I had a nice chat with the Beijing branch of the Jenkins fam this morning.

I made another video for Alex yesterday (“I’ve got two eyes”).

After viewing it, they called for some live face to face. They will be arriving from China on Friday and then driving to Holland next Saturday. It will be lovely to see all three of them.

Eileen is at the Alto Breakfast. I have already been to the Farmers Market and the library. It’s overcast and cool here in Holland this morning. Quite pleasant.

I find the history of this word very interesting. A quick look at the Groves and other music resources confirms this dating of this usage of the word, although there were didactic compositions long before 1826.

The rest of today’s blog will be links. I have been neglecting them.

The Biggest Strike in World History? No Thanks, We’re Focusing on the New iPhone | FAIR

FAIR is a good corrective to most media sources. The strike was in India.

What Trump Doesn’t Understand About the Military – The New York Times

This is written by the person who asked Trump the question about undocumented immigrants being allowed to stay and serve in the military. The ignorance in Trump and Gary “What’s Aleppo?” Johnson is astounding.

An F-Minus for America’s Schools From a Fed-Up Judge – The New York Times

Some astute observations from the judge in this story. I see this as related to astounding ignorance mentioned above and seen everywhere in the USA.

Parasitologist bestows squirmy honor on his distant cousin, President Obama – LA Times

This makes me very happy. 100% appropriate as far as I’m concerned. The Baracktrema obamai, a turtle parasite is “able to make a living in …[a] most foreboding” environment.  Who would have thought that Congress was so aptly compared to the innards of a turtle.

Multi-locus Analyses Reveal Four Giraffe Species Instead of One: Current Biology

And speaking of science and stuff… warning this is a link to the original scholarly article published this week.

I have been noticing in my Greek text that, when showing verb conjugations in the future tense (.e. I shall eat, you will eat) in the future, the different usages of “shall,” and “will” in the translations. What’s the difference I wondered? So I pulled my A Dictionary of Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner off the shelf to find out.

Garner says that the use of “shall” in the first person (I, We) is to indicate simple future tense (as opposed to determination, promise and demand) It is vestigial effort by grammarians. He has a little table of these efforts, but says they are of “little utility.”

I am very fond of this book. I reread the preface this morning and began wondering what Garner was up to now and how he would talk about the influence of the internet on language since my copy of the dictionary of usage was published in 1998.

I quickly found out that the fourth edition of this book has just been published this year. It’s now called Garner’s Modern English Usage. Note the shift from “American” to “English” in the title. Garner explains that his interest is now the world wide usage of language and includes more usage than American and British.

I interlibrary-loaned a copy of the new edition and also Quack This Way: David Foster Wallace & Bryan A. Garner Talk Language and Writing.

This 2013 publication is the transcription of an interview Garner did of Wallace in 2008. It was one of Wallace’s last interviews before his death.

Here’s a link to an excerpt I read this morning.

George Orwell: Politics and the English Language

Wallace mentions Orwell’s famous essay on politics and language. The link is broken on the ABA website. the one above should work if you’re curious. I have read this before but think it worth rereading.

Garner is an Texan author and lawyer. Among many other activities he currently “serves as Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.” (Wikipedia)

I found it slightly discouraging that he co-authored two books with the late Justice Scalia. But was encouraged when looking at the dedications to Garner’s Modern English Usage on Amazon that Scalia was not among the dedicatees described as “my late friends and mentors, all of whom I dearly miss.” David Foster Wallace was.

My question about Garner’s take on the effect of the internet on language was quickly answered. In his preface to the new book, he has says he has used Google Ngrams to determine usage of words for the last 300 years. This is so cool!

I have seen these graphs and even played with them a bit, but not thought about their implication for lexicographers. Brilliant stuff. I can’t wait to look at the book. I will probably have to buy it and the Wallace interview.

My morning was interrupted from its usual pattern by this trip down the rabbit hole.

