This is the third incarnation of this little piece. Then I did a kind of goofy arrangement of “Soon and Very Soon.”

My young violinist was a no-show. Fortunately I had prepared arrangements that could work with or without her.

The group seemed pretty enthusiastic about these and readily stayed a few minutes after the scheduled hour to polish them a bit.

They should work well for Sunday’s Eucharist/Lessons and Carols.

Today I have some Santa stuff to do, pick up some things, prepare some stuff for mailing.

Besides that sort of thing the day is free. And once again I’m pretty tired.

My friend from college, Marianne Lipson, offered some free music to people she knows on Facebook. I think she was mostly thinking local but when I asked her if she would mail some stuff to me she said yes.

They arrived yesterday.

Very cool.

Some Rorem:

Some Mendelssohn songs:

Scriabin (my student, Rudy, plays a bunch of these).

And a Dover edition of Mozart violin sonatas.

I’m very glad to get all of this. Offered to send a list of organ music that Marianne might be interested in owning that I would send her, but she declined. She said preferred for me to be forever in her debt. Funny lady.

Well that’s all for today.

Finished chapter 21 (of 31 plus a Final Note) in 11/22/63 by Stephen King last night. It was due yesterday. It’s a seven day book. They keep these books on an “Express” shelf so that a reader can get access to popular books for a short period of time without reserving them.  I feel like I should return this copy today and I will.

I gave myself yesterday pretty much off. I avoided beginning the arrangements for instrumentalists from my church for this evening’s rehearsal. I try to parcel out my efforts for my job in direct proportion to the remuneration and the enthusiasm of the people I am working with and for. This is another way of saying I guard against over-functioning unknowingly.

So after Eileen leaves for her day I will sit down and do arrangements for this Sunday for those players who have indicated they will be attending this evening’s rehearsal.

I guess it’s a bit of a luxury to be able to simply arrange for your players instead of searching for material (like I usually do for the choir).  My goal is to get a bunch of parishioners of wildly divergent abilities to play buy valium in spain some music together for Sunday. Should be able to pull that off easily. The temptation is to get clever. Hence my giving myself only one day to do the arrangements.

I did a lot of listening to blues yesterday.

I quite enjoy the rough sounds.

Then oddly this morning I turned back to rehearsing Messiaen

and Chopin.

For some reason I have slowly learning Chopin devilish little Prelude in G# minor.

I was startled to hear my playing on the tapes of my Senior recital (undergrad). It reminded me that I’m not a bad player. It helps med also readjust my self-assessment (which sometimes dips unrealistically as I strive to play as well as possible).

When I look clearly in the musical mirror I realize I’m competent.

Anyway.

I made apple pie last night but the crust wasn’t quite as good as usual.

Accidentally left out turkey breasts instead of chicken for Eileen’s Cordon Bleu. I kind of screwed up the Cordon Bleu a bit anyway. According to Eileen it was dry.

Eileen is a very tolerant and patient person to live with. She commented (which is the way I like it) and quietly ate some.  Then she trounced me at Scrabble.

One benefit of moving my listening equipment into the living room is that it is now easier for me to listen to my record collection.  One of my favorite old blues recordings is the compilation “I have to paint my face.” The title track is sung by Sam Chatmon. Here it is:

Imagine my surprise when after poking around a little bit and learning more about Chatmon and this recording, I found out he was the younger brother of Leon Chatmon, singer in the Mississippi Sheiks. In fact, Sam ended up doing some singing and playing as a Mississippi Sheik.

Here is one of my all favorite, Mississippi Sheiks tunes.

I discovered them late after Bob Dylan released “Good As I Been to You” in 1992. This is  a fascinating collection of covers that inspired me to run down some of the original artists including the Sheiks.

So today is my first Monday off in weeks and I’m digging it. I find it interesting that I’m turning back to some of my rougher sounds (like “I have to paint myself” and the Mississippi Sheiks). I find the blues another antidote to Xmas silly stuff.

I find living in America in this day and age largely an experience of being bombarded by falsity and outright deception. And Xmas just ups the ante.

But enough of that. The sun is shining in the cold Michigan air. It’s another good day for Jupe.

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Can’t resist embedding this. One of my favorite scenes in movies. I know it’s long for people’s sensibilities these days. But I recommend taking a few minutes to watch.

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Zombies in ‘Juan of the Dead’ Chomp on Cuba’s Sacred Cows – NYTimes.com

Russian TV, Changing Its Strategy, Shows Protests – NYTimes.com

It’s hard to deny the impact of the internet and social networks. These two stories represent what might be a sea change. Amazing to watch.

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British Poet Christopher Logue Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

Sorry to see this guy go. I have read several of his adaptations of Homer. Also he has a rather excellent obit, in my opinion.

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A Wanderer, the Singer Dion Returns to the Bronx – NYTimes.com

Who knew this guy was still alive? They seem to be working on the 3rd (!) staging of the story of his life.

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The 1 Percent Club’s Misguided Protectors – NYTimes.com

Research in Africa has some implications for the situation in America.

Some inequality may be necessary to encourage investment for growth. But as recent research shows, intense inequality actually stunts growth, making it more difficult for countries to sustain the sort of long economic expansions that have characterized the more prosperous nations of the world.

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Democracy in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Birthplace – NYTimes.com

Nicholas Kristof continues to write surprising “on-the-ground” stories in Egypt and other middle eastern countries.

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http://www.sadtrombone.com/

click on the link and hear a sad trombone laugh.

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Amazingly  I slept in this morning.  Yesterday I basically went into a bit of a stall physically and emotionally. I went through the motions of doing what I needed to do (bills and such).  But I felt drained the entire day. This morning I awoke late still feeling a bit that way. I think I am very glad that I will have Monday off (no ballet classes).

I bought the $100 Sony yesterday. Brought it home and couldn’t get it to work. Returned it for a full refund. After checking it in the shop bought the Akai. The dealer knocked off $50 and through in a cord. He felt a bit sheepish. I learned that he is not exactly an expert on vintage equipment I was hoping he would be.

I set up my cheapo turntable, amp and speakers in the living room and added the tape deck. I listened to a bit of my senior recital (it’s 4 tapes) and then went on to other stuff.

The Chamber choir does not sing at Eucharist this morning. I have a lovely (easy) Buxtehude chorale prelude ready for the Prelude and an interesting (to me) Postlude by Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck based on the tune “Comfort, comfort” even though we are not singing it today.

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Recycled Battery Lead Puts Mexicans in Danger – NYTimes.com

I think this is unacceptable. I continue to marvel how an imaginary line on a piece of paper aids us in dehumanizing others.

