Professor Carol
This weekly essay inevitably reflects whatever is on my mind (for better or worse). Right now, my mind resembles the state of a kitchen drawer containing everything from toothpicks to the tape measurer. Trapped in layers of mental miscellany, my ability to put together coherent … Read more
“So there you have the four famous Strausses!” With finality, I swirled from my imaginary podium in the aisle and plopped back into the front seat of the bus, thus concluding one of the mini-lectures I give while in transit on tours. These talks last … Read more
I have stayed in a lot of hotels over the past decade. My work on Smithsonian Journeys tours takes me through a string of European cities for weeks at a time. Also, my role speaking as “Professor Carol” puts me in a multiplicity of US … Read more
“We are fighters,” proclaimed our travel director Halina during her fascinating narrative as we rode through the gorgeous countryside from Warsaw to Krakow. The same sentence had resounded the previous day from our young city guide Carolina as she toured us through Warsaw. And then … Read more
It’s going live! Let me invite you to our newest classroom entitled The Rudiments of Music Theory, now part of our Circle of Scholars. That means all of you who are members will have immediate access for everyone in your family to take a journey … Read more
The whirlwind starts Friday when I fly off for my first tour of the fall. On Sunday evening in Warsaw, I will meet the twenty-one people who chose this Smithsonian Journey’s tour with its innocuous name “Old World Europe.” The next morning we’ll launch into … Read more
I just had a chance to tour the new, luxuriously equipped William Fleming High School in Roanoke, Virginia that replaced “my” Fleming High, knocked down about a decade ago. I was dazzled by the school’s professional-level sports facilities, top-notch art studios, and techno-driven classrooms. But … Read more
The horn call announcing Til’s antics resounds in our kitchen as the grandkids dance about the sun porch listening to a recording I just purchased from Maestro Classics. This one presents Richard Strauss’s 1895 tone poem Til Eulenspiegel, a brilliant cinematic composition that portrays the … Read more
What a funny week. Maybe you had one like it—hard to recall, super busy, yet hard to explain why. Partly it was filled with summery activities like taking grandkids to swim lessons, watering the garden, and grilling with our neighbors. Partly it was devoted to … Read more
