In one of my dreams last night, as I was walking on the street, a young man bumped into me deliberately. I bumped him back and then he repeated his bumping so hard that we fell down. He looked me and said calmly, “My name is Howard and I bumped you.” I replied, “My name is Steve and I bumped you back.” We began talking back and forth.

We got up and walked on. As I listened to Howard I realized that he was using extremely literate analogies. I only remember one this morning. Something about how the school where he was living had an evening atmosphere of charm and relaxation that reminded him of Rilke.

By the time he made this comment we were separating. He had called this out from across the square. Then we parted.  I arrived at my destination eager to share my experience. But each time I tried to tell people about the extraordinary young man I had met, someone turned on a TV. This happened twice in the dream before I gave up trying to say anything.

I woke up thinking about literacy. My teacher Craig Cramer always claimed that I was a well read person. He still seems to have this impression. I have noticed that I talk less and less about how I understand situations in relationship to what I read and think about. I have stopped hoping that people have read Rilke, Proust, and others who I carry around in my head. I don’t expect them to know the music, poems, or books that I find important and attractive.

I know that I can sometimes sound pompous when asking if they do. Since I am pompous enough, I notice that I keep my literary references more and more to myself unless someone asks me a question.

1. Neanderthals Leave Their Mark on Us – NYTimes.com

So if Neanderthals share some DNA with modern Homo Sapiens, this means they mated, right? I get confused because I thought the definition of species division was the inability to produce offspring. At any rate, I love this combination of DNA science and anthropology.

2. 20 Al Jazeera Journalists Face Charges in Egypt – NYTimes.com

Egypt is putting  journalists in prison.

Today is Eileen’s last day of work. Tomorrow she is retired. She and I both got up in a good mood.

She told me that when she turned off her alarm this morning, she thought, now I don’t have to turn it back on again. Ever. She is looking forward to doing all kinds of things with her time. She has ordered wool to weave. She has been crocheting already. Her only misgiving has been worrying about money. But I think that she has come to terms with that anxiety and put it largely behind her.

It’s interesting because she is feeling much the way I felt when I quit my Roman Catholic church job to do other music stuff. This time our roles are a bit reversed. My income is more important now since her early retirement lowered her pension. But I (like Eileen was when I quit my job) am quite happy in my work (church music and ballet).

I have been lazing about this morning. Got up later than usual. Just finished my usual reading. It’s about ten after nine. Usually I discipline myself to start blogging at 7:30 or earlier.

But today I definitely need some rest.

By the time I reached choir rehearsal last night I was exhausted and my brain was not working well. I felt it as I rehearsed. I wasn’t as sharp and creative in helping my singers sing better. It was a productive rehearsal but one in which I continually felt I could have been more effective. Ah well. Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

It looks like I might get a chance to work with a young student composer at Hope after all. Even though I emailed a  Music department prof I respect at Hope and he passed my request on to the right teacher, I haven’t heard back and probably won’t. I continue to be mystified that I seem to be off people’s radar.

But the dance department, via Julie Powell, does seem to value me as a resource. It’s Julie who asked me to write a character dance piece for a class last term. We decided it would be very cool to have a student composer write such a piece. It was then that I contacted the music department.

Julie recently spotted a young musician in one of her beginning ballet classes. She is going to connect me with him with the idea that he and I would work together devising a piece for her class to use this term.

I, of course, will try to get the student to do the creative work. I would really love this. I do love teaching even though I basically do not find the educational institutions of the society I live in to be about learning. I did some adjunct work for a while and enjoyed it. But somehow I worked my way out of the position by not being cooperative enough (I think that might have been it….. GVSU wanted me to drive over to Allendale in the morning and then also teach evening classes. When I said no to that, they never asked me again. I think the new chair saw adjuncts as something all teachers just have to do to pay dues. What a ding dong.).

Anyway, it would be fun to work with another musician on a composition project.

1. Marinara Worth Mastering – NYTimes.com

I skimmed through this article, but it convinced me to try the approach to marinara outlined. No onions, no cheese, short cooking time. All good. We’ll see if I can find decent canned tomatoes like the person in the article recommends.

2. Pete Seeger, Champion of Folk Music and Social Change, Dies at 94 – NYTimes.co

I have never been a fan of Seeger. But his obit helps me see that I didn’t seem him clearly. I knew that he was banned from TV at one point, but didn’t realize how  much harassment he suffered in his career. I’m not sure I knew he wrote the songs the obit gives him credit for. I’m still not terrible attracted to his persona that he sold for years, nor his music, but now I think I respect him more.

I postponed my eye doctor’s appointment yesterday as well as my Mom’s doctor’s appointment. This gave me more breathing room for the day so that I managed to do all the stuff I had to do. I had to skip exercising so that I would have time to rest for an hour before my two committee meetings.

I am amused that I who so abhor committee meetings had two back to back last night. I even led most of the first one. Today I have my usual full day of classes and stuff. I got up late so I will have to abbreviate my blog to this short entry.

1. A Discredited Supreme Court Ruling That Still, Technically, Stands – NYTimes.co

The shameful Supreme Court ruling that upheld sending Japanese-American to concentration camps in WWII is still on the books.

2. Shedding Light on a Vast Toll of Jews Killed Away From the Death Camps – NYTimes

I didn’t know that “more Jews were killed by shooting in Ukraine” — an estimated 1.5 million — “than murdered in Auschwitz in the crematoria.”

3. William Bennett Modern features Salvador Dali- Alice in Wonderland

I also didn’t know that Dali had illustrated Alice in Wonderland.

4. America on Probation – NYTimes.com

It fascinates me how pundits dance around the truly gigantic evil of The New Jim Crow in our country. The author of this article mentions mass incarceration and the race of many affected but he softens it for his white rich audience.

5.Paranoia of the Plutocrats – NYTimes.com

Meanwhile the rich love to act the victim.

6. Your Next Job Application Could Involve a Video Game – NYTimes.com

Human Resources departments utilize creative approaches to assessing candidates for jobs.

I am feeling pressed today. Yesterday I did ballet classes until 1 PM. Walked home in the freezing cold. Plopped down and kept working on a presentation I have to give this evening.

