Highways and Byways: Night Climbing

By Maik Strosahl

Was trying to sleep through another “refer” night, pulling a temperature-controlled trailer across Missouri. I set up Netflix to play old Star Trek: Next Gen episodes to nod off, but I am still awake and contemplating a Dyson Sphere.
    Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) was a theoretical and mathematical physicist. At four, he is said to have been obsessed with calculating how many atoms there were in the sun. He took pride in going against conventional wisdom and felt that it was better for a prophet to be wrong than to be vague about his ideas. Today, his name is borne by several concepts, including the aforementioned Sphere, which is a theoretical way an advanced space-faring civilization could harness their nearest star for almost unlimited energy by enclosing it with an artificial structure. It was also a great way for the second Star Trek series to bring back James Doohan in his signature role.

At Random: A Man Walked into a Convenience Store

A dispatch from 

the land of :

“Hell yeah! 

We know how 

to do stupid!”

By Paul Clark
(aka motomynd)

Over the years I’ve been called out by various Moristotle readers and writers because the stories I claim as factual accounts sometimes seem so far-fetched, people assume I must be embellishing, à la Hunter Thompson…or Fox “News.” When I try to explain that these stories are simply examples of the idiocy that swirled around me as I grew up in Southwest Virginia, and that I rediscovered when I moved back from the Northern Virginia/Washington DC area to SWVA, few seem to believe me.
    “How could such stupidity and absurdity possibly be real?” people ask.

From the Alwinac: Bel Canto Cello: Adrian Bradbury Plays Piatti’s Opera Fantasies

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go directly to
the Alwinac’s home page]

[The Alwinac blog is part of the schroeder170 project, honoring the life and musical career of cellist Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928) and exploring the history of cello playing in the US.]


Bradbury and Davies perform Piatti’s Fantasy on Bellini's La Sonnambula.

British cellist Adrian Bradbury’s 2020 2-CD release of Alfredo Piatti: The Operatic Fantasies is a musical celebration of the greatest hits of Italian opera, as reimagined for the cello by one of the most outstanding virtuosos of the 19th century. A project backed by significant scholarship and consummate skill, it is also an illuminating document of Bradbury’s own journey with a previously-neglected part of Piatti’s compositional legacy, from Bradbury’s discovery of unpublished Piatti fantasies in the cellist-composer’s archive in his native Bergamo, Italy, through a decade-long process of learning, performing, and ultimately recording them.

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Copyright © 2021 by Geoffrey Dean

All Over the Place: After the Broke Hip Is Repaired

By Michael H. Brownstein

In the great lakes of injured bone,

a spinal tap      temperature      a reading of the pulse.

When he arrives from the water’s bottom to the light

Recovery      no pain      a stomach of animosity.

Laying in his bed, they welcome him back

warm water      salad      something soft to chew on.

He sighs. Pain tears away from its cocoon

blood work      pulse rate      temperature      blood pressure.

He refuses pain pills, calms himself, lets the wind outside in,

and when he falls asleep      a current of coolness,

grass carp darting to the side      pain sinking into mud.

Copyright © 2021 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively.

Ray Just Being Ray (a poem)

By Paul Clark (aka motomynd)

He stands on his back porch and stares,

crosses his arms, flexes his forearms, glares,

he shoots a finger, just before he turns away,

yet another day of Ray just being Ray.

Goines On: Not a rave review

Click image for more vignettes

Almost every week, Goines had been buying a carton of Envy apples at Costco so he and Mrs. Goines could enjoy slices of a deliciously flavorful apple for dessert following their usual dinner of peanut butter on toasted bread.
    But Costco had no Envy’s on their most recent shopping trip, and so, of the three sorts on display, he selected a carton of Rave’s, an apple he’d not heard of. He was setting the carton in his cart when a woman startled him by asking how Rave’s were, and it twisted open and one of the apples tumbled out. He told her he hadn’t tried them, but—

From the Alwinac: Bel Canto Cellists in America: Gaetano Braga

[Click on image to
go directly to
the Alwinac’s home page]

[The Alwinac blog is part of the schroeder170 project, honoring the life and musical career of cellist Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928) and exploring the history of cello playing in the US.]


Listen to Souvenir d’Amerique.

The Italian composer and cellist Gaetano Braga (1829-1907), wrote his earliest musical works in his early teens, while a student of Mercadante at the Conservatory of S. Pietro a Majella in Naples. His main cello teacher was Ciaudelli. In the two decades prior to his tour of the United States, Braga’s musical career developed along two parallel paths: as an opera composer, with productions in Naples, Vienna, Paris, and Milan, and as a leading cellist, with solo, chamber music, and orchestral performances across Europe. In London he acquired the 1731 Stradivarius cello known today as the “Braga” Strad, and in Paris he struck up a friendship with Rossini, performed with Liszt, Rubinstein, Bizet, Gounod, Saint-Saens, and Bottesini, and was also sought after as a voice teacher at the Theater Italien. Braga successfully applied the bel canto singing style to the cello, and considered “broad, impassioned, vibrant singing” an essential characteristic of truly beautiful cello playing, even in more technically demanding pieces. With cello compositions ranging from variations on opera themes to concertos, Braga is best remembered for his Angel’s Serenade, a song with cello or violin obbligato that is beautifully suited to solo performance on the cello.

