2022 mileage: 2552.5
Today's riding weather was the most gorgeous I can remember in I-don't-know HOW long. It was 71° and brightly sunny, with very little humidity or wind. Accordingly, I enjoyed a ride that was perhaps shorter than I could have done, but after my positive test for COVID last weekend, I'm still taking it easy. I went around the Packard/Platt Square (13.6 miles) in 1:35.
I always listen to music on my phone while I ride, and today's repertoire demonstrated sort of a schizophrenic musical personality. For the first half I listened to recordings of Handel Keyboard Suites, recommended to me by Paul Davoux. And then in the second half -- "Now for something completely different"! Back on February 7, National Public Radio did a piece on the Scott Joplin ragtime piece The Entertainer, which was featured prominently in the movie The Sting, and swept the nation in popularity in 1974, with seemingly every pianist in the country working on it (including yours truly). With their piece, NPR including a link to a Spotify playlist of numerous versions of The Entertainer—for large ensemble, for chamber ensemble, and many solo versions (quite a few, of course, for the original piano called for, several for guitar, and even ones for jazz piano, harmonica (!), accordion, and solo violin (featuring Itzhak Perlman!). I downloaded the playlist and find it quite appealing, but my daughter Christy is baffled by this tendency of her old man, and my wife Michelle is quite turned off by it. (Occasionally I will go to sleep listening to it, and she can't figure that out AT ALL!) Anyway, that constituted my listening for the second half of today's ride, providing GREAT contrast to the Handel!
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