On the outskirts of LA, there is an obscure little museum about printing. David somehow ran across this and organized an expedition for us yesterday.

It was a fascinating collection of printing presses some of which are apparently historical.

This was our tour guide. I believe his name was Richard Small. He was funny and informative and continually quizzed my grand kids about things such as “Did they know where pasta originated…. the same place as printing?” Not Italy (their guess) but China!

This press was a replica of a replica of the Gutenberg press. After a bit Mr. Small walked us over to another building where he handed us over to two more docents who were equally entertaining and informative. One got the impression of stumbling into a meeting of older men in a guild (which is in fact what they are).

The last docent demonstrated this Heidelberg printing press. It was satisfying to watch and listen to him, since it was obvious how much he adored this machine. He talked about its precision. If you put one period on a page and ran the same sheet through several times you would only see that period since the machine was so precise. He also pointed out that in order to create a speeding up and slowing down that was necessary in the process two of the rollers were made of very dense material, one weighing more than a tone. Imagine, he said, that this roller had to be brought quickly to a stop and then started again. Then he took a nickel and put it on its edge on a part of the machine. While this huge machine ran, the nickle remained on its edge. Very cool.

Toward the end of the tour, everyone was invited to write down their name to be printed up by the linotype machine. I put mine all in lower case but to no avail.

We were given the actual metal type face made with our name on it to keep (note the foot of your reporter above).

On the way to the museum, my sun burn began to itch incredibly. My son, David, was kind enough to stop and allow me to buy some aloe gel. This helped.

I had been dumb enough to neglect to put on sunblock when I swam in the ocean a few days ago. After we got home, the itch began again with a vengeance. I googled it and found that this had a name: Hell’s Itch.

It was no joke. I was in the shower for a long time cooling it off. The aloe gel didn’t help. My googling revealed that the skin was healing itself and the only effective relief would come from showers and application of A & D ointment. My daughter-in-law, Cynthia, brought me some on purchased on her way home from work. That did help. Boy do i feel stupid.

It’s still uncomfortable but much much better.

At the Front in a Scarred Falluja – The New York Times

I think the use of “first person” in this article is weird. Maybe it’s supposed to be a feature but in my interface it was simply in the line up of news stories. The article starts with the word, “I.”

Cynthia decided that despite the searing heat we should make Tiki Masks this year. It’s been at least two years if not longer since we did this project while visiting. My sunburn kept me in the shade and ducking into the house for relief, but here’s my mask.

Okay I was in a hurry. It was hot. But this is supposed to be me and my facial hair.

Later after some hurried last minute fumbling around on my part to try and get up and running to connect online (Facebooger video chat NOT fucking Skype via Windows fucking 10), the Calif cousins connected with their new cousin, Alex, in Beijing. This was fun.

It was good to see Jeremy, Alex, and Elizabeth.

I finished Hystopia by David Means yesterday. I think it is an excellent book. Means can write and think fluently. It’s a dark book. It’s technique of embedding a fictional novel in a fictional edition of it kept reminding me of Nabokov’s Pale Fire.

Means must have been aware of Nabokav’s similar fictional embedding of a poem in a editorial/academic apparatus. After pricing the Kindle version of Pale Fire (about $12), I was tickled to find a pdf of the book online. I used to have a copy of this book when I was younger. I never made it through but chances are good I will now.

I also ran across this from the publishers, New York Review of Books Classics, on Facebooger: A Different Stripe — Stay Cool Noir, Summer Reading Assignment #1

I have had good luck with the books I have read in their series of reprints. Eileen encouraged me to purchase one of their Noir recommendations. I did so.

I like this cover better:

It remains to be seen what book will catch my attention next. I brought Shostakovich’s Testimony which I have every intention of finishing at some point.

Well that’s the vacation update for today.

Officer says prosecutors silenced him in Sandra Bland case – Chicago Tribune

I keep waiting for this story to hit the NYT. The new facts in this case do not bode well for this case being solved in a just manner.

How Do You Say ‘Hashtag’ or ‘Shaming’ in Ancient Hebrew? – The New York Times

language in the news

I’m up early in California sitting by my son’s pool. The change in time zones is hard for my old body but I’m doing my best to live by the local clock. I lay in bed this morning and ready Hilary Clinton’s acceptance speech for the nomination last night. It was a good speech. I read this one which CNN says was the prepared script.

Clinton was in my dreams last night. I was somehow helping her do something in front a dim high tech console. I and someone else sitting next to her in the dark. She thanked us both graciously saying that we helped her do her job. We knew she was just being nice.

Since I’m recording dreams there was another one I remember this morning. It had to do with extreme danger. We had set traps around a large building. For some reason we were trying to lure animals. Mostly we used other animals to do this. There were chickens outside one plastic window waiting for tigers to come and slaughter them. I think we were then supposed to capture the tigers. The only violence in the dream was the blood that splattered on the plastic opaque window. Lots of fear in this dream, but facing it probably stupidly.

We spent most of the day yesterday at an ocean beach at Carlsbad.

I stupidly didn’t renew my sun screen when I went into the water. This morning I am sunburned on my face and upper torso.  I forgot to put on sunblock when I went in to the ocean. I stayed a while. This morning I am red.

