Didn’t get a chance to blog yesterday morning. I slept in until 7 AM and then did my 8:30 ballet class accompaniment. By 10:30 Eileen and I were on the road to Fenton Michigan. We met my niece, Cindy, her husband Mike and daughter Cassidy for a quick lunch at the French Laundry. Then off to Grand Blanc for a closing on a land contract on my Mom’s house. Got back into Holland around 5 PM and even though Eileen did all the driving (she loves her Mini!) I was pretty exhausted.

I dragged myself over to church and practiced organ a bit.  I am finding playing through Bach organ music very satisfying lately.

I did a bit of that and then rehearsed the romantic organ music I am performing Sunday for the prelude and postlude.

I have been taking a second look at this literature. I have long been very disinterested in the school of romantic organ music typified by Widor and Vierne.

It has taken me a lifetime to learn to appreciate great romantic music like Beethoven, Schumann and others. I began with a slight affinity for Brahms and Mendelssohn.

Recently I have taken an interest in the composer, Calvin Hampton. He died in 1984 and besides being an interesting composer was a champion of some romantic music when he was younger and it was much more out of fashion. His convincingness as a composer has led me to go back to the romantics and see what I can figure out about them.

I have been playing through the first Organ Symphony of Widor. This music is not terribly easy and sight readable. And I do not find myself all that attracted to his final compositional ideas. I was thinking I might play a the slow movement of this symphony for Sunday’s prelude. I just couldn’t find any simpatico in myself for the piece.

Instead I turned to two anthologies I own of romantic organ music: Romantic Flourishes and Romantic Adagios.

They are both edited by Wayne Leupold who is the publisher who is bringing out Calvin Hampton’s compositions post-humously.

I found a prelude and postlude which interested me enough to learn to play them for this weekend. The prelude is from Boellmann’s Suite Gothique. This suite contains other movements I have learned before (Toccata, Choral, Menuet). In fact, as I list them off I realize that the slow movement, “Prière à Notre-Dame,” is the only one I haven’t learned and played.

This is Leon Boellmann (1862-97)

It’s a simple little melody with a clear A and B section. For some reason as I played through this rather hokey little piece I found it not unpalatable. I do like to perform in all styles so I decided it was worth doing.

The postlude is a Toccata by Jules or Julius Grison. I don’t know anything about him except that he is “Jules” on the page of the composition and “Julius” in the index of this anthology. Come to think of it, there is probably a little paragraph about him in the anthology that I will read next time I have the book in my hands (I keep the music on the console at work).

The Toccata is far too long for a church piece so I am only playing the first six or so pages. I actually really like what I have learned. And it’s just hard enough to keep me practicing. Hence the session last night.

Came home and Eileen and I watched the second movie in the Red Riding trilogy series from BBC.

These seem to have the bleak plot of investigator traces awful crimes and is murdered for his trouble. This is what happens in the first two. I guess we’ll check out the third to complete the set. They are well made. Better than the average American film and hold my interest. But still… kind of bleak.

After our dose of John Stewart (we had to watch a tape of Tuesday’s since we weirdly sat up and watched Obama live on the Daily show on Wednesday night), Eileen went to bed and I played Prokofiev on the piano.

I have been noticing another slight gain in my keyboard technique. I guess it’s true if you practice you continue to improve. The Prokofiev Piano Sonatas are a purchase I made years ago when Kalmus publications was having a half off sale of practically its entire catalog.

The music is difficult for me. I have rehearsed three movements from the second piano sonata and played through them all last night with surprisingly good results. Hmmm. I do like Prokofiev’s composing.

Today after ballet class I need to do some calling around and take the utilities out of my Mom’s name for her Fenton prop. I also have a vague notion of trying to get my Mom an absentee ballot for next Tuesday’s election. I was reading on the drive over to Fenton that these ballots are available until 5 PM tomorrow. Now to figure out where to get one and if it’s likely enough to drag my Mom out because I think she will have to apply for this in person.

A lot depends on how she feels when I contact her today.

So it goes.

Be warned. Today’s post contains an unusual number of things that seem to bug me in the last 24 hours.

So in no particular order.

I happen to be watching tv news last night (an unusual occurrence) and I noticed that although national news reported about the mid-western wind storms they didn’t identify where the pictures they were showing of it came from. Or maybe I just missed it. On three or four channels.

I heard a report on NPR about Tuesday’s California Governor candidate debates. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fact that the audience booed when Whitman refused (unfortunately very wisely if she wants to get elected) to fall for Brown’s clever offer to stop airing negative ads. I guess the audience was negative on negativity.  If politicians are a sorry lot these days and the process totally screwed up, it only reflects the American public.

Mom was feeling pretty good yesterday so we stopped by the Michigan Secretary of State to apply for a state i.d. card for her. Despite the fact that she has a driver’s license that expired less than a year ago, she has to completely start over and provide total proof of identity and residency.  I guess this wouldn’t be too bad except that one of the four things she has to produce is called proof of “legal presence.” In order to prove her legal presence she has to produce one of the following:  a birth certificate, an unexpired US passport,  a valid Permanent Resident card, a Certificate of Citizenship,  A Consular Report of  Birth Abroad issued by the US Dept of State, a valid unexpired foreign passport with English subtitles or a translation, Refugee Travel document with a stamped I-94 (?), or an approved U.S. Department of Labor certification with an unexpired foreign passport.

Needless to say she has none of these. She does have an expired drivers license. But that doesn’t count.

I was hoping to get her a picture i.d. so if she got it in her increasingly active and interested head that she wanted to vote next Tuesday she could. She usually votes by mail, but understandably forgot about it this year.

I guess we’re back to square one on this one. I will start looking into getting a copy of her birth certificate. Good grief.

Not only that. I had the clerk look at Mom’s forms to request a handicapped parking permit. She pointed out that Mom’s doctor had simply signed the form and not filled in pertinent information like her medical license number. Of course. So more leg work on that one.

I put this next one up on Facebook but will put it here, too.

Scientific American had a ridiculous article about “research” to prove that humans hear and speak in minor thirds to indicate sadness. [link to article]

The premise of this research is so simplistic and stupid it makes me weep. So this one is definitely a “cry” in the laugh and cry question.

Suffice it to say that reducing human emotion to “sadness” especially in terms of the subtleties in art (not to mention living) is probably another example of bad education coupled with a lack of real curiosity.

Sheesh.

I actually have a couple more but this seems like enough negativity for one post…..

your friend,

Mr. Happy

I guess Monday is the day I try to coast a bit and sort of have a day off despite having scheduled stuff to do. So I did my ballet class accompaniment. This is good for me mentally I think. To get up each day and basically improvise simple melodies for an hour or so.

[Here is where Tara Bradford’s copyrighted picture was and is now removed at her request]

My scheduled evening rehearsal of the Beauty and the Beast was canceled.  I had planned to do nothing all day to rest up for it. When it was canceled I started filling my day with tasks.

