Wake of Echoes

I f you are alone this Valentine’s Day, I am writing this for you.  Whether you ignore the day, share the occasion with friends or spend the holiday alone, you should know that romance does not belong to the paired, the settled, or even those flush with new love.  It is not encumbered with hearts cut from paper, chocolates or rose petals.  It is not trademarked by Hallmark. Can love be bought and sold?  Is it exchangeable for a diamond pendant or a candlelit dinner?  And is a heart that hopes less tender?  Is a heart that has lost less true? I’m not cynical and I’m not trying to be maudlin, just real.  Because when I look at the true masters of romance – the poets – I can’t help noticing that the stuff they write is too deep for Valentine’s Day.  Here are some of my favorite bits of poetry on romance – and none of it would work on a greeting card. Love leaves .  William Butler Yeats wrote of this in a h...

Produced by Reprise Records, A Warner Music group Company Long anticipated by fans, Josh Groban’s sixth studio album, All That Echoes , was released on Tuesday, February 5.   Don’t you love the title?  I won’t say that Josh has been reading my blog, Wake of Echoes , but I will say that great minds think alike. I got my copy in the mail Monday (happy dance) and have since pretty much hijacked my husband’s fancy stereo. When an artist has a fan base that ranges from tweens to great grandmas, there’s always a chance that he’ll begin to appeal to one end of that spectrum at the expense of the other – especially when new producers are involved, which has been true of both his fifth album,  Illuminations (Rick Rubin), and All That Echoes  (Rob Cavallo)*.   But not to worry.  Josh is not a wedding singer, an opera wanna-be or a Vegas gonna-be.  He’s not going to press an album every two years filled with easy-listening vanilla, just b...