Like most beach towns, Carlsbad has a bunch of shops. We brought our lunch, but decided to have Mexican food for lunch. Then ice cream. Here are some pics not on Facebooger.

After some excellent Mexican food, we wandered over to a charming little bookshop called Farenheit 451 Books.

The owner was there.

Follow the link above to get a sense of his charm. I hate robots, he said as he handed me the credit card machine for my credit card.

I found this book there. Hard  Words and other Poems by Ursula K. LeGuin. The Proprietor congratulated me on finding it. I told him it had been hidden in the poetry section. After he complained more about robots and the Kendall-McNook book takeover (also painted on his window was the sign BOOKS WITHOUT BATTERIES, I asked him if he had read People Get Ready by McChesney and Nichols. He didn’t recognize it. I spared him a verbal synopsis other than the takeover is already happening.

I also bought a beautiful little Yale edition of the Shakespeare play I am reading, Timon of Athens.

It was a fun day.

I stumbled through the day yesterday exhausted. It’s good to spend time with the California Jenkinses. My grand daughters have been playing “Words with Friends” with me for a few weeks. When I mentioned to Catherine that now we could play a game in person, she wrinkled her nose and shook her head. Then I understood that since their computer/internet privileges are so scant, even playing “Words with Friends” with Grandpa online is novel and valued. How about that?

I showed Nicholas how I use my tablet to read music. He is learning Gymnopodies by Satie. Apparently I gave him the sheet music as a gift (I don’t remember doing this but it sounds right). We loaded these pieces on my tablet and he used it to play them. He has a Nook ™ which enables some internet access. I texted him yesterday in hopes of establishing some communication with him in the long run. Though he spends most of his time on the phone he didn’t respond to me right away. He may have by now. My phone is upstairs in the room where Eileen is sleeping.

On the plane trip over I was shocked to read an article in the new AGO magazine which profiled quite nicely thank you Marshall Cuffe, 2007 Rising Star.

The point of the article was to profile what it’s like to balance the life of a musician with the life of a drag queen. Of course the article is not online. AGO like so many old institutions is way behind the curve in connecting people with information.

But Mr. Cuffe accepted my friend request on Facebooger. I was proud to note that he and I had a mutual “friend” on Facebooger and that she was NOT an organist (Claire Odell whom I knew as a child in Holland until she moved away and became a good musician).

In addition to Mr. Cuffe, there was an interesting article by Christopher Cook.

I don’t know if this guy has written reviews before but his “New Beginnings” article was interesting and helpful. It doesn’t seem to be online, either. It basically is an article to encourage hacks like me to schedule more interesting organ music at church with specific recommendations.

At the end of the article in his bio, Cook “invites you to offer your own favorite organ peices, ask questions, and make comments on his blog.” Also there was a little box that said he was “seeking information from self-publishing composers.” I guess that’s me, eh? Maybe I’ll send him some stuff later this fall. I just send him a “friend” request on Facebooger.

Today we are going to go to the beach. Both David and Cynthia have the day off. It should be fun. Over and out.

We are ensconced at my son’s home in California. Yesterday was a bit of a marathon trip, but it is pleasant to travel with Eileen. We didn’t miss any flights but it was a longer journey of three legs from Grand Rapids to Chicago to Denver to Ontario.

I managed to sleep in slightly this morning to about 7:30 local time, but that is significantly less sleep than I usually get. It has been fun catching up Cynthia and the kids this morning. I wasn’t able to find time to study Greek yet but that is of little importance. Nicholas and I are already doing some talking about music. Good times.

I spent a lot of time on my tablet yesterday. Consequently I have links.

Assange, Avowed Foe of Clinton, Timed Email Release for Democratic Convention – The New York Times

And in today’s NYT further confirmation that Russia was involved in this. Yikes.

The Otherworldly Polka Dots of Spotted Lake – The New York Times

Good video with this. Beautiful stuff.

Meet Luca, the Ancestor of All Living Things – The New York Times

I love Science Tuesday at the NYT. This is a fascinating study of possible ideas of how life began in our universe.

Tim LaHaye Dies at 90; Fundamentalist Leader’s Grisly Novels Sold Millions – The New York Times

This is insane man had a doctorate from Western Theological Seminary just down the street. Again yikes.

Justices Show How Disclosing Revisions Offers (Confers?) Benefits – The New York Times

Accuracy and transparency. Very cool.

When Eileen and I approached the check in kiosk at the airport yesterday and Eileen put her credit card in it, it told us we were too close to our flight’s departure to use it. We should contact a service representative. We were puzzled because it was only 5 PM and our flight was scheduled at 6:30. Unfortunately when we talked to the rep we discovered that our flight was leaving not at 6:30 for Houston but in minutes for Denver. This had been changed a while back and we missed it in the many emails these services send out, plus we also have a flight scheduled for November and have received updates about it. Oops.

Eileen was discouraged and blamed herself. I, on the other hand, was not so bummed out and actually looked did not find the prospect of returning to the privacy of my own home onerous. (I like my life)

Eileen’s mood lightened a bit after a margarita and Mexican food. Our rescheduled flight leaves today in the early afternoon. Eileen has said we should leave by noon.

