Alice Bechdel rocks. Click above to read the whole review. Recommended.

Yesterday was another busy day off.  Steve to the rescue. Yada yada yada.  But good stuff.

I bought a used microwave for 12.50. It seems to work okay. The old one died. 

I also went to practically every local thrift shop looking for a treadmill. John “Brain Rules” Medina has inspired me to emulate my ancestors and evolve while walking.  I emailed someone on craigslist last night who is selling the one above for 50 bucks. That can’t be right. Anyway.

Speaking of Medina, I am liking his ideas quite a bit.

He says for learning to happen we evolved into a database of information and an ability to improvise on that database.  I find that intelligent people I meet often have the ability to improvise…. flexibility… but many times their database seems much different than mine and doesn’t include much of the same stuff. 

“Any learning environment that deals with only the database instincts or only the improvisatory instincts ignores one half of our ability. It is doomed to fail. It makes me think of jazz guitarists: They’re not going to make it if they know a lot about music theory but don’t know how to jam in a live concert. Some schools and workplaces emphasize a stable, rote-learned database. They ignore the improvisatory instincts drilled into us for millions of years. Creativity suffers. Others emphasize creative usage of a database, without installing a fund of knowledge in the first place. They ignore our need to otbtain a deep understanding of a subject, which includes memorizing and storing a richly structured database. You get people who are great improvisers but don’t have depth of knowledge. You may know someone like this where you work. They may look like jazz musicians and have the appearance of jamming but in the end they know nothing. They’r playing intellectual air guitar.”

John Medina, “Brain Rules”

Kind of serendipitious that Medina mentions jazz. I have been studying up on my jazz theory and practicing transposing jazz voicings into all keys. My bud and colleague, Jordan VanHemert has threatened to utilize me this summer in a jazz duo. I want to keep up. Jazz pedagogy is very evolved these days (speaking of evolution). And the resources are splendid. I purchased several a few years back and learned enough to know that I actually am a sort of jazz musician in many ways. But of course there’s always room for improvement and VanHemert is kind a of kick ass jazz sax player. I do not want to be left in the dust. Heh.  But my database could always use some more info and structure. So to speak.

Earlier, Medina observes that evolution handed homo erectus and homo sapien a rapidly changing living environment.

Unlike the other mammals, humans evolved adaptability instead of environment specific physical features like fangs or fur.

How did we succeed so well in our evolutionary task. Medina cites Richard Potts, director of the Human Originas Program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of History:

“You give up on stability. You don’t try to beat back the changes. You begin not to care about consistency within a given habitat, because such consistency isn’t an option. You adapt to variation itself.

Cool.

Whew! That little marathon of rehearsals, performances and rushing my Mom to the ER and then the psych ward is over. Church music went pretty well yesterday. I managed to use different instruments for each hymn intro (flute, guitar, marimba, organ, piano and combinations thereof). I got the men to blend acceptably on the Richard Farrant anthem, even though the rest of the choir had trouble adapting to my conducting tempo. It was not a bad performance, really. 

After church I made spaghetti for Eileen and me.

Then we hopped in the car to go see Dad at the Nursing Home. As we were getting ready to punch in the security code we looked in through the glass and noticed someone was conducting a prayer service. Ay yi yi! Back in the car and up to the bookstore to buy “Brain Rules: 12 principles for Survicing and Thriving at Work, Home, and School” by John Medina. 

I’m pretty impressed with this book so far. The author is “a developmental molecular biologist focused on the genes involved in human brain devlopment and the genetics of psychiatric disorders,” who can also write clear entertaining prose. I’m seriously considering going looking for a used treadmill today. He points out that the brain evolved in our species when we were walking 12 or more miles a day. So that the brain thrives on an active body. Who knew?

 My Dad threw his hands up in the air and began expostulating about seeing “my Son!” when I bent over to kiss him after the coast had cleared from the religious nuts.

Eileen couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying. I thought he was doing buy veterinary valium both at once. Dementia is fun. He has fallen three times in the last four or five days. I am going to be signing a release to put him in a wheel chair with possible restraints today. He continues to  deterioate and lose mental faculties but his spirits were pretty high yesterday. He kept trying to slide out of his comfy chair and saying things like “well, let’s get going!”

Eileen and I chatted with daughter Sarah in England daughter Elizabeth in NY/DC via our cool little Acer net books yesterday.

I think all of us were impressed with being alive in the future when you can look at a little screen and chat with people you love miles away. Wow. 

We ended the day laying on the futon watching the first episode of the NBC series, “Kings,” on Hulu.

On a netbook, of course. 

