Still in awe of the wonders of the internet

Some things I take for granted. But every now and again I'm still in awe of what I can now do that wouldn't have been possible a few years ago.

I used to come to work mornings and listen to BBC3 (I'm in New York City, BTW). This past summer I was able to catch many of the Proms concerts either live or as an archive feed.

My company intranet is blocking the BBC now (I hope its fixed by next summer), so today I'm enjoying the Count Basie orgy. If you don't know about the orgies, every year during Harvard exam periods the Harvard Radio station WHRB broadcasts orgies: large blocks of time devoted to one composer or artist. When I say "large blocks", I mean. For example, one orgy a few years ago, played all of the Bach cantatas.

This winter the orgies include (among others) Bartok, Tippett, Joe Henderson, Count Basie, Faure, Rachmaninoff, Tom Waits, Ray Charles, Chausson, Boccherini, Franz Berwald, and Korngold (see details here). In addition to jazz and classical, there are also mini-orgies of other types of music as well (O.D.B, the Unsane, Plan-It-X), but these artists fly under my radar and I leave their recommendation to others.

The orgies go until January 31st. The streams used to be problematic to me, but WHRB has switched to Live365 and now they are reliable and of very high quality. If you are looking for something to listen to, give it a try.