The last few mornings I have been reading poems by Wendell Berry from his volume, This Day: Collected and New Sabbaths. The book was a Christmas gift from my brother, Mark (thank you, Mark!). The day I opened the gift I accidentally tore the cover. I was mortified since it is such a beautiful book and immediately hid it from the rest of the people in the room. Despite this, I picked it up this week and started reading.

I have read all of the poems from 2012, the last section in the book. I am curious how sane people like Berry view things from the vantage point of being alive today.

I also read the “Preface” and “Introduction.” I was amused to see Berry commenting on the word, “spirit,” which reminded me of yesterday’s blog on Merton’s sentence on art. I am still reading Merton but finding him less entrancing, more dated. Berry (and another writer whom I will mention in minute) seems a bit of an antidote.

Berry says this about “spirit.”

“In the earlier poems [of the collection] I used the words “spirit” and “wild” conventionally and complacently. Later I became unhappy with both. I resolved first to avoid “spirit.” This was not because I think the word itself is without meaning, but because I could no longer tolerate the dualism, often construed in sermons and such as a contest, of spirit and matter. I saw that once this division was made, spirit invariably triumphed to the detriment, to the actual and often irreparable damage, of matter and the material world.”

“Dispensing with the word “spirit” clears the way to imagine a live continuity, in fact and value, between what we call “spiritual” and we call “material.”

Good point. Not sure how this connects to my little story about all music being “spiritual.” To a musician like myself who is bound to music as an action Berry’s duality might not obtain with quite the same force it does to him. Underlying his poems and stories is always his concern with our lack of stewardship of the “material world.”

Earlier in the preface, Berry indicates that these “poems were written in silence, in solitude, mainly out of doors. A reader will like them best, I think who reads them in similar circumstances—at least in a quiet room.” He goes on, “They would be most favorably heard if read aloud into a kind of quietness that is not afforded by any public place.”

This reminded me of my practice of reading poetry aloud. I haven’t been reading much poetry lately. So this morning I read Berry aloud in to my “quiet room” and early morning solitude.”

At the end of the introduction, Berry comments that his “thoughts have returned again and again to the practice devotion to Nature in the poetry of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope.”

All of these poets are ones I admire. I had the impulse to pull out Chaucer. This morning I read several pages aloud of his poem “The Book of Duchess.” This is a larger poem and not from the Canterbury tales.

The mention of Chaucer always seems to evoke a dusty, stiff academic atmosphere. But then reading him one remembers the strong charming personality of the poet that seems to shine through all his work.

For sorwful ymagynacioun

Ys alway hooly in my mynde

from The Book of Duchess by Chaucer, 14-15

This edition has copious helpful information in it about the poetry. A footnote informs the reader about Chaucer use of the word ymagynacioun: “Jehan le Bel, a contemporary of Chaucer… explains imagination as the faculty which retains what is perceived by the senses; here equivalent to memories, thoughts.” from  Chaucer’s Major Poetry, Albert C. Baugh, editor

I’ve been reading Merton’s collection of essays, Disputed Questions (1960). The last two I have read have left me a bit cold. They seem lodged in a moment of time that has passed. Even though I love Merton I found them a bit muddled and dated in their grappling with Communism and the fear of a nuclear holocaust.

I am reading this collection because it contains an essay that was influential in shaping my thinking for years: “Sacred Art and the Spiritual Life.” I think I have mellowed over the years. This is not surprising. Merton has a phrase in this essay that stuck with me since I first read it. “One does not offer lollipops to a starving man in a totalitarian death camp.”
There was a time when I could tell you what I thought the modern “lollipops” of art were. I can remember struggling to perform “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” at a funeral. I did not see the tradition in the song. I heard it as a bit of trivial art. Now I do not.

I can remember riding in a car with one of the editors of the Episcopalian Hymnal 1982 (Alec Wyton). I told him that he and the other editors had included music in it that was insipid (lollipops) and that he could avoid their use at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. But those of us in the parishes would be forced to use them. Now I am very happy to use anything in the extended resources of the Episcopal Church.

I say all this because this morning I read a sentence in Merton’s essay on Sacred Art which got me to thinking.

“The work of art must be genuinely spiritual, truly traditional and artistically alive.” Merton

It struck me how this sums up for me neatly some things I think about in a way Merton may or may not have approved.

spiritual

Not too long ago I was hired to play for a local Winter Solstice party. The giver of the party was a self conscious anti-church atheist from what I gathered. Kind of a hippy dude. At one point the group was talking and he directly addressed me with a question, “Is the music we have asked you to play spiritual?” To his apparent surprise (since he had me pegged as a church guy who did church music) I replied automatically, “All music is spiritual.”
This even surprised me, but I think it said something that I may think true at a very basic level.

I think of spiritual partly as authentic human meaning. Definitely music is that for me.

traditional

I have been disappointed to find so many musicians stuck in a narrow place in music. I am thinking here of people who are entrenched in popular musics. Musicians who don’t read music. Musicians who are interested only in the music they are skilled at. Musicians who ignore music history.

I think its important to widen ones horizon. Personal and professional curiosity is for me one of the joys of life. To ignore vast swathes of one’s own area limits possibilities tremendously.

alive

Conversely, one needs to be aware of the entire present moment. I always thought that’s what Zappa meant by including Edgar Varese’s quote on most of his album covers: “The Present Day Composers refuses to die.” Probably not, but I still maintain a vital interest in music that is being written now.

I also think this applies in church music which brings me back to Merton’s essay on Art and Spirituality. I lurk on many Facebooger church music and organist groups. While there are many commentors who surprise me by sharing my own eclecticism, there are many others who trouble me with a narrowness that confuses me.

At Obama’s funeral speech, the AME organist apparently punctuated the speech like a sermon with organ music. There were comments on Facebooger about the lack of inappropriateness of this. This struck me as possibly narrowness on the part of commentors.

There are parishioners at my church who have said to me how they appreciate singing hymns from their old denomination. Often these hymns are tunes that at one point in my life I would have shuddered to include in liturgy. At another point in my life, they were what we were singing regularly in my Dad’s church. At this point in my life I find it satisfying to include them and other kinds of music with as much stylistic and vigorous integrity and interpretation I can muster.

It feels more alive.

I like to drink. I was raised in an emphatically teetotalering environment (nice word, eh?…. teetotalering). I know this has something to do with my pleasure in booze. I myself was pretty much a teetotaler until my early twenties. I remember after I had left my first wife romanticizing about Dylan Thomas and drinking and drowning my immature troubles with whisky pretty much in Thomas’s honor.

