I was more in the mood for Beethoven than lunch yesterday in between my classes. So I sat at the piano and continued playing my way through his sonatas. I was playing the Bb major, opus 22, movement 1 when a young ballet instructor walked through the studio returning equipment he had been using.

(I played it much slower than this recording)
He came over and asked me what it was I was playing. He seemed to be attracted to the music. We chatted amiably for a bit. He played french horn in high school and has since studied bagpipes and didgeridoo.

He has recently taken up ukulele and recognized Amanda Palmer’s name when I mentioned it to him.

Pleasant conversations like this diminish my pessimism about universities.

At 5:30 PM I finished my 3rd class and counting the hour of Beethoven finished up 5.5 hours sitting at the piano bench.

I was pretty tired after that. I walked to Mr. You’s (a pretty good Chinese take out housed in a former A&W section of a Shell station nearby) and ordered supper for Eileen and me.

This morning I am still pretty exhausted. I listened to This American Life. They had a disturbing report on the new laws in Alabama aimed at driving out illegal aliens, the so-called self deportation law.

The idea is to make illegals so frightened that they go home.

Nice.

It’s hard for me to swallow since I tend to think that every person is individually more significant than the idea of countries and organizations.  I was surprised when one politician, himself a self professed Xtian, confessed that even with the modifications he was supporting to this law he just couldn’t see Jesus voting for it.

Nice.

On a lighter note, I found this parody by William Carlos Williams in the footnotes to volume one of his collected poetry this morning:

Trees

Of all the things  that I could be
I had to be a lousy tree,

A tree that stands out in the street
With little dogs around my feet.

I’m nothing else but this, alas,
A comfort station in the grass.

I lift my leafy arms to pray,
Get away, little doggie, get away!

A nest of robins I must wear
And what they do gets in my hair.

Of all the things I had to be
I had to be a goddam tree.

********************************************************************

In San Francisco, a Push for Public Benches – NYTimes.com

No benches for the homeless….

*********************************************************************

NBC News Asks Romney Campaign to Remove Ad – NYTimes.com

I’m definitely not a Romney guy, but I don’t agree at all with NBC about this. Why is this reporting not public record?

*********************************************************************

Slow Freedom of Information Answers a Shade on Window Into Washington – NYTimes.com

The pace of revealing information reminds of Dickens’ Bleak House.

*********************************************************************

Gay Won’t Go Away, Genetic or Not – NYTimes.com

Frank Bruni tells a personal and touching story.

*********************************************************************

71% See Government Censorship of Internet As Bigger Threat Than Illegal Downloading – Rasmussen Reports™

I love the TM behind Rasmussen Reports.

*********************************************************************

Adding It Up: Press Freedom, Democratic Health and Public Media Funding | Save the News

US number 47 in Reporters Without Borders 2011 Press Freedom rating.

*********************************************************************

STUDY: The Press And The Pipeline | Media Matters for America

It’s not just the government that is inundated by big business partisans.

***********************************************************************

I stupidly have been accepting work on my day off. Last Saturday I drove off and accompanied a young talented violist at her Solo and Ensemble. Next Saturday I have accepted another high school accompaniment gig in Grand Rapids. After which I have committed myself to an afternoon of accompanying Joffrey Ballet tryouts here in Holland.

Ay yi yi.

Yesterday probably due to a snow storm we had low attendance at church. There were four people in the choir. I managed to keep their morale up and they dutifully rallied and sang the anthem. I spent quite a bit of effort adapting the organ registration so that it was strong enough to support these four singers and at the same time didn’t cover them up.

When I began my lovely organ prelude, there seemed to be three people in the room: me, Eileen and the former organist.  I was glad she was there because she is one of the few people who seems to get my work there.

As the morning wore on I looked around and realized that there were as usual many musicians present. I wonder why these people are more supportive of their church choir. It occurred to me that my understanding of church music as an art is an anachronism,

This is ironic because my own faith is pretty weak and I don’t have the strength of religious conviction to sustain my work. What sustains me is a belief in the importance of making beauty in a certain way. And it may this that is making me anachronistic.

I’m trying not to be too negative in this post. One of the dangers of my isolation as a musician and composer is that the critic whose voice is the loudest is me. And artists are almost always their own strongest critics. At least good ones and I do think I am good at what I do.

The isolation makes it easy to undervalue one’s worth. I’ve never been all that ambitious for much other than the doing of my art. I feel like I should expose more listeners to it, but have sort of painted myself into a corner where the few people who might appreciate my work are a small percentage of the local population.

Nevertheless this whole thought process is not too prevalent in my own work and life.  I mostly do music. And have conversations with the dead (composers, poets, authors, painters).

Yesterday I played all the way through Beethoven’s Pathetique Piano Sonata. I took care not to romanticize it too much, tried to think of the quarter note as the consistent beat in the famous opening of this work.

Took the slow movement faster than Karl Haas used to play it at the beginning of his radio show.

Playing this incredible piece in its entirety consoled me considerably for a difficult morning at work.

This morning I was again sucked in and played the next sonata (E major) in its entirety and then began another (the G major).

It’s hard to feel too sorry for oneself in the presence of such noble beauty.

I have a full day of classes today which begin at noon, break for an hour and then run until 5:30 PM.

I think I will skip treadmilling this morning with the idea that I will need the energy for the afternoon.

*********************************************************************

The Perils of ‘Bite Size’ Science – NYTimes.com

Publishing more and shorter research articles has its own dangers.

*********************************************************************

Fact-Gathering Without the Facts – NYTimes.com

NYT’s readers take it to task.

*********************************************************************

Chemical Brothers – the movie: do not adjust your eyeballs | Music | The Guardian

I mostly read this article because Susan Tomes mentioned it in her blog. She was interested that the Chemical Brothers sort of defined live music as not listening to music through computer speakers (which is how I listen to recorded music having purchased a slightly elaborate set of 4 speakers plus a bass speaker). She seemed puzzled that the idea of “live” music didn’t really come into the equation. I’m puzzled that she was puzzled since the Chemical Brothers are an electronica sensation whose live performances rely heavily not only on loops and recordings but also have been known to commission lengthy movies to show in the background. Here’s a sample.

I especially admire that the filmmakers put up signs in Japanese that said ‘Please don’t look in the lens if you’re being filmed, just watch the show.’

*********************************************************************

Matthew Adams – The mind ironic (Christopher of Hitchens)

Another admiring article about this incredible writer and thinker.

**********************************************************************

I was thinking this morning how the poet, William Carlos Williams, was so observant of his surroundings. This includes both people and what I think of as nature which to my mind includes any physical stuff around us.

He has written many poems which are simple (but actually not so simple) descriptions. They put me in mind of Japanese poetry which I’ve only read in translation but seem to evoke ideas and mood with spare brush strokes of words.

Both traditional Japanese poetry and William Carlos Williams are perhaps unfashionable these days. They go against the grain of the dominance of image. Our language of words is now sifted of its root meanings and changed into advertisements, personality and banal TV and movie plots. WCW seems to me to go from observation to words (ideas) instead of rendering everything into often reductive images.

If this is unclear, what I mean is that the poetry and art of our age seems to be not about beauty and ideas but about sensual and/or seductive pictures that do not reach very deep beyond their own surface.

There is a false simplicity to this process. It appears simple and is probably so. But it misses a lot of the basic human stuff.

