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Chris Walton ❌👑

@philocrites.bsky.social
195 followers 235 following 684 posts

Preoccupied with music, culture, religion, and liberal democracy. Practicing composition in Greater Boston.

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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I see that we were not alone: The 100,000+ NYT readers who weighed in also loved "Avatar: The Last Airbender" more than any other show that didn't make the insiders' list. It comes in at #37.
nytimes.com
Readers Choose Their Top TV Shows of the 21st Century (Gift Article)
The people have spoken. Here are their picks.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Surprising and delightful moment on Boston's classical music radio station WCRB this morning: They played one of Ligeti's Bagatelles for Wind Quintet! I love all six, but you don't usually think of Ligeti as classical radio stuff.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Building is 1137-1147 Broadway
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Many fire engines from nearby towns. Just saw Chelsea and Belmont arrive.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Bad news in Teele Square. Fire in three-story building across from Fire Dept has shut down Holland Street in both directions, blocking MBTA routes 87, 88, 89 in Somerville. @universalhub.com
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The teen in my home will be indignant if "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is not on the New York Times Best 100 TV Shows of the Century list. You're on notice with my resident animation fan, Old Gray Lady!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Whoa!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
(Also: I've clearly tuned out the iOS accessibility magnifying glass feature I recently turned on, because I didn't even notice it in the screen shot until just this minute!)
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
My graduate degree in religion has given me no advantage whatsoever in Spelling Bee.
Screen shot of the New York Times game Spelling Bee, with E in the yellow hexagon in the center and the letters C N T G I X in the gray hexagons around it. The word entered by the user was EXEGETE, which the game says is NOT IN WORD LIST.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Proud parent moment (especially considering my very intermediate piano skills): My oldest is heading off to college this week, and asked me for a playlist of the piano pieces I've been playing in recent years. That really moved me!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Confessions of a classical music radio listener: The composer whose works have caught my attention the most lately is, to my surprise, Respighi! I hadn't heard his 1925 mixolydian piano concerto before, but I immediately wanted to know why I had never heard it before. (Thanks, WHRB!)
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This is an important initiative: "We Had No Idea" is a new website that collects and organizes public documentation of classical music institutions and people who have faced significant consequences for sexual misconduct.
we-had-no-idea.org
We had no idea
This is a listing of alleged sexual abusers in classical music.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Readers of the magazine I edited revolted once over quotation marks in a headline, which amazed me given their general level of literacy. They could not help but see them as scare quotes. (And as you know, it was not a snarky magazine.)
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I can't tell you about my *preferred* video, as I've only seen one, but the Jonathan Kent production set inside a refrigerator is among the more memorable opera productions I've ever watched! YouTube clip here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly-M... (I watched it on Medici.tv several years ago.)
youtube.com
Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie (Glyndebourne)
YouTube video by Opus Arte
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Stroll into your classroom with this stylish reminder to check the syllabus. pilcrow-shop.fourthwall.com/en-usd/produ...
pilcrow-shop.fourthwall.com
It's in the Syllabus – Dark Organic Cotton Tote Bag
Black organic cotton tote bag by Econscious with a different version of "It's in the Syllabus" on each side, featuring blackletter type ("’Tis in the Syllabus") on the front and old style type ("It's ...
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
New semester drops soon. Get your "It's in the Syllabus" and "Do the Reading" merch now! ;) pilcrow-shop.fourthwall.com/en-usd/produ...
pilcrow-shop.fourthwall.com
Glossy Black "It's in the Syllabus" Coffee Mug
Pilcrow Portfolio, your source for goods celebrating primary sources and human research, from Chris Walton Design.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
That's so we ginger people can have our own adjective
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Excited by the prospect that NYT Opinion will have to cook up a podcast to replace the one that replaced the one I enjoyed featuring Carlos Lozada, Lydia Polgreen, Michelle Cottle. Bring back “Matter of Opinion”!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Watched the Neil Armstrong biopic “First Man” on a plane today without realizing it’s actually the anniversary of the moon landing!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I posted just as Miss Piggy & Kermit showed up (with the Count)!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
(The extended service announcement “What Has the BBC Ever Done for Me?” on the BBC broadcast of the World Cup is also very fun.)
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Gustavo Dudamel, the Electric Mayhem, and Ted Lasso and Coach are super-serving this particular viewer!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Great fun to see news of the No Scotland No Party traffic cone being presented to Governor Healey and Mayor Wu on the tv in this Scottish bar in the Highlands tonight! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @universalhub.com
Bar TV over a doorway next to beer taps shows Gov. Maura Healey speaking after receiving the decorated No Scotland No Party traffic cone.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Created equal.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Heat dome, the eleventh plague?
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Loved this interview and am on a listening binge over at Tidal. However, the artist profile there for ETHEL includes a new album & related EPs by a contemporary gospel singer and collaborators who have no discernible presence online. Is that "Ethel" real or generative AI? tidal.com/artist/39729...
tidal.com
Ethel
See the releases of Ethel on TIDAL
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
You know you’re in Utah when you pass not one but two trucks filled with ersatz pioneer handcarts on the freeway onramp