First I decided on the walk back from school that I should try to get back to working on the harpsichord. So I did the next step in installing new jacks and strings: I tuned the slack strings up to pitch. The next step after that is to shorten all of the jacks to their approximately needed length. That’s my next little harpsichord dealy.

After I tuned the harpsichord up to pitch (no strings broke.. that was a possibility although Eileen and I put them on with great care), I forced myself to sit down and pick hymns. This took a good deal of time and effort, but now I have hymns chosen order valium online from india through Xmas eve.

To help myself relax I decided to mess around with a nice supper to take to Eileen. I found a recipe for Mexican meatballs in the cookbook “I can’t believe it’s not fattening.”  I improvised my own Mexican spices and made Enchilada Sauce from scratch for it. Eileen said it tasted good.

I also whipped up a little Pear Goat Cheese Salad for her. We both had this as an entree at the restaurant the other day. I have pears and apples sitting around from the farmers market. The final salad included sliced pears and apples, goat cheese, toasted almonds, lettuce,  tomatoes. For the dressing I added a bit of honey to a Sun Dried Vinaigrette.

Trundled off to deliver this to Eileen at work. Came home. Treadmilled. Then pourded myself some wine and read in the novels I am reading: Shalimar the Clown by Salmon Rushdie and Uniform Justice by Donna Leon.

Another day in paradise.  Don’t think that I don’t feel lucky and privileged to have such a great life because I know that I am.

My dreams last night included time travel in which I told friends in the past I was from the future and also observing an artist friend of mine making miniature installation pieces that tortured little live teddy bears.

The election is heating up to a frenzy. I watch regular people express views that seem to be coming primarily from filters and echo chambers they agree with. Facts are few. This morning I read all League of Women Voters interviews for the Michigan governor candidates and then went on each of their web site.  I  made up my mind who to vote for.  I am planning to slowly use these kinds of resources to figure out who I choose to vote for. I recommend that everyone use their brains and not rely on opinions of others.  The anger is palpable in the media and building daily.  All sides accuse the other sides wildly. Negativity and anger work, but they don’t build societies and governments. Just my opinion.

So here are some links to sites I have visited recently.

http://www.publius.org is the basic Michigan website I use to help me decide how to vote.

Link to NPR story and excerpts

Walker is a bit hokey for me, but I’m interested in her new book of poetry. The library system won’t let me interlibrary loan it yet because it’s too new. Not interested in owning it.

http://www.slate.com/id/2270953/pagenum/all

Slate.com article on 1929 wordless novelists (graphic novel in the new lingo) Lynn Ward.

http://www.redstate.com/

This is an influential reactionary radical web site. I have read at least one article there that was distortion and innuendo. They don’t seem to hesitate to state ideas in short distorted sound bytes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24sun1.html?ref=todayspaper

I hate to follow the reactionary web site with the New York Times link because I know the conservative mythology around the NYT is that it is completely a liberal point of view that is subjective and unreliable. Having said that, here’s a link to an editorial (therefore subjective, ahem) that corrects a  lot of misinformation about Health Care (Obamacare to those who like to “frame” their disagreement).  The right is poised for a huge victory. I would feel better if the impending victory was more based on issues than ignorance and distortion.  Did you know that the current administration reduced taxes this year to the non-rich? Did you receive a check? Most people did.

Again just my take.

http://wififreespot.com/airport.html

This site claims to identify airports with free wifi.

http://www.flightstats.com/go/Home/home.do has been recommended in the NYT as quicker than the airlines in getting updated info on your flight.

The Sunday NYT book review had two articles that I think are interesting:

The State of Liberalism

The State of Conservatism

Have been wrestling with some garden variety mild depression for a couple of days.  Yesterday before going to the farmer’s market and grocery store, I stopped off at the library and checked out some Bach concerto CDs and a copy of John Updike’s last book of poetry,  Endpoint.

I have been reading Updike’s work ever since as a young kid I picked up a volume of his poetry, Verse: The Carpentered Hen and other tame creatures, Telephone Poles and other poems.

This worn 1965 thin paperback of poems is sitting next to my keyboard as I type.  I remain pretty mystified as to how I got interested in poetry as a young man. By this time in my life, I was reading Dylan Thomas I am sure. Of course there was the poetry of the pop music emerging all around me.

When you say Dylan
he thinks your talking about Dylan Thomas
whoever he was….
the man aint got no culture.

from “A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission)” by Simon and Garfunkel

It’s on this album, recorded in the same year the little Updike book of poetry was written.

Somewhere along this time I remember my father warning me off the Updike Rabbit novels. He told me they were nothing but sex. I of course read everyone of them.

I have, in fact, read many if not most of Updike novels. And re-read the Rabbit series at least twice.  When he died last year at the ripe old age of 77, I was sorry to see him go. He kept producing work right up until his death.  According to the flyleaf, these poems were written in the last seven years of his life.  When the book was released shortly after his death I was intrigued but did not purchase it ($25 list price).

Yesterday it was just what the doctor ordered. Melancholy observations on life in the 21st century from a broad and ironic sensibility whose voice I have been listening to for decades.

A life poured into words—apparent waste
intended to preserve the thing consumed.
For who, in that unthinkable future
when I am dead, will read? The printed page
was just a half-millennium’s brief wonder,
Erasmus’s and Luther’s Gutenberg-
perfected means of propagating truth,
or lies, screw-pressed on folio at a time.

from “The Author Observes His Birthday, 2005” by John Updike in Endpoint

Despite the dismissal of his work as “apparent waste,” Updike ends this poem this way:

… Still
I scribble on. My right hand occupies
the center of my vision, faithful old
five-fingered beast of burden, dappled with
some psoriatic spots I used to hate,
replaced by spots of damage the crude sun-cure

extracted from my dermis through the years.
The beast is dry and mottled, shedding skin
as minutes drop from life, a wristy piece
of dogged ugliness, its labors meant
to carve from language beauty, that beauty which
lifts free of flesh to find itself in print.

I attended a friend’s 60th birthday party yesterday. Watching, listening and gabbing myself I wondered once again about people’s lives.

The underlying hum of a slight discord is there next to momentary happiness and generosity.  My life of love of poetry and music seems disjunct from others quiet grasping at strands of living.

A husband slowly quietly nervously peeled the label from a half empty bottle of beer as he listens.

An elderly frail woman stared out the window as she has snuck off to make a quiet call on her phone.

Another woman smiled and reminded me she has known me in a different life, one we have both abandoned.

Beneath the buzz of conversation people’s lives cast a long shadow into the past and short future time they are given.

Eileen and I get back into the car to drive home with relief and fatigue.

I had a nice chat with my boss yesterday.  Then a delightful couple of hours with Mozart and my piano trio.

Came home. Treadmilled. Then made supper. Life is good.

This contrasts with the increasingly shrill election campaign. I have never connected easily to political parties, but I am experiencing a new kind of distancing and loss of interest in the political discussion.

I still think that governing and citizenship is important. But it’s obvious to me that the most important value to many politicians and their followers is winning at all costs. So if ad hominem, fear and racism works, that’s what is used.

