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May 16, 2024: Really digging the improvisational vibe from jazz saxophonist Jasmine Myra and her ensemble on her latest release. .embed-container { position: …
May 15, 2024: Matcha and tonic is my new favorite drink.
May 14, 2024: Morning is all about the coffee ☕️
Apr 30, 2024: There is proper authentic Mexican food in Windsor! Tonight’s dinner was chile rellenos at Mi Casita on Wyandotte Street.
Apr 30, 2024: From my lunch break on the Windsor waterfront earlier today.
Apr 21, 2024: Finished reading: Learn Like a Pro by Barbara Oakley PhD 📚 This was a really practical book that I’ll be putting to use in my own learning and …
Apr 1, 2024: Currently reading: Brain Power by Catherine de Lange 📚
Apr 1, 2024: Currently reading: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi 📚 A small cafe in Tokyo has a single time-traveling chair, but there are several …
Mar 27, 2024: RIP Daniel Kahneman.
Mar 27, 2024: Had a fun morning teaching an adult piano student. The 4th through 7th Goldberg Variations, then Brahms' arrangement of the Bach Chaconne for the left …
Mar 26, 2024: Some Suno AI tunes shared on Facebook in the last day: a heavy metal song about the challenges of writing heavy metal songs an acoustic folk song …
Mar 25, 2024: In der Weihnachtsbäckerei is the most 2024 thing I’ve heard so far: an AI-generated Japanese pop song, in German, about a Christmas bakery. 🎵
Mar 23, 2024: Espresso, a quick breakfast, shower, and then 8 hours of teaching piano students.
Mar 22, 2024: Rebecca Toh on how narrow points of focus can be the secret of this universe: Having the discipline to sit down every day for a few hours to write …
Mar 22, 2024: Props go out to @heyloura for her Lillihub client for Micro.blog. Things I like so far include the layout of threaded conversations and mentions as …
Mar 21, 2024: Four years ago on March 21, 2020, a recital I did with mezzo soprano Krisztina Szabó at Tapestry Opera was the last concert of the season in Toronto …
Mar 21, 2024: We’re not here to crack any mysteries. We’re here to roll around in life and experience its peaks and troughs and make discoveries and …
Mar 21, 2024: This morning I’m grateful for the experience of browsing Micro.blog, which largely involves visiting elegantly designed blogs with zero clutter …
Mar 21, 2024: Your ikigai can be found in small daily rituals, side projects, and deep conversations. It can be found in moments of silence and idleness, or in …
Mar 20, 2024: Hussein Kesvani’s Guardian article about Reddit becoming rubbish in the lead-up to its IPO paints a rather bleak picture of the internet in …
Mar 19, 2024: Embedding YouTube Links in Micro.blog TIL You can embed YouTube videos in Micro.blog. Here are the steps: Install the YouTube Embed Shortcut Plugin. From the YouTube video you want to …
Mar 18, 2024: There is no rulebook in this world that says we have to toughen up and be thick like hide. This is the sort of insidious narrative that is causing so …
Mar 17, 2024: Christopher Isham on Closer to Truth looks at the question of whether time is fundamental: How deep goes time? Is time bedrock reality, part of the …
Mar 17, 2024: The experience of watching YouTube videos on Feedbin is really good. What you see is only subscribed channel updates, with no algorithmic feed, no …
Mar 17, 2024: Odysseus has a fascinating video on managing multiple interests. Basically: list all your hobbies and goals create a hierarchy organize your time …
Mar 17, 2024: After several years of using Reeder for all my RSS needs, I just activated the Feedbin 30-day trial. I really like the option to post directly to …
Mar 17, 2024: From the Pen Cup: Taking It Slowly I really like this discription of the experience of slow reading, slow writing: I’m finding so much joy in the …
Mar 15, 2024: Another Little Free Library location spotted in Burlington on my way to the barber.
Mar 14, 2024: Currently reading: Station Island by Seamus Heaney 📚 Found at a Little Free Library location a few blocks from my house.
