The Latest

My weekly musings (updated however often I feel like it).

In February of 2001, I brought my friend Stephens to Symphony Hall for one of my regular Thursday, A-Series subscription concerts. That night, the Boston Symphony Orchestra performed the U.S. premiere of “La Pasion Segun San Marcos” by the brilliant Argentinean composer Osvaldo Golijov.

Usually, Symphony Hall looks like this:

… read more

When I was a kid, I loved playing the board game Masterpiece with my brother. The fact that he cheated didn’t even particularly bother me. I felt like Aristotle Onassis, shelling out inconceivable amounts of money for a Rembrandt.

So it was a nifty surprise one recent Saturday morning when I got a message from a friend in the U.K. saying: “Hey—Quick message only, sorry…I’ve got someone selling a Picasso and a Monet. £4.8 & £3.9m respectively. You know any collectors in the market? A Swiss family liquidating some assets…”

Let’s put aside the fact that someone was casually asking if I knew someone with north of $14,250,000 to throw around. It felt sexy even to contemplate it, and while it seemed too good to be true, dollar signs danced in my head—a standard commission is 10% and even a sliver of that would be a hefty hunk of change. So I said I’d look into it. … read more

There’s an old saying: Children are like farts—you only enjoy your own. I happen to disagree, partly because I don’t have any children of my own, but mostly because it’s great fun being a guncle (gay uncle). … read more