Although, my hives continue to improve, this morning I have a strong case of the blahs and some fatigue from yesterday. My annual appearance in Stewardship the musical at my church usually leaves me feeling a bit deflated. I think this is mostly because each year I’m not clearly informed about how I will be involved and assume I will be able to just pay piano for it. Then I discover that I’m one of the people doing solos. Yesterday I had to dress up like a child version of myself and sing a parody on Piano Man by Billy Joel entitled Piano Boy complete with a beanie provided by the people who organized the thing.

The conceit was that the musical was a prequel to the other two we have done. All the characters were played by children. Except the piano man. Jen promises me that I will not have to do this again next year but I am a bit skeptical.

Fuck it.

On the other hand I have decided to perform a wonderful Fantasia by William Byrd next week and that raised my morale a notch. I like the way this man plays it.

I’m going to split it up into two parts since it is so long. The prelude will be the first five minutes or so of the above recording. The postlude will begin at the second around 4:49 when it breaks into the usual triple meter closing section. This guy plays the hell out of it on the piano. I will have to see if it sounds okay on the organ. If not, I will schedule improv I guess since this is supposed to be improv week. We are singing an anthem by Byrd. I was inspired by that and the wonderful music of The Queen’s Six to play some Byrd. I have long admired the keyboard piece I have scheduled.

NYTimes: My Year as a Trump Ambassador

This confirms what I have been reading about in Lewis’s book, The Fifth Risk. We are fucked.

Bob Woodward’s ‘Fear’ Missed What Matters About Trump – The Atlantic

I’ve read Fear. This is a convincing critique of it.

Elijah Parish Lovejoy – Wikipedia

This guy was actually a white dude who got lynched. John Szwed mentioned him in his bio of Miles Davis.