Thus I developed a taste for hard liquor. I had a doctor years later ask me about the drinking. “I fell into the habit around the time of my divorce,” I remember telling him.

But it has been something I have enjoyed over the years and at the same time wondering when it would take a serious toll on my health. I think I read where Anthony Burgess pondered late in life that he was going to have to give it up for health reasons.

Anyway, yesterday morning I had a particularly high blood pressure reading. These have been happening in the last six months. But usually if I take it again within a half hour or so, the reading falls back down to acceptable levels. Yesterday this did not happen for the first time. Also, the scales told me I was gaining far too much weight.

I have been having a martini and a few glasses of wine almost every night for a while. This leads to snacking. Snacking I think is a big part of my weight gain, since my vegetarian diet is not particularly high in calories.

Yesterday Eileen and I were looking at the calories in our snack food (mostly crackers and peanut butter, sometimes cheeses).  The crackers we eat do have tons of calories.

So, if I lay off the booze for a while, I am hoping it will be easier not to snack at night. This might help me to lose some weight and bring the blood pressure down in my aging body.

This also will probably help me sleep better, since I routinely awake after the alcohol wears off and have to fall back asleep.

Who knows? It’s worth a try.

I finished reading Sula by Toni Morrison last night. Before turning to her novel, I read a short story by Harlan Ellison.  Ellison’s hallmark is to try and shock the reader in some way. The short story I read was”The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” in his Deathbird Stories. It uses the famous case of Kitty Genovese.

She was murdered on the streets of New York in 1964 as many of her neighbors supposedly looked on in apathy of fascination. Ellison posits that his similar incident was part of some gruesome evolving new urban supernatural religion that thrives on watching violence.

It’s kind of brutal.

But in her novel Sula Morrison makes him look gentle. Sula is a grim American story of two black women who were childhood friends. It tells what happens to them and their families.

The story of their lives is full of grim startling mayhem and rings brutally true. It is a disturbing sad novel. 

As I was finishing it up last night, I felt a difference in quality between it and the glib sci fi shock that Ellison seemed to be going for. Morrison’s work was disturbing but much more satisfactory as a work of art to me.

MARGARET ATWOOD WRITES FOR THE FUTURE

The theme of this week’s On The Media show is “Digital Dark Age.” It is a frightening idea that that we are vulnerable to the eradication of the knowledge and information we now store and access digitally. If it were to all go away, we would be back in a significantly nontech world.

Who better to ask about this than Margaret Atwood. Brooke Gladstone interviews her about a specific project of writing a secret book to be published in a 100 years, but Atwood is great to listen to for anything.

Last night I realized that I wanted to read the next novel by Morrison after Sula. I poked around and found Song of Solomon hiding in my mess of books.

After listening to On the Media this morning, I thought that having a hard copy of something I wanted to read next might be handy if the Digital Dark Age were to come this week.

Happy thoughts from Jupe on Sunday morning.

The startling turn of events this week culminated yesterday in the Supreme Court ruling on the legality of same sex marriage yesterday. The family of the victims of Charleston race killings displayed astounding courage and character as they publicly forgave the murderer of their dear ones. I call this walking the walk instead of just talking the talk. And the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act  happened. Combined with yesterday’s ruling this all left me with a dizzy sense of history happening before my eyes.

Not everyone noticed apparently. As I took my pizza from the pizza guy last night he asked how I was. I said, ecstatic. Why, he asked. The Supreme Court rulings. He said, How so? I tried to fill him in a bit but was a bit taken aback that he had no idea what I was talking about. Blissful ignorance, I guess.

For what it’s worth he was a person of color with several pierced ear rings. I know. I know. It’s superficial to think that would have anything to with anything. But it was a cautionary reminder to me that people I might think would have some awareness of issues like race and LGBT stuff might not.

I had a pleasant rehearsal with my friend, Jordan VanHemert who I know reads this blog from time to time (Hi Jordan!). We ran through a little Sax version of Vaughan Williams organ piece, Rhosymedre. It’s basically a straight transcription of the organ piece giving the sax the important lines. it sounds cool. Jordan is an amazing player. He has a gig tonight.

We then read through a couple movements of Franck’s A Major Violin Sonata again transcribed for Sax. Wow. Some difficult stuff for both players. I had trouble keeping up, but it was fun. And I liked the piece, especially the last movement. Jordan said he thought the piece was one of Franck’s best. He could be right.

My organ student was having physical problems yesterday and asked if instead of our weekly lesson we could sit and talk music and tech. I said yes but I wasn’t going to take her forty bucks for doing so. It’s probably silly of me not to charge her but I know myself well enough that I would probably bullshit for free about this topic.

She is a former teacher at Hope and has managed to retain her faculty online privileges. I urged her to check out the resources available to her this way. Specifically Naxos and the New Groves Dictionary of Music. Also the International Music Score Library Project is a great resource. She asked if she could walk through downloading a piece to my tablet’s music reader. So we did that.

Another good day in the life of Jupe.

Putin Breaks Silence With Call to Obama Touching on Ukraine and ISIS – NYT

Putin called Obama this week. I have been watching Putin and Xi Jinping. The world stage is fluid right now, to say the least. Russia and China are doing some weird shit (as is the USA). Like a lot of countries, both China and Russia use the USA as a whipping boy to seduce their populations into compliance with public policies. It looks like Putin lost the last round with NATO but only slightly and is still causing a lot of concern and confusion with their actions in Ukraine.

China Aims to Move Beijing Government Out of City’s Crowded Core – The New York Times

Kind of odd that China is moving the Beijing Government out of Beijing proper to make more room for the National government. We went to the Forbidden City when we visited Beijing. The Government headquarters are right there. Interesting to see China designing new cities.

Burundi Students Enter U.S. Embassy as Political Tensions Escalate – NYT

So Burundi’s President is ignoring its constitution and running for a third time. That’s what these students were protesting. Odd image of people clamoring over and under walls  of the embassy to get away from the police.

I follow news events pretty closely.

Yesterday was unusual in that there were reports that did not depress me.

The Roberts Court’s Reality Check – The New York Times

This article by Linda Greenhouse summarizes what happened in the Supreme Court’s ACA decision yesterday. Although she is supposedly retired, this article appeared on http://www.nytimes.com/. I know I link up a lot from the New York Times and they only allow so many free articles a month to non subscribers. I don’t know if the nytimes.com blogs (of which Greenhouse’s insightful article and artful take down of Scalia) is one, but it’s worth a read.

