“Uncle Louie,” Ray Ferguson used to call him. Although Eileen and I were barely making enough money to survive in Detroit, we scraped together the dear cost of the volume of Louie  Couperin’s Harpsichord music ($49.50). I had fallen in love with this composer’s music. And I’m still reaping the benefits of that purchase. Last night and this morning I played through pages and pages of these lovely, elegant pieces on my synthetic harpsichord.

Louie sprang to mind because I was listening to a record I bought many years ago of French organ music. I love this old record. There is one piece by Louie on it. But the  beginning Anonymous dances I especially love. Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to find the music for these lovely pieces. I poked through many IMSLP documents but still can’t find them.

My record does not look like this and has no supporting material. But this is the recording I believe. Here a couple of links.

harmonia mundi – Provençal Organs

 Organlive.com – Display Album

This record was very formative on me in that the sounds of these lovely organs attracted me like no other organ sounds I had heard at the time.

I’m going to have to stop because Eileen and I are attending Jim Piersma’s funeral in about thirty minutes.

Although the video below is me playing a piece by nephew Francois Couperin, it is still similar to Louie’s music.

He was known as Couperin Le Grand and worked for Louie XIV.

I’m doing things in a bit different order this morning. After doing some of  the dishes, I started preparing one of my concoctions for the slow cooker (onions, mushrooms, carrots, frozen corn and peas, celery, pablano pepper diced, small zucchini, garlic and vegetarian bullion). Eileen got up before I was done. She was on her way to Evergreen to exercise. Before she left we played two games of Boggle.

We boggle almost without fail every day. After she left, I had some breakfast. I made that Dal recipe I posted the other day a few days ago. I think it is excellent, although Eileen was not impressed with it.  For breakfast this morning I put some of it in a custard dish. Then I put in an egg white. Zapped it 20 seconds at a time until it was done. Dumped it on a 100 calorie tortilla. Topped it with fresh cut spring onions, tomato and spinach from the bag I bought. Mmmm. Good.

So I’m putting off doing Greek until after posting here. At this point in my studies, I am now reading aloud sections A through C and most of D of the chapter I have been re-translating. Then I do a few more sentences. I’m almost done with this phase. Reading Greek passages aloud over and over is supposed to be a good way to begin to retain meaning. It seems to be working okay for my ancient brain.

I need to hit the Schubert piano pieces I have scheduled for Ash Wednesday hard today. I have been working on them daily. But also I find myself watching my energy pie closely and spending it as best as i can. This means I skipped organ yesterday to practice piano and also to working over sections of pieces instead of going all the way through repeatedly the week before performance.

I continue to feel a bit isolated artistically here in goofy old Holland Michigan.

Eileen and I attended Rhonda’s pre-Concert Tour-After Church recital yesterday. I am grateful to be on her list of colleagues. She has introduced me to some new composers and plays very well.

Maybe my sense of artistic isolation this morning stems a bit from killing the postlude yesterday. As my cellist pointed out, I didn’t get too much notice that I would have to cover the violin part in the piece I had transcribed for us. I did however begin practicing it assiduously as soon as I became aware that Amy would probably need to skip this gig.

The ending third of the piece was what I found especially difficult. I believe that I had the notes learned pretty well learned or as learned as well as I could in the time I had. But, I missed an entrance and had difficulty recovering until the ending flourish. Oh well. You pay your money and take your changes, I guess.

But I don’t think this is what’s going on with me. I think it’s a consciousness of my invisibility to some colleagues and to those (besides Rhonda) who notice me and then seem to treat me like a third class musician with nothing to say musically.

Maybe that’s not quite right either. When I saw Rhonda perform on stage with the B3 guy, I had a small epiphany. I felt that the Hope audience and faculty present didn’t see the deep playing that Rhonda did. It was in such contrast to the light and dated (in my opinion) work on the B3. Don’t get me wrong, I like all kinds of music. But most if not all kinds of music can touch the listener and performer deep inside places of what it means to be human. This is the musical experience I search for. Often I feel when I find it, I am alone. Actually I do find it sometimes alone at the piano or organ.

I guess in the end I value the solitude of the artist.

A Rising Black Leader Who Pulled Off His Own Fake Obituary – The New York Times

Wild.

I’m sneaking a blog post in between church and a concert Rhonda is giving this afternoon. The husband of my violinist, Amy Hertel Piersma, died on Thursday evening. It was unexpected. Here’s a link to his obit. He was 65.

Amy stopped off yesterday to say that she was interesting in playing this morning despite Jim’s death. I told her we could hang loose on that. She emailed me last night that she decided not to do it. We played what we had scheduled anyway and I covered the violin part. This worked pretty well.

If you’re looking for things to do in resistance and response to the Trump Presidency, you might try what is suggested below. This was posted by my brother, Mark, on Facelessbook. I submitted a comment.

ACTION NEEDED: Leave Public Comment on HHS Website
WHEN: NO LATER THAN 5PM ON MARCH 7

**** Please leave comments at https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=CMS-2017-0021-0002

You are requested to log onto the HHS website and leave a public comment as to why the proposed regulations should not be adopted.

Among the new rules being proposed are:

1) Shortening of Open Enrollment from 3 months to 6 weeks (Shrinks the number of enrollees. Quite possible that those who are healthier will miss getting enrolled, weakening the system further)

2) Tightening up on Special Enrollment Periods (SEP) by
a. Requiring all persons who apply for a SEP to verify their eligibility prior being enrolled (or if already enrolled before changing status and subsidy)
b. If already enrolled may not change metal level (Bronze, Silver, etc.)
c. Insurers permitted to deny coverage under a SEP for loss of minimum essential coverage if the insurer can demonstrate prior termination of the enrollee due to non-payment of premiums.

“Consumer advocates have warned that some of these changes could penalize people who really need coverage but would have problems complying with requirements for documentation, or might fall behind on their payments. But insurers have said they are necessary to keep the market functioning.” (Huffington Post)

3) Loosening Rules for what insurers cover – the actual language around this is fairly technical with much jargon. Basically, it is lowering the cost of insurance by requiring less to be insured. Since subsidies are based upon cost, lower cost means lower subsidies.

