I have been identifying with Benny the young main character of Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness. Benny hears voices. Not just any voices but the voices of any inanimate thing nearby. It has struck me that this is slightly similar to being an introvert. Or at least it reminds me of my own introverted reactions to life.

I am overly sensitive and struggle with too much input in the silliest situations. I let my mind race over the many possibilities of what is happening around me. It’s not that different from hearing voices from objects.

As Benny says “People don’t come naturally to me, and I’ve had to study and practice, like when you’re first learning to read and have to sound out the syllables. I have to learn people phonetically and then memorize them by rote.”

In Benny’s life objects like the toy animals in the kid shrink’s office talk to him. They actually shriek and talk about the many sad children who have played with them. Benny gets busted after arguing with a pair of scissors (Benny silently, the scissors in a snarling voice that only Benny can hear). The scissors are telling Benny to stab his teacher. He struggles and ends up stabbing himself. After that he is in a Pediatric Psych ward for a while.

Later in the story, Benny finds comfort in spending time at the library. The books in the library are quiet as are all the objects in the library. There is a hush over everything because of the nature of the place. Benny begins to read books and finds them comforting and interesting. Do you see where I’m going with this?

I think I have mentioned here that one of the characters in the story is the actual book you are reading. The Book has a voice and explains stuff from time to time. Early on, the Book explains what matters:

“That’s what books are for, after all, to tell you your stories, to hold them and keep them safe between our covers for as long as we are able. We do our best to bring you pleasure and sustain your belief in the gravity of being human. We are care about your feelings and believe in you completely. But here’s another question: Has it ever occurred to you that books have feelings, too?”

So the Library and the Book and books that Benny turns to are all a source of solace and coherence to him.

This is extremely satisfying to me.

During our recent chat about books, Jeremy Daum (my son-in-law) recommended The Death Penalty by Stuart Banner. I immediately requested it on interlibrary loan. Jeremy whose profession means needing to know about things like American Death penalty said that this book had shaped his thinking. I notice that Banner teaches at Washing U where Jeremy earned his J.D. Next time I see him, I’m going to ask if he knew this guy. I read in it today.

Hugh Trevor Roper’s Men and Events: Historical Essays was also waiting on my library hold shelf. Trevor Roper is a writer I have read and enjoyed over the years. I recently read an review of this book by Jacques Barzun and wanted to take a look at it. It looks like fun.

Then for some reason I decided to start another Zora Neale Hurston novel.

I have these gorgeous Library of America volumes of her work. Moses, Man of the Mountain was the next novel in this collection so I started reading in it. It reminds me a bit of Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers. I plan to read them as well. But probably not soon. Hurston rocks.

I keep hearkening back to what the financial advisor said to me about hoarding books. Jeremy Daum suggested it would have been a good time to invoke an elegant Miss Manners reaction and pretend not to understand what she was talking about. I wish I had thought of that. Instead I nodded my head sheepishly thinking Benny thoughts about not connecting with people.

Sometimes I feel like Eileen and I living in hiding here in Holland.

I texted Rev Jen about trying to hire someone to move my harpsichord and marimba. Nothing from her yet and nothing from the Buildings and Grounds guy I texted last Saturday. However, I’m pretty sure I can get someone to move these for me.

Lately it’s been Bach on the piano. I love the English suites especially. It’s not a bad thing to be living and hiding in Holland.

I finished The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. It’s the first book I have read by Thompson. Thompson has been mentioned to me by Jeremy before. Finally he ordered a couple titles and had them sent to me. It’s sort of a noir novella. Published in 1952, It is told in the first person by the killer, Lou Ford. Ford is a deputy sheriff in a small town in Texas. His personality gradually emerges into a full blown mad man. In the first chapter we watch over his shoulder as he spouts clichés to annoy people on purpose. “Striking at people that way is almost as good as the other, the real way.”

It’s a tightly plotted period piece and was fun to read. I have that other title by him that Jeremy gave me and have interlibrary requested a third.

I haven’t heard from the Buildings and Grounds guy from Grace. I didn’t think about the fact that I was texting him on Thanksgiving weekend. But it’s possible I’m already on his persona non grata list along with most of Holland. I’ll give it a couple of days then contact Jen Adams and see if she has any ideas about who could move my harpsichord and marimba.

A friend of ours asked around at church yesterday about someone to repair our window. I haven’t done anything on this yet. But I’m sort of marking time until I have some good recommendations.

I have been meaning to get back to Thomas A. Sebeok’s I Think I Am A Verb: More contributions to the doctrine of signs. Wikipedia describes Sebeok as “a Hungarian-born American polymath, semiotician, and linguist. As one of the founders of the biosemiotics field, he studied non-human and cross-species signaling and communication.” He died in 2001. I’m pretty sure I picked this up at a used book store or sale. I have always been fascinated by the title and have read in it before. But today I started at the beginning again. My reading technique is improving constantly and it’s worth starting over since I comprehend so much more the way I approach the written word these days.

Speaking of, here’s a great quote from Sebeok: “There appear to be two antipodal sorts of bookmen. There are those who derive endless delight from their solitary pleasure, which they pursue like self-stimulating laboratory rats, with electrodes implanted in their anterior hypothalamus, unceasingly bar-pressing in preference to any other activity. Then there are those of us whose bar-pressing habit is rewarded solely by a change in the level of illumination—in a word, novelty.”

I think I’m both of these.

New maps spark debate over major-minority districts

This is an AP article that mentions some Michigan stuff that was on the local paper’s web site (which is the only way I read it).

As I was reading a biography of C. P. E. Bach this morning, I realized that I have moved further away from academic musicians than academic scholars in general. I often think of my Eucharist professor, Neils Rasmussen, raising a finger and saying in the halls “Do not neglect to read the footnotes.” Then there was the liturgist Robert Taft from whom I took a Liturgical year course. And Paul Bradshaw. These men and their minds are so much more present to me than any of my music profs from grad school with the exception of Ethan Haimo from whom I took a Haydn course. Of course, Haimo was a bit of an outlier at Notre Dame du Lac anyway. I’m still slowly working my way through his book on Haydn. I thought of contacting him and letting him know that at least one student of his from that course is still thinking about Haydn. Then I saw he was teaching in Israel and thought maybe he might not be that interested to learn that. I still may reach out to him for the heck of it.

I think the fact that the liturgy department was so good and the music department full of unhappy and angry people might have something to do with my estrangement from music people. My music teachers at Wayne State were a different story. Ray Ferguson is often in my mind and others from WSU.