I was surprised by this decision. I think the Supreme Court is very partisan with its right wing majority. I lost respect for the conservatives when they handed the presidency to George W. Bush violating their own basic philosophy of the importance of states rights (Florida to be specific) to hand the Republicans an election they actually lost by count.

oba

So i thought that the rich secure justices of our supreme court, so out of touch with reality, would not hesitate to throw the country into turmoil by striking down our functioning health care law.

As one cartoon put it:

But I was wrong.

And I am very glad.

Charleston Families Hope Words Endure Past Shooting – The New York Time

I’m not sure people realize how earth shattering this story is. In an age of uneducated, unprincipled clamoring Americans, a handful of black people quietly showed us what we need: integrity and true grace under pressure by forgiving the racist who killed thier loved ones. Amazing and encouraging.

I recently private messaged a reactionary family member. He had complained publically on Facebooger that the news had left him bewildered and upset. I took the oppurtunity to ask him privately how accessed the news. His response was unclear and did not exactly answer the question.

I think he like many people accesses stuff online (that’s what he said, although he did not mention any particular sources that he consults). Watching what people pass on and their presumptions, I am convinced that they are not adept at understanding bias and the need for reporting and information in order to understand our world.

I’m not sure that they do what I do when I run across a story on a web site I do not recognize. I instantly check the site’s own “about” section for stated objectives. I look at their funding if reported on their site as it often is.  I also google some of the important writers and funders if I don’t recognize them. I compare what they are saying to journalistic sources like the New York Times and the Guardian and others.

This is a far cry from the polemic and noise of many if not most web sites trying to get clicks and shape opinion.

Fooled by ‘The Onion’: 9 Most Embarrassing Fails – The Daily Beast

I love it when a public figure is caught out (as they are pretty regularly) using a bogus source. It’s easy to do especially if you don’t understand how to read a URL and don’t do some serious googling of the personalities and funding involved.

Here’s How to Prevent Fake News from Spreading on Social Media | VICE | United

Checking is time consuming but worth it.

It’s helpful to remember that one can be very intelligent and still be caught up in anti-intellectual confusion. Thinking clearly and logically is a skill that needs constant honing and improvement. So much of our technology encourages us to be lazy in the way we think. I have a strong suspicion that many people who seek news and information on the web are unclear about the sources they are consulting as well as the distortions in many of them.

This has led me to read more carefully what people I disagree with are putting up on social media. Since I’m connected to these people I have found it tricky to respond to them directly since the parameters of coherence and calm discussion do not seem to obtain in how they communicate online. Instead I have been lately doing a bit more sharing on Facebooger. Not only do I continue to share what I think are substantial pieces of thinking (often that’s what I link here as well), but I have begun to pass on more propaganda type pieces. The propaganda I choose is stuff that is putting forward what I understand as sorely needed coherence and reason to balance what I am seeing others sharing online.

So now when I read something frustrating wrong and incoherent (often admittedly extreme right wing stuff put up by people I know and care about), I now allow myself to immediately link in and share stuff that I see as an antidote to anti-intellectualism and mediocrity.

I have found it interesting who responds to these links. I do get quite a bit of response which makes me hope that it’s helping dilute some of the misinformation rolling past me on my screen.

I can dream, right?

Black churches taught us to forgive white people. We learned to shame ourselves |

This is an example of an “antidote” link and I have shared it on Facebooger.

Kiese Laymon, the author, has disowned the headline (which he did not write). But the article underneath it is amazing. Laymon goes to his grandmother (whom we have met before in his writing) to talk to her about the recent killings in Charleston of 9 black people in a prayer meeting.

Her words and his writing are important to read and think about at this time in the US. I have been giving in to a small bit of  hope that something might actually be changing around the issue of institutional racism especially as evidenced by some discussion and change in our warped imprisonment of so many black men.

The Confederate Cause in the Words of Its Leaders – The Atlantic

I haven’t finished this one, but it’s another one I passed along on social media.

The young violinist I worked with recently mentioned a band in passing, Snarky Puppy.

Yesterday I was looking for music to treadmill by and put on their album, “We Like It Here.”

Wow. I really like this band. Here’s taste.

I am planning on buying this in digital form online. My consumer vote.

fun facts

Converso

Converso is the term of art for someone who converted to the state religion for expediency purposes but  retains ties to their old religion particularly in 15th century Spain (1492 was the year all non Christians in Spain had to convert or be deported).

Many of these people ended up as “streams of hidden Iberian religion” (Diarmaid MacCulloch’s term). These streams were some very interesting takes on Christianity that ended up for the most part not become part of the orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic church.  And specifically two Inquisitors-General of the Spanish Inquisition were themselves from conversos famlies.  MacCulloch writes, “such officials had a great deal of personal baggage to dispose of through their busy activity;”

the words, “journal” and “diary”

The two words journal and diary both have similar etymologies from different languages. “Journal” is related to the Old French word for day and “diary” to the Latin term for day.

Quakers

Quakers are so called because George Fox “told a judge trying him in a law court to  tremble at the name of the Lord.” (again MacCulloch)

St. Paul was a book burner

19 And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together andbegan burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing Acts 19: 19-20

A group of 15th century humanists introduced the idea of archaeology

These humanists were headed by Leon Battista Alberti and were encouraged by Cardinal Prospero Colonna. They attempted to raise Roman ships from Lake Nemi. By doing so became “first major conscious venture in a scholarly exploration which had virtually no precedent in the ancient world” thus becoming the first archeologists. Unfortunately they pretty much destroyed the ships trying to get them up. 

Again my source in MacCulloch. Quite the dude.

This weekend was a culmination for me of several weeks of preparing to play Mozart’s Fantasia in F, K. 594. I performed it as the requested recessional at Saturday’s wedding and as Prelude and Postlude for Sunday’s Eucharist. My careful and diligent preparation paid off. I had one funny moment at the wedding performance when I suddenly changed the pedaling in the most difficult section. Despite this, I managed to play the correct notes with the wrong pedaling. I continue to learn about my own performance habits and how to prepare.

Sunday, however, I “nailed” it. There were four local professionally skilled musicians in attendance that morning (any given service has  multiple musicians present at my church). They all quickly left during the postlude. This is kind of vindicating because it really was a good performance of a good piece. So it’s hard to take such action personally. I can’t fathom their lack of interest in the music. If the situations were reversed and I was present at a performance by any of the them, I would be very interested.

Who knows why people do what they do? I miss my regular listener, Joy Huttar, who died recently. I know it’s a bit selfish but I miss her intelligent listening and comments and appreciation.

But despite this little glitch of what seemed like inattention, I was elated by my performance and enjoyed learning this piece. My only regret is that I’m not sure it’s one I can keep in my repertoire without constantly practicing the difficult pedal sections.

