I finished reading Amiri Baraka’s collection: S.O.S: Poems 1961-2013 this morning. i have been reading a few poems out of it most days for a while. I think I will be returning to it to seek an antidote to the mediocrity that often echoes in my ears. He is nothing if not a solid “beat poet.” His take on America rings truer every day.

My copy of Bostridge’s Schubert’s Winter Journ: Anatomy of  an Obsession arrived in the mail yesterday. I read in it while resting up for last night’s rehearsal. It is a beautifully made book. Bostridge is my kind of musician: highly skilled and informed by speaking from a wider platform than the academy. He says he doesn’t have music degrees. But here he is nailing the first beautiful song from the Schubert Song Cycle he writes about. If you listen to it,  you might want to google up the text since Schubert and Bostridge and Julius Drake on piano plumb the depths of the meaning of the original poem which begins “I came a stranger, I depart a stranger.”

I’ve never been a big fan of the whole classical song tradition called variously Lieder or “Art Song.” But Schubert is an exception. I tend to like all his music and spend time regularly with his piano works. I have listened to his song cycles over and over and especially am drawn to Bostridge’s interp.

Yesterday I decided to change this Sunday’s anthem from a lovely little three part Renaissance anthem by Morley to a goofy last minute anthem by Mark Schweizer. It’s based on the Faure Pavanne (god help me). The organ carries the famous melody. Schweizer has intertwined a hymn for the choir sung to “Morning Song.” It almost works.

I looked at my recent attendance patterns and that’s what helped me decide to this. I had four people signed out last night and four people signed out for Sunday. Only one person in common for these two. That means seven out of sixteen were not around for both the rehearsing last night and the performance Sunday. I have two or three newbies who are still getting used to the challenge of singing well and accurately. Last Wednesday I spent 45 minutes on Morley. Then Sunday two people indicated they were skipping last night.

One of my newbies told me after rehearsal he thought it was a good call. After deciding yesterday to change it, I then had to spend a good half hour practicing the new anthem. I decided to keep the Morley prelude and postlude although they are now in stark contrast with their Renaissance like delicacy to anything else in the fucking service, but it’s too late to change the prelude and postlude when I have so much else on the burner.

My violinist told me Sunday that she was going to miss “Mendelssohn Sunday”  — Oct 8th I have a Mendelssohn anthem scheduled and had invited the trio to come and play along and also perform on the prelude postlude. Actually my violinist had texted me a few days earlier about this. I had quickly begun work on an organ prelude and fugue by Mendelssohn. Yesterday she texted  me that she had changed her mind and would be available. We are rehearsing today. Unfortunately I quit practicing the piano part for the prelude which is a bit of a challenge for me and instead began working on the prelude and fugue which is also a bit of a challenge for me.

In the middle of all this I continue to work hard on my dedication organ pieces. They are improving but there is no guarantee they will be solid by Oct 18th. I’m finishing up “Mental Floss.” As soon as I think it is entirely finished I am planning to email it to one of my few compositional colleagues left, Nick Palmer.  Like so many of my musician friends, Nick and I have limited aesthetic preferences in common. However, he is a very adroit composer and is able to move beyond his own parameters and understand and intelligently critique other work. I will be curious to see if he has any comments that change the composition.

This morning my reading brings me solace. The words of Dylan Thomas as I lay in the dark on my bed. Later after dishes and Greek, the words of Amiri Baraka, Tyhimba Jess, and Derek Walcott comfort and disturb me.

Progress is history’s dirty joke.

Derek Walcott, “The Schooner Flight, 9. Maria Concepcion & The Book of Dreams

Ursula K. LeGuin has wisdom and challenge that I need.

The danger in trying to do good is that the mind comes to confuse the intent of goodness with the act of doing things well. LeGuin, Tales from Earthsee

I finished Tehanu recently. It is the fourth book of LeGuin’s Earthsea series. I’m now reading Tales from Earthsea by her. 

I realize that the voices in my life come to me from the poetry, the prose, and the  music. Many voices in my past are distant and dim. My voice sounds here and in my music. But I do not hear you, dear reader. You only hear me.

It’s an interesting conceit, the concept of conversation through art. I find it balances the mundanity of living in Holland Michigan and indeed of living in Trump’s America.

I continue to work at preparing music to perform. In addition to Hampton’s “The Primitives” and my own unfinished “Mental Floss,” I have added Mendelssohn’s Prelude and Fugue in G major, Op. 37 to be the prelude and postlude respectively for a week from Sunday. I had scheduled my piano trio to play, but my violinist has decided to go out of town for a while, so I had to regroup.

I’m also playing two pieces by Thomas Morley from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book this Sunday. I love the music in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and return to it over and over on my damn synth harpsichord. I will play one of these on a four foot flute (up an octave) and the other possibly on the wonderful Dulzian stop or some other buy diazepam in brazil gentle combination. We are scheduled to sing an anthem by Morley this Sunday. Several people have decided to skip this evening’s rehearsal. I will see how it goes. It’s possible I will cancel this anthem and put something much easier in its place.

When October comes I will contact Chris Brodersen a harpsichord builder I have been talking to about making my old clunker playable. I fantasize about abandoning my church music career (retiring) and spending more time with the music I love the most, the harpsichord music and my own compositions.

I am trying to maintain my sanity and health as much as possible.  This morning I weighed around 219. Getting below 220 was my first goal since I was up to 230. I have resumed skipping drinks in the evening and am continuing to visit the treadmill at Evergreen when I can.

So between the poetry, the prose, and the music I try to stay as sane as possible.

The Dying Art of Disagreement – The New York Times

Bret Stephens joined the NYT columnists recently. He was an attempt to add a conservative voice and I found his first columns inane. But this is a good one.

Trapped by Their Own Lies – The New York Times

The Republicans.