I’m also reading the next essay of In Search of the Missing Elephant by Donald N. Michael. It’s title is  intriguing to me: “With Both Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-air” (1985)

On Cause and Effect

“… [E]vents, treated as causes or effects, are discrete only if we do not examine them too closely… everything we experience, especially in an information-dense world, tells us that, individually and collectively, the human condition is overdetermined: everything causes, effects, and is part of, everything else and, in turbulent situations, sensitivity analysis can only refer to a fragment of moot reality and it may well have already changed.”

Donald N. Michael, ” “With Both Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-air”

Donald N. Michael helps me grapple with complexity.

There are many pasts

“Alternative choices of events, time periods, interpretations, and intentions provide unnumbered ways to link past events to a present. And there are unnumbered ways of putting together the present, i.e. what is ‘really’ happening and what is ‘really’ important. Since the present is always constructed out of a presumed past, I have learned that thoughts about the future derive from preferred constructions of the past.”

Donald N. Michael, ” “With Both Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-air”

I especially like that insight. Very helpful when trying to sort out stuff. Finally I love his view of experts:

Experts

“The pronouncements of experts are useful, when thinking about the future, not because their information is based on esoteric and valid knowledge about social change, though that occasionally may be so (but  how is one to know?), but because, by viture of the authority with which they are endowed, i.e. as experts, they are able to influence the definition of social reality others hold. There expertness resides not in a prescience their logic engenders but in the ‘psychologic’ that logic activates: the authority of logic and, therefore, of the expert as a practitioner of  logic, is what carries weight. This source of authority legitimizes the stories they tell. But the source also tends to subvert the storytellers’ own recognition that they are telling stories. Their own belief in their authority, i.e. the authority of logic, leads them to believe they are doing something very different from ‘merely’ telling stories.”

Donald N. Michael, ” “With Both Feet Planted Firmly in Mid-air”

But of course this is the basic human activity – making real meaning or at least substantive believable meaning. No better way for humans to do this than tell stories, the more rich, the more textured, the better.

*********************************************************************

3:AM Magazine » Come Hear the Music Play

Reassessing the meaning of the musical, “Cabaret,” today.

*********************************************************************

Music Business Tunes for Next Copyright Fight | PCWorld

*********************************************************************

Robert Reich (Why No Responsible Democrat Should Want Newt Gingrich to Get the GOP Nomination)

I like Reich.

*********************************************************************

Barbarism In Cultured Soil: Rushdie’s Great Pakistani Novel | The India Site | Dishing up Indian news and non aligned views | India: A Portrait by Patrick French

Drawing attention back to one of Rushdie’s lesser known works.

*********************************************************************

Putting a Price on Your Work – Shortcuts – NYTimes.com

I continue to accept freelance work. Never sure how much to charge. My church has decided to pull me up to the minimum pay of the American Guild of Organist. Minimum. Even doing this will take them two years – upping my salary by 4K for 2012, and another 4K for 2013.

If I live that long.

*********************************************************************

Gerre Hancock, St. Thomas Church Organist, Dies at 77 – NYTimes.com

Finally NYT gives Hancock an obit.

I always wondered why the death of my teacher, Ray Ferguson, seemed to be ignored by the American Guild of Organists. I always thought there was a story behind that.

*********************************************************************

A Long Island Teenager Studies Species Survival and Saves Herself in the Process – NYTimes.com

Inspiring.

**********************************************************************

The Mississippi Delta Must Be Restored – NYTimes.com

Obama administration has commission a zillion dollar study on how to do this. This article indicates the solution is already known, just needs to be done.

**********************************************************************

Banks Taketh, but Don’t Giveth – NYTimes.com

Catch 22 alive and well in the 21st century. Gallows humor.

*********************************************************************

Keith Jarrett in a Solo Concert at Carnegie Hall – NYTimes.com

Jarrett is a hero of mine.

********************************************************************

http://newhumanist.org.uk/

New site my brother recently pointed me to.  “Ideas for Godless People”

********************************************************************

A quick post before I jump in the car and drive an hour to accompany a high school violist in a Solo and Ensemble Festival.

Here I am sixty years old and still attending these things.  All the festivals of my high school youth blend into each other for me. I can remember playing a piece by Vivaldi on the trumpet in a district Solo and Ensemble festival in high school. The piece I am accompanying today is also by Vivaldi. I think it’s a better piece than the one I played years ago.

Anyway I surprised my band director (who accompanied me) and got a “one” (the highest rating). The judge scared me when he stood up and told me that I played Vivaldi in a manner that was authentic or something like that.

I took it to State and my band director (whom I adored) seemed pleased when I got a disgraceful “Three” on it.

I seem to remember that was the festival where I met a pregoth girl who fascinated me and answered my comment that I wrote poetry with a ever so high school blase, “Doesn’t everyone?”

The school bus for the ride home was waiting for me when they finally found me chatting up this creature. Again my band director seemed a bit annoyed and amused at the same time.

Last night Eileen and I managed to go the concert we thought was the night before. It was pretty good. I admire the group Ethel. You can hear selections played by them at this link, although their line up of actual players seems pretty flexible.

They began and ended with pieces from the list that appears when you click on the above image at this link. Their first album had this cover and seems to have been called “Light.” However the tracks at the link do not correspond to the ones on Amazon (link).

They began the program with “Arrival” which is called “Nepomuk’s dances: arrival” at the Amazon link. It is an admirable piece and made an excellent starter piece.

They did an encore with the piece called “Lighthouse.”

Both are credited to “Ethel” as composer on Amazon.

I believe that they do a lot of improvising and these pieces may have evolved in initial group improvising of the original players.

However “Arrival” seems very tightly organized and composed to my ears. “Lighthouse” was much looser which led me to suspect it was an actual little Jazz composition they chose to cover.

In between they did a variety of stuff include a tune by Terry Riley (“Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector”)

and one by John Luther Adams (“Wind in High Places”).

The latter was pretty interesting in that John Luther Adams only used open strings for a three movement piece. He made an effective use of harmonics. The players put ear buds in one ear for this piece. I imagine it would be so they could listen carefully to themselves and distinguish their harmonics from the rest of the band. Very cool and evocative piece.

They had a guest artist, a Pueblo composer and performer named Robert Mirabel. He made some pretty new agey but attractive sounds on an array of flutes and rhythm instruments. He was very animated and goofy at times. A good addition because he obviously was having such a good time and admired the rest of the Band’s playing.

Well I have to get dressed and drive at this point and can regale you no longer.

I found myself continuing to feel drained and bit depressed yesterday.

Despite this I improvised well at ballet class. Then I had a good meeting with my boss at church. After a quick lunch at home, I went back and played Mozart piano trios with my colleagues at church. This is a moment of refreshment and renewal for all three of us, I think.

After they left, I posted the hymns for Sunday on the hymn board. I inherited this task from the gentle old men who used to see to it but have died. One of my first Sundays at Grace they were posted incorrectly. The choir went ballistic and wanted me to change them. I refused saying that I had stuff to do. This happened several times until one of the older members of the choir told me he had the message (presumably that I didn’t want to post the hymns).

Since he didn’t ask, I didn’t inform him that I had no problem posting them. I just didn’t want to do it at the last minute and rob precious prep time from Sunday morning.

Now I do it routinely after chatting with the boss about the upcoming Sunday and adjusting to any changes she has made to my suggested hymns.

After posting the hymns, I rehearsed Sunday’s music at the organ. I have scheduled a very easy anthem that is most effective if I played the organ accompaniment well. So I have added it to my daily practice.

Then on my way to grocery shop, I had the frustrating experience of stopping at my Mom’s pain doctor’s office where I continued to get blocked from talking to him about Mom’s meds.

The receptionist informed me that he would only respond to a fax from Mom’s internist.