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An Aging Jazz Pianist Finds a New Audience – NYTimes.com

Well told interesting story.  Planning to check out his sounds later.

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Here’s this link again in case you missed it.

20 Things You Should Know About the Bill That Could Ruin America

I chatted online with my quasi-son-in-law, Jeremy Daum, yesterday. He was very upset about this bill. I agreed with him and proceed to email Michigan Senators Levin and Stabenow my disapproval.

Here’s a good site for contacting your reps:

http://www.congress.org/

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If you do nothing else today, contact your senator and object to this bill.

20 Things You Should Know About the Bill That Could Ruin America

good site for this: http://www.congress.org

I was surprised yesterday to run across a shop downtown that sells used reel to reels. The Sony TC 366 (the one above) is marked $100 and the Akai 4000DS MK II (the one below) $250.

I researched them last night. Accordingly my reading tells me that the condition of the particular recorders are more important than one model over the other. I am sorely tempted to go buy one of these today despite it being the season that Eileen and I are purchasing Xmas gifts for other people.

I have dozens of tapes laying around. Some of my father  singing, my grandfather singing and preaching and myself and others performing. Would love to convert them to digital files via one of these machines.

Plus reel to reels are such fun.

Also pleasantly surprised that the person behind the counter at the local newstand was so helpful and actually familiar with books. Cool.

Eileen and I noticed that we were making a special effort to buy local.  Many of my extended family have threatened to swear off Amazon and buy local. It’s admirable and I actually do try to buy a lot from local business.

Eileen and I usually shop at Barnes and Noble in December and usually purchase their discount card. This year we chose to check out Readers World first. Since they had much of what was on my list, I went ahead even ordered books through them.

I even ordered a CD from the local CD store as well.

Eileen and I had a nice lunch at the 8th Street Grille.

I continued my local theme and ordered a sampler of mostly Michigan beers.

They come in these nifty 4 oz glasses on a wooden tray a bit like the one above.

This is a beer from Royal Oak Michigan. I sampled it because Eileen likes red ales. She liked this one as well.

Wake up the Dead is a stout made in Colorado.  It’s described this way: “Hints of raisins, black licorice, coffee and dark chocolate are followed by earthy, herbal hop notes.” I quite liked it.

Bell’s Christmas Ale is brewed in Kalamazoo. It’s kind of odd. It has a spicy start and then a more beer like finish. It had me grabbing for the description. I was surprised to find that all of its spiciness comes only from roasted hops and malts.  I admit that made it a bit more intriguing for me.

Finished off Cabin Fever brown ale brewed right here in Holland by a member of my congregation. Description from the web site: “Its rye, roast and raisin notes play off a subtle caramel sweetness and culminate in a dry finish.” I liked this and the Wake up the Dead the best. Unfortunately Cabin Fever is a seasonal beer.  I hope that doesn’t mean they will run out before I can treat my brother to a taste when he visits (Hi Mark!).

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Death on the Streets Prompts a Life on the Roof – NYTimes.com

This man inspires me.

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All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos – NYTimes.com

A pretty even-handed look at “Greed is good.”

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The Gingrich Tragedy – NYTimes.com

I see my buddy and long time reader, Johnny Keene has posted a link to this on Facebook. Interesting take on Gingrich from someone who has admired him.

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Twitter Tries to Simplify Its Service – NYTimes.com

My Twitter doesn’t look different to me. I suspect this is a phone app change.

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‘Krapp’s Last Tape,’ With John Hurt, at BAM – Review – NYTimes.com

One of my fondest memories of visits to the U.K. was grabbing last minute tickets to see John Hurt do this play. He and the play are incredible. I love Beckett, anyway. But Hurt was phenomenal.

Now he’s in this new movie that I will have to see, since I also am very fond of John LeCarre.

‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,’ With Gary Oldman – Review – NYTimes.com

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At 4AM this morning I looked out my window and saw my first snow of the season. I have to admit I smiled. I have been missing it.

Despite the lack of snow, I have been enjoying walking to work in the morning and seeing some pretty gorgeous sights. I noticed steam pouring from a home on my way to work. It was back lit by a rising sun creating a different and brighter color from the darkened home. I also keep seeing birds now that the leaves are gone. It seems like crows and other large black birds enjoy sitting at the top of tree bare of leaves.

I am relieved that I don’t have to do the last day of class Students are encouraged to take a special session offered this morning in the swimming pool with one of the therapists. Otherwise (if they don’t want to swim) they offer a class session which doesn’t involve much dancing or at least doesn’t need this accompanist. Cool.

I broke my usual pattern this morning. After reading a bit of poetry, instead of my usual non-fiction, I read Stephen King’s new novel, 11/23/11. I have to take it back to the library in the next few days. I’m on page 300 or so. It of course has over 800 pages. I alternated between King’s easy prose and playing Mozart and Mendelssohn on the electric piano.

Another great morning!

I have decided to delay performing the two Messiaen organ meditations I am preparing from his Nativity suite. These are his movement on “The Word” and on “The Shepherds.” Amazing stuff really. I am thinking of scheduling them as preludes after Christmas sometime with some solid explanation in bulletin notes. This music is beautiful but it might require a bit different sensibility than the one people in my congregation have around Christmas (which seems to go from anxiety to sentimentality then back to anxiety with doses of depression/melancholy….. you know like most of America… ahem).

I don’t want to sound too smug, but Messiaen’s beautiful challenging music is sort of an antidote for me personally to the banal and desperate consumer season that passes for Christmas in our churches and society. I figure this antidote is appropriate in the Episcopal church. But I have decided not to challenge people around the last Sunday of Advent and Christmas eve, though. These were the two times that I thought the Messiaen might be most appropriate.

I have interlibrary loaned Jon Gillock’s book, Performing Messiaen’s Organ Music. It is very useful. He studied with Messiaen and has a chapter on each of Messiaen’s organ pieces (66 in all). When my music allowance is renewed in 2012 I plan to purchase this excellent book.  I am planning to use it write my bulletin explanations (which I’m sure I will share here, another ahem).

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The Age of Man Is Not a Disaster – NYTimes.com

A group of scientists wrote this thought provoking essay on the current age of the earth they have dubbed the Anthropocene.

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Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home – NYTimes.com

Nicholas Kristof shares his insights and hesitations about the Muslim Brotherhood via personal conversations and experiences.

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Feeling a tad less melancholy today. That’s nice. My evening meal out with Eileen last night was very enjoyable. I do enjoy her company. It’s probably because she so patiently and intelligently listens to me.