Serendipity strikes again. Yesterday we presented a recital of improvisation at my church. This morning reading in The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist I found that where I left off was the beginning of several pages extolling the ability (and heritage) of the enslaved to improvise.

“… [I]t was the enslaved African Americans who were the true modernists, the real geniuses. The innovation that flooded through the quarters of frontier labor camps in the first forty or fifty years of the nineteenth century was driven by constant individual creativity in the quarters … music and dancing on slavery’s frontier emphasized individual improvisation, not imitation, and not unison.”

It is becoming more and more obvious to me that at the heart of the American spirit and experience are the enslaved people of our past.

This rings through the poets Tyhimba Jess and Amiri Baraka. Just now in reading Jess, he emphasizes a bit of mix of European art music and African American experience via his recreation of Sissieretta Jones, a black singer. Baraka combines a healthy distaste for what America has become with a Jazz sensibility. Both men breath fresh air into my head. They are this week’s mental floss for jupe.

I keep scouring the footnotes in Baptist’s work.

This morning I ordered a used copy of Black Legacy: America’s Hidden Heritage by William D. Piersen.

The day before I ordered The Sounds of Slavery by White and White. Both books were cited in the copious footnotes of The Half Has Never Been Told. I have also ordered my copy of this book as well.

Eileen messed around a bit with taping yesterday concert. She hasn’t shared it yet.  We had about thirty people, no children. I was pleased with the recital. I interviewed the players and in each case turned over the mike for them to talk about their experiences with improvisation. In addition to the scheduled improvs I sprang one on them because I felt like the music was getting too stuffy.

Eileen jumped in her mini and drove away after the concert. She is visiting a friend in Montague over night. I dragged myself back to church for a short organ practice, then I went to the liquor store and bought some gin.  Last night I did not skip the martini(s).

John Willis Menard: The first black man elected to Congress — and rejected by Congress – The Washington Post

This gives some details about the weird period between the Civil War and the institution of Jim Crow.

I finished rereading The Saddest Summer of Samuel S. by J. P. Donleavy last night. I barely remember reading this book before. I did remember accurately the incident of the therapist telling Samuel. S. that he was cured because he (Samuel S.) was driving the therapist crazy.

However I remembered it taking place in Washing Square, NYC. Instead it takes place in Vienna where the entire novel takes place. Samuel S. is in the therapist’s office. I think I may have conflated two literary memories. It’s possible they were both from Donleavy novels.

After cleaning the kitchen and doing some Greek I again sat down and read poetry. I am finding Tyehimba Jess an extremely powerful poet.  Due to reading the history of slavery I am finding new resonance in his work and the work of Amiri Baraka.

This morning I read his poem about Sissieretta Jones singing Aida at Carnegie Hall in 1902. I find it satisfying that he pulls the entire African American experience into the operatic moment. I like this line especially:

What is a coon show anyway, but one poor devil putting on a mask another devil willing to pay to see?

Did you know there were hundreds of “coon” songs written and performed  at minstrel shows? Jess makes a entire chapter based mostly on just their titles. The chapter takes its title from one, “All Coons Look Alike to Me: A Chant of Merry Song Melodies Guaranteed! All Titles Historically Accurate! Guaranteed!

It is a painful read. It too me several days to get through that chapter.

The Real Story Behind Roald Dahl’s ‘Black Charlie’ – The New York Times

More info on this.

Marilynne Robinson on Finding the Right Word – The New York Times

I read Gilead by this author.

Solving the Puzzle of Eggplant Parmesan – The New York Times

Slice it thinly into a fan shape.

It’s still pretty dark outside right now at 7 AM in Holland Michigan.

Earlier I went out to throw something in the trash barrel and was struck by how dark it was.

Then in my poetry reading this morning, “darkness” resonated as well.

First in Olio by Tyehimba Jess.

from “My name is Sissieretta Jones”

But the darkened sense inside my name won’t be silenced. With its sister and shush 
and gospel of ocean, I sing each night from the way I’d stand on the docks of
Providence, a straggle boned bundle of lungs and tremble lifting wave after wave
into wave after wave of Atlantic. Its applause keeled over me, calling me with its
bell of salt, its belly of sunken hulls, its blue green fathoms of tremolo. Every night,
in the dark off stage, I hear my mother’s voice in my head, her backyard hum, the sea
in her distance with the weather of storm. She’d look out and see the thrall of water
heave its back to the sky. I’d look out to the darkness and hear my true name.

“I’d look out to the darkness and hear my true name.”

This phrase hit me this morning. Just now when I was searching for the full text of this prose poem online, I discovered a portion of it on something called Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art.  But in the online version, the line that struck me had left out the phrase, “to the darkness.” I’m glad that Jess added it in the book version.

Likewise in Amiri Barak, I found this:

song to me was the darkness
in which I could stand

From “Wise 4” by Amiri Baraka

I couldn’t find this poem online either.

It’s striking that both of these poems are about music and darkness.

Hymnal 1982 Errata | blog.sinden.org

This popped up on my Fakebook feed. I bookmarked it because I have lists of errors that I keep. I will have to see if they have all of them in the linked doc.

The Playlist: A Farewell From Leonard Cohen and 8 More New Songs – The New York Times

I love these lists of links to music videos. The one below is probably a bit of a fan video for Leonard Cohen. But I guess I’m a fan. I like it.

Celeste Ng: By the Book – The New York Times

I love these lists. I bookmarked it to keep track of some of the titles she mentions.

‘World Without Mind’ Is An Urgent, Personal Polemic : NPR

Eileen often watch PBS Newshour. I think its a lousy show but like being with her so I watch it too sometimes. Last night at the point where I was thinking if they were going to another insipid “Spectacular Moment” (the last one I was say of Terry Gross for fuck’s sake!), I was going to bed. Instead they interviewed an author and an editor of the New York Times Book review about their reading recommendation. I stayed up. At the end of the segment, the announcer said that one could go on their web site for further info. I did this and found it hadn’t been updated yet. This did not deter me from trying to remember at least the book linked above.

