WTF-Beta

@Axtremus Just like with reading music, I winged it! As soon as I had 4 syllables, I was there. No counting for me…

I started re-reading this in September, when I started playing again. My original copy is lost (probably lent it to a friend), so Mr. AM gave me another copy for my birthday.

I read this book and shared it with Mr. AM, back in 1999 maybe? He surprised me with a trip to Sonata piano camp in 2000. I went for several more years after that. Life-changing; I have many enduring friendships because of that.

Here’s a review of the book from the NYT archive. She wasn’t impressed!

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PIANO LESSONS Music, Love, & True Adventures. By Noah Adams. Delacorte, $20.95.

Two years ago, when he was in his early 50's, Noah Adams decided to learn to play the piano. "Piano Lessons" is ostensibly an account of what happens over the following 12 months, as he purchases an $11,000 Steinway upright and attempts to make good on his resolution. The trouble is, the demands of Mr. Adams's professional life -- he is a host of "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio -- make it hard for him to find time to practice, and, despite the book's title, he doesn't actually take lessons. As a result, Mr. Adams's narrative is fleshed out with extended digressions both musical and otherwise: histories of pianists, piano making and piano pedagogy; transcripts of the author's radio interviews with classical and popular pianists; a meeting with the best-selling novelist John Grisham. It is a tribute to Mr. Adams's warm, stylish writing that we are willing to stay with him for the duration, even though it is quickly apparent that an account of his pianistic career by itself would be no longer than a magazine article. (A more suitable title for this book might have been "Memoir With Incidental Music.") When Mr. Adams does sit down at the piano, his self-deprecating accounts of his struggles -- his teacher is a computer that dispenses tips like "You came in about 24 beats late" -- are engaging, although the narrative occasionally slows to largo with finger-by-finger descriptions of his efforts to master the keyboard. In the book's most involving chapter, Mr. Adams goes to music camp, and -- miracle of miracles -- actually performs a simple piece in recital. As the year progresses, he writes with feeling about the ability of music to summon up memory. And that, at bottom, is what this pleasant book-length medley is really about. Margalit Fox

Lord(e)

I’m a big fan of Dirty Dancing, and it’s been showing up in my Instagram feed. The dancing is great. I can’t move like that.

@Bernard @chas I got it!

The Times review goes over a lot of the plot, so I’m not going to link it. But there’s also an interview with Kingsolver and Yiyun Li, whose new novel “Music Against the Night” is about John Field (nocturnes) and Adelaide Percheron, his eventual wife.

Li is learning to play the piano.

So I’ve put that on hold at the library, too.

I hurkle durkled today. Wrote a very long blog post about the rest of our river cruise. But I also got up in the middle to play the piano, which I hadn’t done since I got home.

@Steve-Miller Here’s a link to the food walk that we did. Jenny was a great host!

She actually sent us an email with all the places we went, and what we ate.

I have this book on my kindle from the library, but I’m finishing something else before I dive in. NYTimes had a nice review.

Monday

Well, it’s closer than going to Scotland! That looks like fun.

@Mark So much of what we do/have at our house has to do with keeping cats out of things they shouldn’t have access to!

I don’t think I’d cover a turntable as gorgeous as yours, unless the cat was messing with it.

@wtg Who, me?

I bought 3 balls of yarn to knit a coordinating headband to go with my sweater that I knit in 2016. The sweater is called Stopover, designed by Mary Jane Mucklestone on her stopover in Iceland. So very meta!

I finished in time to wear it for the Golden Circle tour.

Iceland Air lets you make a long layover, up to 7 days, on an itinerary through Reykjavik. We spent 3 nights in Iceland on the way to France for a river cruise in Provence.

My hope was to see the aurora borealis.

Mission accomplished! We did a tour with EastWest tours, and the guide was great.

I couldn’t see the purple without my camera/phone. Everything looks better through the camera phone! I took about 100 pictures.

We also did a food walk (delish, and fun), while seeing downtown Reykjavik.

Sun Voyager

Hallgrimskirkja and Leif Ericsson statue

We did a Golden Circle Tour and saw some major sites (Thingvellir National Park, Gullfoss waterfall, Geysir).

Spent time at the Blue Lagoon (very touristy, but great way to wait until your hotel room is ready; we landed at 7 am). Check out the lifeguard attire; definitely not Baywatch.

Also spent time at Laugarás Lagoon the day before we left, it opened in October 2026. Really lovely, quiet and relaxing.

Onward to Provence!

dental

@mark that is a very cool turntable! Does it have a cover when you’re not using it? One of our cats sits on top of our covered turntable; he likes being high up.

We have 3 lamps in the living room, or 4 if you count the piano lamp. One piano (sold the Roland about a decade ago).

More guitars than I remember; I have two, occasionally play one of them. Mr. AM has four. Kiddo left five or six here, maybe? 3 are electric.

labyrinth

If you see a sign about pickpockets, try to avoid reflexively tapping your wallet or phone. That’s a clear indication to pickpockets showing the target area!

Peristalsis

You need to download the Zoom app to your phone.

Did they send you a Zoom meeting link? If you tap it, it should open in Zoom. (Your people won’t be there yet, but you can see if it works.)