Eileen recently helped me to understand my relationship to some of the locals better. When I was wondering about this, she told me that not everyone will work with someone they are afraid will say “fuck.”

I hadn’t factored this in. I was thinking people rejected me simply judging my abilities (meager though they are, they are not without merit).

Of course! I thought. I am aware that many in this little city see me as uncouth. When I wander the halls at my Mom’s nursing home I will often see people who seem either slightly frightened of me or (better) amused at how ridiculous I look to them. This doesn’t bother me.

But since I care so much about the arts and music in particular I sometimes forget how subjective people are about this sort of thing. It was helpful to remember this.

This morning I have my second appointment with my shrink.

I am (perversely?) looking forward to it. I filled out the self assessment tools he gave me (my homework for today’s session). I am either in strong denial or these tools do not indicate depression or anxiety.

Yesterday I reviewed my planning for the choir for the fall and was pleased with my working solutions. I only threw out one of the anthems I had chosen and actually just decided to delay it since a careful reading of the text revealed that it was a Christmas text not suitable for Christ the King.

This means I’m feeling prepared to begin the season in a week. Since Eileen has taken over the role of choir librarian she has consented to help me with stuffing these anthems. I only have to make up multiple copies from photocopies for two anthems for this season. I’m planning on doing this today.  I laid out the ones we own as I reviewed them yesterday.

I was afraid that I had maybe dumbed down the upcoming season a bit too much in anticipation of continuing erosion of commitment.

A couple people informed me that they had committed themselves to other things that would cause them to miss rehearsals this year. But after looking over the anthems I don’t feel so bad about them.

I’m trying to focus on what I enjoy most in my work. This means I will probably work on learning keyboard music and attempting to educate my congregation more about music in worship. My goal with the choir will be to help them continue to learn to sing with good technique and provide them with a fun singing experience.

P.S. Eileen got up and looked over my depression and anxiety inventories at my request. She said she didn’t think I was dishonest in them. That’s something, right?

Senior ISIS Strategist and Spokesman Is Reported Killed in Syria – The New York Times

This is the lead article on my New York Times. I will never get used to the fact that as a country we kill people outright in this manner. Of course, I will never get used to the entire concept of war and killing.

A Summer Evening in Texas Isn’t Complete Without a Bat Show – The New York Times

This is cool. I like that they describe the sound of thousands of bats.

A ‘Skylight’ Made From Two Mirrors – The New York Times

Using a periscope for the artist in the basement.

Japan’s $320 Million Gamble at Fukushima: An Underground Ice Wall – The New York Times

This is an amazing project. I hope it’s the right approach.

If You Miss a Train in France, You May Catch a Tune Instead – The New York Times

I often miss it when a piano is not around. Cool.

I meant to get up yesterday and get to work on choral planning. However, I got up in a bit more of a lazy mood. Eileen went to the doctor and I spent most of the morning with Schubert. I have been working on his F minor impromptu for a while. I love the middle section and am still mastering the crossing of hands in it. Gorgeous stuff.

I did get some work done in the afternoon. It took me about two hours but I finished the bulletin info not only for this upcoming Sunday, but the following one. That will get us a week ahead for the fall season. This will enable the church secretary to make multiple copies of upcoming psalms for the choir to rehearse.

I have been reading through Bach’s Leipzig chorales for organ. So many great works here. A few days ago I played through Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BWV 658. I have been thinking that due to upcoming removal of our old organ to make way for the new that it might be a good time to do some cool organ music.

So I did something I rarely do. I changed the opening hymn recommendation for this Sunday to the Hymnal 1982 version of Von Gott will ich nicht lassen: “If thou but trust in God to guide thee.” I had originally scheduled “Praise to the Lord” (Lobe den herren) as a sort of generic praise opening hymn. There was an element of “trust” running in the readings for the day including an explicit mention in the opening collect which begins “Grant us, O Lord to trust in you with all hearts…” So with some slight misgivings I changed the hymn and scheduled Bach’s lovely piece.

This is kind of a goofy video I found of the piece, but I like it when they show the score as they play. And it’s a good tempo.

I anthropomorphize my little old crappy organ.

I feel like it’s a sort of farewell to it to give it some fine music to sing in its last days at Grace. I paired the Bach with a setting of the closing hymn tune, Holy Manna, by Wilbur Held who almost made it to 101 last year before he died. I was tempted to finally learn Alec Wyton’s partita on our annual kickoff Sunday hymn, “Earth and All Stars.” I pulled it out and rehearsed a few pages. It would take a Herculean effort with my meager abilities to have it ready a week from Sunday. So no. I opted instead for a setting by David Cherwien which involves some quick threes against twos and is cheerful. For the postlude a week from Sunday I thought it would be cool to play some African organ music since the closing hymn is the John Bell rendition of the Zimbabwean hymn, “If you believe and I believe.” Again I put some difficult music on the organ stand and then decided discretion would be the better part of valor for the choir’s first Sunday. Instead I will just improvise on the hymn as the postlude. This is my cop out postlude and is very easy for me.

My morning reading contained another happy coincidence. I am still working on Shakespeare’s Henry IV part 1 which has the great Falstaff in it. I started the next chapter in Alex Ross’s Listen to This. It’s about Verdi and mentioned his opera Falstaff. Cool.

I was poking around on Comcast’s website yesterday and discovered that they have FINALLY made their subscription available to stream. We pay for Comcast but do not use cable only the web access. This morning I could actually watch CSPAN if I wanted to. Very cool.