“People who didn’t want or need generous coverage, and weren’t eligible for subsidies in the first place, might find some cheaper options. But consumers who qualify for assistance would ‘either have to settle for that less generous plan, or else make up the difference by paying a higher net premium to keep the same type of coverage they had before.’” (Aviva Aron-Dine, senior fellow and senior counselor at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, quoted by Huffington Post)

Try to address those areas that concern you, making a case against the proposed changes. A form letter cribbed from elsewhere is much, much less effective than if you write your own, thoughtful comment. But any comment against these regulations is better than none.

If it helps to get a sense of what others are saying, I have collected 40-50 comments from the site and made them available in a PDF here:https://tinyurl.com/zjgs42x

“We the People” is a podcast which attempts to continue the conversation about what the Constitution means. It is a product of the National Constitution Center, an institution established by Congress to “disseminate information about the United States Constitution on a non-partisan basis in order to increase the awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.”

It has a sister podcast called “Live at America’s Town Hall.”  Both of these podcasts strive for clarity using people steeped in these areas. They seem to be a rare arena of bipartisan civil discussion judging from what I have heard so far. “We the People” adroitly avoids policy discussions and focuses on structural and legal discussion of the constitution, especially it seems in terms of current events.

There is also an app sponsored by these people called The Interactive Constitution. I have installed it on my tablet and it looks excellent.

As the Trump Administration goes about disassembling our functioning government in favor of weird understandings of our country and our world, it’s good to remember that there are little corners of sanity and civic exchange still functioning. Here’s a link to a list of related organizations.

This is an update photo of Grace’s new organ. I put it up on Facelessbooker, but thought I would put it here as well.

I’m writing on Friday afternoon. I had a nice chat with Dr. Birky, my therapist. Today after our session (which was mostly about music again), he said he would be willing to renegotiate our work together if I wanted to. I took this to mean that I could lower the frequency of our sessions or even put them on hold.

I told him that I had encouraged my Mom to have a talk shrink so that if she needed some help she wouldn’t have to meet someone. Dr. Birky pointed out the benefit of meeting with someone like him includes a conversation where I don’t have to think about reciprocity and could just concentrate on my own stuff. I said to him that I appreciated the way he does inject himself as an authentic person from time to time in our conversations. I like this dude. And of course I like to talk and seem to have no problem chatting with him. Not time to quit yet.

I am tired this afternoon. After my therapist appointment I went directly to St. Francis and practiced for about an hour. I am planning to play a couple Schubert piano sonata movements next Ash Wed at Eucharist, so i have to practice that today. Actually I already have practiced a bit on one of them before Eileen got up.

It turns out that way back in 1970 Albert Murray who died in 2013 said some very important things that shed light on what’s happening in the USA now. In his book, Omni-Americans: Black Experience and Black Culture, he says “American culture even in its most patently segregated precincts is patently and irrevocably composite.”

It is this fact that will ultimately defeat this terrible moment when we have a government in disarray. When we attack people who have come here from other lands (entering legally or illegally) we attack ourselves. We attack what makes our culture: the composite.

We are composed historically of three unique strains, Murray quotes  ideas from Constance Rourke drawing presumably on her two books, American Humor: A Study of the National Character and The Roots of American Culture: “The American is a composite that is part Yankee, part backwoodsman and Indian, and part Negro.”  Quoting her directly: “… something in the nature of each [of these] induced an irresistible response. Each had a been a wanderer over the lands, the Negro a forced and unwilling wanderer. Each in a fashion of his own had broken bonds, the Yankee in the initial revolt against the parent civilization, the backwoodsman in revolt against all civilization, the Negro in a revolt which was cryptic and submerged but which nonetheless made a perceptible outline… [all three interwoven figures in our culture] were the embodiment of a deep seated mood of dis-severance, carrying the popular fancy further and further from any fixed heritage. Their comedy, their irreverent wisdom, their sudden changes and adroit adaptations provided emblems for a pioneer people who required resilience as a prime trait.”

Further, in clarifying how American culture works, Rourke points out (via Murray) “… such is the process by which Americans are made that immigrants, for instance, need trace their roots no further back in either time or space than Ellis island. By the very act of arrival, they emerge from the bottomless depths and enter the same stream of American tradition as those who landed at Plymouth. In the very act of making their way through customs, they begin the process of becoming , as Constance Rourke would put it, part Yankee, part backwoodsman and Indian—and part Negro.”

This helps me understand my own personal attraction to eclecticism as represented in American culture. For a musician such as myself, I find it necessary to understand the streams of genius flowing from the tragic history of slavery into the 21st century. In fact I am attracted and identify with all three strains of Rourke’s understanding of who we are.

When you remember this, our current turmoil, although unique, rings hollow. Of course it is a matter of deep concern that we are in uncharted territory. Which brings me to my next point which I ran across this morning listening to Ezra Klein interview Elizabeth Drew, the author of The Watergate Journal.

I’m embedding it here because I didn’t see a clear way to link this episode. Here’s a link to Klein’s podcast page.

Drew kept a diary throughout the Watergate experience beginning with the fall of Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew. Although Klein wants to draw parallels between then and now, she adroitly avoids this pitfall. But she does have insights into the Trump phenomenon.

First of all, she reminds us that Trump is not fit to be our president. He doesn’t understand the job, the government or (in my opinion anyway) the country. She also thinks that he will not make four years, but again she says no one knows at this point. It’s important to pay attention.

When Klein talks about the hysteria and worst case scenario mind set she comes up with three important things to remember.

Drew’s three things to remember about Trump

1. He’s incompetent. Nixon knew where the levers of government were and how to use them. Trump hasn’t a clue and has surrounded himself by neophytes.

2. He has eroded his own credibility. In other words, as he continues to lie, his ability to convince and lead diminishes.

3. He has few allies in a large and complex government including the Republicans.

These ideas are no panacea by any means and Drew doesn’t present them as such. But they all strike me as accurate and worth of keeping in mind as we monitor closely this White House administrations, its actions and the response of the government and the people.