Mar 14, 2024: Finished reading: Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane 📚 But to think in radiological time is also, necessarily, to ask not what we …
Mar 14, 2024: Winnie Lim: creative retail experiences, and warmth and tokyo: We often talk about art in terms of art made by artists, but I love experiencing the …
Mar 13, 2024: Here’s my blogroll. All of these blogs are by writers whom I genuinely respect. I’ve been reading their articles for years, starred or …
Mar 12, 2024: Since the pandemic, Little Free Library locations have been cropping up around the neighborhood. This morning I found a location that specializes in …
Mar 12, 2024: Alex Tabarrok: Claude 3 Opus Also Fails Steve Landsburg’s Economics Exam Like the AIs, I got the first question wrong. But with some knowledge of the …
Mar 12, 2024: Maris Kreizman: Against Disruption: On the Bulletpointization of Books: It seems to me that there is a fundamental discrepancy between the way …
Mar 12, 2024: Finished reading: Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish 📚 Unlike many books about business and productivity, the most meaningful chapters of Clear Thinking …
Mar 11, 2024: Over the last few days I’ve been catching up with a sizeable backlog of RSS feeds on Reeder. I’m all caught up to early December with just …
Mar 10, 2024: Found a Leuchtturm weekly planner on sale for $10 today. Fountain pen is a 1960s Pelikan. 🖋️
Mar 10, 2024: Susan Eichhorn Young: What Kind of Colleague are You?: In our business, there are also those who are generous, kind, attentive, open, empathic, …
Mar 10, 2024: Rebecca Toh: small unknown complex life: You can have a good experience on social media if you are very intentional and mindful. There are accounts I …
Nov 11, 2023: This has been my office for the week. Greetings from Jamaica!
Nov 4, 2023: After nearly a year, I finally got an invite to Bluesky. You can follow me there at @chrisfoley.bsky.social.
Oct 31, 2023: Currently reading: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel 📚
Oct 30, 2023: Finished reading 2023: The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami 📚
Oct 30, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Life Ceremony: Stories by Sayaka Murata 📚 Each of these stories had a twist, either about the society in which the characters …
Oct 29, 2023: At the Scriptus pen show in Toronto. 🖋️
Oct 27, 2023: Currently reading: Life Ceremony: Stories by Sayaka Murata 📚
Oct 27, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (thank you @Munish for the recommendation) 📚
Oct 25, 2023: On a quick break. Then into the studio for four hours of teaching.
Oct 24, 2023: Currently reading: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 📚
Oct 24, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Discourses, Fragments, Handbook (Oxford Worlds Classics) by Epictetus 📚 This was a long read, as most good philosophy books …
Oct 24, 2023: The weather continues to be glorious. This is a few blocks from where I live.
Oct 23, 2023: These free libraries have been popping up in our neighborhood. It’s always fun to take a look at the titles when I’m walking.
Oct 23, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Attention Span by Gloria Mark 📚 One of the more memorable books I’ve read this year. There’s a battle going on for …
Oct 23, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Kaizen by Sarah Harvey 📚
Oct 22, 2023: Currently reading: Attention Span by Gloria Mark 📚 On technology design: Beyond individual action like restructuring your interface, friction can be …
Oct 22, 2023: More autumn colors from my walk this afternoon 🍁
Oct 22, 2023: A treasured part of my everyday routine is writing Morning Pages. It gets my brain working, helps me to generate ideas, and sets the tone for the rest …
Oct 21, 2023: Currently reading: Attention Span by Gloria Mark 📚 Time wasting activities such as social media and games might be useful after all: You may not have …
Oct 20, 2023: Perfect autumn weather today.
Oct 19, 2023: Just started Hour 1 of a six-hour piano teaching marathon this evening. I hope everyone practiced…
Oct 17, 2023: Currently reading: Attention Span by Gloria Mark 📚 The chapter on AI and algorithms is an eye-opener. I didn’t know just how deeply embedded our …
Oct 4, 2023: Japanese curry with Katsu chicken at Gyugyuya on Dundas. The perfect meal before an evening of teaching piano.
Oct 2, 2023: Harmonizing careers: music and mentoring - a profile from the University of Rochester Alumni publication on on my mentoring work with students and …
Oct 1, 2023: Maggie Appleton: The Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI This is a fascinating talk and well worth the hour you’ll spend watching it.