So I sat in the parking lot and called the internist’s office on the cell. Sheesh. We’ll see if 1) the internist’s office follows through on this fax & 2) if the Reverend Doctor Her Majesty the pain in the ass Pain Doctor acquiesces in her recommendation to switch Mom to a milder narcotic.

Sometimes doctors who seem to think that life needs to be designed only for their convenience (“Here dear, step into these stirrups”) and that they have a complete corner on the brains department make me tired.

After fussing with doctors in the parking lot, I did grocery shopping. To my horror, when I went to pay, I discovered that I didn’t have the regular credit card I use to pay with. Oy! I put groceries on a secondary card and came home and tore the house apart looking for the lost card.

Gave up after a while.

I made a recipe (Raviolasagna) for our supper. The timing for the oven for this recipe neatly dovetails with the time I spend on the treadmill. And that’s how I did it.

Eileen and I were planning to go out and hear the string quartet, Ethel, last night. We walked over to the college after supper to discover that we had the wrong date for the concert.

The actual concert is this evening.

But we had a nice walk in the misty evening together.

Whew.

Another day in the life.

Still.

Hard to complain that much. Got up this morning and made improvised puff pastries (puff pastry spread with preserves and topped with fresh fruit). Played Chopin Mazurkas waiting for Eileen to get up so we could have breakfast together.

Ahhhhhh.

*********************************************************************

UbuWeb

Discovered this site this morning. Archives of “Avant Guard all the time” (this is the description on the Poetry Foundation page where I found the link.

Listened a bit of Satie being performed live (link to MP3)and then part of a 1969 lecture by John Cage this morning (link to MP3). 2012 is Cage’s centenary.

*********************************************************************

Arizona Candidate’s English Under Challenge – NYTimes.com

I find the discussion of official language very interesting. Countries that border other countries often have a blurring of dominant language at the border.

*********************************************************************

Warning – The Next Sound You Hear Will Not Be Your Engine – NYTimes.com

Marvelous. The 2013 souped up BMW M5, the sound you hear when you listen to the engine accelerating is a digital recording.

*********************************************************************

How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls – NYTimes.com

Disturbing.

*********************************************************************

In Spain, a Judge on Trial – NYTimes.com

This judge sounds like an interesting and heroic person.

**********************************************************************

Nonesuch to Release Krzysztof Penderecki, Jonny Greenwood Collaboration March 13; Pre-Order Now | Nonesuch Records

Upcoming recording.

********************************************************************

“There’s nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words.”

William Carlos Williams, “Author’s Introduction” The Wedge 1944

I’m developing a passion for the work of William Carlos Williams.

It turns out that it was a good idea to read his masterwork book length poem, Paterson, first. Then all of his collected poems in roughly chronological order. He gradually develops the idea of Paterson over the years and sketches it and comments on it throughout his life. I’ll probably have to return to it after I read all of his poems and maybe some of his prose.

Right now I am returning to the notes in the first volume of his collection poems. I have read this volume already but failed to notice there were notes on the poems in the back. I am finding the end notes helpful in the second volume. They often contain comments by WCW made in passing and in writing on his work.

“When a man makes a poem, makes it, mind you, he takes words as he finds them interrelated about him and composes them—without distortion which would mar their exact significances—into an intense expression of his perceptions and ardors that they may constitute a revelation in the speech that he uses. It isn’t what he says that counts as a work of art, it’s what he makes, with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity.”

William Carlos Williams, “Author’s Introduction” The Wedge 1944

WCW’s thoughts on poems and poets made me think a bit about my own work (not just my poems but my music). Seeing music (like poetry) as a machine fits very well with my own understanding of it. I love to take it apart. When I make it, I not only breath into it my being I also try to understand it’s working parts.

I read this poem of his this morning which sent me running to my (online) dictionary:

A Sort Of A Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless.

—through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.

Saxifrage is apparently “a low growing plant” that grow in “poor soils with white, yellow or red flowers.  Literally Saxi=stone, fragi=breaking.

I really like WCW.

************************************************************
A Poet’s View From His New Hampshire Window by Donald Hall: The New Yorker

I was reading this article sitting in the waiting room with my 85 year old mother this week. In it, Hall describes what it’s like to sit in his house now and be old. He watches nature that he was watched all his life: birds, bears, what have you. He also ruminates on old age, thinking about the old people in his life including his own mother.

************************************************************

In the same issue is a poem/song by Leonard Cohen.

Poem: Leonard Cohen: “Going Home” : The New Yorker

MP3 of the song: Leonard Cohen’s “Going Home” : The New Yorker

It’s from his new album which won’t be released until Jan 31:

Good old Leonard Cohen. “He’s a sportsman and a shepherd, he’s a lazy bastard living in a suit.”

********************************************************************

If Pajamas Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Wear Pajamas – Lowering the Bar

For some reason daughter Sarah thought of me and linked this in on Facebook.

*********************************************************************

Recent links around the State of the Union speech.

President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address — Full Transcript – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com

Mitch Daniels’s Republican Response to the State of the Union – NYTimes.com

The State of the Union in 2012 – NYTimes.com

This is the NYT editorial response.

Review & Outlook: The State of His Policies – WSJ.com

This is the WSJ response.

Obama Sets Sights on Romney in State of the Union – NYTimes.com

A little analysis.

*********************************************************************

Eileen received her Kindle Fire in the mail yesterday. I took it to her at the library when I met her there for our evening meal. Unfortunately, it required a  4 hour charge before she could use it. By the time she arrived home after work she had managed to charge it up and immediately began messing with it.

So far she gives it good reviews. Right now (at breakfast) she is poking around on it. “I like it,” she says.

I’m pretty sure the apps outstrip her Blackberry Playbook.

I skipped watching/listening to the President’s State of the Union last night. I usually prefer to read things like this these days. Instead I did frivolous escape reading and finished off Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

This is a little fluff piece which covers familiar material that has been done before. You’ve got your basic  angel and demon who carry most of the story. They are likable and they both like earth and hate to see it all come to an end. The Antichrist is born but babies are switched and he ends up being raised by a regular family to unexpected results.

Not sure if it’s as good as Hitchhiker’s Guide, but both are under the influence of other writers I sometimes admire (P.G. Wodehouse and C.S. Lewis).

It was just the ticket for last night’s reading.

I am feeling a bit guilty that I haven’t picked up Ugly to Start With by John Michael Cummings since reading the first few stories.

You may recall that he emailed me and asked me to read and review his book. After reading the first story, I could tell he was a pretty good writer and bought a ebook copy.

I’m not an avid short story reader.

I guess in general I prefer book length stories. I do, however, read collections of them on occasion and need to put Cummings higher on my radar.

My brother and I were agreeing that those of us who read many books at once are put at a disadvantage by the absence of the actual books laying around to remind us we are reading them. Both Mark and I do the ebook thing and I think we both appreciate it. But I was amused that we both have this “out-of-sight/out-of mind” thing going on with ebooks.

Of course, I sometimes forget which books I am reading in the flesh (so to speak) as well.

I deliberately tried to have a laid back day yesterday since I have been stressed lately.

Not sure if I succeeded. Phone calls to Mom’s health care providers gently inquiring and urging them to do their jobs.

Chose music for the choir and myself at the organ for this next Sunday. I have had to revise my plans to fit the situation.

I  found a reasonably interesting arrangement of “Let All Mortal Flesh” for the choir to sing Sunday. It is unison and varies the melody rhythmically (stating it in eighth notes and then in quarter notes and then in clever mixes of this kind of variation). The cleverness is mostly in the slightly elaborate organ part which I now need to learn.

