Wright Camera Club Awards...

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The Wright Camera Club year long competition was over....and as the dust settled, we waited to hear the results. All had presented outstanding works of photography. I was also rewarded with several awards including:

1st Place Large Color, 1st Place Small Monochrome and 2nd Place Small Color.

Music Used To Explore The Autistic Brain's Emotion Processing

...Music has a universal ability to tap into our deepest emotions. Unfortunately, for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), understanding emotions is a very difficult task. Can music help them?... Click here to learn more.

Arancello

I know that this blog is supposed to be about art, photography, music....but once you make this "stuff"....you will see the art in it! A college buddy of mine makes this and gave me the recipe...enjoy! George says:


Arancello......

Place 1 liter of 150 proof grain alcohol (preferably Polish rye-based spirytus, easily found in Chicago!! but Everclear will work) in a large glass container that you can cover and seal and won't be using for a while. Glass one gallon (e.g. cider) jugs are perfect. The container should be not more than 1/3 to ½ full. If you get 192 proof alcohol, cut it with filtered water to 150. Too high a proof adversely affects the process. Go buy a large bag or two of Navel Oranges. Sicilian blood oranges would probably work best of all,... Every time you want to eat one, remove the zest (the outer layer of the peel without the white pithy part - containing the fruit's essential oils) with a cheap zester, available at any grocery store in the funny gadget aisle, and put the zest in the container with the grain alcohol. Once the amount of zest in the container is sufficient to make it hard to keep it submerged, you are ready to go.

NO REFRIGERATION IS EVER REQUIRED AT THIS LEVEL OF ETHANOL CONCENTRATION.

Let it all soak for a month. A nice dark quiet place is best. Make an amount of simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water) equal to the amount of alcohol you originally used. If you want it sweeter, you can make the syrup with a 2:1 ratio, but do this by volume, and do NOT use so much sugar solution that you overly dilute the alcohol. Add this to the alcohol and zest mixture. Let it sit for another month, stirring / sloshing / swirling once in a while to blend. After two months, drain, strain and filter the nectar of the Gods that you have made. Double or triple layers of paper coffee filters work well for this purpose. You will use a lot of filters, changing often.

DO NOT DARE SIMPLY DISCARD THE ZEST!!!

It makes the best marmalade on the planet, or has other numerous baking applications. If you throw them out, you are a freaking idiot, and you would deserve to be beaten. Save them for someone like me, if you must, in the freezer.

CONSUME ONLY IN MODERATION - IN THE SUMMER IT IS BEST OUT OF THE FREEZER, AND IT IS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE IT FREEZING AT ROUGHLY 80 PROOF.

Ponder how flat out awfully WONDERFUL this would be at sunset, in a small trattoria, on a brutally hot day in Palermo. As the evening cool descends, how could a man not know that his God loved him?

{...George continues by saying....} buono appetito!

Fun Photos from MagMyPic.com

Images of Ireland

I've just started to edit some 2000 Images of Ireland
that I took on a recent trip to the Land of Saints and Scholars!



Click here to see more images.

Verdi's Requiem

Requiem, by Giuseppe Verdi

I will be going to hear incredible soloists, the MYA Symphony Orchestra and three choirs perform this work at Chicago's Civic Opera House

^{_{Featuring
Nancy Pifer, Soprano;
Stacy Eckert, Mezzo-Soprano;
Noah Stewart, Tenor;
Charles Robert Austin, Bass}}

Northwestern University Choruses, Robert Harris, Director; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Concert Choir, Chet Alwes, Director;MYA Chorale, Jeff Nelson, Conductor;MYA Symphony Orchestra, Allan Dennis, Director

I will let you know how it goes!

4-27-08

OK so I went. In a word....disappointing.

About 80% of the time the orchestra overwhelmed the choirs. You could not hear them and I was sitting on the main floor row HH right under the 1st balcony. There were times you couldn't hear the soprano either!

Talking about the soprano....her voice was not a good fit with the other 3 soloists. The mezzo-soprano and she did not blend well....or maybe it was the timbre of the voices that didn't fit. Someone should also mention to the soprano that is its time to update her professional photo as well...that photo was taken some time ago.

On the plus side....the part of the requiem that involved the trumpets from different parts of the theater went beautifully! They all played well and the timing (which could be a problem being so far a part) was right on!

The mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone-bass sang well together. I particularly liked the mezzo-soprano and baritone duets.

Over all a bit of a disappointment....but with parts that were worth the going!

Around the Coyote in Chicago

Around the Coyote in Chicago this spring features many great events.

Please join us May 2nd, 3rd and 4th as thousands of art collectors, enthusiasts, and visitors will converge on Chicago's loop as Around the Coyote joins forces with Looptopia! Each year, hundreds of painters, photographers, sculptors, actors, performance artists, poets, and filmmakers participate in our festivals for the opportunity to exhibit and sell their work to visitors from the United States and abroad. This year we are pleased to offer a festival that will kick off on May 2nd in correlation with Looptopia, one of Chicago's newest cultural celebrations which drew over 200,000 people last year!