Eileen went with me to my appointment with Dr. Birky, my shrink. Dr. Birky lives in Glen, Michigan. Eileen wanted to go to Allegan to look at a loom she was interested in purchasing. Glen wasn’t exactly on the way, but it was closer than if I went to my appoint alone and returned to Holland and then going to Allegan together.

Believe it or not, Allegan has an old section of town which is designated as the Mill District. It has several cool old buildings one of which houses Baker Allegan Studios and Gallery. The nice people who run it were expecting Eileen. They all chattered happily about looms for a while and Eileen tried out the one she’s interested in.

She decided to purchase it. Looms are such beautiful contraptions. Eileen’s new loom is no exception.

Pipe organs area beautiful, too, of course. I received some pictures in an email updating progress on Grace’s organ.

I’ll just put a couple up here. I put all five of them on Facebooger on Grace’s Music Ministry page.

While Eileen talked with the loom people, I read Peter Williams The Organ Music of J.S. Bach. I was gratified to read that Williams concurred in print with my suspicions (voiced here yesterday) that at least one of Bach’s organ chorale settings in his Orgelbüchlein is heavily influenced by French harpsichord music. Williams even referred directly to a free prelude by Louie Couperin as an obvious precursor to Bach’s treatment of the melody, Nunn Komm der Heiden Heiland.

How cool is that? It just so happens that I recently played this particular G mnor unmeasured prelude by Louis Couperin. Although I did not register the correlation consciously I probably was influenced by playing though both of the pieces in Williams illustrations recently.

This morning I turned to Williams to see what he had to say about another setting in the Orgelbüchlein I went through in my organ practice yesterday.

This setting has always interested me because of its cross rhythms (they begin at the red arrow above). Sometimes players will play them like this:

This represent an application of French notes inégales procedure (“notes unequal” or “swung”). However, I think they are probably meant to be played not swung. When you look at Bach’s manuscript, he has positioned the quarter notes very evenly:

Peter Williams points out that the repeated even notes that result can be heard as a drone. I hadn’t thought of that.

7 takeaways from the GOP health care plan to replace Obamacare | PolitiFact

I found this helpful in the whirlwind of information and misinformation floating around.

Paul Ryan Rejects Major Changes to Health-care Bill – The Atlantic

It could be that what will save Obamacare are the more right wingers in the Republican party who reject the new law as insufficiently free of government oversight.

All of the hard work I have been putting in preparing music for my piano trio paid off yesterday! What fun! My recomposed version of the choral prelude I wrote for organ sounded even better as a piano trio piece.  This composition  drew the attention of the publishing company which owned the melody and led to my taking it off my website. So I’m not planning on recording it or anything, just performing. It’s a bit of a shame since I like it so much in this version. Dawn, my cellist said it reminded her of George Winston (but in a good way).

Both Dawn and Amy seemed to enjoy a strenuous session yesterday. We read through the new pieces and also repeated them several times. I’m hoping to feel more prepared Sunday than I have been with some of the preludes and postludes we have done recently. Repetition is my new secret weapon.

I also came up with some Elgar music for the following Sunday since we are singing an Elgar anthem that day. Amy said that this Sunday will be a Jenkins fest and the following Sunday an Elgar Fest. She really seemed to enjoy the two Elgar violin pieces I had printed up for us to consider.

I think we’ll probably perform the Pastourelle by him for the postlude and then continue working on the Virelai.

Amy is the most romantic of the three of us musicians and was very happy to be learning and performing some Elgar.

I suggested to Dawn that we perform the theme from Elgar’s cello concerto for the prelude that Sunday. She also seemed amenable so that’s the plan. I came up with solo cello and violin pieces because I couldn’t find a piano trio by him.

Earlier in the day I dragged my sorry ass over to the organ at Hope Church and practiced organ for the first time in while. I only rehearsed compositions by Bach. I worked on the trio by him I am learning, then read the entire Eb trio which  I have  performed before. This helped me stay convinced I am actually an organist.