For the prelude, I fell back on a repeat of Leo Sowerby’s lovely (and lengthy) “Meditation” on PICARDY (That’s the name of the melody to the hymn).

I found a setting by Proulx of the closing hymn (Thou, whose almighty word – Tune name: MOSCOW – same tune as “Come Thou, Almighty King”).

*********************************************************************

I’m about half way through this interactive version of President Obama’s State of the Union Speech from yesterday night.

*********************************************************************

An Assault on Democracy – NYTimes.com

Editorial that taught me something about the “relentless campaign against free speech” of President Rafael Correa of Ecuador.

*********************************************************************

Montana’s Challenge to Citizens United – NYTimes.com

It never fails to amaze me how many smart people (like Supreme Court Justices) think there’s no problem with pumping up our election process with more and more money.

********************************************************************

Free-Market Socialism – NYTimes.com

Interesting ideas from my favorite conservative, David Brooks.

“If President Obama is really serious about restoring American economic dynamism, he needs an aggressive two-pronged approach: More economic freedom combined with more social structure; more competition combined with more support.” David Brooks

********************************************************************

Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel at BAM – Review – NYTimes.com

I’m a fan.

*********************************************************************

Plants, in Plain English – NYTimes.com

“… [A]s of Jan. 1, the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature no longer compels botanists to provide a Latin description of a new species. Perhaps even more significant, the code now recognizes publication in online academic journals as equally valid as print publication. Both changes will help to speed up the race to catalog the world’s plant life.” quote from article

********************************************************************

My head is still spinning a bit from yesterday. I managed to get my Mom to the doctor and back to her nursing home just in time to make my noon class. I still have follow up to do today contacting her pain doctor (to communicate her internist’s question about what drugs she should be taking) and her psychologist (to inform his office that the internist thought there should be follow up on Mom’s mental state).

After classes I rushed home for a rehearsal with a violist for Saturday’s Solo and Ensemble festival. Then I made supper for Eileen (roasted chicken with bruschetta). Didn’t have time to treadmill and by the end of the day was too tired to do so yesterday.

Yesterday basically kicked my ass.

So onward and upward today. I have a lot of work to do for church since I have to find new anthems and switch my list around and choose prelude and postlude for Sunday. Some of that has to be done today.

I only have the one ballet class so I should easily be able to get some of this stuff done.

Came across an interesting passage on denial in In Search of the Missing Elephant this morning:

When denial and projection “… are the means by which persons see themselves as highly competent unconsciously protect their deeply held image of themselves when faced with the enormous ambiguities, uncertainties and complexities of this world.”

Donald M. Michael, “Forcasting and planning in an incoherent context,” In Search of the Missing Elephant

This passage caused me to reflect how many people I rub shoulders with on a daily basis seem unconscious of their own behavior. Struggling to define one’s self to one’s self is for me a very basic part of living. It is, of course, impossible to see one’s self clearly, but reflecting on one’s own motives, understandings and thought processes seems to be rare activity in many of the people I have to deal with. Maybe they just don’t share this stuff with me. Who knows?

*********************************************************************

I seem to be weighed down with worry lately.

I’m worried about my Mom and several other members of my extended fam. Worried about money.

Yesterday I had five singers for the choir. It was pretty scarey. They did a fine job, but I was scrambling to help it sound decent.

No time to finish this post….. more tomorrow no doubt.

Stanley Brothers – It Takes A Worried Man
Download Music Video Code at www.yallwire.com

********************************************************************

At the Cancer Clinic by Ted Kooser

Darkness (excerpt) by Lord Byron

Couple of poems on Writer’s Almanac I like.

*********************************************************************

Twelve Lessons (Most of Which I Learned the Hard Way) for Evolutionary Psychologists

This article is a little technical but I still thought it worthwhile.

********************************************************************

The Affirmative Action War Goes On – NYTimes.com

Michigan’s ban on affirmative action at U of M goes up for reconsideration by the Supreme court soon.

********************************************************************

Showtime at the Apollo – NYTimes.com

I read Maureen Dowd who wrote this regularly, but rarely link her in because she’s more amusing than insightful. This time I thought she had some interesting things to say about the Obamas.

********************************************************************

How Mrs. Grady Transformed Olly Neal – NYTimes.com

There are good teachers out there. This is the story of one.

*********************************************************************

American Voters – Still Up for Grabs – NYTimes.com

I quit reading Thomas Friedman years ago when he turned into a cheerleader for the war in Iraq.  But I have been checking him more often in the last month or so. I liked this analysis and also his hope and ideas about a good presidential candidate.

*********************************************************************

I found myself madly composing an accompaniment for today’s anthem yesterday. I hate doing last minute composing. I like to let a composition sit a bit. That way I can return to it freshly and get a better sense of its worth.

I finished the accompaniment, printed it up and walked over to church to rehearse. While there I began to hear a completely different, simpler approach to the piece and was forced to sit down and work on it there. Came home and entered the new writing into a finale doc and printed THAT up. I’m still not certain about the piece, but it will work for today’s anthem.

I scheduled “Put Down Your Nets and Follow Me” a hymn found in Wonder, Love and Praise – text by Janine Applegate, tune (DILLOW) by Randall Giles for this Sunday.

I transposed the tune down a step. I am expecting several absences today (in my SMALL choir) and tried to roll with that by attempting a clever simple arrangement.

I wrote a ritornello (a repeating little section) and an instrumental descant (to be played by myself on piano) so that all the choir will have to master today is the beautiful subtle melody that Giles wrote.

I listened to Krista Tippett’s latest show this morning. (Thank you to Mark Jenkins for mentioning it on Facebook and inspiring me to check it out) She taped it in Detroit and interviewed several interesting people there none of whom I recognized.

I found the conversation interesting. But I was struck more by its relationship to the book In Search of the Missing Elephant by Donald N. Michael.

Both the people on the Tippett’s show and Michael (now deceased)  speak to and about the incoherence of the present day. Both are thinking about the future and talking about now.

Here’s some links from Tippett’s show:

The show itself: Becoming Detroit.

Interesting Essays on the site:

Essay: Turning To Instead of Against Each Other | Becoming Detroit with Grace Lee Boggs [OnBeing.org]

This is an Xmas essay by Detroiter Gloria Lowe but still worth reading even at this time of year.

Essay: Jobs Aren’t the Answer | Becoming Detroit with Grace Lee Boggs [OnBeing.org]

Essay: Re-Imagining Education | Becoming Detroit with Grace Lee Boggs [OnBeing.org]

Essay: Redefining {R}evolution | Becoming Detroit with Grace Lee Boggs [OnBeing.org]

In this last essay Boggs shares a student essay. There is a misattribution in it. The student accidentally says that her Polanyi quote comes from Blessed Unrest from which she quotes Paul Hawken. Her Polanyi quote presumably comes from his book, The Great Transformation, which she links under the second mention of the title Blessed Unrest.

I ran down Boggs’s blog: http://boggsblog.org/ and bookmarked it. Anybody who mentions Hegel, Einstein and Malcolm X in the same breath is okay in my book.

*********************************************************************

Rushdie Backs Out of India Literary Event, Citing Security – NYTimes.com

*********************************************************************

Chinese Leader, Wen, Criticizes Iran on Nuclear Program – NYTimes.com

Surprising, though Wen and others seek to disassociate economic trade and nuclear sanctions.

**********************************************************************

Iran Attacks an Old Enemy – Barbie – NYTimes.com

********************************************************************

Etta James, Singer, Dies at 73 – NYTimes.com

Her and Johnny Otis dead in the same week.