I saw Ian McShane interviewed on Stewart’s Daily Show. I do like the biblical story of David and Solomon quite a bit. This series is based on it. But it sets it in an alternate reality. The capital of the fictional tv country, Gilboa, is a morphed NY called Shiloh. McShane’s character (Solomon in the biblical story) is called Silas. David is David Shepherd and takes out a “Goliath” tank in the first episode. Also instead of a harp he plays piano. Heh. Goofy but fun for me. 

Today I am going to try to relax even as I run a few errands including some leg work for my parents’ application we are re-submitting to medicaid.

S

My Mom phoned me. From the place she is temporarily staying. She wanted me to fax her med sheet to her so she can make sure they are doing her meds right. So I did. She actually sounded much more lucid on the phone than she has in months. So maybe this will do her some good. 

I also made CDs for my choir of all the pieces we are singing for the rest of the year.

For a couple of them I had to include the original pieces from which our anthems are adapted. That would be “Hail, hail, Judea” from Handel’s Judas Maccabeus. We are doing a hokey little SAB adaptation called “Praise the Lord.”

It’s not bad for what it is. Also included on the learning CD was “Dona Nobis Pacem” from Haydn’s Mass No. 6 in G major.

We are doing another adaptation that uses material from this movement. The words are “Lo, My Shepherd is Divine.” They seem to be a reworking of the 23rd Psalm. We will sing it on Good Shepherd Sunday.

This morning we are sing an SAB adaptation of Richard Farrant’s “Call to Rememrance.”

On Palm Sunday we will sing the Crucifixus movement of Bach’s B minor Mass.

The children’s choir director has agreed to play the accompaniment so I can conduct this one. I will play Brahms’s chorale prelude on “Ah Holy Jesus” for the postlude that day.  

I have also scheduled “The Tree of Life” by Ralph Vaughan Williams for the Easter Season (I am the vine Sunday…. tree… vine… close enough).  

That last one is actually quite beautiful. It’s for SA but we will be doing it with ST on the top and AB on the bottom. Lovely stuff really.

Eileen went with me to the last performance of “Guys and Dolls.”

The orchestra was as shakey as it has been for any of the performances. Go figure. These kids play like they’re in high school and still learning. I was relieved to get this out of the way. I enjoy doing it, but with the parent crisis and the immediately upcoming Holy Week (Hell week a priest I knew used to call it) and my own large burnout, it took a lot out of me. But it was fun. And distracting from the rest of the stuff. 

I am burning CDs for the choir while I’m drinking coffee and writing this blog entry. I have ten done. I need to stop before I have more made than people who actually show up. Heh.

Night before last i had interesting dreams.

A small Stephen King like child morphed into a huge set of jaws which morphed into a blue alien Kali god like person. I escaped. In last night’s dream, I was working with musicians. One musician improvised a song that used words by Proust (I was actually listening to Proust’s Swann’s way on my MP3 player to help me sleep). Later I improvised a song that seemed to be called “Aint it pathetic.” Nice.

My Dad fell again yesterday. He hasn’t hurt himself with his recent falls, but I suggested to the nurse that maybe we should consider a wheelchair for him. Eileen and I are planning to go over and look at his bruises today. 

I am really sold on Amazon.com’s MP3 downloads.

Easy to purchase. No DRMs. I bought the Haydn, the Handel and the Ralph Vaughan Williams mentioned above yesterday so I could let the choir listen to them. Of course they are for learning purposes only and I will collect and destroy them when we are done with these anthems. Yepper. Yessirrreeebob. That’s what I’ll do.

This has been a heckuva week for me. The most significant thing that happened was a I helped my mother check herself into a psych ward on Thursday. She has been struggling ever since coming back from her visit to my extended family in California.  Having her in professional hands is a huge relief for me. In the meantime, I have been doing tons of leg work for her stuff. My Dad continues to fail. He was temporarily put on oxygen on Friday. He fell on Thursday but thankfully no broken bones. 

Plus tonight is the last of six evenings of rehearsals and performances of “Guys and Dolls” at Grand Haven High School. I assist the pit orchestra at the piano.

I’m sort of the assistant director. I follow the script closely and fill in missing parts and entrances. This show has really come together better than any I have worked with at Grand Haven High. Not sure why. I know that the choral director has done a pretty phenomonal job at prepping the singers. 

Today I rest so I can get through this evening and tomorrow morning’s church service.

Then Monday I have a ton of leg work to do regarding my parent’s medication application. The lawyer sprang to life on Friday. Bad timing for me but I’ll take it. I was in his office on Friday giving him more papers and discussing the necessary steps to take in the next few days before THIS month ends.

The social security office is still not answering the phone or responding to faxes. This is bad because applicants are under monthly deadlines that have significant implications for their life in retirement. But you know the government: fuck the little people. Typical.

Life’s little trials. Heh.

Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Thanks to the davepaul for pointing me to this.