It’s up now if you’re interested.

I skipped blogging yesterday. I ended up having a full day. I transcribed “Wings of Song,” a “song without words” by Mendelssohn, which had been arranged for organ. I gave the  melody to the violin and the cellos. I think it will be a nice goofy postlude for organ and strings on the upcoming “Mendelssohn Sunday.” On that Sunday, the trio will play a new movement from a Mendelssohn piano trio we are learning, the choir will sing a Mendelssohn anthem (with strings playing along), and we will end with”Wings of Song.”

Kelly Bakker came and tuned my piano yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to play it since. Instead I put in an hour on the organ before my piano lesson with Rudy and then another hour after the trio rehearsal. After that I came home and walked over to Evergreen and treadmilled. Then Eileen and I went out to supper at the Curragh, the local fake Irish pub.

I am still skipping evening alcohol. This morning I was down nine pounds or so. I told Eileen when I hit ten pounds I will probably buy a bottle of gin. The food at the Currah was so-so. The ice tea was delicious. But the sliced up red peppers smacked of mold in their taste.

Eileen went grocery shopping in the morning while I was doing stuff.  She bought some salmon and perch so we could have a meal or two together. She is envious, I think, of my weight loss.

Today I meet with Dr. Birky, my therapist. I have been more quiet than usual this week for some reason.  But I can always blather away.

I’m still trying to come up with an additional 16 measures or so for “Mental Floss.” I think the B melody needs it since it’s only about 16 measures itself and seems a bit shorter than the A section which repeats.

I have a new prospective organ student with whom I am meeting a week from today. She is the wife of a retired Hope professor who attends Grace.

Vietnam on the Reel-to-Reel – The New York Times

I read every essay by Jennifer Finny Boylan  I find. I think she is a good writer.

“no nation but imagination” is a line from a Derek Walcott poem I was reading this morning. I like it. For the record, the poem is “The Schooner Flight.” It seems to be a bit of a miniature Omeros developing some of the same heroic/island themes in a narrative poem about an island sailor. Warning: if you happen to click on the above link, it’s a long poem. I’m just over half way through it.

Eileen and I were invited to an evening meal in a parishioner’s home last night. The hostess was a very bright, articulate widow named Joan Smith now living on the banks of the Grand river in Grand Haven. Despite the fact that the rest of the group was made up of an elderly artsy quilt maker named Elizabeth and my boss, Rev Jen, I felt like I was holding my breath all evening, trying not to be intense or in Elizabeth’s words when i couldn’t find an adjective for Charles Bukowski,  “gritty.”

I still felt like I was inside a bubble, a Caucasian Episcopalian bubble. I find the talk of Billy Collins and Louis Erdich a bit off putting but managed to keep civil. When Elizabeth called PBS Judy Rudruff by her first name in a sympathetic comment my breath was taken away.

When I mentioned Amiri Baraka and Derek Walcott, I wasn’t sure anyone in the room (besides Eileen who dislikes poetry) knew the names. Joan is a retired teacher. It felt almost like a betrayal on my part to mention these poets I so admire. I crawled back into their poems this morning. I’m not that far from finishing reading Baraka’s entire SOS: Poems 1961-2013. 

I am reminded of Salmon Rushdie’s lovely ironic comment that “there’s not a better a career move than death” since I have a tendency to stumble onto writers by reading their obit. Such was the case with Walcott. Baraka is someone I have followed for years.

In the last few dark mornings before getting up my eyes have moved over poems by Dylan Thomas in an ebook, poems I know and love and still find mysterious and beautiful.

At the Monday afternoon recital, an elderly woman asked me how I felt when I was able to finally play such a wonderful instrument as the Martin Pasi. I told her that I had been trained with this kind of instrument in mind, and though I had played mostly but not all crappy instruments in my jobs,  on the “inside” I heard the beauty.

Later I mused that this interior beauty was emerging a bit in the form of actual sounds waves originating in wind.

Phlegm Manse street, Dunedin, wall of the Musicians club

Yesterday morning I was reading in the Cambridge Companion to Bach. I like reading in resources that are a bit more up to date like this one. There was a footnote in it referring to an article by the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff. The next morning I got up and pulled out my copy of his book and read the article. It was a timely one on Bach’s cantata based on “A Mighty Fortress.” It turns out that Bach did not envision this cantata quite as bombastic as it is sometimes performed. If you hear it with brass and timpani you are hearing a revision done by Willhelm his son after Bach himself died I believe.

This appears to be a more update performance with three oboes. Lovely stuff.

Last night I was reading the book on slavery I have been reading, The Half Has Not Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist.

I ran across another interesting footnote directing me to a chapter of “Notes on the State of Virginia” by Thomas Jefferson in his The American Library collection.

This morning I got up and found the book and read the short chapter. When I went to make a note in the back I discovered that in my previous reading I had been compiling Jefferson’s references to slavery.

In reading Baptist’s book, it occurs to me that living in the USA right now bears some similarity to the way the enslavers benefited relentlessly from the cruel use of slaves. Baptist makes a convincing argument that the mid 19th century world wide financial boom was based in large part on the backs of American slaves. Basically, the newly invented cotton gin could process as much raw cotton as could be produced. White men went crazy with greed and developed what amounted to systemic torture to make slaves (men, women and children) produce more and more picked cotton a day. The increase in raw product, largely sent to the mills in England to produce fabric that drove the early industrial revolution, was astronomical.

So, the prosperity of the USA was in many ways built on the backs of tortured, maimed slaves whose lives were incredibly miserable.

Today,  many of us in white middle class  America live lives of prosperity. Especially when our amazing privilege is put in the context of the world. When Dr. Birky, my therapist, was interviewing me he asked me if I was “well off.” I replied that I was considering the global standard.