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Copyright © 2021 by Geoffrey Dean

Highways and Byways: Someone Left the Door Open

By Maik Strosahl

From 2001-2008, I ran a newspaper distributorship northeast of Indianapolis. Many nights I had a route or two to deliver. I really did not enjoy the winters, but driving back-country roads was a great time to think and observe a normally unseen world.

Side Story: Why not have leap years every 20 years, or 40, or whatever?

With apologies to the 1961 American
musical romantic drama directed by
Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins

Moristotle, your “Goines On: Before 1901, after 2099?” piece really did a thing on me yesterday. I would like to talk about it. —Paul Clark

Talk by Paul Clark

Goines On: Before 1901, after 2099?

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Goines looked at his archives and discovered that he had years ago pieced together more about calendar recycling than he was currently re-piecing together. He had tackled the subject in some depth eight years earlier, even written a sestina about it for the Goineses’ 47^th wedding anniversary.
    While he didn’t think he still had the brain power those earlier investigations required, he was pleased that he was managing to re-tool a thing or two for his “parlor trick.”

All Over the Place: Parents

From My Teaching Book

By Michael H. Brownstein

F. transferred from my classroom. That’s not such a big deal. A few years ago, one of my students transferred after I called DCFS because her mother was selling her to old men. I caught her in the act. The next day DCFS knocked on her door and the entire family vanished out through the back. We were able to trace them to a town in Indiana where they vanished again.

Who? (a poem)

By Shirley Skufca Hickman

Who will dry my tears
    when you are gone?
Who will hold me tight
    when you are gone?

Who will talk with me
    when you are gone?
Who will hold my hand
    when you are gone?

Who will kiss my lips
    when you are gone?
Who will warm my bed
    when you are gone?

Who will dry my tears
    now that you’re gone.

Copyright © 2021 by Shirley Skufca Hickman

Roger’s Reality: The Camper Saga, Part 1

By Roger Owens

When Mom passed and the dust had settled, with the usual bickering over her estate, we got some money and I decided to get us a camper. Cindy and I had always thought we would go back to a pontoon boat for our retirement, but it was clear we are no longer up to boating. Plus, we would be limited to the waterways nearby. But with a camper trailer, we would be going back even farther, to our days as master tent campers. We had it all, double inflatable mattresses so you’re just like in a bed, reading lights, side tables, fans, shower, our own toilet, and a separate room in the tent to put it in. I mean, we were pros. In the intervening years we rented motor homes several times, and the ease with which we could get into the wilderness and then just pack up and leave impressed us greatly. So, a camper it would be.

From the Alwinac: Bel Canto Cello: Resignation and Rebellion in Verdi’s I Masnadieri Prelude

[Click on image to
go directly to
the Alwinac’s home page]

[The Alwinac blog is part of the schroeder170 project, honoring the life and musical career of cellist Alwin Schroeder (1855-1928) and exploring the history of cello playing in the US.]


A central feature of Italian opera through the 19th century, the bel canto singing style also influenced cellists of the Italian school such as Piatti, C. A. Casella, and Braga, all born in the 1820s. But “Beautiful singing” was more than just an approach to singing or playing: bel canto also referred to the kind of music intended to be performed in the bel canto singing style, including the many fantasies with variations on famous opera arias by Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi that these and other Romantic-era cellists were fond of composing and performing.
    A more unusual example in the bel canto cello repertoire is the “Preludio” of Verdi’s early opera I Masnadieri – unusual because it is a self-contained piece (i.e., it can be played independently) and it is not a cellist's a paraphrase of existing vocal music. In the summer of 1847, when I Masnadieri (The Robbers) was premiered in London, commentators questioned why Verdi had not provided a more bombastic orchestral overture and thought that the prelude, seemingly unrelated to the rest of the opera, was too insubstantial to serve in its place. It certainly showcased the talent of Alfredo Piatti, the new first cellist of Her Majesty’s Theatre, and there was general agreement that his playing of the prelude was a highlight of the opera’s premiere. It can also be argued that giving the lone cello centerstage IS related to the subject of the opera as whole, because it brings out the idea of isolation so central to The Robbers, a tragic story driven by student-turned-robber Carlo’s estrangement from his family and fiancé, and culminating in his calamitous choice of fidelity to the robber band over his love for Amalia. The isolation idea has important implications for interpreting the cello solo – is its character one of unalloyed melancholy, or is there a stronger vein of personal rebellion running through it

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Read on….

Copyright © 2021 by Geoffrey Dean

Highways and Byways: Longyearbyen

By Maik Strosahl

Last month I went back to my hometown for my 35th high school reunion. It was really nice to catch up with old friends, get to know classmates I could not recall (we had a large class), and just relive the days of our youth.
    I didn’t really keep in touch with my high school crew through the years. Truth be told, those days were tough times long ago buried. But I finally decided to attend a gathering in 2016, the 30th reunion. I was very nervous about the whole event.