Oct 1, 2023: Safari using 5GB of memory usage for 5 tabs on a brand new Mac with Sonoma 14.0 seems a little heavy. Even Arc only topped out around 2.5GB, even …
Sep 29, 2023: Anne-Laure Le Cunff: The Surprising Benefits of Laziness
Sep 28, 2023: For everyone who’s excited about desktop widgets on MacOS Sonoma, it’s really nothing new. Here’s a screenshot of my desktop on …
Sep 28, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland by Harvey Pekar 📚
Sep 28, 2023: Finished reading 2023: Bix by Scott Chantler 📚 A charming short graphic novel about the life of Bix Beiderbecke. Chantler’s flow of the frames …
Sep 28, 2023: Really enjoying Sonoma so far. What I like best after the first day: Reminders, particularly its sections and widgets functionality iCloud passwords …
Sep 21, 2023: Always nice to have a few minutes between appointments for an espresso ☕️
Sep 21, 2023: Quote from the RCM in Toronto yesterday: “To get to my studio, you walk through the atrium and rather than going up the stars like Kirk and …
Sep 13, 2023: First commute of the academic year!
Sep 9, 2023: Are Substack writers selling their mailing lists to other creators? I’ve been getting a lot of Substack spam lately from writers I’ve …
Sep 8, 2023: TIL Canada and Denmark share a land border.
Sep 5, 2023: Currently reading: Africa Risen by Sheree Renée Thomas 📚
Sep 3, 2023: Currently reading: The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo 📚 This is actually my third time through this book. It’s been really difficult to …
Sep 3, 2023: Finished reading: Life Worth Living by Miroslav Volf 📚
Sep 3, 2023: Queen - Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon Perfect music for the laziest weekend of the entire year. 🎵
Aug 25, 2023: Back in Toronto after a 7am flight from Calgary. The flight landed early for a change. 🛬
Aug 23, 2023: The Vietnamese food here in Calgary is quite memorable. Here’s the grilled pork and spring roll vermicelli at Lemongrass West on 51st Street SW.
Aug 20, 2023: En route to Calgary, where there is a severe weather alert for smoke from the fires in BC.
Aug 19, 2023: Just an ordinary Friday night chilling with the Winnipeg crew.
Aug 18, 2023: Good morning!
Aug 17, 2023: Enjoying a simple lunch of borscht and a ham and cheese panini at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.
Aug 16, 2023: The view from my hotel room in Winnipeg this morning. The smoke seems to be getting worse from the fires up north. Air quality was bad yesterday and I …
Aug 15, 2023: My office for the day, hearing exams at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg.
Aug 14, 2023: Just landed in Winnipeg 🛬
Aug 13, 2023: Happy International Left Handers Day! 🖋️
Aug 12, 2023: Rereading Proust Back in 1996 I read Proust’s A la recherche du temps passé ( translated as Remembrance of Things Past and In Search of Lost Time) and I did it …
Aug 11, 2023: I don’t think I’ll ever need to buy a notebook again. There was a sale in our area and I bought 23 Leuchtturms and 2 Moleskines. Does this …
Aug 10, 2023: Anne-Laure le Cunff: Mindful context switching: multitasking for humans There are many tips out there—the most common one being to focus on the most …
Aug 10, 2023: Ontario Greenbelt plan influenced by well-connected developers, AG says A terrible loss of greenbelt area outside Toronto, all to enrich Doug …
Aug 9, 2023: This is a photo that was taken during a recital with Krysztina Szabo at Tapestry Opera in Toronto’s Ernest Balmer Studio on March 21, 2020. …
Aug 9, 2023: The Toronto Pen Shoppe, Toronto’s newest pen store at the Distillery District. Nelmar Cornes is the owner and he plans on carrying some hard-to-find …
Aug 9, 2023: The waiting room for my favorite barbershop.
Aug 8, 2023: The always-on mindset can be both a blessing and a curse for those of us in the creative arts: Creativity is something you are, not only something …
Aug 8, 2023: Finished reading: The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2) by Liu Cixin 📚
Aug 7, 2023: Pork ramen with spicy garlic broth: the perfect lunch for a dark, rainy summer day.
