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I’d love to hear from my wise and worldly faculty readers on this one.
With the switch to Zoom for office hours, I’m getting consistent and highly credible reports that far more students are showing up to virtual office hours than did at actual offices, in the Before Times.
Is that a local quirk, or is that happening elsewhere, too?
If it’s the latter, which would be my guess, then we may have stumbled onto something good.
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I have a theory that I need to re-read every novel I read prior to about age 35.
This week The Girl mentioned in passing that in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula was stabbed to death by a cowboy.
How. Did. I. Miss. That?
That’s not a minor detail. It’s the death of the titular character; it’s the sort of thing one would expect to have noticed.
It also cries out for a remake as a buddy comedy. “I’m Tex, and this here’s Vlad!” “Good eeeeevening …”
In my defense, I read it in the parking lot attendant’s booth at a summer job in college. The booth was not air-conditioned. I was dangerously bored. But still.
A cowboy. How did I miss that?
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The pianist Chick Corea died yesterday at age 79. That one really hurt.
I’ve been a fan of his since the ’80s. I first saw him live in 1988 (or so) in Michigan, playing with the Elektric Band on a double bill with Herbie Hancock. They were both alumni of Miles Davis’s bands, and they had an obvious rapport with each other. The most recent time was somewhere around 2014, when he and his longtime collaborator Gary Burton played UMass Amherst.
More so than most, Corea had range. He could play bebop with the best of them, but he could also do fusion, classical and solo improvisations at remarkably high levels. Even crossing genres as much as he did, he always sounded like himself. There’s a sprightliness in his playing, regardless of style or setting, that’s uniquely his. Even the sludgiest fusion outings had a sense of humor in them.
I didn’t know him personally, but my impression of him was that he took his music much more seriously than he took himself, and the lightness with which he wore his genius found its way back into his music. He would offhandedly crack jokes with the audience before launching into songs of remarkable complexity. And he was obviously a gifted collaborator who didn’t mind supporting players less accomplished than he.
A tip of the cap to one who will be missed.