I love the interwebs.

Things went well yesterday. The funeral was a full house. The assembly sang the one hymn strongly. It was a task to keep up with them with only piano, but my boss told me the family said that they wanted no organ.

The woman who died was in her early forties. It was a tough funeral. Her mom and step dad were wandering around hours before the funeral looking stunned and lost. The death was unexpected.

Our first rehearsal of the season went well I think.

I taught them their first canon from Helen Kemp’s Family Canon Book: “Soli Deo Gloria.” I had almost 100 per cent attendance. No newbies. It was easy to be the person in the room in the best mood last night (this is a goal of mine when I am the director). There was a sad moment when the step father came in the rehearsal to tell us one of us had left our headlights lights on. The poor guy hadn’t gone home yet.

Sarah is now home from the hospital. I as understand it, this hospital was in or near Oxford. This got me to reminiscing about Sarah’s and my first trip to England.  Our purpose was to allow Sarah to see the schools in England where she had applied. Sarah could have gotten in to most colleges and universities in the US and probably received significant economic help. But she wasn’t interested in being a foreign exchange student. She wanted to go to college in England.

We went to several schools. I kept a journal for our entire trip. I used to keep tons of written journals.

Now I do this on my google drive.

I refreshed my memory with my journal. It was in February, 2000 that we made this trip. We checked out several schools in different cities and ended a bit north at the University of Huddersfield.

I can remember that Sarah was very unhappy as we sat alone in an art studio at this university. She was unhappy because she was sure she wanted to attend a university which we had already visited (which indeed she did do). I remember suggesting that we use the time we had left in our visit to go see the sights and that we should start with Oxford.

I remember arriving late in the evening on a train to Oxford with no place to stay. This was a formative part of the trip for me, because I remembered what it was like to be young and crazy and discovered that I could still be crazy if not young. I came home from this trip and quit my church gig before too long. But that’s another story.

After eating and finding a place to stay, Sarah and I wandered around. The first place I can vividly recall is the courtyard at Church Church college. We were looking for the window of the place where Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) had lived. We got kicked out by a grumpy guard. But it was fun.

Little did either of us dream that she would be giving birth near this place to a beautiful baby with a loving partner in Matthew sixteen year later. Life is good.

Eileen and i had a full day yesterday. I spent the morning working on a bulletin article about Handel for an upcoming Sunday. I also made posters for the choir room. 

I wanted to have a few of these up for tomorrow night’s rehearsal.

That way I can add more later as I think of them. I’m hoping they won’t seem too pointed.

I only did the “loose lips” one after Eileen told me she thought it was funny. We’ll see if anyone gets upset at these or if they even notice them.

Eileen and I took down our old blinds in the kitchen yesterday. Eileen did some cleaning of the window frames. We then temporarily put up the clean curtains. I think we are planning to install the new blinds today.

Then in the afternoon, after touching base with Mom (and showing off the new pics of Lucy Jenkins Locke), we went to church. Eileen is the choir librarian. She organized the music I have chosen for the next season and then put it in the folders. This means we are pretty much ready to roll for tomorrow night. I will add psalms and put the order for Sunday on the board tomorrow.

I practiced organ while Eileen did the choir library work. My Handel organ concertos are coming together a bit. That’s good because they’re not that easy for me. I have several editions of transcriptions of these works.

I chose to learn from Dupre’s this time. Mostly because he carefully notates the pedaling and I was curious how he would do that. Deciding on pedaling is tricky for me and so far I’m pretty much using his pedaling no matter how goofy it seems. It works of course.

We came home with an hour to spare before martini time. Eileen worked on weaving and I treadmilled.

Donald Trump Does Detroit – The New York Times

Charles Blow reminds us that Trump is in reality a bigot.

Hillary Clinton Gets Gored – The New York Times

Krugman bemoans the injustice of the weird twisting of truth in political campaigns.

