The Rabbit Room

5&1: Exploring the Great Outdoors

This is the first in a weekly series that will seek to break down the mists and myths that put people off the vast treasure house that is classical music. Each time, I’ll take a theme and choose 5 pieces or excerpts (from over 600 years’ worth of music) and then round it all off with one larger work.

Hence 5&1 from 600!

Kindness: Tokens Online Show on September 29th

Our friends over at the Tokens Show have adapted to 2020’s many curveballs by offering a run of online shows, the first of which will take place on September 29th. Its theme is simply “Kindness,” and featured guests will include Naomi Shihab Nye, Jason Eskridge, and Buddy Greene.

The Habit Podcast: Marilyn McEntyre

The Habit Podcast is a series of conversations with writers about writing, hosted by Jonathan Rogers. This week, Jonathan Rogers talks with Marilyn McEntyre, author of Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict.

The Molehill Podcast: Pandemic Poetry (feat. Malcolm Guite & Andrew Roycroft)

Wherein Malcolm Guite reads his “Quarantine Quatrains” poetry collection, Andrew Roycroft reads his “Grace Triptych,” and Drew Miller shares the fourth Word of Befuddlement: spoothe.

Hutchmoot: Sonata at Payne Hollow

A man named Harlan Hubbard—a writer, a painter, a musician, a husband, and a lover of the good earth—once wrote: “It happened this morning that I left for wild, far off places.”

It’s Not Your Job to Be a Genius

The first TED talk I remember ever watching was “Your Elusive Creative Genius,” by Elizabeth Gilbert, in 2009. If you aren’t among the 19 million people (literally) who have watched this talk, or if you just want to relive the magic, here’s the link. There’s a lot of good stuff in that talk, but the thing that has most stuck with me these eleven years is Gilbert’s account of the way the word “genius” has changed through the centuries.

An Apologetic for Storytelling

I’ve always been a storyteller. My poor mother! I used to recount every life event in technicolor for her, even movies. She didn’t have to see the movies herself; her son had already reenacted them in their entirety. I think I told stories to know that I wasn’t alone. I wanted to see if the story made others feel the way that it made me feel. I wanted to see if it moved them and transformed them, too.

The Resistance, Episode 25: Mindy Smith

The experience doesn’t matter. The expertise isn’t real.