I hope everyone will take a look at the Los Angeles Review of Books tomorrow, March 25th, when they should be printing an essay by Patrick Kurp about the history of Light Poetry Magazine...including interviews with Melissa Balmain and Mike Juster, and possibly a quote from me as well...I'm hoping this will draw a lot of new readers to LPM and light verse in general. That's the good news from here.

I've been working really, really, REALLY hard during my nine-month tenure on the board of directors of the San Diego Master Chorale. There has been a very steep learning curve.

Last weekend, we were awesome.

I'm prouder than I've ever been of any performance, even though I stayed behind the scenes and didn't even sing.

I feel invigorated, and eager to dive into the paperwork and panic of the next one.

Well done Julie, that really is something to be proud of.

Congratulations!

Wonderful, Julie. Many congrats.

This thread being bumped made me realize that I never posted this here: I've been offered a job in the philosophy department at Purdue University. I'll start as an assistant professor in the fall.

Props to you all in the LARB!

Julie, I look forward to visiting your link when I get some quiet time. Soon...

Aaron, that is big news, and not so easy these days, as I hear. Hearty congratulations!

As Michael said, congratulations to all those featured in the LARB's interesting article; congratulations, Julie, on your achievement; and congratulations, Aaron, tenure-track jobs are indeed not easy to come by these days and Purdue is a fine place just down the road from Chicago in West Lafayette.

Cheers,
John

Well done, Spherians all.

May I add a bit of a hurrah for the success of friends who have been working with local teenagers. Photographer Clémentine Schneidermann and former Welsh Businesswoman of the Year Donna Wallbank, now head of our local Rotary have done this for - and with - some of the youngsters I've prattled poetry to as part of recent local festivals.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ph...in-south-wales

and
https://www.vogue.com/article/this-i...arr-foundation
.

Shameless plug: my nieces (my husband's sister's kids--I can't claim to share any of their brilliant DNA) have released a new CD called "American Postcard."

You can watch them playing the first piece, John Adams's "Short Ride in a Fast Machine," here. It's a four-hand piano transcription of an orchestral piece--compare to the original version here.

You can listen to snippets of the other tracks here to determine whether the CD will be your cup of tea before purchasing on Amazon.com.

Beautiful girls... incredible piano playing... No wonder you're so proud, Julie!

Jayne