********************************************************************

The first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century | Books | The Guardian

********************************************************************

My netbook arrived repaired in the mail yesterday! Hurray! Well worth 99 bucks to me!

Good graphic from ProPublica. Click on the pic to go the article. Found the link on the wonderful web site: http://luthiermark.tumblr.com/ I have checked this site pretty regularly since my friends Dave Barber and Paul Wyzinitas pointed it out to me.

This was also on it:

So I made it through a full week (minus one canceled class) of ballet accompaniment.  I wondered how I would do with 4.5 hours of improvising and I actually did fine.

Yesterday I was a bit off balance since Eileen and I started the day talking to a contractor about redoing our kitchen and first floor bathroom. Great ideas but it left me wondering how we could afford it…

Did bills and then went and checked on my Mom. She took another tumble and I am a bit concerned about her.

I wasn’t very happy with my improvs in my last class yesterday. Part of the problem was that I was under the impression I had two classes and was trying to pace myself a bit in the first class. But I was incorrect. I only have the one class on Fridays. That is a good thing, I think.

I am trying to make today a day off. With my increased schedule, I need to attend to relaxing and recouping on my one day without anything scheduled.

**********************************************************************

Active-Duty Army Suicides Reach Record High – NYTimes.com

Another terrible hidden cost to our society.

*********************************************************************

Johnny Otis, Rhythm and Blues Musician, Dies at 90 – NYTimes.com

********************************************************************

The Wealth Issue – NYTimes.com

Some interesting (not mean) history of the Romney fam.

**********************************************************************

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Modesty Fight – NYTimes.com

A blame the victim mentality mistakenly reads the Torah.

*******************************************************************

I was surprised to turn the page of the last poem in Volume I of WCW’s Collected Poems this morning. Surprised and not a little annoyed to find that there were many pages of notes in the back. I spent a good deal of time trying to check some of the poems I found difficult for supporting information. But my questions largely remained unanswered by the notes. I still don’t quite understand all of “Spring and All 1923” which mixes untitled poems with prose – “Chapters.”

I then carefully read the preface to Volume II and read a few poems.

I continue to find reading WCW’s poetry satisfying. Even the difficulties are kind of fun. Now, at least, I know to check the notes in the back. The second volume is edited by a different editor, Christopher MacGowan and seems to represent later scholarship.

Also finished the first essay, “Technology and the Management of Change from the Perspective a Culture Context,” in In Search of the Missing Elephant by Donald N. Michael this morning.

Originally written in 1973, Michael posits some pretty dispiriting but convincing observations in prose that sometimes bogs down a bit.

But he is endeavoring to articulate a beginning of understanding the complexities of a society that has progressed its way into an untenable present situation.

“We need to acknowledge that, somehow, we have discovered and are ensnared in a new wilderness, a new jungle, and that the skills that got us here are inadequate to get us out. Looking around us, we must acknowledge that we are really lost.”

Don N. Michael, “Technology and the Management of Change from the Perspective a Culture Context”

He is talking about the current lack of “adequate forms of governance, negotiation, mediation and constructive control.” Control of ourselves as a society.

He points to three conditions that have created this situation:

1. “Dissent has always been constrained to expression and action within the rules of the game. Now dissent includes rejection of the rules.”

This is painfully evident if one listens to a politician talk as we are being forced to do so this election year. But it’s also true in many other aspects of life. People will reject your basic premise and change the “frame” to fit their own point of view pretty quickly these days.

2. We have a “large population size” and “high frequency of repetitive events,” but “a small percent[age] of people or events now become socially perturbing.”

So we have terrorists and bankers, Occupy Wall Streeters and Tea Partiers. Michael charmingly dates himself by mentioning “hard hats and hippies.”

3. “complexity and interdependence” for which there are “no adequate forms of governance for comprehending, anticipating, and dealing with the scale, variety and speed of interactiveness of the men [sic] and events in society.”

[emphasis added in all 3 quotes]

Michael is writing in 1973, pre-Internet. But his words accurately describe the speeding up of events and the inability of us, as a society, being able to predict, control or even understand what is happening to us.

He concludes this first essay by saying recognizing ourselves as lost is a step toward the slim possibility of reshaping ourselves together.

Hope, not optimism, as I mentioned in a different post.

*********************************************************************

Gustav Leonhardt, Harpsichordist, Dies at 83 – NYTimes.com

Very influential dude in the music world.

*********************************************************************

5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam | Cracked.com

Even though this is on Cracked.com and annoyingly consists of two pages that can’t be viewed as a single page, this is worth checking out.

*********************************************************************

So I mostly abstained from the internet all day yesterday in a small sympathetic response to the SOPA protest.

It wasn’t too hard since I spent a large part of the day sitting on a piano bench in a ballet classroom.

I found that my first 4.5 hour day of ballet accompaniment wasn’t too much for me. I’m not sure if this is because of my own increasing confidence about what this work expects of me or the high quality of the people for whom I am working.

I was struck with the irony that in the two situations in which I earn money these days I am perceived and treated in such different ways. In the ballet class, I feel that I am there by the seat of my pants. I am learning about ballet, but don’t really have a background in it. My work is to study the musical requirements I think the teacher needs for a given set of movements and then make something up that fits these.

In some ways it’s not too different from what I did as a 15 year old sitting alone at the piano bench of my father’s empty church goofing around with sounds.

On the other hand, I have spent a good deal of my life getting the expertise needed to be a quality church musician. Trained and credentialed in organ, choral conducting, and liturgy, I use these skills on a weekly basis.

I think this might have come to me during my lunch break yesterday. I spent part of the time reading a printed off scholarly article (printed off because I was abstaining from the internet…): Toward an Interp of the 16th c. Motet by Anthony M. Cummings ( Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 34, No 1 (Spring, 1981), pp. 43 – 59).

I have been thinking about an  upcoming choral anthem I am teaching to my choir, “Tu Solus” by Josquin DesPrez. It caught my attention that Josquin had made a motet which had a dual function in it’s original use: liturgical and devotional.

There are some interesting interpolations of non-Mass texts and use of previously composed material and I wanted to know a bit more about the context of the piece.

I was mildly surprised to find liturgical scholarly material that I studied quoted in this musical article. It reminded me the extent of my own training and skills such as they are.

So while I am treated with respect (which is pretty much protocol in the ballet classroom) and fondness (which is nice) by all of my co-workers in the Ballet department,  it is mildly ironic it is probably only my boss at church who understands my qualifications for my present work that I labored to obtain. To most of the rest of my co-workers I seem to be invisible and/or intimidating. The intimidating part is something I learned to deal with after grad school.

That was when I learned how to cope with people’s anxiety and bad behavior out of sheer survival. I did this by picking up some listening skills, assertiveness training and attempting to calm my own presence when others are flailing around me.

Before Ballet class, I took my Mom to her new neurologist. He seemed pretty competent. After Ballet class, I came home and madly set out the chicken dish I had put in the crockpot for Eileen to have for supper (I had a couple of veggie burgers). Then Scrabble and reading.

Do I need to say it?

Life is good.

Boing Boing used this lovely pic to illustrate its announcement of rules for posts for the period of the election campaign. I quite like it. Obamitt.

Finished Volume 3 of Sandman last night. I am finding this pretty interesting. I especially liked the story in this volume which was about how Dream (Sandman) commissions Shakespeare to write “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Dream commissions the play to commemorate the actual Auberon and Titania who along with most of the faerie folk have abandoned humanity and return to watch Shakespeare story based on them.

Very clever.

