Mark stayed until lunchtime yesterday. He has a been a huge help in the time he was here. We spent the morning doing Mom related tasks. Eileen went to get her hair done. The three of us finished up our time together having lunch at The Biscuit.

One non-Mom related task I did yesterday was stop by the library and pick up a book I reserved.

Damn! Here I go again. This is a book I’m probably going to have to own and study. The author was recommended to me by my therapist, Dr. Birky. I glanced over the Table of Contents (which is cleverly followed by an Expanded Table of Contents) and was intrigued. I was prepared for it to be a bit hokier than it is.

This morning I began looking at the book again. When he defined “mind” I wanted to mark the passage. As I said above: Damn!

I’ve got to quit buying so many books.

For what it’s worth here’s Siegel’s definition: “By mind, I mean all that relates to our subjective felt experience of being alive, from feelings to thoughts, from intellectual ideas to inner sensory immersions before and beneath words, to our felt connections to other people and our planet. And mind also refers to our consciousness, the experience of knowing within awareness.”

After Mark left, I went over to church and spent some delicious leisure time examining music. I decided to schedule the choral anthem, William Mathias’s “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”, for Easter. It has a prominent organ part and will show off our new instrument nicely.

WILLIAM MATHIAS

I also read through a ton contemporary English organ music and found a piece I might be able to learn. I don’t remember the composer but he’s another one of those English dudes like Mathias.

I practices upcoming postludes (no preludes in Lent due to a gathering chant). Also read through a ton of Easter pieces in the basic anthology called The Golden Treasury.

This anthology is a bit dated in its editions, but most the pieces are gems. Composers are basically the great baroque organ composers. Lots of Bach, but also Krebs, Buxtehude, Bohm, and others. I read through a nice piece by Krebs and a transcription of a movement from Bach’s Easter cantata on Christ Lag in Todesbanden.

I came home and made a martini and watched the first part of Sting’s “When the Last Ship Sails” video.

This is another thing to thank my brother for (Thank you, Mark!). He mentioned to me that Sting had written a cool song called “Dead Man’s Boots.”

You may or may not know that not too long after my Father died, I wrote a piece called “Dead Man’s Pants.” That was back when I was doing more playing in local coffee shops. I remember the performance fondly. I gathered several fine musicians from Grace Church and other places. The final set up was cello, violin, bass, drums, piano, and me on vocals, banjo and guitar. It’s a fun little piece.

So it was interesting to learn about Sting’s piece which is part of musical he wrote.

Here’s a song I like from it.

The entire video is on YouTube.

Sting When the Last Ship Sails 20131222 2350 – YouTube

Mark, my brother, arrived yesterday around noon. Eileen, Mark, and I met with Laurie, a Medicaid specialist provided by Resthaven. We learned that we do not have to worry about Mom’s car at this point. Apparently, when you divest yourself of all income and assets in order to go on Medicaid, you may keep one car. Eileen and I are thinking of maybe purchasing another car anyway, since my harpsichord doesn’t fit in Mom’s car. Plus I’ve never really liked it that much. It’s just been convenient to use for free.

Laurie walked us through the Medicaid app. The way this works is Mom has to spend down her bank account by paying for her care at the facility she is at. When she runs out of money, medicaid kicks in if it we are successful in our application for it. It is very helpful to have a person like Laurie shepherding us through this process. She knows it well and helped me make a list of tasks that I need to accomplish before we can complete and submit the application. For example we need to submit  a copy of Mom’s irrevocable funeral arrangement (pre paid for) with the application

After meeting with Laurie we went to see Mom. She had been moved to her new room in what they call the Jacob Cottage. Like all the “cottages” it is a designated wing of a large facility. Mom continues to fail. Her new nurse, Mike, had an idea of medication that might help slow down her saliva which now drips from her mouth pretty constantly. He recommended to the doctor and the doctor agreed that it was worth trying.

If Mom had less saliva in her mouth, maybe she would be less likely to think she is not able to breath when in fact she is breathing fine.

Mike also reported that Mom was taken to the cafeteria for lunch. This is hard to imagine. She is barely able to keep her head up and communicates in short cryptic phrases that don’t always make sense. However, Jacob’s Cottage mostly houses people with dementia so I surmise they are pretty hands on with the help.

Mom hasn’t been diagnosed with dementia but it was the only semi private available when she needed a bed. It’s a nice set up.

After seeing Mom we went to the funeral home and picked up the doc we need for the medicaid app. One medicaid app task down about five more to go.

Then we went to Mom’s apartment at Maplewood and began the work of sorting through her possessions, deciding what to donate to Bibles for Mexico and what we should keep.

We asked Laurie if it was legit to use Mom’s money to pay for Two Men and a Truck to assist us with this process. She said it was. So that’s a relief. Mainly we have to sort through and then call them and hire them to move Mom’s chair to our house (for example) and either have the movers take stuff to Bibles for Mexico or arrange for a pick up by the thrift store.

We brought home two boxes of mostly pictures. Mark intends to find out if Leigh will digitize these for us. She has done lots of that sort of thing.

We went to the Curragh for supper, then home and watched the movie, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri. Good flick.

So we accomplished a lot yesterday. That is satisfying. But it’s a bittersweet time as Mom transitions to the last phase of her life.