This is not claptrap. Where does our year long supply of fresh produce come from? It cannot originate inside our borders since the weather will not produce bananas or mangoes or what have you year round. Somewhere someone is growing and harvesting this food that it is so easy to take for granted. This is just a small instance.

I am well fed, clothed,  have a warm place to live, am safe in my daily life. These are unusual attributes for many humans on this planet. Inevitably, my access to food and housing and safety is based in part on the repression and terrible lives of other people.

I think this might be the historical American way. And we are raised to be blind to this. We are living in a sci fi novel where our prosperity is directly the result of other people’s misery.

The person whose recommendation I followed when looking up and beginning to read Edward Baptist’s book said she never looked are her life the same way afterwards. When she walked the streets everything looked different. Part of this must have been realizing how many of our daily lives could only exist the way does because of generations of tortured captive people. It’s not a big leap to realize this is still going on on a world wide scale if not within the “borders” of this country.

I have another full day planned so I am blogging this morning before shit hits the fan.

After church yesterday I slipped into a bit of a mood. Church went well, but choir members are having difficulty adapting to the new robes. They are finding them too hot. Some are doing what I am doing and adapting what they wear under them for better comfort but most just seem unhappy.

Managing people’s wardrobe is not in my skill set. I found it mildly discouraging that what is in my skill set, namely making music, takes a back seat to such trivial shit. But it is of a piece of aging and finding my own interests, perspective, and concerns increasingly irrelevant to others.

This was not helped by a visitor who made his interest in the new organ obvious. After church he told me he wanted to hear more Bach. He was visiting from Blachburn Cathedral despite his Amurican accent. He was not an organist but professed to be friends with this or that dude.

He kept mention huge organs he had seen recently. By the time he was done I wondered why he was so interested in our modest little instrument since he had never heard of North German organ building much less Martin Pasi. Sigh.

A couple approached me at coffee. They were expressing dismay that it was time for them to return to their winter abode and would miss my music especially my jazzy piano improvs. I asked them if they were from Florida. No, they were from Ann Arbor. Well, I said with a bit of confusion, “you have lots of good stuff there.”

Despite fatigue I had to return for some time on the bench yesterday. Today Eileen and I are performing the organ demonstrator, “Hiker’s Gear,” for some residents of my Mom’s nursing home who are being bussed over.

I neglected to put it on the church calendar and there wasn’t a whisper of announcing it yesterday. In fact, my boss was supposed to bring hiking gear for Eileen and forgot it entirely. She didn’t remember it until after I sent out a spammy email to AGO members and locals about it and next Sunday’s Grace Notes 2017 recital, “Fall Improv.”

She’s stuck at home but is sending the gear for Eileen via her significant other. it will arrive about an hour beforehand.

I haven’t decided exactly what other organ music to perform for this crew. I went over some top ten tunes yesterday like “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” “Air on a G string,” and “Hornpipe” by Handel. I am a bit torn about this. I like to do classy piano stuff when I play for nursing home people. On the other hand, the world of pipe organ is such a disjunct place from most listeners much less a captive audience  like the elderly that I will probably do well to play something they might recognize and enjoy.

Whose a whore?

I continue to practice stuff for the October dedication recital. It is on October 18th which is exactly a month from today. I am on my way to having the Hampton piece learned but it is far from finished.  Recently I figured out that I need to consistently practice it slowly which is what I did yesterday with the help of mister metronome.

I also spent time with the unfinished “Mental Floss.” I am getting quite pleased with the direction this composition is taking. On the other hand, it’s a bit terrifying that both pieces I plan to play are in such provisional state at this point, the Hampton unlearned and “Mental Floss” uncomposed.

Oy. Why do I do this to myself?

They say keeping oneself challenged and learning is a good thing to do in life and especially old age. I guess I’m doing that.

Probably the high point of church yesterday was when my Republican bass playing friend commented that he enjoyed this album, Jesus Rocked the Jukebox,  which I passed along on Facebook. It’s helping me this morning.

 Think Beet and Goat Cheese Salad Is a Cliché? A New Recipe Proves It’s a Classic – The New York Times

 Alice Waters’s Grilled Cheese Is Not Like Yours and Mine – The New York Times

 Roasted Summer Vegetables Tucked Into Tartlets – The New York Times

I’m cutting back on booze and snacking. I guess this leads to reading more food articles and thinking about making veggie food for Jupe.

When the Rescuers Come From Across the Country – The New York Times

This good on-the-ground report some of the cynical shit I’ve been reading about FEMA.

Roald Dahl’s Widow Says ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ Hero Was Supposed to be Black – The New York Times

Dahl’s widow is still alive. Wow.  The book would have obviously been much better with a black Charlie Bucket. Too bad.

A Prison Sentence Ends. But the Stigma Doesn’t. – The New York Times

Interesting point in this article about not having to be a bit of a genius to get redemption. You know regular people are in trouble when these exceptional people have trouble.

Another quick early morning post. I received a nice gift from my brother, Mark, and my sister-in-law, Leigh, in the mail yesterday.

The American Library two volume set of Ursula K. Le Guin’s so called Hainish Novels and stories with a new introduction from last year by the author.

I love this author and I love the the Library of America editions.  So many thanks to these two people!

It was odd at first walking around the bookstore yesterday. I’m out of the habit of browsing I guess. Also, they didn’t have several books I was interested in. Then I remembered Alan Moore’s new book, Jerusalem. Thirty-five bucks for the paperback set. Sold!

Then I remembered that Rushdie had a new novel out. Sold!

George Saunders has made a big splash with his first novel. I have read two collections of his short stories and think he’s amazing. Sold!

Eileen and I had a nice lunch at Schuler bookstore and then drove home.

But wait! Jupe’s greed for books was not sated. I ordered two more books as well. The first, I saw at Schuler’s. It is a beautiful little book about Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle. This is a set of songs that I admire greatly.  With a name like Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession I couldn’t get the book out of my mind, so just ordered the dam thing on Amazon.