I was drained yesterday by the time we sat down to martinis (mine gin, her’s chocolate – ! ). My morning ballet classes were especially satisfying. I was pretty pleased with my improvisations. In the early class, the teacher had requested me as accompanist even though I wasn’t scheduled so I could accompany her final exam. I find accompanying exams slightly nerve wracking because I don’t want to throw kids off when they are being evaluated. I have another set this morning. I try to be especially clear and consistent when I do this.

In my pointe class, Amanda Smith continued her wise discussion of performance anxiety. I do admire this teacher and her explanations. She told a story about her dance class in Ada Michigan which described ironically as a bit rich and reserved. The kids were a few days away from a grand performance of The Nutcracker and were focusing largely on technical questions. Amanda said told these high schoolers that sometimes you have to just say “WHAT THE HELL” and just dance. One small kid said she was thinking that but thinking “What the HECK.” Amanda told them that was okay, but that they had to really mean “HECK.” She described them later lining up to dance and whispering to each other, “what the HECK.” Very inspiring to this old musician who continually tries to “just play” and remind himself that in the words of Bill Murray’s character, “IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER.”

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Haven’t been getting to links lately, so here’s a few.

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New movie that looks interesting.

Silence Is Golden – NYTimes.com

“Paying attention to anything will be the missing commodity in future life. You think you’ll miss nothing, but you’ll probably miss everything.”

“It’s a weird paradox that the essential feature of technology is talkativeness, but usually without the sound of human voices attached.”

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Text – Obama’s Speech in Kansas – NYTimes.com

I think this was a good speech. I didn’t watch it. Instead as is my usual procedure I read it.  I recommend reading it all the way through if you haven’t. It’s rhetoric was a little high flown in places, but I think the content was pretty balanced when you read the whole thing. Most of the criticisms I read in the following links are refuted by quotes from the speech itself.

Some reaction from people who oppose Obama:

Henninger: Obama’s Godfather Speech – WSJ.com

This writer draws a picture of Obama as strictly the leader of the Democratic party figuratively plowing his motorcade into bystanders he is ignoring. Unfortunately I don’t think the bystanders are all that “innocent” if one is thinking about people who are trying to get Americans to ignore their hand in the public cookie jar (via huge subsidies and low taxes for people who in Obama’s words are not millionaires but people who make a million dollars every year).  I think it’s pretty obvious that Obama is as embedded in the US power structure as any Republican or pundit. How in the world do you think he got elected? I have disagreed with his kowtowing to the banks and financial leaders even as they and their rhetorical reps pillory him. Easy to shoot at the black guy even when he’s basically on your side, I guess.

Here are a couple more links of people who oppose Obama.

The Last Incarnation of Barack Obama

This one says that both Obama and Teddy Kennedy were leftists. I find that pretty laughable (being far left of either one).

RealClearPolitics – Obama vs. Capitalism

I read a lot of distortion in these reactions. I didn’t read many articles that supported Obama’s speech. I suspect there is distortion there as well.

FWIW I think the hysteria of partisanship (brought to you largely historically by figures like Gingrich, Rove and Norquist) has so far  removed political discussion from calm coherence that people expect distortion, especially distortion they agree with. I find it particularly troubling when history gets re-written (this seems to be Professor Gingrich’s specialty as far as I can see).

I haven’t read anything that refutes Obama’s contention that trimming government (via recent tax breaks or early 20th century monopolies) has ever actually helped the economy. The right seems to be all theory to me right now. Theories and of course stoking anger and emotions against the president and more prudent (conservative actually) approaches to American problems.

President Obama in Osawatomie – NYTimes.com

For my part, I think that the NYT (that bastion of lily livered communists and fellow travelers) has it right:

Mr. Obama correctly framed the choice for voters: The country can return to policies that stacked the deck for the wealthy and left everyone else to fend for themselves, creating what he called “you’re on your own economics.” Or elected officials can step in to keep competition fair and ensure the government has enough money to protect the vulnerable and invest in education and research.

The notion that the market will take care of all problems if taxes are kept low and regulations are minimized may look great on a bumper sticker, but, he said: “It doesn’t work. It has never worked.” Not before the Great Depression, not in the ’80s, and not in the last decade.”

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Colbert Pushes ‘Corporations Are People’ Referendum – NYTimes.com

This is fun.

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Compromise and the Supercommittee – NYTimes.com

I’m Sorry – The Scariest Words in Politics – NYTimes.com

When America Apologizes (or Doesn’t) for Its Actions – letters to the editor  NYTimes.com

Compromising…. apologizing…. acting like adults…. none of this flies these days.

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Vietnam – More Than 100,000 Casualties From Explosives Since War Ended – NYTimes.com

tragic

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Unusually I put up 2 posts yesterday. The reason was that Xmas Credo #1 was probably not totally appropriate to Facebook since I am “friends” with many young people and religious people who might find it objectionable or puzzling.

The banality and disconnect of Xmas sentimentality seems to be telling on me a bit.

As usual I turn to ideas that comfort me with their challenge and edge.  The rant posted in Xmas Credo #1 struck me as amusing and pertinent. I think it says something clearly about “believing” and the credibility given to surface ideas, images and forms in the wonderful world of American rhetoric, entertainment, art, literature, what have you.

To simultaneously believe (or not believe) in God three ways is easy for me to understand. I usually tell religious people I am an atheist. This clears the air a bit. “I had no idea” one gentlemen responded to me. He had just been expressing anger at how a church community had treated him. I could tell he was re-adjusting my category in his head.

Anyway, I am mentally exhausted and facing more religious responsibilities as the holidays heat up.

I pretty much decided yesterday that Messiaen’s music would not be “happy” enough for the banal Xmas celebrations I am facing. His vision of meaning is one that attracts and makes sense to me. Recently I was rehearsing his music at a piano in a studio and someone walked in and remarked how “tense” the music sounded. It was in fact beautiful to my ears. But this person who was not uneducated in the ways of art and music heard it like movie music I guess.

Wednesday turned out to be a true “hump” day for me this past term. Hopefully today is my last one. Eileen (Mrs. Jupe) and I already have a date to go out tonight after she gets out of work. I look forward to that.

I have been writing very private poetry about my life. I have shown it to no one but quoted bits of it to Eileen.

I sometimes see the hysterical divides in our political discourse (which has leaked into and damaged personal discourse) as empathy versus responsibility.

Empathy is often supposed to be a relativistic, soft-headed liberal response.

