I admit it. I skipped my morning reading and tried to find out results from yesterday’s election. I made a cheat sheet to take with me so I remember my choices. I used it to record who won and who lost. I have changed my voting patterns. In 2000 I voted for Nader. I felt that the GW Bush presidency was a disaster for the country.  I don’t really blame him particularly because I don’t think that one person has all that much control. But our country’s actions during his administration were very different (I like to think) than they would have been under a Gore administration. I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for the highly reactionary Joe Liebermann who was second on that ticket.

I learned my lesson. I held my nose and voted for Obama. I guess I’m glad he won but I still believe that Tom Wolfe has it partly right when he describes the government as being like a train on tracks with the parties on either side screaming at it to change its direction, but it just keeps on pretty much in the same way.

He says presidents are pretty inconsequential except for their war powers.

Not sure if I totally agree with that. It is complex, that is for for sure.

I’m relieved that the “take no prisoners” approach the Republicans seem to have been pursuing at least failed at the Presidential level.

I think intransigence leads to worse government. Not that I think people should surrender their values.  I just think that governing is important and to declare that the most important thing about government is to immediately began working against a second term for the elected president seems to me to be wrong-headed if not cynical. Glad it didn’t work.

Also glad to see Pete Hoekstra not get elected. I believe that he did damage in the house. I think he is an old style Republican unlike Huizenga (who also got relected as our local Congressional Rep) and Dykstra (the current mayor of Holland). Old style Republicans seem very reductive. They play on the Tea Party. I have tweeted back and forth with Huizenga. He seems very convinced about his ideas. But I don’t get the “take no prisoners” thing from him or Dykstra.

Anyway, glad this is all over.

FWIW here are two bulletin articles I submitted yesterday. They relate to some of my musings on my blog. Haven’t heard from the boss whether she will publish them as is or wants changes. One is for this week and one for next.

Possible Music note for Sunday:

Why sing psalms? A psalm is a song. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “psalm” this way: “ Any of the sacred songs contained in the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament and Hebrew Scriptures.”

The Performance Notes section in the Hymnal 1982: Service Music volume says

“Biblical song has been part of the Christian liturgy from very early times. Continuing a tradition familiar from Jewish worship, the sing of psalms and biblical canticles became a regular feature both of the Eucharist and of the daily office.”

Today we begin singing psalms in our worship using one of nine Simplified Anglican Chants found in the Hymnal 1982 at S 408- S 416.  Concerning how to sing chant setting the Performance Notes mentioned above says:

“When singing Anglican chant settings of canticles and psalms, particular care should be taken to make sure that the rhythm, sense, and mood of the words govern the tempo dynamics, and style of the singing.”

“Good chanting is good singing. Chant is a musical medium for the clear and expressive singing of liturgical texts. Word accents create the rhythm in chant … if singers read the text in an expressive but not exaggerated manner, and then sing the words to the chant with the same rhythmic flow, they will discover how chant can unify the Christian community’s singing of liturgical texts.”

This means we sing the psalms very much the way we have been reading them together, unhurried and carefully, realizing the meaning of what we are saying together.  Chanting has been described has heightened prayer. By singing, we take our words one step further away from their ordinary use and deepen their meaning  as we pray them.

Steve Jenkins, Music Director

I have been yelling at my answering machine a bit more lately.

Last night I yelled at the Mayor of Holland. Twice.

I was yelling that despite his support for the local airport millage, I planned to vote for it. Tomorrow I guess I will return to yelling at banks and credit cards who call to tell me of my last chance to change my account to a better interest rate.

I do like being able to order used books through the Internet.

I recently ordered T. S. Eliot’s play, The Elder Statesman. It was mentioned in an essay on his Four Quartets and I didn’t recognize it.

It arrived in the mail yesterday. I sat down and read it straight through. I have read many plays in my life. When I was a young man in Flint Michigan I would visit the new book sections of poetry, music and theater areas when I first entered the library.

My browsing habits have changed somewhat. For the most part this is for the better because I can zero in on what I am looking to learn much easier with the new search engines. But I still check out new book shelves at the library.

I found the play by Eliot to have some fun stuff in it. It’s basically about an elderly (60ish!) British politician who is retiring. His daughter has talked him in to moving in to a nursing home. This nursing home is vaguely reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s TB clinic in The Magic Mountain. Obviously ill people are not accepted here. Even people who look ill.

Just before leaving Lord Claverton (that’s the statesman’s name) is confronted by someone he knew as a young man. This person is now going by the name of Federico Gomez. He and Claverton (who is also using a different can you buy diazepam online in the uk name — his wife’s, since she is the source of his title) attended Oxford together. Gomez remembers an indiscretion of Claverton’s during this period of their friendship. He also sort of blames Claverton for his own fall from grace due to Claverton giving him a taste of the good life. Gomez goes to jail for forgery and then flees to South America where he changes his name and becomes successful.