I looked up after about five hours. Sheesh. I only have 20 “slides” done. I’m using Google Presentation. I assume it’s similar to power point presentations. My goal is to make it entirely self contained so that any one can page through it online and get all the info in it.

Here’s a link to what I have done so far if you’re interested.

I plan to add at least a few more slides dealing with the idea of manuals (keyboards) on organs before this evening. Comments welcome.

I’m hoping I will get another shot at educating this group so I can explain further ideas like pipe styles, what a stop is, and the harmonic function of different ranks of pipes.

In the meantime I have to be in Grand Rapids at 9:30 so my eye surgeon can double check his work on my eye last year. Everything pretty much came to a screeching halt here in Holland yesterday due to weather. The schools are closed again today already. I will probably set out for the eye surgeon unless I figure it’s unsafe or impossible.

My Mom has a shrink appointment at 1 PM. It remains to be seen if I can a) convince her she’s well enough to go to it, b) that the office will be open, and c) I can actually get her there in this mess. It’s likely when I call to tell her about this appointment she will beg off. I guess that’s pretty reasonable since she’s only be out of the hospital for about a week since her latest fall.

The Organ Committee meets at 6 PM at the church.

Then I am hosting an AGO board meeting at my house at 7:30 PM. The house is a wreck. I don’t have the presentation done. And I have to drive back and forth to GR this morning. Sheesh. Wonder how it will all turn out.

It has finally been made public that my church is going to purchase a new pipe organ. An anonymous donor has come forth with a sizable (and flexible) amount that should enable this community to purchase a small excellent pipe organ. I have been in contact with two builders either of which would put in a significant little instrument: Taylor and Boody, and Fritts. There was some resistance in the committee to my initial comments  about what makes a good pipe organ. My friend and former teacher Craig Cramer has consented to come and talk the committee through the process. That will help.

In the meantime, I continue to watch people in this church and community underestimate my understandings and abilities. Oh well. This is probably inevitable with my personality which can seem eccentric in this insular context. It probably doesn’t help that I insist on continuing to attempt to develop my abilities, critical thinking and discernment, not so much working to improve how I am seen by others.

At the same time many individuals locally do seem to “get” me.  Yesterday a woman who was a professor in a large California university and recently suffered a brush with death in a heart attack took me aside and told me the music was especially good today. I told her that it was especially nice to see her up and about. Also one trained choir director who is consistently very gracious complimented me on the music yesterday. So not all underestimate me.

Tomorrow evening I am supposed to give a presentation my boss has dubbed “Organ 101.” Unfortunately I have  a pretty busy couple of days and will have to sandwich preparation in between other stuff like work today and doctor appointments for myself and my Mom tomorrow.

I am planning on using Google Presentation (which looks to be a kind of free power point) to do this. If possible will link the finished product in here.

1. How Long Have I Got Left? – NYTimes.com

This is an amazing essay by a 36 year old neurosurgeon. I love the way he has developed a clear attitude about what it means to be alive.

 Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.

2. A Racist Turn in India – NYTimes.com

The USA’s evil foible is not limited to our shores. Essay by someone on the ground in India. Excellently written. Am planning on checking out The Wildings a novel by the author, Nilanjano Roy.

4. More Imperfect Unions – NYTimes.com

Ross Douthat is a writer I read and often disagree with, but he at least mentions “mass incarcerations” as part of our problems here in the USA. I hope I am seeing a growing awareness of “The New Jim Crow.”

5. ‘Just the Facts, Ma’am’ No More – NYTimes.com

Bookmarked this because of this quote:

E.B. White’s retelling of his teacher William Strunk’s belief: “Will felt that the reader was in serious trouble most of the time, a man floundering in a swamp, and that it was the duty of anyone attempting to write English to drain this swamp quickly and get his man up on dry ground, or at least throw him a rope.”

I spent the morning yesterday using Eileen’s snow blower to clear our drive. She joined me after a while. We had another significant snowfall. Many local events were canceled. Today is my church’s annual meeting. The annual meeting is an important event in the life of a church. My boss sent out an email saying that we would have both church as usual and our planned annual meeting. She is planning another update the following Sunday for those who are unable to make today’s meeting.

I drove to the church yesterday afternoon to practice organ. The parking lot was full of snow so I parked on the street. While I was practicing the church snow plower came and cleared the lot. Streets between here and the church were covered with snow whether they had been plowed or not.

Last night I decided to improvise veggie burgers using  left over kichadi. Kichadi is a favorite dish of Eileen’s and mine consisting of rice, dried split peas and spices. Using this pilaf, I added egg whites and a bit of shredded cheese and browned up some patties. It was good.

I finished reading the graphic novel, Me and the Devil Blues: the Unreal Life of Robert Johnson by Akira Hiramoto. Although it doesn’t indicate this on the cover very obviously (which is the back since it’s one of those manga type books you read from right to left), it is the first of more than one volume.

I don’t think I will read the next volume. I almost quit reading this one when the author decided to give Robert Johnson an extra five fingers on his left hand.

I found this annoying on several levels. One of which is that I have learned Johnson’s guitar licks and they are perfectly human and can be done with five fingers on the left hand.

I am disappointed because I admire Johnson’s recordings and thought a creative speculative treatment of his life might be fun.

Not this one.

1. When ‘Long-Form’ Is Bad Form – NYTimes.com

Just because a piece is long doesn’t make it a good one I guess.

2.The Penance of Glenn Beck – NYTimes.com

The list of the “Average number of correct answers to five questions about domestic affairs” found in news sources including NPR, MSNBC and Fox is startling and disheartening. Nobody got more than 2.

3. On Children’s Website, N.S.A. Puts a Furry, Smiley Face on Its Mission – NYTimes.com

Have to agree with the libertarian assessment mentioned that this looks like propaganda.

4. The Tungara Frog’s Mating Call Attracts Predators | Science | Smithsonian

Great pictures as well as a fun little article.

5. Kiev Truce Falls Apart, and Unrest Resurges – NYTimes.com

Ukraine coming apart at the seams.

6. Writer Tells Africa What He Couldn’t Tell ‘Mum’ – NYTimes.com

Wainaina identifies homophobia as a Victorian export of colonialists.