I have been finishing books. Since I read many books simultaneously, it’s good to report that I do finish some. This morning I finished Kevin Young’s For the Confederate Dead. It’s a library copy. I’m feeling over indulgent about ordering stuff through the mail. There are two poems in this book that I like a lot.  The second of the two, Redemption Song, is online. In searching for it just now, I notice that I bookmarked this poem about a month ago. I didn’t remember this. It was only this morning reading through For the Confederate Dead, that it struck me anew.

I like these lines:

Grief might be easy
if there wasn’t still
such beauty — would be far
simpler if the silver

maple didn’t thrust
its leaves into flame,
trusting that spring
will find it again.

There’s a recording of Kevin Young reading it at the link above. I listened to him read this morning.

The first of the two poems is entitled “Americana.” Here’s a link to google books where you can read it.

I also recently finished Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing, Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure,  and Lars Gustafsson’s Elegies and Other Poems. All good reads.

NYTimes: Save Money and Reset Your Financial Life With a Shopping Ban

This article led me to consider if I should pare down my book collection some. God knows I could use the shelf space.

Rob Clearfield – Pianist, Keyboardist, Guitarist and Composer

This guy gave a concert yesterday here in Holland. After church I listened to some of his music and decided not to go. I like that Hope Church brought in someone like this. I wanted to like his music, but ended up having to listen to some rock and roll to purge the fluffiness that went into my head from his stuff.

In Search of Virginia Woolf’s Lost Eden in Cornwall – The New York Times

I read a lot of this article while treadmilling today. I guess I’m kind of a life long fan of Woolf. I loved Orlando and To the Lighthouse. I’ve been to Cornwall so it’s fun to learn that the terrain can be found in some of her work.

NYTimes: Uncovering the Secrets of the ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’

So now they do not need to touch the painting in order to find out about it. Very cool.

This is an odd little report. I’m a “Great Books” fan and think that one only benefits from reading Plato, Homer, and those kind of guys. I am uneasy about the emphasis on economics. I guess I have mixed feelings and would have liked to see more embrace of this stuff from a Humanities curriculum point of view. Some cool comments, however.

NYTimes: America Is the Gun

We need to refund the CDC’s research on guns and violence and create a national registry of guns. Charles Blow (the writer) advocates these changes and others. He also says its not going to happen. I think he is spot on.

NYTimes: The Consequences of Judicial Activism on the Supreme Court

This is happening. I like the headline. He ain’t talking about liberals.

The Mind is Flat: The Illusion of Mental Depth and The Improvised Mind – Nick Chater – Google Books

I heard this guy on  Start The Week podcast  this morning. His book comes out this month.

Yesterday was a good day for me. I had a good session with Dr. Birky, my therapist. I drove back to Holland and spent some time practicing organ. Then came home. Eileen had experimented with the Meijer grocery delivery service and had our groceries delivered.

Very cool. Since we didn’t have to mess with groceries, Eileen and I decided to go out for lunch, then see Mom, then go to a movie. So that’s what we did. We were home waiting for it to be time to go see the movie, when my daughter in law, Cynthia, called and gave me updates on California Jenkinses.

We saw “Black Panther.” I enjoyed it. I haven’t been much of movie person lately, but I’m thinking it can be a good distraction and my brother has recommended some to me.  “Black Panther” struck me like a very good comic book. I like comic books. Stan Lee made a cameo appearance in it which tickled me. He and Jack Kirby wrote the original comic book the movie is based on.

My speakers arrived in the mail yesterday as well. I now have speakers in the living room and kitchen which I can easily connect to  a tablet,  phone, or laptop to listen to music and podcasts. I discovered this morning that the crappy speakers I had been using in the kitchen are not working properly. So I’m probably going to order a third set of them. These I will set up in the bathroom.

Books arrived in the mail yesterday. I was excited to discover that The Grey Album: On the Blackneess of Blackness by Kevin Young is not a book of poetry but of prose. I am currently reading his book: Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News. With its lengthy subtitle, you can get an idea of what it’s about. The Grey Album is trickier. I glanced through the table of contents and was happy to see that it talks a lot about music, specifically African American music, one of my great interests. The blurb says that the book “illustrates the African American tradition of lying,” but that seems too reductive glancing through it. I’ll know more after I start reading it.

Listening to Mozart on my new speakers this morning while doing dishes, I continued the feeling I had yesterday of being very lucky, despite grieving over Mom and facing the transition of this part of her life and ours. Hell, I’m actually feel spoiled and not a little self indulgent. Life is good.

I’ve been going a little crazy ordering books in the mail, books of poetry. Also, a second set of speakers like the ones Eileen ordered a while back. I’m planning on using them in the kitchen.

Yesterday I ordered a copy of Anthony Hecht’s Collected Later Poems. I have  mentioned him here before.

The pic above is Hecht. He died in 2004. I have the book checked out from the library right now and have been reading in it. He and Richard Wilbur seem to me to be a certain kind of “craft” poet. I usually read a bit of Shakespeare each day. Right now I’m almost done with Measure for Measure. Shakespeare’s language like the language of the King James Bible is lovely English. It makes me aware of how words work in a different way from many other poets that I also love. Hecht and Wilbur seem to hew their poems carefully so that I’m attract not only to the poem but how it works.

I ordered Wilbur’s Collected Poems as well. A library copy of this book is also sitting next to my chair and I have been reading in it.