He has returned with enough information to blackmail Claverton, but is only interesting in reestablishing their friendship.

At the Magic Mountain like nursing home, Claverton runs across another “ghost’ (Eliot’s word) from his past. A woman whom he jilted and then who threatened to take him to court for breach of promise. They settled but she still has his indiscreet letters.

Claverton faces himself in the mirror of these past ghosts and reveals his true nature to his beloved daughter, Monica.

For me it is an unsatisfactory denouement, but one that movie producers everywhere would probably approve.

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I Didn’t Write That – NYTimes.com

Case of purloined expert identity.

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Outside the Amtrak Window, a Picture of the U.S. Economy – NYTimes.com

Check out the photos. The Eloi peer at the Morlocks through the train window.

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Chicago Project Follows What Happens to Juveniles – NYTimes.com

Chicago research they said couldn’t be done. Now that it’s done no one is paying attention.

“It’s a segment of the population that many Americans don’t think about, don’t care about,” Dr. Teplin said. “What rivets Americans is the unexpected — the Colorado massacre, mass school shootings. The everyday violence is something that doesn’t concern most people.”

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Outrage in Texas After Airborne Police Sharpshooter Kills 2 Immigrants – NYTimes.com

Texas is a state where government agents can fire on moving vehicles….. from a plane…

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Desperate for Civility on Capitol Hill – NYTimes.com

Interesting editorial the day before elections.

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All Saints Sunday is kind of a high holiday in the Episcopal Church. The noise level was higher than usual as people were buzzing about and preparing for church. I have discussed this with my boss and neither of us quite knows what to do about this part of the service (the prelude). My liturgical training tells me that the beginning of worship is a time of gathering. This entails greetings. On the other hand as the musician I am often performing some fine music that frames the prayer that will ensue.

I ascribe some of the loud chatter and obliviousness to the moment to the way our entire society treats the arts and music in particular. Music has largely become a commodity.

It’s also the soundtrack of living.

Rarely is it the prism into meaning that much of it attempts to be.

Anyway, I kicked up the registration slightly to the prelude. Still some parishioners complained to me that they couldn’t hear it.

Of course they sit at the other side of the room.

Whippy skippy.

My failing strategy is to do excellent music well. I find that my fallback reaction to leading with content and not perception pretty much fails in all situations these days.

When we have visiting musicians, people are a bit more aware that music is happening before and after the service. I feel that this is partly politeness but also I feel like perception that something is happening has risen with the present of visual instruments. The organ pipes are presently not visible. I am guessing that if there is ever a more obvious organ installation at my church where you can see the pipes perception will rise that someone is actually doing something with it before and after the service.

Part of my whining about the educated and trained musicians is that I have a strong conviction that what I and my music ministers offer musically is a cut above the average church music that can be experienced in most churches. But still most of the educated musicians seem to act as oblivious as any of the other people in the room.

Fuck the duck.

The best I can do these days is to turn away from this obtuseness and center myself as much as I can on what I am doing.

My boss (who was a semi pro athlete) understands how distracting this can be. An athlete or a musician must be prepared for distraction. I use sports analogies with her quite a bit. When I brought this up recently,  the distraction part of the analogy made sense, but I pointed out that what I am trying to do with music is communication. I guess this inevitably fails more than it succeeds in the kind of environment I am working.

Nonetheless I persist. The music went well yesterday.  We make a big deal out of the Episcopalian hymn, “For All the Saints.” The choir sings two of the 8 verses in a choral arrangement. Yesterday I had high voices (women and children) on verse 6 and low voices (men) on verse 7. I change the accompaniment to fit these variations. And we had descants on a couple of other verses. All in all, it’s a pretty cool way to start All Saints Sunday.

The kids choir sang a few measures by themselves in the anthem I had tried to teach them. Then I had the chamber choir gently join in. This worked okay. As usual all three kids in the choir were also altar servers. I’m not sure if this is a drawback or not. It might help assure their attendance since all three are enthusiastic new altar servers.

The choir ably sang C. V. Stanford’s “Justorum Animae” at the beginning of communion. It’s hard for me not to think that music at my church is pretty good.

I should add that I know that many people at my church do appreciate the music and perceive much of what is happening (if they can hear it, heh).

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The Dead Weight of Past Dictatorships – NYTimes.com

Historically informed view of contemporary struggling societies.

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Making Babies, Just to Make Ends Meet – NYTimes.com

The new normal: making money how you can including making babies for other people.

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The Far Side of Acrimony – NYTimes.com

An eloquent essay by Frank Bruni pleading for a lull in the madness with the new president whoever he is.