Aug 6, 2023: Over the next year, I aim to read at least one poem a day to see where it takes me and what I can discover in terms of authors, genres, forms. 📚 …
Aug 6, 2023: Currently reading: The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2) by Liu Cixin 📚
Aug 4, 2023: Celebrating the end of the week with Signal Hill whisky from St. John’s. This was the end of my sixth week of the summer hearing online piano exams, …
Aug 4, 2023: Oliver Burkeman in The Imperfectionist: Lists are menus And here’s the kicker: aren’t all to-do lists really menus anyway, whether I choose to think …
Aug 4, 2023: All you ever needed to know about gelato
Aug 3, 2023: Evening walk.
Aug 3, 2023: CJ Chilvers: Creativity vs. Productivity
Aug 1, 2023: Meta permanently ending news availability on its platforms in Canada starting today As a Canadian, this is pretty serious news and it will be …
Aug 1, 2023: Traffic in downtown Toronto is terrible. Why does it seem that there is construction in every single street? No, I’m not driving.
Aug 1, 2023: A view of the building in Toronto used as the Khan Noonien-Singh Institute featured in Star Trek Strange New Worlds S2E3 (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and …
Jul 31, 2023: Evening walk.
Jul 31, 2023: How to Learn Antyhing Fast: Teach Your Brain to Focus Elizabeth Filips on science-backed ways to trick your brain into staying engaged.
Jul 30, 2023: Today’s haul from the Toronto Pen Shoppe at the Distillery. 🖋️
Jul 30, 2023: Great weather for spending time at the Distillery District this afternoon.
Jul 30, 2023: Using AirPods as a Hearing Aid I know of several musicians that might find this useful. Fortunately my musical work doesn’t put me in a high-noise …
Jul 30, 2023: Sunday morning. ☕️🖋️
Jul 30, 2023: Sinéad O’Connor - I Am Stretched Out on Your Grave Still haunting after all these years.
Jul 29, 2023: From a conversation earlier today on Facebook. “It federates into Mastodon” has got to be one of the most 2023 things I’ve said all …
Jul 29, 2023: This is almost the end of my fifth half-week of remote working this summer, with three more to go. It’s still difficult to get used to, and now I see …
Jul 28, 2023: Currently reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚 You might imagine that the outside world is a conveyor belt with a stream of small packages on …
Jul 28, 2023: This is the second time in a month that one of my contact lenses has shredded - not something that should be happening with monthly lenses after only …
May 6, 2023: My office today - judging a competition in Ottawa.
May 2, 2023: 🎵 Technical Resources for Advanced Pianists: www.foleymusicandarts.com/blog/2023…
Apr 30, 2023: The frustration of writing several paragraphs of a blog post and then losing them after forgetting to press save before accidentally closing a browser …
Apr 29, 2023: One of these days the weather is going to improve ☕️
Apr 27, 2023: Some thoughts on Angela Hewitt’s article on memory in the Guardian - Talking About Memory
Apr 26, 2023: Ready for an evening of teaching at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto.
Apr 26, 2023: Saw the surgeon today for a follow-up after gallbladder removal surgery in March. 3 of the stones were close to a cm in diameter and 1 was lodged in …
Apr 26, 2023: I’ve been blogging since 2005, and in the last few years I’ve struggled to find time to write for my blogs in addition to my regular work. …
Apr 25, 2023: 15 Layers of Turntable Scratching with DJ Shortkut foleymusicandarts.com
Apr 24, 2023: Yesterday evening I asked Bing AI to draw pictures of monsters teaching other monsters how to play piano. Had the realization is that this is …
Apr 23, 2023: 🎵 Here’s a student of mine doing a run-through of Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen in preparation for her recital on Tuesday: (Facebook …
Apr 23, 2023: 🖋 It’s great to see there’s a fountain pen community on micro.blog! Here’s a Waterman Man 100 I picked up at the Scriptus show in Toronto late last …
Apr 23, 2023: Trying out micro.blog this morning. I’ve been thinking lately how I can return to blogging and what kind of ideas or process could make it …