I also appreciated (but did not read all the way through) the original script of the first story in this collection. One does wonder exactly how Gaiman transmits his ideas to his team of creative collaborators. This script shows how he does it and has his own comments (which I sometimes found illegible since he scribbled them right over the script) in red and comments of his artist (Kelly Jones) in blue.

I also read a bit in In Search of the Missing Elephant by Donald N. Michael this morning. It’s written in that faux technical prose that seems almost willfully obscure to me these days. His ideas are interesting. He is talking a lot about the same dilemmas that Maier addresses in his Among Empires. But more from a general point of view of planning a tumultuous future.

I find it so interesting that our colleges and universities cultivate this sort of silly prose.

For me clarity and ease of reading are windows into meaning. If the sentences are convoluted and the words bigger than they need to be, it reads like sort of drone like in my head.

What can I say?

I notice that my usual progression in the morning lately has been from the “word” beauty I find in poetry (lately I have added John Donne to my morning list of poets), then to ideas I find in non-fiction, then to a bit of music practice (which I actually skipped this morning). After that relaxing sequence, I feel ready to face a little blogging and then the rest of day. (I read fiction later in the day)

I started a huge biography this morning.

I ran across James Forrestal in Bacevich’s The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Bacevich points out that Rumsfeld’s wrongheaded willfulness as a cabinet member could be seen as a revenge for what happened to the brilliant but flawed first Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal (under FDR).

I find myself attracted to the biographies of flawed American leaders and men. I have read biographies and autobiographies of Nixon, Whitaker Chambers and Bill Clinton. Forrestal promises to give insight into how America was governed around WWII and after.

I have read a couple chapters and so far it seems pretty good.

*********************************************************************

3quarksdaily: Everything Americans Think Is Complete Crap — Why Occupy Wall Street May Be Our Last Best Hope

Haven’t finished reading this yet, but I like how it starts out: America now as worse than apartheid South Africa.

********************************************************************

King of All Nations – NYTimes.com

Of all the Martin Luther King things I read, I found this pretty interesting. Mostly because it talks about Brit history and perception around racism. It mentions the statue of King I saw on the facade of Westminster Abbey and points out that there are no British black people commemorated, only King.

**********************************************************************

Land Carvings Attest to Amazon’s Lost World – NYTimes.com

More mysterious lines that can only be seen from upper altitudes.

********************************************************************

Why Is Europe a Dirty Word? – NYTimes.com

The demonization of Europe and other civilizations in the U.S. has always struck me as speaking from a lack of understanding and historical knowledge. Did you know that the USA introduced union leaders into the reconstruction of Post WWII Europe via the Marshall plan. The idea was to help them understand how unions contribute to economic rebuilding.

*********************************************************************

Bitter Politics of Envy? – NYTimes.com

I know I linked this on Facebook, but I love the Elizabeth Warren quote in it:

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But, I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

*********************************************************************

North Korea Plans Permanent Display of Kim Jong-il’s Body – NYTimes.com

Stalin, Lenin,

Mao Zedung, all weirdly displayed corpses…

*********************************************************************

Music went pretty well yesterday at church. I continue to enjoy leading a bunch of people in the congregation in singing.

The boss remarked on the Sequence Hymn which was “I have decided to follow Jesus.” I told her I knew she was digging it.

Although this hymn was written by an Indian and does not represent the African American tradition, it does work much like a spiritual with a bit of a swing.

I leaned over to the choir and told them that I wanted to start softly on it and seduce the congregation into joining in. Start like a murmur I said.

Then I gave a soft pitch to myself and began quietly but firmly singing.

In seconds we had a lot of participation from the congregation.

Imagine a group of about 200 people (maybe less) singing this goofy hymn in harmony unaccompanied as the priest and the gospel book carried by acolytes made its way into the center of the church.

I knew my boss was digging it.

I did three pieces by Gibbons which you probably know if you’ve been reading any of my past posts.  I found a bunch of keyboard music and specifically music for organ by Gibbons online this week that I did know about. I played 2 of them for the prelude and postlude. We sang an anthem by Gibbons. The choir struggled a bit more than I expected but ended up giving a pretty credible rendition. I think it might have had something to do with the snowstorm they waded through to get to church.

I nailed the little “Fancy” that I played as a prelude. It was quite delicate and I had trouble concentrating since people were talking near me. Not sure if it was even noticed or heard by many since it was so delicate.

I managed to stay pretty immersed in the performance despite distractions.

The postlude went superbly for the most part. It was a majestic thing, very renaissance and beautiful. I lost my concentration in the last couple of measures but managed to save it.

I totally like this music.

Today is my first Hopeless College Monday of Ballet accompaniment.

Usually I will have four classes on this day, but today my noon class is seeing a movie so I don’t have to go in until 2:00 PM.

I have high hopes that my increased schedule at Hopeless College is within my aging energy capacities.

I guess we’ll see.

Eileen and I went snowshoeing yesterday. I got to use my new snowshoes for the first time. Unfortunately, the snow was so light and fluffy it would probably have been easier to move with just our boots on. But we persisted.

We drove down to the walkway on the river just north of Holland. It was partially closed because huge trees had collapsed on the bridge section. But it was beautiful. The browns, the blues and the whites of a first snow on the shallow river with the weeds sticking up.

We saw a gaggle of ducks.

I just checked. It’s actually a paddling of ducks – on water, a team of ducks in flight, a raft of ducks – general group name, a gaggle of geese – on water, a skein of geese – on water or generally, and a wedge of geese in flight. (link to source)

I love words.

This morning I learned a new word finishing up Auden’s “Age of Anxiety.”

The character, Quant, who supposedly represents Auden’s own intuitive side “sings” near the end of the poem:

“peace was promised by the public hepatoscopists”

I finished off the poem and then looked up this word.

hepatoscopy – Divination by the liver of an animal or bird. The liver was divided into sections, each section representing a deity, and the markings in these zones were important.

(link to source)

My morning poetry reading of William Carlos Williams was frustrating. I discovered that his difficult collection of poetry which he entitled, “Spring and All” actually had titles for each section, but only in the contents of the book.

I made notes trying to understand the structure of this poem. The omission of the titles seemed almost like willful obscurity. I penciled them in even though I had finished this part of the over all collection a while back.

I did manage to make some sense of what he was doing without the information.  But it was still a bit annoying.

I got up a little late this morning. I find that my morning ablutions (which have been including doing a pan full of dirty dishes before making coffee and taking my blood pressure and daily weighing) are taking longer.

Gotta skate.

I ordered In Search of the Missing Elephant: Selected Essays by Donald N. Michael. It arrived a few days ago in the mail. I mentioned this book in my Dec 20th blog post. I attempted to get the local bookstore to order it for me. But they couldn’t match my $25 maximum limit on cost. I felt slightly bad and then ordered it on line $25.13 including S & H.

I am intrigued by the late Donald N. Michael’s use of the story of the blind men and the elephant. This story has been very formative on me. It was in my mind when I wrote my song, “Why did the elephant cross the road?”

Michael uses the story to talk about the complexity of contemporary life. He says that not only the blind men who are grasping parts of the elephant do not see the elephant, but the person who is watching also cannot see it clearly. In other words, none of us understand very much right now.

“We need to acknowledge that, somehow, we have discovered and are ensnared in a new wilderness, a new jungle, and that skills that got us here are inadequate to get us out. Looking around us, we must acknowledge that we are really lost.”

Don Michael quoted in the introduction

When I apply this kind of thinking to my understanding of the world I perceive this makes sense to me.