Muslim Gathering Laments a ‘Normalization of Bigotry’ – The New York Times

Sadly true.

If you’re reading this, Eileen or someone has given me permission to announce the arrival of the latest Jenkins edition: Lucy Jenkins Locke, born 4:09 AM September 5, 2016! Sarah is happy and apparently okay!

We were in contact with Matthew and Sarah on and off during the day yesterday. At first they took a taxi to the hospital and were told that the contractions were too far apart to be admitted. They dallied for a while but then the last I heard were going home. This morning I got up to find an announcement on WhatsApp (the way we communicate with our world wide family).

I just received permission from Matthew and Sarah to post a few pics here.

The British Branch of the fam gets bigger. Matthew seems to be adoring his new kid. Very cool stuff! We will go in October and see them in person!

Despite being less prepared than usual, the last minute prelude yesterday went well.  “Wer nur den lieben Gott lässt walten:  (BWV 647} is one of the Schubler chorales which means they are organ arrangements of a Bach cantata movement arranged for organ by Bach himself. Here’s a video version.

I like this guy’s version quite a bit. That’s about the tempo I took it. I played the melody through once with the pedal stop to remind any one listening of the tune. I actually like this hymn tune quite a bit.

I like this live version sung by four men. It feels very honest and real (and in tune!).

Choir begins this week. I think I’m ready. Once again I will attempt to be the person in the room in the best mood. I hope this is easier this year. I’m trying not to expect too much from my choir since their numbers are dwindling and it’s difficult to get a consistent group of people at any given event. But I will try to make it as good as possible of course.

I have had one parishioner express interest in joining. Of course, he’s out of town a lot and often will miss rehearsal. Like the first one this week. We have been communicating by email and he has not answered my direct question querying whether he will make any Wednesday rehearsals. if he joins with the idea he’s not coming to the rehearsals I will have to ask him to wait until he can. He is apparently going to sing with us on our first Sunday. That’s all I can clearly get out of him. Fuck the duck. (I just emailed this guy and attempted to make clear that he can sing this Sunday, but if he knows he can’t come to any Wed rehearsals I prefer he wait until that changes…. sigh….)

I am planning to play two movements from Handel’s organ concerto in G major on our second choir Sunday. Tomorrow I will submit that info for the bulletin. Today I plan to to try to write up a little music appreciation paragraph about Handel and the organ pieces and the Handel anthem for that day. Also planning to make up signs for the choir room. Stuff like “Pure Vowels!”,  “Come early to be on time!”,  “Listen, Sing, Ask Questions, but try not to chat with your neighbor”, “Loose lips sink rehearsals!”, and so on.

I looked online to see if I could purchase some hokey little posters announcing little tips like this. But I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. I decided I’ll just make my own. Easy enough.

Eileen and I watched the pilot for the TV series Star Trek last night. It was hilarious. Kirk is not in it. In fact the only familiar cast member that seems to be in it is Spock. The whole series is on Netflix. I’m not sure how long it’s been there, but I enjoy old Star Trek episodes as much as I do most new Tv/Interweb series.

I was preparing today’s service at the organ yesterday. I had just rehearsed and timed the prelude when I thought it might be nice add a play through of the melody it was based on just before it. That way listeners could be better prepared to hear how Bach used it. As I began examining the cantus firmus in the pedal I realized that I had not prepared a piece based on the opening hymn, “If thou but trust in God to guide thee.” Instead I had been so taken with the Bach piece that I had not noticed that instead it was based on Von Gott will ich nicht lassen. This tune is not even in the Hymnal 1982. Yikes!

I immediately found a setting by Bach of the correct opening hymn for this morning and began practicing it. Fortunately, in the today’s bulletin nowhere do I refer to the German name of the melody of the wrong prelude. Instead the prelude reads: “Chorale prelude on If Thou but trust in God to guide thee” BWV 568 by J.S. Bach. Now most of that will be true. It will just be the wrong BWV number.