7. Perverse Primaries – NYTimes.com

Never heard of the “sore loser” laws.

44 states have “sore loser” laws of one form or another. These laws effectively block a candidate who fails to win a party primary from appearing on the general election ballot, as either an independent or as the nominee of another party.

8. A French Clown’s Hateful Gesture – NYTimes.com

I keep reading about the gesture, but this article made it the clearest to me just what it is.

the “quenelle” (literally, a dumpling, a French version of gefilte fish). The move consists of the right arm pointed straight down, which the left hand keeps from lifting — very like the repressed Nazi salute of Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove.”

9. We’ve Got Your Number – NYTimes.com

Linda Greenhouse analyzes the history of understanding privacy and tech in court decisions. She is excellent.

10. Greetings, From Around the World – NYTimes.com

Letters to the editor about the literal meaning of greetings around the world.

11. It Takes a Generation – NYTimes.com

This article by David Brooks about “expanding opportunity for underprivileged children” neglects to mention “The New Jim Crow.” Good grief.

12. Village Council in India Accused of Ordering Rape – NYTimes.com

Unthinkable. Madness.

13. Mars Rover Marks an Unexpected Anniversary With a Mysterious Discovery – NYTime

Hey. Where did that rock come from?

14. Modern Family Matters – NYTimes.com

At least Kristof mentioned the “New Jim Crow” if not by name in his discussion of single parent families.

15. A Plan to Make Voting Easier – NYTimes.com

I understand the partisan problems with making voting easier, I just don’t approve of them. Voting should be easy.

In thinking about how denial works in the are of mass incarceration and subsequent repression of a significant number of African Americans in the USA Michelle Alexander draws on the analogy of a birdcage.

First of all she draws on the late Stanley Cohen’s idea of how denial works.

“Knowing about yet denying the occurrence of ” all kinds of things is a way of life in the USA. Cohen helps me understand that “Denial may be neither a matter of telling the truth nor intentionally telling a lie.” It’s more of a “state of mind.” One in which we “know and don’t know” at the same time.

Louis Bickford, in a review of his book puts it this way: ” As a South African Jew who has lived in Johannesburg, Israel, and England he [Cohen] has seen people say things that blatantly contradict what is clearly the truth—or show an all-too-shocking ignorance of the obvious—so many times and in so many contexts that throughout his life he keeps returning to a basic set of questions: what do we do with the knowledge of the suffering of others? How do we react to the terrible events that surround us? What exactly do we do when we deny the existence, significance, or emotionality of the ever-present and on-going misery of our human brethren? How about when we deny our own responsibility or complicity?”

Bickford (in the publically available excerpt linked above) explains Cohen this way: “..once we recognize the basics—”statements of denial are assertions that something did not happen, does not exist, is not true, or is not known about” —Cohen points to the kinds of questions we must ask: What is the “content of denial”? Three possibilities are “literal denial” (“it did not happen”); “interpretive denial” (“it happened, but its meaning is different that it appears”); or “implicatory denial” (“it happened…” [for a reason]. This is the end of the excerpt anyone can read online. The blocking of ideas makes me crazy.

Alexander quotes Iris Marion Young who is relying on the work of feminist theorist Marilyn Frye: “If one thinks about racism by examining only one wire of the cage, or one form of disadvantage, it is difficult to understand how and why the bird is trapped. Only a large number of wires arranged in a specific way, and connected to one another, serve to enclose the bird and to ensure that it cannot escape.”

Alexander points out that “any given wire of the cage may or may not be specifically developed for the purpose of trapping the bird, yet it still operates (together with the other wires) to restrict its freedom.”

She later concludes that the situation of many disenfranchised African Americans is that the cage is locked.

1. OPPRESSION

Quote from Frye’s book,  The Politics of Reality (Trumansburg, N.Y.,: The Crossing Press, 1983) which mentions the birdcage metaphor.

2. “the period of invisible punishment” | The G Bitch Spot

Online excerpt of the section of The New Jim Crow I am citing extending the birdcage metaphor explicitly to repression of African Americans.

3. Capering & Kickery: Mr. Saracco’s Five-Step Waltz

Further info on 5/4 19th century waltzes I mentioned recently.

4. Douglas Davis, Critic and Internet Artist, Dies at 80 – NYTimes.com

One of those obits with numerous citations I mean to check out.

5. When God Spoke English: The Making of the King James Bible: Adam Nicolson

Interesting book mentioned by MacCulloch in Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. It also goes by the titles  God’s secretaries and Power and Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James

6. Bee Deaths May Stem From Virus, Study Says – NYTimes.com

Fascinating science about the mysterious disappearance of bees.

Moving from reading in The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander to Rewired by Ethan Zuckerman this morning I was struck by the contrast between the two stories the two books are telling.

On the one hand, I read this morning in Alexander how the absence of African American fathers in nuclear families has long been pointed to as a dire circumstance. The assumed implicit if not explicit cause is African American men’s lack of responsibility, their laziness, their selfishness. The question “Where have all the black gone men?” is omitted from the discussion whether you are candidate Obama, Bill Cosby, Sidney Poitier or a host of other public figures not necessarily African American.

Alexander bemoans the lack of journalistic acumen to state the simple fact that there are more African American men and women under the control of  the political system today than there were enslaved in 1850.  In the 1850 census “1.7  millions adults (ages 15 and older) were slaves” “at year end 2007” “one in eleven black adults were under correctional supervision, or approximately 2.4 million people.”

Part of the weirdness is how this is just an accepted way of life in the US even though we are unique in this. “It is simply taken for granted  that, in cities like Baltimore and Chicago, the vast majority of young black men are currently under the control of the criminal justice system or branded criminals for life. This extraordinary circumstance—unheard of in the rest of the world—is treated here in America as a basic fact of life, as normal as separate water fountains were just a half a century ago.”

This madness and quiet banal evil situation is so weird. Then I read in Zuckerman about aging guitarist Neal Schoen who was looking for a replacement for Steve Parry as lead singer for the band Journey. He found a replacement in a young talented Filipino named Arnel Pineda he spied on YouTube. Pineda went on to a career as the new Steve Perry and bridged US Pop culture with its unique expression in Manilla. When Pineda was thirteen he was homeless “making a living collecting and selling bottles and scrap metal.”