34 Books by Women of Color to Read This Year

I love lists. I usually check to see if I recognize much on book lists. I didn’t on this list so I bookmarked for future reference. thank you to daughter Elizabeth for faceboogering this.

Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Pesto & Shrimp Recipe – EatingWell

 Spinach, sweet potato & lentil dhal | BBC Good Food

A couple of good looking recipes from my vegetarian daughters. Daughter Sarah points out that David shared one of these and that she did not. Thank you, Sarah, for the correction.

Millions in South Sudan in Urgent Need of Food, U.N. Warns – The New York Times

This is from a couple days ago.  There was nothing in yesterday NYT. I haven’t look at today’s paper yet.

Racial Justice Advocate – The New York Times

Interesting letter from the subject of a recent report by the NYT. The original story is linked in the letter. The point is that the NYT made things worse and committed the very errors the guy was fighting against. At least they printed his letter, I guess.

I did manage to goof off yesterday afternoon. I even skipped reading the NYT so I’m a day or two behind in that. Instead I did other reading.  I’m feeling a pleasant sense that nothing is so important that I can’t stay relaxed throughout my work. Probably delusional, but I’ll take it.

I think that I am mostly a lover, a good audience of poetry, music, stories, and ideas, emphasis on love. I am a bit of a maker, but mostly a lover. I have been returning to the first volume of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavichord. There is a difference between the two volumes. I have read where people think that the second volume is more profound and there might be something to that. However, returning to the first volume I find it immensely satisfying as well.

I’m hoping to coast through today.

I’m thinking I need to add a couple of anthems to the choir schedule list. After all, Lent starts next Wednesday. I have most of the Easter season to plan and a couple holes in Lent and Holy Week. I like my idea of scattering interesting high art kind of anthems between easier more accessible but still rewarding ones. I’m planning to do my setting of Psalm 121 when it comes up in Lent. I wrote this setting and dedicated it to my maternal grandparents, since I seem to recall this psalm was used at both of their funerals. At any rate, I can still hear in my inner ear my grandmother Midkiff (Grandmommy she insisted on being called) recite this psalm in the King James and nice W. Virginia accent.

 A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates – The New York Times

Blogging on a Tuesday afternoon is not something I usually do, but today I am. Eileen helped me get my Mom back and forth to a neurologist appointment. That went relatively easy. Mom has been sleeping a lot. But she got good reviews from her neurologist. And she perked up after the appointment and we stopped and added a small cheeseburger to her ritual post appointment “frosty” at Wendys.

(Sorry about the racist stuff in this video but the music is cool)

I am feeling a bit lazy this afternoon. It’s overcast and I should walk over to one of the local churches and practice organ. But on the other hand I do need to let myself have some time off. I may skip it today since all my organ projects are long term at this point.

Wow. Desmond and the Tutus. What’s not to like?

Rhonda asked me if I would play at the local AGO chapter members recital in April. I instantly said I would. If asked, I usually say yes to things like this. Plus I am thinking that having a good organ at work will lead to more organ playing in public by jupe.

I’m on a roll with this embedded videos.

I love the interwebs. I was toying with what to play in April. I like to choose something a little different for recitals like this. I do like Krebs and he is not always on organists’ radar. I have been messing with an Eb trio of his. While I was at St. Francis yesterday, I pulled it off the web, put it on my tablet and practiced it. I love the interwebs.

Walking home yesterday, I stopped off at the library and checked out a volume of Hayden Carruth’s poetry.

The one I found was published posthumously and was entitled “Last Poems.” His publisher did a clever thing and went through all the books of poetry he has published and pulled  out the last poem for this collection. In addition included are his actual last unpublished poems. So far I like his poetry okay. I need to read more.

He did look cool. The pic above is in the book and I found it online. But neither the book nor online sources identify the woman with him.

 In the Land of Opera, a Choir for the Tone Deaf – The New York Times

I resist the notion that true tone deafness is as wide spread as many think. I like what this person is doing in Italy.

Metallica: Official Video Recap Of Beijing Concert Feat. Chinese Concert Pianist Lang Lang – Blabbermouth.net

3:40 into the embedded video Lang Lang makes an appearance. I still haven’t forgiven this group for destroying Napster.

 U.N. says 1.4 million children at imminent risk of death in famines | Reuters

This makes me crazy. “Man made famine.”

Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber — Susan J. Fowler

My daughter Elizabeth shared this on Faceboogers. It’s a good but frustrating read.

Wow. How did I miss Albert Murray’s work?

My used copy of Omni-Americans: Black Experience and American Culture came in the mail the other day. Published in 1970, it takes a clear withering look at life in the USA. Murray wrote eloquently about race, jazz, and ideas. His brilliant mind and erudite prose are so refreshing to me at a time of public idiocy. I suppose I missed him because I wasn’t listening to the intellectuals in the sixties and seventies. I was growing towards them.

Murray moves easily from quoting Joyce to referencing Duke Ellington, from expounding on Thomas Mann’s understanding of history as myth (from Mann’s Joseph novels) to the idea that a literary intellectual is like the piano in a jazz ensemble:

“When issues engage widespread public attention, the so-called national dialogue becomes more of a verbal free for all than a formally (or informally) structured debate. As in a battle royal, everybody is out to get in his own punchline. In such a context, the literary intellectual or would-be intellectual assumes responsibilities and takes prerogatives somewhat similar to those of a piano player in a jam session. His relationship to the argument’s overall frame of reference is  very much like the relationship of the piano player to the chordal structure and progression of the piece of music being used as the basis for improvisation. Of all the musicians in a jam session, it is most likely the piano player who provides the point of reference in the score. He is not necessarily the best musician in the session, but his approach, like that of the apprentice to literature, is necessarily comprehensive. Thus he is not only authorized but obligated to remind the other participants what the musical ‘discussion’ is about. Indeed, the most self-effacing accompanist did as much for Bessie Smith and Coleman Hawkins.”

