Who: The Civil Wars, a Nashville Americana band formed in 2008, and composed of country/rock singer and songwriter John Paul White, and Joy Williams, who started out as a contemporary Christian singer in her teens, before moving on to mainstream as adult songwriter. They met at a songwriting workshop organised by a Nashville record label, … More Album Club: Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. Sonnet 54 No more be grieved at that which thou hast done: Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud. Sonnet 35 Of … More A rose by any other name
WordPress tells me that the first draft of this post is from January; I have started and stopped editing the same post again and again, every time feeling just as uninspired. It wasn’t that I wasn’t doing things – I was – it just was that I had little to say about them, no words … More Lately
Lilacs, False blue, White, Purple, Color of lilac, Your great puffs of flowers Are everywhere in this my New England. Among your heart-shaped leaves Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing Their little weak soft songs; In the crooks of your branches The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs Peer restlessly … More Lilacs
another year, another Connolly Fest done – every year around October or so, there’s a blurry of Dame Sarah related activity. This year was a near repeat of the last – Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in London and a Lieder Festival concert in Oxford – with an added bonus of an opera, Wagner’s … More Lately
I’m holidaying in Finland, which is at the moment hot, humid and exhausting – England was hot too, but at least the nights were cool, which they decidedly are not in here. It’s been a busy few days; after the exhibition ended and all the regular summer activities were over, I had about a week … More Pilgrimages II
These are the notes for the selection of photos on display at the Oxford Festival of the Arts hub until 6th July. Oxford Blue – Garden photography Unvarnished – The portrait project “These two sets of photographs represent a point of transition in my life as a photographer – a move away from the nature/garden … More Exhibition notes
Few months ago, in a moment of madness I decided to enter my photos in an open art show. I have been taking pictures for a long time, and I know that they are not bad, but when I made that harebrained decision, I didn’t know if they would be good enough, or interesting enough … More On photography
What a long silence it’s been. Between the last post and now, I have gone through illness and health scare, and through a spell of just general sort of fatigue. I also already in March made the decision to not to photograph any of the things I usually photograph (as a part of the annual … More Pilgrimages
It’s been raining endlessly, the Easter holidays a complete washout of miserably cold, dark, wet days, and delayed spring. I saw the Old Vic production of Fanny and Alexander again at the end of March, somewhat late into the run. As said before, I like seeing plays both during the previews and after the first … More Lately
Shakespeare for absolute beginners 