And the misinformation bouncing around is mind boggling. Our public discussion right now is so ideological that speakers are either blind to their own twisting of the truth or are willfully speaking lies. Either way is pretty disheartening.

Anyway, I still plan to vote, even for governor. I will have to hold my nose and do it. But I will do it.

It’s not helping me to be re-listening to a book I have read by Ron Suskind called “The Way of the World.”

This is actually a wonderful book which uses a retelling of factual history to make a point after  point about how sanity is missing in the world.  It tells about the lives of people you’ve never heard of: a young entrepreneur from Pakistan who is nabbed on his way to work in D.C.and ends up in an interrogation room in the basement (!) of the White House. It tells about a high school exchange student from Afghanistan who cannot quite overcome his own cultural bias even as he embraces US popular culture. It talks a good deal about politicians and the Bush Administration (as the young entrepreneur languishes in horror in the basement of the White house Bush is signing the continuance of the Civil Rights bill).  And of course there is a fascinating insiders look at nuclear weapons and terrorism that keeps insisting that it is not IF a suitcase nuclear bomb is exploded in a US city but WHEN.

It emphasizes the view point of each person in the narrative. Suskind has a bias towards integrity and values. It is a challenging book for me to revisit as the US election process continues its wild plunge out of control.

Here’s a link to a synopsis on the author’s web site: http://www.ronsuskind.com/thewayoftheworld/

Recommended.

No piano class this morning so I don’t have to rush off. I do meet with my boss at church at 9:30. That always a pleasure.

In between all the other things I have been doing, I have been working on some cool organ music.

Sunday for the prelude I am playing a chorale prelude by Leo Sowerby on the tune PICARDY (Let All Mortal Flesh).  I  have owned this music since before I started studying organ. It’s kind of long but it’s beautiful (IMO). I am glad to finally perform this piece in the context of the Episcopal church. It’s based on a tune I first learned from the Hymnal 1940. It was paired with the words by Ralph Vaughn Williams (the atheist) in his wonderful 1933 collection The English Hymnal with tunes.

Leo Sowerby, who won the 1946 pulitzer prize for composition, was born in Grand Rapids Michigan. He spent most of his working musical life in Chicago. I think of him as a midwestern Episcopalian composer, so it’s fun to learn and perform his music for an Episcopalian situation. His stuff is quite well written even if a tad obscure.

I guess I like obscure composers.

Also working on some organ music by Distler and Calvin Hampton.

The tension is my shoulder is gradually ebbing. I have been reading in How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live: Learning the Alexander Technique to Explore Your Mind-Body Connection and Achieve Self-Mastery. And also doing some of the experiments/exercises she describes. These are very simple and are the same things I learned in my few Alexander Technique lessons.

My colleague, Michelle Rego, who is a fantastic pianist and musician, commented on Facebook that she has been helped by Alexander Technique and that this book is one of the good ones.

I”m starting to brace myself to vote in the upcoming election. I usually set about educating myself on the way candidates say they will govern and how they have conducted themselves as public servants or whatever their previous record contains.

I can’t help but notice that anger, ignorance, incompetence, fear, and even hate are dominating much of the information and discussion around the upcoming election.  This is so predominant that it reminds me of the purpose of bread and circuses in the Roman times, to distract and entertain the public.  While I am skeptical of all conspiracy theories (in my experience humans just aren’t as efficient as characters in made up stories like Mission Impossible), I can see how all of this noise could benefit someone by distracting people away from governing issues and citizenship responsibilities.

I think that politicians are just people in front of cameras. Sometimes their better angels guide them. Sometimes they are guided even blinded by their own selfishness and corruption.  Probably most times a mix of these.

I have come to think of the media as more an amplifier and mirror than an actor.  When I notice people blaming others my ears prick up. The media and people in government are the butt of much blame. A lot of it undoubtedly deserved.

But citizenship is something each educated American can do something about. So is honesty and integrity. We can each of us aspire to do our part in informing ourselves and thinking critically about how we vote. We can each of us attempt to conduct ourselves the way we want our public officials to conduct themselves, that is by being honest in a corrupt world.

I am always amazed at how commonplace cheating is these days. If you can cheat on your taxes, it seems you should. When the secretary of state asks you how much you paid for your used car, you are expected to adjust the sum down, even to as little as a dollar.

Don’t get me started on what I witnessed in college as a student and grad student.

Then there is the rampant ignorance and short term memory driving so much of the public discussion right now. I have always opposed term limits because it seems to me first that elections are a form of term limits if people pay attention and vote with buy diazepam online forum informed minds. Secondly, I understand that wisdom sometimes comes with experience and time. Right now, it seems that many people talking into microphones and cameras about government do so either out of ignorance of process or willful manipulation (“framing” is the term du jour) of ideas and facts.

One can almost choose an example at random.

Yesterday Christine O’Donnell challenged her opponent, both candidates to the U.S. Senate from Deleware,  to show where the constitution requires separation of church and state. She was quickly supported by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and other defenders who insisted that she was just asking about the literal phrase not the concept. I guess it just depends on “what the meaning of is is.”

Heres the link and here’s the First Amendment.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So, I’m going to consult the following links to inform myself a bit about who I want to vote for.

http://www.publius.org/ is Michigan specific. When I look at my ballot, it has links to the League of Women Voters for candidates who have given them information.

http://www.michiganradio.org/electioncoverage.html is the Michigan Radio site with the governor debate and other stuff.

http://www.theballot.org/ is one I picked off facebook and is not Michigan specific.

And here are a few non-politics links.

“The Tyranny of Metaphor” by Robert Dallek.  Dallek was one of the historians Obama recently consulted regarding past presidents’ mistakes. This is a fascinating read.

“What Lies Beneath” by Alistair Blanshard Haven’t read this one yet. It’s about a 15th century book of poetry entitled The Hermaphrodite.

Hester Prynne in the Internet Age by Jonathon Zimmerman Haven’t read this one yet and honestly it looks pretty dumb. It seems to be about life imitating art, specifically the movie, “Easy A.” I haven’t heard of the movie, but I do know who Hester Prynne is so what the heck.

I pulled all three off the top of Arts and Letters Daily looking for something to read while I treadmill.

“Culture of Poverty makes a comeback” by Patricia Cohen is an insightful and informative discussion that challenges the current ignorance about poverty and reminds me of “The Other America” by Michael Harrington.

Listening to Scott Joplin and Bartok piano pieces as I sip coffee before daylight in Western Michigan.

Yesterday my fatigue overtook me. I went to church to do some catch-up work. Filed a bunch of music and sat down at the organ to goof off with some music of Distler and other composers I am interested in.

Couldn’t concentrate.  Plus my shoulder/back area was burning.

For the last few weeks I have been experiencing a burning sensation in my upper back/shoulder area when I am tired and tense. Usually I just stop and rest and it goes away. But it seems to be getting a bit worse.

I suspect that I have begun holding my body differently and this is contributing to this.

