Hrm...so no new posts in a while. Is anyone still reading this thing? Anyway, things have been busy, but good. It's hard to believe the semester is almost over. I've got a bunch to do before the end, but it's definitely in sight. As much as I enjoy teaching, I am really looking forward to having time to actually get some research done. Oh, one other thing to look forward to: I'm doing the last lecture for the class I am TAing. I'll be talking about language security, and I hope to include some slides on this really clever attack on JVMs. It will hopefully be a good experience.

I managed to make 3 of the 5 performances mentioned previously. The SF Symphony concert conducted by Robertson was pretty good; I especially enjoyed the Steve Reich piece they did. Emanuel Ax gave an amazing recital, and Don Carlos was much more comprehensible with English supertitles (I previously saw it in Paris with no supertitles). I missed the Berlin Philharmonic because of poor planning, and Lady Macbeth because of opera exhaustion after Don Carlos.

I finally started to do some singing again. I'm starting to work on the first song in Schubert's Winterreise song cycle. Depressing subject matter, but incredible music. It's been nice to work on some new music; once winter break hits, I hope to find a new voice teacher and make practice a habit next semester.

Well, maybe I'll post again over Thanksgiving break since there probably won't be much else going on (I'll be home in PA).

Just heard from my old friend Decker, who is now down in LA with his band, Remy De La Mora. I listened to some of their stuff this morning, and it's pretty good. Check it out, and check them out if you're down in the LA area.

See my thoughts on this whole leaked Senate intelligence committee memo here on NewsDog. Also see this TNR article on the news media. It makes some good points on how being too "even-handed" can obscure facts.

Performances to check out this month:

Robertson conducts Stravinsky

Berlin Philharmonic

Don Carlos

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Emanuel Ax

Didn't do too well last month on concert attendance, but I'm definitely doing at least 2 out of these 5, so it's looking better.