Like there were a few years there where I was convinced I had woken up in an alternate timeline. That's how confusing this thing's sudden popularity was to me.

When I grew up in Tulsa in the 1980s and 90s, I never heard a word about the Blue Whale on Route 66. But when I moved back in the 00s it was suddenly a beloved local icon. And it's just a trashed-out waterslide from a decrepit amusement park.

Come work with me at Wisconsin Public Radio! We're looking for a new, full-time classical radio host: jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/classic...

The Watertown, WI, school board voted 7-1 to pull Omar Thomas's A Mother of A Revolution from their band's 5/18 concert. If the band is looking for a replacement piece, might I suggest 4'33"? Story from @corrihess.bsky.social here: www.wpr.org/news/waterto...

Marco Rubio turned into Mark Wahlberg so gradually I barely even noticed.

Google AI answers the tough questions everyone is asking.

If you use copilot to write an email and the recipient uses copilot to summarize your email, why does that email even need to exist?

Tchaikovsky's music is actually pretty good.

Johannes Brahms had hoes.

The United States was riding high, but then it all came crashing down.

Firing the music director who won half of your Grammys for you is certainly a choice.

Things American society has totally melted down over: - "reefer" - Dungeons & Dragons - the song Suicide Solution - Grand Theft Auto Vice City - imaginary razor blades in Halloween candy Things we're apparently fine with: - a computer that tells you to kill yourself

As a tribute to Team Canada and their efforts on the ice, I'm going to go ahead and eat this entire bag of chips today.

I can't imagine what it feels like to be a Winnipeg fan right now.

Thinking about all the guys about to have their minds blown at halftime when their wives/girlfriends/moms say "oh, hey, we dance to this at zumba! I love this song!"

Whiskey Tango Fridays

glad to be born at a time when i got to see what life was like before the internet and will be dead before AI completely destroys humanity

I'm pretty sure the Rapture already happened, and the only person taken was Prince.

Playing the Dover Quartet's new album with works by Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate and Pura Fé as our New Classical Album of the Week on WPR Music.

Holy shit, they did it. They wrote the headline.

Federal funding is gone. But we're not going anywhere.

"More than 23 mill listeners tune in to 687 public radio music stations. It would affect almost all programming, incl AAA stations with genres such as independent rock, bluegrass, folk, jazz, gospel, country, soul, hip-hop, local music. 96% of all classical music is played on public radio stations."

It Never Rains (In Southern Amazonia)

this whole administration is like when they shut off the containment unit in ‘ghostbusters’

It never ceases to amaze me how noisy commercial classical recordings can be. So many birds. The Tokyo String Quartet has a full-on police chase going on in the background of one of their more recent Beethoven records.

And as it happens, I'm playing Jeneba Kanneh-Mason's new recording of Price's Fantasie Negre No. 1 right this instant on wpr.org

Okay, this is my newest very very favorite meme.

Playing the violin concerto by Amanda Röntgen-Maier on today's radio show. This is definitely a composer we should be hearing more from.

It’s amazing to find out at this late date how much the rule of law depended on people simply deciding, on a voluntary, daily basis, not to break the law.

When we blew up the canon we were supposed to replace it with a new one. But we didn't and now two generations, lacking any cultural references in common, are blowing up academia instead.

We all know this to be true. It's literally what Office Space was about.

Does anyone else hear this in Werner Herzog's voice? Just me then? Okay.

I'm finally playing Doreen Carwithen's One Damn Thing After Another Overture on the air today, so there's that at least. Couldn't be any more apt.

The takeover of Twitter was a preview of what we're all living with now and a stark example of why you can't let any one person have too much money: they go insane and make themselves everybody's problem

Gene Roddenberry has entered the chat.

If you see this, post a fictional artist/band you would love to see live

What if an AI could save time and energy by opening the pod bay doors *for* you?

If you went to college 1. what was your career goal when you started? 2. your initial major? 3. if you changed majors, what did you change to? 4. what do you do now, professionally? 1. play in a symphony orchestra 2. music performance 3. (I went to grad school in musicology) 4. classical radio host

Welcome, TikTok users! Bluesky is just like TikTok, except instead of videos we post words and instead of fun we have "discourse"

My hot take on the Vienna #NewYearsConcert is that it would be a lot more relevant if they took a page from #9LC and started commissioning a new dance from a living composer each year.

R.I.P. Jean "Rosie" LaRose: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Every now and then I get asked what I think about a composer and conductor named Pierre Boûlée.

And if you missed #9LC, or just want to relive it, we'll rebroadcast it on Christmas Day at 4pm Central on wpr.org

If you're looking for a place to stream #9lc might I recommend WPR Music at wpr.org

Watched both Maria and Godzilla Minus One this weekend. One is about an awesome and misunderstood force of nature, cutting a swath of destruction through a broken world. The other, of course, has a giant lizard.

Please tell me this involved a British superspy commandeering the popemobile for a chase through Rome.

Come work with me at Wisconsin Public Radio! We're hiring a music producer in Madison: jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/music-p...

This is funny, because I used to be able to tell when my students were copying and pasting from the internet, 20 years ago, because of the way their dashes and quotes looked.

I picked one (or maybe two) of these pronunciations at random when I played her Bishop Rock Overture on air this evening.