I also have a music note in the bulletin. I talk about the organ music but in very general ways:

Again the organ music for the prelude and postlude is based on the opening and closing hymn today. Our opening hymn picks up on the concept of “trust” which Rev Jen prays in the opening collect: “Grant us, O Lord to trust in you with all hearts…” It’s almost as if old Bach himself was smiling and thinking of God’s trust as he wrote music for the prelude. We can hear the hardly subdued joy in the moving parts on the keyboard of the organ while the organist feet on the pedal notes sing the melody of the opening hymn in long slow tones.

I know that’s hokey but I’m trying to draw people into the music. Fortunately it’s so hokey that it will also be true of the prelude based on the opening hymn that I am madly learning at the last minute. Sheesh.

The Difference Between Tantrums and Sensory Meltdowns

Autistic kids anywhere on the spectrum of autism can be tricky to be around.

I have two different discussions in mind this morning. The first is the one taking place around the University of Chicago’s letter to incoming students which stated “we do not support so-called ‘trigger warnings.’ we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

I listened to this week’s On The Media broadcast this morning.  It changed my mind on this issue. Originally I felt that “trigger warnings” were representative of how ideas can be censored  and connected them in my mind to situations where speakers are shouted down or canceled due to their ideas. After listening to this broadcast I realize that I agree with all of the sides of the argument presented.

First, as a student, Cameron Okeke makes some clear arguments that ‘safe spaces’ in his case were situations where he didn’t have to constantly field questions from the majority white students about his own experience as a black person. He makes it clear that the place where he felt safe, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, was not a place to hide from ideas and perspectives at odds with his own. Rather, he “needed a space where” he as “a biology major, was not expected to give free race theory classes.” In addition, he said in the ‘safe place’ his ideas were challenged just not his personhood.

This makes sense to me. Here’s a link to his article on Vox.

Then Kate Manne was interviewed.

She is a teacher who uses and defends ‘trigger warnings.’ She made good sense to me and differentiated between the intellectual authority of the teacher and the moral authority accorded to all people in the classroom. This is something I will think about for a while. I recommend listening to her portion of the program. Here’s a link to an article she wrote in 2015 about trigger warnings for the NYT.

Finally Geoffrey Stone pointed out that the letter was only written by the dean of students and was not a policy presentation.

He sees the shutting down of conversation as a threat to free speech. This is a concern of mine as well. I think he has a point. I would link in one of his article but they are all behind academic firewalls.

Speaking of which, the other thing on my mind is also an article behind a firewall on the Interweb. It’s in the new AGO mag and is entitled “No Team in I.” In it, Leonardo Ciampa talks about improvising and stage fright.

In brief, he points out that music has not been a singular field “since before the French revolution.” Now it’s divided into multiple areas like classical, pop, rock and jazz. On his website, Ciampa says that he does not use the expression “classical music.”

Consciously or unconsciously he echos the great Duke Ellington, he says there that the only question that matters is “is the music good?”

In the AGO article, he says that Bach was a “musician” and that music to Bach was a
field “just as ‘plumbing’ is a field today. There is no such thing as a ‘classical plumber’ or a ‘popular’ plumber.” I like that. And I agree with it.

He makes several points about how this has stifled improvisation in educated musicians (but not all organists). But what fascinated me was his aside about the creation of the concept of “recital” and how it contributed to stage fright.

He credits Liszt with inventing the term and concept of “recital.” Liszt was the first musician to give an entire concert alone. When he called it a “recital,” people wondered how one could ‘recite’ at the piano.

Ciampa points out that many young people play sports, usually team sports, without much stage fright. These same young people are often terrified of performing on a musical instrument. Ciampa attributes some of this to the idea of team performance versus the lonely recitalists. I think he’s on to something. I wish I could link you in to the entire article. As it is you will have to get access to the September issue of the The American Organist to read the article. it’s only two pages but it’s got me thinking.

