I’ve been having tremendous fun this term teaching a course on the history of music criticism at City Lit. We’ve only had four sessions so far, but we’ve already covered some pretty major points for discussion including what should/shouldn’t fall within a reviewer’s domain; whether ad hominem arguments are allowed
80 years ago today, Disney’s first full-length animated musical feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs went on general release in the USA (and the Library of Congress has been tweeting about it). Animators battled with negotiating the pitfalls of uncanny valley – including using real-life models for most of
Last week, several years behind the curve as usual, I finished reading Dave Eggers’s The Circle. For those of you who have not had the pleasure, I would certainly recommend it – and indeed, in the few years since the book was published (in 2013), the reach of social media,
I think it would be fair to say that January has not, so far, been exactly characterised by balmy breezes and long, sunny days here in the UK. Not to put too fine a point on it, it has mostly been grey, cold, damp and depressing. Yesterday morning I peeled
If you clicked on this link because you were expecting to find something about music, research, education or all of the above, and are now slightly alarmed by the mention of unicorns, don’t panic. I promise that this is the website of the Katy Hamilton who does those things for a living.
Today is the end of an era. 2017, the year that brought us plenty of things we’d probably rather forget about as well as some that we can only hope might lead to more positive changes in the future, takes its final bow tonight. Another year, another rollercoaster of encouraging
I am feeling particularly smug today, because I have successfully dispatched all of the Christmas cards that needed posting to assorted friends, relatives, old teachers and colleagues, days before the final posting date. As ever, the choosing of which cards to buy was a slightly tricky business, and I decided
Most of you in the UK might have noticed that today has been somewhat snowy. So snowy, in fact that large swathes of the country have seen road closures, accidents, blocked pavements, drifts of the white stuff and general cutting off of transportation. My delightful weekend house guests made it
This week, a mighty achievement has come to pass in my universe. In collaboration with a friend who is a considerably more practised and capable cruciverbalist than I am, we finished a ‘Genius’ crossword in the Guardian. If you are rolling your eyes and thinking ‘a crossword – so what?’
There are some subjects that I write about from time to time that I’m always delighted to revisit – they are the reasons that I love my work, and I enjoy the opportunity to discuss them on more than one occasion. How to ask questions; issues around education; what it
