Church seemed to keep me off balance yesterday, but I managed to do my job pretty well anyway. People insist on coming late and missing critical moments of rehearsal which causes our performances to be less than they easily could be. I guess I’m just lucky people show at all. 

I fear the service would have started late as well if I hadn’t urged the assistant priest to start on time.   I think there were a few musical moments yesterday and that’s always nice. 

I have been enjoying Henry Alford‘s “How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (while they are still on this earth).” So far he has interviewed Granny D, Harold Bloom and a wonderful woman I had never heard of: Setsuko Nishi.

Nishi has devoted her life to academia and the study of long-term effects of wartime incarceration on Japanese Americans. She herself was briefly incacerated (5 months) as a young person.

Alford relates her experience. She was released by the U.S. government to attend Washington University and “was told that if she was willing to work for her room and board, a second incarecerated Japanese-American student would also be sprung from the camp and sent to college.” She did. While she worked as babysitter and helper for a family near the university, she vowed that she would never take a second helping of the food while her parents and brother were still in a camp. She relates a painful memory of being pressed by her employers to have an extra helping of some dish she obviously enjoyed. She began crying and left the table. 

When Alford asks how she is able to speak about her own and others’ painful memories of this time. She commented: “There are things you don’t reveal. But I [think it’s] important to show that there are lot of feelings here [in the U.S.]. I want people to know there’s a lot of residue here. That everything is not all OK. That there are still things that will probably never go away…. Some people say to me, ‘How come you’re not bitter?’ and I’ll say, ‘Well, how do you know I’m not?’ ”

I think that’s great.

Alford spends a lot of time writing about his own mother who seems pretty cool. I like this exchange quite a bit.

“I drove up to Massachusetts on a Monday. Mom had previously buy diazepam pills asked all four kids to come on Memorial Day weekend and help her clean out the house. Standing at the kitchen sink, watching me make us dinner, Mom said, “JP says she wants to come ‘for closure.’ What does she think she’s going to close?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I have a friend who always wants to close things, too, and I never quite get it. But I’m probably not the person to ask–I’m always leaving things slightly ajar.’ “

For some reason I picked up the second volume of Anthony Burgess’s autobiography, “You’ve Had Your Time” and started rereading it last night. I had forgotten how excellently this guy writes. He has a prose style and a vocab that never fails to grab me and keep me thinking and looking up words. I was looking in the back of the book at notes I have made previously on this book. They indicate that this is probably the fourth time I have looked at the book and read in it extensively. Mostly I note words he useand jot down their definitions. 

words like

suppositious

fulminant

gallimaufry

I count 14 words from my first reading, 5 from a second start and 1 more from a third. This time I am also making a list of books he mentions to check out: “Mr Noon” by D.H. Lawrence and Auto da Fe by Elias Canetti.

& FWIW, here are a few links from yesterday:

free103point9 A cool online streaming station of sounds made by transmission artists. I’m not sure what a “transmission artist” is but I listened to this station quite a while yesterday and it had fascinating recordings many of which reminded me of my beloved “Hymnen” by Stockhausen.

Deportation and Due Process…. an editorial in Friday’s NYT that reveals that the former Attorney General Mukasey “…ruled that immigrants have no constitutional right to effective legal representation in deportation hearings. As a result, immigrants who lose their deportation hearings because their lawyer did a bad job representing their case have no right to have their case reopened.” This sort of injustice makes me crazy. 

And Frank Rich’s article in yesterday’s NYT, “They Sure Showed that Obama” in which he wryly points out that the New Deal that the Congressional Republicans insist didn’t help also threw a bunch of opponents of it out of office in the next election. Heh.

Okay, this is not real. Someone has carefully made a hilarious (to me) soundtrack to go with the visuals from this performance at the inauguration. Ulitmately, I have found these execellent musicians choice to mime their art discouraging. I admire all of them as musicians. And I actually sort of liked (godhelpme) John 
William’s composition which has been derided widely by musicians.  But I like this video best of all. heh.

“Remember those memoranda about torture that President Bush and Vice President Cheney both stressed they relied upon in deciding to torture prisoners? It looks like the Justice Department’s own ethics experts have had a look, and concluded that the memos in question are professionally incompetent—not worth the paper they’re written on.”