Needless to say, Murray’s mind and his intellectual world that includes Joyce and jazz and everything in between is one I am ecstatic to discover. It’s hard to believe that he wrote the above paragraph in 1970. Here’s one last quote referring to a hypothetical athlete’s wise refusal to concede opposition to an opponent who has a PHD in physical education from Harvard or Yale. “There is simply too little difference between official certification and media promotion as things now stand.”

Murray is an important part of my intellectual oasis these days.

That’s how I see it. I live in a small world peopled by people like Murray, Joyce, Schubert, Bach, Duke Ellington, and Thomas Mann.

I mildly dreaded church yesterday, mostly for its inevitable inanity however well intentioned by people I care about at this stage. I came home and buried myself in Schubert and Bach at the piano. Then Eileen and I walked in the sunlight to make our daily visit to my Mom’s nursing home.

The Age of Rudeness – The New York Times

This is a long read and not all of it that good. However, manners interest me. Rachel Cusik, the author, is from England. Her anecdotes about rudeness are interesting. I wonder if she understands that Americans often don’t realize they’re being rude. At least that’s often my impression as I watch people in this country. Maybe my rudeness bar is too high in an unAmerican way. I don’t appreciate Cusik lapsing into Christian references. They weaken the essay as far as I’m concerned. And I was left wondering why she no longer speaks to her mother.

George Saunders: By the Book – The New York Times

I keep bookmarking these dang things. Saunders is a writer I admire and read. He and I seem to have a lot in common about books we like (Swing Time by Zadie Smith). But I don’t know the poet, Hayden Carruth, he mentions. I see that my library has a copy of his collected poems on the shelf. I will probably pick it up and check him out.

In Praise of Hypocrisy – The New York Times

Around the time of Trump’s inauguration, the author of this essay, Masha Gessen, was advocating general hysteria. I didn’t think that was very clever. But I like this essay where she points out the usefulness of concessions to norms that one does not manage to live up to.

How a Ruthless Network of Super-Rich Ideologues Killed Choice and Destroyed People’s Faith in Politics – Evonomics

I have this bookmarked to finish reading. I am particularly intrigued by the influence of the author, Frederik Hayek. Apparently he espoused the idea that competition in a society is the most efficient procedure for all areas and that liberty can be defined as the absence of coercion. I totally disagree with these ideas but need to know more about this influential and destructive point of view.

Rush on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace | Rush

It’s easier to read a transcript like this than listen to the silken tones of the ideologue Limbaugh. I read this in an effort to understand two influential men in media.

Our Putin – The New York Times

Susan Glasser begins her frightening little essay in 2001 with Putin’s first American news conference. Yikes!

I managed to get my tasks done yesterday and email string parts to my string players for two transcriptions for next Sunday. In the late afternoon I walked to Hope Church and practiced. I am finding that if I can practice before lunch I have better energy for it. By the end of the day yesterday I was pretty depleted physically. My boss returns from two weeks in the Virgin Islands today and I feel like I need a vacation.

Pro-Trump rally in downtown Holland, shuns Sentinel – News – Holland Sentinel – Holland, MI

I find the anti-media movement confused. There were not a lot of people out yesterday for this march here in Holland. However 9K people showed up for the Trump campaign rally in Florida. There is definitely some weird thinking going on here. Blaming the messenger does not change reality. Plus the word, “media,” is plural, right? So lumping the many ways information is disseminated into some amorphous entity only serves to fan the flames of fear and confusion. Weird stuff.

I can see how the same headlines that cause concern for me are the ones that people who marched here in Holland and gathered in Florida cheer. It seems that the idea that anything is better than what we have had in our government before Trump is getting to play out no matter the consequences at this point.

Who Will Watch the Agents Watching Our Borders? – The New York Times

On thing that hit me about Linda Greenhouse’s article is that the union representing the Immigration and Enforcement Enforcement agents endorsed Trump and at the same time face dismantling by the anti-union forces that Trump represents.

He Called China’s President ‘Xitler’ on Twitter. Now He Faces Prison. – The New York Times

 Even Chinese leaders hate being compared to Hitler. Of course, in that country it’s more dangerous to speak out.

Kim Jong-nam, the Hunted Heir to a Dictator Who Met Death in Exile – The New York Times

Some background on this story which I’m following.

I guess I don’t have much more to say this morning.

keeping it short

I need to keep my blogging time short today. I got up all charged up to some work (see below).

improvising

I was shocked to read the rules for the upcoming AGO improvisation context in the magazine (link to pdf of the page in the mag)

“The structure of this competition recognizes that improvisation is not simply art of the present. Rather, many of the best improvisations result from intentional cultivation of an individual’s musical imagination and are achieved when working with themes well known and purposefully selected. Throughout this competition, competitors are encouraged to explore different historical styles of improvisation, but are not required to perform in specific historical styles. Instead, the environment, the instrument, and the competitor’s own musical voice will each inform a performance. “(emphasis added)

Wow. I never thought I would read that in an AGO mag. I was not awarded an AAGO rating in the 80s when although I managed passing scores in the test but flubbed a small modulation thus flunking by the rule that one could not have a low score in any one of the many sections they tested. I know that the modulation I improvised was probably not textbook, however I’m pretty sure it made some kind of musical sense. After that i turned all of my improvisatory thinking away from standard AGO improvisation thinking which was basically  improvising in the context of 18th and 19th century harmonic language as far as i could tell.

Now it looks like my way of improvising is making a bit of an inroad into the stodgy organization  I have remained a member of for decades.

I was reminded of this last night at the concert Eileen and I attended thanks to the generosity of my cellist who holds season tickets but couldn’t make last night concert. We heard a group called the Dave Douglas Quintet. The improvising was stunning by any measure especially the rhythm section. When I have heard some working musicians who seem to be functioning under the umbrella of the context jazz improvise I am riveted by the coherence and beauty of what they sometimes do. i also wonder about the “genre.”