While I’m not very fond of TV, it is often difficult to wade through the zillions of possibilities to find something to rot my brain with occasionally. Plus this should enable us to view PBS and NCIS more easily. Very cool. Many shows are On Demand and there are many movies in this option. If one is paying for cable  one should be able to stream the same services online.

Speaking of zillions of options, while Eileen was away on Friday night, I thought I would like to see the beginning of Henry IV part 1. I am reading it now and thought it might be distracting to see what I had read so far live. I searched on YouTube and clicked on the first option above.

The quality wasn’t good so I searched again. I must have inadvertently typed Henry VI instead of Henry IV and didn’t notice.

I watched Henry VI thinking at first it was some sort of adaptation of Henry IV. It seemed to me that if the BBC had rewritten the beginning as a sort of “origins” intro they had does a marvelous job with the language. After a while I realized that I was watching the wrong play but was totally sucked in. Lots of “Henrys” in this story. I did gain a better understanding of the English War of the Roses from Henry VI part 1.

The famous scene above is set by Shakespeare.

My recent experience of watching “The Dresser” at Mark’s house has encouraged me to revisit what’s available online video wise. Yesterday I searched Lynd Ward and found the following fascinating 10 minute trailer.

Very cool.

Watching the trailer, Eileen realized that she knew Ward’s work in children’s books. How cool is that?

I have finished looking at the first volume of Ward’s work. It contains three wordless graphic novels and several essays by him. I am reading the essays now. In the first one he speculates that the idea of wordless novels was related to his generation that was raised on silent movies. i had already thought that while looking through them.

Ward was raised in a strict Methodist home. No booze, no dancing, no cards. However the two loves of his life were okay: drawing and books. He was a drawer from a young age. Despite being conservative, his parents saw his abilities and nurtured them. After moving to Boston, his mother noticed that a famous European artist had a show at the museum. She thought her young artist should have the benefit of seeing the art first hand. She and he jumped on a trolley car and went to see the show. As Ward describes it, they proceeded through galleries and the women in the paintings became more and more scantily clothed. Finally they entered the final room which was only huge paintings of nude women. His mother had picked up speed as the paintings became more scandalous. They practically ran through the last gallery. Outside, his mother told him that she hoped he wouldn’t feel the need to paint naked ladies when he grew up. Great story.

Out Late With Oliver Sacks – The New York Times

Touching story about Oliver Sacks written by his lover.

Why I Go to Aleppo – The New York Times

Moving back and forth between the war zone and Amerika.

A Summer to Make Mistakes – The New York Times

She got fired as a journalist, but now she’s a novelist and has this article in the NYT. Cool story.

Trump and the Dark History of Straight Talk – The New York Times

Some informed discussion. recommended.

Rape, Race and the Jogger – The New York Times

This is a well written piece on misperceptions, fantasies of invulnerability both on the part of the jogger who was raped and the people unjustly accused of her rape.

I don’t know that much about John Luther Adams. But I know more after reading a chapter on him by Alex Ross in Listen to This. I’m listening to the video above as I type. Ross mentions this work. It is quite beautiful. I keep reading about people who seem to be interested in large forms like this and lush sounds (Bjork). These interest me professionally and I do enjoy listening to Bjork as well as this piece by Luther Adams. But my own interests are more modest: chamber music, piano and organ repertoire. Here’s a live recording that is quite nice.

Luther Adams was born in ’53 making him two years younger than me. I mention it because I was amused to read that he also learned Varese’s name off a Frank Zappa album as did I. He also sought out work by Varese to listen to as did I. However, he ends up immersing himself in the music of Cage, Feldman, Harrison and others and turning his back on rock and roll. At one point he even disdains “classical music” according to Ross’s article and contemplates becoming an installation artist. I’m not sure what he meant by classical music but he did play in a rock band as a young dude.

the chapter I read this morning is available online, “Song of the Earth.” Like many of the chapters in the book, it was originally this article in The New Yorker.  And the composition that Ross describes in his article is suspiciously like an art installation.  Luther Adams has set up sounds that respond to “seismological, meteorological, and geomagnetic stations in various parts of Alaska.”

It sounds kind of cool. But why does so much new music take so long to listen to? It reminded me of Andy Goldsworthy’s nature installations.

After reading about Luther Adams, Goldsworthy is a good analogy. His wiki article describes his work as “site specific.” This is also true of Luther Adams’s “The Place Where You Go To Listen” (the name of the installation in Alaska that Ross describes).

This is the longest YouTube I could find. It seems to be some sort of concert version of the installation. Since spoken voices are included and not mentioned by Ross I figure this might be not exactly what Ross experienced at the installation. I suspect the woman’s voice is reciting something related to the legend that inspired Luther Adams. You can read about it on one of the links.

I think this short video was shot on site and might represent more what the installation is like.

I went to the Farmers Market yesterday. The fish guy told us that he would have full dressed salmon for sale on that day. As you can see from the pic I bought one. I managed to butcher it, but I learned a lot doing it and could do better next time. I found several YouTube videos helpful. Little tips like don’t saw with your knife, make long shallow cuts, and when boning have a wet cloth ready to help get the bones off your implement as you work. I’m not a hundred per cent sure my knife was sharp enough despite trying to sharpen it up for the job. It took me quite a while to resist sawing with the knife. The long shallow cuts did work better when I remembered.

