A couple of days ago in the cab I picked up a gentleman from Mexico, attending a symposium on radiation measurement. Making conversation in my usual mindless manner, I said, "I don't know much about Mexico and I don't speak Spanish but I've enjoyed in translation the novels of a famous Mexican author, Carlos Fuentes." The gentleman replied, "I know him. I used to work for him when he was an Ambassador."

3 more Beethoven piano sonatas, performed by Wilhelm Kempff, in MP3 format of bad LP rips by yours truly.


Sonata No. 1 in f Opus 2 No. 1 (25 meg MP3)
Sonata No. 5 in c Opus 10 No. 1 (25 meg MP3)
Sonata No. 6 in F Opus 10 No. 2 (18 meg MP3)

Allatime I'm seeing these signs at the haircut places that say "Get Your Hair Cut to Sop Up the Oil Spill!!":


So now I'm reading that they aren't using hair to sop up the oil spill. Imagine how that makes me feel! Before and After:



Beethoven, Piano Sonata number 2 in A, Opus 2, number 2. 32 meg Mp3. Wilhelm Kempff. Bad LP rip. Need I say more?

Debbie and I went for a walk in Eberwhite Woods on Mother's Day to look at wildflowers. I put the photo album on Facebook, but here are a few pix of wildflowers I could use help identifying. There' a bunch of different kinds of trilliums, it turns out. And here is an mp3 of Walter Gieseking doing Beethoven's Piano Sonata Number 18. As always it is a lofi, noisy LP rip from a Kiwanis Sale Angel LP.

Wildflower pix:

Ernie Harwell, 1918-2010


from left, Howard Stitzel, George Kell, Ernie Harwell, 1961. Image courtesy of "Guy Incognito", MotownSports.com


I learned a couple of things about Ernie today. Current Tigers radio announcer Dan Dickerson read part of a poem that inspired Ernie's strikeout line, "He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched that one go by". The poem is "The House by the Side of the Road" by Sam Walter Foss. And Ernie would quote the song of Solomon when he talked about spring and the baseball season starting and "the voice of the turtle is heard in the land", which means a turtledove. I don't think I ever heard him explain that.