Internal Justice Probe Lambasts Yoo and Bradbury over Memos by Scott Horton, 2/14/09 Harpers online

Why does this not surprise me?

I keep wondering about the congressional Republicans being so stalwart against the stimulus package.  I imagine this is a result of a combination of factors. It looks like Pelosi put together the orginal house bill with little input from Republicans or the White House. Then the house Republicans have seemed to be strongly oriented to their ideology. This is who got elected.

So they all opposed portions of the bill that invested in government spending and didn’t reduce taxes. Then the senate Republicans were undoubtedly pressured to follow suit. 

Of course this is the best of both worlds for the minority. Step back and refuse to support action. Then reap the benifits whether it works or not. If it works, these representatives and senators will be less likely be held accountible by voters who are benefiting. If it doesn’t work, they can say they were prescient in their opposition.

Having looked at the Senate version of the bill, I have a bit of understanding as to why people who believe government should not intervene in the lives of the people and that taxes should be de-emphasized would not be strong supporters of this bill. Also I am pretty confused about what actually would help the current crazy economy. But I have been confused for years about how business people seem to be viewing the idea of trade and responsibility to the community at large. 

I don’t think that partisanship is the problem, as much as ideology versus governing. The quote above reminds me of just how important ideology has been in the government for the last eight years or so.  “Right thinking” has trumped reflective consideration and transparency for so long that the government seems pretty broken. 

But it’s hard to tell living on the ground. 

I do admire the way Obama seems to be elevating the public rhetoric:

I often wake up in the morning and remember a comment a high school teacher once made to me: “What’s more important poetry or the news? Poetry, of course.”

Recently chatting with a reasonably intelligent human I realized that I was talking about Dylan Thomas and he had no idea who I was talking about. I mentioned “Do not go gentle…”  No glint of recognition. 

So for people still in love with words here are couple of closing links:

The full text of Roald Dahl’s short story: “Parson’s Pleasure.” (I haven’t read it yet, but have it sitting in my browser so that I can read it when I get a chance.)

And just for giggles, here’s the poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” As I watch the last flickering of my father’s personality (due to his dementia), I sometimes think of this poem that Dylan Thomas wrote for his own father. As a metaphor for battling a terminal illness, I don’t find it helpful. But I can relate to the idea that when one is facing the “good night” one’s self, raving, burning, raging, all seem to be as profound a response to extinguishment as gentleness. Probably the whole mix is how one faces it, if one is lucky enough to see it coming clearly.

Aha! I outfoxed the Kenken.com site on behalf of my puzzle-playing wife.

New York Times recentlhy began featuring the puzzle called Kenken which seems to be sort of a soduko with math equations. When I saw it, I instantly went to the kenken site via a NYT link and signed up for their newsletter and downloaded a bunch of puzzles (without answers) and printed them out for my wife, Eileen.

Of course, she had already heard of kenkens and immediately bbegan solving them. Yesterday she hit a glitch on a particularly hard one and I went back to see if I could download the answers. I had noticed them but hadn’t downloaded them thinking I could always get back.

Not so. I backtracked into my history and couldn’t find the stupid stupid answers. It looks like Kenken changed their “free online puzzles” from a huge zipped file of twenty or so puzzles to six puzzles. I fussed with it for a while and couldn’t even access the previous file I had downloaded. I emailed their “helpful” info email address. 

I went back through my downloads and noticed that the url for the orginal file was something like http://www.kenken.com/games/Puzzles_11_10.zip (I did this on the other computer so if you try to get these and fail, let me know and I’ll double check the url). I copied this url into the browser url line and changed “puzzles” to “Answers” and lo and behold it worked. AHA!

In the meantime I received a very weird response from the kenken help people which was of course no help at all but was sneakily trying to figure out how I originally accessed the first file (I can’t remember).

Dear Stephen,

Somehow it seems you have accessed an archived file from an old newsletter.  If you remember how you arrived at it, please let us know so others will not have this problem.

Attached are some puzzles with answers for you to print out.  We apologize for the inconvenience.  