I can’t help but speculate that his career might easily have been cut short in the USA if he had been a young African American thirteen year old on the streets of our cities. The bland silent current incarnation of the “War on Drugs” could have easily carried him into the justice system.

Weird evil shit.

There is a term in Manilla for musicians who can eerily reproduce exactly the sounds of popular recordings: plakado. It means “platter” as in a vinyl record.

This made me think of my own struggle with living as a live musician in a time when the vast majority of music people access are through recordings.

I have a story in my brain about Herb Alpert. As a successful record label owner (A&M, Alpert and Moss), he was in a bar listening to some group that later became famous (The Carpenters?) and made a comment something like ‘let’s get these people in a studio and see how they really sound.”

I used to think that the noise in the bar was what he was talking about. Now I think he wanted to get them into a controlled acoustic environment. One that feels sterile to me, but I know is how recordists do their work.

Final random comment: This weekend I am playing organ music by Healey Willan for the prelude and postlude, next week all music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

I learned something in my morning ballet class yesterday. There were 5/4 waltzes in the 19th century. In fact they were pretty prevalent if Linda Graham the instructor is to be believed. She spontaneously asked me to explain meter to the dancers. Which I attempted to do. Then she asked me to play music and have them identify the meter. Which I also attempted to do. Somehow in the course of this I mentioned 5/4 time and how it was pretty much a 20th century phenomenon. Linda said that actually there were “famous” 19th century 5/4 waltzes. I told her and the class that I didn’t know that.

Most of this class did not require a pianist. When this happens I sit on the bench and try to lend half an ear in case the instructor decides she needs me. While I did this yesterday I googled 5/4 19th century waltzes on my phone.

Hey. There were 19th century 5/4 waltzes. How about that? Musically speaking the music for them is nothing that famous or at least I didn’t recognize it.

From my own playing in Tchaikowsky I know of a 5/4 waltz. I discovered this in a little collection I bought of his piano works and thought it was charming. I had never heard of it before.

After class Linda and I were talking and when I mentioned that I knew the Tchaikowsky 5/4 waltz she said that was the famous one. Hmm.

Nice to learn something. Eileen says I learn something everyday. If this is so, it’s probably connected to my vast ignorance.

Living in a Calvinist church environment, I sometimes  find it helpful to remember Franky Schaeffer’s ideas in his book Addicted to Mediocrity.

To simplify a bit, he maintains that habits of thought and taste that are obviously shoddy hold a certain comfort for people who are attracted to them.

He speaks a lot about the arts in the Christian church and that’s sort of my starting point as well so I relate to what he has to say.

I have also read some of his father’s stuff which is intellectually conservative and influential in world wide intellectual Calvinist circles.

I own this book (God knows where it is right now… my books are in disarray).

I know Schaeffer the younger eventually landed in the Orthodox camp. I have read several of his books. I think he may have influenced my thinking more than I can explicitly determine.

I know his description of his childhood experience of religion is one that reminded in some ways of my own. The bad taste of the church paraphernalia  shops (reminding me of my own experience “camp meetings”), the intellectual dad. His dad was obviously more of an intellectual than mine, but still my dad was an sort of intellectual pariah in his denomination to the point he was officially omitted from church directories in Ohio.

I have moved away from a lot of church stuff. At least now I am more interested in scholarship and the arts in the church. I do see it all through the prism of my own personality and past which inevitably situates it in historical music and popular culture of the USA.

But as I sometimes say, “church has been very very good to me.” My church work allowed me to make a living on the periphery not having to plunge into the crazy morass of its world or the academic world or the popular music world.

This is one of the reason I feel so lucky. I am able to dabble in the things things I love like music, books and ideas. This fits me. Good thing since I’ve not found another place where I fit in besides the ballet classroom or surfing the huge reference resources of the internet.

I am lucky to continue in these spaces and also spend hours with the music I love.

1. Claudio Abbado, an Italian Conductor With a Global Reach, Is Dead at 80 – NYTimes.

After reading this obit, I Spotified Rossini operas and played them while I burned Eileen’s pot roast.

2. David Remnick: On and Off the Road with Barack Obama : The New Yorker

Lengthy online portrait I am reading.

3. http://www.booktv.org/Program/14966/The+King+Years+Historic+Moments+in+the+Civil+Rights+Movement.aspx

I watched some of Taylor Branch’s fascinating speech recently given at 13th annual National Book Festival on the National Mall in Washington, DC. He is a historian of the Civil Rights movement and has insights about where we are now. Recommended.

I got up this morning thinking about conversations I heard yesterday. I was mulling over the concept of sacred and secular music. This distinction has practically no meaning for me as applied to churches today. Instead I think of the idea of coherence and beauty whether in the context of public prayer or any other context. My own ideas of coherence and beauty include the subjective response of the people who are musicking (Christopher Small’s favorite term for the gestalt of the aural experience which includes anyone who has any connection to a musical performance: audience, dancers, performers, composers, the people who set up chairs, anybody).

As a student of music for many years I sought objective criteria in evaluating the beauty of music. This was often rooted in its structural coherence. I have abandoned this, realizing that music is much more powerful and diverse.

Now it’s almost amusing to me and certainly fascinating to listen to how people of all ilk talk about music.

Recently I listened to a woman disavow any musical credibility in a room full of what she perceived were people more skilled in music than her. She then went on to confess that there was a blues player that she was enamored of and embarrassed at her attraction to. Music meant so much to her that she drove miles and miles to be part of a live performances by this musician. I think Small would see that as a strong example of musicking.

In the case of academics approach to sacred and secular music, it’s hard for me to guess too much because I think the academic world has significantly shifted to include people who are much less dogmatic in their views than people I knew when I was in school.

(This reminds me of a few music profs I had.)

Nevertheless I think the old prejudices still exist and if we are not careful can easily be inculcated in young musicians, dividing up music into the acceptable (sacred) and unacceptable (secular). It amuse me to hear academics declaim such prejudice and then except their own favorite such as gospel music.

