I have been working at my touchpad skills. But the Windows 8 system keeps defeating me with all its extra strokes that call up the stupid stupid app approach to everything popping me accidentally into the dang Windows menu when I’m trying to do stuff.

I was working on editing a google doc this morning and gave up and plugged in a mouse.

Good grief.

Brother Mark asked if I would share my hymn list. It was pretty messy. I planned to clean it up before I shared with my staff. So this morning I needed to do a bunch of selecting and deleting. That’s when I decided to plug in a mouse.

I believe it was sometime after my last China trip that daughter Elizabeth gave me Fuchsia Dunlop’s charming Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China. We are heading back to China in September to see our new grand kid (Elizabeth is preggers). I never finished Dunlop, so I decided to start over in it and see how far I get this time. It is fun.

I’m in the last sixty pages of Cranmer by MacCulloch. I’ve got Cranmer to his trial under Queen Mary. Soon they burn him. It is fascinating to learn the details of how the Episcopal Church founded itself. Cranmer seems to have had a certain kind of genius, a scholarly genius. I’m learning tons.

1. In Church Attics, Clues to the Private Life of Early America – NYTimes.com

Amazing that in our short history we have stuff tucked away in churches and attics that helps us understand people who lived here a couple hundred years ago. I love this stuff.

2. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw: My Brother’s Keeper Ignores Young Black Women – NY

This writer has an important point to make. I was especially appalled by these figures:

Even more disturbing: the median wealth of single black and Hispanic women is $100 and $120, respectively — compared with almost $7,900 for black men, $9,730 for Hispanic men and $41,500 for white women.

I spent several hours yesterday planning music for church. The first step is to pick hymns for the next year. I am up to Advent. Today I’m planning to do Advent, Christmas and as much of Epiphany as I can.

I’m off to the Farmers Market in a minute. After that, I will probably get started on this project.

This afternoon I meet with my boss Jen and then give a 3 M piano lesson to Rudy.

In between all this I have to practice.  I’m taking the unusual step of doing some serious rehearsing for the upcoming wedding. I have changed the settings I use of the Pachelbel Canon in D so that is requiring some prep.  I am scrupulously rehearsing the rest of the selections which are more numerous than usual: Vivaldi’s Spring (the popular movement), Handel’s Hornpipe, Mozart Piano Concerto 21 theme, Jesu Joy, and the famous Air on a G String by Bach.

I am using Virgil Fox’s arrange of the Air on a G String because its the only one I can find right now. I have scheduled the Mozart Piano Concerto theme as the prelude for the weekend of the wedding.

That particular weekend will be busy. I am also scheduled to play with the Holland Symphony orchestra the evening of the wedding (Aug 9). This means I will be in rehearsal that week for that. The scores are not particularly demanding, but I will contact the Symphony people next week because it looks like I’m supposed to be running a synth. Every synthesizer is a bit different so I will need to look at it.

When I played with the Grand Rapids Symphony, one of the concerts was in a venue without a pipe organ. I was responsible to provide the organ part for Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra on a synth. There was no run through. The synth was coming through the PA in the auditorium we were playing and could have easily overwhelmed the orchestral sound. I told the sound guy I would relay on him to balance. I had volume controls myself, but resisted turning them up. The sound guy apparently chickened out judging from the slight frown on the conductor’s face during that point in the performance.

They never asked me back and I wondered if that balance problem in the performance was part of the reason. At any rate, I would like to do a better job with the Holland Symphony Synth.

1. 3 Killed in a Facebook Blasphemy Rampage in Pakistan – NYTimes.com

Current tech meets local needs to persecute people who believe the wrong way. Yikes. I am finishing reading MacCulloch’s bio of Cranmer. Cranmer  also killed and was himself killed for beliefs. Madness.

2. When Middle East Conflicts Become One – NYTimes.com

Some good history and insights on this conflict.

3. Adam Hochschild: Why World War I Was Such a Blood Bath – NYTimes.com

The author of this article points out that the knowledge to avoid many deaths in WWI was available. It was just ignored. Sort of like now.

4. Making Dramas About Mideast Can Be Complicated – NYTimes.com

Finding TV to watch is tricky without networks since we are no longer subscribing to cable and haven’t hooked up an antennae. We do our viewing online. Some networks make the shows available, some don’t. Also how does one hear about them when one’s social circle is pretty limited? I regularly bookmark articles like the above to check out the shows mentioned.

I received some alarming emails from Discover on Sunday morning. While I was at church, Eileen figured out that our Discover account was being used by someone else.

Discover froze the account and is sending us new credit cards.

This seems to be from online activity and not a hack of our home computers since we have found no other hacked accounts. 

We do a lot of online purchases and this is probably a result of one of them. Oh well. Thank goodness Discover doesn’t hold us accountable for the fraudulent purchases.

My careful preparation last week of the quick section of the C Minor Prelude by Dengler paid off in spades. I nailed that section with ease and at tempo. Unfortunately I hadn’t quite managed to learn one little bit in a pedal statement of the theme accompanied by one hand. I can be heard clearly fumbling on the video I posted previously. This little bit occurs four times in Dengler’s piece. Sunday I got two of the four. I see this a direct result of concentrating on the quick section with the time I had for learning the piece. I’m pretty sure I could have fixed this other detail given a bit more rehearsal.

This week I have to prepare pieces by Virgil Thomson and Darius Milhaud.

The Thomson is an excerpt from his piece on “Come, Ye Disconsolate” from his “Variations on Four Sunday School Tunes.”

I love these Thomson pieces and have performed little sections of them at church. The “Come, Ye Disconsolate” is one I haven’t done before.  Yesterday, I figured out exactly what sections of it will make a nice postlude for Sunday: the first statement of the hymn and the concluding fugal section.

I’m playing Milhaud’s lovely Pastorale for the prelude. It’s not too challenging. My used score has some charming careful notations on it that are helping me play it well. I love used music.

1. In Search for Killer, DNA Sweep Exposes Intimate Family Secrets in Italy – NYTimes

A unsettling use of tech to find a killer.

2. On What Makes One a Reporter in a Digital Age – NYTimes.com

The Texas legislature only allows reporters to watch them. Now they have to determine exactly what a reporter is, not an easy task these days.

3. The Media’s Retreat From Foreign Reporting – NYTimes.com

Some intelligent talk about the decline of on the ground reporting from one who has done it recently.

4. Bel Kaufman, Who Told What School Was Really Like, Dies at 103 – NYTimes.com

5. Why the Border Crisis Is a Myth – NYTimes.com

An El Paso county judge explains why nothing new is happening.