Conversely, responsibility can be stereotyped as hard-heartedness, blaming the victim, and thinly disguised selfishness.

I am convinced we need both concepts in our lives. But I have been thinking of the criticisms of empathy that my dead mentor wrote in his book.

However lofty the original concept of empathy (a word that only came into the English language in 1922), societal regression has perverted the concept into a force that sabotages well-differentiated leadership. It is often a power tool in the hands of the dependent who want others who are stronger than they are to adapt to them.

It also serves as a rationalization for the inability of those in helping positions to develop self-control and not enable or interfere, a disguise for unacknowledged anxiety that leads to a quick fix, and an indulgence for those who are not in a position where they have to make tough decisions. But the most deleterious effect on leaders of the subversion of empathy is that it has contributed to a a major misorientation about the factors that go into growth and survival and the nature of what is toxic to life itself.

Ed Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (1999 edition) p. 28

“I,” she told him, “can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.”

“Really?”

“I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen—I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” She stopped, out of breath.

Gaiman, Neil American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition

I found myself doing some odd reading yesterday. I downloaded an ebook copy of Le Morte D’Arthur by Malory and read several chapters.

I did so after reading a review of Peter Ackroyd’s new “translation” of it.

I like Ackroyd quite a bit. He has done some very interesting writing. His works include a biography of a city (London),

another “translations” (actually a reworking) of an early English poem (Canterbury Tales),

and engaging fiction (English Music).

This last one is quite the romp utilizing a sort of dream prose than brings very many English characters to life in its prose (fictional and real if I remember correctly… I know Alice is in it and I think Dickens himself). I especially like his use of the word, “music,” to indicate the poetry or charm of English ideas and people.

The review of his new book, The Death of Arthur, intrigued me enough to want to double check the original before considering Ackroyd’s version.

I also turned back to continue reading Brothers Karmazov.

I left off about a third of the way through. The characters (two of the three brothers: Ivan and Alyosha) are engaged in philosophical discussion that culminates in Ivan telling the famous “Grand Inquisitor” story. He calls it his “poem.”

Reading this prose is much like reading non-fiction. It’s about ideas as much as story.

Finally, I was waiting for Eileen at the library and decided to check the 7 day shelf to see if Stephen King’s new book was available.  It was. So I checked it out. It’s the usual huge volume by King. But his prose goes by quickly so I should be able to read most if not all of it in a week.

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This is how we choose a president? | Hugh Hewitt | Columnists | Washington Examiner

It’s sort of encouraging to see people on both sides of the partisan divide questioning the idea of a reality show host leading the next GOP debate.

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‘Eat More Kale’ T-Shirts Challenged by Chick-fil-A – NYTimes.com

Copyright infringement discussion.

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Send In the Clueless – NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman muses that the GOP may yet “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” He observes that appealing to the GOP base in the primaries produces cynical or naive maneuvers in possible presidential candidates.

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City Cracks Down on Washington Square Park Performers – NYTimes.com

Washington Square. I was pretty excited to see this historic park last time I was in New York. Public performances of music interest me.

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100 Notable Books of 2011 – NYTimes.com

Only read one of these: Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks. Stephen King’s novel is on this list, I believe.

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Sweet Judy Blue Eyes – My Life in Music – By Judy Collins – Book Review – NYTimes.com

New memoir. I didn’t know that Stephen Stills’ “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” was named for her.

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The Doors – A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years – By Greil Marcus – Book Review – NYTimes.com

This review is by Camille Paglia someone whom I’ve been reading and mostly admiring for many years.

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So I ordered a newer book of poetry by Wendell Berry. Given was published in 2005. I find Berry’s work uneven. Some of it attracts me deeply. A lot of it is descriptive and narrative and I don’t always find this kind of work by him that attractive.

But I do like the poem, “Some Further Words” found in Given.

Again, I event think this poem is uneven. I object to his views expressed in it that a fetus is a child. I don’t object to his poetic notion nicely expressed. I just think it plays into some of the hollow words that he criticizes elsewhere in this poem.

Anyway, here are some sections I admired in “Some Further Words.”

A knave with a degree is a knave. A fool
in a public office is not a “leader.”
A rich thief is a thief. And the ghost
of Arthur Moore, who taught me Chaucer,
returns in the night to say again:
“Let me tell you something, boy.
An intellectual whore is a whore.”

…

When I hear the stock market has fallen,
I say, “Long live gravity! Long live
stupidity, error, and greed in the palaces
of fantasy capitalism!” I think
an economy should be based on thrift,
on taking care of things, not on theft,
usury, seduction, waste, and ruin.

…

“Intellectual property” names
the deed by which the mind is bought
and sold, the world enslaved. We
who do not own ourselves, being free,
own by theft what belongs to God,
to the living world, and equally
to us all. Or how can we own a part
of what we only can possess
entirely? Life is a gift we have
only by giving it back again.
Let us agree: “the laborer is worthy
of his hire,” but he cannot own what he knows,
which must be freely told, or labor
dies with the laborer. The farmer
is worthy of the harvest made
in time, but he must leave the light
by which he planted, grew, and reaped,
the seed immortal in mortality,
freely to the time to come. The land
too he keeps by giving it up,
as the thinker receives and gives a thought,
as the singer sings in the common air.

…

No one has made
the art by which one makes the works
of art. Each one who speaks speaks
as a convocation. We live as councils
of ghosts. It is not “human genius”
that makes us human, but an old love,
an old intelligence of the heart
we gather to us from the world,
from the creatures, from the angels
of inspiration, from the dead–
an intelligence merely nonexistent
to those who do not have it, but —
to those who have it more dear than life.

…

And so I would like to be a true
human being, dear reader-a choice
not altogether possible now.

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Betty Haas Pfister Dies at 90 – Wartime Pilot With Passion for Flight – NYTimes.com

This person sounds fascinating to me.

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And Now … Professor Gingrich – NYTimes.com

Appearances are not reality. I believe Gingrich has damaged American public conversation by deliberately demonizing his enemies (when he was speaker).

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Began my day as I have been reading the poetry of William Carlos Williams. The more I read of his poetry the more I am convinced of his genius. I love his voice.  Here’s a good example from a previous morning.

DANSE RUSSE

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

It was soon after reading this that I found myself playing through the Russian composers, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev (Russe = russian).

After reading more of WCW, it is obvious to me that the “happy genius” of this poem is the speaker of much of WCW’s poetry. He is solitary and in love with the pulse of life he finds in himself and his surroundings.

Now that’s joie de vivre.