In the African American community there was a real struggle when musicians began to bring in the sounds of popular music thereby creating some of the exquisite sounds of gospel music. Now the style is pretty codified and I can draw on it easily in my work. It can even be made into a pedagogy.

I think best music in church is music that is true to itself as music and not rooted in selling Jesus or a sacrament. Just as I feel that the music that attracts me in any context seems to me to have this attribute, a sort of basic honesty and even transcendence.

Honest music is a tall order. Mix in the subjective power of associations people have and it’s a wonder there is ever a coherent discussion of it.

However I’m pretty sure it could happen and probably does.

Not in my hearing lately however, hence the mulling.

1. James Baldwin’s Paris – NYTimes.com

This makes me want to go back and reread the Baldwin I have read and read more of his work.

2.What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2014?

Mickey Mouse Laws are winning. Prepare for tiered service in your non-neutral internet.

3.StackLife

Very cool prototype at Harvard of factoring browsing back into online research.

4. Daily Kos: Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did

Very helpful reminder about US history.

Survived church.

I played well and managed to get the choir through it’s anthem okay.

I did the Samuel Barber setting of “What Wondrous Love of This” well. I’m not sure many people noticed. The adult acolytes like to stand right in front of the organ and talk loudly. This is what they did yesterday. I persisted in immersing myself as much as possible in Barber’s lovely music. Hard to feel a connection to listeners (which is part of the music dance) in this setting.  I simply see it as leading with content when people are used to having their perceptions thrilled in order to get their attention.

Once again I had a group of singers which was essentially a new group due to erratic attendance.

I spent most of the pregame teaching the anthem. Whippy skippy.

For the postlude I played a piece by William Boyce from the English baroque tradition. The English pipe organ from this period didn’t have pedals. So the music doesn’t call for pedals. It does however call for a deeper sound (16 foot pipes that sound 8 notes lowere than written). This pipes could be accessed from the manuals in any decently designed organ. Not so with my little Moller.

In an effort to make the music sound properly I played these notes in the pedal with my feet. This went well for about 80% of the piece. There is a temptation when things are not going as well as planned to switch to playing from feet to hands.

My hands could play this line with much more ease. This sort of panic approach in performance is one I try to avoid. Yesterday, when things were feeling a bit shaky in my head instead of switching I simply doubled the feet with adding the left hand. That felt like less of a panic compromise.

After the postlude there was a group of people who applauded. As Eileen said on the walk home, they were trying to be sure I felt appreciated. Awful good of them.

I did get numerous general compliments on the music. Never quite sure what people mean unless they are specific. The anthem was a lovely setting by Carson Coomans. My men jumped the gun in their second entrance. I have mentioned before that a conductor’s nightmare is the early entrance because it’s harder to get on track than a late one.

I find that performance in music is related to preparation. If people are not at rehearsals or disconnected in the rehearsal the performances shows evidence of that whether it’s obvious or not.

Ahem. Yesterday it was obvious.

But the choral piece was still quite lovely and not quite ruined by one little blip.

Eileen and I came home and watched Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show from Thursday as we had lunch.

He had Steven Brill on. Brill has an article coming out in the next issue of Time magazine.

It’s about the exorbitant cost of medical care in the U.S. It is a work of journalism with facts and figures double checked. Disheartening to read over and over the extortionist mark up that American hospitals have built in to their billing system. One can only hope that this quality journalistic investigation (held up in a public platform by Stewart) will help change business as usual in the USA.

Here’s a link to a PDF of the upcoming article. I’m on page 16 myself.

1. What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2014?

If the laws hadn’t been changed by selfish rich people. Works that would be available for translation, adaptation and use in movies and other art for free include Curious George, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Endgame by Samuel Beckett and others.

2. StackLife

Harvard Library Innovation Lab developing tools to increase usefulness of online access.

3. Library as Platform

Another scrutiny of how library connections could work better online.

Yikes. I am finding a bunch of religious books on my want to read list these days. I fault David MacCulloch for being such an excellent and fascinating writer. According to the silly Kindle reckoning I am 47% into his Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. As I have observed before this is probably inaccurate because Kindle counts the footnotes and index are part of the 100%.

I enjoy the way he parses history often via etymological consideration of words I know well. Cool beans.

Then I discovered that he has written a series of books that look interesting.

First his famous book. The Reformation: A History.

I am right now reading his description of the reformation in Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. I am learning tons of stuff and think his approach and prose is one that I would like to learn more about.

I just read his Wikipedia article and was delighted to discover that although in the Anglican tradition he declined ordination due to the church’s stance on homosexuality. Being a gay man himself probably had something to do with this, but more likely his clear sighted understanding of history helped shape his self-descriptions as a “candid friend to Christianity”… this dude is definitely my kind of Christian scholar.

I was ordained Deacon. But, being a gay man, it was just impossible to proceed further, within the conditions of the Anglican set-up, because I was determined that I would make no bones about who I was; I was brought up to be truthful, and truth has always mattered to me. The Church couldn’t cope and so we parted company. It was a miserable experience

This came from a BBC press dealy for the series he made out his book.

I was also surprised and happy to read he has written a biography of Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer was the moving mind behind much of the original Anglican Book of Common Prayer. I discovered this bio before I knew what if any tradition MacCulloch was speaking from.

Finally, the book published this year also looks very intriguing.

I keep being drawn toward the idea of silence in my life. This is probably related to my own tendency when allowed toward garrulousness.

First there was John Cage.

Then Merton the trappist.

Then the idea that music is painted on and incorporates silence (sort of Mozart blended with Cage, eh?).

MacCulloch looks fascinating on it.

Serendipitously this morning in my reading of Michelle Alexander she has a little section on silence about family members who have prisoners or former prisoners in their family. Alexander even goes a bit farther to my way of thinking when she says

There is a repression of self experienced by these families in their silence. The retreat of a mother or wife from friendships in church and at work, the words not spoken between friends, the enduring silence of children who guard what for them is profound and powerful information—all are telling indicators of the social effects of incarceration. As relationships between family and friends become strained or false, not only are people’s understandings of one another diminished, but, because people are social, they themselves are diminished as well.