The Conversion of Paul Jenkins

As promised here’s Dad’s conversion story. I know this probably has limited appeal to some readers. But I have been thinking a great deal about the entire concept of conversion and being “saved.” How did it come about? How did its origins in the 18th century in the United Kingdom and America influence the religion of my childhood?

Dad wrote an article about his experience which tells it in a bit of a folksy voice. Here’s the link to a PDF of his article:

Some Deer Hunt! by Paul Jenkins

A Brief Pause

A young woman who has lymphoma cancer is keeping an online journal of the experience. I have known her since her childhood.

Reflections — Aaron Goodyke

I keep lists in Facebooger and Twitter. Yesterday with tornadoes predicted I checked my Twitter list which I call “Local Yokels.” That means it’s people in the vicinity who tweet. I didn’t find much new info on the storm (which actually petered out), but I did run across the creation of a new blog by a local organ student.

Bach’s Tempo Ordinario: A Plaine and Easie Introduction to the System Robert Marshall PDF

I have been thinking about tempo in Baroque music. Yesterday I poked around and found this 2008 article. It was cited by Peter Williams. It’s not quite the info I was looking for but it’s worth reading.

Gunther Schuller, Composer Who Synthesized Classical and Jazz, Dies at 89 – 

I was interested to read that local yokel, Greg Cowell, knew Schuller. I have several of Schuller’s books (the ones on Jazz) and he has been someone who has interested me.

Saddened to hear of the death of Gunther Schuller. He was president of The New England Conservatory when I was an undergraduate student there. I still remember being called into his luxurious and imposing office one day, not because I was in trouble, but because he wanted to talk to me. The first time I heard the opera Wozzeck was in a concert performance in Jordan Hall under his baton and featuring NEC alumni in the main roles. I have loved that music passionately ever since, and I have never heard it better conducted. He was also an important composer who wrote some stunning (and very difficult) organ music. A master has died.

possible link to Greg’s Facebooger page

Who Owns Your Overtime? – The New York Times

An adjustment in the Fair Labor Standards act provides an opportunity to think about how we work in the USA.

White Supremacists Without Borders by Morris Dees and J. Richard Cohen – The New York Times

These guys are high mucky mucks of the Southern Poverty Law Center. I have long been a fan of Dees and the work of the SPLC. Good article.

Allen Weinstein, Historian of Alger Hiss Case, Dies at 77 – The New York Times

The Hiss/Chambers story has fascinated me for years. I have read both Chambers’ and Hiss’ account plus other books and articles. It looks like Hiss did work for the communists.

To Soften Image, Brazilian Police Ride In Atop Horned Beasts – The New York Tim

Water buffaloes. Very cool.

The Paradise of the Library – The New Yorker

Article by James Salter who died recently. Haven’t read yet, but the opening sentence mentions Anthony Burgess. That’s enough for me to check it out later.

James Salter, a ‘Writer’s Writer’ Short on Sales but Long on Acclaim, Dies at 90 – 

Here’s a link to his obit.

I have always felt that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are a bit bogus, especially as celebrated in the USA as holidays of consuming in one way or another.

I have made sure that my parents know I love them on these days. Yesterday I was thinking quite a bit about Dad. He died in 2009.

Yesterday I found myself thinking about Dad. I don’t really remember him on his birthday. The circumstances of his death were tough for me. Watching his personality and intelligence ebb away on a daily basis was hard enough. But also watching and helping my Mother through this period was very painful.

So anyway, I found myself reading his sermons and his privately distributed memoir, Through Many Dangers, Toils and Snares: Chronology and Memoirs.

His memoir is helpful in that he organized it clearly with dates.  He includes what was happening in the world at the time he describes the family histories of the Jenkinses and the Midkiffs (my Mom’s family).

I have been reading and thinking about the idea of Christian conversion. Dad describes both his own and Mom’s experience.

Dad writes “[In 1937] In West Virginia, my wife to be, Mary Midkiff, became a Christian. She has said that hers was not so much of an emotional experience. She had been coached and counseled by a very intelligent and caring Sunday school teacher. She was providentially prepared.

He continues “She has expressed her conversion experience: ‘It was this time, at the age of 12 that I began to have a “God Consciousness.” I always went to Sunday School (not a lot of church) and we three children went when my folks did not. I guess I was the one who was so sold on going to Sunday School. In fact, my conversion was in my Sunday School room after class.

” ‘I remember that I was curious in class about becoming a Christian and my teacher told me that if I would remain after class that she would instruct me, which she did. My teacher sat with me and instructed me, even to the point of kneeling for prayer. I was really not aware that a person knelt in prayer…

” ‘I remember that the day I became a Christian I hurried home to share the wonderful feeling that I had with my mother and daddy. I was always sharing my feelings and what I was doing with them. My mother was in the kitchen frying chicken for our Sunday dinner. I think my daddy was probably reading the paper. I guess they were happy for me and I must say even though they did not become Christians until many years later, they were very supportive of me.

Dad continues a bit later: “Mary was finally somewhat instrumental in the conversion of the rest of her family to the Christian faith. She has certainly been an outstanding influence on my own life.”

Yesterday when i visited Mom I told her I was studying the history of conversion and asked her about her experience. in almost the same words she told me the story above. I asked her about the emotional aspect of her conversion. She said that Dad’s conversion was not emotional. When I said that hers wasn’t as well (remembering the story as Dad writes it), she vehemently disagreed. Her experience was emotional.

“I was saved then,” she said and then a bit of the southern drawl of her childhood creeping into her voice, “And I’m saved now!”

Tomorrow the conversion of Paul Jenkins.

The wedding went well. The best part was that with a gentle nudge they paid me. The congregation sang the one hymn surprisingly well. I can’t listen to fundamentalists preaching without thinking about historical weirdness in all the brands of Christianity around conversion. This minister also felt the need to speak in “thees” and “thous” when praying and speaking. The lack of historical self awareness is breath taking to me sometimes.

Which leads me to this article:

Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America | Psychology Today

Written by David Niose, it concisely and clearly outlines the under lying problem in the USA right now: lack of informed, engaged and rational thinking.

This seems so obvious to me. Whether listening to media or people in their daily lives I am often astounded at the ignorance. Niose buy valium from trusted pharmacy describes it as an “embrace and exaltation” of ignorance. . . “the rejection of critical thinking or, conversely, the glorification of the emotional and irrational.” That says it well.