I turned from poetry to the music of Distler this morning. I am madly trying to learn his toccata from his Partita on Wachet Auf (Op. 8 No. 2).  This morning I checked his metronome markings on this movement. I was happy to find that they are not as fast I thought they were. I think I might be able to learn this in time to perform it during Advent.

Also learning a couple more movements from Messiaen’s Nativity Suite. I have been studying and playing this music since the 80s. I love Messiaen’s mystical visions and how he achieves a beauty and freedom through strict compositional devices.

I worked on manual parts for Les Bergers (the Shepherds) and Le Verb (The Word) both yesterday and this morning. (This means I practice the keyboard parts only … it’s what I did with the Distler as well…. it is especially helpful to me to do this at this stage of learning) It looks like these will be ready in time to use. Les Bergers is, I think, supposed to be the reaction of the shepherds to having seen the Nativity. It starts as though they are stunned by the what they have seen with slow and shimmering chords. The music gathers strength and then goes into a haunting dance suggesting a bizarre shepherd’s piping his new found joy. The performance on the video I embedded recently seems to slow down as the dance gets more complicated. I am planning not to do that.  I think it should find itself caught up in an increasing dance of joy. So at the very least I plan not to slow down.

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Britain’s GCHQ Uses Online Puzzle to Recruit Hackers – NYTimes.com

This is cute. Both my daughter living in the U.K. and I posted this on Facebook. You have to be British to win a job as a spy, however.

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Officers Punished for Supporting Eased Drug Laws – NYTimes.com

It fascinates me when the one dimensional stereotypes of our public discussion are shattered. These are policemen who have intelligent and strong opinions that life would be less violent if drug laws eased. They’re probably even Republicans. But that does not save them from losing their livelihoods when they express this.

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Profit-Taking Inside Congress – NYTimes.com

Insider trading legal for politicians. Legal or illegal, it’s still unethical.

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Newt’s War on Poor Children – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow dismembers Newt over these statements (sounds a bit like a high school biology project, doesn’t it?)

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J.F.K.’s Legacy, as Seen by His Grandson – NYTimes.com

Another interesting letter in the New York Time’s letters to the editor.

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How To Brew Coffee – National Coffee Association

Handy link my friend Nick Palmer put up on Facebook. Thanks, Nick!

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The things one learns when one reads sci-fi!!! This is a bombadeer beetle. It manages to create a little explosion of hot gas when it is threatened. Very cool.

Ran across mention of it in MetaGame by Sam Landstrom an ebook I bought recently as a daily Kindle deal for 99 cents.

BTW I am enjoying this little sci-fi future game romp quite a bit, reading when I am treadmilling and run of online articles to read.

At the end of a ballet class, it is the usual etiquette to at least applaud the accompanist, if not dance a stylized bow to him/her (curtsying or bowing at the end of a last slow dance – to warm down a bit – called the reverence – rev -er-AHNS). Appreciation is high for the musician. Dancers are instructed to make eye contact and murmur a thank you.

Of course this doesn’t happen every time, but many times. Yesterday the 8:30 class seemed especially appreciative. I noticed that I was flattered and even doing a small bit of private basking in this.

I know this is goofy. I am a hard person to compliment. People at church express appreciation at practically every service I play. That seems different somehow. Musicians are trained to receive compliments graciously.  But I find that inevitably music for its own sake is not that intrinsic to my church work. The music is necessarily secondary to the praying. And in liturgical worship, music itself is not seen as a “sacrifice of praise” as it sometimes is in other traditions.

I think the simplicity of what I do as a ballet accompanist attracts me. Sound and movement is really all we are doing.

I have been allowing myself to include in my improvisations melodies and rhythms from a wider and wider range of styles. So now my improvs not only sound like tangos, waltzes, or more expected sounds, I also have been improvising in the style of Scott Joplin, Indie rock, Mexican popular music, and other ones that occur to me that seem to fit what the teacher needs.

This quite fun for me.

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The Spirit of Enterprise – by David Brooks- NYTimes.com

People see lobbyists diverting money on the basis of connections; they see traders making millions off of short-term manipulations; they see governments stealing money from future generations to reward current voters

The result is a crisis of legitimacy. The game is rigged. Social trust shrivels. Effort is no longer worth it. The prosperity machine winds down.

Brooks mostly meant Europe, but I think this describes America very well.

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Barney Frank, Often Prickly, Always Quotable — Political Memo – NYTimes.com

Have admired Frank for years.  Will miss him as a congressman.

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Secret Santa in the Senate – NYTimes.com

Speaking of congress,  Al Franken has convinced some of the reps to do a secret santa thing…. very cool.

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A Stephen King Thriller – What Motivated Oswald? – NYTimes.com

Stephen King talks back to a conservative NYT’s columnist…. letter to the editor.

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British Inquiry Is Told Hacking Is Worthy Tool – NYTimes.com

Nothing that Mr. McMullan said was particularly surprising; anyone following the phone hacking scandal that engulfed News International and its parent, the News Corporation, over the summer is now more than familiar with outrageous tales of tabloid m-alfeasance. What was startling was that Mr. McMullan, who left his job in 2001, eagerly confessed to so much and on such a scale – no one else has done it quite this way – and that he maintained that none of it was wrong…

Mr. McMullan said that the public interest is what the public is interested in…

Mr. McMullan said he thought that privacy was “evil,” in that it helps criminals cover up their misdeeds

Using a Britishism for “pedophile,” he said, “Privacy is for pedos.”

This guy was in Cameron’s government? Good grief.

Eileen (Mrs. Jupe) had to be  at work at7:30 AM this morning so I had company during my usual solitude time. Very nice. But I’m starting to run a bit late myself and don’t have much time to blog.

Here’s a couple of cool quotes from this morning’s reading (I typed them in earlier)

“[I]magination is not to avoid reality, nor is it a description nor an evocation of objects or situations, it is to say that poetry does not tamper with the world but moves it—It affirms reality most powerfully and therefore, since reality needs no personal support but exists free from human action, as proven by science in the indestructibility of matter and of force, it creates a new object, a play, a dance which is not a mirror up to nature but—.”

William Carlos Williams quoted  in his bio on Poetry Foundation

And D. H. Lawrence on being an American:

“{T}here are two ways of being American, and the chief… is by recoiling into individual smallness and insentience, and gutting the great continent in frenzies of mean fear. It is the Puritan way. The other is by touch; touch America as she is; dare to touch her! And this is the heroic way.”

D. H. Lawrence quoted in same WCW bio as above

I am learning two movements from Messiaen’s Nativity for upcoming services. I discussed their use with my congenial and helpful boss yesterday. They’re not the usual Xmas fair, but we found a couple of slots for them. Now to actually learn them.