Michelle Alexander, The New American Jim Crow

So Alexander is pointing to the dark side of silence in interpersonal relationships which is a much different idea from Merton/MacCulloch which is different from Cage.

The power of one word to bridge these concepts blows my mind.

1.Library as Platform

As opposed to bricks an mortar.

2. Sometimes ‘Nazi’ Is the Right Word – NYTimes.com

Recommended reading following up on Israel’s weird contemplation of making certain words illegal.

3. Back to the Digital Drawing Board – NYTimes.com

Susan Crawford has some clear eyed information about the Net Neutrality stuff.

I try to pretend that Friday is a day off with just a little bit of work in the morning (an 8:30 Ballet class). This went a bit haywire yesterday for some reason. My day filled up so full that I was unable to get to church to practice organ or exercise. Got back from class and worked on bills (Eileen’s and mine and my Mom’s). This took a bit of time. I listened to Obama’s NSA speech as I did them. Then off to do errands while Eileen tangled with Obamacare online.

Errands took up most of the afternoon; check in with Mom, go to bank, pick up coffee beans – 2 stops yesterday, go to library, pick up prescription nose drops for me, return to drop off stuff for Mom. By the time I managed to do all this I had about forty minutes until I had to return to the college to play for auditions for Blue Lake Fine Arts Dance Camp.

Whew.

Today I have got to do some serious resting as well as rehearsing and exercising.

1. Fact Sheet on U.S. “Constitution Free Zone” | American Civil Liberties Union

thank to Elizabeth for this link…. 

she put this info up on Facebooger: [Know Your Rights: Constitution Free Zone] Border Patrol has been setting up checkpoints inland — on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship. Unfortunately, our courts so far have permitted these kinds of checkpoints – legally speaking, they are “administrative” stops that are permitted only for the specific purpose of protecting the nation’s borders. They cannot become general drug-search or other law enforcement efforts.

2. Tea Party hatches quiet-but-insane plot against democracy

Hope this doesn’t happen.

3. Phones in Subway: On Elevated Lines, Hear the Future – NYTimes.com

This is a very New York kind of feature story…

4. Israel’s Efforts to Limit Use of Holocaust Terms Raise Free-Speech Questions – NYT

Limiting speech fascinates and bugs me.

My piano trio had its last rehearsal before a hiatus. Our cellist, Dawn Van Ark, is having surgery on her hand for carpel tunnel syndrome. I found myself exhausted in the rehearsal so the idea of not having an afternoon Thursday commitment for a while had its momentary attraction. However, I also find the weekly rehearsal a source of delight and replenishment. So whatchagonnado?

Thinking about connecting with information online, I have been pondering  Ethan Zuckerman’s use of the word, maxima. He defines it as a sign of what’s popular at the moment for a particular population. This can be significant when first discovering a new idea. He cites a friend’s initial discovery of Bob Marley’s music.

His friend, David Arnold, is obsessed with the music. When asked how he first ran across it, he said he was in a record store and noticed a Reggae section. He didn’t recognize the genre and was interested in knowing more about it. He noticed that Marley had many records available and figured he might be a place to start.

This Zuckerman was saying is a kind of maxima experience.

Twitter trending can point to this sort of thing. It reminded me of when I search on Spotify and see the most popular tunes by a certain artist or composer, I often click on the popular ones to get an immediate sense of what is trending.

Of course this doesn’t work mindlessly. Recently I was checking out a group called Take Six.

When I spotified them, they’re most popular tunes were all Christmas tunes.

I figure this reflects recent trending, but didn’t show tunes by this group that were interesting. So I went down through their playlist and discovered they had some wonderful arrangements of some songs I admire like “Taking it to the streets” by Michael McDonald and “Don’t Give Up” by Peter Gabriel.

Zuckerman talks about maxima in terms of his examination of serendipity. (Here’s a link to an expanded lecture he gave in 2011 called “Desperately Seeking Serendipity.” I haven’t read it entirely yet and notice that he seems to quote from Rewire  or at least touches on some of the ideas).

The notion of how one comes in contact with significant new ideas and art is a tricky one that I keep pondering. I like to see that randomness is being factored in as essential. So many times I have had random hunches pay off.

It was randomly that I picked up my first vinyl records (at KMART of all places back in the 60s!!!) of the Doors and Leonard Cohen. I remember in both cases being intrigued solely by the album covers of Strange Days by the Doors

and Leonard Cohen’s first album.

It was strictly a happy accident.

So I made it through the first “hump day” of my winter schedule: Three ballet classes, prep for choir rehearsal and then rehearsal itself. I spent from 8:30 AM to 1 PM at the Dow where ballet classes are held. During my break from 10 AM to 11, I mostly practiced piano. I have been reading further through Scarlatti sonatas having purchased Longo’s eleven volume edition from my teacher, Craig Cramer. I am on volume seven. At this point, I am enjoying the music so much I am planning to just start over and read through them again when I finish. The only drawback to this edition is that it is heavily edited with superfluous articulations and dynamics which one must ignore. But I don’t see myself purchasing Kenneth Gilbert’s superior edition. A quick google seems to indicate it is also eleven volumes but is $130 a volume making it pricey.

Anyway, during my break yesterday I read some Scarlatti and then played Words with Friends (Facebooger’s Scrabble).

I don’t think I mentioned here that Sunday I had about twelve singers at Eucharist after only rehearsing with five the previous Wednesday. Last night, I had a full complement of singers again. It’s kind of relief, because with the exception of a couple people, singers were not indicating to me their intentions of whether they were going to continue with the choir. It may seem that I’m overreacting by wondering, but my experience is that people come and go in the choir at Grace without talking to me about their reasons or intentions. I look out on Sunday mornings and see numerous people who have sung in the choir and then just disappeared and never spoke to me. I think this is weird not to say rude, but try to factor it in when I plan.

So it looks like my list of choral anthems I have been putting together for this season will not need to be altered to fit a different group. That’s nice.

I skipped my treadmilling in order to preserve energy but did do some serious prep on the choir rehearsal, checking anthem tempos with mister metronome.

This all paid off with a solid rehearsal last night.