He ascribes the jingoistic elevation of the USA as the best country in the world to this phenomenon. In face, Niose, goes on, the USA is lagging in many areas like education and scientific literacy. Murder rates here are much higher than the rest of the developed world.

We can love our country, but it takes an almost willful ignorance to see us as better than anyone else in the world.

Niose excoriates fundamentalists and corporations alike.

I recommend reading this article. I think I’m going to look at books by this dude. A small voice of sanity in an insane country.

So the musician I mentioned in yesterday’s post did  respond to my “friend” request on Facebooger. That’s nice. I looked at the list of people who have for one reason or another chosen not to respond to these kinds of request I have made in the past. Most of them were people I did not know, but a few are local. Slightly puzzling but no matter.

I think it’s probably okay to put a picture of her here and say that her name is Ariele Grace Macadangdang.

Yesterday at about 4:30 she phoned me. She was wondering if I was planning to come to the rehearsal for the wedding. I was indeed planning to do so, however I had the time wrong. Yikes. It had started at 4 PM.

I jumped in the car and drove over. Later the minister told me that I had delayed them  much because other people had been late as well.

I worked hard on the Mozart yesterday. When doing weddings it’s important to be flexible. It turns out that the minister wanted to make an announcement after the recessional. This means I have to stop my Mozart piece somewhere around the first repeat.

I decided yesterday that I could then change the registration and make it slightly less exuberant in sound and finish the piece while the people are dismissed. It seems a shame not to play the whole thing.

My student asked to hear this piece in her lesson yesterday. I have been primarily practicing it slowly and carefully but appreciated the chance to air it out with someone listening. There were a couple of rugged moments but all in all it went well.

And it went pretty well at the rehearsal. I was a bit concerned because in the emails the groom referred to the walking in music by the wrong name. He called it “Processional in D” by David Johnson. I replied that I thought he meant “Processional in E flat” since that’s what I had showed him and his group. He never confirmed that.

Johnson has written two pieces by these names. I brought them both last night and played the E flat one. No comment from the groom and bride so I guess that’s the one.

Well gotta get going. Lots of practicing and stuff to do today. So I guess this is my Saturday Snippet blog.

Recipe: Awesome Paleo Zucchini Chips – paleoforeverpaleoforever

This looks like something I  might try.

I met yesterday with the violinist for this weekend’s wedding. We chatted briefly and discussed whether to use piano or organ. She mentioned that she hadn’t played much with organ, so I said we would try some stuff that way. I sat at the piano for a minute and discovered it was so badly out of tune as to be unusable, so we stuck with organ.

As I listened to her first notes, I was very impressed with the quality of her sound. It became quickly apparent that she was a mature musician. Cool.

It didn’t take long for us to come up with a game plan for the prelude. We would improv on the two hymns the engaged couple had chosen for their service. The rest would be Bach and Vivaldi. We ran through this stuff.

I confessed to her that when a bridal party requests a friend of the fam to play, one never knows what the ability of the player will be. I told this player she was a very pleasant surprise.

Afterwards we chatted a bit more. I found out that she was a teaching assistant at the University of Miami. I asked her if she had studied improv in college and she said yes. One thing she said that was particularly impressive was that she was working in her improvisations to plunge in and “not be so full” of herself.

I liked that. I told her that most musicians who do nor improvise talk about anxiety but it was a step toward maturity to think of improving ones skills as losing the idea of being “full of oneself.”

When I meet young people like this: talented, articulate; I am interested in what music they know about. This person knew Stephen Grapelli and Jean Luc Ponty. She was impressed that I head Ponty play with Zappa and George Duke (not sure she recognized Duke).

I asked her for some more violinists besides these that she would recommend I listen to.

She mentioned several.

Zack Brok

Sara Caswell 

Regina Carter

At first glance, I think I like Carter the most, but am grateful for the recommendations. The violinist was 24 years old. I love this shit. I just sent her a “friend” request on Facebooger. We’ll see if she responds.

Minnesota’s Holding of Sex Offenders After Prison Is Ruled Unconstitutional – 

We as a society have not exactly figured out what to do with sex offenders. They seem to be immune to fair treatment due to the abhorrent nature of their crime. There has to be a better way to deal with them.

Foreign Groups Fear China Oversight Plan – The New York Times

Both China and Russia seem to be pulling back from international cooperation. This doesn’t look good for the Beijing branch of the fam.

60 Million People Fleeing Chaotic Lands, U.N. Says – The New York Times

Half the displaced are children.

I have been trying to sort out in my own brain some thoughts about the brands of Christianity that are based on “conversion” theology.

I’m doing this in order to understand my own background better.

When I was a boy, I learned about the need for all people to be “saved” or “converted.” This usually meant some sort of deep experience in which a person undergoes a radical change. My father told the story of his conversion. He was hunting alone and sat down to think. Something happened to him at that point. When he rejoined the other hunters he told them he had been “saved” or in the lingo “accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and  Personal Savior!”

I’m reading a book on this topic (The Evengelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England by D. Bruce Hindmarsh).

When I was in my teens I can remember looking around on a Sunday Morning at West Court Street Church of God in Flint Michigan where my Dad was the minister and wondering what exactly were we doing and how did it start?

Now in my sixties I’m still wondering but beginning to have a bit of a clue. Hindmarsh’s book is helping me. He presents an astute picture of evolving understandings of alternative  Christian churches that spring up in Great Britain mostly in the 18th century.

The sources of what I think of as fundamentalist churches, self-described as evangelical are complex and surprising. I think that the oscillating situation of which flavor of Christianity was the state religion of Great Britain prepared the way for some of this. It had the interesting effect of driving non-Catholics out of the country and into Europe where they ingested ideas about their religion that ended up influencing subsequent thinking.

Also, the gradual evolution of all technologies at the time had a tremendous effect. Travel became more easy in 18th century. So the influential thinkers, John Wesley and George Whitefield, spent a great deal of time riding around England and crossing  the Atlantic spreading their ideas. They also wrote letters which now were sped more quickly to diverse situations.

The communities (the gathered churches as Hindmarsh refers to these churches – non-Roman Catholics and non-Anglicans of all brands) would often read these letters in their services. People were telling each other the stories of their “conversions” mostly from situations of what they saw as empty ritual to a new and emotional commitment to Christianity.

Another interesting thing to me is that many of these thinkers felt that what was happening was a sign of imminent return of Christ and the end of time.

This was in the mid 18th century. When I was a kid, I can remember weird “end time” religious pamphlets in my maternal Grandmother’s house.

Again an association between “being saved” (conversion) and prophecies fulfilled.

I’m not being too specific here because I know that this is kind of a boring topic.