After church I relaxed by watching a video. A while back when we were a bit more flush with cash I purchased videos of some Ingmar Bergman films.

The first of his “Silence of God” trilogy, “Through a Glass Darkly,” was a film that influenced me greatly when I first saw it.

I have seen the second film, “Winter Light,” but didn’t remember it very clearly.

I have been thinking about my relationship to Christianity. I continue to be involved with it. I see a great deal of beauty and worth in the rituals I help lead. At the same time, I personally have difficulty with the idea that many people seem to have of God.

Since “Winter Light” is about a pastor who has lost his faith I thought it might be interesting to watch it.

So when I got home, I dug up my copy of the screen play and began reading it a bit.

Later I put the video on and watched the whole movie.

There is a marked difference between the screen play and the movie.

In the movie, the actors play the scenes very bleakly, much more bleak than the screen play. They do this not only with their amazing acting, but also a lot of the dialogue seems to have been cut out.

This is fitting because one of the themes running through this trilogy is the silence of God.

The story is what takes place on a Sunday in late November in two rural Swedish churches. It starts with communion in one church and ends with the beginning of a service in another.

In between we meet Tomas, the pastor;

Märta, a local school teacher (his lover);

Jonas, a depressed villager (Max Von Sydow);

Karin, his wife;

Blom, the organist

and Algot,a sacristan.

The pastor is dealing with his own loss of faith after the death of his wife. His lover both comforts and torments him. He is in turn unspeakably cruel to her. The depressed villager is pressed by his wife to seek out the pastor for help with the villager’s depression. After a meeting, the depressed villager kills himself. The pastor helps recover the body. Then he and his lover have a desperate private conversation in which they lash out at each other. Then they weirdly drive to the house of the dead villager so the pastor can inform the family of his death.

Then on to the afternoon service at the second church.

In the course of the story, this vaguely Shakespearian group of characters outline struggles with faith. The pastor begins and ends the film mouthing the words of the ritual. It seems obvious that Bergman means to do this in a acidly ironic way. But it still interests me how the bleak and realistic story is only understandable if one knows the Christian story.

For example, the names of the pastor and his lover, Tomas and Marta. Thomas the doubting disciple and Martha the sister of Mary and Lazarus is the sister who concerned with the practicalities of hosting Jesus while Mary “chooses the better part.” It’s a good name for the Bergman character because of her protective attitude to Tomas.

As I watched the movie this time, I saw clearly the words of the liturgy. They begin and end the film and have a large literary echo in Western Civilization.

The movie didn’t exactly answer some questions I ask myself such as why I continue to find beauty and solace in the words of the liturgy and the bible even though I have difficulty imagining God. After watching the movie I finished reading the script. This was weirdly a good way for me to spend my Sunday afternoon.

Eileen is skipping church this morning. I am jealous, but it’s my gig so I’m going. I used up most of my morning blogging time doing some Greek, reading in my Buxtehude bio by Snyder and writing an email to my friend Craig Cramer.

Craig was my teacher in grad school. He is also helping us with our organ project at church. He’s a funny dude. One of the best things about working with him was the great conversations we used to have. I miss that a lot. Now, when I see Craig, he usually makes a point to ask me what I’m reading and talk to me about ideas. I always remember that my undergrad teacher, Ray Ferguson, (whom I equally admired and learned a ton from) told Craig that I wasn’t that great a player but I was a good conversationalist and thought about ideas. I hope Ray would think my playing has improved (it has), but he does have a point and I think it colors the way Craig sees me to this day.

I found that the technique I began using to master the quick section of Prelude in C minor by Dengler worked excellently yesterday. You can read about it in previous entries if for some perverted reason you are interested. The good thing is that it freed up some of my rehearsal time to practice other things.

I also have been weirdly thinking a lot about Scriabin. I do find myself reluctantly drawn into his musical world. This is largely due to my piano student’s predilection for him. That’s one of the nice things about teaching Rudy, he is enamored with music I wouldn’t normally think a lot about. And then I get drawn in because the music is pretty wonderful.

Well no pics today. Or links. Gotta skate.

I’m pretty tired this morning. Eileen and I joined our friends, Rhonda, Mark and Eric, last night. We went out to Five Guys. I was happy to find that the Holland version of this franchise is as fun as the one in California. Then to a recital. The players were the Duo Diarama, a husband and wife team from Chicago.  They are violinist MingHuan Xu and pianist Winston Choi.

They pretty much rocked. I had earlier spotified their program. They played the Bach E major violin sonata, the Brahms G major violin sonata, a suite by William Grant Stills and the Sonata for Violin and Piano by John Corigliano.

The audience on the other hand depressed me. It was good to see a couple of young interns acting as ushers both of whom I recognized. I guess they have to pay young people to go concerts like these. It’s too bad. Because the music was good. But I do wonder about this format for ears that are used to a quicker wider array of styles at their fingertips.

The audience depressed me a bit because they were elderly and polite.

Sometimes between movements, they managed to murmur their approval when in fact they should have been standing up, applauding and yelling because some of the performances were extraordinary.

There was also a strong whiff of Holland good old boy/snob/power system from the past. But that’s another depressing story.

My friends Rhonda and Mark managed to get a word with the musicians. Rhonda knew the pianist when they were both at Indiana U, I guess. He was phenomenal. The piano he played was a Blüthner which is the kind we purchased when I was director at Our Lady of the Lake. Both instruments have a warm sheen to their sound and are a pleasure to listen to. The violinist was playing an historic instrument made in the 18th century. She got an full bodied sound from it. The low register shimmered and her high notes and double stops were spot on and beautiful to my old ears.

After the concert, Eileen and I came home and stayed up too late. We watched a documentary on Netflix called “Reel Injun” which I enjoyed.

I admire the inculturated marginal ethos that permeates so much of the contemporary Native American arts.  The narrator was Cree film maker Neil Diamond.  The movie is a clear headed assessment of the amazing impact of images from movies on how indigenous people are perceived and how they perceive themselves.

Did you know the famous weeping Indian in the TV commercial was actually Italian?

The actor was apparently obsessed with Native Americans on and off screen. He married an ethnologist and they adopted people who were actually of Native American descent.

It’s an amazing documentary. I enjoyed it immensely.

Yesterday, I decided to try to skip using the metronome to gradually increase the speed of a section of piece I am working on that I mentioned yesterday.  I applied Kraus’s idea of blending alternating hand parts into one simultaneous chord. The section I am working on ended up sounding like this.