Maybe it has just been the luck of the draw but so many of the musical academic minds I have rubbed shoulders with seem to be disconnected from where my own understandings of music have ended up. I usually think it’s me, but it does occur to me that it could them who are out of step.

This morning I played through several little pieces by Hugo Distler from his Thirty Pieces for Small Organ or Other Keyboard Instruments. Then I played through several pages of Hindemith first piano sonata. I love this music. But I know both Distler and Hindemith are not terribly fashionable. Distler is probably limited pretty much to church music circles although he wrote a ton of beautiful music. And Hindemith was a huge presence when he was alive but seems to have fallen mostly out of favor. But I could be wrong since all of my input comes from reading and checking out stuff on YouTube and online.

I just searched Hindemith on YouTube and was very amused to see a two year old comment on the first piano sonata that said Hindemith was was “like the King Crimson group.” This is hilarious. I remember seeing King Crimson live. At one point they were a group I admired. I’ll have to look them up on Spotify and give them another listen.

I order a bunch of books by Ben Lerner from Readers World yesterday. I find him interesting. I’m not ready to commit to saying that I like his work a great deal. I did enjoy The Topeka School and am doing a reread of his long poem Mean Free Path but I’m not sure I understand the poem very well. I’m also reading a funny book by Lerner called The Hatred of Poetry. I don’t think I need to own this one. But I am interested in Lerner.

I finished Kunzru’s My Revolutions. Kunzru gives me a different perspective on the U.K. The book is a story of a leftist terrorist type who was living under a new identity whose life falls apart when he spots a woman from his past. In telling this story Kunzru revisits the main character’s past as a Marxist in the U.K. in the 70s. Fun stuff.

Kunzru and Lerner are on my mind as writers I want to read and learn more about.

Lerner sent me back to Marianne Moore since his little book The Hatred of Poetry begins with a poem of hers:

Poetry

I, too, dislike it.
Reading it, however with a perfect
contempt for it, one discovers in
it, after all, a place for the genuine.

This reminds me of Randall Thompson’s definition of a novel: “A prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.” If you google this you find that Neil Gaiman comes up as well as Jarrell. But I think it’s a Jarrell quote, possibly from an introduction he wrote.

I’m still reading Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness, but since I finished Kunzru I’m thinking of also adding Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me to my daily reading. Jeremy Daum said to me at Thanksgiving that everyone should read this book, reminding me that he had sent me a copy. I only found my copy this morning so I’m tempted to add this one.

We had a nice Thanksgiving. My daughter Elizabeth, son-in-law Jeremy, and granddaughter Alex came to our house for a Thanksgiving meal. I had a chance to spend some time with each of them. I read to Alex, chatted with Elizabeth, and talked books with Jeremy.

I think everyone enjoyed our time together. We did have a couple of mishaps. We had Jeremy so close to the window in the guest bedroom that when he thrashed around he accidentally broke the outside window. No harm done to his foot, but we will have to have the window pane replaced. Also, when Eileen and Jeremy were moving the mattress and box springs from upstairs to the basement by throwing them off the upstairs balcony, they accidentally hit the Subaru and smashed the left rear lights. This will have to be taken care of soon.

Another mishap that occurred was that Eileen’s credit card got hacked and used. The credit card shut itself down due to suspicious activity. Eileen had to make a trip to the bank yesterday to get the replacement card started in process.

Jeremy moved Eileen’s new loom all by himself, taking it from the downstairs dining room up to her loom room. That’s where she is right now. She’s very happy to get going on her new loom.

Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Eileen cleared out the upstairs music room entirely. Now it is ready for the harpsichord and marimba. I texted the Buildings and Ground manager at church that I wanted to move them soon and asked if he knew of anyone I could hire to do so. I’ll get moving on some of these tasks next week.

We chatted with Sarah on Zoom today. Their lives are pretty crazy right now. Lucy my granddaughter has been to the doctor four time in the last week. She, Alice, and Sarah are all suffering from congestion and coughs. They have tested themselves for Covid so it’s probably not that. Lucy also has had some hearing loss in one ear. Sarah seems to feel the worst of the three. Matthew doesn’t have any symptoms but he is sleeping with Lucy and she is keeping him awake at night so he’s not up to snuff either.

While we chatted I cooked.

I heated up the oven and roasted several veggies. I used sesame seeds and sesame oil on the aspargus. I dumped cheese on them before it was done. Mmmm. I had some for lunch in a salad.

I halved the Brussels sprouts and tossed them in olive oil before roasting.

I also roasted the oyster mushrooms that came from the Market Wagon on Tuesday.

I have been falling in love with these Harpsichord concertos by C. P. E. Bach. This is the recording of one I have been listening to on Spotify. Great stuff!

And I found a new rock and roll band.

Low Cut Connie was recently read the explainer of a current topic on the Talking Feds podcast. I had never head of him or his band but checked it out and like the energy.

How Your Family Tree Could Catch a Killer | The New Yorker

I think this is a fascinating article. Ce Ce Moore is a genealogist who uses genetics to solve mysteries. Wow.

The War Inside H. G. Wells | The New Yorker

In the same issue (Nov 22, 2021) Adam Gopnik has this interesting take on Wells.

How the Week Organizes and Tyrannizes Our Lives | The New Yorker

And Jill Lepore has another great article, also in the Nov 22 issue.

The Historic Russian Recipe That Turns Apples Into Marshmallows – Gastro Obscura

They’re called pastila and take a whole lot of work and time to prepare. But the ingredients are simple: apples, sugar, egg whites, and powdered sugar. They look cool. I bet they taste good as well. No plans to make soon but maybe someday.

Happy Is an Elephant. Is She Also a Person? – The Atlantic

And Jill Lepore also has this article I took off of the Atlantic website. Woo hoo! I haven’t read it yet, but I do like her writing.

Working with the Whitney’s Replication Committee | The New Yorker

In 2016, Lerner wrote this article. Here’s a link to him talking with Carol Mancusi-Ungaro (2018?) who is mentioned in the article about the same subject. I haven’t read the article but I have listened to the talk. I think it’s very interesting to consider the need for upkeep and restoration of contemporary art. Very cool.

It’s Wednesday afternoon and the pumpkin pie is in the oven. Eileen and I went to the dermatologist today for my two week check. He seemed please with my progress so far. I was relieved that he didn’t tell me to quit using the salve he prescribed. My rash is immensely better but not exactly back to where it was at its lowest ebb. So I’m to monitor my own progress and cut back from 2 applications a day to one and eventually to use as needed.