I am finding answers to how the basic meanings differ.  American Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians basic ideas are very different the meaning of liturgical worship in Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican circles.

It begins to occur to me that “conversion” Christian thinking is an entirely different religion than Liturgical/ritual (or whatever you want to call it) Christian thinking. The former seems to have sprung up in a wave of societal change in the 18th century.

As Stress Drives Off Drone Operators, Air Force Must Cut Flights – The New York

Remote pilots suffer the same rate of Post Traumatic Syndrome that pilots in actual missions do.

Offering Services, ISIS Digs In Deeper in Seized Territories – The New York Times

People have no choice but the organization that offers the most hope, however little that is.

As Vladimir Putin Talks More Missiles and Might, Cost Tells Another Story – NYT

As usual the bluster is different from the reality, but I’m still keeping an eye on this stuff.

Senate Votes to Turn Presidential Ban on Torture Into Law – NYT

I couldn’t figure out if this has to be ratified by the House or not.

A Thirsty Colorado Is Battling Over Who Owns Raindrops – The New York Times

Against the law to gather rain water in a rain barrel. Weird.

The Other Terror Threat – The New York Times

The other threat is right wing extremists who have done more damage than any terrorist of any other ilk. I told  Eileen I hesitated to put this link up on Facebooger. She said why not? I said so many of my friends and family are right wingers and get their news from organizations that are more about polemic than informing.

I put it up yesterday.

I was pleasantly surprised to have my pedaling of the Bach D major fugue confirmed in print this morning.

I have been wondering just how unorthodox my pedal technique is lately. Tackling the Mozart piece has been challenging.

So I was perusing Kraus’s little book on organ practice and I ran across this.

You see the little accent like things above and below the notes? They indicate the right and left toe. This is the way I learned this piece. Looking at the Bonnet pedaling in Mozart I wondered if I was a bit eccentric in this pedaling. Using all toes is sometime a bit like using early fingering. Proponents of early finger often not only play pieces with the odd fingerings used at the time of its composition, but also sometimes use the fingering to justify interpretations.

This is all very controversial in the academic world. My thought is more about the comments that my teacher, Craig Cramer, made to me as I was graduating from grad school. He told me that the music faculty did not expect me to cut the program and that I had arrived with literally no pedal technique to speak of.

This was not a kind thing to tell a departing student. These comments often leave me wondering years later how good my technique is. This is strictly an emotional thing, but still it was comforting to see that how I play Bach is not that weird if I can find it in a book on practicing. Right?

This is also the way I play the Prelude that goes with the D Major Fugue of Bach.

I know it’s kind of dumb for me to find this gratifying, but I do.

Yesterday I practiced the Mozart piece diligently. I worked with my metronome clicking it up very gradually to not only speed it up a bit but also check the steadiness of my tempo. I am way out of control on this project. It is hardly likely that people in my audiences at the wedding and then at church (I scheduled it as the postlude this Sunday) will notice if I don’t play it quite up to my own standards.

I fear I could use a bit more time on it, but I don’t have that so I accept the challenge of trying to do it as well as I can this weekend.

After a couple hours yesterday, I gave myself a little reprieve and played through some Vierne. I have reached the section of his bio where Rollin Smith is going through each of Vieren’s organ works and commenting. I was surprised to read that Smith thinks Vierne is the greatest organ composer of the 20th century. That’s a sweeping statement. I guess he thinks Messiaen’s not quite up to snuff. It’s kind of a common thing for older organists and snobby organists to ignore a lot of music (like Messiaen and more contemporary composers) and sort of write it off.

Since I get written off quite a bit myself, I should find that a bit consoling.

I finished putting new strings on my guitar yesterday. I continue to practice some on it each day. I’m playing music that otherwise wouldn’t interest me much if it weren’t on the guitar (Diabelli and others).

This must be what other musicians feel for instruments like the organ, a sheer passion for the sounds no matter what the music is.

I can remember my teacher, Ray Ferguson, telling me that he tried to learn guitar in his middle age but couldn’t quite get his fingers to work that way. This is amazing since he was a virtuoso organist.

But now I have a glimmer of what he might have been up against since my arthritic old hands do not move quite as easily as they used to and this is not just lack of practice.

Speaking of practicing I learned something about the Mozart piece I am preparing. I experimented with playing it a bit faster and  learned that staccato in the pedals played quickly presents a technical problem for me. The easy solution is simply to play them legato. I’m glad to have learned this before performing the piece.

I did check out the wedding collection from Hope College’s library and breathed  a sigh of relief at having the music for this Saturday in my hands. It’s not particularly hard but I like to be prepared.

I did notice that my guitar practice seems to be taking time away from my piano playing time. Interesting. It’s kind of funny since the music I usually play on the piano is itself much better composed than the little guitar ditties I am spending my guitar time on. But I am content with the lesser music. I do like the sound of guitar.

We have been attempting to give our cat, Edison, two daily doses of antibiotics. The first time, he was quite a handful and scratched me up. Then we tried the seduction method, dousing tuna fish with the medicine. We had limited success at that. This is complicated by the fact that his appetite is a bit diminished. I think the meds are hitting him hard.

So yesterday afternoon we returned to trying to give it to him directly, but first at the advice of my daughter wrapping him in a towel. He was okay with this until Eileen began to attempt to put the meds in his mouth with the eyedropper. He went pretty crazy. And then shunned us for the rest of the day and night.

He is reconciled this morning but of course we will have to keep doing this until the antibiotics run out. Fun stuff.

I came up with a solution to watching family members posting ill informed stuff on Facebooger (mostly from the right wingers). I am distressed because of the sources they are quoting are so inferior and biased and full of hate and distortion (like right wing news and Rush Limbaugh).

If I try to engage them, they seem to just get more angry and hysterical. So I have found it satisfying to “share” (pass along) some of my biased sources (which I never think of as primary news outlets) to sort of balance the picture in my Facebooger feed.

Silly I know.

Goose Exterminator of the Netherlands Enrages Animal Rights Activists 

Wow. This is quite a story. Weirdly it tangles up animal rights, dangerous proliferation of geese to the point planes crash and Nazi gas chambers.

Very odd. My traffic fell to a low of 30 hits yesterday. I have been averaging about twice that, but I’m not really sure what it means. But at the same time my spam skyrocketed to over 1,000. Usually my daily spam is more like three or four hundred.