It’s available as an ebook, but the book itself is a work of art, so what the heck!

I have been thinking about J. P. Donleavy’s The Saddest Summer of Samuel S. I checked at Schuler and couldn’t find a title by Donleavy. I came home and looked for any titles by him in my own library. If I have them they are not where they should be in alphabetical order. I read a paperback edition that looked a lot like the one in the picture above. You guessed it. I ordered a used copy to reread.

This last title seems salient since the book is about a relationship between a shrink and his client, Samuel S. I have been pondering whether my therapy is a self indulgence or something more. I have decided it’s probably self indulgence but an activity I would like to continue.

Donald Trump Is the First White President – The Atlantic

I think that this guy is onto something.

“…not every Trump voter is a white supremacist, just as not every white person in the Jim Crow South was a white supremacist. But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.”

He repeats this twice in the article, the part about feeling “it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to” a white supremacist.

In every category of polling, Trump won the white vote. Not a coincidence.

I’m up early as usual. Eileen is still resting. Today is my 66th birthday and I’m feeling unreasonably well and optimistic. I’m thinking of asking her if she is willing to drive to Grand Rapids and go to the bookstore. Yesterday I said I didn’t think I was up for it. Instead I was thinking we could have lunch at the sushi place to celebrate my birthday.

But I think she will probably be happy to visit the bookstore and probably have lunch there today. She finds it tricky to give me gifts.  So this way she will feel like we are doing something for my birthday and I will also enjoy a rare bookstore visit.

Last night was the fourth night in a row without my evening martini and subsequent snacks and wine. Combined with more exercise I think this change in behavior is having an effect on me. I feel more rested this morning and more relaxed. Dam. I hate to give up the nightly martini and probably am not doing so permanently. But once one has begun this sort of restrain, it’s tempting not to go back right away since that is so self defeating.

Yesterday after I got off the treadmill at Evergreen, a man on a tandem exercise bike (yes they make such things, weird, eh?) called out to me. He said that I had put in such a long period on the treadmill that now I deserved to over to the Evergreen coffee shop and treat myself to a donut. I told him that sort of defeats the purpose but thanked him.

I just remembered that Eileen was talking about going over for a class at Evergreen this morning. Maybe we’ll leave after that and I can treadmill while she is at her exercise class.

Origin of Zero Symbol Is Centuries Older Than Previously Thought

I do love shit like this. The commenters point out that zero is more ancient than this reporting implies. Presumably the report is about the actual symbol, “0.”.

Nestor’s Cup – Wikipedia

Speaking of ancient shit, I read the introduction to an edition of Hesiod this morning. It mentioned this cup as an example of early Greek writing. Apparently the current scholarship is that Homer and Hesiod were actually illiterate, singing their poems from memory to be transcribed by others. But that they lived at the same time as the person designated as the Adaptor who put together the Greek alphabet. Who knew? cool stuff

Chelsea Manning: The Dystopia We Signed Up For – The New York Times

Apparently the NYT (and I) think more of Chelsea Manning than the CIA.

When Junk Science About Sex Offenders Infects the Supreme Court – The New York Times

I read the novel Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks which dramatizes the extreme injustice of the laws about convicted sex offenders who have served their time. This revelation about junk science is sad.

The Free Speech-Hate Speech Trade-Off – The New York Times

Good interview with Erwin Chemerinsky. Shouting and shutting down speakers is not the way to go. The antidote to hate speech is more speech free speech.

An Old Supreme Court Dream – The New York Times

A 1982 case about Texans educating the undocumented.

Joe Biden: Reclaiming America’s Values – The New York Times

I find it interesting that at this point in time I am reading people like Biden and HRC.

Skipping posting blogs here two days in row might account for the extreme drop in visits I had yesterday (Monday: 40, Tuesday: 43, Wednesday: 20). But I’m not exactly sure what these mean since I don’t delve deeply into the info Google analytics provides.

For some reason this morning feels like a Monday morning to me. Yesterday was very full and ended with the second Grace choir rehearsal of this season which went fine. Last night after rehearsal I skipped my usual martini (followed by glasses of wine). Also no snacking which is the goal. It is much easier for me to skip the snacking sober.

I’m hoping some of this behavior modification will result in enlarging my “energy pie.” I think it might be beginning to work a little bit. Thursday mornings usually find me in a specific fit of introvert exhaustion after herdng my choir members like cats.

Weirdly yesterday found me sitting at my piano working on a little melody to add to “Mental Floss” an hour before rehearsal. I hope that my energy and patterns can change a little bit. But we’ll see.

I have developed a habit of resting on Wednesday afternoons when there is a rehearsal in the evening. Part of this is laying in bed and reading. Yesterday I finished the thin short story collection The Strange Case of Rachel K by Rachel Kushner.  These three stories along with the title story of The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones provide a much needed reality check on my life in Holland, Michigan, USA.

Kushner writes three dreamy brutal takes on Cuban life.  Jones writing in 90s is equally brutal and eloquent. I have ordered a used copy of Pugilist at Rest.

I read some of Raymond Carver’s poems again this morning. His weird California dreamin’ approach to addiction and living the dream is helpful as well. I found it funny that he wrote a poem about Charles Bukowski (in the first person): “You Don’t Know What Love Is: An Evening with Charles Bukowski”

I read the Bukowski poem for the first time a few days ago. I like both poets and I like the way Carver manages to skewer irascible Bukowski (no mean feat).

Staying afloat in Trump’s nightmare of America requires not only beautiful music daily but the help of poetry and ideas.

I ran across a wonderful quote in Derek Wallcott this morning. Writing in the voice of a contemporary red headed Caribbean sailor Wallcott describing his mixed African American, Dutch and English heritage Wallcott has him say: “… either I’m nobody or I’m a nation.” This seems like a choice Americans are making right now.  I’m not too big into national thinking, but I can’t help but wonder if Wallcott is describing our new abyss of a country (we are nobodies).