Sorry about the quality of these videos but I think you get the idea. Then I went back and played it the way it is written.

Kraus says the question to ask yourself when you are practicing is “What do I want to hear now?” I notice that I am holding the right hand chord a bit too long and it thus becomes too prominent and sort of fuddles the rhythmic feel. Of course the voicing on my organ doesn’t help balance out the sound. The upper pipes seems louder to me on this rank.

So I tried to play the right hand more staccato.

This works. Here’s the section in the context of the entire piece.

I checked the tempos with the metronome and found I was pretty close in all cases. I put this up on Facebooger in the hopes that if someone wanted to they could prelisten to the prelude and maybe get it a bit more on Sunday. Sort of the poor man’s Spotifying music you’re going to listen to like I did yesterday.

I spent another block of time yesterday working with the metronome on a section of the piece I am performing Sunday, “Prelude in C Minor” by Lee Dengler.

I started at 120 beats per minute marking with a 3/4 clicking so that “1” of “1,2,3” makes a different noise. Most of the time the metronome app functioned properly , but there were definitely a few times when it did not beep at all on a beat.

It took me an hour or so to work up the section to 168 beats per minute as it is marked.

This morning I turned to Barbara Kraus’s little book, Practising the Organ, which recently arrived in the mail to see what insights she has about practicing.

I was amused that I recognized the several piano technique books she mentioned. I own most of them and even a few she didn’t refer to in her brief survey of piano technique books.

She is working her way toward a different approach to practising than can be found in printed sources. If I am reading her correctly it has more to do with conceptualizing than anything else.

“What do I want to  hear now?” she advises the practicing organist to ask herself rather than “How should this sound in principle?” I take the latter comment to mean “what is the finished sound/musical-statement I am seeking?” This is a difficult thing that we think about when we prepare a piece. Conceiving of the musical idea we are looking to render.

Kraus talks about our “unconscious conditioning” which is quite helpful. I know how I think about a piece at the moment is critical to my ability to play it.

Take the quick section I have been working on. At first I tried to read the notes closely and accurately but not thinking too much about how they worked together. Then I began to notice that the hands (which are the difficult part but are an accompanying figure) were grouped in little gestures that form clear phrases and have a lot of repetition.

Then I noticed that sometimes the hands move in the same direction and sometimes in opposite directions. Here I made my first mistake. I thought that certain sections were moving in contrary motion (opposite direction) when in fact after a couple of sessions I realized more accurately exactly how they were moving against each other.

I think this falls under Kraus’s rubric of careful scrutiny of what’s on the page.

All of this processing is going on while I am incessantly repeating the section with the metronome, gradually increasing tempo.

Another thing I noticed was how the music changed as it sped up.

What started out as two slow beats at the beginning of a three beat measure ends up a very quick moment of down beat.

I also noticed that sometimes I was more successful in allowing my hands to operate as one alternating rhythmic idea. I am thinking of how a snare drummer uses his sticks back and forth to create a good solid single rhythm.

Interestingly I was more successful with this motion in the hands when the pedal came in and the hands were clearly accompanying.

I belabor all this because I think Kraus is onto something. I think she is correct that how a musician understands what’s on the page or as they like to say “hears” what’s there is critical.

It is fun and challenging to use this one piece by Lee Dengler as a test case to work on some of my rehearsal techniques. I’m considering posting a YouTube video of the piece tomorrow since I usually video myself in order to time a piece. We’ll see.

I was delighted  to learn that my  piano student, Rudy, has been reading Proust. He is proficient in French and is reading it in French and English. Apparently his reading group is reading it as well.

I pulled out my copy and noted that I first finished it in 1996, then re-read it in 2000 and again in 2007.

When Rudy asked what I liked so much about Proust I stumbled around saying something about memory and also the ingenious construction of the plot itself. I was careful not to ruin it for him.

It was fun giving him our first lesson of the summer. I do enjoy the fact that he brings me in contact with music I probably would not study otherwise. Now I have to pull up some Liszt and Scriabin to think about.

I continued to pummel away at the section of this Sunday’s prelude I am trying to bring up to tempo. Yesterday I worked at the organ exclusively on it. I found that adding the pedal part was a bit trickier than I thought it would be. I had to slow way down and work my way back up the metronome. I wonder how far I will get in this process before the performance.

I received Practising the Organ: The shortest Connection between the Hands and the Feet is the Ear by Barbara Kraus in the mail from Germany yesterday. It looks to be a very practical little book and I look forward to consulting it if not reading it straight through.

Notice the spelling in the title. A quick glance at some reference books confirms that it is the UK practice to distinguish between “practice,” the noun, and “practise,” the verb. In American English the former is used in both cases.

How about that?

I spent some time talking to a guy with a strong Indian accent on the phone yesterday about our internet service with Comcast. I was trying to find out what speed we are paying for. We have been having troubles watching Jon Stewart and with what appears to be interruptions in service.

It turns out we are subscribed at 20 Mbps (download speed) and only receiving about 1. We did a reboot of the modem and the router and it increased the speed back to where it should be. The person on the phone suggested that we keep an appointment with a service rep for tomorrow and monitor how our service is working.

It did go down yesterday but quickly came back after I rebooted the wireless modem. We probably need a new one.

I also spent an interesting time in organ practice yesterday. A section in the piece I am performing as the prelude Sunday goes quite fast.  I decided to use the metronome and the old fashioned idea of starting at an easy pace and repeating at one click higher to gradually increase speed.

I started out around 120 and got it up to 130. Later I worked at the piano at home and started at 130 which was feeling pretty comfortable and got it up to 172 easily. This takes quick a bit of time and a lot of repetition. The section is marked 168 so I should be able to have it ready Sunday assuming I continue to practice in this way.

The silly metronome app on my phone screwed up several times. Good grief. I learned to put the phone on blank screen because if I don’t, the metronome app loses a beat when the screen goes blank. Also I think it was skipping a beat here and there, but that could have been me.

The piece is “Prelude in C Minor” composed by Lee Dengler. I bought it on sale last year. When I went through it at first I didn’t think much of it. But after my vacation, I played it again and was surprised that suddenly the piece made so much sense to me. I quite like it now and am looking forward to performing it Sunday.

Edward Snowden interview – the edited transcript | World | The Guardian

Interesting interview with Snowden. Linked in a New York Times article. Worth reading.

Karl Albrecht, a Founder of Aldi Stores, Dies at 94 – NYTimes.com

I find these  brothers fascinating. Karl’s brother owns Trader Joes.