This is the salmon wrapped carefully in seran wrap. There were eleven fillets.  The next step in preparing them for freezing was to wrap these in tin foil and then bag them. I quickly ran out of tin foil. I had to stop by and purchase some when i went out to see my Mom and prepare for today’s service. Unfortunately, even with freezing, they need to be used within a month.

It’s raining this morning in Holland Michigan. I shut off Bjork so I could listen to the rain while I do this blog post. Eileen is spending a couple of nights with Barb in Kalamazoo. She suggested I do something with cooked cabbage while she was gone. I have avoided cooking cabbage since she doesn’t like the smell of it so it would be a good idea.

So I used Mollie Katzen’s Chili Cabbage recipe as a reference(Click on the pic above for the entire recipe). I substituted portobello and white mushrooms for the shitake mushrooms. The only peppers I had in the house were some frozen roasted small mostly sweet peppers. I used rice vinegar and omitted the tofu. The result was spectacular. Leigh gave me two heads of cabbage and I already had most of one sitting in the fridge. I used it for this recipe.

I was exploring the CDs that came with my Greek Text this morning. It’s been a while since I have used them. I thought I had ripped them to one of the computers but that must have been one of the ones that is defunct now. I set out to rip them. Sheesh. I downloaded Exact Audio Copy which was cumbersome to get set up. I farted around with it and then remembered that I used DB Power Amp in the past. I looked at that but it’s only a 30 day trial and costs around $40. Then I thought I would just use the windows media player to listen to it. Lo and behold, it had a rip function. So I ripped the CDs.

I uploaded them to my Google Drive and will be able to access them from any device in the future. That’s the good news. The bad news is the chapter I am working on isn’t on the CD. It skips a bunch of chapters and includes more of the difficult chapters ahead. Dang.

But another piece of good news was I practiced Hanon while the CD was being ripped.

I had my Chili Cabbage mixture for breakfast as well. I dumped some of it in the small frying pan then added whipped egg white. Yum. I’m planning a farmers market visit in the rain in a bit.

I drove home last night since Eileen was a bit tired. I had the energy so it was no problem. We arrived home around four. Sunday when we were on our way out of town, we stopped at the grocery store. When I went to reach for my credit card it didn’t seem to be in my purse. Eileen loaned me hers. I was pretty sure I had left it on the stand next to my chair at home. The last time I could remember using it was to purchase pizzas online.

So when we came home I of course checked for it on the table next to my chair. It wasn’t there. Yikes. Eileen and I began scouring the house for it. Forty minutes later Eileen found it in my purse tucked into my Mom’s checkbook. By that time I WAS exhausted. I still had to drag myself to church to rehearse the organ music for this Sunday. I chose music that did not rely on pedals that much and practiced the manuals (keyboards) on Leigh’s piano while we were visiting. I probably could have skipped the rehearsal but went for it anyway. I like being prepared. And I must say after adding pedal parts, the pieces did need rehearsal.

I love the  OED. I was reading a poem by Derek Walcott this morning and he used the word, “babel.”

I noticed the spelling of “babel” and decided to check on it in the OED. “Babel” is an upstanding word that means “A confused or discordant medley of sounds, esp. of voices; a hubub, a din.”

It does come from the name of the Tower of Babel of Biblical fame.

Briefly, the story is that after the great flood, humanity came together to build a tower to reach the heavens. God strikes them all and creates languages in their wonderful diversity. Since they can no longer understand each other the project is abandoned. It’s a neat  story of the origin of languages.

Babel means “gate of god.” The “el” is related to “Allah” and other names for god. Hebrew and Arabic share the syllable, “bab,” meaning “gate” in both languages. “Babble” shares a meaning but not an origin with “babel.” The “ba” in “babble” is “characteristic of early infantile vocalization, this syllable being taken as typical of childish speech, and hence of indistinct or nonsensical talk + -le suffix. The OED suggests that these two words did indeed influence each other. I think it is cool that they have different origins.

Speaking of panic, during the last paragraph Eileen got up and told me she found a bat in the house last night and it was probably still in the house. I found it and shaking with stupid irrational fear of bats managed to get it out of the house without hurting it. I used a broom to coax the sleepy bat into a small box and put it outside. The janitor at church kills them when he finds them. I think bats are our friends.

Today we go back to Holland. I think we are going to wait until Mark has finished a step in his weaving. I canceled my cello rehearsal so we have no specific time to return.

I finished Testimony: Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich this morning.

I couldn’t tell if I was tiring of his  bitterness toward the end of the book or whether it gets more bitter at  the end. I do remember that at the end of The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes recommends Elizabeth Wilson’s Shostakovich: A Life Remembered Second edition. He used it and the Memoirs to write historical fiction about Shostakovich. I should check the bio out.

Despite the sadness and bitterness in the Memoirs I continue to find myself drawn to the music of Shostakovich.

We watched “The Dresser” last night. It was excellent. I love both of the main actors. The screenplay was originally a play and was adapted in a wonderful way. I can’t say too  much good about it. Seeing something this good makes me think I should be a bit more proactive and find other good things like this for Eileen and I to watch.

Irving Fields, Composer Who Infused Songs With Latin Rhythms, Dies at 101 – The New York Times

Bagels and Bongos. What’s not to like?

Toots Thielemans, Who Won Jazz Renown With the Harmonica, Dies at 94 – The New York Times

Then there’s this guy. He played on the Sesame Street Theme.

And on the Midnight Cowboy theme.

This is him doing it live. Cool stuff!

