MOSTOV'S MUSINGS

After a year and a half of publishing a new blog every Thursday, I've suddenly gone silent for three weeks. The reason? I've finally begun pursuing a dream I've carried since I was sixteen: writing a novel worthy of publication. After decades of teaching literature, encouraging future authors, and watching friends and former students achieve their own literary success, I've decided it's time to finish the story I've always wanted to tell. And what began as a single novel has

A bride, a guitar, and one unforgettable walk down the aisle sent me wondering about every major artist I’ve ever seen perform live. Nearly six hours later, I had a list—but somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t really remembering concerts anymore. I was remembering my parents, my wife, my son, missed opportunities, ridiculous stories, and versions of myself I hadn’t thought about in years. Apparently, I fell down a rabbit hole. And I’m very glad I did.

Give the groom’s best friend a microphone and you never quite know what will happen next. After 28 years of weddings, I’ve heard Best Man speeches that brought entire rooms to tears, speeches that nearly brought marriages to an end, and plenty that landed somewhere wonderfully in between. The best ones embarrass the groom, make everyone laugh, celebrate the couple, and reveal exactly why this particular friendship matters.

That is the extraordinary thing about music. Photographs can show us what something looked like. Video can show us what happened. Stories can remind us of things we once knew. Music can do something stranger. Music can return the feeling. A handful of notes can collapse decades with absolutely no warning. Suddenly you don't merely remember being twenty-one; for a moment, you remember what twenty-one felt like.

There will almost certainly be someone, somewhere, who can still take the date. But “available” and “right for us” are not remotely the same thing. A couple who started with 30 viable choices may now have five. And if those five are more expensive, don’t fit their personalities, require accepting an assigned DJ, or don’t offer the particular services they wanted, availability alone isn’t much consolation.