Then there’s Kevin Young. He has been on my radar for a while. I ordered two of his books of poetry: The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness and To Repel Ghosts: The Remix.

They should arrive today with my speakers along with one one more book, Silencer by Marcus Wicker.

At the same time, I’m reading (but not buying) Kevin Young’s 2007 book, For the Confederate Dead.

I’m not sure how I ended up reading all this stuff. I find that poetry is a good place for me to go most times. Working through my Mom’s current decline, I may be turning to stuff that keeps me going. Also, I have my bi-weekly meeting with my shrink today. I’m looking forward to talking to him.

Meena Alexander Reads Gerald Stern | The New Yorker

I listened to this this morning. I like the two poems in this podcast. I especially like how Alexander has in an insight about the relationship between her poem and Stern’s. This seems to occur during the podcast. Cool beans!

Yesterday I was having my weekly chat with my boss, Rev Jen. We were talking about my wife. I said that Eileen doesn’t “suffer fools gladly” and wondered  out loud how she manages to stay married to me. Then I said, “The phone helps.” Jen was amused by this and understood since she is in a long term relationship herself and we often compare notes about what married life is like for us and our spouses.

It’s a bit counter intuitive since these days we are so concerned about being enslaved to screens small, medium, and large. But when you’re an intense old guy like me who often does act a bit foolish, it’s nice to think that Eileen has a bit of escape valve in her smart phone.

Local Church Installs World Class Pipe Organ

I broke down and wrote a little narrative news story to submit to the Sentinel. I’m waiting for Jen to okay it. Comments welcome.

Tuesday Poem

This is a bit of a dated link but I do see some recent activity. It’s some sort of an poet co-op which connects online poems and blogs.

A Celebrity Philosopher Explains the Populist Insurgency | The New Yorker

I found this an interesting read. I interlibrary loaned a few of Sloterdijk’s books.

NYTimes: A Lesson on Immigration From Pablo Neruda

Poets in the news.

NYTimes: A Better Way to Protect Mueller

Kenneth Starr co-wrote this article. I did not know about how Bork acted intelligently after the Nixon Saturday night massacre.  (I can’t believe I wrote a sentence with both the words, “Bork,” and “intelligent” in it!)

Tuesday Poem: ‘Poroporoaki to the Lord My God: weaving the Via Dolorosa’ by Anahera Gildea

Here’s another specific link to Tuesday Poem. This is how I found the site. I was searching for poetry by Anahera Gildea who is one of the New Zealand poets represented in the Feb issue of Poetry Magazine. Oy vay. Via Dolorosa = Stations of the Cross. More religious stuff from Jupe.

My brother, Mark, came over for a quick visit yesterday. The three of us, Mark, Eileen, and I, went to see my Mom. She looked a little more withdrawn than the day before, but not as bad she has been. They have decided to move her after Thursday when a semi private bed becomes available in long term care. I told her this, despite it not being clear how much she was understanding. She seems to be taking some nourishment but tires very quickly when we visit. For the first time yesterday, after having consented to look at pics of Alex and Lucy, my granddaughters, Mom stopped the show murmuring, “No more.” This is very new behavior. Mark had a chance to talk with Rachel, Mom’s social worker at the cottage, and Kim, her nurse on the wing for the day.

I am surprised how disturbed I am to watch Mom die. It’s something I’ve been seeing coming. Nevertheless the reality of her approaching death is difficult for me to process. Weird, really.

I continue to read Calivino’s Invisible Cities. This morning a passage struck me that seem elucidate my own attitude toward playing and thinking about music and poetry:

“Perhaps everything lies in knowing what words to speak, what actions to perform, and in what order and rhythm; or the someone’s gaze, answer, gesture is enough; it is enough for someone to do something for the sheer pleasure of doing it, and for his pleasure to become the pleasure of others.”

When I read that, I felt like it described how I feel about performing music especially.

Then I picked up Marcus Wicker’s book of poems, Silencer.

I have been enjoying his work. It’s been rather dark and hip. But this morning I read a poem that was full of optimism and even faith called “Plea to My Jealous Heart.” I haven’t been able to find a copy online to link. The poem has the inscription: “Pray without ceasing” attributed to Saint Paul. The first lines grabbed me:

What’s funny is you think I can stop praying.
That you think I take existence—blown dandelion
across a philtrum—lightly, as irresponsible
birdsong. As the wren, finch, chickadee & prairie warbler.
As scarlet tanager, indigo bunting, laughing gull, trumpeter
swan. As common sparrows
outside my window canting dervish loops…”

I was caught off guard because the poems before this one by Wicker were wicked and dark. Now I was hearing a joie de vivre which attracted me.

On his web site he has a page of notes on this volume of poetry. About this poem, he says “Plea to My Jealous Heart” was written after reading “The Unceasing Prayer of Mount Athos: A Short Trip to the Edge” by Scott Cairns.”

I clicked on the link and read the article. I recommend it, but warn you it’s religious. I especially like the part the writer quotes from his own book about meeting with a monk on Mt. Athos. This monk tells him that God

“is never not here,” he said, touching his upper abdomen, “but when you plead to know He’s here, and when He answers you, and helps you to meet Him here, you will be wounded by that meeting. The wound will help you know, and that is the blessing.

He is referring to the story of Jacob and the angel (God) in which Jacob refuses to let go of the angel until he blesses him.