Here’s the one I might do on Xmas II (The Sunday after Xmas):

And this one on Advent IV.

I will use both of these pieces as preludes. If I can learn them in time. I have been working on them everyday this week.

I didn’t have time to listen all the way through to these two Messiaen videos. But I did watch the following one repeatedly. I think it’s great. I put it up on Facebook but just for fun here it is again.

Finished reading To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis last night. It’s another of her history time travel novels like the famous Doomsday Book which I have also read.

But To Say Nothing of the Dog is more of a comedy of manners in the style of P. G. Wodehouse with a few basic sci-fi twists.

I love her references to some of my favorite fictional characters throughout (Jeeves, of course,

but also Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane of Dorothy L. Sayers invention).

And I also enjoyed the background of Oxford both in the future and in the past.  It was a good read.

It looks like I am re-reading A Failure of Nerve by Friedman for the third or fourth time.

I made the startling discovery this morning, that the new version omits quite a bit from the original. It is more than a re-organization of Friedman’s manuscript. These omissions probably make it smoother and more like other non-fiction prose. But I find myself preferring the “voice” of the original in which I can clearly hear a Friedman I recognize.

For example I could not find this entire story in the new book:

One evening I boarded a flight in Dallas headed for New York. At least 20 minutes went by past take-off time, and the doors still had not been closed.  When I asked the chief flight attendant what the problem was  she replied that the smoke detector in one of the lavatories was broken and they were waiting for someone to fix it. Appalled at how many people-hours were being wasted, I asked,  “Why don’t you just rip it out  or seal it off?” “Oh sir,” she responded, “you can’t do that.” When I went back to my seat, my neighbor and I began to commiserate. He was a liquor distributor and several of his young-adult children worked for him. The conversation got around to women in the market place, and I asked him if he planned to bring his daughter into what was traditionally a a man’s world. He answered, “I had been hesitant, even though she’s probably the most competent and responsible member of the litter. But after a recent experience, I have changed my mind.”

He told me this story. His daughter had been working for an ad agency that had a deadline for a multimillion dollar proposal. Everyone went home, leaving her in charge of making sure that the proposal made the last plane out. But someone snafued, and they missed the overnight mail deadline. So on her own, she called the airport, found out the cost of a private jet, and decided that as extravagant as the cost might be, it was a small price to pay to insure the contract. When her immediate superiors came in the next morning and found out what she had done on her own responsibility, they were furious; but, said her father, “That’s when I decided to take her into the business.”

This book is about separating the “women” from the “girls.” Here is how I shall go about it.

Friedman was contrasting the passivity of the chief flight attendant with the ingenuity of the passenger’s daughter.  Maybe the new editors found the whole story too dated and sexist. On the other hand, it caused me to think about Friedman’s point of what kind of leader he tried to help, one that, in his words, is committed to a lifetime of “continual self-regulated growth” and “transformation” by “one’s experience.”

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At Top Colleges, Anti-Wall St. Fervor Complicates Recruiting – NYTimes.com

I find this encouraging since the college students I rub shoulders with at Hope tend to be very conservative and at least admire the titans of commerce.

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Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Telemarketer Abuse Cases – NYTimes.com

The justices agree that this case is “odd,” but that’s all, I guess.

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‘Higher Gossip’ by John Updike – Review – NYTimes.com

I am life long admirer and reader of the late John Updike. Glad to see more of his prose being made available.

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The Certainty of Memory Has Its Day in Court – NYTimes.com

From Nancy Goldner, ‘More Balanchine Variations’ – NYTimes.com

I wasn’t aware of Goldner’s work. Probably will have to read her.

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The Certainty of Memory Has Its Day in Court – NYTimes.com

I am very interested in memory and brain science. I hadn’t thought of the implications of the new thinking for court cases. Wow.

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Tool Reveals Which Celebs, Models Have Been Photoshopped

Thanks to daughter, Elizabeth, for pointing me to this article.

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Stalin’s Daughter Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

This woman’s life story is pretty amazing.

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Born in 1951, I grew up in a world where injustice was obvious. The color of your skin severely limited you.

Your genitals determined your role in society.

God help you if you were gay.

As a child, I remember defiantly drinking at a “colored” only water fountain in the South.

This was much to the horror of my parents whose reaction I always thought was not approval of Jim Crow but fear of other white’s reactions.

Women were second class citizens and subservient to men in general.

Despite entering the work force in WWII they still routinely encountered huge obstacles to controlling their own destiny and becoming doctors, police, or professors.  To be gay was to be mentally ill, literally.

The poor were invisible to most of the middle and upper class.

Hell, the notion of class was not part of the usual discussion of intellectuals of the time.

And then there was the war in Vietnam.

It was eating America’s children and destroying the region of Southeast Asia. The longer it persisted, the more obviously immoral it was. It was talked of as an “unjust” war (in the language of moralists).

In response to these and other obvious injustices, many Americans responded. Not everyone who picked up a sign and demonstrated was a bum, needed a bath, had no job and was just waiting for the riot so they could steal a TV.

Public demonstrations preceded immense changes in these areas.

Johnson’s theoretical war was not a “War on Terrorism” or one on drugs, it was a “War on Poverty” (in the phrase of the time).

Free speech and demonstration preceded changes in the law that prohibited discrimination of people of color and eventually people’s gender.  Sexual orientation was addressed but changed slower.

One began to hear of “firsts.” The first black to attend a white southern university, the first woman to enter an all male college or profession.

These societal changes were ones I lived through. I knew blacks, women and gay people who suffered the indignities of second class citizenship if not outright persecution. My own father crusaded for justice even to the point of being part of a clergy organization which stationed ministers in a certain elevator in a Flint police station where people where systematically beaten. His presence and other clergy’s presence shamed the police into desisting in this brutal behavior.

But now it seems that many American see their life in terms of struggling and striving for their own economic security not justice for all in the society.  The  government is the problem not a solution. Commerce is the life blood of the country not integrity, leadership or vision. Even though it was originally satire (like so much information that bombards us it turned into reality) “Greed is Good”is a credo to many Americans.

There are more things that I see happening in my country, but I think the story has changed. Injustice is very subtle unless it touches you personally.

And history is re-written in startling ways. It reminds me of the many movies and TV shows made about historical figures.

History has been turned into a distorted marketing strategy that can sell political ideology or soda pop.

For what it’s worth this old guy remembers a different time and was shaped by it.

