Yesterday, while Eileen and I were sitting at the beach in the midst of all the snow, my daughter-in-law, Cynthia, called me from California. I was very surprised since she hasn’t called me since she called to tell me that she found one of the books I had sent to my granddaughter Catherine to be inappropriate. She was vague in that call, but I had the impression that it may have been the main character’s picture on the cover. The main character is a black woman. But who knows? There is no reason to think this book was inappropriate for my granddaughter, but of course I told her that I had no intention of getting between her and her kids and to just go ahead and get rid of it.

Watching her from afar on Facebook I had the impression that she and I were moving in different directions politically as well. So I was very relieved to get a call from her. and want desperately to stay connected to her and her kids. We had a nice chat. She put me on speaker phone. Not my fondest experience usually, but this time I was glad to connect with anyone who was around. I got to speak with grand daughters, Catherine and Savannah. We said we should do a video call through Facebook Messenger sometime through Facebook. I hope we do that. This is the way we usually talk to Sarah in England.

Today is a snowy day in Holland. The wind is blowing as well. I dressed up warmly, scraped the snow off the car and the front steps, then went and got gas. I also stopped at the library to drop off a couple of books that were due and pick up another one.

The book I had waiting for me was Old Wing Mission: Cultural Interchange as Chronicled by George and Willa Smith in their work with Chief Wakazoo’s Ottawa Band on the West Michigan Frontier edited by Swierenga and Van Appledorn. I have checked this book out before and plan to eventually probably own it. I’m trying to slow down on book purchases for myself for a while, but I was interested to look at Arvilla Powers Smith’s diary which is in this book.

Susan Howe in her book The Birth-Mark has alerted me to look more closely at what women have to say about history since their points of view and understandings were often ignored and/or simply erased. Howe gathers information about Emily Dickinson and Ann Hutchinson as well as others. You recognize Dickinson but maybe not Hutchinson. She is an interesting case of being run out of a New England community because of her radial religious beliefs which are referred to as Antinomian. Antinomian is a specific Christian understanding which is often thought of in that context as being heretical. However its use in this context is different. I’m taking it to mean that Hutchinson thought that one did earn one’s salvation but through what Christians sometimes call “grace.” Since American Puritans linked up behavior to spirituality this was a serious breach of their understandings leading them to banish Hutchinson.

My friend Dawn called me on the phone today. It was so pleasant to hear from her. She was checking to see if I had done any composing lately and if I had the piano part to Clara Schumann’s piano trio. I assured her that I was still brewing up something for us musically and I did, indeed, have that piano part and she was welcome to drop by and retrieve it. I think she and my replacement, Stephen Rumler are thinking of doing some playing together. I certainly hope so.

I have been vaguely thinking of writing something that she, Amy, Rhonda, and I could do together. I’m not sure what this would be exactly but I would choose to play another instrument besides keyboard so that Rhonda could cover keyboards. I could play marimba, banjo, congas, or guitar. Or maybe I would switch off during the piece from one instrument to another.

In the past I have preferred not to blab about my projects until they are a little more developed. Sometimes discussing them can sort of short circuit them somehow. But I hope that won’t be true of this project. The whole idea is to do something that I could do with the three people locally I would want to work with. But we’ll see.

Fighting For A More Open, Balanced Patent System: 2021 in Review | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Bookmarked to read.

The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature’s Most Epic Road Trips – Atlas Obscura

This is cool.

The Tender Trap | by Lorrie Moore | The New York Review of Books

Moore is a writer I admire. She reviews Couples Therapy: a documentary series directed by Josh Kriegman, Kim Roberts, Eli B. Despres, and Elyse Steinberg and Scenes from a Marriage: a miniseries written and directed by Hagai Levi and cowritten by Amy Herzog

I forgot to mention yesterday that during my visit to my brother and his wife how grateful I was to be included in some Jenkins family music. Emily on mandolin, Leigh on Violin, Mark on piano and me on guitar. I enjoyed playing with this crew very much.

I am also grateful for the three musical friends I have here in Holland. I mention this because I complain so much in this place about being under estimated or just plain ignored by musicians in Western Michigan. Since I have retired this is not that big a deal for me. But as I think about moving forward with music I remember that Rhonda Edgington, Dawn Van Ark and Amy Hertel have all been very good about making music with me. Instead of bemoaning my lack of colleagues I want to reach out to those who have chosen to connect with me. I’m not sure how this is going to happen or when but it is a logical step.

