Tonight I’ll play violin in “Oliver!,” one of my favorite musicals, my affection for it dating back to 1977 when Hoover High School performed the show and my younger brother and two friends were on the stage crew. I glimpsed the inner workings of theater as cast and crew produced magic, and I entered that world of magic in 2000 when I joined Carnation City Players as a pit musician. Over the years I’ve played violin, mandolin, guitar and even ukulele at CCP, and tonight I return after a three-year absence to accompany Fagin as he ponders his future and Nancy as she declares her love for the most despicable of thieves. Read the rest of this entry »

I ate lunch at Don Pancho’s on Wednesday. I stopped in the middle of the afternoon while out on Review business, when only a few other customers occupied tables, and I ate alone. It may look odd when I eat alone at a restaurant, but dining solo upholds a long-standing personal tradition that harks back to my single days.
I married at age 32, so I was accustomed to shopping, eating, walking in the woods and visiting historical sites alone. I seem to need more solitude and quiet than the average person because those solo outings remain strong in my mind as exceptionally enjoyable. For example, I began studying the Ohio and Erie Canal in 1986 and hiked many miles of towpath, from Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Zoar, in my search for locks and other canal remnants, and memories of walking through hip-high garlic mustard, gingerly pushing my way through brambles and crossing the antique iron bridge near Zoar remain vivid. During those single years I ate at Taco Bell on payday while out shopping alone, and I enjoyed reading a music newspaper that I picked up while out, so my Don Pancho’s dining is nothing new. Read the rest of this entry »

April 19 is the anniversary of the first battle of the American Revolution, which occurred along a road between Boston and Concord, Mass. The area is memorialized by the National Park Service as Minute Man National Historcal Park and includes a museum that presents a vivid, entertaining 3-D description of the events. Read the rest of this entry »

What bookplate, I wonder, should be affixed to “Steal This Book”?
Bookplates are artistic little labels affixed by bibliophiles to their tomes to indicate ownership and the owner’s interests. Many say “Ex Libris” followed by a space for the owner’s name. “Ex Libris” means, literally, “from the books” and more generally “from the library.”
I have some bookplates that belonged to my maternal grandfather, a gunsmith and historian with a keen interest in the Civil War and the American frontier. They are made of traditional style parchment paper and show a Revolutionary War soldier looking into the distance. They are still in the original cardboard box, and the plate stuck on the cover has my grandfather’s name written on it. Read the rest of this entry »

I named my column when it began in 2003 for the old writing rooms in monasteries, the Latin word for a writing room coming from the root scribere, not because I long to live a cloistered monk’s life but because I love calligraphy and old-style paper. So one day I was wondering what I would call my library if I used the Latin word. “Ex Libris,” seen on bookplates, made me think that “libris” means library, but it means “books,” and “Ex Libris” means “from the books of.” I think the phrase means “from the library of” in a more relaxed, symbolic sense. Read the rest of this entry »

The General is perhaps the most famous steam locomotive in U.S. history. It is the subject of books and movies, it was made into an Avon decanter in the 1970s, it was featured on a U.S. Postal Service steam locomotive stamp set in the 1990s, its sounds were recorded for a 7-inch record in 1962, it was made into O gauge and HO electric trains and a large plastic model, and it has its own museum, in Kennesaw, Ga., where a dramatic race began that firmly entrenched the General in the annals of Civil War history.
James J. Andrews and his raiders, from Ohio, were riding the train posing as men planning to enlist in the Confederate army and stole the train on April 12, 1862, during a breakfast stop at Big Shanty Station, now Kennesaw, on the Western & Atlantic Railroad line, in sight of Confederate Camp McDonald. Their mission was to race north to Chattanooga and cut communications, but they didn’t count on the tenacity of conductor William A. Fuller, who, with Jeff Cain and Anthony Murphy, chased the raiders on foot, on a handcar, on the locomotive William R. Smith, on foot again when they encountered a break in the tracks near Adairsville, and finally backward on the Texas. The close pursuit prevented the raiders from completing their mission and taking on wood and water, and they were caught when the General ran out of steam, just short of their goal. Because they were spies, those who were caught were shot. Read the rest of this entry »

Because I love calligraphy and paper, I like exploring the roots of the word “manuscript.” Separating words into their components can lead to a better understanding of the words, and when you understand the meanings behind the parts of words, you can often deduce the meaning of the combined word. When you can spell the components, you can often spell the word. If nothing else, the study of etymology is a rewarding study of Latin and Greek words.
Although the first thing that comes to mind when someone hears the word manuscript is a typewritten copy of a book submitted for publication, the original meaning is a handwritten copy. Manuscript is a combination of two Latin words, manus, meaning hand, and scriptus, a thing written, the past participle of scribere, to write. So manuscript means something written by hand. A raft of words have their origins in scribere. Some, such as scrive and scrivener, are variants of scribe, a copier of manuscripts. Some are similar to manuscript and refer to something written, such as a play or movie script, a transcript, a prescription, or scriptures. Scribble also has its roots in scribere. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week I listened to the album “Symphonic Star Trek” by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. It’s a collection of music from the Star Trek television shows and movies, and much of the music stands on its own, even when you set aside images of star ships flashing past and battles with Klingons, as good classical music tinged with a touch of popcorn. I especially liked the theme from “Star Trek: Voyager,” a television show, fourth in the franchise, that ran from 1995 to 2001. The Voyager theme is typical space show fare, grand and celebratory, capturing the affection that sci-fi fans have for outer space and star ships. It reminded me somewhat of the theme from “Dances With Wolves.” The DWW piece is more melancholy, the woodwinds and brass supporting the strings, which carry the main theme, whereas Voyager is more celebratory, opening with tympany, which always serves well as a fanfare percussion instrument, presenting the theme on brass supported by strings, and as I listened to Voyager instead of futuristic ships in space I could picture a cowboy guiding a herd of cattle across a western river. Read the rest of this entry »