It surprised me a little at how much I enjoyed having my daughter, Sarah,and grand daughter, Lucy, at church yesterday.

It cheered me considerably.

Before and after church I had the usual people coming at me. The retired English prof decided that just before the prelude would be a good time to quiz me about the publicity for the Grace Notes Recitals.

This dude is beginning to lose his faculties. He was surprised to find out that during the organ purchase process I had asked for two committees to be formed around the recitals, one for publicity and one for development.  He told me he figured I just didn’t care about publicizing the concerts. I tried to make it clear to him that I had only so much energy and wanted to use it to arranging for the recitals. The skill sets needed for publicity and development are available in parishioners such as himself.

All this, just before sitting down and conducting the choir through one verse of “Comfort, comfort ye my people,” then performing three variations. on it by Georg Böhm.

I sometimes feel like Friedman’s dude in the fable with his nerves on the outside of his skin. The only difference is that I try not to act on my shuddering emotional reactions.

My organ playing went well yesterday. Despite the fact that Mary Miller omitted the name of my postlude from the bulletin, people seemed very interested  in my Sweelinck toccata. It was fun to perform.

Eileen, Sarah, and Lucy drove up for a visit with Eileen’s Mom yesterday afternoon.

I stopped and said Hi to my Mom, then practiced for a couple of hours.

Eileen says I’m practicing more than I used to.

It is fun to have such a fine instrument at one’s disposal, that’s for sure.

Surrounded by Books | Chronicles Magazine

Charming article by an elderly historian who sees himself living at the end of an age, the age of books and the word. I relate.

The Washington Post: Here are 7 differences Republicans must resolve between their tax bills

This bill looks like a travesty.

NYTimes: Detroit’s Untold Stories of Slavery

This historian interests me.

I guess one of the dangers of browsing for books to take home and peruse is being fooled on the accuracy of some of them. This morning, after ordering a copy of Kevin Youngs, Bunk, (more on that later) I turned to Sharyl Attkisson’s The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote. 

My first clue about Attkisson was in her bio on the back sleeve of the book in which she is identified as “host of Sinclair’s national investigative television program Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.  Whoa! I poked around and found a Sinclair interview she did with Trump where she abetted his lies. That book goes back to the library unbrowsed.

The Kevin Young book represents more aligning of the stars for me.  As I mentioned here previously I ran across Mr. Young on a New York Public Library podcast.  I thought he sounded interesting so I ran down a few books of his, poetry and checked out a copy of his most recent book, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Post-facts, and Fake News. 

Young is quite the dude. He is the current poetry editor of the New Yorker. He has published ten collections of his own poetry and edited many others. I don’t know how he was not more on my radar. But the cool thing is that two of his books, To Repel Ghosts and To Repel Ghosts: the remix are based on the work of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat. The name had a niggling familiarity about it for me.  I discovered that this was the artists that Jennifer Vonholstein, Martin Pasi’s wife, had spent some of her youth with in New York City and had recently attended a retrospective of his work in London.

That’s her in the pic above.

I don’t have time to start another book at this time, reading too many at once as it is, but I decided to purchase the Bunked book and put it on the stack. I also want to learn more about Basquiat. It is from his work that I drew all of today’s blog pics.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The neglected genius – BBC News

This is an article feature Jennifer von Holstein.

A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility – Brain Pickings

Excerpts from another book I have to order.

NYTimes: Vicente Fox: Borders Can’t Protect Us

I do like it when players write articles.

 NYTimes: Republicans’ Tax Lies Show the Rot Spreads Wide and Runs Deep

The most recent On The Media Podcast

The most recent Fivethirtyeight Podcast

I put these last two links here. I recommend  clicking on them and listening to the podcasts if you haven’t already. The first few minutes of the “On the Media” podcast enumerates the many crazy things Trump has done in the last week. The Fivethirtyedight Podcast makes a case that Trump and/or Kushner are Mueller’s targets for prosecution.

I think that looking at the increased Trump craziness and the fact that Mueller is closing in on him or Kushner might be related. It’s not inconceivable to me that Trump is becoming even more unhinged as he sees the approaching events. God. I hope he doesn’t start a war with Korea.

Another happy thought from Jupe

My piano trio had an unusual rehearsal yesterday. As a group we are clear that we are getting together for our own pleasure. When Amy the violinist arrived she asked if we could do something other than our current Mozart project to warm up. This is not unusual for her. She likes to warm up with something.

I suggested we do some reading in a very old collection we have, Carl Fischer’s Favorite Trio Album edited by Gaston Borch, copyright 1914. 

We played a piece by Chaminade (pictured above, I didn’t know she was a woman. My other members of the trio would probably find that satisfying). Then Tchaikowsky.

Amy loves the romantic stuff. We played another piece from this collection. We kept playing through pieces from this collection for our entire time together. Amy left charged up and happy. Actually all of us did.

I have come to realize how much I enjoy playing music with other people. This includes but is obviously not limited to my trio, the Grace choir, and the Grace congregation as it belts out hymnody and service music.

It may be this pleasure that keeps me putting off retiring despite ebbing energy.

Speaking of ebbing energy, the last two days have been challenging for me that way.I have managed to exercise (treadmill) for the last three days, returning to my pre Thanksgiving regimen. But I have had lots of fatigue. It’s hard to tell exactly from what it is stemming, probably a combination of stuff.

Kick Against the Pricks | by Laura Kipnis | The New York Review of Books

I was impressed with Larua Kipnis in a recent podcast, I Have To Ask: The Laura Kipnis Edition – Slate Magazine Daily Feed (podcast). This is a good read better than the interview in the podcast.

In Carpenter v. United States, Neil Gorsuch showed his independent streak.

Finally something positive from this brilliant but highly reactive justice.