I suspect that the music i heard last night will be viewed historically as evolved away from the jazz of the last century as my own little improvs moved away from AGO standards. Obviously working in the line of jazz improv the practice has evolved into an exciting and beautiful art of a high level. I would love to know what Miles Davis would make of it or for that matter how Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock think about what they do.

arranging music for a week from Sunday

So I spent some time looking at organ music based on the hymns we will sing on the last Sunday before Lent. I found one piece that I think I can easily transcribe for piano trio. I also found another piece by the composer of the anthem for the day. Technically I am supposed to contact these composers to ask if i can arrange their work. I’m not planning to do that so I’m not mentioning who they are here except to say that I have had communication with both of them online and it’s not always been pleasant. heh.

Thursdays seem to be turning into another work day for Jupe. It’s a rewarding day. Yesterday I spent about two and a half hours in actual rehearsal with Amy and Dawn on violin and cello. In addition, I had to prepare scores for the rehearsal and managed forty minutes or so of organ practice. All of this on a day I was extremely worn out from Wednesday’s work. Good grief. I always seem to make full time jobs out of part time ones. This dates back to my work at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oscoda.

At least I make more money now than then.

Despite the fatigue, rehearsing with Amy and Dawn is very rewarding to me. The Haydn piano trio we have been working on sprang to life yesterday. Amy and I read a Mozart sonata that we had not played before. After we finished reading through it, I was looking at the notes in the edition we have. I had remarked to Amy that it reminded me of Haydn in places. The notes revealed that Mozart had not completed this piano trio. Instead Maximillian Stadler had written almost half of the work. According to Groves, Stadler was a prominent musician contemporary with Mozart and moved to Vienna after Mozart’s death to supervise his estate for Mozart’s widow.

This explained the unusual remote keys in the latter part of the work. It was not this, however, that reminded me of Haydn. Instead it was the second section of the opening movement which is attributed to Mozart.

The piano trio spent a good deal of time working on music for upcoming Sundays at Grace. This meant going over “Air for a G string” for this Sunday as well as a charming little sinfonia by Scheidt for the postlude. After having made sure we have our signals straight for Sunday, we proceeded to rehearse the Haydn. Then the little piece by Thomas Tompkins we have been working on, finishing up with the trio I wrote for us. Satisfying, but I did walk home very tired.

coping with trump

Dawn and Amy both remain very upset about President Trump. Amy is still trying to deal with forgiving friends and family for voting for him. We did chat a bit about this. I pointed out that I hadn’t had the heart to mention to Eileen that Trump was having a press conference yesterday. She was contentedly working on her most recent weaving project of blankets for some soldiers in Afghanistan. I didn’t have the heart to tell it was going on. I heard some of it on the car radio driving back and forth to see my Mom at the nursing home.

I didn’t have the stamina to listen to this press conference or even to read it in its entirety. i found an annotated version of it by Financial Times, but for some reason when i tried to link it in just now it is behind a firewall. Fuck that.

Collection | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This is cool. Thousands of online records of their collection.

This morning feels like a typical Thursday in that I am exhausted. Yesterday was a typical Wednesday except that my boss is still out of town so we didn’t meet. I practiced organ, walked to church and prepared for the evening rehearsal. I also began  filing a ton of organ music laying around the choir room. I don’t know why I’m so tired.

I had an odd dream last night. I seemed to be visiting a state legislature convention. Somehow i ended up with a box of promo material for Rep. Huizenga. It was about 20 matchbooks and many promo photos of him. I’m bring it up here because when I woke I up I realized that the promos were oddly of the back of his head and that pose seemed to be his photograph wherever I saw it in the dream, on posters or whatever.

In the dream I was trying to find him to give him his silly promo stuff. I never did.

Today I have my trio rehearsal. Eileen pointed out to me the other day that I seem to her to be working harder to prepare our Sunday morning services in the basement. This may be true. I don’t find the work onerous. But I do seem to have lots to do. For example this morning I have to put a couple voices of a Scheidt sinfonia we will play Sunday into Finale so that I can easily read them at the synth. Also, since we are singing a Bach chorale I thought it would be a good idea to do a version of the “Air on a G string.” I know. I know. I’m a whore. But anyway, I have to make sure everyone in my trio, myself included, have a score to this that matches. Sine my trio string players are long time local wedding string quartet members, this should be another easy piece. We just have to make sure we all have the same number of measures and that the music matches up.

book report

I have been thinking about Nabokov’s Pale Fire since I bought a small paperback of it when I was in high school. In it, Nabokov constructs a book that purports to be an edition of the long poem, “Pale Fire.” In the book he also invents a commentator who is really the subject of the book. His story is told mostly in the introduction and the footnotes which make up most of the book.

I have an ebook version of this. But like so many ebooks the footnotes do not work well. I was reading it in my old tablet (before I shattered it).  I downloaded it to my new tablet. Yesterday when I was resting up for the evening rehearsal I reread the introduction more carefully and discovered that Nabokov has his commentator advise readers to skip to the footnotes first and read them straight through. Previously I had been laboriously moving back and forth between the poem and footnotes via my own little system of bookmarks.

Reading them straight through yesterday I could tell that they are designed to be read that way. The commentator says that you should then read the poem and it will make more sense after reading the notes first. We’ll see what I do, but for now I’m planning to read the footnote section of the book.

Dubai Plans a Taxi That Skips the Driver, and the Roads – The New York Times

The browser version of this article has an annoying gif. Sorry about that. But I think this idea is wild.

 Human Gene Editing Receives Science Panel’s Support – The New York Times

I heard this on the radio as well. I have never understood how they can change all of the DNA at once. Cool stuff, though.

On the Road to Another Watergate? – The New York Times

We can only hope. May it come faster.

After doing dishes and Greek this morning, I did something I haven’t done in ages. I sat and held a newspaper and read it while sipping coffee. It’s funny how something so simple changes.

My Mom subscribes to the local paper, the Holland  Sentinel.  We have subscribed on and off. I dropped my subscription primarily because I basically access news and information online. I tried a digital subscription for a while. The Holland Sentinel’s website, like so many, struck me as clunky and slow. They even simulated online those stupid stupid little stickers they stick on their paper with ads on them.

Now they are pop-ups online (which my Adblocker thankfully blocks). At least they were the last time I looked at the Holland Sentinel online.

