Blog

Most of what's here is about music: jazz theory breakdowns of standards, notes on analysis like chord symbols and harmonic function, and essays on music more broadly. Beyond that there are favorite poems I keep coming back to, a year in books with notes on what I've been reading, and the occasional post on tech.

2026

Year In Books: 2026 — December 30, 2026
Favorite Poems: Go to the Limits of Your Longing — October 12, 2026
Favorite Poems: When Death Comes — October 12, 2026
Favorite Poems: Widening Circles — October 12, 2026
Reading Notes: A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness — September 18, 2026
Reading Notes: How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America — September 10, 2026
Reading Notes: The Overstory — July 29, 2026
Reading Notes: Beginner's Mind: Words + Music | Vol. 13 — June 11, 2026
Reading Notes: The Other Name: Septology I-II — June 08, 2026
Reading Notes: The Book of Hours — May 10, 2026
Reading Notes: The Orphan Master's Son — May 01, 2026
Reading Notes: The Pearl — May 01, 2026
Reading Notes: The Spiritual Practice of Remembering — May 01, 2026
Reading Notes: To Have or to Be? The Nature of the Psyche — April 29, 2026
Reading Notes: The Emperor of Gladness — April 21, 2026
Reading Notes: Train Dreams — March 14, 2026
Reading Notes: Dream Count — March 07, 2026
Reading Notes: The Nickel Boys — February 28, 2026
Reading Notes: Amnesty — January 20, 2026
Reading Notes: Americanah — January 07, 2026
Reading Notes: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas — January 07, 2026
Reading Notes: My Name Is Red — January 01, 2026

2025

Year In Books: 2025 — December 30, 2025
Reading Notes: Nature's Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard — November 18, 2025
Digital Minimalism / Focus Tools — October 22, 2025
Favorite Poems: The Summer Day — October 11, 2025
Favorite Poems: They Are Not Long — October 11, 2025
Favorite Poems: Wild Geese — October 11, 2025
Favorite Poems: Please Call Me by My True Names — October 08, 2025
Reading Notes: The Möbius Book — October 06, 2025
Reading Notes: The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts — September 08, 2025
Reading Notes: Pew — August 11, 2025
Reading Notes: The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World — August 03, 2025
Reading Notes: Biography of X — July 13, 2025
Reading Notes: The Book of Tea — July 07, 2025
Reading Notes: Passing — June 09, 2025
Reading Notes: A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album — June 02, 2025
Reading Notes: The Goldfinch — May 20, 2025
Reading Notes: Greek Lessons — April 02, 2025
Reading Notes: Human Acts — March 05, 2025
Reading Notes: Speaking of Faith — February 25, 2025
Reading Notes: Ignorance — February 12, 2025
Reading Notes: The Kingdom of This World — February 03, 2025
Reading Notes: Simone — February 01, 2025
Reading Notes: Island of a Thousand Mirrors — January 02, 2025

2024

Year In Books: 2024 — December 30, 2024
Reading Notes: Martyr! — December 27, 2024
Reading Notes: Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War — November 27, 2024
Reading Notes: The Committed (The Sympathizer, #2) — November 21, 2024
Reading Notes: The Hour of the Star — November 08, 2024
Reading Notes: Book of Ecclesiastes - Alabaster Bible — November 01, 2024
Reading Notes: A Theory of Harmony (SUNY Series in Cultural Perspectives) — October 29, 2024
Reading Notes: Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification — October 29, 2024
Reading Notes: The Sympathizer (The Sympathizer, #1) — October 24, 2024
Reading Notes: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction — October 01, 2024
Reading Notes: The Raft is Not the Shore: Conversations toward a Buddhist/Christian Awareness — September 23, 2024
Reading Notes: The Love Poems of Rumi — September 03, 2024
Reading Notes: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage — August 28, 2024
Reading Notes: Station Eleven — August 19, 2024
Value, Presence, & The Quantified Self — June 21, 2024
Reading Notes: Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich — February 20, 2024

2023

Year In Books: 2023 — December 30, 2023
Jazz Theory: Like Someone In Love — November 14, 2023
Jazz Theory: Days of Wine and Roses — July 28, 2023
Jazz Theory: My Shining Hour — June 08, 2023
Jazz Theory: There Will Never Be Another You — June 08, 2023
Jazz Theory: You Stepped Out of a Dream — April 25, 2023
Jazz Theory: Beautiful Love — January 19, 2023

2022

Year In Books: 2022 — December 30, 2022
Music & Mental Health — December 15, 2022
Double Bass Frequency Chart — November 17, 2022
Jazz Theory: Secondary Dominant Chords, Tonicization, and Related II-7 — November 13, 2022
Jazz Theory: Harmonic Function — November 09, 2022
Jazz Theory: From This Moment On — November 07, 2022
Jazz Theory: Harmonic Analysis Symbols — November 05, 2022
Jazz Theory: Chord Naming Conventions — November 01, 2022

2021

Year In Books: 2021 — December 30, 2021
Jazz Theory: Yesterdays — October 15, 2021
Jazz Theory: What Is This Thing Called Love? — October 04, 2021
Jazz Theory: Lover Man — September 22, 2021
Jazz Theory: My Funny Valentine — September 20, 2021
Jazz Theory: I Can't Get Started — September 15, 2021
Jazz Theory: Round Midnight — September 14, 2021
Jazz Theory: Summertime — August 30, 2021
Jazz Theory: All the Things You Are — August 23, 2021
Jazz Theory: Body and Soul — August 18, 2021

2020

Year In Books: 2020 — December 30, 2020
Intervals In Music — October 06, 2020

2019

Year In Books: 2019 — December 30, 2019

2018

Year In Books: 2018 — December 30, 2018

2017

Year In Books: 2017 — December 30, 2017

2016

Year In Books: 2016 — December 30, 2016

2015

Year In Books: 2015 — December 30, 2015

2014

Year In Books: 2014 — December 30, 2014

2013

Year In Books: All: 2014 - Present — December 30, 2013