This morning I was laying in bed listening to public radio. I finally decided I couldn’t do the news and turned to the current Paris Review.

I remembered reading a poem I liked by Stephen Dunn in it, recently, called “Historically Speaking.”

This poem came to mind when I began reading an old interview of Albert Murray this morning and Murray was quoted as saying: “I believe after my good friend Kenneth Burke, that literature is equipment for living. How do you look at the world? Who helps you most to see the world as it is?”

It’s a great interview of Murray. It makes me want to read more of him. He died in 2013 and was a jazz critic, novelist, and all round clear thinker (from the looks of this interview). I started the interview (which doesn’t seem to be online) after I had read seven poems by Frederick Seidel in the same issue. They aren’t online either. I found them to be engaging. I have never heard of him.

I think I have mentioned here before the high school English teacher who said to me that poetry is more important than the news. In retrospect I think he might have had Ezra Pound’s line in mind:

This morning, poetry and music helped me start the day. I’ll read the news later.

Paris Review did put an interview of Paul Muldoon online which i stumbled across and bookmarked to read further.

I was sitting with my Mom at her doctor’s appointment yesterday while she had her ears flushed. She had recently been told she needed her ears cleaned by the Miracle Ear Hearing Aid people. She complained to them that the person who used to be in the office cleaned them for her. The Miracle Ear Hearing Aid people (who were new) said that whoever had done that was not supposed to have done it and they could not do it. So we ended up at the doctor’s office last week. But the wax was so impacted, Mom had to go home and put oil in her ears for a few days. Now we were back.

I was reading David Lehman’s Foreword to The Best American Poetry 2005.  In it, he describes two reviews of Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems.

I have read this anthology I am sure, but I can’t find my copy of it. The two reviews were in the same April 2004 issue of Poetry. NEA chairman Dana Gioia found something of worth in the anthology, August Kleinzhaler, not so much. Lehman spent time responding to the negative review in a way that I found pleasing.

Lehman also described Paul Muldoon, the Irish poet who had edited the 2004 volume, in such a way as to make me curious about him. This morning I read a couple of poems by him online (linked below) and decided I quite liked him. I like how he uses words and ideas even though I don’t always understand the references. He was born in June of 1951 making him just a few months older than me, so many of the references I do get.

As by Paul Muldoon | Poetry Foundation

The choir sang very well yesterday. The sixteenth century anthem we performed was very well executed. The whole morning went very smoothly. But on the inside I was a bit of a mess. I’m not sure why but all morning I was not feeling very confident or sure of my self. Eileen said it didn’t show. And in fact, I had several surprising compliments. One of these was about my conducting and the energy and expression I put in to it (and hopefully consequently into the music itself).

It may be that since we did the anthem unaccompanied and I was able to concentrate solely on conducting that the complimenting chorister simply was able to notice my interpretation and conducting more. It is difficult for singers to follow a conductor who is also playing an instrument. They have to get their cues from more subtle gestures and nods. This compliment came from the retired English prof in my choir.

The mother of the three sisters in my choir was there yesterday. She is quite elderly and is brought to church by one of them. Yesterday she waved me down  and told me she was glad that her daughters sang in my choir because I was a good conductor. She sits and listens to our pregame rehearsal. I understand that she herself was a very active musician when she was younger. I thanked her and told that was very flattering coming from someone like her.

I was so happy with the choir’ performance that I told them to keep the anthem in their folders.  This anthem is a typical sixteenth century motet, counterpuntal and challenging. I want to keep returning to it in rehearsal and possibly build up a set of these more difficult pieces for use in a recital this spring after the organ arrives.

By the time I got home my interior emotional landscape was a mess. I was feeling incompetent despite the successful performance and compliments. There was nothing to do, but walk to one of the churches which allows me to practice and spend a few hours at the organ. This did end up helping a bit.