After exercising Eileen attacked the medicare/health insurance update. Since it was the first day of September and this year I will turn 65 this month, she had to switch our insurance all around. It weirdly ended up costing her more to insure herself with Priority Health than it cost to insure us both previously. I’m not exactly sure how it all works but it has something to do with household income and me going on Medicare. I am sure it made her very frustrated and unhappy.

So I was glad when after visiting Mom we pulled in the driveway and there sat Eileen’s new loom.

If there was ever a day a little sunshine in Eileen’s life was needed, yesterday was it. 

Since I made food yesterday, the kitchen took longer than usual to clean this morning. So I’m getting to my blogging a little later.

I am finding myself drawn to Schubert’s music lately so I decided to read up a bit more on him. I only own one reference book on him, The Schubert Reader.

So I bookmarked the Groves article to read on my tablet. Then I looked up at the clock and realized it was later than usual for blogging. I did get my Greek done however.

What architects, music, and literature professors do for civic life – AEI | Society and Culture Blog » AEIdeas

Supreme Court Blocks North Carolina From Restoring Strict Voting Law – The New York Times

I notice that my brains are little tired today. I had a good day yesterday. I found myself in the grips of unreasonable optimism (as sometimes happens to me). I had a good second meeting with Dr. Birky my therapist. Then I drove to work and made those multiple copies of two upcoming anthems. I had lunch with Eileen. I picked up a few grocery items including some stuff for my Mom. I ended the day giving a piano lesson. The entire day I was feeling pretty positive. I do feel lucky to have such a good life.

I remember a classical radio station having a rule that they played no sopranos early in the morning. However, this morning as I was continuing to read Ross’s chapter on Verdi, he mentioned the recording above and called it one of the “most stunning pieces of Verdi singing on record.”

Naturally I had to check it out. I have been listening to more music on my headphones. I have made a small discovery. A lot of the newer pop music I listen to seems to have been specifically recorded to be listened to through headphones. I remember years ago my friends told me that if I wanted to hear “Whole Lotta Love” effectively I had to do so with headphones.

There was a swirling effect in the recording. They thought that was hot shit. I’m listening to the above video with headphones. Hilariously it preserves this silly little effect. But I do think that I miss quite a bit in the new pop music just listening to it through speakers. I have been wearing my headphones while I treadmill and keep noticing this.

I make playlists on Spotify of new music to play while I treadmill. This helps keep me motivated I guess.

I love the way the interweb keeps connecting me to stuff and allowing me to share some of it here. It seems an incredible luxury to me to read about a recording and then be able to pull it up on my magic machine and also find the music to follow while listening. Man o man. I do like that.

Here are the two poems that I read this morning. I liked each one very much. Again how cool is it that I can find them online? Not always able to do that.

Hum for the Stone by Jamaal May | The Normal School: A Literary Magazine

I like how May uses stone substances in each section of this poem. For some reason this poem makes me think of Detroit (where May is from).

“Return to D’Ennery; Rain” by Derek Walcott | Last Year’s Almanac

And then there’s this poem. I like the rain in this poem and I like this:

“And as this rain puddles the sand, it sinks
Old sorrows in the gutter of the mind…”

Instead of publishing this post, I had breakfast with Eileen. She left and I decided to cook to Verdi. Put on La Traviata. I took food porn pics as I cooked. Here they are.

In my Chili Cabbage version, I like using portobella mushrooms.

I leave out the tofu and jalepeno peppers. Eileen said she didn’t mind the taste of this concoction. Here’s a link to the recipe again. You have scroll down to see it.

Then on Gingered Kale and Tofu (minus the tofu).

Many thanks to m sister-in-law Leigh for the cabbage and kale.

I used my wok for both dishes.

Finally I thin sliced some chicken breast for my favorite carnivore and put it in marinade.

Well, I have to stop since all I have done this morning is basically blog and cook. But life is good.