Blog Post

WATER AND FIREWORKS ON SACD

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, December 23rd 2008 at 7:18

Here are reviews I wrote for Fanfare of three recent Handel SACDs. It's hardly unknown Handel, but it does provide some relief from Messiah overload ...

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MORE CHRISTMAS THEATER

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, December 18th 2008 at 8:23

Behold! I bring you tidings of Christmas pageants upon the Tucson stage ...

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LIT SERVICE

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, December 16th 2008 at 9:42

I admit it: I have friends and acquaintances in literature studies (English, German and French), and I myself have a lit-oriented bachelor’s degree (French). But I have long complained that, especially at the graduate level, lit studies have been so consumed by competing critical theories that the programs are now concerned almost exclusively with theory, not literature ...

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LOCKED AWAY

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, December 15th 2008 at 8:18

A wine blogger I follow is saddened by the notion that a remarkable French collector of 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century wines wants to place his 20,000 bottles in a museum. That means 20,000 corks that will never be popped (not that all that wine is drinkable anymore, anyway); thousands of fantastic wines, now difficult to obtain, will never be tasted...

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GUNS, HIPPIES, PANINI

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, December 11th 2008 at 7:32

Talk about the Christmas rush … forget shopping; it’s the almost last-minute reviewing that’s kept me busy. Here’s what I have in the latest Tucson Weekly ...

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TIME CAPSULE UNCAPPED

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, December 10th 2008 at 9:05

Have you read about those acoustical recordings, mostly vocal, buried in a time capsule at the Paris Opera a century ago, recently unearthed and being prepared for issue on an EMI CD? ...

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DESERT VOICES

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, December 4th 2008 at 9:09

Is it Thursday already? I’ve lost track of time, what with all the deadlines I’ve had to meet (I know, losing track of time is not a good thing to do as deadlines approach … and recede). Yesterday alone, I cranked out three scripts for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music radio series and a little 450-word magazine news item. Today all I really have to do is write a restaurant review, so I can surely find the time to direct you to my latest contribution to the Tucson Weekly ...

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CHRISTMAS STORIES

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, December 2nd 2008 at 7:43

Last Thursday I never got around to posting a link to my Tucson Weekly contribution, it being Thanksgiving and all, and since then I’ve just been too busy to blog, what with a whole lot of December 1 magazine deadlines hitting me, as well as a 400-page manuscript for a lizard field guide that I had to proofread for a publisher. Anyway, now that that long sentence is over, back to business as usual ...

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