Then – May 30th 2020

Books I Know I’ll Be Returning To Again and Again:

I’m starting to realize that I can’t hope to continue re-reading many of the old favorites I seem to have been re-reading my whole life.  The list of books I’m still eager to get to is just too extensive.  But all the same,  beyond a dozen or so great favorites I know I’ll reread at least once more, there are a few books I just love too much and hold too dear, and these I know I will be re-reading (or revisiting on Audible) again and again until I die:

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

My favorite dozen plays by Shakespeare

My favorite half dozen novels by Dickens

Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey

The Harry Potter series

Everything by PG Wodehouse

Photographer Whose Work I’m Sitting With a Lot Lately:

Daido Moriyama

Albums I’m Especially Enjoying Right Now:

Destination Rachmaninov – Departure & Arrival (2 CDs)

Ed Sheeran “x” (Deluxe Edition)

U2 “Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience” (Live)

Bruce Springsteen “Greetings from Asbury Park” (on vinyl)

Van Halen “Fair Warning”

Three Analog Pastimes I’ve Been Getting Back Into

1.) Film photography — shooting all B&W at the moment. 

2.) Studying chess — not on a computer, but on my  actual chess board with my favorite books of grandmaster games.

3.) Active journaling — more time on paper, less time on screens.

A Few Things I’m Especially Grateful For:

My amazing, amazing, amazing students.  Every day I am struck anew and with wonder at their talents and at just how great they are.

My little Walkman MP3 player and bluetooth headphones.  (Truly a marvel of the modern age.  I keep thinking back to when I was a kid and all I could listen to music on was a single-cassette boombox and ultra-cheap headphones, and the only music I had was my beat-up collection of cassettes and whatever I could find on the radio.)

My cats.  I really love my cats and can’t imagine my days without them around me.

A Favorite Quotation I’ve Been Reading Every Morning:

”If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success.” – Henry David Thoreau 

What I’m Mostly Doing Now:

1.) Readying to publish a brand new iPhoneography course by the wonderfully talented Nicki Fitz-Gerald.

2.) Planning out my big projects for the summer.  (Lots of exciting things ahead!)

3.) Spring cleaning — getting rid of lots of stuff and generally clearing the decks (while catching up on podcasts and lectures).

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Curious about one week further back?  If so, click here to see what I was up to THEN …