From the back of the book:

“Don Michael was a remarkable polymath, policymaker, scholar, teacher and sage. With degrees in both the natural sciences and in social psychology he carried his knowledge lightly, also taking a deep practical interest in the arts, in nature, and in cultures that revere ‘the beginner’s mind.’

The book is a collection of his later essays collected by and for the International Futures Forum.

Graham Leicester, Director of the International Futures Forum, wrote the introductory essay which I read this morning.

He ends with these quotes from Michael:

“First be hopeful. Hope not optimism. ‘Hope has to do with looking directly at the circumstances we’re dealing with; at the challenges we must accept as finite and vulnerable beings … recognizing the limits of our very interpretation of what we’re committing ourselves to, and still go on…”

“This means acting according to what I have been calling ‘tentative commitment.’ That means you are willing to look at the situation carefully enough, to risk enough, to contribute enough effort, to hope enough, to undertake your project. And to recognize … that we may well have it wrong…”

“And finally, practice compassion.. the blind must care for the blind.”

Don N. Michael quoted in the introduction to the book.

********************************************************************

A Murder at Paradise – NYTimes.com

A moving description of a park ranger who recently was killed by a mad man.

*********************************************************************

The C.E.O. in Politics – NYTimes.com

America Isn’t a Corporation – NYTimes.com

I abhor the business model of governing and also community. It is so reductive as to be incoherent to me.

**********************************************************************

Why Taiwan’s Future Matters – NYTimes.com

Some stuff I didn’t know about recent events in Taiwan. I hope this is all true and seen clearly.

*********************************************************************

Jodi Kantor’s “The Obamas,” Review : The New Yorker

A “friend” on Facebook had a strong negative reaction to Jodi Kantor (“she lies”).  I always read with large doses of skepticism. But I enjoyed this article. Especially the history.

********************************************************************

Got up this morning and after reading a bit of William Carlos Williams and W. H. Auden (“The Age of Anxiety”), I finished off Maier’s tome, Among Empires.

I have learned a lot from this book. I love the historical scope of his understanding. At the end of the book he does a fascinating description of about five thousand years of empires occupying the Fertile Crescent. Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian (which provided a strong Greek influence in the area), another Persian Empire, Judean, Roman alternating with more Persian Empires, Byzantine, Arabic Islamic Dynasty (the one that blasted into North Africa and Spain), then Turkic conquerors, Ottoman Empire, Mongols (Genghis Khan or as Maier names him: Chinggis Khan), a renewed Ottoman Empire, German French and British Expansion.

When you put American in that line, he concludes it was probably inevitable that we would at some point extend our military reach to the area.

Maier avoids the polemics that the Bacevich indulges in. I have to admit that while I find Bacevich pretty convincing, I prefer Maier’s more dispassionate historical critiques.

I found his definition of “market democracy” very eloquent. I read it to my poor wife this morning over breakfast.

Market Democracy: “... [T]he energetic and contradictory mixture developed in the United States of the vigorous local government and national plebiscites increasingly contested by candidates of great wealth, of powerful media influence often built on the cult of personality status, technological inventiveness and mass access to electronically facilitated culture and consumption, and the touching commitment to family rites asserted alongside the constant discussion of permissive sexual mores…”

Charles Maier, Among Empires

This is typical of the clarity of his observations.

As I have been writing this post, at the same time, I have been corresponding with John Michael Cummings an author who has emailed out of the blue me asking me to read his book and review it.

At the same time I received an odd request to guest blog on jupiterjenkins.com from a different person about physical therapy.

As I usually do, I researched both of these requests. In the case of the author, I found corroborating info (a wikipedia site that is admittedly sketchy, plus evidence that he is who he says he is and is widely published). The fact that he was writing about West Virginia, an area with which I have fond ties, intrigued me. I emailed him that I was considering it and we have just gone back and forth in a pleasant couple of emails, chatting.

A quick check of the latter email looked very dubious. Pretty sure it was sent by a robot. Delete.

I have found that online conversation works, but only in certain situations. I have a colleague in Chicago I have never met in person. But due to our common interest in pipe organs and music, we have had a fruitful connection online for years. I have had online conversations with authors and composers whom I have never met in person. This feels like good old pre-interwebs correspondence. Cummings seems to fall in this latter category.

God bless the interwebs!!!!

Other than those sorts of connections with people, I find the social media stuff a good supplement to actual in the flesh connections. Without that, I find it not very interesting or even credible.

*********************************************************************

New York Philharmonic Halted by iPhone During Mahler’s Ninth Symphony – WSJ.com

“Marimba sounds” stop Mahler.

*********************************************************************

Justices Recognize ‘Ministerial Exception’ to Job Bias Laws – NYTimes.com

Not sure what I think about this. In the case, the teacher was dismissed for claiming a disability through government channels instead of church channels.

*********************************************************************

Mississippi – Some Pardons by Barbour Are Halted – NYTimes.com

I have been following this, since in almost all cases I approve of acts of mercy.

**********************************************************************

Fraud Charges for Dipak K. Das, a University of Connecticut Researcher – NYTimes.com

Retraction Watch

These two links are about fraud.

I read this lovely sentence in Auden this morning:

“Human beings are, necessarily, actors who cannot become something before they have first pretended to be it; and they can be divided, not into the hypocritical and the sincere, but into the sane who know why they are acting and the mad who do not.”

W. H. Auden, “The Age of Anxiety”

*********************************************************************

E.P.A. Unveils Map of Major Greenhouse Gas Producers – NYTimes.com

NRDC: Benchmarking Air Emissions of the 100 Largest Electric Power Producers in the United States – 2008

Greenhouse Gas Data Publication Tool

Use the last link to see some (but not all) of the greenhouse gas produced in your very own U.S.A. area.

*********************************************************************

The Value of Teachers – NYTimes.com

Kristoff is making an economic argument for good teachers. I think they have intrinsic value (as I’m sure he does).

*********************************************************************

Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante? | The Public Editor – NYTimes.com

Yep.

*********************************************************************

I’m old enough to remember the “code” words politicians like George Wallace and other Southern Democrats used to talk about maintaining the overt racism of the U.S.

“Busing” and “States Rights” were popular. Tom the Dancing Bug has done a pretty good job deconstructing some of the current hate talk.

It’s especially disheartening to me to see people use religion to justify this stuff.

Oy.

Democrats are not far removed from this kind of talk by any means.

Yesterday, first my noon ballet class teacher made my attendance optional. I opted out since I was anticipating a strenuous day. Went to my church staff meeting.

I found five volumes of Gibbons Keyboard music online. Used some of the extra time to read up and find that the editor of the online edition said that when Gibbons entitles a piece with the word “Fancy” in it, the piece was probably intended for organ.

So I changed the cartridge in my printer and printed up a few. I found two nice pieces for Sunday’s prelude and postlude.

Counting the anthem, we will do three Gibbons pieces at church Sunday. I like stuff like that.

I noticed that there was a message on my cell phone.  I use it primarily as a clock and usually keep turned off. Messages tend to be solicitations. I ignored it and walked to work.

It turns out that it was a message from my afternoon ballet teacher telling me she had canceled the three classes I was expecting to play.

I came home. I did some reading. Then treadmilled. I had planned not to treadmill since it was going to be a full day. So that was good.

Picked up Eileen after work and we once again went for drinks and dinner.

This morning over breakfast we talked about how lucky we are to have work we look forward to and a good relationship with each other.

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

********************************************************************

C.I.A. Drone Strikes Resume in Pakistan – NYTimes.com

I think the use of drones is a hideous example of death technology that helps keep America hegemonic.