Harry Belafonte Knows a Thing or Two About New York – The New York Times

Several articles online caught my eye yesterday and earlier this morning, so there are quite few links today. I found this profile of Belafonte very interesting. He turns 90 on March 1 (he is about the same age as my Mom). There are many things I liked about this article.

The following comment seems to echo a bit of my own observations here yesterday.

The election of “Mr. Trump… was not a break from America’s traditions but a resurfacing of energies that have been there all along.

“I look at him as a continuation, … with all of the images that we throw up about our generosity as a nation and so forth, America tends to ignore the fact that there is a parallel history from which we come that’s not quite so pleasant. And I think Donald Trump reminds us that that value, that negative component, is still strongly in our midst.””

Harry Belafonte

Presidents since George Washington have been signing executive orders. How do Trump’s stack up? – LA Times

Helpful article. I especially liked this graph:

Will the Supreme Court Stand Up to Trump? – The New York Times

I’m glad Linda Greenhouse keeps writing even though I thought she was retired.

Why Nobody Cares the President Is Lying – The New York Times

This author, Charles Sykes, self-identifies as a former conservative radio talk show host.

My Resistance Movement – The New York Times

Inspiring words from an adult child of Muslim immigrants.

Can the Democrats Be as Stubborn as Mitch McConnell? – The New York Times

Yes, but with a difference, since President Trump is a completely different kind of president than we have ever had and needs to be resisted.

The History the Slaveholders Wanted Us to Forget – The New York Times

History! A good article by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

A Hard Look at Times Editing in the Digital Era – The New York Times

Interesting to hear how copy editing works or has worked up until now. Some of the commenters are merciless.

Steve Bannon’s Book Club – The New York Times

Reporter bumps into Bannon at an airport carrying Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest!

 Pipedreams 1705: PIpedreams Live! in Holland (MI)

A choir member pointed this program out to me.

I’m must be feeling a bit tired and cynical this morning because it occurs to me that one can see much of the history of the United States as a continuous stream of perfidy. Since we do not trace ourselves to the people who lived here when Europeans arrived (the Native Americans), we are a complete nation of immigrants. Plus we coerced people from Africa to come and be less than human among us, to serve us and to do our work for us in the fields and our houses.

Succumbing temporarily to Lincoln’s “better angels,” we “freed” them to be third class citizens. You can probably fill in the history from here. It has been lately rehearsed in the public discussion.

So, the recent actions of this country to keep out people who seek entry can seem like a continuation of the terrible things we have done to ourselves throughout our history.

I am aware that this is a cynical stance and it does not completely describe the situation by any means. But I have had an aversion all my life of identifying with a “country.” I love many things about the United States. But I’m not sure I love it. I’m not sure it is actually something that can be loved. It reminds me of the corporation syndrome in our elections. Corporations are now people. I guess in the view of many, the United States is reified into a person. Is this person an angry uneducated white man? It kind of seems like it right now if you buy that approach.

I guess I’m sorting it out from ideas like “society” and “community,” both of which make sense to me. But I keep thinking about the image of selfish immigrants who repress, exploit, and keep at the border people like themselves.

I’m also wondering this morning if this temporary stay of the executive order about immigration will allow the Sudanesen family we were expecting here in Holland to now come. To quote from my boss’s sermon last week:

“The Garang family is a family of five.  Grandmother, Tabitha, Mother, Awak. They are an 18-year old boy, Deng, 16-year old girl, Abuk and 7-year old boy Ajang.  They also have numbers on the printouts we’ve received.  In the system they are known as “Aliens Numbers 212-895-605 through 609”. They have numbers.  They are people. They are Sudanese refugees. They have lived in a camp in Kenya for years and years and years and they have been participating in a very thorough and unsettling resettlement process for a very long time. And they have names.”

I was listening to the latest New Yorker Fiction Podcast in which Junot Diaz, a writer I admire, read Edwidge Danticat’s short story, “Seven,” last night.