Sincerely,
KenKen Customer Care

Riiiight! I have difficulty with any robot or person that signs themselves “sincerely” and then uses “Customer Care” in the signature. Ahem. I believe I know what “Customer Care” is a euphemism for….. having been screwed over and over by stores, banks, churches… you name it…. by the “Customer Care” department. Heh. 

Also here are some silly links I used yesterday:

http://readthestimulus.org/

850 Billion, 1588 pages, and counting…somebody needs to read it!

This seems to be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s official blog: http://www.speaker.gov/blog/

According to readthestimulus.org it went down recently when citizens were directed to it to actually read the new stimulus bill. In their words, “Go figure.” Heh

Also found this: http://public.resource.org/ 

  a site that specializes in getting resources into the hands of citizens. It linked me into this:

Fedflix

where I found this:

I linked to this via youtube but there are tons of cool old government videos at this link. (Hint: if my video doesn’t work for you… trying using a different browser …. I couldn’t get it to work in my Chrome browser but it did work on Explorer…. )

Boy yesterday was another long one. Started out the day sitting in the dentist chair getting two fillings (instead of the expensive needed crowns). Then various errands and goofy shit all day. Ended up in a choir rehearsal once again helping a befuddled choir member get the right music out.

It turns out Huntington bank made an error but I’m skeptical that Mom will get a refund or recompense out of it. Last year, we applied for several transfer of assets from the many banks where my Dad had put his accounts. At one of these banks (State Bank), we mistakenly filled out the application in Dad’s name instead of Mom’s even though her name was plainly at the top of the attached statement. State Bank rejected the request for transfer of assets out of hand. Huntington  did not notify her. So when it came time to madly declare all the assets before the end of Jan 2009 (the month Dad entered long term care), we were unaware that this asset was not part of the money at Mom’s bank and did not put it on the asset declaration. It’s around 10k in undeclared moola.

What this means is that Medicaid is quite likely to make us pay for Dad’s January care ($4200.00) instead of covering this for us. If this happens, I am going to rattle cages at Huntington but I’m pretty purchase diazepam uk sure we will get screwed out of this money. Thanks again, Huntington.. God I hate money.

I started practicing in earnest for my March gig yesterday. I rented an accoustic piano for this gig. It will cost me 175.00 to rent. I am planning on paying the musicians who play. At 50.00 a service this could easily run me another $300.00 (that would be one rehearsal and one performance).  So it’s probably going to cost me in the neighborhood of $475.00 to play. 

I considered soliciting sponsorship from people I know. People whose last name is not the same as mine. Ahem. My Mom volunteered some money. I hate solicitation and self promotion. But apparently not self indulgence. So I guess I’m going to eat the cost of this performance so I might as well enjoy it.

I started trying to figure out “They Just Got Married” off Randy Newman’s record yesterday. My piano’s not quite in tune with his so that was kind of fun. I like this song and I like it when Newman gets funny and bitter (The “Anyway she died” line cracks me up every time).

I’m also re-arranging songs for this gig. I hate doing the same shit. 

Although I have another round robin of tasks today, it should be a bit lighter and (here’s a bright spot) Eileen has the day off from work.

My cyber bud Sir Monocle (George) seemingly slammed Nina Simone yesterday on his Facebook status:

“George is wondering …. is it possible to listen to Nina Simone with a straight face?”

to which I replied:

“Hey. I’m a fan. She is actually a brilliant improviser on the piano. Of course, it’s just my opinion, heh.”

I guess there’s no accounting for tastes, but I can testify that if you can’t stand her singing or her composing (both of which I happen to like),

there’s no denying her ability to improvise polyphony is pretty amazing. But that’s just how it seems this improviser who has been long on the outs with musicians with refined tastes everywhere for ages.

I practiced organ early yesterday which is what I seem to do on Wednesdays because the church is tied up from 9:30 AM (Eucharist) to about 2 PM (Bible Study). Then I came home and worked on transcribing my song, “Lost in the Dark.”

Interrupted this to go play piano for the elders (and visitors and the shabazeem) at Boersma Cottage. Playing for a group of people like this is the opposite of playing at church.

They sat quietly and attentively and were very appreciative. I played Haydn, Bach, Mozart, pop songs from the forties and ended with hymns.