Then I turned to the “Little Organ Book” (Orgelbüchlein). I have a long history with these pieces. On my very first organ concert at St. John’s Oscoda, I played the first four. Yesterday when I played them I gained new insights. Since I’ve been playing a lot of French classical music I could see in these pieces the influence of French harpsichord music (which Bach knew well) on what he composed. I came home and began researching this to see if any of the expert scholars I am reading now confirm this. Still working on this.

I picked up three of my recent inter library loans yesterday. One of them was on the brink of being returned. I have plenty to read but was still very curious about them.

Neil Gorsuch author of  Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia is President Trump’s nomination for the Supreme Court. He obviously a brilliant man. But he is very right wing. I thought it would be enlightening to at least look over his arguments against assisted suicide and euthanasia.

I was glad to get a collection of poetry by Eileen Myles whom I ran across recently. I have begun reading this one.

 Finally, I had also requested Nathan Hill’s The Nix. I can’t remember where I heard about this but it does look good.

Speaking of Hope Church, I ran across a video yesterday of my friend Rhonda on Facebuch plugging a Tulip Time concert she is planning of Dutch Composers. I think she is imitating me in this video when she talks about an organist friend (who was apparently a bit nerdy! High praise!) who wondered aloud why local organists never perform Dutch organ music during Tulip Time. Cool.

My piano trio will be coming to my house today to rehearse. I haven’t seen my violinist since her husband’s funeral. I spent hours this week preparing and recomposing two of my compositions to use this weekend at liturgy. If Amy (my violinist) doesn’t show today, I am thinking of taking the easy way out and improvising for prelude and postlude.

My boss also said that she thought the energy last Sunday morning was weird. She had more examples of people acting odd. We concluded it was just one of those Sundays.

I purchased and downloaded Thomas Oboe Lee’s Piano Trio No. 3 “Keith Jarrett”. Here’s a link to a recording of it on BandCamp being performed by the musicians who commissioned it.

I played through the piano part of the first and second movement yesterday. It wasn’t as hard as it sounded. At least this is true of the piano part. I’m hoping we will have time to run through some of it today.  The downloaded music neglects to name the composer. I will have to pencil it in before distributing parts.

Linksys Velop Review & Rating | PCMag.com

I am missing my good speakers for listening to music. I plan to purchase new ones eventually. I’m not sure this is the way to go.

When did you last hear live music? Stand up and be counted | Music | The Guardian

This was on my Google news feed this morning. This article didn’t have too much to say that I hadn’t already thought about. I noticed that it doesn’t mention a church as place where live music is performed. That’s a bit odd for an English news source since there is quite a bit of music done in churches there. I have read English musicians who have pointed out an almost willful neglect of classical music coverage and reporting in the English press.

This reminds me of that anecdote I shared here recently where architects and contractor types were talking about the many churches who had taken out organs and put in live music.

Possibility of Obamacare repeal concerns patients

My brother Father Mark in the news

Lynne Stewart, Lawyer Imprisoned in Terrorism Case, Dies at 77 – The New York Times

I followed Lynne Stewart’s career with interest. I think she was an interesting and phenomenal person.

A Lefty Legend Pleads for a Return to a New Deal Ethos – The New York Times

Another author to check out.

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I skipped Greek this morning and finished preparing string scores for this weekend and then emailed them to the players. This took me quite a while. Eileen is still asleep. I did Greek then returned to the music software to make the piano scores. I will probably need to practice them in order to pull these pieces off this weekend.

I emailed my boss yesterday and asked her if she (and we) were going to observe “Day without a Woman” strike. She was amused. I guess we’re on for doing church stuff today. Heh.

Department of Justification – The New York Times

Long read on the Department of Justice published in Sunday’s NYT Mag. Good info.