I got up this morning and finished reading King Lear. This means I don’t have to take this book along. And though it’s small I am looking to trim all nonessential stuff for the trip. I loved Lear by the way. I bought an annotated version of Timon of Athens for my Kindle this morning. This is next on my list of Shakespeare plays to read.

My daughter-in-law, Cynthia, told Eileen she was planning a Thursday beach trip for all of us. This will be fun, but I wonder if I will be able to read my tablet on the beach.

I am taking a hard copy of Shostakovich’s Testimony, his ghost written memoirs. I will be able to read that at least.

This morning I also downloaded what I thought was a copy of Shostakovich’s 24 preludes and fugues. I adore this music and like playing through them as I read his memoirs. I sat down at the piano to play a few from my tablet and discovered that this online bootleg pdf only had the preludes and not the fugues. I found that funny. I found a complete version and downloaded that.

As the Democratic convention is going on this week I am finding myself reminding myself that while there are many things I love about America at the same time I know that in my simple foolish heart of hearts I detest the idea of states and countries as artificial. I believe in community, but not institutions. I will vote for Hillary but refuse to let this hysteria dominate my daily life. Fuck it.

I pay attention to events in the world, but am still convicted there is more truth in poetry, music, art, and literature than in the shrill low content scrolling of the 24 hour news cycle. Facebooger has helped teach me this.

Postman was convinced that TV was an entertainment media which was most itself when doing just that, entertaining. There is a similar effect in online social media. I marvel at what seem to be the expectations of others I watch and read on Facebooger. I think it’s an shallow experience of  low content flourishes. I find it interesting to see what my loved ones are posting even the ones I sadly disagree with. But I don’t look to Facebooger for much content. Occasionally I am pleasantly surprised by a link but only if I take the time. If information floating past me on my facebooger feed is not understandable within a couple seconds I move on. This excepts things clearly posted by family.

Anyway, all governments are jerks. All politicians lie. We most of us have to live our quiet lives in a manner we can reconcile with our own consciences. I know that I am privileged in my life. I don’t necessarily deserve it, but want to enjoy it without directly doing harm to others in the society by my inactions. Maybe this is what it was like to live in preWWII Germany or Italy.

5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win | MICHAEL MOORE

Moore is not someone I entirely endorse. I see him as more entertainer than thinker. However, I do think he’s onto a few things in this article. For one thing the inertness of people in the society about voting especially when confronted with any sort of obstacle. Like I say, I plan to vote for Hilary, but my hope in government is fading fast.

Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People | The American Conservative

Pursuing the idea of trying to understand people I disagree with I found this article helpful. I have spent some of life living in the south. I know the terrible poverty that can exist there. While our country is not suffering in the way many countries are the world, there are some dire things going on especially with employment. I see it as due as much to technology as the greed of corporations. But I can also see that Trump has positioned himself as the true outsider and every endorsement of Hilary is a confirmation of her as one of the insiders. Yikes.

We usually have early morning flights, but our flight today leaves Grand Rapids at 6:30 PM local time. That will be different.

I have been up doing Greek, but also last minute chores before we leave today. I want to return library books. I finished Ben Ratliff’s Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty. It won’t surprise attentive readers of this blog that I didn’t think much of this book. Basically I was intrigued by the title (and still am, especially the subtitle). But I don’t think he managed to come up with one way to listen much less twenty. Oh well.

I began typing up my sticky notes from Ratliff this morning and realized that most of them were not insights or interesting passages but pointing out errors and shortsightedness. I don’t need to type that up for myself for possible future referral.

I’m still basking in an excellent musical morning at church yesterday. The trio played as well as it ever has in public. We had a sizable number of people standing and listening to the postlude. I would say we were well received.

I’m trying to pare down what I take with me to California. Yesterday I was discouraged when I tried on all five of the T shirts I bought recently and discovered each one of them was not comfortable, too tight for an old fat guy like me. Fuck. I think Eileen has appropriated them for her closet. I have resolved to buy some larger ones in California (and try them on first!).

I’m not taking my BP kit with me. I looked carefully at my readings for the past two weeks and they were all good. I think it might be a bit freeing not to rise each morning and take my BP and weigh for a week and a half.

I’m planning on researching a couple of shrinks recommended to me this morning and possibly arranging an appointment for when I return. I’m still not convinced that my physical problems are connected to an undiagnosed mental illness but I’m willing to learn “what kind of crazy I am” (Is self-pity in the DSM?) It would certainly help those who love me and those who work with me if I could give them a heads up in this area if needed.

As usual I plan to blog during vacation. But the posts will probably be short and even more boring than usual. See you then.

How to Make a Political Revolution – BillMoyers.com

Starting to bookmark a few longer articles to read on vacation. This is one which talks about some American farmers who freed themselves from corporate ownership a hundred years ago.

Why Readers See The Times as Liberal – The New York Times

The NYT has had a new public editor for a month. This sort of article is always interesting to me.

Getting to my blog rather later than usual today. I slept in a bit. I did some Greek. I did it using the notebook I purchased for our trip to California and using the Kindle versions of my texts. I think it’s going to work fine that way.

Eileen got up before I had finished my Greek. We had breakfast and then it was time for church. It was raining hard so we drove to church. My piano trio played up a storm. All of the pieces were performed were excellent as far as i could tell. Attendance was down a bit probably due to the weather. But it is fun when the music is that good.

