JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I saw The Beat That My Heart Skipped and I loved it, then I saw Fingers, the James Toback movie that it was based on, and I loved it too. The remake is excellent, but Fingers has a wild power and fury of its own, and you have to see Harvey Keitel circa 1978, he’s a demon. Then I discovered the blog of concert pianist Jeremy Denk, and he writes about music with such passion and wit that I’m just about ready to take piano lessons, except that I’d probably make a better gangster.

“Both the Tchaikovsky Trio and the Brahms G major Sonata are incredibly moving pieces; they reach for the deepest kinds of emotions (the highest shelves, the purest groves). And yet, despite my best attempts at self-delusion, despite pumping myself up with Russian manly whatever, the Tchaikovsky leaves me cold somewhere inside (except for a few wonderful places), and the Brahms is like a best friend who I can call at 3 in the morning, when I can’t sleep, a friend from whom all you need is the timbre of their voice, a mere sound and cadence which quiets all the false fears of your life and helps you see things as they are. . .”