Read a pretty good sci fi short story yesterday. “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang. You can find it along with other free downloads here.

Here’s a list of power user options for Google’s browser Chrome. I also learned some stuff from Lifehacker’s original first look at Chrome.

I went a little nuts yesterday afternoon and cooked.

I made beer bread.

I used some of the last of last spring’s local wheat flour which is sitting in my freezer. And I throw in Herbes de Provence just to make it a bit tastier. It worked.

Made Curried Squash Mushroom soup.

I took the recipe from the Moosewood cookbook. Here’s a link to the same recipe.

Eileen’s not much for some of my weird vegetarian recipes. So I made her some glazed salmon freshly thawed from the freezer.

She’s not been feeling well and came home with no appetite. But she did manage to eat some of the salmon.

and also some of the brownies I made.

From scratch, natch.

Besides spending time relaxing and cooking, the rest of yesterday went pretty well. I dragged Mom to the tax people to write the check and sign papers (mostly just to get her out of the apartment).

Took her some blueberry muffins. She is making an effort but looks like it is costing her a great deal. I later received a weird follow up phone call from her psychiatrist’s office. They had their wires crossed. The woman read her shrinks official gobbledy gook recommendation to me.  In typical doctorese, he recommended that someone monitor her meds. Which of course I have been doing since she took 5 or 6 remeron in an attempt to sedate herself. He also helpfully mentioned that this would be easily done by asking the people in the assisted living situation to do this. Only she’s not in assisted living. When I told the person on the phone this, her first response was “can you move her to assisted living?” I said, not without talking directly to the shrink, because I think he is confused about his recommendation, eh? Jeeze.

Anyway she goes to her talk shrink today. 

Last night’s rehearsal went pretty well I guess. Only three performances of this to go and then I’m done with it for another year.

Recent article by Hirsch (the guy who promotes the idea of cultural literacy) says that reading tests assume falsely that all prose is the same. He says if we have to teach to the test why not use prose that has important content to test reading:

Let’s imagine a different situation. Students now must take annual reading tests from third grade through eighth. If the reading passages on each test were culled from each grade’s specific curricular content in literature, science, history, geography and the arts, the tests would exhibit what researchers call “consequential validity” — meaning that the tests would actually help improve education. Test preparation would focus on the content of the tests, rather than continue the fruitless attempt to teach test taking.

Reading Test Dummies by E. D. Hirsch

What a concept!

Starting digging in to “The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution” by Denis Dutton yeseteday. I was struck by this sentence:

“Without a human nature underlying them, judgments of the beautiful would collapse into expressions of personal preference.”

What I think Dutton is getting at is that we as humans have more in common with each other than differences. While not denying the cultural permutations of different groups of humans, he likens our need and use of art to our need and use of language. Very cool.

He goes on and quotes from several sources some of the innate human characteristics that we often don’t even think of including:

an intuitive physics that we use to keep track of how objects fall, bounce, or blend

a personal psychology based on the realization that others have minds like our own but entertain different beliefs and intentions

an intuitive sense of space, including imaginatie mapping of the general environment

and of course:

a fascination with organized pitched sounds, rhythmically produced by the human voice or other instruments

He lists off fifteen of these and says there are more. Cool beans.

I am tired this morning. My coffee tastes bad.

I’m too lazy to make another pot. I managed to gather my parents’ tax info and take it to the tax person yesterday. My Mom is looking and behaving a tad better. She forced herself to ask friends to take her to stores on Monday. I have asked her to call me when she gets up so that I know she is okay and has gotten out of bed. She did so this morning. 

I have another four hour rehearsal this evening. i assume it’s the dress since it’s the last rehearsal before performances. I find myself liking a couple of the songs in the score of “Guys and Dolls.” My friend who conducts the pit orchestra and teaches band at Grand Haven High School was very frustrated and upset last night at the fact that many students had absented themselves without talking to him. He was more exhausted than me….. of course he taught all day. 

Daughter Elizabeth left me a very nice comment on yesterday’s blog. I am pretty discouraged right now about the behavior of my parents so it’s nice when the rest of the fam seems supportive and above all sane. Thank you Elizabeth. And thank you Mark for your supportive phone call yesterday. This stuff definitely helps.

My wife of course is very supportive (I better stop, this is beginning to feel like a grammy acceptance speech…. heh). Yes Eileen is helpful. For example she did mention that my breath smelled like old olives this morning. Good to know.

When I built my first web site year ago, I had in mind tapping in to a bigger conversation about ideas, music, books, poetry, art…. you name it.  I switched from designing my site from scratch to a template which has been problematic but allows comments. So a conversation was possible. 

I have always thought that daily updates online are important. I stop going back to sites that get stale. 