Poem for the day:

A PORTRAIT IN GREYS

by William Carlos Williams
Will it never be possible
to separate you from your greyness?
Must you be always sinking backward
into your grey-brown landscapes—and trees
always in the distance, always against
a grey sky?
Must I be always
moving counter to you? Is there no place
where we can be at peace together
and the motion of our drawing apart
be altogether taken up?
I see myself
standing upon your shoulders touching
a grey, broken sky—
but you, weighted down with me,
yet gripping my ankles,—move
laboriously on,
where it is level and undisturbed by colors.

This feels like a poem written to a parent or an ancestor or at the very least one who has gone before.  Somehow the “I” of the poem, the one who is being held up is the one who is disturbed by colors…. not the “you” of the poem.

Interesting mix of spellings of “grey” and “color.” I usually think of spelling gray “Grey” as evidence of Canadian or British origin (WCW was neither). And of course “colour” instead of color.

I’m on page 100 of vol I of WCW’s collected poems and though I have been enjoying reading the poems, this is the first one that jumped out at me.

Oddly enough I found myself strumming Chaikowsky (Tchaikovsky?) on the electric piano this morning. For some reason he fit my mood. Played through his Romance op. 5 and two movements from “The Seasons”  (Oct & Nov).

He is another of those composers who has dogged my musical tastes. I remember quite liking the Andante Cantabile from his first string quartet and playing through a piano transcription of it when I was pretty young. Then in my late teens I was crashing through some underbrush at Interlochen and I heard a student string quartet playing it beautifully. I’ve continued to like this one.

I can hear Chaikowsky’s love of Chopin in the piano music I was playing this morning.  Here’s a lovely recording of the Romance I played through early this morning.

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Bookmarked to read:

Czeslaw Milosz around the world | TLS

merchandising of a poet

Neuroscience Challenges Old Ideas about Free Will: Scientific American

Jed Perl: Why Culture Is Now In Retreat Before The Brute Force Of Money | The New Republic

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John Waters on the couch – FT.com

my hero

funny quote: “He says it’s good that more people are able to come out of the closet, but adds: “I wish some gay people would go back in. We have enough.”

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Are the Arts Irrelevant to the Next Generation? – Miller-McCune

ay yi yi

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Women in Love director Ken Russell dies | Reuters

also made the movie, Tommy…

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Our Universities: Why Are They Failing? by Anthony Grafton | The New York Review of Books

This is interesting just for the list of books he is using in his essay.

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Obama’s Flunking Economy: The Real Cause by Ezra Klein | The New York Review of Books

another one I haven’t read yet

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Behind Murakami’s Mirror by Charles Baxter | The New York Review of Books

Yay Murakami! It’s just a matter of time before I obtain and read this one.

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The Mind’s Ear – NYTimes.com

Wired for Sound – NYTimes.com

articles on listening to books and isolation via headphones

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I continue to be amazed by the poetry of William Carlos Williams. There was a review of a new bio of him in yesterday’s NYT. The review was interesting but actually discouraged me from wanting to read the new book due to its propensity to search the poems for biographical details. This, to me, is a mis-reading (or at best a tertiary one) of poetry.

Anyway, his poetry made up today’s pre-blogging morning reading.

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Words for Today

Anchor – the first on the list of cognitive biases….  deep in the Wikipedia article I found this definition:

Anchoring and adjustment is a psychological heuristic that influences the way people intuitively assess probabilities. According to this heuristic, people start with an implicitly suggested reference point (the “anchor”) and make adjustments to it to reach their estimate. A person begins with a first approximation (anchor) and then makes incremental adjustments based on additional information.

This led me to read the definition of “heuristic.”

Heuristic ( /hj??r?st?k/; or heuristics; Greek: “???????”, “find” or “discover”) refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical. Examples of this method include using a “rule of thumb”, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, or common sense.

It looks to me like there is no way to totally avoid this cognitive bias, since the most common ones comes from our past experiences. Analyzing one’s thoughts to discover what exactly one is anchoring an observation could lead one to think about what facts one is overlooking I guess.

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MUSIC REPORT

The music went very well at church yesterday. Probably the high point for me was the prelude. The piano trio met early to run through our pieces. We had an interesting discussion. I pointed out that when we began our meetings, we played with more spontaneity and ease. As we began to get more serious about our repertoire, I detected tiny arguments in the way we played. The cellist said she preferred to think of them as explorations.  I thought that was nice. But I said that variations like that in our playing confused me as much as they then helped me to reconsider my own interp.

Also, that I still sort of saw them as little disagreements about the music. We talked about this in regards to tempo. The violinist asked me what tempo I had been working on in the Mozart. This surprised me because I thought we had set the tempo (at quarter note equals 96 per minute). When I told her that she looked relieved.

I try to lead the ensemble away from thinking too much as we play. This is something I work on quite a bit myself. After we have agreed on a tempo and most of the interp, I start talking about the music as “playful is this section” or “noble” in another one.

This kind of talk and thinking helps me.

My one real piano teacher (with whom I studied briefly for a couple of years, the extend of my training on piano) had a hang-up on Mozart. He cautioned me that as I matured Mozart would get harder and harder to play. This had been true for him.

I’ve come to realize that while this teacher (who was really an excellent first-rate teacher for me and from whom I continue to learn as I practice piano) had himself some serious performance anxiety issues. He was known for freezing up in performances he gave at the university, even though he was an excellent player.

So sometimes when I prepare Mozart for performance, these memories and ideas come to me.I have to find a way to overcome my internalization of these parts of my training. One way I do it is to think about the meaning of the music as I “just play” it when I perform. It’s necessary for me to combine this with increased preparation of harder sections of the music whereby I repeat patterns correctly over and over.

I have increased the use of repetition in my practice in the last decade and it has shown some pretty startling results to me.

I was doing some of this yesterday with the Mozart piano trio. This found me working over little sections of it in the days prior to its performance.

After our critical discussion yesterday, and before our pre-service run through, I told the other two members of the trio (once again) how much I enjoyed and valued our work together. I told them that I “loved them both” and then we played.

We nailed it, of course, both in the pre-service and the actual performance.

Satisfying.

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Presidential Politics as Craven Crudités – NYTimes.com

salient quotes: “…. facts count for little when there’s fear mongering to be done.’

“Campaigns waged with lies presage governments racked by distrust.”

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J. Edgar Hoover ‘Outed’ My Godfather – NYTimes.com

Had to read this after seeing the recent movie…

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Willpower – It’s in Your Head – NYTimes.com

I marvel that this article arguing for the validity of will power did not use the word, “discipline,” one.

