http://jeremydenk.net/blog The glamorous life and thoughts of a concert pianist. Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:54:04 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I was delighted to be asked to contribute to Take a Friend to the Orchestra. As usual, the prospect of writing on a specific topic, for a deadline, terrifies me, and leads me to all sorts of desperate measures.  You can read my piece here, if you are a ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/04/15/take-a-friend-to-springtime/ A certain cellist wants a reply to a question of programming: which Haydn pieces to play next month for a children’s concert at the Y? Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 11:52 AM subject Haydn programme?????? Thoughts, please - or else... Medtner for you, my boy. I’ll wait while the ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/04/06/tormented-nozzles/ I was at the grocery store and became aware of the tremendous availability of yogurt. The cavernous case of dairy glowed and grinned: slurp me! It is, for many New Yorkers, an exotic thrill to wheel a cart around the fat aisles of the heartland. I ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/04/03/generic-stewed-prunes/ Imagine me, bug-eyed, backstage at concert hall X, setting a tattered Xerox of the “Aeolian Harp” Etude upon a reluctant music rack. Coffee and Snacks nearby—my satellites, my enablers. Then, weeks later, imagine me again, in the confines of the tattered, storied dowager known as “The Greystone ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/03/26/adjustments/ The waiter sets a menu in front of you, and you realize, while he spills coffee into your saucer, that all the dilemmas of your life can be expressed in terms of oatmeal. You’ve learned that oatmeal makes for a wonderful day, draws out a sustained arc of energy ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/03/19/betraying-bacon-and-boating/ Sweet sleep held me in her tender, lubricious arms. I lay in my bed, on my side, facing away from the window, away from light, away from the call of day. Suddenly, as always seems to happen, the alarm went off. It cruelly punctured the most vulnerable ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/03/07/yet-another-ill-advised-egregious-post/ My career, apparently, is taking an unexpected direction... Whatever you need to do to get that image out of your mind, I don't blame you ... (thanks to sharp-eyed audience member in Orange County.) http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/02/26/navel-maneuvers/ It was a fateful moment: the difficult, dangerous birth of an obsession. I was perched in the airport bar, nuzzling a pale ale; to my right, heading off perpendicularly, was a row of seven businessmen: a clustered, beery loneliness. They shifted their eyes from screen to screen, from ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/02/25/dithyramb-or-how-i-stayed-sane-during-a-joshua-bell-tour/ I am not always the nutcase I would like to be. Sometimes, I am a beacon of rectitude, or at the very least a rectum of beatitude. And so, beatifically sitting upon my booty, with smug righteousness imprinted like a barcode upon my lofty brow, I was ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/02/06/some-serious-pianist-on-pianist-action/ Today, in Pain Quotidien, in the middle of a conversation, I took up a cucumber garnish and began to wash my face with it. It was an "innocent" garnish, sitting next to my egg salad sandwich. I did not pre-notify my companion. I was fastidious, and spread ... http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2008/02/05/insanity-within-reason/