Events

Most members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) last week fired their agents because of the intrusion of finance into their business. Large agencies, some owned by finance companies and no longer partnerships, no longer appear to represent the writers they claim to represent, as the agents have interests on both sides of many deals. The Association of Talent Agents (ATA) has responded to all these principals firing their agents with questionable logic: For those of you who haven’t been following, the...

Today's Blogging A-to-Z challenge post will take a look at common musical forms. We've already seen some examples of common musical forms, even though I didn't call them out: the canon and the fugue. Both are imitative forms, though as you've seen the fugue is far more complex than the canon. "Row Row Row Your Boat" is a canon (but, of course, someone made a fugue out of it). When we talk about other forms, we usually note large sections of music with letters. So a form of, say, A-B-A means that you...

Started on AA1452 DFW-DEN

Started in Denver

My official post, with photos, will appear Sunday. I just want to put a marker in the sand that tonight I went to what passed for a baseball game at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas. I didn't realize that they're tearing the park down after this season because it's—wait for it—25 years old. Really? Twenty-five years? You know Wrigley and Fenway are both over 100, right? Whatever. This was Park #29, and apparently the Geas won't end this year because I'll have to go to Globe Life Field next year. Or...

The always-incisive Alexandra Petri provides a more honest view of AG William Barr's press conference yesterday: Hello, everyone. I am here to repeat the words “no collusion” as many times as I can without sounding suspicious, but first, I would like to thank Rod Rosenstein. He is here standing behind me. He had plans to step back from public service before I came along and asked him to assist me. Then again, some would argue that by assisting me, he did not perform a public service. Anyway, he is here....

Today's Blogging A-to-Z challenge post explains how musicians keep time. Through all the examples I've posted this month, you may have noticed that a note's stem has a relationship to how long the note sounds. They do. Starting with a whole note (open, with no stem), each change to the stem reduces the length of the note by half. This also works when you start with a whole rest, except a rest means "don't do anything here." Example: (In the UK, those notes are called whole, half, quarter, quaver...