I have continued to practice guitar, playing my way through a collection of easy pieces. Whether I have a guitar in my hands or I’m seated at the piano or organ, I continue to ponder how eccentric my life approach is. I find it a bit weird when people keep me at a distance, but at the same time I realize that it’s largely a result of my own choice not to present a false, more acceptable self. It’s tricky to do this without offending people. I know that I have failed at that sometimes.  I don’t mean to offend but I also am happy with who I am even though it’s outside the conventional parameters of so many people I run across.

People who are intentionally avoiding me are easy to confuse with people who don’t notice me. I wish this didn’t bother me at all. As it is, it’s not that big a deal to me. I continue to feel lucky in my life.

A Brief Pause

The link above is to a blog started a few days ago by Molly Coyle, a brave young woman facing cancer. I have known her family for years. It is well written and worth the time to read. I attempted to leave a comment of support for her, but it hasn’t been approved yet.

Don’t Go to Music School – NYTimes.com

Articles like this contribute to my own feelings of eccentricity. My musical ways and my life don’t seem to factor into many conversations and ideas about music in our culture these days. It’s one of the reasons I feel so lucky to have a place to practice and a bit of an outlet in church work. I continue to recall when one landlord in Detroit expressed his skepticism at the source of my income working as a church musician, “They pay you for that?” he asked.

Flawed Humans, Flawed Justice – NYTimes.com

I hadn’t really thought of the ideas in this article, but they are very logical and helpful.

Our legal system is based on an inaccurate model of human behavior

Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought – Quartz

Complex interaction between long time usage of pesticides and its effect on bees immune system. Very discouraging.

Today is the fortieth anniversary of Eileen’s and my wedding.

We are not much for celebrating these sort of things too lavishly.

We are planning a modest lunch together at one of our favorite local restaurants. It is a milepost however. Hard to believe that something that is so easy and pleasant for me (and hopefully Eileen) has lasted so long.

As I am wont to say, I’m lucky.

I pulled out my guitar this morning once again. I downloaded a tuner on my phone and brought it better in tune. I still haven’t replaced the rest of the strings on it yet. It’s an odd feeling to revive this skill. My guitar playing is entirely self taught with a nod to some classical technique. But I haven’t picked it up probably since I was in my fifties.

I do like the sound of it and enjoyed playing through some simple classical dances this morning. If I continue on, I will probably try to play a bit every day to get my callouses back. I did pick up a good edition of Bach’s lute music for guitar. I will have to look that up and see how difficult it is. Probably out of my reach for a while.

My guitar playing helps me understand the unconventional way music has been the passion of my life. I’ve never really had much ambition other than doing it well. It is a personal satisfaction for me which breeds a bit of impatience with all of what I see as nonsense around music, classical and popular.

No matter. The Mozart mechanical organ piece I have been working on for next weekend is coming along well. Yesterday I only practiced slowly. I am tempted to do that for the rest of this week in preparation. Recently I did this with the infamous Widor toccata in preparation for using it at Easter. I only practiced it slowly and with staccato.

I then played it well. I think the staccato has something to do with this. The Mozart has a lot of staccato in it and I am doing the slow practice in a similar way to the way I prepared the Widor. I think it will work.

I seem to have misplaced the music for the processional for this wedding. I think I may have left it at Hope church where I interviewed the couple. I have ordered a new copy of it. It is from a collection by David Johnson and is his own composition (Processional in Eb major). Hope College owns a copy. Tomorrow when the library opens I will go check it out. I was panicked there for a while. I found a page of the piece online and pulled it down and put it on my tablet. I could fake it from that. But will most likely get a copy of the entire piece by tomorrow.

Snyder, Legislature putting Michigan on path of intolerance and regression | MLive

Some very conservative state legislators introduced some offensive law and managed to get it passed. It’s so difficult for me to understand this upside down way of looking at things…. that somehow by treating people we disagree with as we treat everyone else we are breaking the rules of our own religion. What a religion! What a country!

Meanwhile the Chopstick Brothers keep the hits coming.

Letter From Azerbaijan Jail: Khadija Ismayilova Speaks Out – NYTimes.com

Letters from prison from human rights people are always impressive. It pays to watch the letter column in the NYT.

No Justice for Canada’s First Peoples – NYTimes.com

More historical evidence of religious and societal intolerance.

Women Respond to Nobel Laureate’s ‘Trouble With Girls’ – NYTimes.com

Sad to see this guy so brilliant in one way so stuck in ignorance in another.

Sort of an antidote to the silliness of the Chopstick Brothers. I do like Alabama Shakes.

Library of Congress Chief Retires Under Fire – NYTimes.com

Another librarian in the news. This guy seems a bit dogmatic and might need to retire.

Increasingly Frequent Call on Baltic Sea: ‘The Russian Navy Is Back’ – NYTimes.co

Keeping my eye on how things are progressing world wide politically.

Paul Bacon, 91, Whose Book Jackets Drew Readers and Admirers, Is Dead – NYTimes.com

Book and record cover design fascinates me.

From Caitlyn Jenner to a Brooklyn High School – NYTimes.com

Young brave people.

Why I’m finally convinced it’s time to stop saying “you guys” – Vox

I’ve been thinking about sexism and language since the inception of the magazine, Ms. I don’t think this person makes a convincing argument. She doesn’t even mention the origin of the word (Guy Fawkes I believe).

Hermann Zapf, 96, Dies; Designer Whose Letters Are Found Everywhere – NYT

I also find font design pretty interesting.

As I begin thinking about redoing my Bad Paul Simon songs into piano/vocal compositions, one way to explore possibilities is to sit at the piano and render them. So a couple days ago, I was doing this with “House Trailer.”

I have a certain fondness for this song because like many other pieces I have done it is based on a real situation. I picked up an older Indian hitchhiking once. He invited me into his trailer to talk. He drank heavily because of arthritic pain he could relieve no other way. He was very generous to me in that he gave me conversation and time. The result of all this was the song, “House Trailer.

House Trailer MP3

As I was goofing off with this song, Eileen came downstairs. She said she thought I had been working on my song, “Black-eyed Susan.”

That song, which I wrote before I met Eileen, was not based on a real situation. However, I think my first wife suspected that I was dallying with a young woman and this was her song. It is, however, one I wrote to and about flowers. Silly boy.

Anyway, since Eileen mentioned it in a positive way, I thought I would add it to my list of Bad Paul Simon songs to think about redoing.

I checked my files. Nothing written down about this song. I checked my Finale files, nothing there. So it looked like I have never written it down except in terms of lyrics.

Then I searched for my little book in which many of my song lyrics are written down. I could not lay my hands on it, although I’m convinced it’s here somewhere.

Undaunted I thought I could remember this song, so I sat down with Finale and began work.

First I put the lyrics in a lyric box.