We stopped at Meijer on the way home and picked up a few last minute things for Thanksgiving. I’m a bit beat but Eileen is madly cleaning. I made the pie crust for the pie which was my original agreement. But Eileen asked me if I could go ahead and mix up the filling. This is very easy so I did.

I’m out of practice on pie crusts. I got pretty good at it at one time but haven’t made one in a while. Eileen hates store-bought crust so I learned to make a decent homemade one. We’ll see if I still have the knack.

I’m over half way through Adam Serwer’s The Cruelty is the Point: The past, present, and future of Trump’s America. It is excellent. Serwer is as clear and eloquent as anyone I have read about Trump and the current racist state of our country. Each short introduction to each chapter has the word “cruelty” in the its title. So the first introduction is entitled “The cruelty of backlash,” and the chapter is entitled “Is This the Second Redemption?” Redemption here refers to the undoing of the Reconstruction after the Civil War.

In the ninth chapter (Introduction: “The cruelty of exclusion,” Chapter title: “What We Do Now Will Define Us Forever,” Serwer makes an excellent critique of the Democrat’s inability to step up to the plate in this time of need. Writing in July of 2019 he observes that Democrats have “slow-walked investigations, retreated from court battles, and unilaterally surrendered the sword of impeachment… This foot-dragging will leave them with little time to actually look into presidential abuses before campaign season begins, effectively forfeiting a massive political advantage, to say nothing of abdicating their constitutional duties.”

He goes on “Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered the gibberish analysis that the president (Trump) was ‘self-impeaching,’ so no actual impeachment was necessary. When confronted with yet another woman accusing the president (Trump) of sexual assault, Pelosi said, ‘I haven’t paid much attention to it.’ When the politically connected financier Jeffrey Epstein was indicted again on charges of sex-trafficking minors, and Pelosi was asked what she would do about now-ousted labor secretary Alex Acosta, who negotiated a previous sweetheart deal with Epstein, she said, ‘It’s up to the president. It’s his Cabinet,’ a position indistinguishable from that of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.”

A few pages later he asks “What, exactly, would be enough to rouse Democrats to action? … If congressional Democrats cannot or will not defend the principle that America belongs to all of its citizens, regardless of race, creed, color, or religion, their oaths to defend the Constitution are meaningless.”

And these are the good guys these days. Whew.

I don’t have to much on my mind today but I want to keep to my resolve to do some regular writing here as daily as possible.

Today would have been my Mother’s 95th birthday.

I think about her and my Dad often.

They are often in my dreams. Literally. Plus they seem to stare back at me from the mirror.

I continue my daily reading and piano playing. I’ve added reading Chaucer aloud recently. This is fun and it’s surprising what reading aloud does for my comprehension of the Old English.

Today I spent some time with C. P. E. Bach, reading in his biography by Ottenberg, reading his letters, and playing through a few of his Prussian Sonatas.

I also did some clearing of my study in preparation to turn it over to Elizabeth, Jeremy, and Alex for their Thanksgiving visit. I worked on it today so that I would be sure to have tomorrow free for Eileen’s and my weekly foray to the shore. Eileen has also done some clearing of the music room upstairs as well which has a bit more room if they opt for that. At least there’s room for a harpsichord up there now.

Wednesday I am due at the dermatologist. My rash continues to abate, but it is nowhere near completely gone. I am interested to see what the doctor decides on Wednesday. The med I have been using is not recommend for use beyond 14 days. Tuesday will be my 14th day of application I think.

I did end up subscribing to the Atlantic magazine, but digital only. It would have cost me only ten more dollars but I don’t really want more magazines to dispose of after use.

Eileen and I have been watching old Alfred Hitchcock movies. So far we have watched North by Northwest, Marnie, and Vertigo. I find the old movies so much more satisfying than most things made for screens these days. I especially appreciate Bernard Hermann scores for all of these. Movie and TV music usually makes me a little crazy and at the least distracts and/or annoys me.

I have a new hero, Adam Serwer. I’ve had his book, The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America sitting on my to-read shelf for a while. I started it yesterday. It’s a collection of essays he has written beginning with “Is this the Second Redemption?” published in The Atlantic on November 10, 2016. Serwer brings together an astute understanding of the past and the present in this article. Each article is preceded by an introductory essay that has been written for this 2021 collection and updates anything needed.

But not much is needed so far. I admit I ordered this book because I liked the title. The cruelty is indeed the point of white racism. But I had no idea that this guy existed. I am enjoying it so much that I am thinking of subscribing to the Atlantic where he is still writing.

I have read the first four of thirteen chapters. Already I am marking up passages and connecting ideas. For example, Serwer does an elegant and telling comparison of “The specific dissonance of Trumpism—advocacy for discriminatory, even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivated” as a “most recent manifestation of a contradiction as old as the United States, a society founded by slaveholders on the principle that all men are created equal.” Wow.

Pages later he ties in James Baldwin who, he writes, “wrote about this peculiar American delusion in 1964, arguing that the founders of the United States had a ‘fatal flaw’: that ‘they could recognize a man when they saw one.’ Because ‘they had already decided that they came here to establish a free country, the only way to justify the role this chattel was playing in one’s life was to say that he was not a man. That lie is the basis of our present trouble. It is an extremely complex lie.”

Good stuff. Serwer’s back notes indicate he is quoting from Baldwin’s essay, “the White Problem” in the collection The Cross of Redemption.

Like so many of Serwer’s references, this 2010 publication will go on my to-read list.

I can only link yesterday’s video. The link should begin at about where my piece starts. They did a good job on it. Here’s a link to the program.

The Pioneering Sci-Fi Writer Octavia Butler

This is an article from the Smithsonian Magazine. A lot of is rehash of lionizing the excellent Butler. But there this picture of her typewrite.

Charles Conwell Killed in the Ring

I can’t remember who recommended this, but they said that thought they weren’t that interested in boxing the writing was elegant. It happens to be in the Atlantic.

One way to think about how crazy I find the world is to realize that I live in a different reality from other people. In my reality it’s people and beauty and ideas that are real not money. In my reality I want to take responsibility for my own actions and understand history and listen to great music and great ideas. This means my reality is peopled with the writers I read and composers I play and listen to. After all my world seems as real to me as other people’s worlds seem unreal to me.

It looks my buddy Dave Strong probably died of Covid. I was looking at past messages on his Facebook feed and it looks like he was struggling with it before he died. What a shame. I have a terrible feeling that he might not have been vaccinated or wore masks. I hope that’s not the case because I’m sure this would have made his brother, Dave, who is a MD crazy. But I’m just shooting in the dark here.

The pandemic is worsening. Eileen and I are taking precautions. We went to the grocery store together today. We wore masks, but many people at Meijer were not wearing masks. Like I say, they live in a different reality from me.