I had a conversation with Jonathon Fegel recently about his sometime frustration with audiences. He mentioned their indifference and that when this happens he feels like he should be somewhere else.

I told him he had given in to the guy who wrote the note (which became the title for one of his CDs): “Next time consider entertaining yourself in private.” I mentioned that I think that many people “consume” music

and are not used to the idea that some one is actually doing it in front of them.

We performers are in their unconscious perception more like speakers (or robots) than living breathing humans inviting them into the listening experience….

nothing like being the old guy blathering unhelpful nonsense, eh? But Jonathon seems to enjoy it.

Anyway, I came home after playing for the elders and finished transcribing my song.

Originally written for guitar and voice, I am thinking of doing it with piano, guitar (and drums?) at the gig on March 13th. Arranging my songs always seems to be a change for the better and very satisfying. I also worked on learning, “I just want you to hurt like I do” by Randy Newman for the same gig. 

After my wife came home we went over to my Mom’s apartment complex and joined her for supper. They serve meals there in the evening for the residents. Mom has a bunch of tickets left over that she bought for her and Dad and invited Eileen and I to join her. Afterwards one of the people there insisted on photographing us. Kind of odd. But then much of my life is kind of odd.

After the meal, we went up to Mom’s apartment  and Eileen purchased flight tickets California for her and Mom to visit in March. They will be missing my gig. Well, there goes half the audience. 

Finished reading “The Vanished Hands” by Robert Wilson last night. I checked out two more of his novels from the library: 

The Blind Man of Seville and

A Small Death in Lison….

“The Vanished Hands”  is sort of a Spanish police procedural murder mystery and has a pretty interesting if outlandish plot. I enjoyed it very much as escape reading and decided to read a couple more by this guy.

I had a chance to chat with my bud, Jonathon Fegel yesterday. That was good for me. I have been getting my groove back a bit (although it feels like its waning this morning). I have scheduled a movement of Hugo Distler’s organ trio for the prelude a week from Sunday and have been rehearsing it daily. Jonathon and I spent some time writing down an instrumental piece he is writng yesterday. I am beginning to think about a set list for my March 13th gig. Started my first high school musical pit orchestra rehearsal last evening in Grand Haven. I am hoping they will be able to honor their promise to pay me half of my fee half-way through the rehearsals. I have told the director that if I do not receive a check at that point, I will no longer be available. 

It turns out that the reason I was paid months and months after my service to them last year was a power hungry accoutant who thought I was getting paid too much for my work. Don’t that just figure. It’s not like I charge top dollar. Actually I don’t charge at all, they set the fee they are willing to pay. Bah.

Anyway, the rehearsal went fine last night. It was an interesting challenge to go in and sight read the score. The biggest challenge was reading the notes in the typically fuzzy musical hand written score. I enjoyed driving home in the dark looking at the full moon in a clear sky listening to Chumbawumba. 

Today I am seriously considering lugging my electric piano over to Boersma Cottage and playing a bit of music for the elders and the shabazeem. 

The frustrating bits of yesterday were largely around trying to help but not piss people off by offering my comments on the church web site. I am pretty convinced that the people involved with this don’t use the net very much. Hence it’s like speaking a different language to try to make suggestions to them. And of course they are put off by my whole persona anyway. Sheesh. 

Also this morning I clicked on an email from Semco telling me (once again) they have (ta da!) upgraded their website. The last time they did this was December of last year. I was locked out and had to phone them. This morning I tried to log on with the proper logon and password and  (ta da!) I was instantly locked out and blandly advised to call a service rep. Of course the office doesn’t open for another hour. Sheesh.

Oh well, I just hope I can find a bit of that old groove today despite people’s silliness. Help me, Lord.

I didn’t listen to President Obama’s press conference last night. But I got up this morning and hooked up my remote speakers to my laptop and am listening to (and watching) it right now on C-Span.

I have been trying to understand the stimulus bill a bit. Right now I’m about 25 minutes into the President’s press conference. He is making a plea for education spending. I agree that money needs to be spent on education. But I am getting increasing flumoxed about the whole situation.