1. When There Was a Mock Plantation in Brooklyn – NYTimes.com

Okay this is really weird. This article is about a 1895 pretend Plantation set up in New York for people to wander like Greenfield Village in Dearborn. I only found the article because I was reading in the letters column where a writer had pointed out that New York did have a history of having slaves in the colonial period. I am always interested in the history of American slavery especially in areas where  it supposed was opposed like New York and my home state Michigan.

2. A Free Society Cannot Escape All Terrorism – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlanti

This is one of many articles I have bookmarked to read lately. Its premise interests me: that the freedoms that are so dear to us also cost us in real terms about what can and cannot be prohibited.

I have always been disastrous at selling myself. Mostly I have been disinterested. I have grasped my personal pleasures in poetry, music and learning and proceeded. But in the age of appearances, I am at best an enigma, an original which defies easy categorization.

Actually I think I share defying categorization with all humans. We are each of us unique.

But it is the reductivity with which we are sometimes prone to view each other these days that confuses me. We want to understand each other in a reality show typology or how we fit in to advertisingl understandings of gender, beauty and intelligence.

This seems to leave little room for an person like myself who attempts to lead with the lamentable idea that ability and knowledge has its own value and reward.

But I am susceptible when ignored to a bit of reflection. Hence, the dubious self obsessed nature of this blog.

More and more I find myself losing interest in those around me whose preoccupations seem so narrow and who do not communicate to me a sense of clarity or even honesty. Not that I see myself as able to be clear or even trust my own honesty. It’s just that I blunder in with attempts. This often makes it worse so I try to temper my behavior and appear as calm and unthreatening as possible.

I had to attend a church meeting last night. At the end of a day of trying to take it easy, it unfortunately jazzed up this introvert so much so that when I came home I was unable to relax and slept badly. The meeting went fine. I just am unable to stop my brain from buzzing.

Teach me to care and not to care.

This from “Ash Wednesday.” I have set these words in a little cantata I wrote long ago.

1. Rap Lyrics on Trial – NYTimes.com

it is easy to conflate these artists with their art. It becomes easier still when that art reinforces stereotypes about young men of color — who are almost exclusively the defendants in these cases — as violent, hypersexual and dangerous

2. The Flood Next Time – NYTimes.com

Archeological impact of meteors and other cool stuff on the East Coast of the USA.

3. This Is Not About Texting: A Story of Movies, Men and Violence | Criticwire

A self confessional look at why men are stupidly violent and why they probably shouldn’t have a gun in their pocket.

4. The Rumpus Review Of Inside Llewyn Davis – The Rumpus

I’m a sucker for any review that uses the ouroboros.

5. The misuse of American might, and the price it pays – latimes.com

Bacevich knocks it out of the park once again.

For the United States, victory has become a lost art

It seems that in establishing brand names the complexity has proliferated to a comical degree. When I make up my grocery list, if I want to be sure to purchase a certain product, I can’t say simply ginger salad dressing. I have to begin with the “brand.” Then add subgroupings that the manufacturer has come up with like “honey mustard” and “yogurt.” Thus several designations are necessary to remind me to get the right dressing.

I was thinking about how this ends up devaluing language in a useless way, when it occurred to me to consider the word, “brand.” “Brand” is obviously both a verb and a noun. According to the OED (unless otherwise specified, all my info in this post comes the online Oxford English Dictionary), the first usage of “brand” in English occurred c950 in a translation of John 18:3. It means a “torch.” In the passage where the word is documented as being used, Judas is carrying a “brondum” (Old English) to guide himself and the soldiers he has tipped off as they make their way to arrest Jesus in the garden where he is praying.

The etymology is complex. But basically burn, brand and boil descend from Greek words for warm (thermos) and for spring as in a boiling up of water in a spring  (phrear).

I got this info from a combined use of the free online American Heritage Dictionary (which next to the paid online OED is useless) and also consulting my hard bound copy of the same.

I ran across the other useage of the word, “brand,” in The New American Jim Crow.

Four decades ago, employers were free to discriminate explicitly on the basis of race; today employers feel free to discriminate against those who bear the prison label—i.e., those labeled criminals by the state. The result is a system of stratification based on the ‘official certification of individual character and competence’—a form of branding by the government. The New American Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, loc 3088, p 202

So the dehumanizing practice of burning an identifying mark on a human relates to the devaluing of language in a simple marketing tool. Wow. Some things to think about.

Good nonfiction authors often muse on and define limits for words they are using. Zuckerman in Rewire ponders the origin of the word, ‘serendipity.” Since Zuckerman is thinking about how our connections both to information and to each other are working these days, it’s not hard to see why he would be thinking about this word. He even goes further and advocates “designing for serendipity.” This intrigues me and I look forward to his further discussion in the book as I read it.

The OED confirms Zuckerman’s story about this word. It was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754

He did so in a letter he wrote referring to the fairy tale, “The Three Princes of Serendip” ” the heroes of which ‘were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of’.”

If you’re like me, you think if serendipity as a “happy accident.” Zuckerman tellingly points out that it has lost some its original resonance as also containing “sagacity.”

This sage or

this one?

Anyone who has done research in a physical library knows about “serendipity.” Searching the stacks for one book often leads to other books in the same vein which can be helpful.

I was recently commenting to the local college library that accessing their journals solely through the catalog did not enable me to browse the latest titles the way I used to be able to. Lost serendipity? Who knows.

After lunch yesterday, Eileen and I went down to Holland’s main drag where an ice sculpture show was being held. First we stopped in at a little coffee shop so Eileen could return carafes and stuff she had used recently for a “Literacy Hero” meeting at the library. As we stepped into the little shop, I began to realize how disconnected I was from the situation. I felt stifled by the seriousness of the baristas several of whom I have known for years. They treated me politely but distantly obviously very busy. As I glanced around, I found the bustling group of people odd. Young and vulnerable. I had a weird interior reaction like “don’t frighten the college people, jupe!” My extreme difference from them seemed a bit comical and sad. They were so connected to each other and their devices and their ongoing lives.