I continue to play through Bartok. Recently I began playing through his Bagatelles. I admit I didn’t know exactly what a bagatelle was. I am familiar with Beethoven’s Bagatelles. I played through a few of these. Finally I broke down and looked it up in my Harvard Dictionary. The word means “trifle” and was coined by, lo and behold, my beloved Francois Couperin. Bartok’s Bagatelles are very different from Beethoven’s. And Couperin’s music is totally different than both Bartok and Beethoven, of course.

Willie Apel, the author of the Harvard Dictionary, says these are “character pieces.” He mentions Schumann’s character pieces so I played through a bit of Schumann earlier today as well.

When I was at Readers World recently, I was using up my gift certificates that the church and Rhonda gave me. The owner asked if I had retired recently and how was it? I said I had and it was great. I read, play music, and think of more books to order from her store.

I am in pig heaven with many good books to read. I’m reading Kunzru’s My Revolutions and Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness and enjoying the shit out of both of them. I am rereading Lerner’s book length poem, Mean Free Path, since I had no idea what the title meant when I waded in for the first read.

“Mean” in sense of “average.” According to a Google, the actual distance a particle such as a molecule in a gas will move before collision is called the “free path.” The distance cannot be generally be given because its calculation would require knowledge of the path of every particle in the region.

Whew! I suppose Lerner expects his ignorant readers like me to google it, but I like to forage ahead into poetry and sometimes prose without always stopping to look up everything. I definitely didn’t have a clue about this connotation of the phrase when I read the little book the first time. Now I’m rereading because one of the techniques he uses is to write lines that only make good sense if you skip a line to finish the thought.

I have interlibrary loaned his book, The Hatred of Poetry. I wonder if it will shed any light on Mean Free Path.

I had to stop at this point and listen to Rhonda and Brian Reichenbach play the piece I wrote for them. They were performing at Calvin College which streamed the concert.

They played the heck out of my piece. Thank you Rhonda and Brian! I will link up the video if I can.

I played my way all the way through volume 4 of Bartok’s Mikrokosmos yesterday. The Mikrokosmos are a series of pieces Bartok wrote for his son to learn piano. They are in order of ascending difficulty. They have been my companions for years and I have played and performed from them.

Volume 4 is pretty sight readable for me. Most of Bartok’s piano works are not this easy including some of the later volumes. I was tickled to see that I had performed the Intermezzo (no. 111) as a prelude on 3/10/02. This means it was probably for the Lutherans when I had a short period of serving a local Lutheran church as organist/choir director. Also, Bulgarian Rhythm (no. 113) indicates a registration on my electric piano with a split keyboard, Jazz Organ/Bass down an Octave. This means I probably performed it on the street.

I have played quite a bit of Bartok in local coffee shops and on the street when I was still doing that. I have arranged Bartok and other cool music for whatever instruments and instrumentalists I had handy. I was listening to the radio today and a dancer was saying that she and her troupe had quit dancing in public spaces because they didn’t feel welcome. I think that describes my ultimate decision to quit playing on the streets of Holland, Michigan.

But it’s not that big a deal for me to not have this outlet. My therapist asked me if I was planning any more public performances in retirement. I told him no, but I don’t rule it out.

I finished The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith last night before going to sleep. It is a fun romp. Apparently it is her second novel. It doesn’t take itself too seriously but the writing is virtuosic and the plot hilarious. Here’s a passage I particularly enjoyed:

“Alex, like everybody, held hospitals in the highest, purest dread and loathing. To come in with a bump and leave with the baby–this is the only grace available in a hospital. Other than that, there is only pain. The concentration of pain. Hospitals are unique in this concentration. There are no areas of the world dedicated to the concentration of pleasure (theme parks and their like are a concentration of the symbols of pleasure, not pleasure itself), there are no buildings dedicated to laughter, friendship or love. They’d probably be pretty gruesome if they existed, but would they smell of decay’s argument with disinfectant? Would people walk through the hallways, weeping? Would the shops sell only flowers and slippers and mints? Would the beds (so ominous, this!) have wheels?”

This morning I finished reading Lewis Raven Wallace’s The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity and Ben Lerner’s book of poetry, Mean Free Path. After breakfast with beautiful Eileen, I jumped in the car and picked up some books I had ordered from the local bookshop: three novels by Hari Kunzru I haven’t read and a book of essays entitled Living Stereo: Histories and Cultures of Multichannel Sound edted by Paul Theberge, Kyle Devine, and Tom Everrett. The latter I think of in the same category as Popular Music in Theory: An Introduction by Keith Negus. I have ordered my own copy of this book but haven’t been able to resist reading the library’s copy while I wait for it.

Eileen and I are planning to skip another Great Performance Series performance scheduled for this evening. This time we have the will and I am feeling better, but the Pandemic rages and it seems silly to go into a public gathering at this point. Ottawa County were we live is surging more than any other in our state. No one was wearing masks at the bookshop just now. Lack of precautions are taking a toll not only in little old Western Michigan but world wide. I would not be surprised if we don’t have another lockdown before Christmas.

Paul Gosar was censured on the floor of the US House of Representatives yesterday. He was also stripped of his committee assignments as part of the procedure. My local rep, Huizenga, apparently voted against this censure. Gosar was joined by a group of his Republican congressman and women supporters who stood with him in the House well as the censure was read.

Immediately after the censure, Gosar retweeted the video which had kicked the whole thing off according to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter.

It seems like we are witnessing the gradual demise of the U.S. I wonder if part of the problem is that people who are going into public service as politicians are not of the highest caliber. Since the 80s I have witnessed the failure of nerve in people who would make good leaders due to the extreme conditions leaders must subject them and their families to.

When you stir in the crazy shit online, things are not looking good for my country. I figure we will continue to limp through this period of our history in much the same way we are now for decades. And that’s the hopeful scenario! Just my 2 cents.

I neglected to mention that one of the books I picked up from the library yesterday is entitled Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline by Constant Lambert. Originally published in 1934, this is a second edition published in 1937 with an introduction by Arthur Hutchings from 1966. I had the title in my Amazon cart which I recently cleared. In my notes, I say I’m not sure where I found the title.

Anyway, yesterday as part of my daily morning reading, I had read the quote from Antony and Cleopatra Lambert used both as the title and an inscription.

All: The Music ho!

[Enter Mardian the Eunuch

Cleopatra: Let it alone; let’s to billiards.

Another case of serendipity in my life.