Consequently, Jacob is wounded. I use that word a lot when I talk about Grace church. We are community of wounded people, but that’s practically redundant. All people are wounded in some way. It’s part of living. What we do with our wounds makes a difference. The wound can help as well as hurt.

I like juxtaposing this story with the Wicker poem. There is something wounding about experiencing the beauty in life. I think Wicker is on to something.

Mom update

I’ve contacted family members with a Mom update. But there are others of you who might be interested in the ongoing saga of my Mom. Oddly, yesterday was a record day of hits on this blog: 80.

Anyway, Eileen and I went over to the rehab cottage where Mom is currently staying. We had an appointment with her care team and went over early to check in on her. We were surprised to find her placidly sitting up in bed. She looked much better. She was much more responsive than the previous few days. She seemed interested in seeing pictures of grandkids (a usual ritual we go through on almost every daily visit). After a while she said she was tired and wanted to sleep.

Mom’s Aetna/Medicare is paying for stay at the rehab cottage part of the Resthaven complex. It is dependent on her doing some sort of physical therapy and giving indications however feeble that she is on the road to function better. The physical therapist and the social worker told us that if she didn’t show any improvement in her ability to take care of herself by Thursday, then she would have to be transferred to another room in the complex designated as full care. At that point, we would pay for this with what is left of her money and then apply for Medicaid.

I’m planning to attempt to communicate to Mom that she is at a bit of a crossroads. It is possible she will rally a bit and start to at least attempt to get better. There have only been a couple of days this week when I began to wonder if she was, indeed, losing her will to live. So we’ll see.

Alan Moore continues to delight

Last night, I was reading in Jerusalem by Alan Moore. I was pleasantly surprised when Alma Warren, the female character apparently loosely based on Alan Moore himself, pulled out a treasured copy of Forbidden Worlds No. 110.

She then proceeded to check to see if the Monk on the cover appeared in the Herbie adventure in this issue. She suspected it was “a generic piece of artwork pulled from the inventory.” Thumbing through the Herbie chapter, she discovers she’s right.

Alma is an artist herself. This is very important to the plot of the trilogy but I’ll spare you that at this point. She (and presumably Moore himself) admires the artist who drew Herbie, Ogden Whitney.

When I was reading last night, I wondered how much Moore was making up. I was delighted, because as a young man I read Herbie comics.  If you are a careful reader of my blog, you will know that he occasionally appears here. As you can see, Moore was making nothing up.

In the course of checking it out I discovered a very cool online site that allows you to read old comics. Here’s a link to the Forbidden Worlds No. 110

learning stuff from poetry

I was reading “LÀ-BAS: A TRANCE,” a poem by Anthony Hecht from his Collected Later Poems. Richard Wilbur wrote a funny little poem about Hecht that made me curious about his work.  So that led me to interlibrary loan his Collected Later Poems.

The poem above ends this way:

Carpaccio’s Middle East evokes an air-borne
Carpet, a sash and headgear the color of flame
Turned into Holland’s tulips whose very name
Comes to him from the Turkish word for turban.

Baptism of the Selenites by Carpaccio.

I looked it up and it’s true. Tulip comes from the word turban presumably because of its shape. Who knew?

I haven’t posted here for a few days. A lot has gone on.

First of all, I attended a concert last Friday evening that blew me away. It was the Parker Quartet. I looked on YouTube to see if their current configuration of members has anything there. They have recently changed the second violinist. I couldn’t find anything with this new guy on second violin.

Anyway, the way these four people played together was mind boggling. I read a review that said they made some music sound as though they were making it up on the spot. Their ability to uniformly interpret Mendelssohn and Beethoven blew me away. I’ve never seen such fine playing.

Then when Eileen and I visited my Mom Saturday we found her in a much worse state. She was in bed murmuring over and over, “I can’t breathe.” We asked her if she had told the nurses. She nodded. We tried to distract her. Eileen showed her how her Valentine flowers were blooming. She looked but said nothing. After a bit, I went and talked to the nurses. Mom had been doing this for the last 24 hours or so.  All her vitals were good: oxygen normal, respiration normal.

The doctor’s best guess was that she was experiencing panic due to the worsening of her  myasthenia gravis. He gave her some Xanax.

Also, she was refusing food and drink.

It was the same thing Sunday. We didn’t get to chat with her because she was sleeping fitfully. My brother is making plans to come over and see her soon. We are meeting with her care team today but it doesn’t look good for Mom.

I’m prepared for my 91 year old Mom to die of course. I’d like to have her around as long as possible, but it does occur to me that she won’t last for ever. It bothers me to see her suffering. But there’s nothing much can be done about it since she is not actually physically struggling so much as she is very weak and deluded.

If she continues to refuse sustenance, I expect that will be the ultimate cause of her death. I just wish it was more comfortable for her at this point.

NYTimes: Three Lives, and the Tenuous Ties That Bind Them

I heard Lisa Halliday interviewed recently in a podcast. I thought she sounded interesting so I bookmarked this review to help me remember her book.

NYTimes: An Organ — and Soon Another — Lands on Broadway

This article mentions Peter Sykes who recently visited my church to check out our organ. I read this article with interest because I have decided to submit a full article on our organ installation to the Holland Sentinel. It’s kind of a pain because, of course, there’s no guarantee they will use it. But I thought I would try it since it’s so easy to submit online now.