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President as Piñata – NYTimes.com

This author argues that Obama has done better than his critics to the left and right him give him credit for. I will vote for him most probably. I couldn’t vote for Clinton for re-election because he had moved too far to the right for me, effectively usurping the right’s agenda. Shrewd politics, but bad policy.

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Coco Robicheaux, New Orleans hoodoo bluesman, has died | NOLA.com

Another obit leads me to some wonderful music.

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I’m thinking about my hero, Ed Friedman, this morning and his multiple insights into human relationships via family system psychology.

I can’t lay my hands on my notes about this subject. I’m sure they’re tucked in somewhere. But what I can find are copies of the three books I have read by Friedman.

In order:

Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue (1985)

Friedman’s Fables (1990)

A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, an edited manuscript (1999)

Friedman died in 1996 and left an unfinished manuscript which was the basis of the lectures I heard him deliver at a workshop (in the 80s?).

His estate completed this edition and I managed to get a copy by calling on the phone (I just scanned in the cover pictured above). To this day, I’m convinced that I spoke to his widow when I ordered it.

Later Seabury Books published a more polished edition in 2007.

Generation to Generation & Failure of Nerve (2007 edition) are both available in Kindle editions.

This morning I was doing some thinking and flipped through my back notes in these books. Friedman emphasizes working on, understanding and regulating self. So these salient notes are things I am thinking about in regards to myself.

diagnosis: an identifying process that fixes perceptions….  often the result of anxiety in a system… rule of thumb, when you catch yourself diagnosing, probably something you are trying to hide

from Generation to Generation

differentiation cannot be implanted from the outside…. can’t make a bean grow by pulling on it

self is not merely analogous to immunity; it is immunity (Friedman’s emphasis)

from Age of the Quick Fix

This is a paen for ambiguity. I have long believed that questions are more important than answers…. in the effort to stimulate growth, the continual challenge of trying to reframe questions in a way that promotes fresh vision has … natural superiority  over  the struggle to find answers to the way others have posed them… questions are perceptions, and they way they are framed already determines the spectrum of answers one can possibly imagine

This is from the discussion booklet that comes with Friedman’s Fables

The essential question of human existence is not how your family did you in; it’s maintaining your integrity

from Friedman’s Fables

Self, ambiguity, paradox…. these are all insights I continue to mull over from thinking about Friedman’s ideas. Good stuff.

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Man Uses His Schizophrenia to Gather Clues for Daily Living – NYTimes.com

Sometimes the inmates have the insights.

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British Inquiry Into Press Tactics Turns the Tables on Tabloids – NYTimes.com

The author, John Burns, is someone I always read.

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Talks on Cluster Bomb Restrictions Collapse – NYTimes.com

Collapsed because most of the world thought it was a bad deal…. the ones that aren’t making and selling them, that is.

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Olga Bloom, Founder of Bargemusic, Dies at 92 – NYTimes.com

Early on, Ms. Bloom’s motivation was more practical: finding a place for struggling musicians in New York to escape the rat race of making a career, what she called the “combat zone.”

“For me, chamber music is the epitome of civilization,” Ms. Bloom once said. “I wanted to create a place for them to perform in an environment that would nurture, rather than destroy, their creativity.”

This reminds me. My piano trio is playing chamber music (Mozart) for the prelude today. Yay!

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The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy | Naomi Wolf | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Good article from a better perspective… speaking of,

My dear quasi-son-in-law posted these simultaneous covers on Facebook.

Apparently this is the regular practice…. looks to me like its pablum for the fat and rich and harsh truth for others…. other examples: link, link (thanks to Facebooker Beth Davison for these last two links)

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I have a couple of things on my mind this morning and they both stem from listening to radio shows online, mostly laying in the dark this morning.

Poetry first, even though it came to me second this morning.

Here’s the poem by Wendell Berry that I heard on Krista Tippett’s weekly show, Being, on the radio this morning.

How to be a poet

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

link to text and Berry reading it

I have read Berry for years. I pulled my volumes of his poetry off my shelf and could not find this poem. Not surprising, since my collection ends around 1982.

At the link above, it says this poem is found in the Selected Poetry of Wendell Berry.  A book of this title is available on Amazon. Examining the table of contents, I couldn’t find the poem.

Eventually I figured out it was in this volume.

I put a used copy in my Amazon basket immediately. Time for jupe to buy more Wendell Berry poetry.

The second idea I was mulling over this morning was confirmation bias.

I was listening online to On the Media as I usually do on Saturday morning. In a segment called “Everyone rejects inconvenient facts,” Daniel Klein was interviewed.

You can listen to this report for yourself and read the two articles referred to in it (both by Klein):

I Was Wrong, and So Are You – Magazine – The Atlantic

Daniel Klein: Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? – WSJ.com

To synopsize quickly, Klein did a poll that showed that liberals know less than conservatives about economics and wrote the article, “Are you smarter than a fifth grader?” linked above.

After receiving charges of bias, he repeated the poll this time consciously writing questions to test conservatives. The results showed (sooprise sooprise) that it was not a matter of knowledge but of inherent bias in the questions.

Which brings me to the idea of confirmation bias mentioned in the interview and Atlantic article.

My own subjectivity is something I think about quite a bit.  I know that I have a bias. But I also cultivate examining my bias and sources for logic, coherence, accuracy and honesty. Given the fact that subjectivity is so strong I know that it’s impossible for me to every quite get to the point that I myself entirely trust my own objectivity.

This leads me to attempt to utilize tools of thought that help me think and assess more clearly. My favorite is logical fallacies which I do bring up from time to time.

Now I have another list as a result of checking up on confirmation bias: cognitive biases.

My wife and I sometimes discuss and wonder how people we know and care about can think so differently from us. I am convinced that people make sense to themselves. So I am tempted to conclude they haven’t thought about their own bias very much. Thinking about logical fallacies drains a lot of enjoyment from much reporting and writing that inundates  me.  I have thought about bias. My main thought is that one doesn’t recognize one’s own cognitive bias (to use my new term) when it’s functioning.

In other words, when one reads something that one agrees with, it just seems logical. When one reads something one does not agree with, it seems biased.

This is a notion I have been carrying around for awhile.

Now I have to do even more thinking about it guided by some of the links above.

Tippett closed her program with this wonderful quote from Parker Palmer. I think it is a defense of idealism.

“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness … nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of ‘Everything is gonna be all right,’ but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.”

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Lynn Margulis evolutionary biologist dies

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Civilian-Military Gap Grows as Fewer Americans Serve – NYTimes.com

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