On Demand | Watch & Explore | Stratford Festival

Like I was saying above, I need to take more advantage of what’s available online. It only $4.99 to watch one of these on Amazon.

Acorn TV – New & Featured | The best British TV streaming on demand, commercial free.

Mark recommended this. I think it’s more in Eileen line than mine, but still, I’m interested. Thanks Mark!

Yesterday I called to confirm my doctor’s appointment on Friday. The person answering the phone informed me that it had been canceled. As near as I can figure out, when I called to cancel my appointment on July 26 because I was going to be in California, the person on the phone seems to have canceled the appointment for this Friday instead. This would account for the multiple letters I received from the lab about not showing up for a scheduled blood draw. The blood draw was actually the main reason I called yesterday.

Now I am feeling immaturely jubilant that I don’t have to go to the doctor the day after tomorrow. More time to fret over losing weight. Rescheduled for October.

I canceled my meeting with Jen and my piano lesson with Rudy. We are now planning to spend another evening here in Unadillo. Presumably Eileen and Mark will traipse over to Forma’s to buy some yarn this afternoon.

My laptop healed itself somehow. I managed to shut it off by holding the blinking green light until it stopped. Then I let it cool. When I pressed the on button, it booted up. Go figure.

I was feeling so liberated yesterday that I skipped doing any planning for the upcoming choral season. I’m thinking I might do that today. I would like to finish Testimony: Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich. I only have about forty pages to go in it. I love to sit around and read while I’m relaxing. I have also been reading Alex Ross’s Listen to This and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. 

I haven’t been doing too much reading in the paper. So no links again today.

After doing some Greek and downloading a Shakespeare play to my tablet (more on that in a sec), I picked up my trusty laptop and discovered it would not boot up. The green start light is slowly blinking. I used  my tablet to do some searching on this and it looks like I have had a major mother board fail. Darn. I will have to hand it over to the dudes the church has hired as resident geeks. Mark pointed out that since the church bought the laptop for me they will probably help me fix it.

Mark let me use his desktop and that’s how I’m doing the blog this morning.

I screwed up the pics in yesterday’s blog post.

I think I have them fixed now. Thank you to David and others for letting me know it wasn’t working.

Since I finished Timon of Athens yesterday, I thought I would look online for a copy of Henry IV part I. I found what looked like a good edition on Amazon. Bought the Kindle version which turned out to be entirely different from the “look inside” preview. Fuck. I need notes when I read Shakespeare, so that’s a bummer. I don’t think I have a good copy of Henry IV part I. I have a beautiful copy, but it doesn’t have notes. I’ll look around here at Mark’s for some Shakespeare to read.

We have decided to stay an extra day at Mark and Leigh’s.

This will enable Eileen and Mark to go the store where Eileen can buy specific weaving material she needs.

You can see that Forma (the shop they go to) is closed today. I will call my boss and my student and cancel appointments tomorrow. This will also give me a bit more time to relax.

Mark’s desktop (as you expect) is very nice. But I miss having my own laptop. Hopefully I can rectify that before too long.

NOTE BENE: PICS IN THIS POST HAVE NOW BEEN REINSTALLED. SORRY ABOUT THAT.

So we are at Mark and Leigh’s house in Unadilla Last night we all went out for a nice meal at Smokehouse 52 in Chelsea.

Afterwards we went to look at Leigh’s piano studio.

If you look closely above you can see Leigh, Ben, me and someone else I can’t identify in the reflection.

It was fun to see where Leigh gives lessons. I recognize the piano.

One of the fun things about visiting Mark and Leigh is getting to play Leigh’s beautiful Steinway.

It’s been in her family for a while. I believe her grandmother the pianist was the original owner.

Here is the back of Eileen’s head, Leigh, Emily and Jeremy in the studio.

My nephew, Ben, parks by the door. It was good to see all of these people.

I finished Timon of Athens this morning. I am thinking of looking through the Shakespeare plays I own and choosing another one with good notes. I know that I own more of these than I have read. He seems to be just the ticket for me these days.

I’m hoping to get some serious goofing off while I’m here.

Database search – Early Music Sources

This is an amazing site. It’s an online index to original source material.

I ran across it from a shared link on Fcbk. If you look closely below you can see that the work highlighted above is by the composer Matthew Locke, my quasi son in law’s namesake.

The link takes you unsurprisingly to IMSLP, one of my favorite online sites and you can read the entire original publication.

I do love shit like this.

Poverty, Drought and Felled Trees Imperil Malawi Water Supply – The New York Times

Long read. Bad news in Africa.

The perfect breakfast for people with depression — Quartz

Avocados. I need to lose weight. I keep gaining. I have a doctor’s appointment Friday and she will not be happy with my weight. It has to be contributing to my BP. Anyway, I used avocado and mayo in my “breakfast salad” this morning. It was great, but I fear not low calorie.

Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation – The New York Times

Another long read. Distinguishes between class and race differences. Unfortunately, people tend to group more by race than class in Amerika.

I have a full day today and a full day planned Wednesday, but Monday and Tuesday should be leisurely spent goofing off at my brother’s house while he and Eileen do some weaving stuff.

