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Though it took me half a lifetime, I have painted my own paradise, and now I am finally starting to enjoy it. Very soon, I will return to flying aircraft on the weekends, and as soon as I repair or replace my piano, I'll find time for practicing music as well. I have chosen a hopeful repertoire for 2007, printed below. It's just a fun program to look forward to, even though I only chose portions of the larger works. If I find a little extra time and a willing clarinetist for all the duets in this list, maybe I can sneak in a concert sometime during next summer!
2007 Repertoire
Clarinet duets:
John Bilotta: Heart's Desire, for Clarinet and Piano
Herbert Howells: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, 1st movement
Eric Ewazen: Ballad for Clarinet and Piano
W.M. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto In A Major, arranged for clarinet and piano
Piano solo:
John Bilotta: Madison Sketchbook, Sets 1 and 2
Sergei Prokofiev: Waltz, Op. 112, No. 4 (Cinderella's Departure for the Ball)
Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dances for solo piano, nos. 1, 5, and 7
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata #6 in G Major, Op. 62
Oblivion Geek Corner
The title of this entry actually refers to a particular phase in the PC game Oblivion, late in the main storyline, where you must traipse around a utopic landscape, find the bad dude, fight the bastard, then finally snatch a trinket from him after you turn him. "Turn" is just a very polite way of saying DESTROY. So far, I have found this to be the most visually stunning portion of the game. Several times I caught myself just stopping and staring at the sky and trees with my jaw wide open, while monsters and demons of every hue are charging toward me.
This part of the game has a very peculiar feature: Suddenly, the game has become very homoerotic. Scattered about this paradise are men with adonis bodies, dressed in only a loincloth, who are fleeing the same monsters that are banging up my armor. Suspiciously, the men were created by the bad dude purely for the entertainment of the monsters. It's the funniest thing to watch a hulking frost giant chasing a hot circuit boy through an orchard of Japanese maple trees.
OK, You can't tell me that at least some of Oblivion's game developers aren't gay, and this isn't the first time in the game that I've seen stuff like this. Here's a few screenshots of the painted paradise, including one with the fleeing adonises, where I thought I'd join the fun and take off all of my armor, just to see what would happen. 
 | | A Picture Perfect Battlefield |
 | | Look, New Armor |
 | | See, I Can Be Naughty Too |
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