Google Chrome Tips That Can Make Browsing Easier | TNH Online

Not too much in this short article. I bookmarked it to remember to check my extensions and plug ins.

Watch Raindrops Catapult Bacteria Into The Air : Shots – Health News : NPR

A little disappointed in the graphics but an interesting idea anyway.

Turkish Referendum Has Country Trading Barbs With Germany Over Free Speech – The New York Times

Turkey is a blue print for fascism right now as far as I can see and the process marches on.

A Eureka Moment for Two Times Reporters: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often – The New York Times

Some of the comments on this article take NYT to task for revealing info to the enemy. I thought it was a fascinating little look at how journalism works.

Did the Supreme Court Base a Ruling on a Myth? – The New York Times

Fake news in the history of rulings. Sigh. How discouraging. This does explain the draconian rules for excon sex offenders.

Smothering Speech at Middlebury – The New York Times

Nice to see the editorial board at the NYT take this stand. I agree with it.

Trump’s Tweets Attacking Obama – The New York Times

This is a link to letters to the editor on this topic. I liked the last letter which contained this comment: “”“Hitchens’s razor,” formulated by the journalist Christopher Hitchens: “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.””

Would that it would work.

Informed Patient? Don’t Bet On It – The New York Times

Some good advice but frustrating that it is needed. Be sure and check out these bullet points if you are interested in this.

■ Ask us to use common words and terms. If your doctor says that you’ll end up with a “simple iliac ileal conduit” or a “urostomy,” feel free to say “I don’t understand those words. Can you explain what that means?”

■ Summarize back what you heard. “So I should split my birth control pills in half and take half myself and give the other half to my boyfriend?” That way, if you’ve misunderstood what we did a poor job of explaining, there will be a chance to straighten it out: “No, that’s not right. You should take the whole pill yourself.”

■ Request written materials, or even pictures or videos. We all learn in different ways and at different paces, and “hard copies” of information that you can take time to absorb at home may be more helpful than the few minutes in our offices.

■ Ask for best-case, worst-case, and most likely scenarios, along with the chance of each one occurring.

■ Ask if you can talk to someone who has undergone the surgery, or received the chemotherapy. That person will have a different kind of understanding of what the experience was like than we do.

■ Explore alternative treatment options, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each. “If I saw 10 different experts in my condition, how many would recommend the same treatment you are recommending?”

■ Take notes, and bring someone else to your appointments to be your advocate, ask the questions you may be reluctant to, and be your “accessory brain,” to help process the information we are trying to convey.

Once again I have scheduled a bunch of work for my day off. But it’s good stuff and I enjoy doing it which is why I have allowed  myself to do this. It does mean that I can’t take as much time on the blog today as I might like.

My copy of Attitudes Toward History by Kenneth Burke arrived yesterday.  I immediately sat down and began reading it. Burke was quoted at length in Albert Murray’s interview in the December 31, 2016 issue of Paris review. “I believe, after my good friend, Kenneth Burke, that literature is equipment for living.”

Both of these men are dead. I am reading works they wrote many years ago and finding them very helpful and applicable to today.

In the Paris Review interview, Albert Murray also says this: “In Attitudes Toward History Kenneth Burke talks about frames of acceptance and frames of rejection.”  Specifically Chapter One in the book begins: “To ‘accept the universe’ or to ‘protest against it.’ William James puts them side by side as ‘voluntary alternatives’ between which ‘in a given case of evil the mind seesaws.'”

I am writing the morning after President Trump reissued his vile ban on immigrants, the morning after the Republicans introduced a  non-health care bill (called Obamacare light by the far right Reps in the House). Also this past weekend President Trump accused Obama of tapping his phones without providing evidence not gleaned from his particular Breitbart echo chamber. On this morning, Burke writing in 1937 (before WWII had really taken off) puts it clearly and helpfully: “in a given case of evil the mind seesaws …. ” acceptance and protest. Now is obviously a time America needs us to protest.