Today is Dvorak Sunday. I feel reasonably prepared. Last night I had a church anxiety dream. I was getting ready to perform the Dvorak with my violist in the dream. But the church was First Pres in Detroit. For some weird reason the preacher was doing a spoken intro to the service before the prelude. This was a surprise to me in the dream. Then my violist and her sisters and a few other people needed to go pick up something or meet someone quickly before service. We all got in a car and drove somewhere with me fretting all the time about getting back to do the prelude. Before I knew it we had made several stops. I kept complaining but no one listened to me. Finally I knew we had missed it. I borrowed a phone from someone in the car. It was a weird flip phone with odd bristles on it. I  tried to get information to get the number of First Pres but the operator insisted she needed to know more than just the name of the church. After all, she said, this is a large area.

I had another anxiety dream after that. It hearkened back to dreams I have had over the years about being in plays. In this one, we were rehearsing a play. We were just on the verge of beginning to work without scripts. For some reason we were seated and had not “blocked” any movement yet. Just doing lines I guess. The anxiety in the dream was that I couldn’t locate my script. We were all using tablets for our scripts. But I couldn’t locate mine. Suddenly a young man took my phone and began putting his own numbers in speed dial. I yelled at him. Apparently this was some sort of thing in the dream. Kids grabbed each other’s phones and put in speed dial numbers. “Have some respect!” I yelled at him. “I’m 64 years old!”

Nice, eh?

So I need to go over the Biblical Psalm by Dvorak this morning since I haven’t been working on it because it’s so easy. It should be an easy Sunday. I was surprised that the prelude,  the famous theme from “The New World Symphony,” timed out to just under six minutes yesterday. It’s so sloooooooowwww. It’s a relief that it’s not as long as it felt when the violist and I went through it Monday.

I need to stop and shower and get ready for church.

I love Schubert’s string quartet, Death and the Maiden, especially the second movement.

I discovered this morning that I prefer the string quartet version to a chamber string orchestra version I listened to. Interesting.  The lone instruments, especially the first violin, render this quartet so much more vulnerable and meaningful, at least to my ears.

Eileen is at an alto breakfast. She almost forgot it, but I asked her if it was today and she started madly preparing. I need to get some serious work done today. Eileen and I are going to Mark and Leigh’s for a couple of days and I want to get more planning done then and now.

I only treadmilled fifteen minutes yesterday. I mistimed our pizza. We forgot to buy frozen pizzas and decided to treat ourselves to delivery. The estimated delivery time of 45 minutes would have worked nearly perfectly for me. But instead it arrived when I had 30 minutes left on the treadmill. Of course I availed myself of this flimsy excuse to stop and shower and eat.

I listened to President Obama’s spotify playlist with headphones.

Listen to President Obama’s Summer Playlist: | whitehouse.gov

This sure makes a difference in what I can hear. I begin to understand his choices better. I think it’s very cool that he shares his preferences. I guess no one listens to classical music anymore. But still I find it interesting to see what the President likes in music.

An Abrupt Farewell to “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” – The New Yorker

Maybe I’m missing something, but this is the first account I’ve read or heard that mentions Wilmore’s Whitehouse Correspondence Dinner performance. This jumped to my mind when I first heard that the show was canceled.

“The Correspondents’ Dinner, in the Obama era, has demonstrated that journalists have even less of a sense of humor about themselves than politicians do.” Ain’t it the truf!

Blogging a little later this morning. Eileen and I try to do a weekly “check-in.” This is a vestigial ghost of the old “family meeting” we used to have with our children. It gives Eileen a chance to bring up stuff without having me overreact which I often do when I’m not prepared emotionally to deal with the pressures of adult decision making. Maybe it’s a good thing I’m now in therapy, eh?

Anyway, we go over the upcoming week. This week we also paid bills together which worked surprising well with Eileen at the check ledger recording and me at the computer paying stuff. She’s balancing the check book right now. Since she usually balances the checkbook having her write in amounts helps because her handwriting is much clearer than mine.

I am making some progress in my Greek studies.

I am beginning the fifth little section based on The Clouds by Aristophanes, section 5D. I have figured out that the text is designed that you first read and learn to understand the new Greek passage and then gradually do the grammar for it. I also do the background reading suggested in the companion volume, An Introduction to Classical Athenian Culture.

Recently, Eileen mentioned to her mother that I was studying Greek. She spontaneously responded, “Why?!” I think this is a logical response. Not sure I even know the answer. But I do enjoy it.

I missed my trio rehearsal yesterday. Both string players are temporarily having physical problems that prohibit them playing music. Yikes!

I did manage a treadmill session yesterday. Just what the doctor ordered.

I spent some time trying to plan at church. Unfortunately I spent a good deal of the time I had allotted for planning simply sorting music. But I did get a couple of Sundays done. I skipped rehearsing organ, but cannot do that two days in a row. So I better get over there today.

I have been working slowly on two Copland two-piano pieces, Danzon Cubano

and El Salón México. 

When I texted Rhonda that I had found her scores, she responded that I better get practicing on them. I like that.

My copy of The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013 arrived in the mail yesterday. It’s in excellent shape. It’s a large book which is a bit daunting but I will probably eventually read the whole thing.

Review: ‘Sixty’ Recounts a 61st Year, Complete With Humor, Rue and Hemorrhoid – The New York Times

Speaking of books, this looks good to me.

