which was almost large enough. The strainer took out most of the cork bits but there was a little bits left. I then strained into another measuring cup using a paper towel as a sieve which worked pretty well except for the Grand Marnier that spilled on the bread cutting board. I used a spoon to remove the last bits of cork from the measuring cup. I poured some into the shot glass and then poured that into the jam jar. The leftover Grand Marnier was placed in an empty Wheat Germ Jar (a small one that was large enough in spite of a certain person claiming that it was too small). During this whole process there was a fair amount of ambient noise with questions such as "why are there paper towels in the sink?"

I put the jam jar (with lid) in a measuring cup with some water and ice cubes to cool down while hors d'œuvres were made. Robert did that while I cleaned up a bit of spilled Grand Marnier from the counter and the floor.

We didn't use salt on the rims of the glasses. This is probably just as well since there would probably be salt everywhere including spilled into the drinks. I did notice a margarita salt kit in the store the other day along with margarita mix that had no lime juice but did have citrus flavoring in it; I bought neither of these.

The margaritas were quite good. And next time it will be much easier.

Brady was back at work yesterday, but it's not clear when the world's wealthiest supermodel will return to the catwalk. She has a new Web show premiering in February called "Gisele & the Green Team". Featuring an animated Gisele, the show is about four normal teens who, at night, are transformed into environmental superheroes. Led by Bundchen, the team tackles environment ills with beauty accessories - really - while empowering young girls to protect the world.

Don't touch that dial.

- For those not into sports, Tom Brady is the Patriots quarterback and Gisele Bundchen is his wife who gave birth to a baby the previous day.

Tonight I went to a reception/dessert party at the new Cambridge Library. I think its main function was to cultivate possible donors. The architects were there and there were mini tours where we got to talk to the tour guides, a few staff and some of the trustees - all of whom I know. I got a chance for a couple of one-on-ones with the chief architect and the two preservation architects as well.

I enquired about the possibility of a gender neutral bathroom - there is none; possibly they could deal with this. The GLBT Commission is interested in getting the city to address this in all the public buildings.

I did ask the Director about the history room because that is one if the things that we wanted to have in the program for the library. There is a room dedicated for it and they are attempting to hire an archivist to deal with the materials. I hope they do a good job of cataloging and indexing so that materials in the library as well as in the Historical Commission, the Historical Society, and some of the City archives can be identified and found.

They had this special cake to commemorate the building.

Here's the illustration on the cake with a nice diagram of the building:


( The whole cake - partially eaten )

When we came back from Philadelphia on Amtrak last Saturday I posted to misc.transport.rail.americas a question about why there many short-distance power outages on the train ride - often 15-30 seconds when the lights and HVAC were off. I know it has something to do with voltage, frequency, and phase differences on different segments and various vintages of equipment. As of 10 minutes ago there were 77 posts discussing this matter with lots of technical explanations from seemingly quite knowledgeable people. There has been no thread drift - there are references to how it works on several other railroads but these shed light on the explanations, no sniping at other posters and very little negative slant. I got much more explanation than I wanted butit has been interesting seeing the discussion.

I'd meant to post this. On Tuesday the phone rang and the caller identified himself as so-and-so from the Gloucester fire department, I said uh oh, and he said don't worry everything was OK. He said he was in the neighborhood on a call and neighbor alerted him to a beeping smoke alarm. He inspected the house - the door we never use wasn't locked - removed a battery and also commented that the smoke alarm on top of a pile of books along the stairs should be mounted (true - just never could decide exactly where to mount it). We did take a quick trip up and replaced the battery in one of the smoke alarms - and locked the unlocked door. It was too wet to rake leaves so that'll be another time.

I've been going to the Gym (Boston Sports Club - Cambridge) for seven years. For the first year and a half I had had a trainer for a while and then stopped using a trainer. I go 3 times a week and when using a trainer did that once a week. I've gotten pretty sloppy with stretches and don't do free weights anymore because of poor form. So I just signed up with a trainer. I'm using Ryan who I've observed recently and was recommended by neild. I had a preliminary session today with him and he seems to be quite reasonable - not one of these torture types - and start next week. Mre variety in exercise and stretches makes it more interesting which is helpful in insuring that I keep going regularly/

Last night we went to see Carmen at the Boston Lyric Opera. It was a good show with some excellent singing. This was a new production with some significant cuts and as a result Acts I & II were Part One, and II and IV were Part Two with just one intermission. It used spoken dialog instead of sung recitativo. The staging was simple with a huge backdrop poster in different angles for the 4 acts and a bunch of "rocks" strewn about. Act IV usually takes place outside of the Bull Ring and at the end Don José stabs Carmen just as Escamillo is coming out from his triumphant killing. In this production it took place in a bedroom and Escamillo appears coming from the distance just at the end. It was thus a more intimate than dramatic ending and an interesting take.

Carmen is my favorite opera; I know it pretty well and that makes seeing it even more enjoyable. My recording has Risë Stevens singing Carmen and is from 1951. I haven't listened to it in a really long time; my only record player is hooked up to my computer for conversion of old records (yet another undone project). Carmen was my first opera. My piano teacher took me there to the old Met in NYC in about 1951 - we spent some time before we went going over the music. Afterwards he took me backstage and I met both the Tenor and the Mezzo but I don't remember who they were - I think they were the second string.

Last night we went to another What Makes it Great performance by Rob Kapilow. This one was Mendelssohn's Octet. The way these programs work is in the first half Kapilow and the musicians are in stage with Kapilow talking and demonstrating on the piano and the musicians playing parts as he directs. He breaks down the piece illustrating themes and their relationship to each other. He'll play them slowly, or leave out some of the instruments. Sometimes he plays a less imaginative imitation in order to illustrate how great something is. He gets the audience to sing a bit or test out rhythms. He expounds about the music, the composer, and performance at the time of the composition, and in this case how incredible this 16 year old at-the-time composer was.

After the intermission, the piece is played in full. And then there is a Q&A section at the end. I learned a lot about the piece such as the little theme from the Hallelujah Chorus in the last movement, a piece of the Scherzo (3rd movement) that appears in the last in imitation of a then recent Beethoven invention, how Mendelssohn pioneered conducting an orchestra, and also started the practice of performing old music (e.g. Bach was not generally performed at the time). Two of the musicians used MacBookPros with a two-button foot pedal to turn pages as their source of music and one explained how it allowed him to play from the score instead of just seeing his line because rapid page turning was now possible.

The next What Makes it Great is January 23 with Cole Porter's music.

As was true last year, before the concert we went to dinner with eblaug_rss and RP at Bombay Cafe.