So here are the “after” pics of our fence. Ken left the posts and the cross beams.

This last pic is my favorite. I love that old tree.

I was reading in Josef Lhevinne’s Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing this morning. I was looking at the chapter on accuracy. Dang. He basically says if you are making mistakes in your practice, it’s too fast. Also he says you must always use the same fingers. Ahem. I haven’t done too much fingering since grad school. But my technique has improved immensely. I think it’s because I keep circling back and evaluating my rehearsal procedures.

After Thursday’s trio rehearsal I relaxed a bit about Sunday’s performance. The pieces are easier with the ensemble. That’s cool.  They make more musical sense of course.

We are madly trying to get ready to leave on Monday.

Eileen made an early appointment with a friend, Ken Freestone, to come and take away our old fence.

He is planning to use it in renovating.

It is a beautiful old thing.

These are before pics. I’ll probably put up after pics as well tomorrow.

Eileen walked downtown for a breakfast date with at least one other alto this morning.

Trump awakens the sleeping giant of America | TheHill

Like many brain dead liberals and others, I am having trouble getting my head around the Trump phenomenon. Here’s a link to a defense of him. Of course, it’s written by an extreme crazy guy, but still.

Donald-Trump-Acceptance-Speech

This is a link from Timmerman’s Trump defense. I haven’t had time to look closely at it. But it’s footnoted. Should be interesting.

Why Libraries Are Everywhere in the Czech Republic – The New York Times

I love this.

North Korea Revives Coded Spy Broadcasts After 16-Year Silence – The New York Times

I like coincidences. They give the illusion that things are connected when we ourselves are probably the connectors not the events.

It’s one of my pet theories that what humans do is make meaning. We can see meaning around us and if it is missing we can manufacture it. It’s what we do.

I watched as Ruth my sub organist discovered that Rhonda’s Dad had taught at a college whose retired president she had known in Florida. Coincidence.

Later when I mentioned to the piano trio that Hovhaness had been a strong admirer of Sibelius and that you could possibly hear some of Sibelius’s influence in the trio movement we are performing Sunday, Amy, my violinist, mentioned that thirty years ago she stood in the house where Sibelius had lived and where Hovhaness and his first wife had visited him in Finland. I then mentioned that I had recently been asked by a local choral conductor if I knew of a good setting of Sibelius’s Finlandia with different words than the ones usually used. Coincidence.

This morning after studying Greek, reading a bit of Shostakovich and Shakespeare, I turned briefly to the poets I am reading these days. First Derek Walcott and a charming poem called “Choc Bay.” It begins

Slowly daybreak is blown
Through the conch shell’s horn
To the sea, waking with birds;
And slowly that mote
In the heaven’s eye climbs, the hawk
Over the falling town,
Then down, dropping down
Over the water with its foam and curds.

Then I read Jamaal May’s “Thalassophobia Fear of the Sea” which ends like this:

… today I learned something old
about the sea. Even the conch is a bit

of a blade, coiling itself around itself,
spiraling to a point, so that all we find

lovely in its folds forms
the outline of a dagger.

Coincidence.

Walcott ends his poem in a lovely way:

It was all a wise
Hoax to my sunblind eyes,
The belled leaves chimed away my days.
O Time, what if I gave the wrong things praise,
The wildest sorrows about?
All that I have and want are words
To fling my griefs about,
And salt enough for these eyes,
For the trapped wheeling of the holy birds,
And my barefooted flight from paradise.

Man, I love that. It’s practically Shakespearean to my ears.

How a Guy From a Montana Trailer Park Overturned 150 Years of Biology – The Atlantic

This guy had to go to Europe to get free college. Paid off.

That Green Square (or Circle) in Mexico City Might Save Your Life – The New York Times

Planning for disaster. Pretty cool.

Updated Brain Map Identifies Nearly 100 New Regions – The New York Times

Brain map 1.0. Very very cool.

Grilled Portobello Mushrooms Recipe – Allrecipes.com

Last night I grilled spicy shrimp and Portobello Mushrooms. Served them with potato salad and rolls. Yum.

The Right Says America is in Decline, But Refuses to Shoulder Any Blame – BillMoyers.com

Former Republican has some interesting comments here.

Business Owners Turn to an Unlikely Mascot: Hitler – The New York Times

Can’t make this shit up.

 

I finished Yusef Komunyakaa’s book of poetry, The Emperor of Water Clocks, this morning. I want to read more by this poet. I’m fascinated how he mixes references, some so ephemeral others probably obscure to many people. For example, in his poem, “Et Tu, Brutus,” it takes a second to realize that the poem is about a couple of comedians who have graduated from Second City in Chicago and are now living in New York.

They left the Second City
after years of stand-up & improv,
& came here to search faces
in crowds, on boulevards
& subways, and audition
at a level of slow pain
that pulled them apart,

it’s not that Komunyakaa is writing about specific people. He has used these two to make a poem. I think it’s a good poem.

His more erudite references move from Mussolini to Byron’s Don Juan to the artist Turner. What I’m not capturing is how he uses all these things effortlessly and creates new interesting poetry that draws me in.