When Mom doesn’t give the paper to the workers at her nursing home, she gives it to us, mostly because Eileen likes to sit and do the puzzles. We both glance over it. I noticed the headline, “Dutch, but not so much,” in this past Sunday’s paper, but didn’t think it looked interesting.

But a day or so later, a link popped up on my google news with a sentence or two describing what the article was about. It was comparing conservative Holland Michigan to the more liberal Netherlands. This is something that I have thought about living in Holland.  Many of the local stereotypical brain dead conservative attitudes are in such stark contrast to what I see as the more humane and intelligent approach of the Netherlands. Or at least that’s how it seems to me having never visited the Netherlands, but only read about it.

So here’s a link to the article if you’re curious.

Dutch, but not so Dutch: Holland abortion views differ from those in the Netherlands

The Holland Sentinel’s website seems to be improved. Sarah Heth, the reporter, did a good job of interviewing local people and integrating AP reports. I will look for her work in the future.

How the New York Times Is Using Strategies Inspired by Netflix, Spotify, and HBO to Make Itself Indispensible | WIRED

Speaking of journalism, I have read some of this article this morning. I have it bookmarked to finish reading. It’s a bit longer than many news articles.

Journalism is definitely one of my ongoing interests. I have been thinking about reporting and page design since I was co-editor of my high school newspaper.

Weird. Moy Sand and Gravel the other book of Paul Muldoon’s poetry came in the mail yesterday. I also paid a penny plus shipping and handling for it. It was in pristine condition. And I see by the invoice that the people selling the book (Goodwill Industries) had specified its condition. Cool.

In first under Trump, Russian jets buzzed a U.S. destroyer at close range – The Washington Post

 Russia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty and Challenging Trump – The New York Times

Jackson: Civil rights will suffer under Sessions | Chicago Sun-Times

That would Jesse Jackson. Senior.

Trump adviser Stephen Miller lied — and it matters – Chicago Tribune

It matters because the lie about non-citizen’s voting will drive further terrible voter restrictions.

Bobby Freeman, ‘Do You Want to Dance’ Singer, Dies at 76 – The New York Times

And now for a song. It starts around 1:46

edison report

So Edison and I went to the vet yesterday.  Despite the fact that the vet suspects Edison of having some sort of chronic illness possibly cancer, Edison is flourishing. Our strategy is to monitor him closely and when he begins to slow down on the amount of food he is eating to take him in to the vet so the vet can look him over and give him a cortisone shot.

Edison climbed into the vet’s arms yesterday. She told me that they didn’t see that kind of behavior much in her office. Presumably because she tends to animals that are not very happy when they see her. She also said that sick cats can often have a “look” in their face showing their unhappiness. Edison didn’t have that yesterday.

I was able to report to her that although Edison was beginning to slow down on the amount of food he is eating, he has also been much more frisky since she last saw him. Edison continues to slowly gain his weight back. Weight loss was what alarmed one of the vets before and led to the working diagnosis that Edison is ill.

We have chosen to pursue a “quality of life” strategy for him. Our present vets have gone as far as they can in determining what’s wrong with him. To find out more, we would have to go to a cat oncologist in Grand Rapids. It would be expensive, but even more importantly it would mean a lot of misery for Edison.

The vet thinks we are approaching it the right way. And you can see from the photo I took this morning,  that Edison is very much himself.

organ practice

I was inspired by the excellent playing of my colleague, Rhonda, the other day to work on my own technique. I took a couple of technique books home from church:

Nilson’s pedal exercises and

Gleason’s textbook for organ. The first I used in undergraduate school and revisit periodically. The second I only used with my first teacher, Kent McDonald, in my early organ study. I used both in my practice yesterday. I do this with piano technique as well from time to time.

marking in books

I love to mark up my books. However, I don’t like purchasing books with highlighting and marks in them. My first book of Paul Muldoon’s poetry came in the mail yesterday marked up by the previous owner. I purchased it for a penny plus shipping and handling. Usually I try not to order used books that indicate they might have marks in them. I think since I didn’t know Muldoon’s work that well that I just wanted to read him at leisure. Now I am doing some erasing so that I can see the text of poems. Unfortunately some it is in ink. Yikes.

new book

I am very interested in Viet Than Nguyen’s new book of short stories. Yesterday he put up a link on Facelessbooks to one of the stories in the book. I read it and I think this dude can write. Here’s the link.

“Black-Eyed Women” by Viet Thanh Nguyen

There’s some very clever stuff in this story, but I refrain from discussing it too much in case, God forbid, you should happen to click on the link and read it.

Will We Lose the Doctor Who Would Stop the Next Flint? – The New York Times

Monna Hannah-Atisha’s name might just ring a bell. She’s the doctor who led the discovery of the problems in Flint. She is also a first generation Iraqi immigrant. She wrote this article which asks if we are stopping human resources with our fearful ban.

I had fun at church yesterday. The associate pastor has been subbing for my boss the last two Sundays. Both Sundays she has seemed very impressed with the music. I think she had low expectations for praying in the basement. The strings really add a lot as does the choir. Both Sundays at the announcements (just before the Offertory where we sing our anthem), she has complimented me and the music. Yesterday just before the anthem, when I said to the choir that she keeps setting us up with high expectations, one of my sopranos (a former director of the group) remarked that it was a good thing we keep meeting them. I thought that was kind of cool.

The choir itself was missing several singers.

I had one bass, two sopranos, three tenors and three altos. the anthem was SAB . My one bass was fighting a cold or something. But the anthem came off well.

Today I have told Eileen that I will take the cat to vet appointment since it is the same time she usually goes to the Evergreen Commons and exercises. I had to wake her yesterday so that she would have time to get ready for church. She isn’t up yet and I have to get the cat to the vet in 45 minutes. I don’t usually bother her in the morning unless she asks me to.

