Tag: The Group

The Breakfast Club (The Summer Wind)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying two Ancient Roman cities; Hurricane Andrew hits Florida; British troops burn Washington in War of 1812; Pluto demoted as a planet; Pete Rose banned from baseball for life

Breakfast Tunes

The Breakfast Club (You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Highlights of this day in history: Soviet coup against Mikhail Gorbachev fails; Exiled revolutionary Leon Trotsky murdered in Mexico; Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion; U.S. flag gets 50th star; Count Basie and singer Kenny Rogers born.

Breakfast Tunes

The Breakfast Club (Hoist Up the Mainsail)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Breakfast Tunes

The Breakfast Club (Renaissance Man)

breakfast beers photo breakfastbeers.jpgSo today the Wayback Machine takes you to the sunny days of the Renaissance (well, sunny in comparison to the Dark Ages or even late Medieval Period) commonly dated to 1400 – 1600 more or less.

Now among the signal advances musically during this time period is the development of recognizably ‘modern’ musical notation, though to contemporary eyes it’s bears about the same relationship to the scores you performed in Band, Orchestra, or Choir (heh, worked in a BÖC reference there) as a First Folio does to an Annotated Complete Works.  For one thing color was used to denote duration in a variety of contradictory schemes, more to the point previously solid heads were opened in the manner of the current whole and half note because of the replacement of vellum with paper which was instrumental in making the printing press so successful.

And you thought it was just for words.

Nope, the systematized notation of music and printing of same made the spread of musical ideas philosophy, science, and theology (the latter of which was pivotal in the political struggles of the period) much easier than previously possible.

But in 1410 – 20 when John Dunstaple was active during the early Renaissance it was still all just one big happy Catholic family though those pesky theological issues would raise their ugly head soon enough.

Early Renaissance music owed much to the sacred music of the Late Medieval where most works were commissioned directly by Cathedrals and Monasteries for performance during services and were rarely exclusively instrumental.  The lyrics taken from prayers (in Latin of course).  The institutions hired or trained their own composers who hardly ever traveled or changed positions and most instruction and direction was personal and transmitted by word of mouth.  As a result musical performance and culture was very insular and idiosyncratic. Because of it’s origins in the Medieval tradition to contemporary ears the music seems droning and repetitive, soporific is the word I’d use to describe it.

Dunstaple was certainly no exception for the most part musically though he is noted for his adoption of tri-tones, thirds, and sixths in harmony, but in other respects he was quite unusual.  That he was a lay person as opposed to a priest or monk we infer by the large number of wives that predeceased him.  His influence on European music was widespread, from his native England to the remotest eastern principalities of the Holy Roman Empire though it had a particular resonance with their Burgundian rivals.  He wrote secular and instrumental music as well as sacred.

The secret of his success?  The printing press and musical notation.  It’s possible we know much of his work, but all music of the period is at best loosely attributed and much authorship disputed by scholars between him and his contemporary Leonel Power, also English.

The musical output of medieval England was prodigious, yet almost all music manuscripts were destroyed during the English Reformation, particularly as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536-1540. As a result, most of Dunstaple’s work has had to be recovered from continental sources (predominantly those from northern Italy and the southern Alps).

He’s arguably the most influential English composer of all time, yet very few people today know about him.  About 50 works are definitively attributed to him with the first collection ever published in 1953, 500 years after his death, and those almost immediately subject to scholarly debate (academese for knockdown drag-out fighting).

Not disputed are a collection of 12 Motets of which 6 are easily discoverable on-line.

Quam pulcra es

Did I say soporific?  I’m sure I (yawn)…  Anyway, the other 5 as well as the Obligatories, News, and Blogs below.

The Breakfast Club (Song of the Sea)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Breakfast Tunes

Broken clouds along the blue horizon

The sun is setting and the wind is dying down

Outward bound, there is music all around

Can you hear it, it’s the, the song of the sea?