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Chess – Falko Bindrich Accused of Cheating – NYTimes.com

Chessmaster goes to the john during the tournament, has cell phone,  did he cheat?

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Remembering the Berlin Wall | The Nation

I had no idea that bits (huge bits in cases) of the Berlin wall were housed all over.

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The photographer let the mask drop

when he realized Eileen and I were not going to buy pictures.

He went quickly from hearty

to sullen,

from quipping

to soft grunts of assent.

I suppose it’s natural for sales people to want to charm, to engender a light almost trusting moment.

I am chagrined how I fall for people’s masks over and over.

But I think it’s better (for me at least) to try not to let my own ever present cynicism take over and keep trying to trust people.

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How Do You Raise a Prodigy? – NYTimes.com

Have bookmarked this to read. Thanks to Peter Kurdziel for pointing this article out on Facebook.

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Russian Band in Trademark Dispute – NYTimes.com

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Iran Sanctions Take Toll on Medical Imports – NYTimes.com

The law of unintended consequences.

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Cloisters (Dennis Aubrey) « Via Lucis Photography

This web site is amazing. The people behind it travel, take pictures and tell history. Very cool.

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I sometimes remember how a friend of mine for whom I had the greatest respect and admiration inadvertently remarked about my poetry that my persistence would inevitably lead to good poetry. I of course I heard that my poetry wasn’t good.

At this point I am pretty much at peace with my own abilities as a poet and musician and see myself as someone who seeks to improve what meager skills he has.

I only bring it up because I think my reactions to and readings of poetry and music reflect my own bias however misguided.

This morning I found myself dissatisfied with the poetry of Oni Buchanan in her volume The Dry Animal which I am finishing reading. This is the second volume of her poetry I have read. A few of her poems jumped out at me as full of insights and meaning as poems and music sometimes do. But this morning I found myself wondering if her approach to poetry in some of  the poems in The Dry Animal had a sort of thesaurus feel. By that I meant that her choice of words seem to almost feel like pastiches of soft meaning where the words were largely emptied of resonances and chosen almost naively.

This probably says more about the way I think and read than Buchanan’s abilities or way of writing.

Hence my memory of my friends assessment of me as a young bad poet.

Later I finished reading the essay I have been reading, “T. S. Eliot’s ‘Quartets’ : a new reading (1967).” I found Denis Donoghue’s analysis very unsatisfactory. I suppose the year it was written is pretty significant. Donoghue was writing only twenty or so years since the publication of the “Four Quartets” by Eliot as a whole. Donoghue (who when googled seems to be still teaching, writing and hopefully thinking) would probably complete rework his analysis now. Critics at the time and even now read “Four Quartets” with a Christian background in mind. This is discomforting to me. Also initially critics felt that the third section or quartet, “The Dry Salvages,” had failed as a work of poetry.

As I read this section now it seems to me to be as attractive and intriguing to me as the other sections.

Reading in critiques from the sixties, there seem to be almost a consensus that Eliot had over reached poetically in “Four Quartets” in “The Dry Salvages.”

I cast about for another point of view and found an excellent article by Tahita Fulkerson, “Eliot’s Sestina in ‘The Dry Salvages'” (College Literature, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Fall 1985) pp. 277-281).

Fulkerson is writing after another twenty years has passed. A google of her name reveals she is now president of a college in Texas. I love google.

I found her analysis enlightening. Unfortunately, it’s one of those privileged access only articles which can only had by normal people for 16 buckeroos. Right!

I won’t recount the insights Fulkerson afforded me as I see your eyes are beginning to lid over. The reason I mention it is that I found a startling misprint in it that got passed proofreading.

What is actually quoted above are lines 25-30 twice.

In order to make sense of Fulkerson’s comment, one has to read the actual lines 19-24.

Just another instance where the world of print is as unreliable as the cyber world of information. It was just this sort of error that I constantly run across that caused me to begin to use WikiPedia. One must be critical no matter what source one consults, eh?

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World War II Pigeon’s Message a Mystery – NYTimes.com

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China – Cafe Owner Sentenced Over Online Messages – NYTimes.com

Kunming in the news! This is where my daughter and her partner lived for a few years and Eileen and I visited them there.

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Greek Editor Not Guilty in Publishing Names With Swiss Accounts – NYTimes.com

How about that?

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The Blackmail Caucus – NYTimes.com

Vote for Mitt because the Republicans refuse to cooperate with Obama?

“.. arguing for Mr. Romney on the grounds that he could get things done veers dangerously close to accepting protection-racket politics, which have no place in American life.”

Please note that crazy liberal Krugman does say “By all means, vote for Mr. Romney if you think he offers the better policies.”

We keep getting calls from the oddest people.

Bill Clinton called.

Sarah Palin called.