I found out that a high school friend of mine died back in October. I am connected to him on Facebook and his widow recently mentioned it or I just saw it (fuck Facebook and its stupid stupid algorithms). Anyway, I played with Dave when we were both in high school. He was couple of grades ahead of me and sat first chair trumpet in the band and stage band. After he graduated I ended up in those two positions. But we had a great time playing together with his brother, Doug and some other people. I learned a lot by making arrangements for us. This was when I first began playing marimba. I bought the marimba I still have in order to play with Dave and the others. We mostly did original arrangements and, of course, Tijuana Brass and Baja Marimba Band pieces.

I see that someone did announce his death on Facebook in October. I just missed it.

The temperatures have been in the 50s today, but this seems warm for November in Michigan. It’s also drizzling rain. Of course I love rain.

I jumped in the car and went to the library to pick up some interlibrary loans, then I was off on search for turkey both real and faux. My daughter Elizabeth; her husband, Jeremy; and the illustrious Alexandra, their progeny, my own grand daughter will be coming to our house for Thanksgiving next week end. They are all vegetarians like me. I say “like me,” but we do it a little differently. They tend to eat more processed food than I allow myself. But I have to credit Elizabeth with teaching me how to be a vegetarian without being insufferable.

Last time I was at Meijer they had neither a small frozen turkey breast for Eileen nor tofurkey for the rest of us. Today i decided to check a couple of other stores and was successful. I found the turkey for Eileen at Family Fare and the faux stuff at Nature’s Market. I put gas in the car and my mission was complete.

I recently discovered that RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicale is online and free. This was an important tool for my graduate study. I’m not sure how much I used it only I knew of it and it was referred to in my reading and learning.

C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works is an incredible source for C.P.E. info and sheet music I found recently. I’m still plowing through his letters and biography. He was quite the composer. I am also playing his pieces at the piano. Very enjoyable.

That’s enough for today. I’m in the mood for reading and playing piano. Today I’m thinking Fanny Mendelssohn and Bartok, but we will see.

Eileen and I met with a Financial Advisor from Edward Jones Investments yesterday. I didn’t really understand we were meeting with an investment advisor. Eileen had a recommendation from a friend for this particular investor. We chatted for over an hour and left telling her that we would upload a bunch of information about our investments such as they are and go from there.

I’m afraid that the investor lost interest in us when she learned the totality of our assets. Also I thought that she didn’t quite get us as people. This morning we decided to not use an investment advisor but simply go through our bank which is what I did when I was attempting to manage my parents assets.

I wasn’t paying close attention before we went. I didn’t realize we were going to Edward Jones. I thought we were going to get actual money management advise (not investment advice). Eileen is feeling at a loss on how to handle our savings and investments, so I agreed to get a little more hands on with it. I am sure that Eileen’s much more competent than she thinks. But I certainly don’t mind doing my part on this stuff.

I continue to find Western Michigan a bit provincial in most aspects. Thank goodness for the Interwebs.

I finished The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I enjoyed it but don’t think it was that spectacularly good. After listening to Lerner talk about in on an old Politics and Prose video, I now understand what he was trying for more clearly. I found myself more interested in the secondary characters than the main ones. The whole notion of a psychiatric and institute and hospital intrigued me. Lerner apparently has written about some of these characters before in his other two novels. But they were the youngest people in the book and the least interesting to me.

There were some fascinating concepts in the book. I was noting the times that the idea of glossolalia or speaking in tongues came up. This was a pretty elegant strain of connecting times people lapse into nonsensical sounds instead of words. None of it was religious.

It sort of seemed to me like there were two novels in this book. One about all the interesting ideas and people, the other a story about some young people who get older, married, and have kids.

Lerner said that one of the themes he had in mind was there are no grown-ups. I didn’t get that from the book but I like the idea a lot. What I think he meant was that we all try to make our lives the best we can and no one is that good at it.

Having said that, I have been pondering the lack of sophistication in Western Michigan. The advisor yesterday was just one instance. I don’t want to complain too much since I am very content to live here. But it helps me sometimes to realize how limited the situation is. I told Eileen today that if there was no Internet I would probably want to move somewhere else. She said we could move anyway. But I don’t have that urge.

When Eileen told the advisor yesterday that I was a retired choirmaster/organist (her words), the response was to ask me if that meant I led the praise band at my church. Later when I tried to tell the advisor that I wouldn’t bump into one of her colleagues at church because I wasn’t doing church any more I felt like I was speaking another language.

My language and interests seem to me to be more content based and less appearance based than many people in this area. Since I look like a broken down old hippie and we don’t have a zillion dollars people sell us short. Or assume that we are not successful in our lives. Or something. I’m not sure what.

But I have to keep reminding myself that the world I live in is very different from the world of Holland Michigan.

I continually find that most academic points of view do not interest me. I wonder if that is some of what’s happening between me and Lerner’s work. He is not pretentious, but he is a prof, a published poet and novelist, as well as living in New York City. I am reading his book of poetry Mean Free Path. I was surprised to learn that he thinks of himself as a poet before a novelist. That’s what he teaches I think, poetry. I’m enjoying his poetry but it’s clever like the novel was. Clever is good, but then I started Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness.

I think she writes rings around Lerner. I have been looking forward to reading her book since it came out.

But I’m not done with Lerner. I just don’t quite understand how The Topeka School was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

I am feeling one hundred per cent better and more functional. I am gradually adding more sit-ups and other exercises to my daily routine. Yesterday I spent some time with Bartok’s piano music as well as Chopin. I have been reading C.P.E. Bach’s biography and letters. Today Eileen and I went to the beach for our date day. My life is good and I am a lucky duck.

Roman de Silence

Lewis Raven Wallace mentions this 13th century poem in his The View from Somewhere. I had never heard of it. The main character’s name is Silence. Silence is a cool name for a character. Silence is a woman who was raised as a man in order for her to inherit property and title. A couple of the characters are named Nature and Nurture and they have an ongoing discussion (argument?) about whether Silence should remain a woman (Nature) or live as a man (Nurture). I haven’t look that closely at this long poem and am repeating the impression Wallace gave me of it. I think it’s cool that in the 13th century this was a thing.

It’s a rainy, sleepy Sunday afternoon in Holland, Michigan. The cream/steroid seems to be working. Each day I am feeling a little better.

Eileen is working on one of her looms and has said that she is feeling very lazy today. It’s that kind of day. I have mostly been reading and playing Chopin at the piano.

Earlier today I finished a small book length poem by Hayden Carruth, Journey to a Known Place.

I interlibrary-loaned a copy. I was delighted when it arrived. It is a beautiful book. The paper is thick and the print is elegant.