I Had a Boyhood, Once – NYTimes.com

This woman knows how to write. A good read.

Give Us a Bishop in High Heels – NYTimes.com

Charming little report on the new stuff in the Anglican world.

Thinking Humanity: Free books: 100 legal sites to download literature

Cool site. Thank you to David for posting on Facebooger.

What Writers Can Learn From ‘Goodnight Moon’ – NYTimes.com

Excellent story of reading this book.

Who’s Right and Wrong in the Middle East? – NYTimes.com

Sensible observations and misconceptions corrected.

How Tests Make Us Smarter – NYTimes.com

I’ve often wondered if educators talk about how tests are learning tools. I know that I have benefited from testing myself.

This morning I skipped blogging and went and practiced organ. I have promised myself a “church free” day after yesterday. So now I don’t have to go back to the church building anyway today.

Yesterday I was pretty disturbed at the contractors we are talking to about installing a PA system. While I was out of the room (was that on purpose?) they told my boss that the installation would cost from $50K to $75K.

I think this is way out of line. So does my boss. Hey! What happened to the digital revolution? All the hardware costs tons less than it used to. Anyway, I was not happy about that.

I continue to play through 48 preludes of fugues of Bach for fun.

The D# minor ones I find especially  challenging and have to muster some will and concentration to play every note of them correctly. I often play through a piece four times before I feel like I’ve sufficiently drilled it, even just for a read through.

I found the D# minor fugue in the second volume enchantingly beautiful. I thought it might be interesting to turn to Hermann Keller’s little book on these pieces and see what he had to say about it.

I was disappointed to read that he hears this fugue as carrying “a heavy burden of thought” and “dominate by great seriousness.”

There might be several things at play Keller’s observations. First of all he is writing in 1965. Musicology has a come a long way since his work. Secondly, he seems to be affected by the “minorness” of the piece.

For a late romantic to choose this key would possibly signal some of the things he hears in it.

But who knows? All I know is that I find it beautiful and play it in a quietly calm way.

I contrast Keller with David Byrne whose book has the amazing (arrogant?) title How Music Works.

I have been thinking a lot about the various musical worlds I move between and connect in my own brain.

It’s easy to fault musicians who primarily speak the pop music language for being ignorant of so many other musical style. Byrne is a prime example. His book could have really used a fact checker not to mention some consultation with some music people with knowledge beyond the world of commercial music.

But I also find the “educated” musician is just as likely to be narrow in a different way. Whatever music they have concentrated on in their education unsurprisingly often dominates their thinking and drowns out other musics. Since I think of learning as a life long endeavor shutting out music one doesn’t have sympathy with or understand is not the act of a learner.

Consequently, the people with the academic music degrees often don’t count much of the music that other people listen to.

I thought this might be changing, but I’m not so sure.

I rub shoulders with people locally that not only see me as a hack most probably due to my appearance and lack of posturing, but they also have difficulty seeing other musicians who play other kinds of music as even on the radar. At least that’s how seems to me.

I unfortunately move between these kinds of musical worlds which often has the effect that my abilities and understandings are invisible to people in different music worlds. But what the heck.

I bring all this up to say that I get as much out of reading Byrne as I did out of reading Gardiner. Just different stuff.

I played two pieces by Ernst Bloch for the prelude and postlude yesterday.  After church, a Lutheran minister who sometimes attends our church and may even be a member for all I know, shouted at me his name (Ernst Bloch). With my rock and roll diminished hearing I thought he said something in German, like “erste block.”

What could he be yelling at me? First block? Then I figured out he was commenting on the composer I had performed.

Not sure why I know about Bloch. I was eight years old when he died in 1959. I probably have come across his choral and piano compositions while studying and reviewing music.

Anyway, his musical language is pretty accessible. I chose the pieces yesterday because they weren’t too difficult to learn quickly and I thought they were attractive. This is more and more important for me. I only really want to perform music I think is attractive, well written, interesting and edifying.

I don’t mind doing music that doesn’t fit this category, but given the choice I would rather play music I like.

The postlude was “Wedding March III.”

Ray Ferguson taught me that I could alter titles to fit the church situation. Normally in the past I have chosen not to put an idiomatic title like  “Wedding March” in a church bulletin unless it had some reference to the service. Instead I would put the tempo marking which is always an acceptable practice in my mind.

I talked with Eileen and Jen (my boss) about retaining the title this time. They both thought it was a bit weird but not that weird so I went ahead and put the correct title in the bulletin.

During the dismissal, just before I began the postlude, our PA went berserk and starting making a very loud noise. Sort of ruined the moment anyway, i guess.

We sang “We are climbing Jacob’s Ladder” yesterday.

The story in the song was the story in the first reading.

The arrangement in the Episcopal resource, Lift Every Voice and Sing II, is by Horace Clarence Boyer.

It’s unusual in that Boyer has chosen a 12/8 time signature for it.

I came home and looked through my collections of Spirituals and could not find another one remotely related to it.

In addition he throws in some lovely elaborate chords that to my ears give the hymn more of a gospel flavor and less of a African American/Negro Spiritual feel.

I was realizing this as I prepared Saturday to accompany Sunday’s singing of his hymn. At the last minute I decided to use the piano instead of the organ and give it a slightly gospel feel.

I prefer doing spirituals without very much accompaniment elaboration. In fact, I think they are most served when sung just by voices since that’s how I hear them.

But since Boyer’s rhythms and harmonization was what people were looking at and if someone tried to sing the harmonies they would find them more jazzy than spiritual I thought I would put an accompaniment under it that would serve the music.

On the walk home, Eileen commented that she didn’t know this hymn. I remember (I think) singing it  as a boy. It doesn’t occur in the official Church of God hymnal of my youth, nor the later 1989 Worship the Lord. But there were many songs I remember singing at church camp and in less formal gatherings and it surely is one of them.

1. Scientists Name a Newly Discovered Water Mite After Jennifer Lopez – NYTimes.com

2. Elaine M. Brody, Expert on Elderly Who Grew Into the Role, Dies at 91 – NYTimes.co

I started reading to see if this person was related to Jane Brody. She’s not, but she’s still pretty interesting.

3.In Remote Corners of India, Immunity for Soldiers Who Kill and Rape Civilians – NYT

Madness.

4. Influx of South Americans Drives Miami’s Reinvention – NYTimes.com

This story is about an influx of middle to upper class people mostly. Still interesting to me.