Last night for the first time I experienced the pain in a rehearsal. For about the last half hour, it hurt.

Interestingly besides “just good old getting old stuff” I wonder if I am instinctively holding my body differently in response to having to sort of hide my ideas and feelings.

This hiding is something I have had to do a lot of at the end of this summer.

When I was in under graduate school at Wayne State I remember having lower back pain from practicing. I remember laying prone in a rehearsal room waiting for the pain to become endurable. I think I had  a lot of tension I was working with.

This time, it doesn’t quite feel like tension. It creeps up on me while I practice. I have developed an instinctive tension release at the keyboard. I notice I am doing that a bit less. So there’s probably tension involved as well as holding myself sheepishly or sort of slightly hunched.

This morning I experimented with some fake Alexander alignment stuff as I lay in bed. I could feel the slight remains of the burning ebbing.

If I could afford it, I would take Alexander Technique lessons. But it’s just out of my reach economically and there is no teacher locally.

Without actual lessons, you’re not supposed to be able to learn how to re-align your body and find that balance point between not tensing and consciously relaxing and simply “being.”

Of course Alexander himself figured it out.

He suffered from hoarseness which he eliminated in the course of his discoveries about how to free yourself and your body from bad learned behavior. This learned behavior often stems far back into your life when you learned and adapted a posture and stance.

Yesterday afternoon I knew I should rest for the evening. But I badly wanted to play Beethoven, Scarlatti, and Bach on the piano. I tried resting in between, but I think I did myself in.

Today I have a light schedule. Tomorrow I plunge back in. Hope I can lick this burning thing.

I’m sitting in Panera having breakfast with Eileen. My oh my, life is good.

I just checked online to see if I was correct that when leaves turn colors what is actually happening is the green of the chlorophyll ebbs revealing the colors that have been masked by its presence. [link]

Apparently this is correct. I like to think that the beauty of fall is waiting throughout the entire growing season.

I just put our dishes away. I had to wait as an elderly gentleman was attempting to do the same thing and yelled into his cell phone. Earlier an elderly lady stood in front of the all of the coffee waiting for the microwave to finish heating something for her. I had to say, “excuse me,” before she noticed I was there. The elderly seem to be getting the tech but are no more self aware than anyone else.

Another gentleman is sitting in a corner watching. He seems more aware than many here.

Monday used to be a day I could relax and take at least one day entirely off for the  week. Hopeless College is on break so no dance class today and tomorrow. However I have a two hour rehearsal this evening in Grand Haven.  But I’m up for it.

Yesterday after church I took the choir through their first reading of the lovely anthem “Blessed are the Dead” by Hugo Distler.

I do admire this composer. I think it will be a haunting contribution to our All Saints celebration this year.

Church went well. I had fun leading the GELO musicians. I have discovered that I take great satisfaction in coming up with arrangements for them that are not boring.

Here are few links:

I read this article yesterday while treadmilling: “The Education of a President” by Peter Baker. I bookmarked it because it makes some predictions about how President Obama will strategize in the second half of his term.

The fractal guy died:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/16/benoit-mandelbrot-ri.html

I liked this article on how Europeans lost their adult lactose intolerance:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,723310,00.html

(oops…. posted the wrong link yesterday. Thanks Sarah for noticing.)

This is the time of year I usually read Donald Hall’s poem, “Kicking the Leaves.’

This year the poems came back, when the leaves fell.
Kicking the leaves, I heard the leaves tell stories…
[link to entire poem]

It’s a great poem. Especially nice that it reminds me of walking on the streets of Ann Arbor in the fall each year.

I remember a professor I knew at Notre Dame pointing out that he was recruited in the fall there.  Later he noticed that the fall was the time the campus was most beautiful. Probably true of many campuses.

I remember choosing to attend Ohio Weslyan because of the old buildings and the wonderful trees.

That was where another student taught me about ginkgo leaves.  Brandishing his pipe and looking  like a Dickens character he pontificated about the fact that ginkgo plants were different from other plants in that they were sort of a living fossil. The odd thing is that it turns out he was right.

I found myself kicking leaves yesterday as I walked. This is what recalls Donald Hall’s poem to me each year. The fact of kicking the leaves itself.

It interests me when people miss beauty or even willfully ignore it. I think that the price of lack of awareness can often be missing the good parts of life.

Now I leap and fall, exultant, recovering
from death, on account of death, in accord with the dead,
the smell and taste of leaves again,
and the pleasure, the only long pleasure, of taking a place
in the story of leaves.

more from Donald Hall’s poem linked above

I was reading an analysis of an organ sonata movement by Hindemith I recently performed. It’s the first movement of his third sonata. It’s based on a lovely German folk melody as are all the movements of this particular sonata.

One scholar quoted by the author of the article was emphatic that Hindemith was absolutely not longing for Germany as he wrote this sonata. I find this a bit odd. Even Hindemith himself insisting that it was the linear design of the melody which interested him in a sort of objective way does not convince me that he did not have emotion in the music itself. I found the movement I performed charming and beautiful.

I did learn that the melodies in this sonata are also used by Hindemith in his Craft of Musical Composition.

It would seem to me to add to the emotional background of the tunes. Hindemith was living in exile in the US like many Europeans during WWII. It can’t have been an emotion free time for him. Often it seems the composers are the last ones to understand just exactly what they are saying in their music.

I will definitely check out the use of the tunes in Hindemith’s text.

I have been thinking for several months of utilizing folk songs in some composing myself. I grew up loving folk music and many tunes. I now hear a lot of the church music I do as sort of folky.

Today we are using the tune WER NUR DEN LEIBEN as the melody for the words, “Jesus describes a forceful woman.” I love this tune. It has a distinctly Germanic folk feel. In my arrangement for my instrumentalists I actually have changed this feel to be slightly more on the Spanish feeling side. Nevertheless I think it feels a bit folksy.

Also we are beginning communion with the African American Spiritual, “It’s me, O Lord.” I plan to do it without accompaniment. This makes sense to me with the African American Spiritual. I don’t always do it, but it always is an option with this lovely music.

After church, I will begin rehearsing Distler’s beautiful setting, “Blessed are the Dead.” I had scheduled it but was wavering on whether it would be a good choice for the choir right now. Yesterday I gave in and ordered the entire collection by Distler and made rehearsal photocopies for today. Despite the fact that attendance is so sporadic (I have several absences today), I think I want to reach toward doing this piece anyway. It is so beautiful. And is an interesting take on the feast of All Saints in that it is haunting and beautiful instead of  Anglican bombastic which of course we will also do on All Saints.

I’m not much of a joiner. It’s painful for me to identify much less join a political party, a religious denomination, what have you. This may go back to my childhood roots as a preacher’s kid in the Church of God.

The Church of God my father and grandfather served in as ministers refused to call itself a denomination. Rather it said it was a “movement.”

I realize now that it takes a good deal of hubris to call your reformed movement the “Church of God.” And I even recall the moment in my early teens when I began to ask myself questions about what I was doing in a church building several times a week. Where had all of this come from, I wondered?