I keep wondering about the whole economic situation. It seems to me like so much of what is happening right now seems to reflect a weird greed and glee in making tons of money at other people’s expense. I wonder whatever happened to Greenleaf’s notion of “servant leadership.” I wonder what these people who pursue money as an ends think life is for.

I know a money guy who assures me that the whole oil crisis is fraudulent… that there are even more oil reserves in the earth that will keep the world economy going for years. He bases his notion on other public economic leaders iideas who have a stake in people believing this. Even if he is right, what about the idea of basing your whole economy on what has to be ultimately a limited resource?

This same money guy spends  his day with a ear piece in his ear and a grin on his face. He smiled as he told me about his trips to africa to hunt. It’s hard not to see him as representative of the ultimate impotency of the position of greed. 

What does all of this have to do with the government trying to find ways to deal with the current crisis? 

Even though I am basically very skeptical about institutions (i.e. governments, stockmarkets, churches), I do think that they are made up of people who make choiceds about how to live and what’s important. Living in the United States, it is easy to see how ignorance and selfishness have led us to this situation.

Most people are know are living an honest and decent life. So what’s going on? Maybe people who are controling the money and other parts of our society are either deceiving themselves or have decided that the only way to live is to get what’s coming to you when you can.

I honestly don’t know. And I don’t really know anyone (including the money guy mentioned above) who I can honestly say fits the second category of just getting whatever you can.

I do however know people (with money) who easily fit into the first category…. i.e. deceive themselves about what’s really important in life and are living their lives on the backs of people with less. 

I don’t expect Obama’s adminstration to be more than a decent attempt to negotiate a weird and difficult maze of our country and it’s istitutions.

But even though I am skeptical about the stimulus bill (and I now have skimmed more than a third of it), I still think I would vote for Obama again even though he has not been able to act on much of his excellent rhetoric in the campaign. 

But ultimately, I think what happens depends on each of us as individuals to attempt to  live our lives with decency, honesty, prudence, humor, joy and love for others. That way no matter what happens to us, we wil have a life worth living. 

Hey, but what do I know?

I’m on page 162 of the 736 pages of the stimulus bill. Of course I’m just skimming, but it does seem like there is an incredible amount of money being spread around but this bill. If it passes, I hope it helps. Read it yourself at this PDF link.

Arlene Specter explains why he has decided to vote for this bill on today’s Washington Post Op Ed page. 

Over at the Telegraph UK site, Toby Harnden takes an interesting look at Obama’s troubles in “Barak Obama is a novice and it shows.”

Here are some quotes, scant comments and links for some stories I read this weekend.

 

Republicans are trying to draw Democrats into a screaming match because they know they’re better at it. They are the masters of shrill — masters of stoking ignorance and rousing rabble.

Democrats, on the other hand, should know better, especially No Drama Obama. He comes across as much more competent when he appears unflappable. That’s part of what inspires so much confidence in him, and confidence is all people had to go on with the stimulus bill. (I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that virtually no one read the entire tome.)

Remember, rancor is the Republican briar patch.

“Watch the tone in Washington” by Charlse M. Blow NYT    2/6/09

 

Not sure what to think as I watch the people inside and outside the beltway these days. It was around this period in Bush’s first hundred days that I wrote a letter to him thanking him for attempting to bring civility to DC. Boy was I wrong about that.  But I’m sure it’s swimming upstream anywhere in the U.S. to oppose much less make a dent in the current culture of fear and anger.

I find it troubling that people demonize each other as they disagree. A recent letter in the local Holland Michigan paper (The Holland Sentinel) told this story:

Two first-graders, whose parents are relatives and friends of mine, both came home from school a couple weeks ago and said, “Mom and Dad, my friend said that President Obama is a baby killer!” Each of these children was very upset and did not understand what her friend meant. These parents had the difficult task of explaining abortion to their 6-year-olds. Tricia Bartells letter to the editors of the Holland Sentinel 2/6/09

I know people feel deeply about the issue of abortion. But I don’t think that aleviates the grown-up responsibility to treat everyone with a modicum of respect. Even us babykillers. 

Donald P. Gregg told this interesting story in Saturdays NYT

 

WHEN former Vice President Dick Cheney warned last week that terrorists will be emboldened by President Barack Obama’s decision to close Guantánamo and to ban harsh interrogation techniques, I was reminded of a story.