But I find myself more and more throwing out a personal update into the void. I  hope this isn’t the way this site stays. I still want to put up my compositions, recordings, sheet music and other made stuff. But at this point (maybe especially this week) I am pretty overwhelmed.

Yesterday I didn’t exactly manage much down time on my “day off” to think. I was on the phone with bankers, an opthamologist,  a lawyer, the office of my Mom’s shrinks and a car fixit place. All on behalf of my Mom and Dad. When I went over to check on Mom, I discovered that she is misbehaving with her drugs again. Once again I confiscated them all. This means that I have to go over each day and give her a day’s worth of pills.  My Mom is in a down part of her cycle. She basically just wants all her problems to disappear and finds mild sedatives an escape. I lectured her. I told her to get cleaned up and get dressed and go down and have coffee with the other ladies from the apartments. I told her to pray and read her bible. I told her not to go back to bed. Sheesh.  

Since she had taken 5 or 6 remeron tablets, I later contacted her psychiatrist to inform him (since he prescribed these). She has an appointment with her psychologist on Thursday. I am pretty stymied about how to help someone who doesn’t act like she wants help. But at the same time, I think she is acting out in an hysterical manner that is not quite a full fledged nervous breakdown. Both she and my Dad have manipulated me over and over in the past few years. I have allowed it because they were in such a predicament (of their own making). But now I believe I am paying for it since I reinforced their immature behavior by responding. 

Eileen took Mom back and forth to California for a visit with that branch of our family. When she came back she proceeded to withdraw and behave badly with meds. Eileen suspects (and she’s probably right) that Mom is gearing up to prevent me from taking my two scheduled trips (Calif in Apr & England in May). She’s probably right. Nevertheless I am not considering skipping these trips. 

I am still weighed down with managing my parents. I have to get their taxes done soon. My brother suggested herbal tea to help Mom convince herself she can rest at night (and not lay around all day), so I bought some yesterday. I will take it to her today.  

Actually Dad is pretty much out of the picture. His ebbing mental faculties (and his increasing physical fraility) have alerted me that I need to get all accounts out of his name. We have a year to do this after filing with medicaid. Not sure what happens if he dies first. 

So this week when I am very involved with the high school musical in Grand Haven, the proverbial shit is sort of hitting the fan.  I am trying to stay as balanced as possible in the face of all this stress. Yesterday I made sloppy joes for Eileen’s supper. She is having some physical stuff and is on a soft diet. I also spent some time with Mozart at the piano and on my CD player in the car. That helps. 

The rehearsal last night was pretty much a nightmare. We went past 10 PM. The teachers were making last minute decisions regarding cuts and scene change music. Very confusing. There were at least two tunes that I’m pretty sure we’ve never even gone through before.  When I left the teachers were conferring. Oy. We went all the way through the show last night and will do so again tonight. Some parts are solid, others are very under-rehearsed. My job is to keep the music going with the people on stage. It helps that I’ve been paid for some of my work already. 

Well if you’ve read this far, you can see what I mean about personal update into the void. I will get back to ideas and stuff. In the meantime, I’ll try to put something here every day for interested parties (mostly progeny but some friends as well I’m sure). 

Matthew, one of my two stellar quasi sons-in-law, took pity on me and sent me a copy of the Frank Zappa Songbook. This is the book I recently lost an ebay bid on. Bless his heart. Thank you Matthew.

I woke up worrying about all the stuff I have to do to keep my parents afloat this week. I made a list and it doesn’t seem like too much. Except I am concerned about the fact that the DHS asset declaration and subsequent medicaid app is stalled and the medicaid office seems to be bogged down with computer problems. Usually I try to take Mondays off, but today I have several things scheduled including an afternoon performance, an evening rehearsal and dropping off Mom’s car to the dealer for an estimate.

Yesterday’s service went fine. I did play marimba and that went okay. Several people listened to my six pages of Sowerby mentioned yesterday. The choir managed to pull off a minimal blend and a decent performance of the anthem for the day: “God So Loved the World.” Later at my Dad’s nursing home, even though it wasn’t clear that he recognized Eileen and me (“My brother! My sister!”), he was able to sing several lines of this old anthem by John Stainer back to me from me seated in his PCP walker. 

I think the pipes on his walker look like PCP pipe. Later I mentioned to Eileen that Dad’s use of “brother” and “sister” probably were vestiges of church talk. Since she pointed out that Dad didn’t have a sister. 

My postlude today was written by Leo Sowerby. He is an American composer that has basically fallen off the map of recognition, use and probably history. He was born in Grand Rapids in 1895. Seems to have spent his life in the mid-west. Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 for his composition “The Canticle of the Sun.” His style is reminiscent of a dissonant Samuel Barber. He wrote many organ works. I am playing part of a lengthy piece on the tune of today’s closing hymn, DEUS TUORUM MILITUM. The text we are singing to this tune is “O love, how deep, how broad, how high.”