My first appointment with Curtis Birky went well. He seems educated, articulate, and intelligent. I spent most of the time answering questions he asked me. Questions like what three words would you use to describe your mother? (“minister’s wife, highly socialized, and quick to blame herself” the last mentioned because it is something I also do). For my Dad, I answered “Intellectual in a non-intellectual environment, life long journey towards liberalism, and typical male lack of intimacy tools with other males”)

Birky got me thinking about my family of origin again. I felt like we connected pretty well. He DID recognize Ed Friedman and was impressed that my brother Mark and I attended a weekend of Friedman presenting his ideas together. He gave me some tools developed by Aaron Beck to do some basic anxiety and depression self eval. It’s my homework for our next visit in two weeks to fill them out.

I also met with Jen and Rhonda yesterday. Jen and I had a good meeting (as usual). She told me that she thought my post gospel improv Sunday was a good thing. I had wondered because the congregation laughed after it. She said she thought the laugh more of an acknowledgment of it than finding it silly.

I told her that Calvin Hampton’s priest occasionally substituted an organ improv for the entire homily.

We agreed that we weren’t there yet, but I suggested maybe after we get the new organ.

I had a ball playing duets with Rhonda.

She brought a lovely 4 hand version of Haydn’s first symphony. We played entirely through it. She even allowed me to do some of the repeats (I like repeats….. Pablo Casals said that Bach repeats were important). Thank you, Rhonda!

I have been admiring the design of the Greek text I am working from. They use a passage from Aristophanes very cleverly to introduce verb tense. In the first section, the main character of the play, The Clouds, says that yesterday he was sleepless. The notes in my independent study guide asked what tense must the verb be after “yesterday.” Then two sections later, he has the same character ask his son if he will love him tomorrow. So of course the verb the son uses will be in the future tense. Then the son tells the father that he WAS listening, he IS listening, and he WILL listen to him.

Someone was on their toes when they found this section to introduce tenses and also be simple enough to be in a relatively early chapter in the text. Cool beans.

Eileen was going through her old Facelessbook messages recently and found one from 2014 that she had missed. Steve Frayer has messaged her. He was in her fifth grade math/science class at st. Damian’s in 1981. Recently he had found a book she had given him which she had inscribed to him. He remembered her fondly and wondered what had happened to her since then. He also remembered taking music classes from me and the fact that I had a harpsichord in the classroom. But Eileen was the star in his eyes for sure. He is now married (to another guy) and serving (somehow openly) in two Detroit parishes as the musician. Eileen and I quickly “friended” him.

He’s on the right. I love shit like this.

Memorial in Alabama Will Honor Victims of Lynching – The New York Times

Stevenson is doing good work. High time to make our shameful past more visible.

Why ‘The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore’ will be missed – LA Times

 Larry Wilmore Talks Nightly Show Cancellation, Making White People Uncomfortable | Vanity Fair

This morning I see Dr. Birky for the first time at 10 AM. It’s around 7:30 AM right now and I have done my usual cleaning of the kitchen, making coffee, Greek study and a bit of Shakespeare read out loud.  I am preparing for my first meeting with this guy more than I did for the one with Lynne Wright. Ms. Wright asked me for the birth years of my children and wife. I thought a genogram would easily show this info. I remembered doing an extensive 6 generation one back when I was taking a course in family systems for church workers. Lo and behold I found it. I will take it with me but not necessarily show it to Dr. Birky unless he’s interested.

Looking over my notes for the family system course reminds me that I have done a lot of work on myself over the years. I think of my many songs that I have written in the folk rock style and suspect strongly that they represent some sort of therapeutic activity. Probably more therapeutic than anything else since despite the feelings of my friend Jonathon Fegel I’m pretty sure they have no commercial potential. Artistic? Another question but one that doesn’t interest me that much at this stage.

What does interest me is they have helped me cope over the years, even grow a bit. In addition to this I realize that I have been driven to seek ways to improve myself, my personality, and my behavior over and over. I could easily make a list of my strengths, weaknesses, flaws, and attributes I am proud of.

I see it as self obsession and self improvement, a bit of pathology and also attempts at self awareness. As I think about what I’m going to talk to Dr. Birky about I’m trying to come with an outcome that these kinds of dudes look for. “What will it look like at the end of therapy if we can achieve your goals?” The best I can do here is to hazard that I might be more self aware of my own growing edges. But we’ll see what I say to Dr. Birky. I need to stop because I have several tasks to perform before I leave for my day.

Dr. Curtis Birky phoned me yesterday and we set up an appointment for tomorrow at 10 AM. So far this dude looks good to me as a possible therapist. I like that the paperwork for incoming patients is available on his website as documents I can fill out online and then print up.

We had a nice chat on the phone. He asked me some screening questions (seeking addiction help? abusive relationships help? will legal authorities be seeking access to our therapy? no in all cases). He asked me to describe briefly why I was seeking therapy and laughed when I concluded this description with the idea that I was interested “in finding out what kind of crazy I am.”

I’m listening to Bjork’s Medulla album on headphones as I write this blog. I am, of course, doing this because I have been reading about Alex Ross’s visit with her while she was making this album in 2004. Reading this essay will give me an excuse to check out some of her music and the music of other Icelandic musicians/composers Ross talks about. So far this album on the headphones is fun. It sounds like typical Bjork to me. I do like her work. It interests me that she composed the vocals on Sibelius but then hired a copyist to make clean copies for the singers. This is mostly a vocal album.

Today, I will start planning the fall church season in earnest. I am planning on working at church to do this. Yesterday I met with Laurie and she sounded quite good on the Dvorak Biblical song she is singing. Her work with a private teacher is obvious and I think she sounds quite good. Good enough for me to offer to meet with her more often and go through some lieder for the fun of it.