Soundings taken at the edge of darkness

The widest silences the heart can ever hear

You can steer to the stars along your lee

Set your bearings to the, the song of the sea

Oh, and the song is as ancient as the days

And the winds upon the waves

Let it carry you away, so far away

Trim my sails to greet the breakin’ morning

Past the headlands to the rolling open sea

An’ it comes to me, I have never felt so free

As when I’m listening to the, the song of the sea

Oh and the song is as ancient as the days

And the winds upon the waves

Let it carry me away, so far away

Some were meant to watch the world from windows

And never look beyond the road beneath their feet

But for me, I was always meant to be

One forever chasing the song of the sea

The song of the sea

The song of the sea

The Breakfast Club 5/22/2014

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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This Day in History

Breakfast Tunes

The Breakfast Club 4/30/2014

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Everyone’s welcome here, no special handshake required. Just check your meta at the door.

Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

This Day in History

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The Breakfast Club 4/27/2014

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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Hurry, it’s lovely up here

This Day in History

The Breakfast Club 4/20/2014 (Easter)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

But like ek horbeck

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

Actually, I’m better organized. 😉

This Day in History

The Breakfast Club 4/13/2014 (Passover Desserts)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

But like ek horbeck

I would never make fun of LaEscapee or blame PhilJD.  And I am highly organized.

Actually, I’m better organized. 😉

<The Breakfast Club Logo photo BeerBreakfast_web_zps5485351c.png

Passover begins on Monday evening. Like all Jewish holidays it’s focus is on community, family and food, especially the food. I was born Jewish and raised in an ecumenical household that celebrated both Christian and Jewish holidays. I never kept a kosher home, although my first and current mothers-in-law did.

My favorite part of most meals is dessert. I’ve been the desert lady since I started a catering company some years back as a hobby. Here are some recipes for Passover deserts that I recently found and I’m trying this year.

Chocolate Caramel Macarons

Chocolate Caramel Macarons photo imagesqtbnANd9GcQk4mvSAVJHrPbzMijJ6_zpsc660d142.jpg

Instead of the typical buttercream or ganache filling, there’s a crunchy caramel candy layer in between the cocoa layers. These are fudgy little confections more like candy than cookies. They also happen to be both gluten-free and can be kosher for Passover, if you use kosher-for-Passover confectioners’ sugar.

Matzo Toffee With Candied Ginger

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Traditional matzo toffee – a Passover-friendly spin on saltine toffee – is an addictive three-layer confection of crackers, brown sugar toffee and melted chocolate. In this version, the chocolate gets a spicy boost from the addition of both fresh ginger juice and chewy candied ginger.

Hazelnut Citrus Torte

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A touch of quinoa flour gives this hazelnut torte an underlying smokiness that makes it more complex than most. It also makes it both gluten-free and kosher for Passover.

This Day in History

The Breakfast Club 4/6/2014 (How To Save A lLife)

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover  we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

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I know it’s Sunday morning and you all are probably just prying your eyes open. so the last thing you want to do is read something educational. Well this is important and I have your attention. It’s about how to save a life, most possibly someone you know. It’s about sudden onset cardiac arrest

According the statistics from the American Heart Association, sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death among adults over the age of 40 in the United States and other countries and 90% of them will die. The good news is that with early intervention and CPR four out of 10 victims survive.

   Four out of five cardiac arrests happen at home.

   Statistically speaking, if called on to administer CPR in an emergency, the life you save is likely to be someone at home: a child, a spouse, a parent or a friend.

   African-Americans are almost twice as likely to experience cardiac arrest at home, work or in another public location than Caucasians, and their survival rates are twice as poor as for Caucasians.

Most everyone feels helpless in this situation but that is going to be corrected today, because this morning you’re going to learn CPR and how to save a life. And more than that, you’re going to share this with people you know. Pay it forward.

Ugh, you say, “I don’t think I could do mouth to mouth.” You don’t have to any more. By-stander CPR is now chest compressions only, two hands on the mid-chest, on the hard bony part (the sternum) between the nipples, 100 times a minute, about 2 inches in depth. It’s going to feel and sound weird the first couple of compressions. You may feel and hear cracking. Ignore it. It’s OK. You most likely are not breaking anything. It’s basically like cracking your knuckles. Don’t be afraid, you can only make it better.

You are going to call 911 and push hard and fast.

It takes less than a minute to learn how to do this. So, here’s the video on how you can save a life.

Now that you’ve learned how to save a life. Here’s today’s history lesson

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