Barry Russo

One of my favorite movies of all time was 1994's "The Shawshank Redemption." From it came Morgan Freeman's character's admonition that we can either "get busy living or get busy dying." 

Our world, and particularly the United States, has become a place where there is this kind of invisible cloud of anger, stress, fear, rage, and probably a million other emotions all around us. Like a cloud that is so filled with water droplets that it has to burst into a downpour, this cloud is likewise overflowing. We saw…

*Originally posted on March 13, 2019

My dad died last Monday, March 4th. He was 92, and had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this past summer. Due to the low success rate of treating that particular type of cancer, along with his age, he decided against chemo or radiation. He wanted to enjoy the remaining time he had left, and not spend it sick from treatments. He made it all the way through the holidays and into the new year with barely any symptoms, even as blood tests indicated the cancer was…

*This entry was originally written and posted on October 12, 2018*

Why Z-flat Major? What does that even mean? Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with music theory knows the musical alphabet only goes as far as the letter G, and then returns to A. There's no pitches or keys designated by H, I, or any other letter beyond G. There are such things as quarter tones. But Z-flat? That's not something we recognize as a musical classification or anything that exists. Which is exactly the reason I chose that…