More Interesting Stuff: Music, Recreation, Opinions, etc.
[Music & Listening]
[Literature]
[Culture]
[Miscellaneous]
[Significant Events]
Music and Listening
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I've recently (and rewardingly) taken-up again with the trumpet-playing. On and off I've been playing with the University of Maryland Community Concert Band. It's a lot of fun!!
Everyone with instrument skills are encouraged to come-out to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on the College Park campus on Tuesdays at 7:30pm. It's actually been since about Spring of 2001 since I've played. Suffice it to say that I had reason to make me choose how I was going to spend my limited free time and I chose to spend it working on my business.
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These days for daily entertainment, I mostly listen to WMAL NewsTalk Radio, AM 630, and WCBM NewsTalk Radio, AM 680.
I've become sort of a news and politics junkie. Especially after my eyes had been openned to the incredible disingenuous, biased, and totally intellectual dishonesty I'd experienced first hand by members of the media and world body politic. The utter lack of a moral compass by many of the world's leaders, the criminal neglect for the truth by media, and the vapid ignorance for fact and history by the vast majority of blindly led sheep has turned me into a person who no longer keeps his mouth shut when he hears idiots, biggots, and terrorists exploit the uneducated masses with their rhetoric and propaganda.
This section used to talk about my musical preferences from here down, but considering what I wrote above, I don't think my musical preferences are all that interesting.
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Literature
This section is so out of date, I don't know where to begin to rectify it.
Let's just say that when I had free time, I read for fun. Now I read for fun on vacation and when I read at any other time it's for information. The stuff below is true, but not current. If I ever take the time to update this area, it will list the myriad of periodicals I receive and attempt to scan on a weekly and monthly basis. The short list includes
| I owe grattitude to to Jeanne for introducing me to the
world of comics. Yup, that's right, Graphic Novels.
She started me on Neil Gaiman's
work called Death and the High Cost of Living. Jeanne says that if I had an active dislike for it things between
us would never had worked. (Personally, after having later graduated from Gaiman's major work: The Sandman
comic series, one must be a complete knee-biter not to at least appreciate Gaiman's incredible talent. Gaiman and his
Sandman stories are known as the pinnacle of adult intellectual graphic novels. Simply amazing.
Incidently, we met Gaiman on 24 June 1997 at a book signing at the Bibelot Book Store in Timonium, Maryland.
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| One of the next author/artists I experienced was Jeff Smith who writes
Bone.
This imaginative, engrossing, very well drawn story is a real page-turner. Never a dull moment.
Great use of motion... just an over-all well-done work. Recommended reading at any age.
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| The last series is Terry Moore's Strangers In Paradise.
Perhaps among the most realistic concepts ever. Life-like characters, art, dialogue, situations, psychologies...
This work really gets inside you.
You can read about us meeting Jeff and Terry and others at the Chicago ComiCon '97 on
Jeanne's Web Page under
the "What's New" button.
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| In my On the Inside page I mention one of the
other strong influences in my adult reading. Dan Millman
is one genuine nice guy with more honor and integrity than most roomfulls of authors. He lives what he writes and when we met
him on 20 August 1997 you could see just how deeply he believed in what he does and says. He doesn't just espouse
discussion on universal truths, integrity, morality, and health: he lives and breaths it to the core of his being.
It was quite an experience.
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I also read Tom Clancy, books on Spirituality, Judaism, and Life & Management Philosophies.
And now I have Jeanne to thank again for hooking me on Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
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Recommended Culture
RENT.
(The Rock & Roll Musical by Jonathan Larson)
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- See it!
- Love it!
- Don't ask questions!
Phantom of the Opera
- After having listened to the CD for years before seeing it on Broadway, I was thoroghly disappointed at the lack of musical intensity and
frankly, lack of VOLUME, as in decibels. Great special effects, though.
Cirque du Soleil
I'd been to two productions of this show. Once in a tent, the other on stage.
Jeanne was with me for the stage production. At the end, when we caught our breath,
all she said to me was:
"I don't ever ever want to miss another one of these ever again."
And I think that pretty-much says it all... by the way, I completely agree.
Since then we'd been to three more shows.
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Misc....
Throughout my school-age years I was dabbling in photography. I unfortunately gave most of that up in college
and am now trying to remind myself to get back into the snap-happy mode I used to be in. In high school I went so far as to be the photography
editor for our award-winning yearbook. During our honeymoon I got frustrated enough with my camera and with what I
thought was a broken light-meter that as soon as we returned I bought a Nikon N70. Aowhwawhahwa!
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Significant Events
Marriage: Fall 1997. (See Jeanne.)
Also check-out our woefully out-of-date (but historically accurate)
wedding website.
Some pictures may be posted here eventually.
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We rented a villa through Annie at Endless Vacations.
She also hooked-us-up with a car and travel agent. Check them out! Maybe I'll post our experiences and some more pictures when I ever make the time to do it!
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This is us at Shirley Point overlooking English Harbor
And here we're at Chez Pascal's pool after a late lunch feast.
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We are blessed with a son. Born in the Summer of 2002.
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This is Jacob on day 1.
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We are blessed with a daughter. Born in the Spring of 2004.
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This is Mali on day 1.
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Landmark Education Work:
All I can say about the work that I do with the approaches distinguished by
Landmark Education
is that it is the most exciting, impactful, powerful, and insightful experience of my life.
What has openned-up for my wife and me is beyond a simple explanation.
Here's an example:
Many couples experience times when they're not in synch.
This happens to all of us -- even at the best of times. It's part of being two humans sharing their lives.
Often we have no idea why we're not in synch, we just know that something's not quite right at that moment.
But for me, what's the most frustrating isn't the part about not being in synch, it's the part about
not knowing how to recreate whatever it is that we did/said/were to be in synch in the first place!
Isn't that annoying? What we got out of the Landmark Forum
is the ability to generate being in-synch -- AT WILL!
Although this example has to do with us as a couple, this work is really about each of us -- as humans.
And because the work delves into our relationships with our surroundings, it is especially noticable when
applied to an important relationship in one's life. Consequently, taking the Forum as a couple
will likely enhance a couple's communication. This work is not counselling -- couples, group, individual,
or otherwise. The Forum works for all well people. (It is not recommended for people
who have difficulty facing and operating in reality.) The Forum will not
fix, repair, or cure you or your problems. It is a conversation about having the life you love and
living it powerfully. In that is meant everything about your life.
I'd be glad to get into a conversation about it. Just mail me: hillel -AT- hillelglazer -DOT- com.
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This page last updated on 21.Nov.2002