I started out planning to just play two of the 12 or so pages of this piece. But this week I have added several more pages and found a convenient cadence point at which to end. Sowerby’s work is solidly constucted and sounds best on the romantic American organ. My little organ is a miniature in this kind of style so it’s nice to play something like this once in a while.

I also began rehearsing a Prelude (BWV 568 in G major) by Bach yesterday which I will probably use for an Easter postlude. 

At the piano I have been playing lots of Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. 

I am perversely considering playing Marimba today at the service. The woman who used to play flute regularly for me emailed me that she will be in town today. I was thinking of using flute and marimba on the tune Holy Manna (text: Love Astounding). 

The choir is scheduled to sing the perennial “God so loved the world” by Stainer. Getting them to blend was challenging on Thursday. Of course this morning I am expecting at least two big voices that skipped my Thursday rehearsal. Oy. I will still go for blend and non-exagerated interp of this hoary old anthem. 

I know that I am pretty burned out right now. On a happy note, I did receive a check in the mail for $650.00 from Grand Haven High School.

I stipulated commiserate remuneration half-way through my service this year before I would assist in their musical pit orch. I had decided that they were in such bad shape that I couldn’t pull out even if their accountant decided once again to drag his feet on writing my check. At least this way I know I have received payment for services up till now. 

Beginning tomorrow evening, I have to play for rehearsals or performances every night through next Saturday. I had to cancel choir reheasal this week which I do not like doing. 

And I have to be in Grand Haven tomorrow at noon to accompany some of the singer/actors in a performance for the Rotary club. 

At the same time I am trying to shepherd my parents medicaid application through a pretty bumpy process (we have already been stuck on the inactive list without notice once). I will have to run down a copy of the contract for an annuity they hold with Hartford. This will involve having my Mom authorize it on the phone and then talking to their agents. In addition I have to get Mom’s car to the mechanic for an estimate on some recent damage done to it. 

Busy busy busy.

Dear Diary,

Whew and gosh! What a day I had yesterday. I spent most of the day trying to jump-start my Mom back into doing something besides laying in bed and taking mild sedatives during the day.

 I also phoned my lawyer for the third time this week and left a message asking about the status of my parents’ medicaid application.

Then I phoned the medicaid people directly but apparently their computers were going haywire. My case worker’s voice mail message was only taking “high priority” messages (whatever the heck that is. I guess I’m supposed to know how high a priority my questions are.)  Plus I spoke to my Mom’s insurance company regarding the recent accident my brother had with her car

(no was hurt. debris struck the car as they were crossing a bridge in Toledo.)  

Did my Mom’s pills and bills (took away her sedatives).

 I had planned to stop in and say hi to my demented Dad but by the time I had dealt with my Mom I was emotionally and physically exhausted. Then I went grocery shopping. Somewhere in there I got a call from the lawyer who chuckled in my ear about whether I thought he had “fallen off the face of the earth.” “Hah. hah.” I said.

He hadn’t called back because he hadn’t received a response from medicaid to the fax he had sent. I told him that by phoning them that morning I had discovered they were having computer stuff. Gosh.

I guess they don’t teach phoning the concerned parties in law school. I bit my tongue and didn’t ask him if he knew a lawyer because I and my folks could use one right now.

By 5:00 I was tucking into a martini and trying not to think about parents, church, or the fact that the check I demanded for my services to Grand Haven High didn’t come in the mail again today. Whippy skippy.

So something about my church choir seems to be working. The last few meetings (rehearsals and pregames) have seen an increase in attendance and in promptness. Maybe I’m making it up, but there feels like a bit more ownership in the room. This brings out the teacher in me and I remember to do a better job at giving background on the pieces and the musical styles I am attempting. 

The really good news for me is that I managed to plan the rest of the season (through May 31st) yesterday. I added four more anthems: Lo, My Shepherd is Divine by Haydn, The Tree of Life by Ralph Vaughan Williams, If Ye Love Me by Tallis and an interesting little Pentecost piece by Carson Cooman. I have invited a guest conductor to conduct the last two. I plan to be in England when the Tallis is sheduled and the Cooman piece has an organ part that would be hard to play and conduct. 

I have started reading in “The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution” by Denis Dutton. Dutton is very interesting musician/writer who founded the website “Arts and Letters Daily” which I have been visiting and using for years.  His ideas stem from his own exploration of the arts. He is a trained sitar-player and studied sculpting and aesthetics with three carvers of the Sepik River of New Guinea: Petrus Ava, Pius Soni, and Leo Sangi of the village of Yentchenmangua in New Guinea. I have linked before to his fascinating online lecture at Edge 275.