Also during my time away, Holly Anderson, a member of Grace Episcopal Church, emailed me and let me know about some kittens who were available. She did this because she was aware of my loss of Edison (which I am still grieving about and whom I still miss daily). I let her know that Eileen and I had decided to not to get another pet.

Holly had also previously sent me a very gracious thank you for my music at Grace after I retired. She had told me this many times in person as well. When my retirement was announced she was not happy. She said she would still see me at church, right? I had to gently disabuse of this notion. She is one of my favorite listeners there and is an amazing person. Ever since getting the thank you from her in the mail I have been pondering how to communicate to her how essential listeners are to the whole process of music.

So I emailed her back a lengthy response to her email about the kittens. I told her about Christopher Small’s idea that music is a verb and includes all working parts from listeners to people who set up chairs to performers and on and on. I also mentioned that music is one of the essential parts of being a human. She responded in a few days how she thought this idea was cool and that she remembered a dream she was the one making the music. I like this a lot.

I continue to admire Julie Fowlis’ recent Inside Music program on the BBC. I can’t believe she produces a two hour program of this quality weekly. I listened to the whole thing this morning while making coffee and bread and cleaning the kitchen and exercising. It has inspired me to follow up on most of the music she has on her play list.

I also find her description of her education and relationship to other musicians in Scotland inspiring. It has helped me understand how my education has not always been as helpful as it could have been. This has probably assisted me as an autodidact as it has continually thrown me on my own resources. And of course this is largely the place I am now as well. A good place, actually.

This is one of the pieces on Fowlis play list that I liked. She said that she uses this music for a gentle morning wake up and that she loves the music by Horner but has never seen the movie. Cool.

Massacres in U.S. History – Zinn Education Project

I recently listened to a repeat a podcast of Al Franken interviewing Michael Harriot.

Harriot mentioned massacres in our U.S. history some of which I was not aware. This link is to a partial list by the Zinn Education Project.

I have been neglecting my blog. I have been too busy with holiday fun. Eileen and I spent a few days with Mark and Leigh at their home. We were joined by Ben, Emily, and Jeremy. This visit helped me remember how much I enjoy conversation with people I love. Hell, probably with any people. We drove home yesterday and arrived just before a snow storm.

While it was good to visit with people, returning to my house now provides a new, unique pleasure of returning to the comfort of the books surrounding me especially those in my study.

Eileen and I are understandably weary today. I stayed up very late every one of the three nights we were visiting. We did get a chance to chat with Sarah today. We usually do so on Saturdays but we were busy traveling home. The English branch of the Jenkins fam have been partying like mad over there. Celebrating and re-celebrating Alice’s second birthday. Here’s what we looked like (Alice put the star on me on their screen).

I have plenty of new books to read. I love visiting Mark and his library. I left my copy Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human and Don Quixote at home and read in Mark’s copies. I also read in his Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

Mark gave a very cool book on Dante written by one of his favorite teachers.

Right up my alley.

I cooked in Mark’s kitchen which is amazing. It’s fun to work in it. I was able to get a little playing on Leigh’s fabulous piano.

I enjoyed chatting with my niece, Emily, and her husband, Jeremy, and my nephew, Ben. Tony, Ben’s husband, was under the weather, so we missed seeing him.

Eileen and I are laying around today. Life is good.

“They said they said.
They said they said when they said men.
Men many men many how many many many many men men men said many here.”
Gertrude Stein, Patriarchal Poetry, quoted by Susan Howe in The Birth-Mark

Inside Music – Singer and musician, Julie Fowlis finds a place to breath for January 1, 2022

cool This episode is only available for 28 more days or so. I stumbled across this one morning and loved it. Recommended.

The Selk’nam’s quest for recognition

“In the 19th century, other Europeans and their descendants would arrive, this time to stay. Men who had already domesticated plants and animals and who upon arriving in what is now called Tierra del Fuego found hunter-gatherers who had lived there for more than 10,000 years. That indigenous group would become to known as Selk’nam.  The encounter between hunter-gatherers and the colonizer farmers led to a defacto death penalty for the Selk’nam. A tragedy that is still the order of the day. Considered extinct in the history books and laws written by the victors, yet the survivors claim to be alive. And now they fight for recognition.”

‘Pooh,’ ‘Sun Also Rises’ among works going public in 2022 | AP News

cool beans

Building Trust Across the Political Divide – Comment Magazine

bookmarked to read