Let’s Get Intimate. Big Music Doesn’t Need Huge Halls. – The New York Times

I missed this when it was published at the beginning of August. Bookmarked to read.

For Music, Smaller Is Better – The New York Times letter to the editor

An architect’s response, also which led me to the original article.

When Police Are Poor Role Models for One Another – The New York Times

A look by an ex-cop.

President Obama’s Emotional Spotify Playlist Is a Hit – The New York Times

I noticed this playlist on Spotify and played it for awhile. Eileen was sure that it hadn’t been actually done by the President. This says it was. How cool is that?

God, Realigned: The Era of Reformation – The New York Times

This looks like a book I would like to peruse.

Jules Feiffer Noir: Union-Busting, Communism, Jews and Hollywood – The New York Times

I didn’t know Feiffer was writing a trilogy. This is the just released volume two.

Jesmyn Ward’s Anthology of Race Builds on the Legacy of James Baldwin – The New York Times

This is definitely a book I want to read. I am a fan of James Baldwin.

I had a nice surprise after church yesterday.  The man pictured above, Doug McQueen, came up to me and began telling me how much he liked the way I did the service. I asked if he was an organist and he said he was. I found out later (looking on Facebeek) that he retired after forty years of service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Peoria Illinois.

He gave me detailed compliments on much of the service. He liked the prelude and postlude and the way I accompanied the hymns. He was also the first organist I have met lately who  recognized the name Martin Pasi. Mr. McQueen said that he had played the Cassavant at Hope and commented that with all the organs hope has (2 in Dimnent, the new Cassavant and the Walker in Huw’s studio) Hope was turning into an organ mecca. I hadn’t thought of it like that. It was refreshing to hear it actually.

I am thinking of checking out the organ practice room situation at the new Hope College Music Building. I haven’t been through it yet. I am seriously considering going on my knees and asking Huw if I could practice there while my organ is out of commission. Rhonda has already offered Hope Church. It would be good to have a few spots up my sleeve. Many times organ practice rooms are empty at colleges I have attended.

Mr. McQueen didn’t mention it, but after the gospel yesterday (link to readings), I improvised a dissonant illustration of the divisiveness in the gospel story. After the last chord with Jen in the pulpit and ready to preach, the congregation laughed. I figured they were laughing at the music. Eileen said they might have been laughing at the fact that Jen had bumped the mic right at the end of music. At any rate, it got their attention and Jen moved smoothly into her homily.

I came home and looked for a recording on YouTube. I remember hearing Lang Lang and a young student play a Schubert piano buy roche diazepam online duet at the Proms a few years ago. I wanted to hear it again and think about printing it up and having available for duets.

Here is the two part video of their performance.

I do like this quite a bit. I printed it out and from her response to an email, Rhonda sounds interested.

Since I have scheduled my soprano soloist to sing a Biblical Song by Dvorak on Sunday, I have asked her to bring her viola and play a little arrangement of the famous Largo from his New World Symphony. My organ arrangement in is Db so I dug around and found one online. IMSLP has an arrangement for violin and piano but it’s not public domain in the US, so I landed on a nice clean arrangement for recorder and piano in G major (link to pdf).

I am meeting with Laurie (the singer/viola player) today at 5 PM. I have until then to put this arrangement in Finale. I will probably transpose it to D major and put the recorder part in the viola clef. I was trying to avoid work on Mondays but I enjoy messing with Finale.

Facing the music: David Sawer | Music | The Guardian

I like this interview mostly because most if not all of the music Sawer mentions is embedded into it. cool. I will probably play some of them later.

Join the Army and Choose Whichever God You Like – The New York Times

Sarah Vowell once again on the pages of the NYT!

 Understanding Hillary: The Clinton America sees isn’t the Clinton colleagues know. Why are they so different?

This article by Ezra Klein helped me quite a bit. I am of course planning on voting for Clinton but not without misgivings. Klein provides insight into her warts and all. I think her ability to listen is a valuable attribute as well as her experience in governing. I didn’t watch the actual interview which is linked.

The Best Wireless Routers of 2016 | PCMag.com

This went by on my facelessbook feed. I bookmarked it to think about.

I got up earlier this morning but I’m still running late on blogging. Eileen and I made a grocery trip yesterday with one important goal to replace the propane tank on our grill. Unfortunately, while attempting to hook up the new tank I dropped the dang thing on my hand. The damage was not as bad as it could have been. I have no bruises this morning but two of my fingers immediately became uncomfortable yesterday and they are sore this morning. Good grief. It’s not as if I don’t have enough obstacles between myself and my need to improve as a musician.

Ironically I had just purchased work gloves for just this sort of task but had neglected to don them. sheesh.

I finished Ross’s essay on Schubert this morning. I find Ross very inspiring. He combines a erudite informed understanding with a thoroughly contemporary point of view. I like both things about him. The next essay seems to be about Bjork. Cool.

When I read about someone like Schubert I inevitably find myself drawn to the piano to play through some of their work. Yesterday and this morning I spent time with the first movement of Schubert’s last piano sonata, the one in Bb major. Nice stuff.

Ross points out how pertinent Schubert is to many composers living now. He quotes a Ligeti lecture on Schubert. I didn’t check the footnote, but remembered that Ross attended some lectures by Ligeti. I doubt if they are published.

Enough. Time to get ready for work.

