Tagged

Opera Tattler got me. You're supposed to post the rules of this meme, answer them, then tag others.

The rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog. I was tagged by The Opera Tattler.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. If you don't have 7 blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers.

The facts:

1. I have conducted both a wedding and a funeral.

2. I've also conducted a chorus, as one of two assistant conductors of the Stony Brook Chamber Singers. The most difficult piece I helped rehearse was the Missa Solemnis.

3. I studied flute from the age of 13 to 22. I can still play, though not nearly as well as back then. If I'd known what fun new music could be, I might have practiced harder. I ran across my piccolo yesterday and discovered I can still play it too. At least, the high D came out easily and cleanly.

4. I'm a second-degree black belt in Dan Zan Ryu jujitsu. Yes, you want to be in dark alleys with me; "don't be evil" applies to martial arts too.

5. I know more about public health and study design than most people who aren't in the field.

6. I once cooked the timpano from Big Night for New Year's Eve. More recently, I baked a buche de Noel.

7. I have four Robert Hupka photographs of Arturo Toscanini in my dining room. My parents found them at a flea market in the late 1970s. This is one of them. The other photographs are by my first cousin, Barry Sonnenfeld, some of whose other artistic endeavors you might know. He took them in high school or college. None of them are signed and dated.

Tagging: Elaine Fine, Matthew Guerrieri, Alex and Jonathan, Alex Shapiro, Jonathan Bellman, Detritous Review, Jessica Duchen.