Recently in Holland Michigan where I live, there was a little squabble about whether the local reactionary Dutch Christian Reformed liberal arts college (where I now work, godhelpme) would host a national screenwriter. The problem was this guy had written the screenplay for the movie, “Harvey Milk,” based on the life story of a congressman in California who was openly gay, as was Dustin Lance Black, the screenwriter scheduled to talk to students at the college.

The discussion brought to the fore the fact that Hope itself discriminates against gay people in its policies. Hell, not only can you not be openly gay and work there, you have to sign a piece of paper that says you believe Jesus was the Son of God if you want to be a tenured professor there.

At the time, I decided that I would dedicate an organ recital to all of the local Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered people. I know several people some of whom are pretty young who have struggled locally because of their honesty about their sexuality. I just wanted to be counted as someone who supported them in the face of the local political structure (which actually won…. Black gave his talk off campus and of course it was more about us and our bigotry here than his experience as a screenplay writer).

More importantly my boss at church help found the local group, “Holland is Ready,” which according to its facebook page is is “a group of local leaders working for the safety, rights and inclusion of GLBT persons.”

They have meetings and circulate petitions. I haven’t actually joined this group. I have heard members sarcastically say they weren’t sure “Holland is ready” for it. I’m pretty sure they’re right. But I also believe in the basic idea of inclusion and the worth of each individual person.

More than that I think each person has a story which is unique and interesting and can probably teach something if understood well enough.

This probably makes me a soft headed liberal in the current warped parlance of US terminology. So be it.

Anyway this morning, “Holland is Ready” is throwing a PR get together blocks from my house for the Grand Rapid Press. The idea is to pose for a photograph of supporters of gay people in Holland to run with an article in the Grand Rapids newspaper. Gathering for a media event really rubs me the wrong way. Ever since reading Daniel Boorstin’s 1961 book The Image: a guide to pseudo-events in America, I have been keenly aware of how destructive and false things can be presented through the media.

So I have been resisting the idea of going to this. Now I find myself making plans to reluctantly attend.  My sense that media events are more false than real has not diminished. But if there are two sides to this issue, the issue of people’s honest sexuality, please count me on the side of the marginalized.

Fuck the duck.

In the midst of my busy day yesterday I rehearsed Calvin Hampton’s organ piece, “An Exalted Ritual,” from “Five Dances for Organ.” The Dances is one of 8 volumes of his organ work I recently ordered.

Hampton was an early AIDS death in 1984. He lived, performed and composed in New York City. I know him best as a composer of hymn tunes and some choral music. He has four lovely hymn tunes in the Episcopal Hymnal, The Hymnal 1982. This includes his haunting setting of “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.”

Four years after his death, a man named Wayne Leupold began a small publishing company in Cazenovia, New York. All of the editions of Hampton I have purchased are published by Wayne Leupold Editions. The copyrights on them range from 1992 to 2006. Obviously he is issuing Hampton’s work posthumously.

Hampton’s music is quietly out of fashion of the 20th century. It is imaginative, tonal, and often beautiful. The craftsmanship of the music is carefully worked out. At the same time, Hampton allowed himself to utilize the harmonies and musical style of  popular music (especially musical theater) while retaining a clear hold on the what he was trying to convey.

An “Exalted Ritual” is a trio. The pedal is an ostinato (a repeated pattern) of octaves that jumps from high to low in a hypnotic constant way. The melody (Hampton marks it the “theme”) is long notes interrupted by a beautiful echoing simple pattern that utilizes a simple modal statement that sounds very poppy to my ears even though I easily identify that the entire pieces as based on mixolydian scales.

The third voice also uses the same rhythm over and over like the pedal. The rhythm is an tricky procession of a quick six note pattern, then a four note pattern that takes place in the same interval as the six. This is followed each time by two very slow triplets. All of this interlocks with the other two voices, but wanders through many incarnations of the basic modal pattern of the piece (the mixolydian mode in different keys) in what Hampton has marked an “obbligato.”

Learning the piece is like studying an etude in cross rhythms. It’s kind of fun. Then it occurred to me how beautiful the piece actually sounds. I am intrigued.

I look forward to learning and performing more music by this Episcopalian composer.

One of the pieces I purchased is a set of variations on Old Hundredth (the melody of the Doxology or “Praise God from Whom All Blessing Flow”).

The virtuoso organist, Cherry Rhodes, has written a very interesting introduction to this piece in which she describes her interaction with Hampton around its first performance.

“I was absolutely mesmerized by the highly colorful music and told Calvin I wanted to perform it. Yet, there was something missing. “But Calvin,” I asked with a smile so as not to offend my esteemed colleague and friend, “where’s the pedal variation?” As he slowly straightened himself up, a determined and steely look appeared in his eyes. He emphatically exclaimed, “Cherry, I’ll write you one you’ll never forget!” I was really in for it now. The wagers between Max Reger and Karl Straube flashed through my mind. Because Calvin so quickly acquiesced to my request, I greedily asked for another, “How would you feel about writing a harmonization of the tune?” He readily agreed.”

Cherry Rhodes, in her Introduction to her edition of Hampton’s “Prelude and Variations on OLD HUNDREDTH.”

Later when he presented with not two but three more variations, he told her they would remain unpublished as a special gift and tribute to her. This piece was his first published organ work (1975) and did not include them. The edition I have next to my computer is marked “Second Edition.” It includes these three sections.Rhodes affection and admiration are very apparent in her introduction which she ends “VIVA CALVIN!”

Besides obsessing over Hampton’s organ music yesterday, I managed to

get my Mom to the doctor;

drive her to a breakfast at the Wooden Shoe (her treat. Thanks, Mom!);

phone her lawyer about the sale of her home in Fenton;

rehearse Sunday’s instrumental music with the violinist, oboist and cellist;

finish up this rehearsal by playing through two Mozart piano trio movements (one of which we was a new one we sight read for fun and it WAS fun);

read in Peter Ackroyd’s novel, English Music;

make baked pears and roasted Brussels sprouts (both from the local farmer’s market, yum!);

have a lovely relaxed meal with my lovely relaxed wife;

drive off to Grand Haven for a two hour pit orchestra rehearsal of “The Beauty and The Beast”;

come home & have a martini and read the New Yorker.

Goodness gracious, my life is good!

Yesterday I put up a status line on Facebook about how as I was playing a delicate Schubert waltz in dance class I slipped into a Degas painting.

When I was a kid I had one of those small books about several artists I admired. Degas was one of them. Rodin was another. Not sure how I got interested in painters or even art itself. It’s very probable my friend, Dave Barber the artists, was influential here. But I don’t remember.

I found myself attracted to Degas for some reason.

I was able to see Rodin’s Little Dancer at the Tate Museum in the U.K.

As a much younger man, I wrote a little song about a dancer using only harmonic ringing sounds on the guitar as acommpaniment.

I also once had a chance to Monet’s haystacks in an Ann Arbor Museum.

Amazing stuff.