I love these podcasts where one writer chooses the work of another to read and discuss with the current fiction editor of the New Yorker, Deborah Treisman. There is a certain amount of writer-shop-talk that I am interested to listen to.

In their discussion around the story, “Seven,” I was reminded of something I have been pondering. I thought of it listening or reading about the Supreme Court. Justices who are moderate when appointed can become liberal as the court moves further to the right. it is the court that has moved not the justice him or herself.

In the same way, I am feeling more radical even revolutionary than ever as I read and learn about the brutal and savage shredding of decency occurring under the leadership of the Trump administration. I don’t feel that I am changing so much as watching the discussion move away from me and others I agree with.

The story, “Seven,” was scheduled to be published in the September issue of 2001. It was delayed after the 9/11 catastrophe and published in the ensuing October issue. Diaz and Reisman seem to be making the podcast on the day of Trump’s inauguration. They talk like the times are dark and it is obvious to me that Diaz has purposely chosen this story which is about the reunion of a Haitian immigrant with a green card and his wife who has flown to be with him in New York City after a seven year hiatus.

In his comments after reading it he says something like this:  “Given … how much energy we spend maligning immigrants, demonizing them, just the very fact that you have a writer who is writing about folks as human beings ..[is making] a tremendous social political correction….. Characters like these living lives like these set against the hysterical anti-immigrant, xenophobic  time we are in feels like the writer is being intentionally revolutionary…” In other words, Danticat’s story is literature performing one of its functions of using the particular to talk about the general. And it seems intentionally revolutionary because many people in the United States have moved away from their moral center.

30 Washington Post Articles on Gorsuch’s Nomination–Not a Single One Opposed

Normalizing the Trump fiasco

Mic. Latest News. Opinion. Reviews. Analysis. Rethink The World.

Someone from this news organization was interviewed in this week’s On The Media. I thought the organization sounded interesting and checked it out. They are on Facelessbooger and YouTube as well.

There are some days I get up and feel a lack of confidence in my abilities. I suspect my friends and colleagues of seeing me as inept as I sometimes see myself. I know this is a condition of over sensitivity, but I still get to live through these feelings and must ignore them. No matter. I have already spent time this morning with the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and my $50 synth harpsichord.

I put volume 2 of the Virginal book on my tablet. It will automatically scroll through a piece of music as I play. The trick is finding the correct setting for a piece. With pieces in the Fitzwilliam Virginal book, this is tricky. Essentially almost all of the pieces in this work are theme and variations. The themes take up far less page space than the intricate variations. So you can see that if one has to set a scroll speed this can be somewhat problematic.

Despite my fatigue, the piano trio rehearsal went well yesterday. These two players are extremely kind to me and are currently indulging the way I would like to use them at Sunday Eucharists in the basement on a regular basis.

It turns out that the Tomkins “Sad paven” will take more prep than one rehearsal. So I asked the trio to play some pretty easy music this weekend instead. We will do a little arrangement of one of the slow movements of “Winter” by Vivaldi from his “Seasons.”

Then we landed on two movements of a Corelli sonata for the following Sunday.

They sound pretty cool and I pulled them off the internet so no need to put them into Finale docs.

The violinist had some ideas about how I could make a better score for her for my piece, “Stirred Hearts and Souls.” She played from a full score Sunday which meant that she had to spread music over two music stands. I enjoy editing and making music notation so that will be fun.

I have been too busy this week to practice organ although i now have keys to Hope Reformed Church and St. Francis and permission to duck in and practice 24 hours a day as long as the room is empty. I must get to one today. I think I will try St. Francis first because I keep fantasizing about playing some of the Fitzwilliam Virginal book pieces on the little tracker that sitting there.

I’m back to reading Nabokov’s novel, Pale Fire. I read in this book as a kid but never finished it. Now I have an ebook copy.

I hope today will be a day of recuperation for me. I’m already feeling a bit tired this morning, but not like yesterday.