On a happier note before I close, I was listening to Abour Zena by Keith Jarrett this morning and began fantasizing about how cool it would be to transcribe sections of it for my piano trio for use in upcoming recitals. I checked online and discovered that the composer Thomas Oboe Lee (whom I have never heard of before) wrote a piano trio in 2014 dedicated to Keith Jarrett. Woo hoo.

I have found sheet music I can purchase and download. This video seems to be the ending of the piece. The video is by Mr. Lee himself who has a channel on YouTube which I instantly connected with.

The reason I’m stopping is that this Sunday the choir is scheduled to sing my setting of Psalm 121. My violinist has indicated to me via email that she is planning to dive back into playing this Thursday and Sunday. Last night it occurred to me that two of my compositions would probably work as prelude and postlude for the second Sunday of Lent. The prelude would be a transcription of based on the hymn “A Saving Grace.” The postlude would be returning a string trio I have written on the tune Sharpethorne to a string arrangement. This piece originated as a string trio I wrote on the tune in the 80s. A while back I made an organ piece out of it. Now I can easily use old files to make piano trio versions of these pieces. As I said above, this means my day off will have a lot of work in it. But it’s good stuff and I enjoy doing this immensely.

Ed Friedman defines system sabotage in a very narrow way: it is evidence that one is disrupting a status quo (usually one that probably needs to be for any growth to happen). So ironically when one is confronted with behavior that limits growth, it is a kind of signal that you’re on the right path. Or at least could be that signal.

I am trying to raise the tone in my work both with my choir and my own playing. Yesterday I had scheduled an anthem by Christopher Tye, “God, Be merciful.” It’s a formidable little work for a small church choir. Once learned, I intend to keep it fresh in our repertoire for use in a spring recital. It is one of several like that I have in mind this year. I have been pounding the notes with the choir for weeks. Yesterday, with several people missing, we had  managed to come up with an interp that was quite good with eight singers.  Unfortunately, two choir members came in very late and completely changed out sound.

We only had time for one more run through which of course was completely different. In such a small group, two more people can completely change everything. Not to mention their voices are not as warmed up as everyone else’s.

I knew that the choir was aware of what was happening, especially the original eight singers. So when we got to this point in the service, I gave them a little pep talk reminding them how much they like the piece and encouraging them to enjoy the performance as they did it. Then, instead of conducting and trying to revive the more subtle interp, I concentrated on doubling parts on the piano, something I abhor but will do when needed. The result was passable.

One of the late singers spent most of the service in tears. She’s not terribly stable. I was aware of the sabotage happening, but couldn’t muster a strategy to work with it other than staying in as good a mood as possible and not giving my upset singer too much attention (or too little for that matter).

It brought to mind, Friedman’s concept of the tar baby. In the racist story, the tar baby is a trap for “brer rabbit.”

Friedman identifies non differentiated people as “tar babies,. The more one reacts to them the more one reinforces their control of the situation. It is a bit counter intuitive that the weakest person in the system determines the agenda. But that’s the way we live these days. Like a tar baby one can easily reinforce and amplify their sabotage by connecting with them.

Also like a tar baby, there is no intention on the part of the person doing the sabotage. Or at least this intention is muddled. I find it helpful to think that people’s intentions are usually good.

I also managed to sabotage myself yesterday (“If I raise my leg high enough and get off balance, I can fall over all by myself.”)

I put off score prep for my part of the prelude and postlude until Saturday. Sunday morning before church I had the brilliant idea while practicing I could reduce pages 3 and 4 of the postlude in my Finale doc and end up with a three page score to play from. Unfortunately when I reduced the note size in pages 3 and 4, a few measures slipped onto page 2 unbeknownst to me. Dawn and I discovered this in our pregame rehearsal, but somehow I lost track of where I was in both the prelude and postlude yesterday, following Dawn successfully and covering but feeling frustrated.

Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

Later walking home and afterwards Eileen and I processed the morning. Not in a good way. Finally, I said to her that it was Sunday afternoon and I was feeling particularly incompetent and needed to talk about something else. She instantly agreed and I began talking about Stein’s The Making of Americans.

Stein makes a unique case for the fact that part of being America is usually being part of about three generations.

Three generations back in her fictional family in the story, the grand parents were born in Germany.  The parents then were first generation American  and the children second generation American. Stein sees this as formative of Americans. This understanding fits neatly into our current situation with so many immigrants in our country. I have seen this here in Holland with people from Mexico and southern Texas. The generation of these people that I have gotten to know are around my own age. Their grand parents were probably born in Mexico or Texas and spoke Spanish. Their parents may have moved to Holland so that they were the first Hispanics in their schools here.  Predictably their children are more than assimilated and are likely to have little interest in their heritage.

I think embracing what I see as the American genius (the music, the art, the literature) entails returning for me to an appreciation of people like Gertrude Stein and Georgia O’Keefe. I add them to my list of heritage I am appreciative of and want to continue to learn more about along with Sorrow Songs (Spirituals), the Blues, Jazz and Gospel Music.

Obviously in the face of what is happening now in our public discourse, this can be palliative. I need the strength the heritage can give me to continue to observe, learn about, and resist how the Trump era is unmaking us as Americans.

Happy Monday!

VERY clever – removes the growth rings to reveal the original sapling

This is cool.

Last night and this morning I found myself reading in Getrude Stein’s The Making of Americans. I have been thinking about this book ever since reading about Georgia O’Keefe’s admiration of Stein’s work. It’s topic seems very timely as our government is unmaking Americans and remaking being American into a small ugly thing. My hope is that Stein’s art will speak to this in a constructive way. Hell, I hope that Saunder’s idea that the “art mind” is important to restore to some importance will do so as well (see yesterday’s quote from him).

Stein felt that her work was as important as Joyce’s and Proust’s.

Since the latter two writers are ones that I favor, it rekindles my interest in Stein. It took me a few days to find  her book since my books are not quite in the order they used to be.

Eileen drove away yesterday to go to a family “Set Back” tournament. She seems to be connecting with her family in many good ways these days. This makes me very happy. While she was gone, my friend Rhonda came by and we chatted and looked at an article she is writing about resourcing church musicians who are older than 18 and have not studied organ before. This is a subject near and dear to my own heart. She is working through the American Guild of Organist program called Pipe Organ Encounter Plus. The “Plus” stands for people who are over 18. The AGO also has a program for those under 18 which preceded this one I guess and is much more prevalent.

After Rhonda left, I had lunch and the worked on preparing a transcription of Purcell movements from the Fairy Queen that my cellist and I will perform today at Church. This turned out to be more work than I anticipated. My music notation software (Finale) has a function that will collapse two music lines into one. In theory this is what I need to do with the second violin and viola part of these four part movements. That way I could play bass with the left hand and the other two parts with the right. However when I collapsed the lines via the software function the result was unusable. So I had to do the adaptation by hand. This took a couple hours.

After that I walked to my Mom’s nursing home to say hi. It was beautiful bright chilly winter day, a perfect day for a walk. On  the way back, I stopped off at church and prepared things for today’s service.

It ended up being another good day. My life is good.

I wonder if the headline is an allusion to Tim O’Brien’s excellent collection of short stories, The Things They  Carried.

Yesterday I naturally spent the day hiding away playing my electric harpsichord. Maybe I was inspired by the fact that Nick Palmer asked me to play harpsichord in his upcoming Messiah sing along. But I have been missing harpsichord music anyway.

I started out with François Couperin. I own the Dover two volume collection of his complete keyboard works. Interestingly Johannes Brahms helped edit this work.  I suspect he might have had something to do with how good this edition is, since it respects the original source and doesn’t edit it much. This is contrary to the editorial practice of Brahms age and even later into the early 20th century so that as a performer I have to be careful about thinking and executing what is on the page when the editorial work is suspecct. This is the case with the Longo edition of Scarlatti.

