Tod Brody

Those were the good ol days

I love this, and don't doubt that it's true. It's also the case, though, that AI can do things well that it couldn't do at all well just 6-8 months ago. The quality, if that's the word I want, is increasing at a mind-blowing rate.

She is really something -- makes a very beautiful sound. Her supersonically high notes are very impressive, even if not perfectly on pitch. Almost sounds theramin-like. (This number was one of the specialties of the great theraminist Clara Rockmore.)

I think he's got work to do. The passagework is sloppy, and he's often out of tune. In my heyday, I had both of those things well in hand, though I never had the soprano range this guy has. The in-out technique for fast notes doesn't seem to be in use -- is it frowned upon in major-league whistling?

I get this, but the poor National Symphony is getting it from both sides, and might not survive all the virtue that's being showered on them from former collaborators and a chunk of their audience. Unlike the opera company there, they don't have other options than the late lamented Kennedy Center.

There should be a Yikes button on here

My version of your experiment: I've had one an average of three times a week for at least five years and so far my results are that I have never had a negative thought about banh mi.

Espionage Novels That Give a Fuck about Profanity A couple of years ago, people I know were talking about the Apple TV series Slow Horses, the television version of Mick Herron’s Slough House novels. I love espionage novels, and I like espionage t…

Check out the Strong Language blog posts about the Slow Horses' major-league sweariness. He delves into Herron's books, but the TV show does a pretty great job of bringing the books to life, including that aspect.
stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/07/09/e... with two other posts after this one.

He did frequently bat behind Bonds (Bonds 3, Kent 4), so had someone to advance or drive in a ridiculous percentage of the time. I loved the reminiscence of the circumstances under which Bonds was intentionally walked (basically any circumstances at all).

Jeff Kent is a deserving Hall of Famer, and so is Barry Bonds Kent absolutely deserves to be a Hall of Famer. That he's in and his former teammate is not is much harder to rationalize.

I'm mostly in agreement with Brisbee here. Kent was special in his own right, though for a fairly brief segment of his career.

Biggest AI success: I recently had to address our local Board of Supervisors on behalf of my employer. My remarks, written out, took 37 seconds longer to deliver than the two minutes I would be given. ChatGPT, prompted to keep all of my talking points in 37 fewer seconds, tightened it up perfectly.

Wow -- this is so good. Some of the best baroque flute playing I've heard, and I love their flexible and creative style.

We did a new piece of his with SF Chamber Orchestra last spring, and he’s been getting a lot of performances around here in the last two years. I found him extremely likable and articulate, and his music is pretty good too.

what music is this?

(Still Ostler) I looked it up: In his 12-year playing career, Posey struck out looking only 168 times, and all 168 were bad calls. He believes in taking his cuts.

A wee sample: Seriously, this is a stroke of genius by Posey. He's not only thinking outside the box, he's thinking outside the warehouse where the boxes are stored. That's not surprising. Posey might look and sound like the guy who does your taxes, but he's got a bold streak.

Learning to love an out-of-the-box hire Learning to love an out-of-the-box hire

The great Scott Ostler's got a great take on this.

Keeps your music from being cluttered with information you no longer need.

I'd say do whatever it takes to learn the music fastest and most deeply. I adopted a principle that my primary teacher strongly suggested, which is: once the thing you've written down (presumably because it was going to help you learn fastest and deepest) is internalized, erase it. I recommend this.

Now use it nearly every time. It used to work really badly -- now it works well. My math is all about "do I want to wait in line for 5 or more minutes, or do I want to get out of here right now." The reason for the wait is that they've reduced staff, so yes, hateful. I'm in a selfish hurry.

As one who has done a lot of writing that needed to maintain a diplomatic tone while expressing important principles clearly, I thought this was an exemplary letter. The sub-messaging that you drew out of it didn't come across to me that way.

That's right -- it was the first half repeat.

He said -- and he may well have been making this up, I don't know him well enough to know if he's reliable on things like this -- that Brahms said that that repeat was for the premiere, and now that everyone knew how the piece went, it was unnecessary. Seemed sus to me.

The conductor I worked with this past weekend claimed that Brahms instructed the orchestra in the third or fourth performance of his first symphony (the piece we were playing) not to do the second-half repeat of the first movement.

Contributor: As Trump's reign implodes, tell MAGA 'I told you so' Treat Trumpists like adults and confront them with how wrong they have been. Americans who are still connected to reality owe it to their right-wing neighbors to be honest.

Very good op-ed in this morning's L.A. Times. Well worth taking a few minutes to read.

Notice the quotes around both the words "liking" and "music." I like me some music, quite a lot of it, in fact, but not so sure about that "music."

Ouch -- I know the feeling, never fun.

I'd vote for that

It can be either, but contextual clues keep us from being too confused. Usually the interjectional form has the hint of an exclamation point after it.

Come on, do the math!