5 Best Books of 2017 So Far – Best Books of February 2017

This page has an annoying pop up. All you have to do to get rid of it is click on “I don’t read.”

Neil Gorsuch and the Search for the Supreme Court Mainstream – The New York Times

Linda Greenhouse writes about the moving Supreme Court mainstream. Probably we are watching the entire mainstream situation plunge into the abyss. I watched PBS Newshour last night and it was hard not to think that instead of “committing journalism,” they are enabling and normalizing the Dark Time of Trump. Fuckers.

Executive Orders | whitehouse.gov

I’ve got to start reading these things.

Genius Web Annotator | Genius

Looks interesting but I haven’t signed up yet.

I had a full day yesterday. I think I used up more energy pie than I had judging from how exhausted I am today.

However last night’s choir rehearsal went very well. I chose a few more difficult (or at least not easy) anthems and we read through them last night. The Hassler piece (Quia vidisti me) went very well. I think we were all surprised by how good we sounded on it. The person who suggested we sing it wasn’t too pleased that we were doing it in Latin, but I told her that’s how we were going to do it and she accepted it, I think.

Today I continue to overuse my energy pie. I have spent a good deal of energy looking for music for my piano trio to consider using as preludes and postludes. I also spent an hour or so on Finale. My violinist dropped of a piano accompaniment to a violin collection. It has “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring in it” and Vivaldi’s Adagio from Winter (just to mention a couple). I made cello parts to fit with it. Then I redid the cello part for my trio, “Stirred Hearts and Souls.”

Then I went to visit my Mom and take my synth to church. Right now I’m resting up for this afternoon’s rehearsal.

Raid in Yemen: Risky From the Start and Costly in the End – The New York Times

I bookmarked this one so that I could look back on which people are making decisions in the Trump Presidency.

Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of U.S. Policy-Making – The New York Times

Dark and inaccurate.

Yesterday I purchased an ebook copy of Jonathon Smucker’s Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radical. I think it might be my next read after Strangers in Their Own Land. 

It’s Wednesday morning and I feel like I needed Monday and Tuesday of this week to get a little space between me and my work. I’m not entirely sure it was effective but I did notice myself making the attempt.

Yesterday, I made an appointment for today to take my Mom to the doctor to have her ears cleaned. I would have preferred not to do this on a Wednesday but thought it was important enough to put on the schedule.

This morning I want to do some more planning for church. I am thinking of having the piano trio play something by a 16th century composer to match the lovely choral anthem I have scheduled for this weekend: “O Sing Joyfully” by Adrian Batten (1591-1637)

I’m thinking I can find a piece for four viols online and give the high part to the violin and the low part to the cello and play the middle two voices on the piano. That should be pretty easy and classy as well. For the postlude, I think I’m going to ask the trio to play a version of “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.” That would require little prep on all our parts. We are sing the hymn,  Come with us, O Blessed Jesus Hymn 336 in the Hymnal 1982, as a second communion hymn Sunday.

Once again i sheepishly admit to choosing the hymn to fit the postlude I have in mind.

One of my sopranos (who was the choir director at Grace at one point) asked if we could sing Hassler’s “Quia vidisti me, Thomas” on Easter II. The following video starts with a short organ voluntary before the player stands up and conducts this piece.

I’m not certain she wanted to sing in Latin which is how I would like to do it. I think it would be cool to learn and sing on my remaining Second Sundays of Easter. So I want to put it in the choir’s folders today so we can begin rehearsal on it tonight.

I would also like to move a bit further ahead in the season with specific choral music choices since I’m only planned through Ash Wednesday which is March 1.

Roxane Gay: By the Book – The New York Times

This woman mentions a lot of books/authors I have read and admire. It would be worth checking out the ones she mentions I don’t recognize.

President Bannon? – The New York Times

With this article I have starting tracking the Trump presidency by creating a label in my bookmarking system, something I have done with other presidents.