Some guy called claiming to be the son of Ronald Reagan.

Good grief. I really don’t know what each call was about because I didn’t listen to them. And there have been many other calls.

I heard someone on the radio advising people not to pay attention to political ads.

The sad thing was that the speaker (some expert) maintained that political ads despite their outrageous nature now work so it behooves anonymous donors to purchase them for causes.

Good grief. Who is getting their information from this stuff? No wonder the democracy is beyond broken.

On a happier note, my trio yesterday rehearsed Frescobaldi with the new tempos I had found.

We also rehearsed some parts to a piece by William Byrd I have scheduled for November 18th.

I think this music is pretty charming.

I dumped the parts into Finale a while back. I was waiting for people to let me know if they wanted to play an instrumental part. I invited 5 people. 3 immediately said yes, 1 eventually said no, and finally the last person said no yesterday.

After that I knew which parts to assign to whom. In between class (which of course ran late) and my rehearsal I quickly extracted parts for my players.

It’s dangerous to work quickly on this kind of thing. Easy to make mistakes. But we did manage to read through it yesterday.

In the remain time at rehearsal, we turned to Mozart. The string players said it was a bit of a culture shock to move from the Renaissance pieces we had been rehearsing (which are rather solemn) to the joy and dancing music of a Mozart piano trio.

I confess that I love moving from music style to music style.  I remember being so impressed with a CBC radio show years ago called “Eclectic Circus.” It was the first time I had heard the phrase, “The divine Miss Billie Holiday.”

When I was very young, someone in my father’s church in Flint cautioned me about becoming a “Jack of all trades and master of none.”

On the one hand this has haunted me because I have never felt as competent at the things I choose to do as I would like to be. Even now I can see improvement in my keyboard skills because I continue to hone them and aspire to play well.

But on the other hand, it helps me understand myself as someone who likes a wide range of things, whether it’s music, literature, poetry or food.

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In China, Silencing a Voice for Justice – NYTimes.com

Another disturbing story about the lack of justice in China.

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Vietnam – Musicians Singled Out by Officials – NYTimes.com

Iran – Money Woes Halt Orchestra – NYTimes.com

Music in the news and it’s not good news.

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Bahrain Bans All Protests in New Crackdown – NYTimes.com

Great. Out stupid election politics has got to be contributing to this terrible move.

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This is a scan of the cover of my copy of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. I finished re-reading them this morning. I had added this book to my morning poetry read after finishing up poetry books by Jon Woodward and Oni Buchanan. I’m actually not quite done with Buchanan’s volume, What Animal,but am nearing the end of it.

I find it helpful to consult books about books. In Eliot’s case this is especially helpful since his work sits contextually in a larger poetical and historical context.

Sitting next to my books by T. S. Eliot was this very old paperback collection of essays.

As you can see it’s brittle pages are yellowed with age. After I read the introduction last week, I discovered that the editor, Barnard Bergonzi, had made them chronological so that the essays with the most insights occur later in the book. I began reading Donogue’s essay above and am just about finished with it.

The result is that I’m thinking I might make Eliot my next poet to basically completely read. He has been an important poet in my life. I was surprised at how many cross-references to his other works I recognized and intrigued by those I didn’t.

His play Murder in the Cathedral is one I have read and re-read. His poems rattle around in my brain. I even wrote a cantata based on his longer work, Ash Wednesday, when I was a student. It was scored for SATB, oboe, flute, guitar, cello and harpsichord.

I thought I had done a little choral version for my present choir of one of the movements, but I can’t find it in Finale right now.

Donogue quoted a play by Eliot I hadn’t heard of: The Elder Statesman. I just ordered a used copy of it.

Since it was Halloween, I didn’t have rehearsals last night. This turned out to be quite a relief since I do pretty thorough prep for rehearsals these days. I used the time to look over anthems for Advent and Xmas. I was pretty much dreading this, but was pleasantly surprised by the work I did earlier in the fall. It took me about twenty minutes to come with up a working list of anthems through Epiphany.

I was so happy about this I went back to church and rehearsed Bach some more (having already rehearsed Stanford for this Sunday and the new settings I have scheduled for the following Sunday by Walther and Bach of the hymn tune Werde Munter).

Came home and did the pumpkin thing.

I had to make my jack-o-lantern. Eileen had already made hers. I had purchased a third pumpkin to cook. I peeled it and chopped it up. This made about 8 cups. I used half for this recipe:

Afghan-Style Pumpkin (With Yogurt Sauce) – Recipes – The New York Times

I omitted the ginger (didn’t have any), and skipped the yogurt since I didn’t make it very spicy. Eileen wouldn’t try it, but I LOVED it.

We had the usual trick or treaters last night. A bit lighter than usual probably due to the weather (rainy).

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