Last night as Eileen and I were purchasing some scotch to take with us to the after rehearsal social glow or whatever, she jokingly suggested to the clerk that he card me. Okay he said. I made some disparaging remark about age. He smiled and said something back. I said something about being happy and alive. He said it was a bonus. I thought he meant just being alive but he clarified that he meant happiness was a bonus. That’s right happiness is a bonus and I am dam lucky.

I like this cartoon found while looking through google images. Have a nice day.

Last night’s rehearsal of “Guys and Dolls” was a disaster. Actors forgot their lines and missed entrances. The pit orchestra sat and watched notes go by as the adults in the pit kept the music going. The directors lectured the actors for a good seven minutes on their bad attitude. The conductor kept recriminating himself for his own mistakes (which were much fewer than the ones being made by the students). It was a tough night.

The upshot of this is that I don’t think I have the courage to follow through with my original boycott if they don’t pay me half way through. This check is now due.

Previously the accountants at Grand Haven High delayed paying me my fee due to their own misgivings about paying outside musicians too much.

Very annoying. I received a check sometime in June, I believe, for services rendered much earlier in the year.

After finally getting paid, I emailed the directors that next year I would require payment before services rendered. When the time came to hire me, we agreed that I would get a check half way through. Of course this has not happened yet. The teachers I am working with insist that they have put in for the check and that it should reach me after Friday. Last night has got to be over halfway through. I was planning on not showing up until I received a check, but after last night’s disaster, I don’t have the heart for bailing on these well-meaning teachers. 

The irony of it is that I suspect that all of the adults involved with this project make much more money than I do.

And that they are regularly paid and don’t have to badger people to pay them for services rendered. Bah.

I finally finished reading “A Small Death in Lisbon” by Robert Wilson.

Maybe it was because I took so long to read this book, but I found the historical parts of it quite tedious and not all that important to the murder mystery. I have read some other mysteries by this author “The Vanished Hands” and “The Blind Man of Seville,” which I quite liked. Good thing I didn’t read this book first. I don’t think  I would want to read another by him.

 
I lost an ebay bid for the Frank Zappa Songbook vol I. This collection of transcriptions by Zappa musician, Ian Underwood, is out of print and looks delicious. I went as high as 60 bucks and then got outbid. Of course some experienced last minute bidder swooped in at the last minute and took it for 102.50. Sheesh. 

It looks like we will be attending “Waiting for Godot” in London on our upcoming visit. Sarah found this one and knows that I like Beckett. I didn’t feel too strongly about it, but it’s probably a good production with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart in it. That will be fun. 

Church has been sort of a downer lately. I am finding a lot of negative energy among the lay leadership. I keep watching musicians turn from music to other priorities in their private and church lives. And I see the usual sorts of bogging down that people do at church. Oy. I try to be helpful and constructive and schedule and perform beautiful appropriate music. Silly fucking me.  

It drives me crazy like I bet it drives you crazy. The constant “upgrading” of software and websites. When Facebook changed I was jaded. Of course. Techies or whoever designs our crazy world have totally bought in to the notion that tinkering is helpful to people who are just trying to get things to fucking work. 

It’s as if you got up in the morning and all the light switches in the house were different.

In fact, some were changed one way and some another. I admit to liking a lack of standardization and the open software notion where people can have unique things and adapt things to their own uses. 

This puts me in mind of the story of pipe organs (usually no two are the same…. at least the decent ones are all uniquely designed and hand crafted).  Every time I sit down to a new organ (admittedly not that often recently) it’s a sort of puzzle to figure out exactly how the pipes sound and on what manual they can be found and how they will work in combinations.

But at least it’s not different the next day.

Which brings me to the NYT online, Furling and Diigoing. 

A decade or so ago I began systematically clipping the New York Times (and some other publications). I had many things in mind: obits, keeping track of the many wars in the world, ideas. 

So when the NYT finally got a web site and allowed subscribers to create their own little online clippings I was very interested. At first I used both. Then I decided I would switch from the paper file to an online file. Paperless clipping. Cool.

Then a few months ago I went to bookmark a file online at the NYT and got a robot message that this service would no longer be available and that subscribers could switch to using a free online service called Furl. Click here. 

Sigh.

OKay. I thought. I’ll bite (byte?) and clicked. And after some glitches I discovered that now I could bookmark articles on other web sites as well. That’s kind of convenient. Cool. So I merrily “furled” away.

And then yesterday I wanted to bookmark an article by Henry Alford on the NYT. I recently finished a book by this guy (“How to Live: A Search For Wisdom From Old People (while they are still on this earth)”) which I quite liked. I read this: 

 

IN Kep, a tiny town on Cambodia’s southern coast on the Gulf of Thailand, two British women are staring at the ghostly remains of a bombed-out seaside villa. Originally called La Perle de la Côte d’Agathe, Kep was founded in the 1920s and was the resort of choice for French Cambodia’s jet set. But the Khmer Rouge had particular distaste for Kep and its sybaritic pleasures, and all but razed the town in the 1970s.

