Joan Ellison

Tree Rings Reveal Origins of Some of the World’s Best Violins

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/s...

Last straw. I stayed a subscriber for this long because I wanted to support the excellent journalists, but I'm done.

A Spell Against Stagnation: John O’Donohue on Beginnings “Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning.”

A Spell Against Stagnation: John O'Donohue on Beginnings www.themarginalian.org/2023/12/30/j...

This Weekend Is One Of The Best Of 2026 For Stargazing — What To See A new moon on Sunday, Jan. 18, means dark skies and some of the best stargazing conditions of the year. Here are the bright stars, constellations and objects to see.

This Weekend Is One Of The Best Of 2026 For Stargazing — What To See

Agreed!!

Gift of the malleable MAGI: Getting on the right side of the subsidy cliff As Republicans have restored the ACA's income cap on subsidies for now, those with projected income modestly over the 400% FPL cap should look for legal ways to reduce the income that counts

Great overview from @xpostfactoid.bsky.social on how to get your ACA-specific MAGI into the subsidy-eligible range if you're otherwise a little over the 400% of FPL "subsidy cliff" xpostfactoid.substack.com/p/gift-of-th...

Reviving Judy Garland's "Merry Christmas" — Joan Ellison In her 1949 MGM film, In the Good Old Summertime , Judy Garland sings a lovely but oft-overlooked Christmas song appropriately titled, “Merry Christmas.” Fred Spielman, who had been a prominent cabar...

New blog post!...

'In her 1949 MGM film, In the Good Old Summertime, Judy Garland sings a lovely but oft-overlooked song appropriately titled, “Merry Christmas....” '
www.joanellison.com/blog/2026/1/...

#inthegoodoldsummertime #moviemusicals #greatamericansongbook #judygarland #filmorchestration

Public Domain Day 2026 Is Coming: Here's What to Know On January 1, 2026, works from 1930—including Nancy Drew, early Betty Boop, and The Maltese Falcon—hit the U.S. public domain. Here’s what it all means.

Good read on what has entered the public domain today, Jan. 1, 2026.

copyrightlately.com/public-domai...

A Christmas card featuring a polar bear holding a man in its claws. At the top, it says: "Happy Christmas!" At the bottom, it says: "A bearly welcome."

It's December 1st - which means I get to share weird and wonderful Victorian Christmas cards, starting with one that looks straight out of #StarWars. @markhamillofficial.bsky.social, is that you?

Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy The project, which will include some 50,000 songs from private record collections, is a collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the Dust-to-Digital Foundation.

Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy

A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the nonprofit Dust-to-Digital Foundation

laist.com/news/arts-an...

On the evening of November 21, 1934, 17-year-old Ella Fitzgerald won Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. A legendary career was born. #OnThisDay

Newly Discovered Bach Pieces Are the Fruits of Decades of Detective Work

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/a...

Grateful to have had this discussion about my musical journey with Lisa Koops and George Blake back in Jan., and it's now out on a podcast! We touch on piano lessons, orchestration, Judy Garland, musical memories, my young nephews and niece...and even martians!
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

This is an example of “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”
#VintageFood

This is what I try to always tell people: food banks can do way more with your money than you can, due to bulk buying deals. And they can do way, way more with your money than with the canned goods you didn’t want to eat

Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

Cleveland Public Square Voting Booth (1890). Source: Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery.

Samhain, the thinning of the veil between the living and the spirit world. The beginning of the darker half of the year. The light this morning was lovely shortly after sunrise here in Glastonbury. #samhain

White House begins demolishing East Wing facade to build Trump’s ballroom The president had claimed construction of the $250 million ballroom wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing White House structure.

😱
wapo.st/4hqBNiU

Thanks so much for watching and for the kind words! 🌈

“This is a movement…This is an achievement of a whole society…I am just one person.”

The beautiful humility of Venezuelan pro-democracy leader, Maria Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

New column up at @thr.com where I offer a history of the Committee for the First Amendment, then and now.

Working on a column about the newly resurrected Committee for the First Amendment. Here are some essential reads that can inform this moment. #nowreading #history #politics #firstamendment

Dorico! Big learning curve, but I did a Udemy course in 4 days and was up and running. Overall I like it much better than Finale, and it's relatively easy to transfer a score from Finale into Dorico.

On Looking: Poet Lia Purpura on the Art of Noticing “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” William Blake wrote in his most spirited letter. “As a man is, so …

On Looking: Poet Lia Purpura on the Art of Noticing www.themarginalian.org/2025/09/04/l...

Hard-Fought Treaty to Protect Ocean Life Clears a Final Hurdle The global High Seas Treaty, decades in the making, will become international law. It aims to create vast maritime conservation areas.

Breaking News: A hard-fought international treaty to protect ocean life, decades in the making, cleared a final hurdle. It allows for the establishment of enormous conservation zones in international waters.

Nations Ratify High Seas Treaty, Setting Stage for Greater Ocean Protection | Oceana Oceana’s Chief Scientist Dr. Katie Matthews says, “For the first time, we have the legal foundation to safeguard marine diversity in waters that belong to everyone and no one at the same time. What ma...

Amidst all the misery, some really great news.

Educators reflect on the significance of teaching about 9/11 For their first assignment of the school year, high school journalists from our network of Student Reporting Labs asked educators in their schools about the significance of teaching 9/11, what the events meant to them, and why it’s important to study the history before and after that day.

In 2021, high school journalists from our network of Student Reporting Labs asked educators in their schools about the significance of teaching 9/11, what the events meant to them, and why it’s important to study the history before and after that day. https://to.pbs.org/47isJrb