Tag: Music
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Songs Ms. Owen Taught Me (A Sunday Musicale)
Sunday, June 28, 2026, June 28, 2026 – Orlando, Florida In loving memory of Ms. Elizabeth Joan Owen (September 8, 1929 – December 28, 2025) If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying…
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Summer Heat, a Mentor’s Passing, and a Memento Mori
Saturday, June 27, 2026 – Orlando, Florida It is brutally hot outside. According to my Microsoft Weather app, the temperature here in my corner of Orange County is already 91°F (33°C) under partly sunny skies. The humidity is 56%, the wind is barely stirring out of the east-southeast at 4 MPH (7 Km/H), and the…
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On Writing and Storytelling: Why ‘An Innocent Man’ Had to Score “This Night” in ‘Comings and Goings’
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in Alex Diaz-Granados, Amazon, Amazon Music, Amazon Spain (Amazon.es), Amazon UK, An Innocent Man (1983), An Innocent Man (song), Billy Joel, Classical music, Comings and Goings (Short Story), Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen, Creative Writing, Kindle, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Ludwig van Beethoven, Music, Music & Concert Specials, Pop Music, Reunion Duology, Reunion: A Story, Reunion: CodaOn Writing and Storytelling: Why An Innocent Man Had to Score “This Night” Some choices in storytelling are deliberate. Others are instinctive—felt before they’re understood. When I wrote Comings and Goings, I knew Jim and Kelly needed music playing in the background of their brief, luminous night together. I also knew it had to be…
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A Musicale for a Hot Sunday Afternoon (Summer Solstice Edition)
Sunday, June 21, 2026, Orlando, Florida On this hot and potentially stormy summer afternoon, I don’t have much to write about, so how about a Sunday musicale for the Summer Solstice?
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How Pop Culture and Music Inform the Garratyverse
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in A Bridge Too Far (1977 film), Alex Diaz-Granados, All the Things You Are, All the Things You Are (Kern and Hammerstein), Amazon, Billy Joel, Classical music, Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen, Creative Writing, John Williams (Composer), Kindle, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Ludwig van Beethoven, Melodies and Memories: Music, Songs, and Singers, Movies, Music, Music & Concert Specials, Pop Music, Reunion Duology, Reunion: A Story, Reunion: Coda, Star Wars, Superman: The Movie, The Summer of Two Movies, West Side Story – Original Broadway Cast (1957)How Pop Culture and Music Inform the Garratyverse If you spend enough time inside the Garratyverse, you eventually notice something: Jim Garraty’s world doesn’t just contain pop culture and music—it breathes through them. Songs, films, TV shows, and the cultural noise of their eras aren’t background decoration. They’re emotional weather systems. They shape memory, mood,…
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Florida Summer Has Entered the Chat
Here we are, 12 days into Summer 2026—at least if you subscribe to “meteorological summer,” which starts on June 1. The traditionalists will point out that summer doesn’t officially begin until 4:24 AM Eastern Time on Sunday, June 21, but Central Florida clearly did not get that memo. Outside, it already feels less like early…
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Music Album Review: ‘West Side Story – Original Broadway Cast Recording’
West Side Story – Original Broadway Cast Recording (1957, 1990 CD Reissue) Label: Columbia – CK 32603 Format: CD, Album, Reissue Released: 1990 Genre: Classical, Stage & Screen Style: Soundtrack, Musical West Side Story has generated several indispensable recordings, but the 1957 original Broadway cast album remains the most historically revealing of them. Released shortly…
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The Duet That Never Was: Revisiting Jim and Marty’s Unfinished Song
Wednesday, June 10, 2026, Orlando, Florida When I wrote Reunion: A Story in the fall of 1998, I wanted to give my protagonist, Jim Garraty, a connection with Martina Elizabeth “Marty” Reynaud that reached beyond the unspoken love he feels for her in the novella. It could not, of course, be openly romantic; otherwise, Jim’s…
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Say It With Music: A Sunday Musicale
If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
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Ending the Merry Month of May with a Sunday Musicale
Hi, everyone. Well, it’s the last day of May and, if you go by the meteorological calendar, it’s also the last day of spring. It’s also Sunday, and as much as I love writing – it’s what I do, after all – I do need to take an occasional day of rest. So, I’m waving…
A Certain Point of View, Too 