I’m Latino. I’m Hispanic. And they’re different, so I drew a comic to explain. – Vox

I found this helpful. Latino refers to geography (Latin America… people from Spain are not Latino, people from Portugal are). Hispanic refers to Spanish language speakers (People from Spain are Hispanic, people from Portugal are not…. they speak Portuguese.)

Glenn Yarbrough, Folk Singer With the Limeliters, Dies at 86 – The New York Times

Another fascinating obit. I like the part where Yarbrough realizes that his audience was rich boring people and also that he kept being drawn to sailing around the world.

Eileen and I did the Farmers Market this morning. We bought corn, cukes, trout, tomatoes, peaches, and melon. We are certainly eating good these days. I’m not exactly losing weight, but at least my BP is still passable (consistently under 130/100).It was unbearably hot two nights ago, but last night was not as bad. We are still resisting window air conditioners at this point.

Choir season is coming up and I need to get going on it. I’m planning on buying one of Helen Kemp’s books if it still in print. I’m want to add it to the weekly  use of the  songbook we use now, Sing Legato. The choir knows most of these by heart so that shouldn’t be too hard.

Eileen likes Canons, Songs and Blessings more.  I agree that it has better music. But Where in the World: Folksong Warmups from Many Lands has more directed exercises toward vocal development. I want to decided and order multiple copies of one of them today.

We will  probably begin rehearsing on Sept 7 so we can sing on Sept 11 – the Kick off Sunday). But I’m not too worried about it. The parameters of trying to do more one rehearsal wonders to offset the expected lowering of consistent attendance makes it simpler. The possibilities are fewer. If I’m wrong in predicting this I can always adjust music to make it more interesting, I guess.

Yesterday was pretty warm here in Holland all day. I went to the church and rehearsed piano and organ for a few hours. The church wasn’t any cooler than home. Eileen walked downtown for sidewalk sales in the rain.

I found myself carefully playing some of the more difficult variations of the Goldberg Variations at church yesterday on the piano. Then I rehearsed a couple of Philip Glass etudes. At the organ I worked over the psalm for Sunday. Then I rehearsed the postlude. I have scheduled an excerpt of Andrew Clarke’s rather lengthy piece for organ and brass on “How Firm a Foundation.” He composed it so that it can be done on organ alone. It’s very sectional. Originally I had thought that the closing toccata would be a bit much in such a short time. But I’m planning on it and have been working on it.

I also continue to systematically read Bach’s organ works. I have finished reading the Orgelbuchlein and am reading through the volume of the Leipzig chorales (at least I think that’s the volume). Yesterday I read the entire ornamented chorale prelude on Komm Heileger Geist.

This is extremely cool. Bach’s original autograph scrolls while the perform plays it.

This morning after my continual battle with Greek past tense, I returned to reading Alex Ross’s Listen to This. I left off at Chapter 7 which is on Schubert. It of course inspired my weak little pea brain to sit down and play some Schubert at the piano. I do enjoy his music very much. Rhonda and I have been playing some of his four hand music. This is lots of fun!

I listened to the August 12th podcast of FAIR this morning as I cleaned the kitchen and made coffee. Donna Murch was interviewed. Here’s a link to her latest pertinent article.

Paying for Punishment | Boston Review

I haven’t read it yet but was very impressed with her in the podcast.

Letters to the Editor on Think Tanks and Corporate America – The New York Times

The first letter is by Harvey Cox. Wow. He’s still alive.

I learned yesterday that it might not be a good idea for 64 year old Jupe to move eight 50 pound bags of quick concrete left over from setting the new fence posts. I also did a lot of other messing around like sweeping the area in front of the garage, moving left over chain link fence and posts. By the time I had done all of this and other chores I was hot, sweaty, and tired.

I did notice some pain in my left hand during my weekly rehearsal with my cellist. Ah well.

I learned something from my grandson and his piano teacher recently.

I asked him if his teacher insisted on using Czerny’s somewhat eccentric fingerings. He said yes so i decided that I should do that as well. This doesn’t sound as crazy as it is. On the second page of Czerny’s opus 337, Czerny introduces his chromatic scale fingerings.

I admit that I use a very simplistic chromatic scale fingering which mostly three fingers, the ones we number 1,2,3. My Dad showed me this fingering.

I don’t remember studying it with anyone. Just practicing it. Czerny employs all fingers. After mastering the first page of opus 337, it will be a tall order for me to relearn (or learn in the first place) Czerny’s fingerings for the chromatic scale but I’m determined to do this.

Yesterday I was playing through volume IV of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos. I had another insight. My whole history of musicianship has been one of halfassed emergency adaptations for imminent public performances. I have spent a lot of my musical life ignoring fingerings in pieces and reading them as easily as possible. Yesterday I decided i would work through some Bartok’s Mikrokosmos pieces and force myself to exactly use his fingerings.

I do use fingerings in editions of pieces I play. But I consider them suggestions and that’s probably good for literature. But I think I could learn something from using Czerny’s and Bartok’s fingerings.

It reminds me of pounding away each day on learning Classical Greek. No end in sight, but enjoying the process itself.

Despite being exhausted and hot, I made bruschetta and pesto yesterday. I noticed that the Roma tomatoes Eileen bought for me arrived from the grocery store on the ripe side. I resolved to make bruschetta, but let it go for a while. Then I asked Eileen to pick up some basil for me on Wednesday. It was starting to wilt already yesterday. So I kicked in and made the food. There was enough basil to make pesto. Yum. Eileen bought chicken and is planning to use some of this stuff when she grills the chicken. We do eat good.