Here’s a poem I especially liked this morning:

A PRAYER

by Yusef Komunyakaa

Great Ooga-Booga, in your golden pavilion
beside the dung heap, please
don’t let me die in a public place.
I still see the man on the café floor
at the airport beneath a canopy
of florescence, somewhere
in the Midwest or back East,
travelers walking around him
& texting on cell phones
while someone shocked him back,
fiddling with dials & buttons
on a miraculous instrument.
Was the memory of a dress in his head?

Great Ooga-Booga, forgive me
for wearing out my tongue before
I said your praises. No, I haven’t
mastered the didgeradoo.
I don’t have an epic as a bribe.
My words are simple. Please
don’t let me die gazing up at a streetlight
or the Grand Central facades.
Let me go to my fishing hole
an hour before the sun sinks
into the deep woods, or let me swing
on the front porch, higher & higher
till I’m walking on the ceiling.

I guess I’m thinking about airports since Eileen and I get on a plane Monday and fly away to California to see the Jenkinses that live there: my son, David; his wife, Cynthia; our three grandkids: Nicholas, Savannah, and Catherine.

Today is Earnest Hemingway’s birthday according to The Writer’s Almanac. Also, the Almanac attributes a saying to him ,”Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” I always look forward to traveling with Eileen. She is my ideal travel companion (as well as ideal life companion). 

I am meeting my friend Rhonda to play piano duets this morning. Yesterday I met with my substitute organist who will be covering for me a week from Sunday. This Sunday the piano trio is performing and I have been trying to hit the keys with some solid rehearsal this week in preparation.

Speaking of preparing, I am suddenly overwhelmed this morning with all the things Eileen and I will have to do to prepare for this upcoming trip. Yikes.

Business Owners Turn to an Unlikely Mascot: Hitler – The New York Times

Very weird.

I managed not to have two bad mental health days in a row. Yesterday was also full of stuff but it felt different than Monday. I emailed the music for Sunday to the church office. Also the articles I prepared. I’ll meet with the boss today and maybe get some feedback on them. It’s always possible she will cut them, but she usually doesn’t. Instead she seems enthusiastic about my little semi-scholarly musical liturgical comments prepared for the bulletin.

I printed off the Dvorak Biblical Psalm my soloist chose to sing in August. I gave her a few choices after she told me her teacher was interested in teaching her some of these pieces. Dvorak is a funny composer. As well as being a sort of nationalist for Czechoslovakia, he is known for urging American composers to look to the nationalist well spring of their own heritage in African American music. This alone endears him to me.

I found an organ prelude and fugue by him online.

I guess he wrote several but there was only one on IMSLP  (International Music Score Library Project). It looks pretty good. I printed it off as a possible choice for the prelude for the August Sunday the soprano will sing. I also found an interesting collection of piano pieces by him (Opus 52)  that I attempted to print off.  Unfortunately my printer ran out of ink before it was done. Dang.

I printed them off mostly to play for my own edification, but also thinking that possibly one of them might work as an adapted postlude on the organ. Speaking of the organ, it could conceivably be gone by the time this August Sunday rolls around. In the original game plan, the back of the church was to be renovated in August. Now I think we might be on hold until we know more of when the new organ will be installed.

I also managed a little composing yesterday. I haven’t given up on trying to revive my compositional activity.

So, it was definitely a better day then Monday.

By yesterday afternoon, I found myself a bit off balance mentally…. grumpy. It would be good if I could take Monday off, since Sunday is a day of exertion and effort. Eileen got up and decided to go exercise. After breakfast she was just about ready to leave and suddenly could not find her keys. She needed the handy dandy whatsit attached to her key ring to get in to her class. We ransacked the house together. Finally she found them, but she would be late for the exercise session if she walked as usual, so I offered to drive her over. I threw an overcoat over my shorts and grabbed my flip flops and drove her over. She got there in time.

I hadn’t noticed it but in the afternoon, stuff started piling up on me. In an effort to help my congregation appreciate and enjoy the music at Eucharist I have been thinking of writing bulletin articles. Next Sunday the piano trio is playing, so I thought this would be a good Sunday for an article. Unfortunately, it was like pulling teeth to get it going. First I researched the hymns and the composers of the piano trio pieces. Often when I do this, some interesting correlations and facts leap out at me. Yesterday, not so much.

After several hours of flopping around and writing, I printed up a few paragraphs for Eileen to read and proof.

In between doing this, I had emails from a prof at Hope encouraging me to attend an upcoming (first annual) jazz organ summit.

This threw me off balance. From what I can tell, Hope has been hosting jazz organists for a few years. They come and give master classes and then play a couple of gigs. Although, I have owned a Hammond organ in my life time and done my share of playing of this style, it’s not one that interests me that much. It’s slightly frustrating only to be included as a participant in a three day workshop. I know the prof means well and thinks I would enjoy it. Maybe he’s right. By the time I have emailed him info that he asked for about the local AGO chapter, I am feeling a bit frazzled.

Then I had an email from my sub organist asking to get together this week as we had talked about. In order to facilitate this I had to nail down everything for the service a week from this Sunday. That took a little doing, logging on to the Rite Song web subscription and realizing that many of the downloads do not have the accompaniment in them (which my sub will definitely need). I figured out that I can just loan her a Hymnal 1982 at our meeting this week and that this would be fair to her, since I won’t put her on the spot to sight read hymns, only talk about service order (she’s not done liturgy as far as I know) and hymn intros and stuff.

