So, I’m home sick today with this sinus thing that is apparently going around.  Maybe I had too good a weekend?  After I squared away reading and preparing for my literature classes and grading a stacks of papers, I managed quite the musical weekend.  Yang and I went to a concert of Byzantine Chants at the intimate and acoustically wonderful Brooks Concert Hall at Holy Cross! The Orthodox sacred music and the harmonic timber of men’s voices lulled all our tensions away.

Saturday night, we went the opposite direction with Dan Gable’s High Society Orchestra playing hot 1920s swing at the Point Breeze restaurant in Webster, on Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugoggagoggchubunagungamaug.  I think I spelled that correctly.  Does anyone really have the time to check the spelling?  The music was popping and, although Yang and I are more ’40s-style dancers, we managed to get in a waltz ( a fast one!), a swing, a rumba, and what we refer to as the “Daddy dance” for “As Time Goes By.” Dan Gable has his bands in three incarnations:  the hot swing of the twenties ( High Society), 18-piece big band (Abletones), and the Dectet ( scaled down big band).  The playing is superb as is the vocalizing of Elise Roth.  You can just listen if you don’t want to dance – they’re that good!

Finally, we closed out the weekend with a concert by The Flute Choir at the Parish Arts Center in Westford, MA.  The music was wonderful, soothing the grading-frayed nerves of two professors. My friend Sue Thorne-Gagnon plays piccolo. Even better, Yang and I got to see her parents and her husband there, too. The program was just the ticket with both dreamy and lively selections to  aurally and spiritually delight – and, yes, “The Sleeping Bear” made me cry, damnit! They’re playing the same program this Sunday (4/30/16) at

Now it’s back to bed and trying to put this cold to sleep.  Move over Natasha!