I compared my understanding of a piece called “La Couperin” with Kenneth Gilbert’s performance on YouTube. If you’re curious, you can access it at this link. My intention is that link will begin at 00:27:26. where “La Couperin” begins. In the first comment, Álvaro Moreno has provided times and links to all the piece in Volume IV of Couperin. Thank you, Mr. Moreno.

The first thing that struck me was that Gilbert (who my teacher’s teacher and who I have heard lecture and play) applied notes inégales very sparsely. (Notes inégales = notes unequal and refers to changing rhythm without indications in the notation, much like a jazz musician “swings” a line of eighth notes)In his book, François Couperin, Philippe Beaussant says that “Le Couperin” is actually an allemande. My teacher, Ray Ferguson, taught me that  notes inégales applied pretty consistently throughout an allemande in the French style. I began to wonder if Gilbert’s thinking changed or maybe I misunderstood. Whatever the reason I found Gilbert’s discretion liberating and sat down with my Beaussant and began playing movements and checking to see what he said about them.

I began to wonder about how the current thinking on French classical interp might have changed. Recently  I have been updating myself about the current conversation on early music. It is mind boggling and encouraging how much this field has opened up and  changed since my own schooling in it. Why would French interp be the same?

After doing a bit of googling I discovered the work of John Byrt.

Overview. | AN UNEQUAL MUSIC

This is a link to his web site. He is an enthusiastic supporter of using French interp in other musics of the period. When I was in school I asked a lot about this sort of thing.  At that time it was not clear if one could pursue it and an academic career at the same time. Byrt is doing that. His examples of how he applies notes inégales on his site are startling but I find them very interesting. 

So all this is to say that yesterday was a very liberating day for me providing me with a wider array of legit options playing the French classical music I love, even on an electric harpsichord.

Protesters Disrupt Speech by ‘Bell Curve’ Author at Vermont College – The New York Times

This headline caught my eye today. I was looking at Google news this morning and noticed the stories on Charles Murray.

Charles Murray | Southern Poverty Law Center

I was surprised to see the Southern Poverty Law Center link and read the essay there before going to the news story. Murray is someone I have wrestled with his bogus notions since the 90s. I have read most if not all of his Bell Jar, so it was satisfying to see some clear rebuttal of his weird ideas.

I do believe he is full of shit. However, I don’t think that shutting down conversation makes sense, much less attacking him physically. I keep thinking of the title of a book by the late Nat Hentoff: Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee.

I spent time this morning catching up on some email correspondence. My old friends Dave Barber and Paul Wyzinitis  are finally getting married after 39 years of living with each other. This is very romantic and Eileen and I would not miss this.  They emailed an invite and I replied this morning.

Amy the violinist didn’t show for rehearsals yesterday. This is entirely understandable since her husband, Jim, died a week ago.  Dawn and I discussed what we will do Sunday in her absence. Dawn suggested I should contact Amy to find out what’s going on and express some emotional support. So I did that email.

My friend, Nicholas Palmer, has invited me to play harpsichord at a Messiah sing along he is organizing for this month. I was totally flabbergasted to be asked. I emailed him back that I would do it and then asked him if he knew anyone who could finish my little harpsichord project. Nick apparently owns two harpsichords himself which I just found yesterday from Dawn. I didn’t know he was into harpsichord that much. Dawn said one of them was built from a kit. I even asked my janitor at church if he was interested in helping me. Readers of this blog have to know how much I miss having any access to a honest to god harpsichord. Anyway, it will be fun to work with Nick. Also Peter Kurdziel is playing organ for it. I like these two men quite a bit but have lost touch with them when I dropped out of Roman Catholic circles. They both are Roman Catholic and until recently both served in parishes. Nick was at the Cathedral but has taken an Episcopal gig in Grand Haven which is where he plans to do the Messiah sing along.

