I stumbled across this a few days ago and had to share it. Delibes: Lakmé – Duo des fleurs (Flower Duet) is a duet for soprano and mezzo-soprano in the first act of Léo Delibes’ opera Lakmé, premiered in Paris in 1883. It is sung by the characters Lakmé, daughter of a Brahmin priest, and her servant Mallika, as they go to gather flowers by a river. While you may not recognize the name of this piece, you should be familiar…
November has arrived. Summer is a distant memory and Halloween is blessedly in the rear view mirror. So what comes next? If your house is anything like mine when I was a child, the arrival of November meant the start of the Christmas baking season for our mother. I fondly recall the heavenly aroma of fresh baked bread, the wonderful smell of cinnamon as the rolls turned golden brown in the oven, and the sight of pies cooling on the…
I considered making this post about computer trivia, but decided to start instead with printing. After all, I am in the business of publishing novels and the printed word arrived long before Kindle. I found many of the facts listed below on a website called Printing Impressions. https://www.piworld.com/article/unusual-historical-facts-printing-industry/ Although Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, he did not invent printing itself. That distinction goes to Chinese monks, who used pieces of wood dipped in ink to print scrolls, five hundred…
With everything happening in the world right now, I decided we all need something to brighten our day. To that end, I went online in search of innocuous jokes (or Dad jokes, if you will). I was looking for humor innocent enough that nobody would take offense to, but corny enough to tickle your funny bone. My journeys took me to The Country Living site and a page titled “80 Hilariously Funny Jokes to Make Your Friends and Family Laugh”….
My latest novel, If Not For the Entail, is now available on Amazon. I released the eBook late Saturday evening and am now working on the paperback version. The process, from idea to completion, was not easy, so I’m pleased as punch to get to this point. I pray that my next composition goes a little easier but I suppose that is, for the most part, entirely up to me. I’m pleased with this story. It’s a bit more in-depth…
Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. As with so many times of the year, it arrives ahead of our American friends’ observation of the occasion. (Please don’t take offense, my tongue was firmly in my cheek as I wrote that last sentence.) My eldest sister lives in Utah, so I have a habit of pointing that out to her every year. What is a younger brother for, if not to bother older siblings, of which I have two? In Canada, the…
I have been working on a novel since April, and I can finally see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. “If Not For the Entail” is my best composition yet, if you believe those who have read it through to the end. The plot revolves around Elizabeth Bennet’s efforts to save the family estate from a fraudulent ownership claim. I sent the manuscript to the editor today, and I plan on publishing somewhere around the third week…
Artificial intelligence seems to be all the rage now. It is not a new concept; Science fiction authors have written sentient robots into their stories since the beginning of the twentieth century, if not before. In my humble opinion, Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” is one of the best series ever written, and his protagonist is a self-aware robot, governed by his Three Rules of Robotics, although the revelation of who he is comes late in the series. In the Star Trek…
Summer is over at the end of this week and I am not looking forward to the season’s change. I love spring, because it signals five months of good weather. Autumn, on the other hand, reminds me that winter is just around the corner, and I cannot find anything good to say about the coming weeks of cold weather. I’m not saying there is no beauty in the year’s third season, but rather, that it is fleeting. The leaves going…
I am a child of the 60’s. When Beatlemania hit in 1963, I was seven years old, but even at that age I loved their music and, honestly, about ninety-five percent of the music from that decade. Were those ten years the pinnacle of musical achievement? In my humble opinion, while some fantastic compositions were penned in that period, they don’t hold a candle to Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, and a host of other composers from the previous three or four…