5. The Weird, Scary and Ingenious Brain of Maria Bamford – NYTimes.com

My extended fam finds this woman funny. I watched part of her “The Special Special Special” last night. Though I like the name, the comedy didn’t hit me. I’m afraid I still hear the pale ghost of Lenny Bruce in such talent as this.

Yesterday I did a lot. I went to the Farmers Market. Dropped by Mom’s and picked up her books (found her missing remote control for her hearing aid). I prepared a nice outdoor lunch spot for Eileen and me, rinsed lettuce and chopped veggies and sliced cooked chicken (for Eileen) and laid it all out for us to build ourselves a salad. We sat outside and enjoyed a meal with each other.

After lunch I went to the library and turned in Mom’s old books, picked out some new ones and dropped them off for her. Went to church and practiced organ. Came home and decided to lay out the fixings for supper before I treadmilled. This meant rinsing rice and putting it in a pot with the requisite water and sitting it on a burner to await turning on. I also chopped up a bunch of veggies including a copious amount of onion greens. Exercised, showered, then began making an excellent veggie/black bean curry fry. Yum. Turned on the rice while doing this. After it was all ready, Eileen was still upstairs weaving so I made myself a martini and sat in the back yard and read David Byrne’s How Music Works.

_____________________________________________________________________

What Happened to Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 – NYTimes.com

This is the clearest outline of what is being reported about this incident I have seen.

__________________________________________________________________

At Long Last, Justice for Ronnie White – NYTimes.com

The subject of a smear campaign finally gets a judgeship.

_____________________________________________________

Rebooting ISEE-3: Space for All – NYTimes.com

Civilians go around NASA and do some fascinating stuff.

______________________________________________________________

Needing Skilled Workers, a Booming Germany Woos Immigrants – NYTimes.com

This article got me thinking about the percentage of people who have college degrees.

Educational attainment in the United States – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This Wikipedia article seems to indicate about 30 % of US citizens have college degrees. I wonder what this means to the devolving public rhetoric in our country. I have always noticed that people who have degrees are no more likely to be informed and educated than those without them. For me, degrees have value only when earning them involved actual learning. My degrees mean something because I worked hard and learned a ton when I went to college. Not always the case.

I had a phone message recently inviting Eileen and me to consider become host parents for foreign exchange students. The reason the caller gave for contact us was that we were “empty nesters.”

I don’t think that hosting students is something that Eileen and I want to do. I, for one, value my privacy and my  time spent at home reading, studying, practicing and being with Eileen.

I began to think a little bit more about the term, “empty nesters.”

Eileen and I love being parents. And I especially love having adult children which adds significantly to the number of people I can actually converse with at this time in my life.

And then it hit me.

Hey. Our nest is not empty.  We’re in it. 

And it’s a good time of life for me. Probably  as good as any time I’ve had so far.

Number one. I’m still alive and have more time of life left. And I get to live with Eileen. And do music.

Maybe this is narcissistic.

But I guess I have many flaws and that could be one of them.

Narcissus gets a bad rap anyway. In the original legend, he doesn’t know he’s falling in love with himself, just a beautiful youth that is actually his reflection. Heh. Jes sayin.

I finished reading War in Heaven by Charles Williams. Williams wrote in the 30s. This was his first novel. I ran across his name when I was on vacation and downloaded several ebooks. I was hoping for charm, but think the writing and plot were pretty lame.

Although it starts out like a murder mystery, it descends into a goofy story of the Holy Grail. The hero is a bumbling Archdeacon whose bland holiness is reminiscent of Father Brown.

In the hands of the bad (evil) guys the Grail somehow is a locus of power. At least that’s how they see it. Some of them want to destroy it. The plot is a struggle for possession of it and ends in a blaze of goofy religious shit.

And there[s a dose of anti-antisemitism.   One of the evil dudes is, of course, a Jew who is in cahoots with the anti-Christians.

This sort of inverted understanding of evil bores the shit out of me.

Williams definitely goes to the bottom of the heap of writers I’m interested in reading.

It is the banality of evil of that convinces me. See Hannah Arendt (one of my favorite philosophers).

1. Johnny Winter, Virtuosic Blues Guitarist, Dies at 70 – NYTimes.com

I do admire the Winter brothers. Never met Johnny, but I was a roadie once for Edgar’s band and did meet Rick Derringer.

2. The F.E.C. Lags on Campaign Finance Disclosures – NYTimes.com

Written by a former staffer who should know.

3. James MacGregor Burns, Scholar of Presidents and Leadership, Dies at 95 – NYTim

Bookmarked this guy to think about reading some of his work.

4. On Kawara, Artist Who Found Elegance in Every Day, Dies at 81 – NYTimes.com

This guy sounds amazing. He did conceptual art before it was a concept.

5. The Benefits of Failing at French – NYTimes.com

Many insights in this article and its comment section. Hope for old people like me for learning a language and having other mental benefits from it.

6. The Legacy of the 1964 Harlem Riot – NYTimes.com

How history set the stage for current racism in the USA.

7. Nadine Gordimer, Novelist Who Took On Apartheid, Is Dead at 90 – NYTimes.com

Another good writer gone.

Recently, I have noticed that I am feeling very appreciated. Intellectually I can usually come up with this notion. But emotionally, not so much. My own criticisms and assessments of myself and my work tend to drown out compliments, though I try to receive them graciously.

But I have noticed that at church the arrival of two new staff people has affected me to some extent. We have hired two new curates. Curates are sometimes called “baby priests.” They have just graduated from seminary. They will soon be full fledged priests (ordained). A curacy is a first gig, almost an internship but a bit more official in the eyes of the community.

So our staff at work has shifted significantly. These two curates have replaced two other staff positions. Previously we had a director of religious ed and a part time assistant priest.  Now the curates will  be helping out in these areas. Jodi, the wife, will be primarily responsible for family ministry and Hispanic outreach. Christian, the hubby, will emphasize campus ministry. Both will preach as deacons and then officiate at Eucharist once ordained. This is a tremendous relief to my boss. She mentioned to me that despite having assistants she has been “on call” for eight years. She said she wouldn’t recommend it.

I take delight in my boss’s relief, that’s for sure. Christian questioned me closely about my musical experience. He seemed to value my eclecticism and openness to non-classical Anglican church music. In fact, when we talked around the table, my boss emphasized the breadth of my abilities and leadership. It was a flattering moment.

I was flattered again when in the course of each of us on staff sort-of telling our story about how we came to be in our jobs, my boss included me in the first breath of telling how she decided to continue as rector: “Then Steve came on board and I decided to stay” or something like that.