One of the women points out a trail of wetness on the villa’s walls and floor where a dog has peed. “Oh, dear,” she tut-tuts. “It looks like the building is crying.”

 

Charming I thought. And then I noticed the author of the article was Alford. Cool, I thought and went to furl it. 

Up popped a pop-up window informing me that furl had been absorbed by diigo.com. In fact they were pleased to announce it. I always picture the company that has been taken over speaking to a video tape recorder with desperate sweaty smiles while the off camera hostile take over people are quietly prompting them off camera. 

Bah.

So I clicked on all their links and tried to start using diigo.com. Didn’t work. I emailed them and got back a charming robotic message from furl about how to switch from using the NYT bookmark function to furl. Nice. 

I went to bed trying to figure out another way to clip online articles besides filling up my browser’s bookmark bar. (I had linked over 400 articles and web sites in furl at last count).

This morning I received an email from diigo.com which did allow me to access all my old bookmarks. Of  course they have aspirations to being a social networking site (is there any site that doesn’t these days?) and have all kinds of bells and whistles to wade through to get to the function I want.

But anyway I managed to bookmark the Alford article.  Now instead of the handy one click furl bookmark on my browser I have to click on a diigolet (nice term, eh?) on my browser which opens up a little bar (that takes up more room on my screen…. this is one of the things I like about chrome…. that it is so compact….  now it’s a little less compact when I use the digolet) and then click again on the function that allows me to save this site. 

So now it takes two clicks to do what it did take one click to do.

The brave new improved world of the next generation of soft(silly)ware and “sigh”tes. Somewhere a techie is joining the ranks of advertising and manufacturing people who chant “we change things because WE CAN. HAH.”

I recently subscribed to Amazon’s mp3 email newsletter. In today’s was a link to an interesting indie sampler…. all trax free…. I’m listening to one right now…. 

Eileen is home safe and sound. My brother had a mishap with my mom’s car while they were in Calif. As he was driving back from Ohio apparently a long pole rammed itself into the front of the car, happily not hurting anyone in the car. So I have to do the leg work on this now: call the insurance company, connect with the police report, yada yada. 

The New Yorker published several poems from John Updike’s last book of poetry in the current issue. Like any good information hoarder, the publisher is making sure none of these poems are available to anyone not subscribing to the New Yorker or willing to shell out 25 bucks (16.50 on Amazon) for this book of poetry. Sheesh. Too bad. Some nice poems about mortality all with Updike’s typical touch of the vulnerable and the real. As I was shelving the clipping of these poems, I realized how Updike was really quite a good poet, both in his poems but also in his prose. The man could write.

I  have been pondering my embrace of my own musical hackdom recently.

 I was talking to a very congenial young prof from Hope on Sunday. He kept telling me I should promote my compositions on the web and go to conferences and give presentations. I told him I had a web site, but wasn’t sure I had commercial potential.

When I told him I wasn’t sure that not many people wanted to hear my music, he protested so vehemently that I think he missed my comment that I like my music and love doing it.  It seems that music has to take a second seat to its own self promotion before it has any chance of validity as a commodity. Oh well. I just like doing it. 

Speaking of, I had a flash yesterday that it would be fun to write a piece for  my friend Jordan. I could do a three movement piece with one movement each for the three saxes he plays: soprano, alto and tenor. I could write it and we could perform it sometime. 

I have been spending quite a bit of time with Shostakovich lately. I was working on the last fugue from his 24 preludes and fugues. It is quite cool. A double fugue that still has lots of lovely melody. Also have been listening to his string quartets. Good stuff.

I think I’m a bit morose because I have to go to the doctor this morning.

This doctor likes a six month follow up to the annual check up. That’s what this is. I am prepared for him to fuss at me about my weight. Everything else seems okay to me. 

There was an interesting article in the NYT recently  (It’s dated March 14 on the web…. but I’m not sure which day it was published) called “These Days, No Reporting Behind a Nations Back”  The author, ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, talks about the immediacy of reporting on the web and reminds us that anything written on the web can pop up anywhere in the world. It contains interesting little facts like 

According to data teased out of the Google Trends service, the phrases “new york times india” and “washington post india” are searched eight times as much in India, as a proportion of all Indian searches, as the equivalent in the United States. By the same measure, “new york times china” is searched more intensively in Beijing than in New York.

 

“Here” readers are better watchdogs than “there” readers. 

