Events

The Apollo Chorus performed Joby Talbot's Everest a few weeks ago, and to prepare for the opera I read Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. (The opera is based on the events described in that book.) I concluded that climbing Mt Everest is insane. That didn't stop about 100 climbers from attempting to summit on May 23rd of this year, contributing to one of the deadliest days in the mountain's history: [T]wo decades on, the Everest experience often seems to have devolved even further into a circus-like pageant...

Today in Chicago we have seen more sun than in the past several weeks, and yet here I toil in my cube. But a lot is going on outside it: Josh Marshall has come around to agreement that the House should move forward with impeaching the president, as in fact they plan to do before Christmas. Esquire calls the Republican defense of the president a "Catch-22 of stupid." In Israel, a 29-year-old former Haredi woman had never heard of television or the Internet until a non-profit sprung her from her...

As the House Judiciary Committee goes through the unfortunately necessary step of having expert witnesses state the obvious, other things caught my attention over the course of the morning: The Trump Administration has changed the rules for receiving food stamps, which will drop 3 million needy people from food assistance. The Atlantic's Franklin Foer outlines the betrayal of Volodymyr Zelensky. Somehow, local Chicago microbrewery Kings and Convicts has bought the much-larger Ballast Point Brewery. To...

After conversations with knowledgeable friends on both sides of center, I wonder which of these scenarios in all seriousness is most likely. Note that these scenarios are not mutually exclusive: A. President Trump wins re-election. B. President Trump leaves office before the 2021 inauguration. C. President Trump loses re-election but refuses to concede. D. One or more members of President Trump's immediate family flees to exile in Russia before the end of 2022. E. A flag or general officer openly defies...

This week's New Yorker has a long ode to my second-favorite spirit: Gin is on the rise and on the loose. It has gone forth and multiplied. Forget rising sea levels; given the sudden ascendancy of gin, the polar gin caps must be melting fast. Torn between a Tommyrotter and a Cathouse Pink? Can’t tell the difference between a Spirit Hound and an Ugly Dog? No problem. There are now gins of every shade, for every social occasion, and from every time zone. The contagion is global, and I have stumbled across...

I hate taking sick days, I really do. Fortunately, the Internet never takes one: Mother Jones looks at how NOAA is doing under the current administration. Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page gave an interview to the Daily Beast. Roll Call reports that a dozen House races have shifted towards the Democratic candidates. The Times: "In Prince Andrew scandal, Prince Charles emerges as monarch-in-waiting." Sesame Street is 50. Pastoral, a long-time wine and cheese shop in Chicago, is closing. The former owners of...

At least, not in the Northeast: In the Northeast, heavy snow, mixed precipitation and strong winds are expected to develop in many areas beginning as early as Sunday. Freezing rain was already falling in parts of Pennsylvania on Sunday, making roads hazardous, and the stage is set for a burdensome Monday morning commute for many from New York to Portland, Maine. As of Sunday morning, the storm that will evolve into the first big storm of the 2019-2020 winter season in the Northeast was centered 700...

Somehow, it's December again: winter in the northern hemisphere. Another 8 weeks of sunsets before 5pm, sunrises after 7am, and cold gray skies. At least it builds character. For me, it also means two weeks of non-stop Händel. Rehearsals tomorrow, Thursday, next Monday, and next Wednesday; performances Tuesday, Friday, and on the 14th and 15th. Two of those won't be Apollo performances per se. On Tuesday a few of us will visit a local retirement community and help out with their annual sing-a-long of...

Historian Waitman Wade Beorn, who served in Iraq after graduating from West Point, is deeply disturbed by President Trump's intervention into the Eddie Gallagher case: History warns us that leaders who condone war crimes find themselves in command of criminal militaries. Lessons from the past about war crimes and transgressive military cultures are not just academic: My research shows that subordinates generally read their superiors’ intent with accuracy, for better and for worse. By demonstrating his...

The New York Times Canada Letter today lead with a story about how local regulation in Montreal threatens a culinary tradition: [Irwin Shlafman and Joe Morena] are competitors in the business of Montreal bagels, which have a distinctive flavor from being boiled in honey-infused water before being baked in a wood-burning oven. These days, however, Mr. Shlafman and Mr. Morena are united against a common threat — environmentalists who want to abolish the pollutant-producing ovens where the bagels are made....