I was also very satisfied to hear that when my substitute organist accidentally stopped accompanying the closing hymn one verse too soon, the congregation simply went on without her. Yes! Rev Jen also passed on that people missed singing the psalm in my absence, since we decided it would be simpler to say them when there is a substitute organist. Accompanying Anglican chant is a bit a specialized skill. Congregation members expressed concern that we continue singing the Psalm. Again, Yes!

My dentist pointed out to me that at this point in my life it must be satisfying to be part of an organ project. I readily agreed and added that the fact of just serving in an Episcopalian congregation is a treat at the end of my career (such as it is, I really don’t think of myself has having a “career” just a great life).

Then yesterday I stopped at the Holland Area Arts council to pick up charts for an upcoming Holland Symphony gig I have been asked to play. This in and of itself is a big deal for me (being asked, thanks again, Rhonda!). Also the Holland Area Arts council has always been sort of hostile territory. The people who organized the dang thing in the first place were my neighbors for a while but have never seen fit to include me in any of the music stuff there. They tend to use only Hope connections. Makes sense.

Anyway, I realized how weird it was for me to be going into this building. Then next to the Holland Symphony office a voice from another office rang out. The Holland Chorale manager is a former choir member of mine. We chatted each other up for a while.

I left thinking my life is changing a bit. I think I’m a bit  more visible than I used to be.

Finished Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardiner yesterday morning. I can’t say enough good about this book. Gardiner combines the usual academic erudition and up to date scholarship with evident hands-on experience with most of the music he discusses. This is mostly cantatas and the larger choral works including the Passions and the B Minor Mass. He emphasizes understanding the music and speculates on the interior world of Bach. He is uncovers much about Bach the man this way and makes a case that is often convincing. At any rate his observations about the music itself are clear and empirical. I learned a lot from him and am continuing to use his insights and approach in understanding Bach.

In addition to these attributes, Gardiner goes a step further and makes his own wide ranging reading and thinking part of the text. He draws heavily on surprising sources to make his point.

For example, he quotes Philip Pullman the author of His Dark Materials (Pullman also has a blurb on the book) several times. This is ironic because superficially one might think that Pullman’s work points away from Bach’s Christian beliefs which play heavily in Gardiner’s argument. But Gardiner is speaking so clearly in a contemporary context and understands what it is to try to make meaning of living now. This inevitably reflects a jaundiced take on much of Christianity. But I like how Gardiner uses Pullman’s ideas to point to the depth of the humanity of Bach. And this is just one instance of Gardiner’s very wide range.

I made a list of words I looked up in the back of the book. I made a list of books and articles I want to look at further if not read. Gardiner draws on David Yearsly’s work. I have read some in Yearsly’s Bach’s Feet and now I plan to read more of his work having benefited from Gardiner’s use of his insights.

I spent a good hour yesterday working on Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott BWV 651 yesterday.

This work has always intrigued me. I heard it performed by a fellow grad student and never quite understood it. I am spending a good amount of time with the chorale it is based on. I wrote the German words as I sometimes do in the music under the melody. I am convinced in order to perform chorale preludes well the performer must be very familiar with the melodies they are based on. This is a long one and I think that’s one of the reasons this piece is so long.

Using Gardiner’s detective tactics and consulting Peter Williams book, The Organ Music of Bach: Second Edition I think am beginning to understand this piece better. When one hears the piece, the manuals furiously whir with quick notes that can put the listener in mind of the Holy Spirit. This is the kind of thing Gardiner constantly points out.

I have noticed this in the past. But yesterday I registered it on my silly crappy organ so that the melody in the pedal stood out more than I remember in the grad student’s performance. I think she was also struggling with a bad instrument as well.

Knowing the melody better and being able to hear it clearly makes playing this piece much more satisfying.

Yesterday someone from the dance camp stopped by. They have been supposedly trying to get hold of me. They were actually worried about me.  The woman who has been my contact over the years is rather elderly. I admit I thought maybe she was either very ill or had even passed away severing my contact with the organization which is not very organized when it comes to booking me.

I speculate that some of the instructors have pianists they prefer to work with and specify that they should be hired. The parade of instructors varies. It makes sense to me if one is comfortable with a pianist and has worked them one would prefer to have them.

I mentioned to the cecchetti woman that I could have easily been contacted through Hope’s dance department. She replied that the director of the camp had “got on her computer” and couldn’t find me. This is just weird.

At any rate, she assured me they just didn’t drop pianists and she had been trying to contact me since March and had stopped at my house several times in the last two weeks. I gave her my cell phone number for next time.

I have been learning a lot about Bach chorales. I have often wondered what exactly they are. I probably first encountered them in the old 1940 Episcopal Hymnal.

To make them, Bach took a familiar hymn melody and then wrote three more parts that fit with it. So that the soprano part is always the melody, and the alto, tenor and bass make up elaborate melodies that fit with the tune and harmonize it.

I have liked them from the first time I encountered them.

But I have wondered what Bach used them for. Gardiner casually mentions that we now know that they were not intended for congregational use in the Passion settings of Bach. This surprised me when I read it. I guess I had always thought that Bach included them so that the congregation could sing along at that point in the long Passion settings.

Also he often concludes his cantatas with one of these four part chorales. Again I had assumed that this was when the congregation took part.

Now I’m not so sure. I need to find out more about Gardiner’s passing comment (which he did not footnote).

But it makes sense to me that these elaborate and lovely settings were not intended for the entire congregation to sing. I guess I always thought that they may have joined in on the melody with the choir adding Bach’s parts. But often the keys are pretty high for a congregation.

I also find myself drawn deeper into these settings. I have been playing through them as part of my organ practice since before the vacations. I find that playing the soprano and bass alone helps me see Bach’s thinking more clearly. Transposing these two part versions is also helpful.

Mendelssohn loved these chorales and often included them in his works.

I am looking to them to understand more clearly how Bach thought about harmony and maybe steal some ideas from him for ballet classes in the fall.

1. THINX Underwear: New Period Panties Changing Taboos Around Menstruation – AIF

This is a great idea. Young women face a daunting part of life when they begin their periods. Anything that help them is an excellent idea. I am usually for open discussion anyway.

2. How to Teach Reading and Writing – NYTimes.com

Again I’m linking a letters section. Jeremy Glazer from Stanford California leads off his thoughtful letter with this wonderful observation.

“Too often, educational debates become simple reductive arguments against the imagined orthodoxy of the other side.”

