A note on this blog

Apologies to those expecting to find thorough reporting on the classical music scene in Chicago (you might check out Andrew Patner's and Marc Geelhoed's fine blogs).  Since I write about classical music for a few publications, the blog is an opportunity to write--alongside classical music too, of course--about my other interests as well. 

So yes, the blog was born mostly out of selfish reasons, and continues to be only a medium to write what's on my mind and to keep in touch with others.  (Yep, just like the 10 million other blogs exactly like it!)  In other words, Mysteries Abysmal has and will probably always have very little consumer demand.  That's not to stay you shouldn't stop for a moment to snoop around. 

Lastly, since some have asked, the blog's name comes from the gorgeous preface to Henry James's The Princess Casamassima:

What it all came back to was, no doubt, something like this wisdom – that if you have n’t, for fiction, the root of the matter in you, have n’t the sense of life and the penetrating imagination, you are a fool in the very presence of the revealed and assured; but that if you are so armed you are not really helpless, not without your resource, even before mysteries abysmal.