By the time I had figured all this out, I was definitely mentally off balance for a Monday. Maybe I do need a shrink.

 Spanish Archive Raises Franco-Era Ghosts and Shadows of a New Chasm – The New York Times

Review: Dave Eggers’s New Novel, ‘Heroes of the Frontier’ – The New York Times

I don’t think I’ve read any Eggers all the way through. This review makes me think it might be a good idea.

I admit until reading this line by Yusef Komuntakaa I had never associated these two. It does my heart good to see them in the same sentence. It’s from the poem, Sprung Rhythm of  a Landscape. I read the poem, thinking that the “Charles” being addressed throughout might be Charles (i.e. Charlie) Parker, but no. In the book one has to flip to the back to find out things like if the poem is dedicated to Charles Wright. 

On the one hand, it comforts me to read poets and writers that seem to have lots of first hand contact with stuff I recognize like good music and poetry from history. On the other hand, I’m beginning to wonder just how many people are bothering with either Lightin’ Hopkins or Gerard Manley Hopkins these days. I beginning to feel like a stereotypical disconnected old guy who can’t quite get the back and forth between so many people because it only taps into popular cultural references that leave me in the dust.

Also that stupidity and ignorance are enshrined as long as it’s semi-witty and in short sentences with small words.

Professors, Stop Opining About Trump – The New York Times

This article popped to mind as I was writing about feeling disconnected. Stanley Fish, himself a professor, gets on his high horse about other professors getting on their high horse.

It has a strong anti-intellectual feel to me. God forbid opinions should be informed. But this is exactly the disconnect I feel from so much of what I read (okay what I read  on Feelessbook). People blathering on, either blatantly angry or disguising their anger and prejudice with weird twisting interpretations of facts and history.

Speaking of facelessbooger, I am convinced that a lot of the problem is that the medium is affectless. By that I mean pixeled words on a screen can be read in many tones of voice. So that a comment that might seem tossed off and not seriously can be heard as dogmatic and vice verse.

In addition, judging from some of the comments I read many social media people think we are all looking at the same feed of links, ads, and comments when in fact none of us sees exactly the same thing, right? That’s the whole deal. Our preferences are tracked and it makes a difference which people we “friend” and what pages we “like.”

Shostakovich loved Shakespeare. He must have read him in translation but judging from his comments in Testimony many of his Russian colleagues loved Shakespeare as well. One Meyerhold (“director and actor, theorist of avant-garde theater, friend and patron of Shostakovich”), loved Hamlet. “He considered it the best play of any time and any country.”

Testimony goes on for pages about Shakespeare, noting productions of plays and dreamed of operas. Shostokovich observers, “Shakespeare’s tragedies are filled with music. It was Shakespeare who said that the man who doesn’t like music isn’t trustworthy. Such a man is capable of a base act or murder. Apparently Shakespeare himself loved music. I’m always taken with one scene in Lear, in which the sick Lear awakens to music.”

I have been reading King Lear in little bits for quite a while. I tend to read until someone makes a significant exit or is just about to make an entrance. This helps me keep my place in the play.

About Lear, Shostakovich writers “In King Lear, the important thing as I see it is the shattering of the miserable Lear’s illusions. No, not shattering. Shattering comes all at once, and it’s over; that wouldn’t make it tragedy. It wouldn’t be interesting. But watching his illusions slowly gradually crumbling—that’s another thing. That’s a painful, morbid process. Illusions die gradually…”

I have been reading Jamaal May’s book of poetry, Hum. It was given to me by Rhonda a while back. I think it was a selection from a poetry class she was taking. May is a Detroit “poet, editor, and filmmaker.”

As a poet, I think he knows what he’s doing. I quickly googled him and “How to Disappear Completely” popped up. If you’re curious you could read that. It’s a pretty good poem. I couldn’t help but think of Radiohead’s song of the same name from KIdA. A quick glance shows that May didn’t take any words from the song, but surely he recognized and appropriated the title.  Who knows?

Yesterday I picked up another random book of poetry, The Emperor of Waterclocks, by Jusef Komunyakaa. I choose random poetry books from the library new shelf by opening them and reading a bit of a poem. If I can stand it, I take it home for further reading. 

Komunyakaa also knows what he’s doing. Since stupid current events are weighing on me, I flipped to the poem “The Day I Saw Barack Obama reading Derek Walcotts  Collected Poems.”  I liked it. It’s a good poem. It also made me wonder about Walcott. I went to my shelf and pulled out In A Green Night by him.

Fun fact. I bought this worn paperback of Walcott’s first book of poetry in Grayling from “Mary’s Corner Bookshop” and apparently paid $2.95 for it.

Walcott pulled me in as well.