More and more I see people alienated not by others but by what they presume others are.

3. Obamacare Fails to Fail – NYTimes.com

I insist that people are not using their brains enough when it comes to processing facts. Perception is often that our government and country is failing when it’s not actually doing so. The Affordable Care Act is doing so much good, but you wouldn’t know it from the public discussion unless you are listening with your brain.

4. Spies Like Us – NYTimes.com

America has lost its moral compass around security. It is a difficult concept to have an intelligence branch of government which is subject to oversight and legal/ethical guidance. But America deserves better than its getting.

5. Boehner’s Empty Charge Against Obama – NYTimes.com

Boehner is not my idea of an extremist although I don’t agree with his policy ideas. In this discussion he is clearly proved to be falsely claiming Obama will not responsibility for something. Good job, Charles Blow!

6. BBC News – Church of England General Synod backs women bishops

The Church of England gradually catches up to the Episcopal church in America. Excellent!

7. Bach Collegium Japan, and John Eliot Gardiner : The New Yorker

This is an old article I have bookmarked to read about Gardiner by the illustrious Alex Ross.

8. The End of the ‘Mormon Moment’ – NYTimes.com

A frustated ex-Mormon explains some stuff.

9. The Quiet Movement to Make Government Fail Less Often – NYTimes.com

Some good perspective on what really has gone on and is going on with the US government. The Upshot column is the NYT’s replacement for Nate Silver: trying to keep the Moneyball perspective on how things actually working going.

10. Roberts’s Incremental Approach Frustrates Supreme Court Allies – NYTimes.com

This article helped me see Chief Justice Robert more clearly.

I am still finding it a nuisance to get used to our new laptop. Windows seems to be moving its PC experience toward the smart phone interface. The screen on our new computer is a touch screen. However the keyboard is so big that it’s kind of a pain to skip it and reach for the screen. Also, Windows has changed its nomenclature from software to the phone appellation, “apps.”

So one can choose between accessing everything on the old desktop interface or one can opt for the new Windows screen which has little squares for each app. I of course lazily prefer the old system. I guess I wouldn’t mind a new system if it was such a nuisance. But of course the new one seems to be designed by people who are not taking into account how it might hit users.

Or maybe I’m just getting old and out of touch.

Speaking of this, I was talking to a young college graduate yesterday who has recently moved to our area with his college educated wife and their kids. I was suggesting that the Hope Performance series is quite worthwhile. (In retrospect I don’t know if he could afford tickets for his entire family).

In order to illustrate the breadth of what’s available, I mentioned how wonderful the Emerson String Quartet concert was. As I saw the inevitable darkening in his visage at the mention of the dread classical music, I hastened to add that I had also attended a stage play presented in the same series.

But when I said the title, “Farenheit 452,” there was no glint of recognition in his eyes. I then asked him if he recognized the writer, Ray Bradbury. He didn’t seem to. He said the writer sounded vaguely familiar. I could see he was distressed at not knowing these authors and quickly made light of it.

But first I explained the meaning of the title of the book and play, “Farenheit 461.” (The temperature at which books supposedly burn) Couldn’t resist that because I think that’s kind of cool.

I told him that the actor troupe had offered a science fiction play and a watered down Shakespeare play.

Later when talking to Eileen about this, she said that it was a definite gap in the guy’s education.

I didn’t entirely agree with her. I think it represents the poor education many Americans have been receiving for the last few decades.

Of course there are exceptions and I guess I’m thinking largely anecdoctally. But meeting people with broad educated interests has been a rare thing for me. Young adults I meet who are educated often seem to know a lot about their area of study.

But attempting to factor in broader understandings and interdisciplinary observations is often futile. This old guy has learned to try to keep his trap shut so he doesn’t intimidate or confuse people. That way they keep talking to him.

But nevertheless on the INSIDE I am often processing the fact that the person I am talking to has no idea of many things that are important to me.

Take poetry.

Eileen has said to me many times, she doesn’t like poetry. She blames her education. But living with her, I have to come realize that she values the poetry of life: the beauty of words, music, ideas and stories.

Yesterday despite other pressing things I should have been attending to, I reorganized my poetry and comics (graphic novels and such) sections. I carefully went through every shelf, wiping the shelf and books and making sure books were in order by the poet. When I posted a pic on Facebooger about it, my son, David, made a humorous comment about “poetry in motion.”

Later musing on my conversation with the young man, I had the insight that while these many books represent for me a way of seeing life in terms of beauty and reason they are a closed area for many if not most people I run into.

For me, the poetry and the poets who made them are like old imaginary friends who have not forsaken me but are still around to comfort me and continue to expand my understanding.

I remember  a teacher who told me it was more important to read poetry than stay informed on current events. I still think he was probably right even though I try to do both.

It looks like Cecchetti ballet camp held annually here at Hope College is not going to contact me this year to serve as ballet accompanist. It’s hard to know exactly why. I remember last year there were some new accompanists that they imported. One in particular was an amazing pianist. So maybe they didn’t need me.

Or it could be that since I have dropped my land line they couldn’t contact me. This seems weird, since all they would have had to do was ask someone in the Ballet department for my contact info, but I guess it’s possible.

There is a slim possibility that I somehow have alienated myself from them, either with my personality or my playing.

But that seems a bit paranoid and thin skinned of me to think.

So there you are.

In watching and reading other people comment online, I have sometimes suspected that when people are going back and forth they have a preconceived idea they would like to prove.

This is pretty easy in the day of the interwebs. I do read comments quite a bit on a variety of web sites and topics.

Of course they quickly descend into name calling and arguing.

But sometimes someone will cite a statistic or a fact and put a link up.

When I was young and involved in the fundamentalist Christian church I learned of  “proof-texting.” This was when someone would be discussing (often arguing) about some doctrine or moral point  and then they would set off to find a bible verse (usually out of context) to back them up.

It reminds me of people linking in web pages to validate a cited statistic or concept or piece of information. I sometimes click on these links. Some don’t say what the comment thinks they are saying. Some are web sites dedicated to convincing readers and are not exactly information sites.  But sometimes I do learn a bit more about what is being discussed.

I should point out that I have to wade through a lot of anger and crazy talk to find the little nuggets of information. I do find it instructive to read a ton of comments whether this is from other church musicians, people whose ideology I disagree with, or people commenting on a news story. It does take patience and time, however.