I am part of the history of this little shop. I remember when it first opened. I showed up with my guitar to sing and play and encourage the situation. Now I’m sort left in the dust of my rough edged approach. They are very very slick. The barista who waited on me used a new fangled pot they are selling to specially brew the coffee of the day I had ordered. This coffee by the way was excellent. On the blackboard it said it would have tastes of pipe tobacco and apple. Not sure about parsing the tastes but I did think it was good. I checked and couldn’t find the beans for sale. The shop has reduced the number of flavors of whole beans it sells to the public. The little packages they now sell are pretty pricey. The last one I bought there was $16.

I asked the barista if they had the beans for the special coffee for sale. He solemnly told me that they should but they were out. He apologized.

Oh well, finally figuring out that this guy was not going to smile at me, I sighed as Eileen and I left the shop to sip our excellent coffee and look at the melting ice sculptures.

I admit to a bit of bigotry about my attitude toward H0lland.

I seem to detect a strong sense of entitled calvinism  here. Once a visiting musician asked me where the more liberal coffee shops were in town. I said we don’t really have any. We have one that is right wing and one that is extremely right wing . It still seems this way to me, even though I do see the local white people as well meaning though naive.

Years ago (1987) when Eileen and I moved here, I was struck by the homogenous nature of the place.

Lots and lots of white people. Now it’s not quite that homogenous by skin color, but it still sort of feels insular in the way it sees and conducts itself.

I came home and purged my feelings of being suffocated by playing Scarlatti and Haydn on my old piano.

That helped a lot.

1. NSFW: #Ebony and #Ivory – The Brave New World of Online Self-Segregation | Tech

This blog post is four years old but I think it has something to say about self selecting one’s echo chamber. I cross posted this one to Facebooger. I got the reference from a footnote in Rewire by Zuckerman.

2. Ishmael Reed on the Life and Death of Amiri Baraka – Speakeasy – WSJ

Ihsmael Reed blog on the Wall Street Journal site Personal memories of Baraka.

3, The ‘I’ in Christie’s Storm – NYTimes.com

Ostensibly about the recent omnipresent Christie bridge scandal, Bruni has some interesting observation both philosophical and historical.

4. I Crashed the Wrong Shiva – NYTimes.com

Charming little story of the familiarity and distance of living with other people.

5. The Mixed Marriage – NYTimes.com

Author of a book about intimate cultural mixtures describes how she came to write it.

6. The 1890 Book I Had to Have – NYTimes.com

I love stories about books.

7. Colonial words: Everyday words whose meanings have changed since colonial times

I love articles about the history of words and phrases. Backlog, humble pie and more.

8. Dangerous Minds | Read vintage issues of ‘Synapse the Electronic Magazine’”

As far as I can tell this is the only index to these old mags. Fun articles on Zappa, Devo, Terry Riley, Brian Eno and others.

9. Nerdcore › The Wolf of Wall Street – Fucking Short Version

Stumbled across Nerdcore yesterday. It’s in mostly in German and seems to hail from Deutschland. I love this entry: ’The Wolf of Wall Street’ is the most fuck-filled non-documentary movie in the history of Hollywood. We counted 522 audible, intelligible fucks. (‘The Big Lebowski’ only had 260.)“

10. Ariel Sharon Never Changed – Bloomberg

A little different take on Sharon.

Yesterday did feel like a day of leisure and rest. I will have to pursue this kind of relaxation on days off in order to survive my winter schedule. Of course I plan to exercise and rehearse organ music daily no matter what.

I finished A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving yesterday. While reading his latest novel, In One Person, I read an interview in which he described the curious way he writes. He writes the last chapters first and then presumably backs up and writes to the ending. I found this distracting in Owen Meany because the story has a tight carefully contrived plot.

Meany is a diminutive person whose story is told by his friend the narrator, John. He is a bizarre figure of high intelligence. He speaks in a very high weird voice which Irving indicates with ALL CAPS. His voice as well as his pursuit of an ideal time in a basketball layup shot in super human times (assisted with a boost from John) all come to play in the denouement Irving has originally composed as the ending.

Knowing Irving’s technique is unhelpful in this book. It kept distracting me as the pieces of the mysterious plot fall into place.

I enjoyed the book, but liked In One Person more. In that case the denouement was gentler and I found myself drawn once again into the familiar cast of characters that Irving seems to keep rewriting.

I continue finding little nuggets in my other reading.

Like the hilarious and disturbing fact that there was a Russian 18th century peasant religious leader who misunderstood the Russian Bible translation tragically. Kondratii Selivanov misread Iskupitel’ (Redeemer) for Oskopitel’ (Castrator) when the New Testament speaks of Jesus and also mistook God’s command to the Israelites to be fruitful (in Russian, plodites’) for “castrate yourselves’ (plotite’). This has disastrous results and his male followers cut off their genitals and women’s breasts. Yikes!

This was from McCulloch’s Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. I also learned that when Christian priests bless holding up two fingers this can symbolize the two natures of Christ. The patriarch, Nikon, tried to change this by insisting that 17th century Russian priests begin holding up three fingers to symbolize the Trinity. Didn’t work.

It also interested me when Charles Taylor quoted Matthew Arnold’s definition of “Culture” (with a capital “C” presumably).

Culture, Arnold says, is “a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world; and through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly and mechanically.”

As Taylor meticulously and fascinatingly makes his argument that contemporary secular humanism and religious pluralism in the West is a logical outcome of the history of Christianity, he makes this interesting point:

We live in an extraordinarily moral culture, measured against the norm of human history, in which suffering and death, through famine, flood, earthquake, pestilence or war, can awaken world-wide movements of sympathy and practical solidarity. Granted, of course, that this is made possible by modern media and modes of transportation, not to speak of surpluses. These shouldn’t blind us to the importance of the cultural-moral change. The same media and means of transport don’t awaken the same response everywhere; it is disproportionately strong in ex-Latin Christendom.

Let us grant also the distortions produced by media hype and the media-gazer’s short attention span, the way dramatic pictures produce the strongest response, often relegating even more needy cases to a zone of neglect from which only the cameras of CNN can rescue them. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is remarkable. The age of Hiroshima and Auschwitz has also produced Amnesty International and Médecins Sans Frontièrs.