NYTimes: The Tyranny of Convenience

I think a lot about how tech is designed and how I use it.

Outliers and American Vanguard Art

An article in the New York Times (I think) led me to this link where there are 22 pictures from a show. I love outlier stuff like this.

I finished the second volume of Alan Moore’s Jerusalem on Sunday. Entitled, Mansoul, the action of this book takes place in the afterlife (Mansoul). The entire time span of the book is only a few minutes in the life of Michael Warren. In the first volume we learn that he choked on a cough drop and was apparently lifeless for a few minutes. It is during this time that he spends an entire 440 pages “Upstairs” (the title of the first chapter).

After finishing this volume, I was struck by the breadth of Moore’s allusions so far. William Blake,

John Bunyan,

Malcolm Arnold (composer),

Lucia Joyce (James’ daughter), Samuel Becket and many others.

Moore’s name for the afterlife, “Mansoul,” comes from John Bunyan’s less known work, Holy War.

Another surprise feature of the book, is Moore’s use of Philip Doddridge as a main figure, especially in Mansoul.

Doddridge was a real life character who penned numerous hymns. Six of the hundreds he wrote are in the Hymnal 1982. Moore weaves quotes from Doddridge hymns into his prose, as well as quotes from Bob Dylan. And, of course, the name of the trilogy, Jerusalem,  alludes in part to the hymn, “And did those feet in ancient time,”  with words taken from Blake’s longer poem, Milton A Poem, and tune by Hubert Parry whose name is Jerusalem.

In Mansoul a roving gang of dead children, the Dead Dead Gang, which has adopted Michael Warren as a sort of mascot moves easily between time periods. Moore gently adopts the notion of predestination as a reality of his story.

The angels in the afterlife (angles, builders) speak a compact language that is Joycean-plus and unravels in the ear of the normal listener to many times the length of whatever the angel has said.  But when asked if there is such a thing as “free will,” one of them clearly answers for a change and simply says, “No.”

I think this makes sense, because how can one move easily from the future to the past if the present is constantly in flux due to “free will.” This is a curious notion for Moore to use and like so much of his novel surprising to me.

I have started the third volume, Vernall’s Inquest. I’m only about twenty pages in, but the narrator is a builder/angel/angle. I’m loving it.

NYTimes: Finding a Lost Strain of Rice, and Clues to Slave Cooking

I love this. Tracing heritage via plant genetics.

God’s Own Music | by Ian Bostridge | The New York Review of Books

Disclaimer: I haven’t read this yet and it was put up by a typical church snob on Facebook.

Tuesday I spent the day worrying if my Mom was going to be taken care of. Back in December of last year, I received a notice out of the blue that Social Security was canceling Mom’s benefits because I had neglected to submit the annual report on adjustments in her income. They use this to adjust the amount they pay her.

I’m afraid I overlooked a notice this was needed around the time of the big recital in October. Anyway, I immediately took steps to submit this information. This is what I thought the next step was. Then i received a billing for Mom’s Medicare insurance because SS had stopped paying it. I was sure that I had paid this, but we couldn’t find a canceled check in Mom’s account.

It took two days for the hospital to get an okay from Mom’s insurance (Aetna/Medicare) that she could proceed to the off site Rehab center. I was terrified that it was delayed because she had lost her benefits and that they wouldn’t take her.

About 4 or 5 PM last night we got the call that the paper work had come through okay. Big sigh! This rehab center is part of the big Resthaven complex which includes where Mom has been living and also Boersma cottage where Dad died.

Eileen and I met with the admissions person today. I almost wept when she assured us that though the plan is to try to get Mom functioning enough to return to Maplewood, her nursing home, they would continue to care for her no matter what until death. And that they would help us with the transition from Medicare to Medicaid (a big deal for me!).

Where Mom is staying is very like the cottage where Dad was so well cared for as he was dying. In fact Boersma cottage where he stayed is across the parking lot from the Rehab Cottage. She has a nice little apartment. We took over clothes, pictures, books, her hearing aids, her walker, her favorite sitting blanket, and some other stuff. There is all kinds of exercising equipment available. I am expecting them to do physical therapy with her. Yesterday when we visited her at the hospital, the physical therapists couldn’t get her to take more than a few steps. She is very weak and largely non-communicative. Her myasthenia gravis is getting worse. This means she has difficulty swallowing and a higher level of saliva. Basically she has spent a lot of the last few days very miserable.

She is getting excellent care however, both at the hospital and now at the Rehab center. This is a load off my mind, believe me.

Eileen and I took the entire day yesterday and drove to Detroit and back to bring my harpsichord back to Holland. Weirdly, Christopher Brodersen did not have the instrument entirely ready to put in my rented van. This was after he had requested that I come before  noon to pick it up.

However, It was helpful for him to walk me through the adjustments in the jacks that will probably be necessary as I use the instrument.

His disdain for my old harpsichord was palpable. In reassembling some of the instrument as we watched, I’m not sure he wasn’t doing a small bit of damage as  he drilled new holes for screws to hold the board that lays just below the keyboard. This did not hold. This little strip came off as Eileen and I were lugging the harpsichord into the church.

He also had to re-secure the keyboard itself to the instrument, again drilling new holes. I’m pretty sure he put it back in a slightly different place than it was originally. I also noticed a crack in the wood under the keyboard.