On the way to class yesterday, I spotted a sign someone had painted on the sidewalk college-style: “Save our squirrels” it said in yellow.

On the way back, I heard the thunder three or four times. I also saw a dead black squirrel on the sidewalk. He had no visible marks of violence. Close by another black squirrel sat as though keeping vigil. He scampered off as I got closer. A brown squirrel with something in his mouth panicked at my approach trapping him between me and the traffic in the street. I veered off so that he would not run into the street.

Today I don’t have dance class. The teacher has scheduled conferences with students during class time. No need for a piano for that.

It just so happens that my Mom as a 7:40 AM doctor’s appointment, so I’ll be leaving to pick her up before too long. I have offered to drive us to breakfast at one of her favorite restaurants. I try to offer at least once a week. We’ll see if she’s up for it.

Later I have a rehearsal scheduled at church. The oboist will be joining my trio rehearsal. All of us are playing Sunday at church. I have written parts for the instruments. None of these people attended the Tuesday rehearsal so I will make sure they all are up to speed and can rock away this Sunday.

Hopefully we’ll have time for some lovely Mozart piano trio stuff that we are learning.

This evening is a scheduled pit orchestra rehearsal at Grand Haven High School.

I certainly have a lot do for someone whose self image is one of a bum.

I managed to have all the music ready for players by the time last night’s rehearsal rolled around.

I started the day deciding I would arrange an organ piece by A.W. Leupold based on the hymn tune, WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT.

I basically transcribed it for violin, cello and electric bass.  I am hoping to have viola, oboe and marimba on the melody.  Last night at rehearsal most of these people were absent.  But I covered their parts with me on organ and Jennifer Wolfe on piano and went over with the cello and the electric bass (the only ones in this group who showed).

I also arranged the Sequence Hymn for Sunday, “Jesus Describes a Forceful Woman,” for instruments.

This hymn uses the melody from the prelude piece, WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT.  My arrangement makes this strong German chorale sound a bit like a Spanish medieval tune.

Finished all of this in time to go up and have supper with Eileen before setting up the church for rehearsal.

At about 6:45 (fifteen minutes before the scheduled rehearsal time), I was having doubts about who was going to show up. I was much encouraged when the drummer arrived brandishing the brushes I asked her to use instead of sticks. Unfortunately a lot of people did skip the rehearsal. This is why I try to build a lot of flexibility into my arrangements. So that I can do them with whoever shows.

I’m guessing that the people who showed up did have a good time and enjoyed the arrangements I had done for them.

I am working at trying to be flexible in my work at church. It is challenging.

I spent some time clearing out space in the music area to accommodate the added musicians. I moved about seven boxes of organ music I had sitting where the electric guitarists will now stand. I keep my organ music in order by composer. I sat the boxes in the pews and will  move them to the choir room this week.

I am also planning to clear out all of the junk in this space to make room for the numerous singers and instrumentalists I am expecting Sunday.

I have been asking my boss for permission to take down two little walls that divide up the music area. This would make this space much more flexible. So far she is considering this request but has not granted it.

In the meantime I have to come up with a creative way to seat two choirs, a violinist, 2 cellists, a marimba player, 2 guitarists, bass player, oboe, viola and a drum set for this Sunday.

I decided last night that I would play a Bach organ piece for the postlude Sunday.

Also based on WER NUR DEN LIEBEN, it is one of his Schubler Chorales. These are a set of six pieces from the cantatas that Bach himself arranged for organ. I had to beef up the registration so that it would not be totally drowned out by the congregation’s enthusiastic visiting that usually follows the dismissal.

In case you’re dieing to know, here’s the original German text to the first stanza associated with this tune and a translation.

Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten
Und hoffet auf ihn allezeit,
Den wird er wunderlich erhalten
In allem Kreuz und Traurigkeit.
Wer Gott, dem Allerhöchsten, traut,
Der hat auf keinen Sand gebaut.

Whoever lets only the dear God reign
and hopes in him at all times,
he will preserve in a marvellous way
in every cross and sadness.
Whoever trusts in almighty God
has not built upon sand.

This evening is another meeting of the newly formed Grace Episcopal Light Orchestra. It portends to be more the Grace Electric Light Orchestra because I have three players who have said they are going to bring their amplifiers. Anyway, this post will have to be a bit short because I need to spend time working on arrangements for this group to play Sunday.

I had a tiny victory moment at dance class yesterday.

The chair of department once again substituted for my scheduled teacher. She has done this once previously and I found her very different from other teachers I have worked with. Mostly she asked for specific music not just music improvised in a certain style. I told her at the time that I would be happy to play certain music for her if I had advanced notice because I couldn’t call up from memory “The William Tell Overture”

or “Stars and Stripes Forever”

(both ones she requested).

She was very understanding.

After our first time of working together, I came home and assembled a book with a few of the pieces she requested in it. I have been carrying it with me ever since.

So yesterday when she popped up as the sub teacher, I was ready with the above named tunes. She seemed pleased.

Actually all the teachers I have worked with seem pleased with my abilities as a ballet dance accompanist.

But still it was fun to be able to demonstrate that I actually listened to her request and acted on it.

I have been reading in Benjamin Franklin’s writings. One section was a journal he kept while sailing from London to Philadelphia.

In the following entry he writes about an eclipse. I picture him sitting on a ship lit by moonlight that fades during the eclipse.

Friday, Sept. 30. [1726] — I sat up last night to observe an eclipse of the moon, which the calendar, calculated for London, informed us would happen at five o’clock in the morning, Sept. 30. It began with us about eleven last night, and continued till near two this morning, darkening her body about six digits, or one half; the middle of it being about half an hour after twelve, by which we may discover that we are in a meridian of about four hours and half fro London, or 67 1/2 degrees of Longitude, and consequently have not much above one hundred leagues to run.

An earlier entry from this same journal caught my eye. It seems to be Benjamin Franklin’s take on performance anxiety.

[from the Friday, July 29th entry]… All this afternoon I spent agreeably enough at the draft-board. It is a game I much delight in; but it requires a clear head, and undisturbed; and the persons playing, if they would play well, out not much to regard the consequence of the game, for that diverts and withdraws the attention of the mind from the game itself, and makes the player liable to make many false open moves; and I will venture to lat it down for an infallible rule, that, if two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves money most shall lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him.

I love that section: “He that loves money most shall lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him.”  The Inner Game of Draughts by Benjamin Franklin. [Note: I think Draughts is Checkers]

I have been in a Chopin mood for several days.  Playing through the B minor sonata and some Mazurkas

Right now I have Pandora set to Chopin. It’s kind of a pain because I have to keep “thumbs-downing” other composers.

Yesterday church left me drained and exhausted.

Not sure exactly why. I know it has something to do with the introvert in me and the fact that when I do music I try to give it my entire mind, body and soul.

The choir sang well.

