This week, in honor of Valentine's Day tomorrow, Aleks and I talk about what makes good romance.  Truthfully, we are not very good at romance. However, I think after this conversation, we are both better equipped to be romantic if we feel so moved.

Music this week is "My Romance," one of my favorite standards and also our wedding song.

We hope you have a happy Valentine's Day and if you don't have someone to share it with, treat yo' self!

In our podcast this week we played a  recording of Jeff Buckley singing Purcell's "Dido's Lament" from the opera Dido and Aeneas. He originally performed this aria at Elvis Costello’s Meltdown Festival, July 1st 1995. It hasn't been released on any of Jeff Buckley's albums, but I first heard it on YouTube.  Philip Sheppard was the cellist who played at that festival on that piece. Here is a link to Sheppard's website and the article in which he writes about his experience performing with Buckley.

We also mentioned visiting the Saatchi in London on our honeymoon in 2003. Thanks to google, I was able to find an article about the compelling recycled motor oil installation that made such an impression on us. Check out this link and see photos of Richard Wilson's "Slick oil."

The chef, whose last name Aleks couldn't pronounce is Grant Achatz and he is featured on the series Chef's Table, Season 2, episode 1. You can find the series on Netflix.

Finally, here is a picture of Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ."

On this episode Aleks and I talk about what we think makes a good friend. We've both been blessed to have had many good friends over the years and have discovered that what we think makes a good friend sometimes changes with age.

Our music is "Make New Friends" which is a traditional Girl Scout song. The lyrics are:

Make new friends, but keep the old.

Some are silver and some are gold.

We all use it, but how many of you know what makes the internet? I guess, if we're speaking philosophically, we can all reference the fake news sites and hard hitting journalism and social media outlets. But it all gets a little more complicated when we think about the technical components of this major part of 21st century life.

In this episode, Aleks does his best to explain the internet, wifi, the cloud, cell phones, GPS, and a little bit of internet history. As he says, he's not an expert so there's a chance that we got some of the facts wrong.

If you are an expert and catch an error, please let us know!

During our conversation Aleks mentions "Net Day." Here is a link to the wikipedia page about that event and the picture of Clinton and Gore "plugging in" the internet at Aleks' high school in 1996.

We also talk about a fellow musician and Wichitan, John Harrison, who invented the Filimin. Here's a link to his website. It's a really amazing product and a great gift for a loved one.

Finally, a note about the music in this episode. The melodica duet we play this week is a song called "Daisy Bell" by Harry Dacre. It may be more commonly known as "Bicycle Built for Two." I didn't know this, but my darling, genius husband told me that this song was the first song to be sung by a computer. Here is a link to a YouTube recording of the first singing IBM performing "Daisy Bell."

It turns out that it's relatively easy to figure out what makes a good gift, but it's much harder to put that into practice.

This week Aleks and I talk about what we think makes a good gift and share the best gifts we've received.

Music this week is an old Shaker Hymn, "Simple Gifts." 

Presents, presents, presents is by Shel Silverstein.

And finally, if you're looking for a great PBS show for your kids, here's a link to Odd Squad!

This week's episode is pretty punny, if I do say so myself.

Get it? Punny. Funny. ???

We explore what makes something humorous, tell a few jokes, and hear a few jokes from a couple of cute kids.

If you're feeling down or have a touch of ennui, this episode will either make you giggle or groan.