Photo shows tightly packed wooden handcarts with large wood-spoked wheels, the yokes tilted upward at 45 degrees, on a flatbed trailer.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
The droll NYT
Screen shot of a New York Times article byline: “By Danny Hakim / This is Danny Hakim’s first story on flying potatoes.”
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
"By tying artistic seriousness so tightly to the preservation of older sounds, forms, rituals, and cultural assumptions, the tradition has gradually drifted away from the social, emotional, and historical realities through which most people encounter meaning in music in their contemporary lives." 💯
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Told the kids about Air Supply and now, for the first time in decades, I'm listening to their hits and realizing the '80s really planted some ear worms. I've apparently discovered my karaoke set. 😳
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Introduce yourself with 10 bands / musicians you've seen live (Boston me) Branford Marsalis Trio Elvin Jones Sonny Rollins Elliot Smith (twice) Gillian Welch (& David Rawlings) Frigg Le Vent du Nord (x2) Pine Tree Flyers Lawrence Brownlee (x2) Pretty Yende (x2) Susanna Phillips (x3)
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Introduce yourself with 10 bands / musicians you've seen live (college-era me) Midnight Oil (twice) Nirvana Throwing Muses Morphine Timbuk 3 R.E.M. (twice) Indigo Girls 10,000 Maniacs Sting The Cranberries
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Open-to-all Cambridge band School of Honk cofounder Kevin Leppmann: “It’s a profound crisis that most people believe they can’t make music, [that] they can only passively consume it.” “[W]e’re not saying there are no wrong notes, we’re saying we’re not going to worry about wrong notes.”
bostonglobe.com
Can a band that lets literally anyone join sound good? This group joyfully tests the premise. - The Boston Globe
You hear School of Honk all over Cambridge and Somerville. Turns out, you can also join them, no experience required.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
SO MUCH MONEY
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Just wait until you've got used to progressives and then realize you need mid-distance lenses for reading music or working at a computer. I'm roaming the earth with regular progressives, progressive sunglasses, AND a pair of mid-distance-only glasses.
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Reposted by Chris Walton ❌👑
The Tonearm @thetonearm.com · 14/05/2026
"I don’t have the energy to get exercised about monoculture. I use my modest platform to lift up music I care about, and I am grateful when others do the same. At the end of the day, what matters most to me is nurturing community, which, as I see it, is the only way out of our political hellscape."
gabrielkahane.substack.com
what we talk about when we talk about pop music criticism
a brief response to the ny times' greatest living american songwriters list
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
Vampire Fortnight
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Guys, $13 million to make the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool look like a minigolf feature in time for the 250th is an absolute steal! Oh wait…
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Gotta love the Instagram AI slop ads for artisanal London shops that don't exist but sadly must close their doors after 38 years, because where else could I have learned about my new favorite band RRBEFLMERS?
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
More on La Monte Young's Mormon background and its influence on his music: Jeremy Grimshaw, "Music of a 'More Exalted Sphere': The Sonic Cosmology of La Monte Young," Dialogue 38:1 (Spring 2005): 1-35 www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/mus...
dialoguejournal.com
Music of a "More Exalted Sphere": The Sonic Cosmology of La Monte Young - Dialogue Journal
Seven and a half blocks east and five blocks south of the Salt Lake Temple, the 0,0 of the city's cardinally aligned grid, an inconspicuous gate on the north side of the street opens onto a long path ...
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Thoroughly enjoyed Boston Lyric Opera’s endearing and thoroughly localized version of Donizetti’s “Daughter of the Regiment” yesterday, which BLO moved to colonial Boston and fleshed out a bit with new spoken dialogue. And with that, I’ve reached the end of all my season subscriptions!
Singers take a bow on a theater stage in front of a large tree
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Young tells Strickland that his avant-garde Theatre of Eternal Music was influenced by the Mormon doctrine of eternal life! That’s fascinating! (“American Composers,” 1991, 64)
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
LeMonte Young to Edward Strickland in 1987: “I went into music because I was drawn like iron filings to a magnet. The reason I’m here on Earth is to make music. I’m not here to make deals with Columbia Records.”
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
I was today years old when I learned that minimalist composers LaMonte Young was born in a log cabin in a tiny Idaho Mormon town and spent part of his childhood in the Utah county I grew up in—but with that name I should have guessed!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Really interesting stuff! But not idiomatic for congregational comfort!
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Three tunes by Albright (1944–1998) are in the Episcopal hymnal; one of them and two others appear in the 1993 Unitarian Universalist hymnal. I’ve played his tune “Procession” as a prelude, but had never seen any of these used for congregational singing.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
It has a two-measure organ preface to each verse in 11/8 — followed by the opening measure of each sung verse in 5/4! It’s fast. The refrain has a slightly different syncopated pattern, and is in a different key. The choir got this one all to themselves, but they sounded great.
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Today we found the catchiest yet least-possible-for-a-congregation-to-sing closing hymn: William Albright’s peppy tune “Petrus,” or Hymn 196 in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982, “Look there! the Christ, our Brother.”
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Sold out Symphony Hall in Boston, from the looks of it tonight. Loved Adams’s “Harmonium”; the final two movements of Beethoven’s Ninth were exquisite, possibly a bit too fast, but Dima Slobodeniouk shaped those movements masterfully. We ate it up. 👏👏👏👏
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Chris Walton ❌👑 @philocrites.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Keith Jarrett, cont.: “—and the only way is by living and breathing the silence previous to it. Otherwise it’s an invasion of the silence, it’s not an addition.” (To Edward Strickland, 1986, in “American Composers: Dialogues on Contemporary Music,” 1991)
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