The scheduled anthem was a Eugene Butler composition that was competently written but is not that fascinating a piece. It has an interesting ascending melody of consecutive fourths which he uses in a couple of interesting canons. Due to the new regime of all rehearsing and performing taking place on Sunday mornings, I have had to reduce the reach of what I try for with this group.  Attendance has not necessarily improved much since going to Sunday morning “one-stop-shopping.”  But I feel like most of the choir members find it worth not having to come out once a week for a rehearsal. Less rehearsal, inevitably less scope.

Also I find that the sound of a choir relates directly to how much attention the director (me) gives to vocal technique and choral techniques. I have been attempting to integrate some of the excellent ideas I learned from James Jordan at his workshop. But one cannot spend too much time on them when one is always rushed. Many directors omit this sort of thing (relaxation, breathing, warming up, vowel purity) but I think that it is the difference between a church choir that sounds pretty good and one that is more typically painful to listen to.

I played the little Hindemith prelude pretty well. It was a bit of a challenge to use the crescendo pedal.

(Crescendo pedals add ranks of pipes as the pedal is depressed. They are notoriously unpredictable and necessarily vary immensely from organ to organ) Since Hindemith writes for the organ as though it were as flexible and responsive as a piano, my teacher, Ray Ferguson, taught me to utilize any method possible to help create the effects Hindemith seems to be going for. This often involves the crescendo pedal and creating little holes in the  music where one can suddenly depress the pedal a fraction.

It’s easy to mis-predict just when sounds are going to kick in. And it can be pretty startling when these sounds burst on in the middle of a phrase or a note.

I wasn’t totally satisfied with my use of crescendo pedal yesterday. But the Hindemith is a lovely piece (I think) and worth learning and listening to.

I ended the service with a Canzon by Froberger. This went okay. Playing postludes can be enervating. I have colleagues who have ceased to do so. People sometimes forget that I am not a boom box and will stand near the organ and talk loudly.

This makes it challenging not to get distracted, but I guess I did okay yesterday. At least the music didn’t suffer too much.

Come to think of it, my exhaustion was only partly from giving the music my all. The rest of it was an introvert trying to deal with a bunch of people and keeping myself as non-anxious and real as possible. This is draining.

Poor Eileen. I ranted all the way home, analyzing and commenting on the morning. This is no way to keep her connection to my work (the church stuff) comfortable for her. I have to do better.

After a lunch of left over grilled pesto pizza from the day before (mmmmm!), I sat in the living room and dozed over a novel (Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie) while Eileen connected with Mom by taking her to Walgreens and the Dollar Store.

Later I got up and finished cleaning the kitchen (I set up the dishwasher before leaving for work yesterday). Finally got most of the mess off the stove from making tons of wedding pasta last week. Then I blanched and froze a bunch of green beans I bought on Saturday at the Farmer’s market.

By the time I had treadmilled and had some supper it was later than usual and I fell into bed exhausted.

My next big project is getting ready for Tuesday night’s rehearsal of the Grace Episcopal Lite Orchestra. I’m not sure who will be coming. This makes it hard. I have to remember that it does not actually require a lot of effort to pull this off. I must not work too hard on this unless I get inspired.

I was attempting to make next Sunday’s visit of the Bishop a big celebration but people keep letting me know they can’t be there. Several choir members (it’s a small choir and absences can be devastating), as well as instrumentalists. Oh well, I’m sure it will be fine. I’m just off balance as usual on Monday morning after the Sunday service.

Now onward and upward to a week of dance class accompaniment and other rehearsals and endeavors.

“Happiness is for pigs.” I read this somewhere and it struck me pretty forcibly. It was attributed to Socrates, but I think that was humor.  This phrase has been for me an antidote to the mindless pursuit of pleasure I have lived amidst my whole life here in America.  It causes me to consider what happiness is for me and what is worth pursuing in life.

“[I]t’s not death that spoils life as we live it, it’s how we think about life that does.” Jerry Weinberger, “Benjamin Franklin on American Happiness: a wise advisor for troubled times” City Journal Sep 21, 2010 [link]

I did manage to read this article that I linked in yesterday’s post. Weinberger first discusses what happiness means for humans and especially Americans right now. He draws on the wonderful Alexis de Tocqueville.

De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is a book I have consulted in efforts to understand America, it’s history and it’s unique position in the world.  De Tocqueville is a 19th century intellectual Frenchman who toured the USA fascinated by the emerging national character which he describes at length. His insights have proved startlingly pertinent to the field of sociology and just plain understanding who we as Americans are.

Weinberger points out the de Tocqueville also anticipated the psychological concept of the paradox of choice. I did not recognize this concept by this description. A quick glance at the Wiki article showed that while I didn’t know the phrase, I understood well the concept that an increase in choices can decrease one’s sense of well being.

This is like so many psychological insights. They are lodged in the conversation of ideas and literature that go back to the Greeks in Western Civ. Not by chance does Freud utilize Greek legendary figures to describe his fledgling theories. I have often thought that a thorough reading of Shakespeare provides more insight into human thought and ways than a host of psychological and philosophical technical observations.

But Weinberger chooses Benjamin Franklin as a pattern for finding happiness in the current American environment. He says that while Franklin was probably the first American (I think he means in terms of the evolving colonial statehood and eventual national character), he was also bad at religion and family and therefore thought a good deal about their roles in life.

Both of these institutions in American life are changing at a very fast pace.  Franklin is a pattern of someone who saw clearly that how we see our position in life affects the quality of the happiness. He was quick to point out the hypocrisies of religion and the common wisdom of his day. He was a bundle of advice (Poor Richard’s Almanac), a free wheeling life style and a barbed sense of humor.

Franklin catches our attention when he says he enjoyed his life so much that he would live it again the same way. An admirable way to have experienced it.

He rejected the “wisdom of gain” as the sole purpose of life and said that one should quickly make enough in life to cease thinking about earning one’s bread and then live to enjoy it.

The one thing I find missing in Weinberger and Franklin is a sense of the other. I think that Franklin operated from the basic important sense that we are never totally happy when we are operating from selfish motives.  Happiness is present in thinking and serving others and realizing that one is a small part of the huge universe.

My suspicion is that these ideas were unarticulated assumptions in Franklin’s life. Hard to know. It is troubling that he was so hard hearted about the death of his wife. But I equally suspect a reading back of contemporary romantic notions of love and marriage in my reaction.

Basically, Franklin thought that reaching one’s potential was an important aspect of living.

Franklin notes that a sound mind is God’s gift of the capacity of “reasoning justly and truly in searching after and discovering such truths as relate to my happiness,” which reasoning can be “improved by experience and instruction into wisdom.” That wisdom is “the knowledge of what will be best for us on all occasions and of the best ways of attaining it.” And while no man “can be wise at all times and in all things,” some men “are much more frequently wise than others.”

Reading this article makes me want to back and re-read Franklin’s work and/or find a good well researched biography of him.

I associate him with my grandfather Jenkins of the same first name. I  just walked in the other room and checked what I have by him in my library. Lo and behold I have nine volumes of his writings plus a small anthology that I think may have been the property of my grandfather, Benjamin Jenkins.