During wartime service in Vietnam with the C.I.A. from 1970 to 1972, I was in charge of intelligence operations in the 10 provinces surrounding Saigon. One of my tasks was to prevent rocket attacks on Saigon’s port.

Keeping Saigon safe required human intelligence, most often from captured prisoners. I had a running debate about how North Vietnamese prisoners should be treated with the South Vietnamese colonel who conducted interrogations. This colonel routinely tortured prisoners, producing a flood of information, much of it totally false. I argued for better treatment, and pressed for key prisoners to be turned over to the C.I.A., where humane interrogation methods were the rule, and more accurate intelligence the result.

The colonel finally relented and turned over a battered prisoner to me, saying, “This man knows a lot but he will not talk to me.” We treated the prisoner’s wounds, reunited him with his family and allowed him to make his first visit to Saigon. Surprised by the city’s affluence, he said he would tell us anything we asked. The result was a flood of actionable intelligence that allowed us to disrupt planned operations, including rocket attacks against Saigon.

“Speaking with the enemy” by Donald P. Gregg NYT 

 

I had a friend who was an interregator in Vietnam. He was very clear about how it worked. You were out to wear down the prisoner, gain his trust, get him to let his guard down.  This same man spent most of the Bush years ranting about that administrations stupidity. Go figure. 

Governments continue the historically depraved practice of firing into crowds of unarmed people:   “More Than 20 Killed in Madagascar Protest” by Barry Bearak NYT

And finally a story near to my heart: “Digital Pirates Winning Battle with Studios” by Brian Stelter and Brad Stone NYT:

 

On the day last July when “The Dark Knight” arrived in theaters,Warner Brothers was ready with an ambitious antipiracy campaign that involved months of planning and steps to monitor each physical copy of the film.

The campaign failed miserably. 

 

I have been listening to Robinson Crusoe on my MP3 player lately to fall asleep. It seemed like an apt thing to fall asleep to. Despite the continued support and love of my wife, I sometimes feel a bit like I am marooned in my life on the island of Holland Michigan.

 Not sure if I have actually read this book, but I have memories of the story (probably from a movie or a kid’s book or both). You know of Crusoe finding a footprint in the sand and of Friday placing his foot on his head.

Well, even though this book was definitely written in the 17th century, I am still having problems with his attitude toward slaves. It’s a high point when he can finally afford to buy one when he is a successful tobacco farmer in Lisbon. Then after some bad ship experiences, he risks everything once again and takes the fated trip on which he is marooned. Guess what the purpose of this trip was.

Yup, he was on his way to Guinea to get slaves for himself and other plantation owners. 

Kind of takes the oomph out of it for me.

Well I guess I’m braced for church this morning.

The youth choir is singing and the adults have the Sunday off. I am planning to play a short movement from Messiaen’s piano work, 20 glances on the Infant Jesus. I am really up way too close to everything these days. No perspective. Probably on the verge of tipping from needing a vacation to actual burnout.

Just returned from playing a wedding at my church and find myself pretty exhausted. This wedding was charming as most are. The couple have been fighting for the groom to receive a visa to come to the U.S.A for quite a long time. He was living in Jamaica but apparently had lived in the U.K. for six years at some point and this made U.S. visa people nervous or something. 

Anyway, they asked me to play piano for a half hour before hand so I did it. I tend to play Mozart and Bach for something like that. Happy happy. Or in Mozart’s case, joie de vivre. But for some reason they actually started about twenty minutes late. When it became close to time for them to begin I swtiched to improvising on hymns…. mostly African American things. I didn’t realize I would be doing so for twenty five minutes. But no harm done. It just felt weird to go back to the more formal classical pieces after “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” and such. Toward the end I just went into free form improv. No biggie.

Earlier I took my Mom to the grocery store. Then home to her apartment.  I usually do her bills on grocery day. I was going through her mail and discovered a statement from a Bank asking for more information in order to process her IRAs. I thought it was a mistake. I called and sure enoug she has two IRAs out there that I thought we had already cashed out.