I also read the beginning of Hilary Clinton’s new book, What Happened. I’m probably not going to finish this book. But it is a timely read. Also I’m convinced that whatever the phenomenon of HRC means it is definitely colored in huge part by ongoing misogyny.  I have read reviews of this book which basically say she should stay quiet. Wow. She is, of course, a politician and I suspect that personality type is fundamentally incapable of making a good book (pace Obama). But at the same time I am interested in what she has to say about the weird 2016 election.

 Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves: Charles L. Perdue Jr., Thomas E. Barden

I continue to plow through Edward E. Baptist’s wonderful The Half Has Not Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. His meticulous research and use of contemporary narratives by people who were slaves makes me want to seek out more first hand accounts. This book is a compendium of interviews from a WPA project of interviewing people who had been born slaves and were still alive in the 30s.

Man Booker Shortlist Is Half American – The New York Times

I love booklists.

The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election | FiveThirtyEight

Apparently HRC cites 538 in her new book. I haven’t gotten that far yet.

She Was Teaching Him to Walk. He Shot Her From His Wheelchair. – The New York Times

Madness.

Jimmy Carter: Voters Need a Digital Defense – The New York Times

Carter refuses to give up. Bless him.

The South Doesn’t Own Slavery – The New York Times

I found the scholar who wrote this article, Tiya Miles, cited in a footnote in Edward E. Baptist’s book the next day after I read this article.

 Cue the Castanets: The Week’s 8 Best Classical Music Moments on YouTube – The New York Times

Believe it or not, I’m trying winnow the links I share here since I haven’t put many links up lately. I love these collections.  Here’s a cool recording from it which was made at Le Poisson Rouge, a club I have visited and would be a regular patron of if it was closer.

Since I’ve skipped a couple days blogging, I’m doing this before Greek today (but not before cleaning the kitchen and making coffee).

So a few days before my 66th birthday which is on Friday, I’ve done some exercising and omitted my evening martini.  Monday and Tuesday I walked 1.6 miles by my estimate and treadmilled 45 minutes each day. Monday and Tuesday are days that I have little scheduled so they are good days for this.

I decided to skip my evening martini for a day or so not so much for the alcohol abstention as the fact that I inevitably snack when I drink. I have been slowly gaining weight and am appalled that I am within ten pounds of my all time high weight of 240. So my weight has plummeted without the evening snacks which of course means that I’ve lost water not fat, but it’s still motivating.

Today is Clara Schuman’s birthday. I know this thanks to Writers Almanac which I listen to each morning keeping myself still for five minutes before taking my blood pressure.  The poems on this show are mostly lame I’m afraid. But I do like hearing the commemoration of passing dates.

When Keillor read this quote from Schuman it stuck me:”My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.”

Living for art jupe style exactly defines how I see my life. Living for art is completely different from what occurs in colleges and churches and most communities. At least in my estimation. It is a bit of a high falutin’ phrase for me but I remain obsessed with poetry, music, literature, visual arts.

This morning I read several poems by Raymond Carver and remembered how much I like him. The poems Keillor reads on his show rarely give me the usual flash I get from poems I like and admire.

Living for art jupe style means “doing” art and observing beauty wherever I find it. It seems this makes me a bit of a hack on the career chart and I happily embrace that. Living for art means to me working at it daily.

Healey Willan once remarked casually the he “couldn’t play for beans.” I like that attitude especially coming from someone who not only was a good solid composer who was a very fine player but could improvise a baroque fugue which is a kind of goofy skill but extremely admirable for its accomplishment.

I have been working hard at the organ. I have discovered that my organ likes chamber scale sound. I discover myself scaling down the number of ranks I am using. The organ makes me grateful with its beauty when I do this. I have done this on “The Primitives” by Hampton. Hampton calls for “full organ” but I find on my organ that it’s happier if I use fewer stops in a distinctive manner. For example instead of full pedal stops (which are only four on my little guy) I pull just the Trumpet which gives just enough oomph and humor.

I’ve also been working diligently on “Mental Floss.” I have naturally written it for few stops which is another example of how my organ is teaching me. I am trying to simultaneously learn it and finish it. I am close but ideas keep worming their way into this piece both pleasing me with their presence and frightening me as the keyboard player who will play this piece in public.

Today is also Eileen’s Mom birthday. She is planning a quick trip up to see her today. I will definitely work at the organ today, but also probably grocery shop, meet with my boss, prep for the choir rehearsal and then give it in the evening.

Time to do some Greek.

Yesterday I helped Martin Pasi tune the reeds on the organ at Grace. It was so good to see him again. Conversation with him is always interesting and leaves me with much food for thought. Martin mentioned that a radio station he listens to a lot is ö1 out of his native Austria. He described it as “experimental.” Since there is an umlaut on the o, it seems that the name is written orf1.

This morning I pulled it up on my podcast radio stations section. I put it on and took a shower. I was surprised to listen to a half hour of a live concert of Bob Dylan. These songs pulled me back into the past and back into Dylan’s work something I love and admire.  His songs are part of my DNA.

After a while, the news came on. It was in Austrian German of course. I waited for a while for some music to come on. Then decided that since I was in a sort of nostalgic listening mood I would pull up some Anton Webern who was a composer I especially admired when I was younger. Here’s what I listened to:

The conductor, Pierre Boulez, also did a recording with Frank Zappa. As I listened I realized that Zappa and Webern can sound very similar. I guess Zappa may have copied Webern, but I’m not really aware of how this influence came about. Just that it’s another part of this old hack musician’s DNA.

Martin adjusted several things on the organ that have been acting up. He also changed the tremulant. He made a bit slower and changed the depth of the undulation to make it shallower. We talked about tremulant. Martin suggested that it could be used for part of a chorale prelude and maybe wouldn’t be needed for all of it. This would mean changing it like changing the registration at a strategic point. I hadn’t thought of that. It makes sense because tremulant can get old quickly. I still think it’s verging on Lawrence Welk but like the sound on the Pasi in small doses.

