The List celebrates books, articles, films, music, and other cultural creations I've enjoyed recently.
By chance I picked up Julian Barnes’ Arthur & George, a gripping account of the forgotten true story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s one venture into the detective work his character Sherlock Holmes was so well known for.
Ever since I sang in the choir of St. Paul’s K Street, The Mass “Euge Bone” by Christopher Tye (c. 1505 – c. 1572) has delighted and fascinated me. I think it’s the slightly deceptive cadences. Anyway, I finally got a recording—of the Ely Cathedral Choir, where Tye was choirmaster some 450 years ago. And it's lovely. My thanks to Mark Dwyer, Choirmaster at St. Paul’s, for the introduction.
Recent travels and logistical adjustments have put me in new neighborhoods in Chicago (Lakeview), Washington, D.C. (Columbia Heights), and London, where I have enjoyed watching vernacular architecture through changing environmental conditions. The sight of the turrets along D.C.’s 13th Street, glowing in the morning sun while dusted by an unseasonable April snow remains in my memory, as will the shining dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral gradually receding down the Strand.
A special “shout out” to Martha for urging me to take a day trip to Bath, England, where I not only saw Roman ruins, and the location of key scenes from Jane Austen novels, but also my first ha ha.