Unpublished Black History – NYTimes.com

This is actually an article from a year ago. The NYT linked in to this article:

A Star at the Apollo, Out of Its Spotlight – The New York Times

I think both articles are kind of cool.

talking with dr. birky

I saw my shrink on Friday. I try to bring him any stuff I am working on about myself. This time I could only point to my feeling energized about my work and my piano trio. He seems genuinely interested in the life of a musician and asks many questions often content based about my field. We discussed working with professors in my choir. He helped  me understand some concrete reasons a professor would not do well with being out of their own comfort zone. They have a sense of order and expectation of situations in their work.

Interestingly enough my perception is that my professors in the choir for the most part are pretty self aware. I have three profs, but all choir members are professional types, even if retired.

Talking with Dr. Birky helped me understand that in the last week or so I have “kicked it up a level” both with the choir and the trio.

listening to the radio

I was listening to the radio this morning while doing the dishes. The National Constitution Center has a podcast. The current one is a discussion between two partisan legal scholars about Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court.  It’s worth listening to. I admire how Jeffrey Rosen moderates a civil discussion between two rival points of view.

He, himself, clerked for Gorsuch and recommended to listeners to read Gorsuch’s book on assisted suicide and to read his own recent article in the Atlantic, “Not even Andrew Jackson Went as Far as Trump in Attacking the Courts.”

I read this article this morning. I like it when writers delve into history with an eye on the present. I also looked at Gorsuch’s book.

Rosen made it sound like it’s a short read and available on Kindle format. His tone of voice led me to falsely assume it would sell for under $10. But, no! It’s $26.95! For a Kindle book! Fortunately, I was able to interlibrary loan a copy. I plan to check it out and possibly read it. Rosen made it sound like one could gain insight into Gorsuch’s mind from reading it.

After the podcast I tuned into the BBC world service radio station.  I was caught up in a description of Hans Rosling, a doctor and statistician who died recently. What interested me was his ignorance quiz. I took the online Guardian version and got 6/9, but only because I had listened to Rosling talk. On the radio, in a interview recorded before his death, he pointed out when people answer questions about what is happening in our world in the areas of population, life expectancy, and other questions, if they answer in ways incorrectly that are significantly different from random sample responses, they reveal misconceptions on the part of the answerer. Fascinating.

And I learned from the broadcast that the world population of children is actually remaining stable and maybe even slightly falling. As the late, Hans Rosling pointed out, this is a startling idea that doesn’t make it to the news very often.

Rosling is an antidote to the current climate of public discussion in the USA. He said we need to base our understanding on facts not myths. Excellent!

I’m running out time so I have to quit here.

men are scum

Well, Eileen is off to her breakfast with three other women from church. She has told me that sometimes the talk is negative about men. One member of the group especially is a bit of a downer. She claimed today that they might be able to talk about something else besides “men are scum.” Anyway, I think it’s good that Eileen has a social life although i told her that I wouldn’t have breakfast with this group since I don’t need more negativity in my life, being a church worker.

an intimate letter to a stranger

Today is the birthday of a writer named Pico Iyer. I learned about it on today’s Writer’s Almanac. I’ve never heard of this dude but I like the quote they used today:

“The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing. And though reading is the best school of writing, school is the worst place for reading. Writing should … be as spontaneous and urgent as a letter to a lover, or a message to a friend who has just lost a parent … and writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.”

Sheesh, another writer to put on my list.

I sometimes feel like blogging is like that: intimate letters to strangers, even though most of my readers are family and friends.

art and propaganda

I finished reading Albert Murray’s interview in the new Paris Review. I was intrigued by the title the editors chose to put on it: “Art and Propaganda.”  I have interlibrary-loaned his memoir, but I’m more interested in his The Omni-Americans: New Perspectives on Black Experience and American Culture (1970). I was just poking around on Amazon and discovered a different subtitle: “Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy.” Cool. I think I’ll go ahead and buy a used copy inexpensively online today.

In the meantime here are some passages from the interview I highlighted.

“I’m constantly amazed at people—writers, spokesmen—who profess to love something but don’t love it enough to find about it.”

This reminds me of many academics I have rubbed shoulders with.

“I think it is the processing of the idiomatic—that is, the extension and elaboration and refinement of the idiomatic—that adds up to fine art.”

“I think that’s the nature of fine art—when it goes beyond the provincial, it becomes universal, and the elements are accessible to mankind at large.”

“I believe, after my good friend Kenneth Burke, that literature is equipment for living.”

I interlibrary loaned Burke’s Attitudes Towards History this morning.

“When the basic purpose of the literary statement is to promote some immediate value, some virtue, to counterstate some vice, to sell some program, then I think of it as propaganda. There’s no pure definition of propaganda because every statement has to do with values, but when the complexities of human motive, of human behavior, of human aspiration are oversimplified in the interest of a specific social or political remedy, then we’d call it propaganda. ”

“I was raised in the context of epic heroism, and all the expectations of my childhood that were put on me by my elders were  those of the epic hero. Fortunately, since I was reading about epic heroes, fairy tales,and things like that, it all made sense to me. And no goddamned sociologist has ever been able to talk me out of it. I would have my sword and have it sharpened and have my resilience and have my courage. Anyone who tries to talk me out of courage and out of strength and out of skill is not my friend. ”

I love this shit!

An Anti-Consumer Agenda at the F.C.C. – The New York Times

Regulations to protect users on the internet are going away.

Paris to Increase Security Around Eiffel Tower – The New York Times

Yikes.

AN OPEN LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE BILL HUIZENGA – Holland Sentinel

I didn’t know this was happening. I would gladly have signed. Glad to see so many names I recognize on this including my boss, Jen Adams, and friend, Rhonda Edgington.

Tishaura Jones slams Post editorial board while declining interview | Local News | stlamerican.com

My daughter put this link up on Feesburger. She and her husband lived in St. Louis while he attended Washing U there. Jones is running for mayor. This is an impressive article showing what public minded leadership looks like at a time this kind of courage is rare.

Trump, Socrates and the Laughter Effect – The New York Times

Letter to the editor alludes to the Aristophanes play I am reading in Greek.

Eileen reminded me that I am not retired and am old and that is why I have a shrinking energy pie. She is right. However, yesterday I was pretty active all day despite it being the day after my weekly choir rehearsal. I lazed around all morning, straightening the house and preparing scores for my afternoon trio rehearsal.