Martin also suggested turning it off at the end of the last note of a piece. Another intriguing option.

On another topic, Martin mentioned that he thinks President Trump will do something to make his imprint on history and the world. Martin thinks it might quite likely be to institute single payer health care. Martin said that he despises Trump (and most of what he stands for I  suspect), but that Trump’s ego demands things like what he did this week when completely undercut the Republican leadership and quickly gave in to “Chuck and Nancy” about raising the debt ceiling.

Another thing I hadn’t thought of. I promised Martin I would “message” him on Fakebook if that occurred.

Martin snapped a pic of me practicing for this morning and put it up on Fakebook. Here it is, cropped.

I skipped blogging yesterday. I am feeling less urgency about doing this daily. Sure my kids are spread all over the world, but they really have their own lives now and probably have less need to check in to see what’s going on with me. Besides we regularly communicate in different ways now texting and on Fakebook.

Birky, my therapist,  asked me I thought our time together (our “work” he called it) was worthwhile, pointing out that it was expensive. I hadn’t thought too much about it. I also didn’t have too much to talk to him about yesterday. I wonder if like the  character in J. P. Donleavey’s The Saddest Summer of Samuel S does with his therapist, I’m beginning to drive him a little crazy.  I was amused when I ran across an old blog post from February in this year where he and I had a similar conversation about continuing.

He wondered if the family members who thought this was a good idea for me (therapy) thought it was working or still worthwhile. I obviously couldn’t answer that one. But he did plant a nice little shadow of doubt about whether I should pursue our meetings. We’ll see.

I spent some serious time yesterday with “The Primitives” by Hampton and a Mendelssohn piano trio movement yesterday. For the first time I went straight through Hampton four times in a row. I don’t find it as tiring as I did when I always played it slower and worked over sections. The dedication recital is weeks away but I would like to know it cold for that particular little performance.

Rhonda was practicing when I went over to the church before my shrink appointment. It does my heart such good to see people practicing since I have an impression that most musicians don’t practice that much, at least us mortal musicians down here in hack town. (Rhonda is no hack that’s for sure). She offered to let me play through, but I demurred and went upstairs and had a good rehearsal on the Mendelssohn on the choir room piano.

There was check in my box for Thursday’s funeral. That’s nice. I was afraid I was going to have to do the usual begging to get remunerated. This is something that has abated somewhat working with Rev Jen whose big heart is always in the right place as far as I can see.

There were some surprises at the funeral. One was the lovely way that Amy’s unaccompanied violin was so effective in playing Irish fiddle tunes.

In the program it said that Communion Music was by Steve Jenkins and Amy Hertel. I didn’t play at all. But silence is sometimes my best music and it was Thursday.

I have to make sure she got paid.

Another pleasant surprise was that the son of the man whose funeral we were doing quoted at length from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. 

He was apparently an English teacher and used Bradbury to talk about legacy and leaving parts of ourselves behind us when we die. I’m not big on legacy but I am on Bradbury. It was a shattering moment for me when a young seminarian confessed to me that he did not recognize Bradbury of Fahrenheit 451. But living in the future is “a lot like having bees live in your head.” (Firesign Theater)

Also, the daughter of the English teacher (the deceased’s grand daughter) got up to read a poem. I braced myself. But it turned out to be “Do no go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. I’m not sure about how the content related exactly to what was happening in the mourners, but I love Thomas.

Martin Pasi supposedly arrived in town last night. He was in Chicago and graciously offered to drive up and tinker with our instrument. It has some persistent ciphers and weird stuff that he will hopefully fix today.

It’s a discouraging time in the USA.  Yesterday in our weekly meeting, my boss and I both admitted that we felt like the church where we work and serve is the only church we could do so. In my boss’s case she was observing that one of our ladies guild was holding its monthly meeting in a sports bar. In my case, it’s more of a general disillusion with people who believe more than they think.

But having said that, last night’s choir rehearsal went well. It’s a small choir. I had five people out of fifteen missing, but miracle of miracle we had two new members.

Jen, my boss, and I were also mulling on the fact that if everyone in our church community who had been in the choir was in the choir now we would have a substantial number of people. Most if not all of the people who have left the choir have chosen not to discuss it with me. So I’m not absolutely sure why they quit. Although one former member did say that she experienced the choir as a “clusterfuck” and that it felt “toxic” to her. (I encouraged her to quit while informing her that many Sundays Jen and I experience church as a “clusterfuck.”).

So we made it through our first rehearsal. I can see I have  my work cut out for me again in trying to pull a decent sound from well meaning but exhausted volunteers. We did put on our new Anglican type robes and march around, practicing Sunday’s procession while singing.

I guess morale was pretty high by the end of the evening.

Today I have a funeral. It purports to be a rather large one. The man who died was actually Roman Catholic but we’re burying him. For many years he and his wife attended different churches, the wife attending Grace. But I think the Roman Catholics have driven many of their members to “see a more pleasant” place to pray.

President Trump was in my dreams last night. He wasn’t evil, just obnoxious.

Michigan Gambled on Charter Schools. Its Children Lost. – The New York Times

Back when I read the hard copy of the New York Times I looked forward to the Fall Education Supplement. Having read the NYT for so many years I know the rhythms of its various offerings like Tuesday Science Supplement and Wednesday Food Supplement. Now navigating its stories via its stupid app, the experience of its past rhythms is helpful. All this is to say that I think the Fall Education supplement is coming up. But accessing the paper through the app means that as stories get written they are put in the app and not delayed until a supplement or even the Sunday version of the paper.

The above story about Michigan Charter schools is a heartbreaking one and has contributed to my generally discouraged mood with the age of Trump.

It and the next link are long reads. They are obviously prepared for the Education Supplement.