It is a pleasure to read a book like this.

That’s all for today. Back to reading and playing piano. Life is rough.

I had a good chat with Dr. Birky, my therapist yesterday. Then went to the library and Readers World. I picked up an interlibrary loan of The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. Lerner appeared recently on a New Yorker podcast and I was impressed with him. I was curious to see what his novel was like. I was only planning to read a little bit in for this purpose. It immediately sucked me in.

I know from listening to the podcast that both of Lerner’s parents are shrinks. The novel takes place in a psychiatric institute and hospital in Topeka and there are many shrinks in the cast of characters.

I was only able to get a large print copy. I’m on page 102 of 456 pages. He writes well and the plot is interesting. Cool.

At Readers World I picked up a couple of books that I ordered and purchased some more on sight. I decided to skip blogging to read.

I’m about half way into The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith. Very funny. I’m having to look up lots of Jewish mystical stuff like Serifot and Kabbalah and Zohar. Smith has also tricked me into figuring out a bit of Hebrew. She gives the Hebrew alphabet at one point. As soon I remembered to read from right to left, I was able to make out many of the Hebrew words she adds.

It takes place mostly in London and environs. The characters were childhood friends and for the most part Jewish. One of them is even a very irreverent Rabbi. Irreverent is a key mood in this book. Smith takes advantage of the autograph stuff to do lots of celebrity references. One of the characters is deeply involved in the autograph scene.

There was more than one moment of serendipity. First of all, the very first page inside the cover was a long quote of a Lenny Bruce routine beginning “Dig: I’m Jewish. Count Basie’s Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor’s goyish. B’nai B’rth is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish.” It goes on from there classify stuff as either Jewish or goyish. This sets the stage for the book that one of the characters (not the Rabbi) is writing which does the same thing, classifying many things either Jewish or goyish.

Of course, Lenny Bruce is a life long patron saint of mine. So that’s fun.

Leonard Cohen makes an appearance in the book as himself. He instantly gets classified as goyish. One of the main characters quotes from Virginia Woolf’s diaries. Her name is Boot (the character) who quotes Woolf and says that she’s been reading the diaries. Like me.

So this book is turning into a guilty pleasure for me.

I am feeling much, much better. I had alcohol last night. A martini, some wine, and one whisky. I’m thinking if my weight and Blood Pressure continue to improve I may have alcohol on Friday nights. But we’ll see.

I am feeling very very grateful and happy to have my comfort restored. Plus I do not miss my church music work one little itty bit.

I am continuing to read C.P.E.. Bach’s letters. I also am working on a translated German biography of him by Hans-Günter Ottenberg. C.P.E.’s personality comes through very clearly and charmingly in the letters. Ottenberg moves quickly to talking about the music itself which I appreciate. I’m trying to read the library copies of these two books so I won’t have to buy them.

Eileen and I had a nice chat with Sarah in England. Tomorrow is Matthew’s birthday and they have big plans.

I baked up two mini pumpkins and an acorn squash I had sitting around. I also baked the seeds which I enjoy.

The big news is that Eileen’s loom arrived yesterday. It is fun to see her so excited.

Looking closely at the steroid my dermatologist prescribed for my eczema I discovered that I was supposed to dilute it in a specific moisturizing cream. Dang. I called the dermatologist and had to leave message. After an hour or so I went out and bought some of the stupid cream. My question was would the remaining steroid solution be too diluted if I mixed it with a pound of the cream.

The dermatologist’s office finally got back to me and said it was okay. She also said that both their office and the pharmacy had dropped the ball on this one. I had already figured that out. When I went to pick up the cream I stopped at the pharmacy at Meijer and told them their error. The woman at the window didn’t seem very interested in their fuck up. I didn’t ask to see a pharmacist which probably would have been the grown up thing to do. I was too discouraged and lazy.

Eileen and I are meeting with a financial advisor this afternoon to help us straighten out finances for retirement. At least we are scheduled to do so. Eileen is also expecting a delivery of her newest loom around the same time. We have to be present for that delivery apparently and we still don’t know exactly when it’s coming. Sheesh. We may have to reschedule the financial consultant.

I started my day listening to BBC 3. They played a piece by Erland Von Koch. I had never heard of this dude but liked the music enough to check out some of his other stuff. This piece is popular on Spotify. I can see why.

Yesterday I spent some time with the Chopin Mazurkas. I was wondering how Chopin wormed his way into my tastes. My father would sometimes play Chopin at the piano. He owned a funny anthology of Chopin which I still have.

I think that playing Chopin might remind me of Dad.

I can remember a high school friend who was an exchange student from South America. Brazil? Anyway, he was a pianist and was hanging out with me at my house. He asked if I had any Chopin and I pulled out some general anthologies that had some Chopin in them. He wasn’t very satisfied with that. Then I pulled out my Dad’s old “Music to Remember” Chopin collection. My friend was ecstatic and sat down and played the shit out of some of these difficult pieces. I remember him saying how out of practice he was and how disappointed his teacher would be in that fact.

It was only later I realized that exchange students like him were probably from the upper class from their home. Both he and I were lucky ducks I guess.

I ordered books from the local Readers World today. I decided to read everything by Hari Kunzru I can get my hands on. I ordered three more of his novels. Also I want to read Ruth Ozeki’s newest novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness. It will probably be my next novel. Yesterday I started The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith. It has been sitting on my shelves waiting for me to pick it up. It will hold me until Ozeki.

“Thin Air,” by Linda Gregerson | The New Yorker

Nice poem in the latest New Yorker.

Akoori (Indian scrambled eggs) recipe | BBC Good Food

Sarah mentioned she heard a recipe for this on the BBC and thought it sounded good. That it does.

A Most American Terrorist: The Making Of Dylann Roof | GQ

For some reason this 2017 article is on my radar. The author won a Pulitzer.

Longform Podcast #260: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah · Longform

Corresponding podcast to the 2017 article.

Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over? | Judith Butler | The Guardian

Bookmarked to read.

The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English – a lexical treasure chest | Reference and languages books | The Guardian

GOP Rep. Fred Upton receives death threats after voting for bipartisan infrastructure deal – The Washington Post

Madness. Michigan makes the Washington Post. Most of the threats were from out of state.

Cranberry Cream Torte | Just A Pinch Recipes

Cranberries are in season. I bought some and this caught my eye.

How To Make Any Fruit Galette | Kitchn

I have a cook friend who posts her meals on Facebook. Recently one of her dishes was a Goat Cheese Galette. I didn’t know what a Galette was. Apparently they can be made sweet or savory. Looks great.