I need to finish so that I can do some browsing before going off to do church music.

Usually when I rant it’s about discourtesy, incompetence and lack of education I run across in people, But today I’m thinking about the idea of honor.

This comes about from reading “Honor Among Scholars” by Steven Kellman, The Chronicle Review, Oct 3, 2010. [link]

Although I haven’t finished the article yet, several sections have caused me to stop and think.

Kellman says that “.. [I]n Book 9 of The Republic, Plato has Socrates divide humanity into three classes: “lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.”

This immediately made me want to go back re-read The Republic. Previously I have a bad taste in my mouth because of Plato’s attitude toward music and other concepts in this work like developing entire classes of workers and soldiers to serve the Republic.

I figure I am mostly a lover of wisdom. But on reflection I think honor is also important to me. Gain, not so much.

Kellman goes on “In his new book, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (Norton, 2010), Kwame Anthony Appiah answers Falstaff’s question by defining honor as “an entitlement to respect.” An entitlement, to be sure, is not the same as respect itself

“One can conclude from Appiah’s definition that to be honorable is not to subordinate everything to reputation but rather to act so as to be worthy of respect, regardless of whether anyone actually grants it.

After reading this last sentence, I realized that I spend a great deal of my life attempting to be “worthy of respect” in my own eyes while at the same time noticing but trying not to take into account the fact that few people outside of my nuclear fam “actually grant it.”

I don’t exactly verbalize this way to myself. I think more that I do things for their own sake,whether that is being polite to people who are rude to me or sweating over preparation of music that will be largely ignored by people in the same room I perform. I try to be philosophical and stifle my own immature reaction when people do not “grant the respect” to me that I try to give them until they prove me wrong.

This relates to and leads to me often being underestimated in a time when people are much more concerned about appearances and perception than actual content and competence and education.

Lack of education in others arouses my compassion a bit because I think that I have witnessed a plummeting of the quality of education in the USA from bad to worse. Lack of competence is harder to forgive. But ultimately I work at trying to understand and mildly tolerate or at least be polite to  people who can’t function and/or seem to not understand me or even see that I am there.

As long as I don’t see them doing serious damage.

This is where honor comes in.

More Kellman: “While we are appalled but not shocked to find fraudulent bankers and deceitful politicians, disgraceful behavior within a university is especially distressing. It is a betrayal of the trust that is essential to a community of scholars.

Ah yes. The “community of scholars.” There’s actually a book by Paul Goodman by this title.

Would that the reality come closer to this man’s vision. Instead in the many colleges and universities I have had contact with I am afraid the bad stuff often drowned out the good.

I hasten to add that the good for me was usually very good and has contributed to my abilities and my quality of life. Not a day passes that I don’t think in fondness and gratitude of some teachers I had in college. They taught me a great deal about music and also about how to live.

But I also have watched professors act in a way that was embarrassing and unethical.

I have witnessed numerous incidents in the six colleges I have been associated with (four attended, two employed by).  Here are some succinct incidents with the names changed to protect the dishonorable.

A professor who humiliates his wife at a dinner with colleagues.

A professor who neglects to hand out student evals and mysteriously later is given tenure and even promoted to chair of the department.

A professor who openly hates other colleagues and works to undermine them.

A professor who professes tolerance even as he privately talks trash about the group whose repression he supposedly champions.

A professor who admitted to copying research for his published work in my presence.

If I wasn’t trying to disguise these a bit I could make them much more colorful. Indeed experiencing each of these incidents took my breath away as I witnessed the calumny.

And these are just the extreme cases.

I would imagine anyone who attends or works at a college for any length of time could probably tell similar stories.

I recommend reading the Kellman article linked above.  If you have much experience with college education it will probably provoke thought. I know it is doing this to me.

Besides the Kellman article, I have bookmarked several other online articles I plan to read.

Here’s a list of links.

Benjamin Franklin on American Happiness by Jerry Weinberger, City Journal 21 September 2010

This one’s self explanatory.

The Japan Syndrome – By Ethan Devine | Foreign Policy

This article is actually about China. Devine apparently contends that China is making the same mistakes that Japan made.

Larry Summers and the Subversion of Economics – The Chronicle

Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Summers at the heart of mistakes over and over and again.

‘The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy,’ reviewed by Michael Dirda

I bookmarked this to get a glimpse of the inner life of Sofia Tolstoy and how she deals with solitude.

Mao’s Little Helpers | Standpoint

Mao’s little helper appears to be Western Intellectuals. In fact he was also helped at points in his “revolution” by the US government and US officials.

All of these are drawn from the excellent Arts & Letters Daily web site [link]. Recommended.

This came in the snail mail yesterday.

I am beginning to get rested from the past few weeks marathon.

Yesterday I spent a good deal of time transcribing and re-arranging an anthem I am planning for Oct 17th. The original anthem, “Lord, Speak to Me,” by Richard Shephard was for SATB Choir, Organ, Brass Quintet, Children’s Choir and optional handbells. I changed the Brass quintet into a small instrumental ensemble. Hopefully it will be violin, oboe and cello. The players in my trio have consented to play the violin and the cello part. I have yet to ask an oboe player. There are two at my parish and one of them is likely to say yes. If not, I will attempt to find a decent player of another instrument. We have many good players in the parish so chances are I can find a sax or something.

Besides adapting the Brass parts, I transcribed the rest of the parts. I even went so far as to try to replicate the original layout of the anthem for ease of use by myself and the conductor. I have asked the Children’s Choir Director to conduct it. I will play organ.

The church’s thermostat or something has been broken for several days causing the temperature to hover around 80 degrees. This has made rehearsing organ very uncomfortable.

Yesterday I skipped it altogether.  I worry about the toll the temperature is taking on the pipe organ and the piano. At the very least it will throw the tuning of the piano off. Of course I am planning an anthem this week using the piano.

Cool beans! I just checked and Hope College actually deposited my check for my ballet dance class work.

This kicks up my income a bit. Also conveniently it is credited at the same time as my check from the church which alternates weekly with Eileen’s check from the library. This makes our weekly income more equitable and therefore easier to work with.

Of course the dance class work varies. I am paid by the hour.

So far the schedule is dependent upon the needs of the teacher. For example next Thursday my beginning ballet class teacher is having conferences with individual students during class time. No pianist needed. The following week is fall break. No pianist needed.

But I am happy to have this little gig. Besides a little extra money, it provides me access with Hope college perks like on campus wifi access, a free library card (I have been paying for this for years), and discounts on concerts and other things. What the heck.

I heard a report on NPR this morning about a couple who had intentionally scaled back their income and life style to 50K. Even though it became apparent they were probably brain dead Christians and were acting out of religious motives, they still had admirable goals of spending more time with the family and getting out of the rat race of constantly trying to make more money.

I share this couple’s satisfaction with life.  Money is definitely not a problem for Eileen and I.  I am hoping extra helps me pay down debt.

Tomorrow I have my first day off in a few weeks. I am looking forward to it. My life is good.