1. Letters: Whose Argument? – NYTimes.com

This is a link to the letters column in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. I have a tendency to read letters to  newspapers like I read online comments. I find them interesting and sometimes instructive. One letter from Sam Friedlander from Tennessee had a sentence I admired in it:

When you’re 12, you should read to understand plot; when you’re 18, you should read to understand character development; when you’re 30, you should read to understand deeper implications.

2. Gin, London Style – NYTimes.com

On one of my visits to England I had difficulty communicating with my quasi-son-in-law about martinis. We were in a store and looking at booze. I told him I was interested in getting fixings for a martini. He didn’t seem to recognize what I was talking about. He showed me the vermouth section (Martini and Rossi, get it?).

I have read about an English gin which has a lower proof than the gin we buy in the USA. But I haven’t actually seen it. Anyway, this article is pretty interesting even though the drinks are very expensive.

3. Amazon, a Friendly Giant as Long as It’s Fed – NYTimes.com

Amazon and Hachette (the publisher) gave interviews to this reporter. According to the report this is the first time they have gone on record. Also, I didn’t know France had passed an “Anti-Amazon” law. Or at least their Senate has. It was unclear to me if the bill then was French law or not.

4. The Emerson Plays Shostakovich at Tanglewood – NYTimes.com

I do passionately love string quartets. I have listened to this quartet for most of my life in recordings. They played at Hope April of 2013 and were fabulous.

5. Charlie Haden, Influential Jazz Bassist, Is Dead at 76 – NYTimes.com

I love a good obit. This guy seems fascinating. I will definitely spotify him to hear his stuff.

6. Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on Immigration Reform – NYTimes.co

So speaking of online comments, the ones on this article caused me to be a bit more skeptical of what Adelson, Buffett and Gates have to say in it. However I did like this:

Speaking of the members of Congress: “It’s time for 535 of America’s citizens to remember what they owe to the 318 million who employ them.”

Eileen and I ran into a young woman we know in the grocery store. She sang in one of my children’s choirs years ago. Now she is a dolphin expert and lives in the Florida Keys. She also sings in a band there. She was with her Mom and mentioned that she had been visiting Holland since January. It was pleasant to see her.

I was musing later on how her work in a bar band was so foreign to so many classical/academic musicians who are in my orbit these days.  Whereas I feel comfortable talking bar music with a bar musician and classical/academic music with a classical/academic musician.

This is helpful to remember as I am snubbed by locals (not you, Rhonda! if you’re reading this… you are a big exception to this).

One of my insights from having been on vacation for a bit is to regain some perspective about this stuff.

It bugs me that I have sometimes have to struggle with feeling sorry for myself about being snubbed and ignored.  I certainly do not want to feel sorry for myself. And by the time it gets to that stage I have lost perspective.

Mainly I have forgotten that my musical world is different from those who look askance at me (if they see me at all).  In actuality my entire point of view about life is far removed from most people I encounter. This has actually always been so. And I treasure my own little take on life. That’s the vacation insight.

Although I enjoy my work at church and at the dance department, my true calling is to be inside music and ideas and beauty. Insofar as that overlaps with my livelihood I know that I am lucky. But when circumstances are uncomfortable I need to remember why I am doing what I do. Whether things are going well in my church work or in the dance studio is only important to me in terms of doing a good job. My passion is music and learning. That can exist as long as I can think and move.

I know how lucky this is.

I do find myself pondering whether there are other locals who are at all interested in the same things I am. But I think of this mostly when I consider the important mental hygiene of not being entirely isolated. So I continue to want to stay open when someone like Rhonda or another musician/thinker crosses my path.

In my life I have had many good friends. But most of them have fallen out of my orbit or changed.  Since usually they don’t make a declaration of why things are changing, I have to consider how much of my isolation from them is my own doing or is the result of having upset or failed them somehow. Since I don’t have the information it’s tempting to blame myself entirely, but intellectually I know that’s quite true.

And in the final analysis, I am very very very lucky. First of all to have someone who loves me like Eileen. Secondly to spend so much of my time connecting to great music and great ideas and great beauty.

The last few mornings when I have opened my front door I have not only seen and heard the beautiful sights of a summer morning still dim before the sun entirely rises. I have also smelled the strong lovely scent of the plants/flowers Eileen has planted in our front lawn. I am lucky in many ways.

I suppose I should elaborate a bit about brain being washed and ill-informed which I mentioned here all too briefly yesterday.

It is very easy to be brainwashed in the age of the online echo chamber and insane TV news coverage. Probably almost impossible not to have portions of our brain washed free of facts and replaced with “framing” of an issue. Again and again I watch intelligent people online seeming to back unsubstantiated sets of facts that interpret their way into falsehood.

The echo chamber effect causes the things that you disagree with to stand out and the things that you agree with to seem like part of the environment.

In order to counter act this one must develop a set of literacy skills.

An important one is sourcing of information. I know that my conservative sisters and brothers think ill of the New York Times.

But I still think that it is an important source of information in the USA.

But besides that when i see a link on Facebooger or Tweeeter, I immediately look at the URL (the web address) to see where the link originated. It makes a huge difference to me what site is being cited (so to speak).

I have been doing this sort of back story sourcing for years for news organizations and news stories.

Now on Facebooger since I have such a wide array of political points of view and education and sophistication among the people and organizations I “follow,” I can see that many people (if not most) are consulting with sources that are dedicated not to accuracy or informing but instead to shaping (“framing”) if not down right deception.

Speaking of being ill informed, I find that news stories flicker quickly and superficially through popular media. Many if not most people are just not paying attention anyway. And popular US media leaves out a lot (if not most) of the information. Attempting, one supposes, to make the information more accessible and compact.

I find myself asking softly to myself what I learned in my high school journalism class.

WHO?

WHAT?

WHERE?

WHEN?

WHY?

Besides the last one (WHY?), the first four are usually facts and not interpretations. And unfortunately one or more of them can be omitted when the reporting is trying to be accessible and compact.

So basically, I wonder how many people are being critical of their own approach to getting and processing information whether that be news or just continuing learning about life.

Finally the only person i can really work on in this area is myself.

The dilemma is to decide when to enter the mad conversation that is based not on clarity and learning but on something else. Reading dimly online it is impossible to see each other clearly especially in a time when people are using language in such varied ways.

Decades ago when I got the idea of having my own online web site (preblog) I envisioned a conversation online much like the idealistic Great Books conversation idea of Mortimer Adler Jr. Alder envisioned. As one absorbs the great ideas and books of Western Civilization one enters into their conversation.

Like my old idea of connecting with minds online, Adler’s Great Books conversation may be unrealistically idealistic.

But there you are.