Dean Barker
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deanbarker.bsky.social
Dean Barker
@deanbarker.bsky.social
2.3K followers 700 following 12K posts
"Weird composer; weird way of thinking...It is rare to find someone who is mad about Schumann, but I love him very much." - Mitsuko Uchida
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deanbarker.bsky.social
Hang on, when did reading become so performative?
Mosaic of Vergil with two Muses, reading, Tunisia, 1st-3rd c CE
November 11, 2025 at 1:09 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
November.
A stand of birches in a pasture, wild blueberry bushes here and there. Leaves on the ground. Moss.
November 9, 2025 at 5:59 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Occurred to me in the shower, and at the risk of coming off like a Ms. Dolezal: I have been happily using Nubian Heritage African Black Soap (first in bar form, now body wash) for...all or almost all of the 21st century.

A quarter century, really? Endorsed!

www.smallflower.com/collections/...
Nubian Heritage, African Black Soap, Body Wash
November 8, 2025 at 6:37 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
November.
Firewood, stacked.
November 8, 2025 at 2:12 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
WHERE LAW ENDS TYRANNY BEGINS
November 7, 2025 at 12:49 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
A work of genius celebrating its half century on earth this year.
albumism.com/features/jon...
LP cover of Joni's THE HISSING OF SUMMER LAWNS, featuring a giant snake.
November 6, 2025 at 2:01 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
No longer in doubt that George Shelliot is a rooster, but he'll keep his name and we'll keep him.
Four varicolored hens and one obvious rooster.
November 1, 2025 at 5:23 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
increasingly, yes
"Summary of failures for Google"
November 1, 2025 at 10:29 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
THOUSAND DOLLAR PER MONTH health insurance increase coming for average income couple *near retirement but too far from Medicare*, I.e., folks who need health insurance the most but who don't have a guarantee.

Unbelievable damage inflicted by Trump onto our country.
Graphic from Maggie Hassan's office showing a $1000+ per month increase on ACA health insurance due to Trump's bill that gutted subsidies.
October 31, 2025 at 9:25 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Daylight leaving earlier and earlier.
Dusk, orange clouds, dim greenery, fall foliage.
October 26, 2025 at 9:49 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Changing tracks.
Some old rail line along a trail. Fall.
October 26, 2025 at 7:05 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU starts well, end up aimless and silly, but when Nic Cage gives Bridget Fonda the glasses chain gift (before telling her they've won the lottery)...*swoooooooon*
Bridget Fonda as a waitress and Nic Cage as a cop in IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU. She's smiling over a trivial gift because it was a unexpected kindness and her world has been so unkind before then.
October 25, 2025 at 11:13 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Rail trail compromise.
A straight path through the yellow and orange leafed trees.
October 25, 2025 at 7:57 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Have begun Peaky Blinders, which I like well enough.

For me Helen McCrory the standout actor. She keeps me watching. Saddened to learn she is no longer among the living.
Helen McCrory in Peaky Blinders, wielding hat and gun.
October 25, 2025 at 4:13 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Late October.
Past peak foliage, mountain in the background. Past peak foliage, bare peach tree in the foreground, blue sky and clouds.
October 25, 2025 at 3:49 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
New release, listening now.

I should collect the various artist statements I come across about Robert #Schumann; they all share strong similarities. Fascinating the effect he has on musicians.