This clunky old Zuckerman is almost fifty years old so any use I can get out of it is a small miracle. I have always liked the sound of it. But Brodersen with a smirk as we were leaving offered to take me into the basement of his home so I could hear a historic instrument. I thanked him but declined replying that I knew what they sounded like, I just couldn’t afford one.

It remains to be seen how usable my instrument will be. Brodersen “voiced” all the plectrum and also weighted the keys, removed some felts to allow a deeper dip (which I thought was a bit odd). I have hopes I can play some literature on it as well as use it in ensembles. Time will tell.

My readership has dropped off dramatically according to Google analytics. Makes sense.

Eileen found a transaction in our checking account that we did not initiate. After she took a trip to the bank, I no longer have a debit card. She and the bank person decided they are too easily compromised. Now I have a new fucking credit card on its way which has been the bank’s goal all along: to get me to have another credit card through them. The bank is contesting the fraudulent  transaction.

As I wrangle with new devices and bank policies, it becomes clear to me that so much of what I run into is designed not to be easily used by an old codger like me but is designed in ways that designers think I should operate and benefit them, not me.

For example, my new tablet has a nifty stand that I purchased for it. However it is only designed for the tablet to sit sideways not length wise.  Sigh. I am giving up and am mostly using it sideways now despite the fact that several apps flip on their side automatically.

We still have lots of snow. Eileen and I were planning a road trip tomorrow to Detroit to rescue my harpsichord. But that might not happen if the roads aren’t passable.

I’m finishing this blog on Sunday afternoon and man am I tired! I have to go out one more time to check on Mom at the hospital and pick up some gin. Eileen will have to pay for the gin since I don’t have a working bank card.

All the pics in today’s post are pics that show up when you do a google image search with the terms “invisible cities illustration.” I’m almost done with Italo Calvino’s book, Invisible Cities. Lovely quote from this morning’s read:

It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.

So I have a new phone and a new tablet. Which is kind of a pain in the ass, because now I need to get these new devices functioning the way I used my old ones. There are setups for transferring old to new. But these easily bog down. The phone is doing okay, but my tablet was supposed syncing overnight.  I couldn’t detect any progress this morning, so I shut that down and started doing some of that manually. Sheesh.

My Mom is in the hospital. This is a weird one this time. After our (first) visit to the Verizon shop to deal with old bad devices, we stopped off at the nursing home to discover that Mom had been taken to the hospital. They had tried to contact me, but of course my phone was dead then. Their description of why Mom went was a bit convoluted. Apparently she asked to be taken to the hospital. The nurses said she was very weak.

When we arrived at her room in the ER, Mom was laying with her eyes closed. Since her middle years she has suffered on and off from an excess of saliva which she calls her “flow.” It is related to her Myasthenia Gravis. We continue to be mystified as to why she doesn’t just swallow this excess saliva, but insists on spitting it out. When I came in the ER room, her chin was covered with spittle. As I moved to wipe it off, an attendant pointed out that Mom could do that herself and I spotted the wash cloth near her hand. With a little encouragement, sure enough, she raised the cloth to her mouth, so she wasn’t too weak to do that.

Later the nurse administering the EKG asked her why she didn’t swallow the saliva (!) since she could easily drink the water she asked for. After that, Eileen said she thought Mom was doing just that.

At this point they were running the usual battery of tests. They weren’t even sure if they were going to admit her. We said goodbye and left. Later I received a phone call (new phone) and the nurse told me she was being admitted and would be on the Spine and Orthodontic level in room 191.

In the afternoon, we again visited her. Mom was laying with her eyes closed and had her right hand near her mouth as though to swab the saliva. Unfortunately, she had one of those clip on heart monitors on that hand and was thoroughly drenching it. I tried to communicate with her. “Help” she said in between spitting. I pointed out that “help” was at hand in the people around her. That she was in the hospital to get help.

The attending nurse said they were in the process of determining a “plan” for Mom. The staff doctor assigned to her had not reviewed the case yet. They didn’t feel they could send her back to the assisted care nursing home in the shape she was in. She apparently is unable to get herself to the bathroom and back (probably due to weakness).

Eileen and I are going to go over and see if we can learn more this morning. Mom seemed very miserable and non-communicative yesterday. The people at the nursing home seem to be at their wit’s end with her present condition. It may be that we are looking at a change in care for her, i.e. moving her to a more full time care facility.

It also may be that she will feel better and be able to return to her nursing home life. Hard to say at this point.

My brother pointed out that she could easily be suffering from depression. My question is, if she’s not communicating, how would one know?

Before I became ill, my tablet went a little crazy and rebooted randomly and often. Last night I made the mistake of not taking my charge cord to bed with my phone.  I have been using it to listen to podcasts and radio stations. Around 3 AM last night, it gave up the ghost. I got up and plugged it into a charger but it didn’t reboot so I left it until morning.

This morning it says it is charged, but it’s not on. Unfortunately some time back I dropped it and broke the on switch. So no phone, no tablet.

I tried to listen to U of M radio this morning on my laptop but it kept stopping. I thought about getting a radio. I get tired of the new fangled stuff that works a good 75 per cent of the time. But I’m more likely to head over to the phone store after finishing this blog.

I am feeling better and better. Stopping one’s life seems to help with recovering from illness. As Eileen pointed out, I don’t often do that. I only stop long enough to recover enough to function and then I start going again.

I canceled my shrink visit this morning with the idea that I am gradually getting back up to speed.