I am hopeful that my groove is returning as they say. I heard a train whistle this morning as I was outside putting garbage in the garbage can. It made me think of “Frickin Trains,” a song I wrote.

When I lived in Greeneville Tennessee, at first we lived next door to the church where Dad was the minister. Across the street was another row of houses and behind them was the railroad tracks. Hearing a train whistle was part of life then. It was this memory that helped kick off my writing “Frickin Trains.”

I always wondered why I came up with the word, “frickin.” I don’t use this word. I’m more likely to say “fuckin.” At the time I ascribed this usage to my youngest daughter, Sarah. (Hi Sarah and Matthew!) But as I think about it it probably also came out of the mouth of my son while he lived with us.

I just listened to my mp3 recording of Frickin Trains. While the recording is pretty bad, the song strikes me as pretty good. I couldn’t understand all of the lyrics but I remember that the first verse is about the memory of Greeneville, the second about meeting a desperate young man (boy really) on a bus. He had just got of prison and was on his way home. The third verse is about the call of the trains in the night and the eyes of the dead and reminds me of a sentiment that Mavis Gallen captured in her short story, “Voices Lost in the Snow.”

The main character who is a bit on the autobiographical side for Gallen is talking about her father and his decision to relocate the family from the city to the country in Canada. “He was, I think, attempting to isolate his wife, but by taking her out of the city [by doing so] he exposed her to a danger that, being English, he had never dreamed of: this was the heart-stopping cry of the steam train at night, sweeping across a frozen river, clattering on the ties of a wooden bridge. From our separate rooms, my mother and I heard the unrivalled summons, the long, urgent, uniquely North American beckoning. She would follow and so would I, but separately, years and desires and destinations apart.”

I wrote Frickin Trains years before I read this short story, but when I did read it, it reminded me of the song.

I have begun musing on my own composing. Virginia Woolf observed in her diary that “writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial.” I’m not the genius she was but I sort of know what she means, or at least I find something about the observation that fits me. Composing is my “profound pleasure.” Promoting my own work has always not been that interesting to me. Of course, I like to see my work performed. But often I want to be one of the performers. The more concrete the notion of how the piece is to be used the better for me. This sets limits to my ideas that include picturing specific people playing the music I make up.

Having retired from the church, living here in Holland a small provincial town where most of the musicians don’t see me as that relevant, if Rhonda doesn’t ask me to write something I’m not sure at this point I need compose unless I decide that’s it something I would rather do than read, practice, cook, or listen to music. This remains to be seen.

I don’t really have an outlet other than Rhonda asking me to write something or coming up with ideas of my own. Thinking about Frickin Trains reminds me that one thing I could do in retirement would be working with the many compositions I have made. I definitely have in mind organizing them. And I have thought that putting my songs into piano/vocal versions might be fun. If I did this they would probably be more accessible and usable.

And there is always the possibility inspiration will strike.

You can see I am begging to mull around how to spend retirement. Eileen insists that it’s too early to land on much or even do that much concrete thinking about it. My piano trio is waiting for me to contact them again and I probably will do so at least once and have Amy and Dawn over to the house for some playing. But honestly piano trio is not very high on my priorities. It’s as much if not more satisfying to sit and play piano/harpsichord literature by myself.

Some of this is colored by the fact that though I love my musicians, I live in a completely different musical/aesthetical world from them. I am sure there are people out there with whom I share a musical/aesthetical understanding. But I don’t know any of them personally.

More and more although there is historical music I dearly love, I find a lot of classical musical uninteresting. I could say the same about any “genre.” So much contemporary pop music seems dull to me.

I am feeling better. I didn’t realize how much of a struggle it was to maintain myself in the face of not knowing why I was covered with a rash. The diagnosis and subsequent shot and lotion is having an effect not only physically but relieving me enough to get some of my old fervor back.

As I begin writing today’s blog Eileen is at the doctor, either getting her ears fixed or a referral to do so. Hopefully her recent hearing problems are just something they can clean away.

The shot and topical steroid seems to be helping my eczema. It’s possible that my diet has affected my rash adversely. After a little checking online, I wonder if my predilection for tomatoes and citrus fruit is not helping. I am just finishing up the last tomato of tomato season. I am thinking of laying off tomatoes and citrus and see what happens. Of course, that introduces more than one variable but it’s easy enough to do.

I made bread this morning. It makes the house smell great! I finished Kunzru’s White Tears. I almost finished it last night but ended up reading the last twenty pages today before breakfast. Kunzru seems to have a pattern of starting his stories in a plausible attractive prose and then by the end of the book the world has basically gone crazy. I like that.

I read some more in Lewis Raven Wallace’s The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity. As far as I can tell Wallace’s podcast has fallen off the radar. The last episode seems to be done sometime in 2020. I will keep my eye out for them in the future.

In the meantime, I am loving the book. Wallace asks if the antidote to misinformation and disinformation might be curiosity. This makes sense to me. It is probably the incurious who ignore URLs of websites or do not inquire where information comes from. I am increasingly convinced that many people are just not paying close attention to the things that are being screamed online.

I am not saying there is no danger now, because there definitely is danger in the woefully uninformed and educated. My understanding was that Thomas Jefferson proposed that if we educate the public, we will be able to govern ourselves. I guess we are witnessing the inverse of this proposition at this time in the US.

Wallace quotes one of my favorite authors and poets, Kevin Young. “Calling bullshit is easy but it is urgent” Wallace quotes Young as saying. I was very happy to see that Wallace has read Young’s Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News . I had Young sign my copy of this book when we went to hear him read his poetry in GR. Young’s most salient observation which Wallace quotes more than once is in regard to just how hoaxes work. “Unlike a novel, the hoax feigns certainty yet depends on doubt, so much so that it might be said to colonize it.”

Colonize it. Colonialism of thought makes a metaphor of the terrible history of humans taking advantage of each other in the name of superiority of one thing or the other (race, country, gender, and on). Wallace observes, “Doubt is necessary…” but when it causes people to give up, rather than open a new line of inquiry, doubt has become colonized, indeed.”

Earlier in this chapter, Wallace quoted from an article by scholar, Ann Scales in the 1992 UCLA Woman’s Law Review. “Neutrality is dangerous: if one group can take a decidedly non-neutral point of view and get people to buy it on the grounds that it is neutral, the game is over… we depend on subjective interpretation to decide what is neutral, and those subjective decisions about neutrality tend to uphold the perspectives of those defining the terms of the debate. In other words, ‘objectivity’ always protects the status quo, interpreting the powerful as ‘neutral’ because it is those who create the frame.”