Thursday afternoon trio rehearsals are getting longer and more intense as we prepare to play weekly in public. This Sunday we are performing two movements by Corelli. I found this score on IMSLP under violin sonatas. It is entitled “Sonata a Flauto solo e basso” and is  in a different key than marked in IMSLP. I’m not sure about the circumstances and history of the piece, but it is nice and we like it.

Amy and I read another amazing Mozart violin sonata yesterday. The Mozart violin sonatas are really outstanding works. Mozart seems to have used them to explore some unusual and attractive (to me, at least) compositional avenues. After reading through most of it yesterday,  I thought that Mozart would have given Beethoven a run for his money if he (Mozart) had lived longer. I said as much to Amy, adding that if Beethoven heard this piece he would have sat up and taken notices. Also, he might have chosen Mozart as a teacher instead of Haydn, if Mozart had lived longer.

Here’s a lovely rendition.

This recording is using a replica Fortepiano, so called because it is precursor of the instrument used today.

After prepping for this Sunday, I presented some possible music for future Sundays for the trio to consider. Dawn, who works at the Hope College Library, had previously brought us an ancient set of Haydn piano trios. I chose one yesterday for us to look at and the trio approved. It won’t be ready for a week from Sunday but we might do it the following Sunday.

The one I chose is different from many of Haydn’s piano trios, in that he gives the cello its own part instead of doubling the left hand of the pianist. The one we are learning is in A Major, Hob XV/9. Here’s a nice recording of it.

We also decided to play 2 “Symphonies” by Samuel Scheidt a week from Sunday. They are short little movements, symphonias really, for three parts and continuo. I will play the second part and bass, violin will take part I and cello part III. I will probably make scores for myself with the voices I need clearly written out together. Yesterday I read from the score.

I also have two sets of pieces by Henry Purcell which we could use.

Again there are three parts, the middle of which I would play with my right hand and a bass part for my left, the other two parts to be played by the violin and cello.

Then we rehearsed the Thomas Thomkins piece and my own trio, “Stirred Hearst and Souls.”

After than Dawn the cellist and I rehearsed some Frescobaldi together. By that time it was almost time for supper.

Eileen was surprised when I suggested going out to eat before going to a concert last night. We tried the local Laotian place and it was great!

Then we went to a battle of the organs at Jack Miller auditorium at Hope College. My friend Rhonda played pipe organ and the visiting prof Tony Monaco played Hammond. The program said B-3 but it looked more like an adapted C-3 to me.

Rhonda played well. I liked her selections. She played several pieces by living composers and more than nailed them. She is an extraordinary player and seems to me to be getting even better and better.  It was ironic that the “popular music” contingent was so much more stuck in the past than the “classical music” player. Monaco plays in a specific jazz organ style that not only uses what I think of as the Hammond Sound (hollow funky sound that I like) but lots of loud heavy vibrato chords and lines that reminds me more of Lawrence Welk. Monaco has good jazz chops but I still have to wonder what it is that musicians like him are doing when they play “April in Paris” in 2017 in a style that came to its present state pretty much in the 60s.

The program leaflet was bogus. It just consisted of bios of the players. I think the concert would have been better served with the pieces listed. If Monaco wanted to be spontaneous they could have easily made provisions for that in a program which listed Rhonda’s interesting pieces.

I mentioned to Eileen that while Monaco was a good player and played clear good jazz voicings and standard improvs, Rhonda’s selections were better music. When she demurred, I pointed out that there’s lots of great, excellent jazz music which I like and think is good, citing Miles Davis.

I did quite a bit of prep for last night’s choir rehearsal. I contacted the piano tuner and had him tune our piano for the rehearsal. I thought carefully about how to build on Sunday’s good performance. Our anthem for this Sunday is pretty easy so instead I concentrated on extending the skillful way we sang Sunday’s sixteenth century anthem a cappella. I had the choir sit in a circle and mixed up the parts so that no one was sitting next to someone in their section. Then we sang several things that I expected them to know a cappella working up to repeating Sunday’s anthem. Then we worked on some of our more difficult upcoming things constantly trying to work a cappella when possible.

I’m being influence in a small way by reading what Paul Hilliers has to say about choirs and singing Renaissance music.

I was intrigued to read the other day that singers in Renaissance choirs had no conductor. Of course they didn’t, conducting as is thought of today originated in the 19th century.  Having thought that, I wondered if I was right and ended up reading the Groves Dictionary of Music’s entry on conducting. Sure enough I was right.

Anyway, I felt pretty good about last nigh’s rehearsal despite some negative energy from one less experienced singer.

Today I have to madly clear away my mess in the living room because I have invited my trio to rehearse here today. I do this when the church is hosting Feeding America. The parking lot starts to get crazy hours before the doors open for this food give away.

I checked out and started reading two books yesterday. The first is A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order by Richard Haas. This book was quoted by David Sanger in an article last month in the NYT.  Haas is described by the book bio as president of nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. He also worked as senior Middle East Adviser to G. W. Bush and director of Planning Policy Staff under Colin Powell.

Published this year, the Foreword mentions the Trump Presidency, the Introduction mentions Brexit.  The book grew out of lectures he gave as Humanitas Visiting Professor of Statecraft and Diplomacy at the University of Cambridge. Basically he discusses how we have abandoned “the rules, policies, and institutions that have guided the world since WWII.” The first third of the book is about history to the end of the Cold War, the second about the last twenty five years or so, the third suggests four critical elements needed  for the US in what he calls World Order 2.0: 1. a new approach to sovereignty; 2. a new approach to multilateralism; 3. a less fixed approach to relationships with other countries; and 4. a change in our approach to terrorism address root causes especially within our own borders. It will be interesting to see how he ends up filling in the details on all of this.

Sam Shephard has a new novel out. Who knew? I admire this man’s plays and spotted this book on the new shelf at the library. Started it last night when resting for rehearsal. I skipped the foreword by Patti Smith. Maybe I’ll read it after I read the novel.