I didn’t bother with hyphenation, though before inserting the lyric I would have to do that. It seemed better to allow my memory to just flow. Then I began sketching out the melody from memory.

This seemed vaguely correct. But I wasn’t entirely sure about the rests. Often when I am transcribing this kind of tune for use I find it helpful to work directly from the recording to the Finale file. That should be no problem. Surely I have made a recording of this song.

So I began to scour my recording files. After several minutes of looking in various subdirectories on my exterior hard drive where I keep this sort of thing, I decided I would just use the search function and look for it.

Nothing. This could only mean that I had never recorded it.

When I thought about it, it’s really a guilty pleasure kind of song that I didn’t ever remember performing in a venue only singing it for myself (and Eileen is she happened to be listening).

I began to panic a bit.

I needed to reassure myself that I could remember this song written over 40 years ago. Many of my songs I know I could not remember easily.

There is a tactile nature to this kind of song. I could remember in my mind the feel of the guitar accompaniment. The problem is I haven’t picked up a guitar for several years. I pulled out a guitar. Its steel strings stung my uncalloused fingers. I looked around for my nylon string guitar. There it was in the corner missing a string. Great.

I found a set of strings and restrang the missing string. I strummed a bit and then sang through “Black Eyed Susan.” Thank goodness, it all came back to me.

All the more reason to write it down I guess.

Eileen pleasantly surprised me and got up at 8:30 this morning. Usually she sleeps in a bit later than that. Consequently, I stopped what I was doing (reading my Vierne bio) and had breakfast with her.

Then I broke my morning ritual and checked my email and Facebooger before blogging.

It was thundering and raining in Holland Michigan this morning. I played through the F minor prelude and fugue in Bach’s WTC, vol 2. this morning. I also have been practicing the piano part for Beethoven’s Cello Sonata Op. 5 No. 1 since Dawn my cellist and I went through the entire thing yesterday.

For a while now I have been pondering doing piano vocal arrangements of my “Bad Paul Simon Songs.” Eileen thinks this has something to do with the fact that I dreamed about Paul Simon recently. In my dream, I encouraged an old friend to sit in with Paul Simon. My dream Paul Simon was very gracious. I could see he was going to ask me to perform one  of my songs. I panicked because I wasn’t sure I could remember one well enough to perform them. I do remember not being worried about being embarrassed by the idea of singing one of my songs on the same venue as Simon.

I pulled out some of these songs recently and began thinking about what a piano voice transcription/arrangement would look like.

I already have several of them here on line as lead sheets. They are on my “Free Mostly Original Sheet Music Page.”

Songs

Deja Vu pdf
House Trailer pdf
Naked Boy pdf
So Many People pdf
Sorry Midnight pdf

I just tested these links and they all worked for me. “House Trailer” is one I am thinking of rendering in a piano/voice version.  I decided on that without looking at my sheet music page here online.

I also uploaded my Pentecost Suite for Marimba and Organ this morning to this page. My friend, Rhonda, mentioned it to me in an email recently. She offered to plug my website in the national AGO mag this fall, but only if it was online. So there you go, Rhonda, if you happen to read this.

Sarah my daughter asked in a comment where the short story, “Dreams in the Hands of Demons,” is and could she read. Well Sarah here’s a link to a pdf of my old moldy manuscript.

Dreams in the Hands of Demons (PDF)

You can see that the return address in this manuscript prepared to submit to a magazine or something that I was living in Delaware OH. This means I was about twenty or so when I wrote it.

After a couple hours of practicing organ yesterday, I found myself unusually fatigued. It was then that I realized that I had spent my energy on other things before getting to the console. First of all, Eileen and I went to the Farmers Market. Then, I worked on gathering information to submit reimbursement requests to the church for purchases I made earlier in the year (used organ music and multiple copies of a book on aging and singing for the choir). This took quite a while.

Then I ended up meeting with my boss for a while as we usually do. This last task is a pleasure for me since I enjoy chatting with her.

I curtailed my rehearsal realizing that I needed to go grocery shopping, see my Mom and exercise. I like to think about having an energy pie.

I’m afraid my energy pie is shrinking as I age. All I have to do is take note and adjust accordingly. Easier said than done sometimes.

During the course of my conversation with Jen she updated me on the condition of one of our parishioners, Joy Huttar. Since Joy’s family has made Joy’s condition public, I think it’s okay for me to talk about it here a bit.

Joy was the organist before me at Grace. I met her and her husband, Chuck,  in 1987 when we moved here.

They graciously invited Eileen and me into their home, introduced me to faculty at Hope and were very welcoming. This was particularly gracious since I was working for the Roman Catholics at the time, who had imported me and my family to Holland from grad school.

They even invited me to play in their recorder ensemble.

I attended once and quickly understood that their approach to their rehearsals was a bit haphazard, playing music much more difficult than they could manage and not doing that very well.

At the same time I became a bit more acquainted with Joy and conceived a deep respect for her work at the organ. She seems to have taken it up seriously in middle age. She studied with Roger Davis (whom she and Chuck made sure I met at that meal at their home).

He was kind of a dink, but I quickly came to admire Joy.

This last Sunday evening, Joy was gardening with her husband, Chuck, when she said to him, “Something is  happening to me,” and collapsed. He quickly called 911. She had had a massive stroke and rapidly declined for 24  hours.

Her family was notified and gathered around her. Since then she has plateaued and is no worse or better.

Jen and I agreed that there was no predicting this kind of situation.

Joy has made it clear that she wanted Rhosymedre by Vaughan Williams performed at her funeral. Whenever she told me about it, I pointed out that she was assuming she would die before me. Things don’t always work out that way.

However, upon learning about her situation  on Monday, I began including the Vaughan Williams in my daily rehearsal in case I am called upon to be the organist at Joy’s funeral.

This all reminds me of an incident in my youth. I have a vivid picture of a woman from my church who had picked up a young girl to take her to our church. The woman I remember in a very fifties way, with a fancy hairdo and far too much make up.

The young girl was a friend of mine named Sharon.

They told the story of how the woman allowed the young girl out of the car to cross the street presumably to get to her home after church. A car hit her. She was tossed many many feet in the air.

This is how I remember being told about the story.

Sharon ended up in a coma. Her coma persisted even though she recovered enough to be sent home and cared for her by her family.

I have a picture in my of visiting the family and Sharon. She was almost conscious and could be fed but not exactly have a conversation.

She is probably still in this state if she is alive.

I wrote a bad Joycean type short story about her I called “Dreams in the Hands of Demons.” I imagined her interior stream of consciousness and had her end up terrified at being alone.