Podcast - What Makes...

While the what makes podcast team is still trying to get its crap together for a fourth episode of this season. Special podcaster Ruby has made a second episode featuring some of her favorite cousins.

Our nine year old Daughter Ruby decided it was time to make her own podcast. Here’s Episode 1 of her yet to be titled show.

What do you think makes a good hobby? Our friend Seth Bate shares his insights and thoughts on today’s episode of What Makes…

What do you do when the world is out of control?

I like working out and so does Aleks. But it took us awhile to figure out how to exercise with some consistency and what we enjoyed doing best.

With the 2018 upon us and new resolutions made, we thought we'd discuss what makes a good workout!

Exciting news! Emily has signed a recording contract with PARMA productions!

At the end of July/beginning of August, she will be recording two song cycles to be released on an album in March 2018.

Emily will be singing Jake Heggie's Eve-Song and Ricky Ian Gordon's Too Few the Mornings Be in collaboration with friend and pianist Amanda Pfenninger. Both works are near and dear to her heart. Emily is am drawn to the feminist texts by Philip Littell in Eve-Song, which tell the Adam and Eve story from Eve's perspective. In Too Few the Mornings Be, Ricky Ian Gordon has brought to life, eleven poems by Emily Dickinson, conveying a narrative of hope throughout the work.

Emily is beyond thrilled to team up with PARMA productions for this project. They are a company that supports contemporary music and makes it their mission to create quality work that will stand the test of time. PARMA is involved in the recording process, post-prodcution, manufacturing of the physical product, and marketing of the finished album.

This is a large investment of money, but one that she is excited to make. The reason for this project is two-fold. 1) She feels it is important to add to the cannon of recorded contemporary classical vocal music. These two works should be standard in the American vocal repertoire. 2) This is a way to further her career to as a singer and advocate for contemporary American art music.

The funds raised through this Kickstarter are only a a fraction of the total cost of this project. Whatever you donate, will directly help to cover the costs of the hall rental, recording engineer, producer, pianist, and piano tuning.

If Emily has touched your life through my art or invested in your child's music education, would you consider helping her reach the goal of $5000? She's so excited to share with you the finished product!

SHE; a CD of American Contemporary Song Cycles will be out March 2018.

Sex.

Such a wonderful, complicated, necessary, fun part of life.

Aleks and I are not experts on this issue. Especially when we start to talk about how we're going to talk about sex with our kids. As I listened back during the editing process, I'm not sure I agree with everything I said. However, I'm glad Aleks and I have a starting point to continue this conversation.

Talking about sex is hard. We don't have all the answers, but hopefully this will encourage you to have some open, honest dialogues with your loved one.

Thanks for joining us on this ride for the past few months!

This week I talk with family friend Penny Bragg. Penny and her husband Clint have a marriage that is now based on humility and forgiveness. They own/run Inverse Ministries (a link to their website can be found here).

Ultimately, Penny and Clint consider their marriage story to be a story about God's relationship with them. Their life's work can be summed up in their mission statement: 

Our mission is to reconcile broken relationships across the nation and abroad; reclaiming the territory of marriage and family for God.

While Penny and Clint have a strong faith in God, I think that what makes an apology good and authentic can apply to everyone, even if you have a non-Christian faith system, are agnostic, or atheist.

During our conversation, Penny mentions a historical moment when people in power within the United States have apologized and the impact it made on those communities. This led me to do some research in which I found a Smithsonian article about five times the U.S. has officially apologized. I've summarized those incidents below:

In 1983 the U.S. Army issued an apology for their involvement in hiding Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, nicknamed "the Butcher of Lyon."

In 1998 President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which offered every Japanese-American interned in the camps during the war a formal apology and $20,000 in compensation.

In 1993 Congress issued a joint resolution which formally apologized to the people of Hawaii for the U.S. government's involvement in a coup staged against the Hawaiian queen in 1893. 

In 1997 President Clinton formally apologized for the Tuskegee Experiment. (I had no idea what this was. How on earth have we let things like this happen?!)

In 2008 the House of Representatives issued a formal apology for Jim Crow and slavery laws. This resolution was put forward by Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tenn).

This political part of our conversation didn't make the podcast, but I was inspired by Penny who said, "Can you imagine the revolution that would happen if our country experienced a wave of apology?"

Setting political views aside, I think we can all agree that this country is hurting. I passionately believe that we can start a healing process through our everyday interactions. By approaching our relationships with a sense of humility and acknowledging our mistakes, we will build trust, compassion, and empathy within our communities.

This week's music is "Vocalise" by Rachmaninoff.

Huge thanks to Penny who was willing to share her wisdom with us all!

On this week's episode, Aleks and I made three different margarita recipes and did a taste test. Below are the recipes we used and links to their sites of origin.

Recipe #1 Chris Hall via bon appetit

1 ½ oz Tequila

1 ½ oz Triple sec

1 oz lime juice

Recipe #2 Food Network Kitchen

3 oz tequila

2 oz lime juice

1 oz simple syrup

½-1 teaspoon orange liqueur

Recipe #3 Allrecipes: Katherine

6 oz can frozen limeade

6 oz tequila

This week, Aleks and I talk about what we think makes a good vacation, just days after returning home from a 7-day Disney World experience.

Here is one of my favorite pictures from our trip. I love the juxtaposition of Maia and Ruby's faces.

In this episode we talk about a recent trip to NYC and Aleks mentions in passing a delicious Korean rice cake dish we ate. Here is a link to the David Chang restaurant where we dined. We highly recommend Má Pêche.

Here are a couple pictures from some of the vacations we talk about in this episode.

Zip-lining in Hawaii in 2007

Mystic, CT in 2008

Steak tartare in Paris 2008

Chicago in 2012

Finally this week's music is Satie's Gymnopédie no. 1, played of course, by myself and Aleks on melodica.