Here’s a poem in his book I liked:

AS JOHN TO PATMOS
As John to Patmos, among the rocks and the blue, live air, hounded
His heart to peace, as here surrounded
By the strewn-silver on waves, the wood’s crude hair, the rounded
Breasts of the milky bays, palms, flocks, the green and dead
Leaves, the sun’s brass coin on my cheek, where
Canoes brace the sun’s strength, as John, in that bleak air,
So am I welcomed richer by these blue scapes, Greek there,
So I shall voyage no more from home; may I speak here.
This island is heaven-away from the dustblown blood of cities;
See the curve of bay, watch the straggling flower, pretty is
The wing’d sound of trees, the sparse-powdered sky, when lit is
The night. For beauty has surrounded
Its black children, and freed them of homeless ditties.
As John to Patmos, in each love-leaping air,
O slave, soldier, worker under red trees sleeping, hear
What I swear now, as John did:
To praise lovelong, the living and the brown dead.

Unsurprisingly Walcott, the older man of this three poets, uses craft more obviously to me than the other two poets. Hell, I like them all, however.

I had music dreams again last night. In one of them, a professor had tested me by showing me a sheet of paper with two short composition excerpts on it. Which is the better piece of music, he wanted to know. I looked at them and tried to think what they would sound like. I remember they were abstract, not terribly melodic. I chose one. It was the wrong one. It seems to me we repeated this process with a different set of pieces. Again I chose wrong.

I asked the teacher in the dream what could I do to improve so that I could pass these tests (which seemed to be important somehow). He said looking at me sternly, Learn to listen better.

In another dream I was sitting in a class room. The teacher was very odd. He seemed to be a sort of cartoon dragon thing with a hat. Very goofy looking. We as a class were examining a blue book containing two sets of answers to questions. (Blue books are what we called the little answer booklet to exams that one had to bring) In the blue book, there was a set of answers in pencil and scrawled over them was an answer in ink. We were supposed to evaluate the two sets of answers.

The cartoon dragon professor began chortling. I remember he rocked back weirdly on his tail and said that he was very amused by the bitterness of the ink answers. It seems that we as a class had failed.

Afterwards we students were walking towards our cars. It would be a long time before we would see each other. One woman looked at me closely, very intently. She was watchful in a very dream way. I kissed her goodbye lightly on the lips and told her not to worry. Life was going to be good.

Then I woke.

I have just finished playing a set of variations for piano by Beethoven. I was reading Beethoven’s letters this morning in which he indicated to the recipient that she was receiving the dedication for his most recent published variations. From the sounds of it, it was for piano and violin. I couldn’t find any piano variations on the theme, but got sucked into playing a set of variations anyway.

Recently on The Writers Almanac they mentioned John Calvin and his five points. I had never heard of this.

The Five Points of Calvinism, TULIP

This link explains it, although its perspective is obviously sectarian judging from the first sentence on the page: “There are two mains camps of theology within Christianity in America today: Arminianism and Calvinism.” Apparently in this context it only matters how Christians think about predestination.

As I was listening to Garrison Keillor talk about TULIP, I wondered how many Calvinists in Holland think about this during Tulip Time. Yikes! It IS a Calvinist conspiracy, eh?

I drove up to North Muskegon to pick up Eileen yesterday. She was waiting at the house of her sister, Nancy. It’s good to have her home. We celebrated by going out to eat at El Rancho. We had great food and a pitcher of margaritas.

Earlier in the afternoon my trio decided what we are going to play at church a week from this Sunday. My violinist wanted us to do something that weekend because she has family visiting and wanted them to hear us. Playing at church is an easy way to do this.

We decided to play trio movements by Hovhaness, Loeillet, and Mozart. It’s all music we have performed before and it’s all good music. It will be a nice addition to the service.

I am plowing ahead in Ben Ratliff’s Every Song Ever despite my increasing suspicion that it’s not a terribly well written book and doesn’t have ideas in it that interest me. It’s a library book and I have told myself I want to finish it before it is due.

Eileen and I will probably take it easy today. Yesterday took a lot out of me. I need to continue to coast as though I’m still sort of on vacation. Hopefully I can pull that off.

I am feeling drained this morning. Some of it is the weather. But also my talk with my boss and the lesson I gave to my student yesterday left me feeling a bit melancholy.

Unsurprisingly, my boss was receptive to my critical thinking about Sunday. She wants me to tell her how things hit me. It seems to help. The bad news is that the family that left during the homily are parishioners. The husband is a police officer. Several other young families were concerned about this and reached out to the upset family.

Jen and I did a bit of Monday-morning-quarterbacking over Sunday. This is actually a part of our usual weekly discussion. She wasn’t happy with the Sunday service. We talked about what it means when the homily is political (and one sided at that) and when the announcements (already not exactly part of the liturgy) are expanded to include a mini second homily and long prayers.

I find these discussions confusing and draining. I keep wondering why i care so much. It’s obvious that I do. I got emotional when I told Jen that letting the beauty of the liturgy speak unadorned in times of crisis reminded me of Howard Bloom’s practice of reading Emily Dickinson aloud when he is grieving.

After our discussion, Jen assured me it was helpful. Well, that was the goal.

Then in my lesson, my student who is an 86 year old black man, a retired criminologist, and sharp as a tack, began talking about Trump. We talked about the racism Obama has had to face in his two terms. My student said that he felt that Obama was caught in a bind. If he addressed concerns of the black community he alienated those who felt he was unfairly biased. If he addressed the concerns of the community at large he lost support in the black community.

I pointed out that the two reactions were qualitatively different. He and I agreed that the intransigence of Obama’s opposition is rooted in hate and racism. I found myself talking to my student in similar terms I used in my conversation with my boss. The beauty of music is needed more than ever as our country slides into a terrible time with or without Trump as president.