*********************************************************************

Marine’s Unusual Résumé May Have Attracted Iran’s Suspicion – NYTimes.com

One can’t help but wonder if this dude really was working for the CIA. He’s from one of my home towns: Flint, Michigan. Nevertheless I’m always against states executing humans.

********************************************************************

Music Lessons on Webcams Grow in Popularity – NYTimes.com

Interesting idea. (Leigh Jenkins if you read this, maybe you could hook back up with some of your Michigan students from New Hampshire this way? Jes sayin’)

*********************************************************************

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi Is Criticized on Wave of Pardons – NYTimes.com

Ah yes. Prisoners serving political potentates at the mansion. Whatever it takes to get pardoned I guess.

**********************************************************************

North Carolina Sterilization Victims Get Restitution Decision – NYTimes.com

The original program of sterilization occurred from 1929 to 1974. This overlaps with the unthinkable experiments Germans did to living humans in the 30s and 40s.

*********************************************************************

Using Interactive Tools to Assess the Likelihood of Death – NYTimes.com

I like the idea of patients managing their own care with full disclosure of information. One doctor in this article commented that “despite the new tools’ shortcomings … they don’t have to be perfect to be better than what’s already happening.”

Here’s the actual site you use to determine your own statistical stuff: ePrognosis

********************************************************************

Supreme Court Cites Withheld Evidence in Reversing Conviction – NYTimes.com

Surprising ruling from our right wing court. Unsurprising dumb long dissent by Justice Thomas.

**********************************************************************

Give Guantánamo Back to Cuba – NYTimes.com

“Imagine that at the end of the American Revolution the French had decided to remain here. Imagine that the French had refused to allow Washington and his army to attend the armistice at Yorktown. Imagine that they had denied the Continental Congress a seat at the Treaty of Paris, prohibited expropriation of Tory property, occupied New York Harbor, dispatched troops to quash Shays’ and other rebellions and then immigrated to the colonies in droves, snatching up the most valuable land.”

“It is a history excluded from American textbooks and neglected in the debates over terrorism, international law and the reach of executive power. But it is a history known in Cuba.”

*********************************************************************

Research Bought, Then Paid For – NYTimes.com

“Rather than rolling back public access, Congress should move to enshrine a simple principle in United States law: if taxpayers paid for it, they own it.”

*********************************************************************

A Right to the Internet? – NYTimes.com

Glad to see this dissenting letter in the NYT (with which I pretty much agree). Although I believe more and more that the slickness of the Internet has harmed its potential as a tool of authentic communication.  I have witnessed institutions (such as our local library and my church) fail to realize the potential in their websites and to succumb entirely to basing their access on their own (business) type understandings.

For example, it took me several years to convince my church to use Google Calendar. Our web site is basically static and often has incorrect and outdated info on it.  We are hiring someone to do a new website for us, but my hopes are not high. Every new website I seek goes for slick, not ease of use and understanding. Another example is the local library’s interface, which is cumbersome and often difficult to use. At least I find it so.

********************************************************************

Search Engines Are a Thorn in Congress’ Side : Roll Call News

Autocomplete provides hints about your congressman you might not know or remember. Yay Google Search!

********************************************************************

At the end of the anniversary edition of American Gods, Neil Gaiman says that he spent a good deal of his life writing Sandman and the reader should get copies and read it.

Never one to totally ignore the ideas of a writer I admire, I went to the library yesterday to see what I could find.

Volume one was the only missing volume so I checked out 2-5.

And an anthology entitle The Sandman: Endless Nights.

Last night I read Endless Nights. I think the glossy paper puts me off a bit. This is probably my old guy stuff, having read comics, books and graphic novels all printed on lovely rough paper all my life.

But there were some interesting stories and prose-poems in this book.

Gaiman mentions  R. A. Lafferty, a writer,  I have admired over the years in his introduction to Endless Nights

I used to own his Nine Hundred Grandmothers. Gaiman says that Lafferty “wrote like an angel, and, like most things angelic, may not be to everyone’s taste.” I decided I would like to read some Lafferty and went and checked my library.

All I found was his novel, Okla Hannali, a fictionalized historical story about Native Americans. I read the first four chapters last night.

I also finished savoring Lou Beach’s lovely 402 Characters. I plan to try to “like” him or whatever on Facebook where most of these poems or whatever you want to call them supposedly originated. (Post morning additional note: I just found that most if not all of this book is available online with audio portions also linked: http://420characters.com/index.html )

The last essay in Charles S. Maier’s Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors is intriguingly entitled “Technology’s Utopias: Digital Democracy and Post-Territorial Empire.”

I read this essay this morning. In it, Maier makes several interesting points. He draws a parrallel between the impact of nuclear technology on the 50s and the integrated chip from then to now.

“As of 1963 only 10 percent of electronic components were in integrated circuits; by 1973, 95 percent were. Meanwhile the unit price dropped from $50 to $1, and the military’s portion of consumption fell from 100 percent to about a third.”

Maier, American Empire

He speculates that technology may be changing the very idea of empire in the 21st century. At least it is putting stress on the idea of territorial security as represented by America’s 20th century empire.

But he is careful in his analysis.

” Still, U.S. supremacy was not based on the continued acquisition or annexation of states. Instead it rested on a trio of hegemonic assets….” 1. “the reach of American power, or “full-spectrum dominance..” 2. “American economic role–first as producer, then diffuser and consumer….” 3. “American cultural attractions and ideologies…”

Charles Maier, American Empire

I found his subsequent analogies of cultural empire pretty interesting:

“The reach of American culture and values had many earlier precedents. The influence of Hellenistic art reached the Indus and beyond; Greek and Latin art, philosophy, and linguistic primacy had penetrated vast areas, and their presence lingered even as the Alexandrian and later Roman borders shrank. Buddhist texts and models of spiritual commitment suffused East Asia… Islam … left a powerful notion of an underlying territorial as well as a spiritual community. the Habsburg conjunction of Roman Catholic religious institutions and imperial power testified to a cultural connection from the backlands of Brazil to the edges of Poland…”

Charles Maier, American Empire (emphasis added).

One last point he makes in the essay also captured my attention. He differentiates between the effect and desirability of democracy and capitalism. Sorting out these two is important to me. I support the former much more than the latter.  Then he mentions that if there is to be “an empire of liberty, as Jefferson envisioned, it could not be America’s alone.

I only have the Afterword left to read. American Empire is an illuminating book. I love the way he pulls thousands of years of history into his discussion.

**********************************************************************

A study encourages people to take the doctor’s notes home after exams. – NYTimes.com

I would love to see the entire medical profession culture changed toward more openness. I like the idea that (excepting those who are being treated for mental illness) patients should be able to manage their own care with as much info as possible.

*********************************************************************

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in Newark – Review – NYTimes.com

Skryabin’s notion of color organ was used in this concert. I would love to have heard/seen it.

**********************************************************************

Thieves Steal Picasso and Mondrian Paintings in Athens – NYTimes.com

*********************************************************************

Elderly ‘Experts’ Share Life Advice in Cornell Project – NYTimes.com

Maybe it’s because I am becoming “old,” but these age/wisdom things attract me.

*********************************************************************

Deception – Radiolab

Thank you to daughter Sarah for pointing me to this podcast. I have added Radiolab to my night listening…..

*********************************************************************

Mom can stay in U.S. while deportation case is reviewed | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Thank you to daughter Elizabeth (who is on a flight to Beijing as I write this) for pointing out this injustice and linking me up to sign the petition that stopped this woman’s deportation.

*******************************************************************