My Time With Ragtime

Recently I have rediscovered ragtime music and today decided to understand it a little better. A fascinating and essential connection from march music to jazz, ragtime had a short popular run in the early 1900s. It's such a large subject that I could never give it enough of a space here but wanted to share these tidbits anyway. A few of the most popular ragtime musicians were Scott Joplin and James Scott, and my favorite so far Fats Waller. Ragtime was one of the first and most popular sheet music to be placed on piano rolls. Some dances using early rag were the two-step, military marches, slow drag and the cakewalk. The cakewalk has its roots during the days of slavery and developed into a competitive two-step dance whose winners would receive a cake. This is supposedly the origin of the terms "piece of cake" and "that takes the cake".

Curling

I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get back to this. Now that I am unemployed again this exciting blog is back in action.

So the Olympics came and went. Curling has got to be one of the strangest sports in history. The earliest reference comes from Scotland in 1541. The town of Kilsyth claims to have the world's first Curling Club, and I can't see a reason to lie about such things. Kilsyth is also the proud parent of indie rock band The Twilight Sad. Hiram Maxim, excuse me, Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim patented the first curling iron in 1866. He is also credited for inventing the Maxim machine gun, the mousetrap, an inhaler, and possibly the lightbulb.