I didn’t say it then, but I feel that as we move even further away from a civil society toward a society that full of fear and anger, music has the power to help us get through. Like Howard Bloom sitting in his backyard weeping and reading Emily Dickinson aloud.

On a happier note (sic), Martin Pasi the person building Grace’s new organ posted some pics of progress yesterday on Facetiousbook.

This is Pasi employee, Markus Morscher, working on parts that will go to make up the case of the organ.

These are the pipes for the four rank mixture made by Steven Jett for Pasi.

And here’s another happier organ thingo. Barry Jordan, a musician I met via Rhonda, posted a video of himself playing happily away on a historic  1737 organ by Christoph Treutmann in Grauhof. Cool, eh?

Before finishing my blog yesterday I jumped in the car and snuck over to an empty church to pick out organ music for Sunday. It was easy. I quickly decided to perform Healey Willan’s lovely little setting of Slane (Be thou my vision). For a postlude I landed on Bach’s G major Praeludium, BWV 568.

Our opening hymn Sunday is “Be Thou My Vision.” Our closing is “Hallelujah, we sing your praises.” The latter is a rambunctious South African song in G major. I thought it would be cool to move from it to Bach.

It’s interesting to me that the last time I performed the Bach piece was for an Easter celebration. I remember working hard on it. It’s satisfying that I can pick up a piece that used to be more of a project and know with a little rehearsal it will be good Sunday.

I returned after lunch to rehearse the Bach. It has some moving pedal parts that need to be practiced and I found one 8 measure phrase I will need to give some attention. Other than that, it’s all pretty much there.

I was surprised yesterday when I rehearsed Philip Glass’s Etude 11. I have been working on this piece for a while. It was the first of his etudes that I didn’t feel like I could read through accurately even under tempo. But yesterday it came pretty easily out of my fingers. I do like this piece.

It was very hot yesterday afternoon. I shortened my treadmill time to 25 minutes instead of 45. Half because I didn’t want to overdo it. Half because I was feeling lazy and ready for a martini in the heat.

I meet with my boss this afternoon. I’m pondering how to be helpful if she asks my take on this past Sunday. We regularly review the past Sunday and then talk about the upcoming Sunday in our meetings. I had some misgivings about last Sunday. It’s weird because I am so divided about church.  I care and I don’t care.

I prefer liturgical worship that is coherent. At the same I pretty much abhor most of what passes for Christianity in the US culture right now. Fortunately my boss understands this about me and doesn’t take me all that seriously, though she does listen and consider my thoughts.

I hope today I can be helpful if called on.

Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings – The New York Times

Some interesting articles in the paper yesterday about studies. This one is also mentioned in the next link.

Police Try to Lower Racial Bias, but Under Pressure, It Isn’t So Easy – The New York Times

Our lizard brains are programmed in a way that we cannot help. But we can still think about how we act.

San Francisco Police Disproportionately Search African-Americans, Report Says – The New York Times

Why should San Francisco  be an exception?

This morning I am thinking about Bach and his collection of 48 Preludes and Fugues in the two volumes known as the Well Tempered Clavier. I have just played through the Bb prelude in the second volume It is an amazing piece.

Bach and this book have loomed over my life since I was a teenager. I remember visiting the home of Greg Angus who was a friend of mine in high school. He was a classical guitarist who like myself had an interest in many styles of music. His older brother Duncan was an actor and affected a sort of British accent on his visits home from college. Greg’s Mom was a piano teacher. They lived in Owosso. I think Greg’s Dad was a teacher and actually taught my brother Mark in elementary school. I could be wrong about that. Mark is one of my readers so maybe he will correct me. (Incidentally, if you are interested in the parable of the Good Samaritan I was talking about yesterday be sure and read Mark’s comment on yesterday’s blog in which outlines a sane approach to preaching on it at this time of crazy shit in America).

Anyway, Greg didn’t live in Owosso, He lived on the outskirts of Flint in his Grandmother’s cottage she kept so that she could attend an annual church camp meeting held in Flint. I can remember Greg and I frying up mushrooms in butter at his Grandmother’s cottage. My taste for mushrooms cooked in butter dates from this time.

When I was visiting Greg’s parents home in Owosso, I noticed a copy of the Well Tempered Clavier by Bach on the piano. I was already enamored of Bach by that time, though I couldn’t really play much of his music well and actually couldn’t fluently read bass clef being primarily a trumpet player. When I remarked on the volume, Greg’s Mom told me that I would have a lot of fun with this particular book in my life as a pianist.

She was right. The pieces in this collection continue to amaze and delight me. I love playing through them. Pablo Casals writes about getting up every day and playing through at least one prelude and fugue from it as a sort of morning benediction to the day. He used to brag that his cleaning lady could be heard humming themes from the book due to this daily exposure.

A few years after Greg’s Mom predicted my love of this book, when I was attending Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware Ohio studying composition, I remember thinking that I would be satisfied if i could acquire enough piano technique to be able to play the Well Tempered Clavier.

Despite my self doubts and weird ability that doesn’t quite fit many slots these days, I think I have come to the point where I can play this book with a certain amount of ease.