Ed Weinberger, who was later a producer of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “The Cosby Show,” worked as a writer for Mr. Gregory for three years, often accompanying him on his trips to the South. He remembers him spending “hours on the phone, gathering information, finding out what was happening.”

Once, Mr. Weinberger recalled, when they were both fleeing an angry crowd, Mr. Gregory heard someone yell, “Get the nigger lover.” He turned to Mr. Weinberger and said: “Let’s separate. I think they’re after you.”

Very funny and scarey and courageous.  I also like this:

“I buy about $1,500 worth of papers every month,” he said. “Not that I trust them. I’m looking for the crack in the fabric.”

Yeah, baby. Cracks in the fabric. Me, too.

I was trying so hard to be efficient. I got up and cleaned house, changed the sheets on the bed, put out the garbage, fed the cats, called the lawyer, called the doctor. Jumped in the car prepared to drive to Grand Haven to accompany. I had planned to spend the rest of the day there since I had an evening rehearsal scheduled in Grand Haven as well. This would mean my carbon footprint would be less if I didn’t drive back and forth twice in the same day. I even stopped by the lawyer’s office to sign some papers.

Unfortunately, I had the wrong day.

It’s NEXT Monday they need me to show up during the day to accompany some of the actors in a presentation to the Grand Haven Rotary Club. Man. I think I still need that vacation.

I drove home. So much for efficiency and even reducing my carbon footprint. And it turns out my 6 month follow-up appt to my annual check up is tomorrow. I haven’t lost the weight I need to. Bah. 

Oh well. This way I can get some badly needed rest before this evening.

Also Eileen is coming home tonight. I’m looking forward to her return. That’s why I wanted the house straight and sheets changed. 

So I had an actual day off yesterday. I spent the whole day sort of puttering around doing the stuff I wanted to do: cooking, practicing, cleaning, shelving books and reading. I spoke to Eileen on the phone and web cammed with Sarah. Very relaxing.

This morning laying in bed listening to Brahms and Radiohead, it occured to me that my need for inclusivicity may be connected to my primitive musical nature. 

What I mean by “need for inclusivicity” is that as I age I have less and less tolerance for the intolerant (get it? it’s a bit contradictory or goofy). And what I mean by my primitive musical nature is that throughout my life I have not really been all that refined in my musical preferences. Sure I love a lot of the great historical music and exciting stuff since, but I also am not easily put off by organized sound of any kind. Usually my strongest emotional reaction against some music is indifference. 

I wonder if these two parts of my personality are connected or even expressions of the same part of me. Who knows? 

I spent some time with Shostakovich yesterday. I listened to his string quartets and played some of his piano preludes and fugues. Nice stuff.

Last night was another interesting chapter in my life. The gig went the way many gigs go. The sound system was bad. The person running it was well intentioned but made difficulties for the band. Most of the band (everyone except me) spent the evening in a bad space.

Despite the difficulties and prevailing negative energy, I was very satisfied with the evening. As I usually do, I immersed myself in performing. In some ways it was like church. I get as close to what I am doing as possible and then perform with energy and enjoyment. When the evening was over, I pulled myself out of my performing daze and found that the rest of the band had a bad night. Jonathon had problems with the sound set-up. Jordan was too close to the drums and spent the evening listening to percussion drowning out his own sound, and Kevin was suffering from allergies and down energy. Go figure.

So once again I find myself still wondering if I actually have an audience for my work besides myself. Oh well. I still believe in my writing and performing. I played my piano solos pretty well. I put my heart and soul into my own compositions and performance of the other pieces.  The warm-up fiddler was an excellent young musician who actually recognized Messiaen and had recently listened to his Quartet for the End of Time. I was able to explain to him the “One Page Essay” and he seemed interested. He sat and listened intently to our entire hour and a half set.  I couldn’t tell how he thought it went.

I saw one lady from church and her daughter just before beginning. One other listener was oddly someone who simultaneously keeps an eye on me (reads this blog) and seems to disapprove of my work and my person. But most of the crowd was young and unfamiliar to me. Hard to tell why they were there or what exactly they were getting out of it.

The shop owner didn’t charge the announced cover. He said he was short handed. He was concerned that I had rented the piano (which Jonathon said he didn’t hear all night). I told him I would eat the piano rental as planned but it would be nice to pay the other three players something. He handed me three stacks of 35 dollars and I distributed it to my discouraged crew. So at least they got something for their efforts if not musical satisfaction.

So I found myself the sole source of positive energy. This feels a lot like looking the demon in the eye. It leaves you stronger or dead. Heh. I’m not dead. (see the poem in the previous recent blog).  I do feel strong resolve in the wake of the performance. Even inspired to continue composing and practicing and performing. Maybe that will be the last time that particular configuration of players and venue comes together. That’s okay. The music keeps going and that’s what’s most important to me.