Green-Eyed Posting

Charles Downey at Ionarts gets a great birthday present. (SOOPER SEKRET MESSAGE TO MOM: Remember that my birthday is a week from today. Screw the shirts and ties - if you give me one of these, I'll even waive my long-standing request for a pony.)

I've only got to play a harpsichord once. Back in high school, I teamed up with a flautist for a recital performance of one of Handel's recorder sonatas. I prepared the piece on a piano, but the college recital hall where we performed had a rickety old harpsichord up on stage. My music teacher couldn't come up with any good reason why I shouldn't do so, so I performed the piece on it after some very hasty rehearsal. Even in my addled youth, I could immediately appreciate the differences in keyboard technique.

Every now and again I've thought of buying a kit and building one myself, but reason quickly prevails: I'm working on a model Baltimore Clipper down in my basement fortress of solitude and am still not done planking the hull even after fiddling with it for eight months. If I tried something on the scale of a harpsichord, I might get to play it once before keeling over of old age.

Come to think of it, however, that wouldn't be a bad way to go.

Yips! to A.C. Douglas.