#classicalmusic

app.idagio.com/albums/zwiel...
Photo of pianist Sylviane Deferne by Christian Meuwly “There’s a strange red glow in the sky, the glow of evening or of morning, I know not.”* Robert Schumann Light and darkness... This album, Zwielicht – “Twilight” – takes us on a fantastic journey to the heart of German Romanticism. The pieces featured here are personal favourites, pieces that punctuated the career of an extraordinary composer, from the effusions of his youth to the confessions of the end of his creative life. The works presented on this album – some of them relatively little-performed – share, I think, the same thread of inspiration, to which the musician returned at different stages in his life. From childhood – when I listened over and over again to his Nachtstücke – to adulthood – with his Humoreske and Gesänge der Frühe revisited so many times – Schumann has been my faithful companion. Come what may, I have always returned to this composer with the same passion. When I made my public début – took that first great leap! – it was with the Abegg Variations, a work that is so very fresh and spontaneous – a pure delight! The centrepiece here is the immense Humoreske, with its irony and gloom, its laughter and tears, its shifts between reality and the wildest dreams. “Humor”, a word often used by Schumann, refers here not only to “humour” in the sense of being amusing, but also to its meaning as a frame of mind, an emotion, a disposition; for this piece conveys above all the composer’s subtle variations of mood. The two characters invented by Schumann to represent different sides of his personality are the outward-going, solar Florestan, and the introspective, lunar Eusebius. Their poles attract or repel each other irresistibly, like magnets. This interplay of opposites requires the performer to let go, be swept along, without ever attempting to “appropriate” the music. What wonderful freedom! Schumann’s music is elusive; you have to catch it as it flies.
October 23, 2025 at 9:35 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Davidsbündlertänze No. 8 is kicking my behind. I need three hands for a few of these measures!

No. 9 is more forgiving (and more fun).
Sheet music for Robert Schumann's Davidsbündlertänze No. 8, on the piano.
October 21, 2025 at 11:08 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Former President Obama saying "Imagine if I had done any of this"
October 21, 2025 at 8:19 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
I went many years before someone pointed this out and 🤯
October 19, 2025 at 3:13 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.
Nairobi from MONEY HEIST.
October 19, 2025 at 2:04 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Gonna see Yo-Yo Ma tonight at Dartmouth's newly renovated Hop.

(Last time I saw him was 1994!)
October 18, 2025 at 11:36 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
October.
Under a mostly defoliated apple tree, sky and orange-red maple in the background.
October 18, 2025 at 6:28 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Dartmouth College, echoing Daniel Webster and its own historic legacy, tells the government to pound sand.

(email release)
Dear Dartmouth community, I write to update you on Dartmouth’s feedback to the Administration on the recently proposed higher education compact. As I wrote to you two weeks ago, our actions will always be guided by our mission and values and a deep commitment to every member of this community. Dartmouth has a celebrated history of forging its own path—Vox clamantis in deserto—and serving as a model for teaching and discovery in American higher education. As I shared on a call yesterday with the White House, I do not believe that a compact—with any administration—is the right approach to achieve academic excellence, as it would compromise our academic freedom, our ability to govern ourselves, and the principle that federal research funds should be awarded to the best, most promising ideas. The partnership between America’s leading research universities and the federal government has been one of the most successful joint ventures in history. For this relationship to thrive, institutions of higher education need to do better at living up to our collective academic mission. We must also maintain the right to define our mission and values and how they are expressed and realized. Below is the feedback I communicated to the Administration in the call and sent to them today. This feedback follows discussion with faculty leadership, the broader community, and the Board of Trustees at our meeting this weekend. Sincerely, Sian Leah Beilock President Dear Secretary McMahon, Ms. Mailman, and Mr. Haley, I appreciated the opportunity to speak with you yesterday. I welcome further engagement around how we can (a) enhance the long-standing partnership between the federal government and this country’s leading research universities and (b) ensure that higher education stays focused on academic excellence. As I shared on the call, I do not believe that the involvement of the government through a compact—whether it is a Republican- or Democratic-led White House—is the right way to focus America’s leading colleges and universities on their teaching and research mission. Our universities have a responsibility to set our own academic and institutional policies, guided by our mission and values, our commitment to free expression, and our obligations under the law. Staying true to this responsibility is what will help American higher education build bipartisan public trust and continue to uphold its place as the envy of the world. We remain open to other ways to work with the federal government to enhance higher education. Best, Sian Leah Beilock President
October 18, 2025 at 4:30 PM
deanbarker.bsky.social
Earlier this evening.
Bits of orange clouds at dusk, a couple of trees in silhouette.
October 16, 2025 at 12:15 AM
deanbarker.bsky.social
We are family.

youtu.be/uyGY2NfYpeE?...
Sister Sledge.
October 13, 2025 at 1:12 AM