My Loeb library Homer’s Odyssey came in the mail recently and I am using it to work on understanding the original of this work.

My Mom was once again in and out of the hospital on Wednesday night. This time for a UTI. Eileen said she seemed in very low spirits yesterday when she visited her. I am going to visit her in person today (for the first time in a week). Yesterday she didn’t have her glasses. I’m hoping they found them and that she is in a less bad mood.

I’m up, bracing myself for some attempted activity today. Eileen has been doing the dishes while I have been ill. I told her not to bother to wash up the coffee stuff, that I would get up and do it. So that’s what I did this morning.

I began my morning as usual with some Greek. But soon i got distracted poking around in the OED and Groves Music. I have been playing from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book on my fifty dollar synth. Yesterday I was playing a Maske by Giles Farnaby and wanted to know about Maskes. Apparently they were an extravagant spectacle of singing and dancing preceding general revels (in the court?). I was picturing the setting by Farnaby and surrounding dances as being sort of a chamber music rendition of these when I stumbled across a Groves entry on the composer, Peter Phillips.

I have owned the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book most of my adult life. I purchased it on the advice of the instructions for the building of my Zuckerman Harpsichord. Its two volumes are visibly worn. I have played through pieces in it all this time.

An ironic aside here: Even before beginning my formal music studies (read back when i was a stupid folk rocker) I began to take the Fitzwilliam collection more serious when I realized how closely Pentangle adhered to its  notation in the rendition of a Byrd composition they perform. It’s the third dance in the above recording. The inner voices seemed so elegant to me in their arrangement. I was surprised when I figured out they were simple being faithful to the one in the Fitzwilliam. Ray Ferguson also taught me how elegant this music is when rendered carefully as written. Since then I have gotten more and more particular about following the notation in it. Yesterday I discovered a piece that I had forgotten Ray Ferguson had taught me. His notes and ideas of interp are all over it Woo hoo!

Phillips is well represented there and I had not thought too much about him because there are other composers and pieces that caught my attention. But out of idle curiosity I began reading through his Groves entry this morning.

Being a Roman Catholic, he fled England during the Counter Reformation to the courts at Rome.  His reputation as a composer was very high in England and his reputation preceded him on the continent as a composer. He knew Palestrina. Suddenly I saw his pieces in the Fitzwilliam Virgin Book took on a new light for me. I also learned that the compiler of the book (Frances Tregian) at least admired him tremendously  if not knowing him personally.

The Groves article helped me understand more about the pieces by Phillips. So before too long I was playing them through on my synth. This is what I have been doing for the last hour or so.

I have to meet with Jen today, prep for rehearsal this evening, then give said rehearsal. I have the usual post illness weakness and am hoping I can manage all this today. I’ll have to pace myself, I guess.

Approaches to How They Behave by W. S. Graham | Poetry Foundation

I’m better but far from 100 percent up to my usual speed. I am thinking of staying in all day today as well to let myself recuperate as much as possible.

I heard from Christopher Brodersun this morning via the phone. My harpsichord is done! Yay! Now, all I have to do is get over there and pick it up. That will probably be next week. If the dang thing works at all, it will easily be worth the $900 fee he is charging me.

Thank You Note

I submitted the music for this Sunday along with the note below. I put it here for your dining and dancing pleasure.

Thank You A big thank you to everyone who helped with the music in last week’s Sunday Eucharist! A special thank you to you, the congregation, for doing your part in singing without instrumental accompaniment as well as a huge thank you the Chamber Choir and Laurie Van Ark. Church organists don’t often get to call in sick, but I had to last week. It is a privilege to be the music director for a community which takes participating in the liturgy so seriously and enters in with such conviction. By all reports, this ownership came to the fore when I was unable to be present. I find this oddly satisfying. I see the singing of the congregation maybe a bit differently than many of my organist colleagues. I treat the congregation like a soloist in its own right. As the gathered body of Christ there is a unique role of the assembly that can only be done by the assembly. Sometimes I lead solidly at the organ or piano supporting and encouraging vigorous singing, but at other times, I deliberately follow the singing of the group or even drop out entirely. Much Christian singing has been done without accompaniment over the centuries. American slaves singing sorrow songs in their quarters or in the fields weren’t exactly accompanied moments. And there are other examples including protesters locking arms and singing “We Shall Overcome.” These moments in our shared worship are both rewarding to all musically and spiritually. So, Thanks! And keep up the good work! sincerely, Steve Jenkins, Music Director.

January 2018 | Poetry Magazine | Poetry Foundation

My brother gave me a subscription to Poetry Magazine for Christmas. I am nearing the ending of reading straight through the January issue. At the end of the mag, there is a tribute to a poet I have never heard of: W. S. Graham.

if he had lived, this would have been his 100th birthday year. He was Scottish, knew Dylan Thomas, and spent much of his life living in West Corwall (without much income). I read over the essay about him in the mag and the first poem as well. I found it engaging enough to begin reading what the Poetry magazine has of his online. I think that anyone can browse through the Poetry Foundation archive.