Saving Nina Simone’s Birthplace as an Act of Art and Politics – The New York Times

“Her life gets more important with each passing year.” Aint that the truth.

It was a small crowd at Ash Wednesday last night. I counted about 45 in the congregation plus 12 singers in the choir. The setting is so intimate that the congregation has little choice but to get quiet as I play the prelude.  Last night’s prelude timed out at just over seven minutes. It was lovely slow movement from Schubert’s E Major piano sonata. I was going to embed a recording and then I ran across this wonderful recording of another movement by Arthur Brendel.

I guess I’m in a Schubert mood. Playing two Schubert piano sonata movements last night was a stretch for me. But I’m glad I did it. Several choir members sat through the postlude as well.

I can remember the first time I ever heard a Billie Holiday recording. It was on a Canadian Radio Station and the show was called “The Eclectic Circus” and moved from one musical style to another. The announcer introduced the piece as by the incomparable Billie Holiday and I was love struck by the sound.

The quality on this YouTube beauty is not great, but man o man this is quintessential Lady Day.

I bring up Billie Holiday because Zadie Smith published a short piece of fiction about her this week in the New Yorker. Billie Holiday, Zadie Smith, what’s not to like?

Crazy They Call Me by Zadie Smith – The New Yorker

 Zadie Smith Reads “Crazy They Call Me” – The New Yorker

I have a ton of work to do today in prep for this afternoon’s piano trio rehearsal so that’s all the time I have.

If you don’t know Holiday’s lynching song, you might want to take a listen.

It’s an amazing time to be alive.

Years ago, I read Richard Brautigan’s The Abortion. The main character was a librarian who lived in his library. This is what the internet sometimes feels like to me. This morning I was trying to keep myself in bed until after 6 AM. Laying awake, I decided to read some poetry after determining that President Trump’s address to a joint session of congress last night was insidiously almost bland (and probably a maneuver by him and his aides to make him more palatable to thinking Republicans but I’ll check that out later).

I pulled up Best American Poetry 2016 on my ebook reader software on my tablet and continued reading poems in it.

I decided to read Olena Kalytiak Davis’s “On the Certainty of Bryan.”

It’s kind of a long poem with many obscure (at least to me) references. As I sometimes do I decided to plow through the poem and see what I could make of it without knowing who the poet was referring to with her many allusions to names and pieces of art.

But after that I went back and  then through the miracle of modern technology, I was able to lay in bed in the dark and search to find out who and what some of her allusions referred to.

This led me to a few happy discoveries.

It turns out that Richard Diebenkorn mentioned in the first few lines of the poem was an abstract expressionist painter. I have a soft spot for this art movement and immediately admired his work online.

The poem also mentions John Zuir, another abstract expressionist I have never heard of. I like what I see online of his work.

Eileen Myles is also mentioned in the poem. I read a poem by her online and then interlibrary loaned the above collection.

Of course by this time, I wanted to check out the writer of the poem. So now I have interlibrary loaned the book above for further reading.

Finally, Davis mentions a band called The Cave Singers. I waited until while working on this blog to check them out. I think they’re pretty cool. Here’s a sample.

Earlier in the dark morning I had the idea that maybe I could lull myself back to sleep with an audio book. Using my local library’s subscription to Hoopla, I literally checked out Neil Gaimen’s Trigger Warnings thinking a collection of short stories might be nice to have to listen to.

The first hour of the audiobook is taken up by the interesting introduction to this book. Gaiman mentioned a project he did with the Australian String Quartet rock bank, Four Play.

Hey never heard of them, but now I have.

Cool.

Like I said, having the interwebs at one’s fingertips is like living in a library.

Trump Embraces ‘Enemy of the People,’ a Phrase With a Fraught History – The New York Times

Some history.