Objectivity is a myth used by the powers that be to go after people who have radical ideas that challenge the status quo.

I’m supposed to call Eileen in about twenty minutes. I’m going to try to get a quick blog in now because we have a full day planned. First to Grand Rapids to the dermatologist, then this afternoon to the eye guy to check on my recent surgical placement of new lenses in my eyes.

I started White Tears by Hari Kunzru. I have been saving it for a good time. Yesterday was definitely that time. My legs and arms bothered me all day. They are a bit better today. I have been having more alcohol and less fake gin lately. I suspect alcoholic content aggravates my condition since it seems the day after drinks is not a pleasant one, rash-wise. This was the case yesterday.

But today is better. As I suspected I would, I am loving White Tears. It is about two people I would describe as recordists. One of these men is poor but skilled, Seth, the other is rich and also skilled but not to the extent of Seth. His name is Carter.

Seth loves to walk around and record ambient sounds. The crux of the story is a recording he made in Washington Square of a chess player. This man is African American and beats the local yokel who plays chess for 10 dollars a game. As he wins he sings a snippet of what sounds like an old blues tune.

The next time Seth listens the moment on the recording is different. Though he is walking around the sound is centralized in the stereo recording and doesn’t reflect his movement. Later he and Carter listen to it and this time there is more than a snippet. There is an entire old blues song sung unaccompanied.

They are early recording freaks and like their recordings rough and analog. So I’m enjoying it despite having personally chosen not to pursue recording as an interest.

The only other thing on my mind is The History of Tomorrow episdoe of the On The Media podcast and The Evening Rocket Dimension X episode of The Last Archive Podcast.

On On The Media they talk about science fiction’s influence on cyber moguls like Elon Musk. I haven’t listened all the way through but they do mention writers I don’t know as examples of what would be better influences on people like Musk. This morning I noticed that Jill Lepore had two new The Last Archive podcasts out.

Then I remembered Lepore had made a brief appearance on the new On The Media. The new The Last Archive episodes are a series that she did for the BBC on the topic of science fiction and Elon Musk. Cool.

After seeing the dermatologist

I have now been back and forth to the GR skin guy. I was incorrect to assume that I had no diagnosis. I have atopic ezcema which typically can flare up and can cause swelling. It’s a relief that they know why I am in such discomfort. The assistant gave me a cortisone shot and the doctor prescribed a combined cortisone/moisturizer ointment. I am already feeling some relief from the shot. I go back in two weeks.

Eileen is relieved. She is going to see Dr. Fuentes tomorrow to get a referral to see someone about her ears. Her hearing has been not working so well. She thinks she probably has wax build up and was trying to get Fuentes to refer her to someone.

postscript

I published this blog then began reading some links. Lo and behold, it turns out that I already had linked in to an article by Jill Lepore which seems to cover some of the ground in her podcast. Here again is the link.

Opinion | Elon Musk Is Building a Sci-Fi World, and the Rest of Us Are Trapped in It – The New York Times

I finished The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell last night. It is a searingly bitter dark comedy. Based on the Indian Mutiny, it follows a pathetic group of English people who are defending themselves against attack after attack in a few buildings. Guardian writer Sam Jordisan describes sitting in a cafe and being approached by a stranger who tells him that it’s the best book he ever read. It is a good one that’s for sure.

By the end of the book, the English group has cannibalized several heads of busts for use as make shift cannon balls so that they are literally firing Shakespeare, Keats, and Voltaire at the sepoys.

A few pages later one of the main characters proclaims that “culture is a sham… a cosmetic painted on life by rich people to conceal its ugliness.”

Tomorrow I go to see the dermatologist in Grand Rapids. My spirits are a bit low about all of this rash stuff. I am not expecting much resolution tomorrow, only that Eileen and I will move on to the Ann Arbor dermatology group after seeing this guy tomorrow.

I overdid it this morning by getting up and doing more standing than usual. By the time Eileen got up my legs were already swollen and painful. I knew I was doing it to myself so I skipped all “old man running in place” exercises this morning and even took a shower. All to no avail. My rash is threatening my ability to concentrate and function, but I am persisting as best as I can.

I even went to the Farmers Market yesterday and purchased too many mushrooms. I cooked two of the three bags I bought yesterday.

In the afternoon tomorrow I am scheduled for my final follow up with my eye surgeon after my recent surgery. Eileen is still helping me put in daily eye drops. This regimen is done in a few days.

Tomorrow promises to be a full day.

It’s sixty degrees outside right now. Wow.

14 Phenomenal Photos Reveal There Were Indeed Black Chinese People

Why Museums Are Primed to Address Racism, Inequality in the U.S. | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian Magazine

“[Smithsonian undersecretary for museums and culture] Kevin Gover points out that there are more museums in the United States than there are McDonalds and Starbucks put together. A recent report by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, supported by Reinvestment Fund, found “the presence and usage of public libraries and museums to be positively associated with multiple dimensions of social well-being—in particular community health, school effectiveness, institutional connection, and cultural opportunity.””

Opinion | Do Gun Rights Depend on Abortion Rights? That’s Now Up to the Supreme Court. – The New York Times

by Linda Greenhouse. She is excellent.

Opinion | Elon Musk Is Building a Sci-Fi World, and the Rest of Us Are Trapped in It – The New York Times

by Jill Lepore. Bookmarked to read.

I had a burst of energy yesterday. I decided to go grocery shopping in the afternoon, then came home and had a real martini knowing I might pay for it today. My rash does seem more painful today but I don’t feel too bad otherwise so I guess that’s good.

I began reading the actual letters that C.P.E. Bach wrote today. I definitely get a sense of his personality from reading them. Later when I was reading Virginia Woolf’s diaries I realized how lucky I am to spend time with these people.

If I’m reading the footnotes correctly C.P.E. thought that his father’s Orgelbuchlein could be played without pedals. I tried a couple today on the piano. I didn’t find it very easy.

He also thought that the four part chorales were good teachers of counterpoint. This holds a bit more water for me. Yesterday and today I spent some time with them playing through them slowly and thinking about the voice leading and the shape of the lines.

I finished Natlie Diaz’s book of poetry, When My Brother Was An Aztec yesterday. When the Beloved Asks, “What Would You Do If You Woke Up and I Was a Shark? is an example of the great poems in this book.

How To Fight for the Freedom To Read

A librarian friend of mine put this up on Facelessbook. Good read.

Yes world, there were horses in Native culture before the settlers came – Indian Country Today

I shared this on my niece’s Facebook feed but she didn’t respond. I did not know that there were horses here before the Spanish brought them.