The Resegregation of Jefferson County – The New York Times

This article is striking in many respects. I continue to read Edward E. Baptist’s The Half  Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The USA is a country divided and torn by racial strife. I had no idea that the struggle to desegregate schools seems to have had an uninterrupted history since the fifties. Sheesh. No wonder white nationalism is such a problem.

I thought I would blog now in the morning since today promises to  be another full one. I didn’t sleep great last night.I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular. Dead family appeared in my dreams, smiling, unspeaking. I think I probably got enough sleep but I remember tossing and turning much of the night.

I have many little tasks today in order to get ready for this evening’s rehearsal. They are the details of preparation that make up a choir director’s itinerary. I also have to meet with Rev Jen and give a piano lesson. Tomorrow I have a funeral to play and an eye doctor appointment in Grand Rapids in the afternoon.

And with all this stuff, I have some serious practicing and composing to continue.

The Playlist: U2 Dances Into Darkness and 11 More New Songs

I love these playlists. I hope I have time to listen some of this.

Trump Syllabus 2.0 | Public Books

An interesting set of links , many to recommended books. It will take some time to sort through this.

Salman Rushdie’s Prose Joins the Circus in ‘The Golden House’ – The New York Times

Speaking of Trump, he seems to have made it into Rushdie’s new book. Cool.

To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now – The New York Times

This is a heartbreak of a story. It reminds me of a quote I read this morning: “The British philosopher Stuart Hampshire has suggested in Innocence and Experience that a culture’s moral sensibility depends less on divisions between ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ than on whether any particular issue—slavery, opprobrium regarding sexual preference and practices, certain uses of power—is perceived as falling within the morality of all.” from Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World by Jane Hirshfield.

Phone Mic – iGadget Store

I need one of these.

John Ashbery, a Singular Poet Whose Influence Was Broad, Dies at 90 – The New York Times

I didn’t know his poetry that well.

Read John Ashbery’s Poetry – The New York Times

I read all of these. Not sure what I think.

It’s martini time in Helland Michigan and I’m blogging a little bit. Eileen just left for her Weaver’s Guild meeting in Grand Rapids. I have been busy preparing for tomorrow night’s first choir rehearsal of the season. Also I have been practicing the Pasi more and more for the sheer pleasure of it. It does have some beautiful sounds.

I received an email from Chris Brodersen, the harpsichord dude. He asked if I could wait until October to bring my harpsichord to his shop. He has a big recital coming up at the end of September. This seems reasonable to me. I just hope he doesn’t go away like the last builder did.

I have been working daily on “Mental Floss” which is another reason I don’t have as much time to blog. It’s coming along.

I also wrote a press release for Sept 24th recital and emailed it to my boss and Mary Miller, the office admin. If it gets out soon, it will be the earliest we have submitted something to the local paper. Maybe this time they’ll actually use it or put us on their fucking calendar or something.

Well it’s time to read and continue sipping my martini.

My life is good that’s for sure.

I finally heard back from Chris Brodersen (pictured above). He is not enthusiastic about restoring an old Zuckerman, but said he would do it. Cool. I have asked him when I can bring it to his Northville workshop for an estimate and repair. I can’t believe I’m getting closer to getting my little Zuckerman back in working order.

Choir starts Wednesday. I’m feeling on schedule. Eileen will help me get the folders ready. I already have all but two of the anthems between now and Advent laying out ready to stuff.

I continue to work daily on “Mental Floss.” This morning I put in yesterday’s corrections. I’m feeling very tired this afternoon. I’m quite likely not going to go back to church to practice upcoming music. Mostly I have the Calvin Hampton piece to work on. And to continue to work on “Mental Floss” at the bench.

Music at church today went buy valium xanax online well. I had a parishioner indicate they wanted to join the choir. That’s new. We haven’t had a new member for several years.

The cult of the individual – Susan Tomes

Susan Tomes is an English pianist whose blog I read regularly. This entry is depressing since it talks about the reluctance of music students to attend master classes. What the heck?

A Controversial Restoration That Wipes Away the Past – The New York Times

Black Madonna a result of direct grime? Who knew?

As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong With Us? – The New York Times

The public commons is something I thing about quite a lot. I’m encourage this kind of discussion is going on anywhere in the world.

Human Toll of Harvey Comes Into View as Waters Recede – The New York Times

This article clarifies how people died in Harvey. I always wonder about what causes the deaths.

Eileen is canning up a storm.  This morning she is finishing up the roma tomatoes we bought on Wednesday. This is her second batch of tomatoes. The first batch was not roma. In addition to tomatoes she made a bunch of blackberry and strawberry jam. She is planning on making huckleberry jam as well.

I am working hard on “Mental Floss.” I’m not satisfied with my progress but I’m getting nervous about the difficulty. I keep thinking about the piece and coming up with ideas. This morning I did a full rewrite of the first version of it. Now I have a more or less complete sketch. I was surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be. I printed it up and will be working on it further both at the organ and on Finale.

While I was at the grocery store, I received a text that my copy of Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism was on the hold shelf for me at the library. I stopped on the way home and grabbed it. I am looking forward to reading it and learning more about how slavery actually impacted America (and continues to do so until this day).

I still haven’t heard back from harpsichord builder, Chris Broderson. He is the second dude I have contacted about helping me finish refurbishing my instrument. I messaged him and just emailed him as well. Next step I guess is to call the phone number on his web site.

Eileen assures me that we can afford this. She has been talking to bat removal people. It looks like we have a colony and it’s going to cost as much as refurbishing the harpsichord to get them removed, probably about $2 K in each case although I only have an estimate from a builder who seems to have fallen off the internet and quit responding to emails. Not Broderson, the other guy’s name is Enid Sutherland. Both names were given to me by Professor Gregory Cowell.

 George Walker: Concise and Precise | NewMusicBox

This came across my Fakebook feed. I haven’t read it or listened to his music yet.