How Bell Pottinger, P.R. Firm for Despots and Rogues, Met Its End in South Africa – The New York Times

Stonehenge tunnel could destroy ‘unique library’ of early history | Science | The Guardian

Gowns, Wurst and Protesters: It’s Ball Season in Vienna – The New York Times

I slept better last night. My temp was normal last night before Eileen went to bed. I have been staying on the main floor of our home in the bedroom there that Eileen and I have prepared for our old age. Eileen cleaned the coffee french press and the carafe for me yesterday and asked me not to do the dishes this morning when I awoke. So I was able to rise and make coffee and do Greek this morning.

The muscles in my stomach are sore from coughing, but I am feeling better. I may give myself one more day to recuperate before venturing out. High on my priorities are restoring access to a tablet, since my tablet is no longer usable as it spontaneously reboots upon any use.

I did manage a bit of Bach, Jelly Roll Morton, and Scott Joplin on the piano yesterday, but tired quickly.

I am on the fourth line of Homer’s Odyssey. Using online resources, I am able to break down each word grammatically  and also identify it’s meaning.  Most of the material I look at, uses the Iliad before the Odyssey. but since I am currently reading and admiring Emily Watson’s translation of the Odyssey, it’s there that I have chosen to begin.

Problematically I ran into an idiom this morning  ^[7δ’ ^[8ὅ γ’^6] [9ἐν^7] .  You can see that it consists of several short words with abbreviations. In the text there is a line over these words that indicate it is an idiom, but there is no corresponding defining link that I can find other than to tell me how many times Homer uses this idiom. These may be a difficulty unless I can find some resource that systematically identifies them. So far none of my resources online or the many Greek textbooks I own have a systematic way of treating idioms. Using translations, I can make fairly accurate guesses about their meaning, but that doesn’t seem like enough for me at this point.

I am home sick from church. My flu/cold seems to be improving a bit. I had a low temp yesterday, but it was normal this morning when Eileen checked it. Eileen is out snowblowing. She also skipped church today. I probably would skip blogging but I want to put a up a recording of my piece which should premiere today.

Adam Briggs, the sax player, emailed this recording from their rehearsal last Monday evening. The use of a bass trombone is not quite as incongruent as I feared. It is nice to be ill and have the recording emailed to you so you can hear something like what might happen today at the concert.

In her essay, “The Narrative Gift as Moral Conundrum,” Ursula K. Le Guin, recommends Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  as a book she couldn’t put down. I’ll forgive her for the other one she mentions in the essay, The Help, which I thought was weak. Its style is breezy but the story is absorbing and perfect for reading when ill. I’m on page 36.

“Bronze” by Jeffrey Euginedes| The New Yorker

I listened to this last night. I am amused to see how my interest in classicism keeps being reinforced. In this story, Eugene is translating Horace on the train. Part of the story is him reading his translation (homework) to the man he meets on the train. This is a solid story I think. I am also intrigued that two of the characters have variations on the name of the author: Kent Jeffries and Eugene.

English Catullus poem 8 

Richard F. Thomas makes a case for classical influences on Bob Dylan. In fact, that seems to be one of the themes of his book, Why Bob Dylan Matters. He quotes the linked poem. I instantly pulled out my Catullus to do some reading in it. Bob Dylan was a member of his high school Latin club. Who knew?

Bob Dylan – Nobel Lecture

More classicism. Dylan spends a lot of time describing the impact of Moby Dick and All Quiet on the Western Front. I’ve never made it all the way through the former, but the latter had a huge impact on me as a teenager. Dylan also talked about Homer in his speech.

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth | Poetry Foundation

In her lovely essay, “The Inner Child and the Nude Politician,” Le Guin challenges some of the silly notions romanticizing childhood that persist in our time. She quoted a bit of the linked Wordsworth poem.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

An unlikely alliance exposed.

I was counting on spending some serious time with upcoming organ music yesterday. It was not to be. I experienced a serious case of sneezes, sniffles, congestion, achy muscles and general miserableness. Practicing in that shape would have been counter productive.

I’m still ill this morning. I hope I can get over to the church and practice and prep for tomorrow.

I found an excellent Greek online site  recently. It has interlinear English with the original of both of Homer’s works, The Iliad and The Odyssey,. It doesn’t exactly provide a word by word translation. Instead when you click on a work, an analysis of it pops up on the right part of the screen. It helpful tells you what word the particular word is derived from. Also it tells exactly the grammatical function of its use in context. It relies on you to use the basic form of the word to look up any meanings you don’t know.

This is perfect for me.

My tablet is sick as well. It does the spontaneous reboot thing randomly. I managed to pull my podcasts off of it and put them on my phone, but the 100 or so  ebooks in my non Kindle reader has been more challenging.  It will probably be Monday before I have the time and energy to take it to the Verizon shop (the FRANCHISE Verizon shop which is 100 per cent better than the company one) and see if they can help. I may have to replace it.

In the meantime I am getting more adept at my stupid smart phone. It’s too small for me to comfortably read books on but listening to podcasts (when one is sick as  dog) works fine.

The Recipe for Life by Michael Chabon | The New Yorker

This is a non fiction piece by this excellent writer about his relationship to his father. Good writing. Good reading. There’s also an embedded recording which I haven’t listened to.

“Bronze” by Jeffrey Euginedes| The New Yorker

Short story bookmarked to read. Also an embed.

The Chief Justice, Searching for Middle Ground – The New York Times

Linda Greenhouse, the author of this piece, always helps me understand the court better.

Remember Langston Hughes’s Anger Alongside His Joy – The New York Times

The first day of Black History month is Hughe’s birthday. How cool is that?