This is bad because we didn’t report these as assets when we filed with Medicaid. Oops. I figured out that my banker probably neglected to do something he told me he was going to do  (like apply for transer of assets from this bank). I will have to talk to him and the lawyer next week. Oy.

I think this may have contributed to my post wedding fatigue, eh?

Plus I just don’t have the energy I used to have. Something about being 57 years old. 

I picked Dennett’s Consciousness Explained and started reading in it again recently.

The idea that consciouness can be explained solely by what is happening in the brain really appeals to me for some reason. I like being a robot, I guess. Dennett writes in a very readable and interesting style. 

Got up this morning. The sun is shining and lighting up my kitchen. Hooked up my record player (with Jeremy’s speakers…. thank you again for letting me use them!) and am currently blasting Randy Newman’s Born Again Album. Boy I never thought I’d nostalgically enjoy the crackle of an old record. Surface noise used to make me crazy. Now when I hear it, it holds a little pocket of memory that I like to visit from time to time.

Met with Jonathon yesterday, then my boss, Jen. These two people both help keep me mentally healthy. Neither one takes me too seriously but they both are strong people who take me just seriously enough. 

Jonathon and I took pictures.

From Feb 5 2009

Jonathon has agreed to play on my March 13th Lemonjellos gig. I was supposed to get promo pics to Matt this week…. so that’s why we took pics. This is my favorite:

I’m hoping I can get my bud, Jordan VanHemert, to come and play sax with us. 

I began really thinking about this gig yesterday for the first time. Am seriously thinking about some covers as well as originals for this gig. I have been practicing Newman’s “It’s Money that I love” and “I just wnat you to hurt like I do.” Both fine fine tunes. This morning, I thought about learning “Mister Sheep” and “They Just Got Married.” I do like Newman.

Also considering Messiaen’s “Gaze of the Star” from 20 Gazes on the Infant Jesus. I also think it would fun to learn a few of Zappa’s themes from Lumpy Gravy. I like this album quite a bit.

But we’ll see.

In the meantime the sun is shining in Wester Michigan. Life is getting back to being good.

Woo hoo! I just heard from the band director in Grand Haven and the High School Musical Rehearsals (at which I assist) begin next week. Cool! This year’s show is “Guys and Dolls.”

Oops…. I didn’t know my neice Cindy was reading this…. or I didn’t remember…. sorry Cindy… you are definitely both family  and friend ….. so 

CINDY CINDY CINDY

CINDY CINDY CINDY

CINDY CINDY CINDY

anybody else I have inadvertently left out?

Okay. Thank you sundry family members for leaving comments on the last post. Sort of like a cyber roll call. Besides feeding my pathetic ego, this lets me know that this new blog address is accessible and probably bumping you here from the old address.

Yesterday was very full. I got up and practiced organ from about 8:30 to 9:30 (9:30 is when a service starts in the chapel and it’s time to stop). Back home for a quick shower and phone conversation with eldest daughter, Elspeth. 

Attended staff meeting at church. My boss was on top of chairing this time and even had one of those group building exercises ready. She put a big empty tin can on the table and had us make lists of how it could be used. Lots of creative ideas from all staff members, but none came up with Eileen’s first response: “To pee in.” Dam.

After staff I pulled twenty or so single copies of anthems and took them home to browse.

I chose a movement from Bach’s B minor Mass for Palm Sunday (Cruxifixus) and a bouncy SAB version of a movement from Handel’s Judas Maccabeeus with the bland text: “Praise the Lord.” I perused my new CD rom resources of anthems but couldn’t find anything that grabbed my imagination. Plus these two are sitting in the church’s choral library. I already have them distributed to the folders for this evening.

I connected with my old bud, Jonathon Fegel, yesterday. This week is the deadline to get promo shots to LemonJellos for my big March 13th gig. I wanted Jonathon to perform with me and be in the photo. He consented and is coming today for a chat and some music.

In the afternoon, I met with a committee at church called “The Heart of the Matter.”

Pastor Jen and I are walking interested parishioners through some basic grounding in liturgical theology using Benedicta Ward’s little book “In the Company of Christ: A Pilgrimage Through Holy Week.”

This meeting probably went the way my boss wanted it to go. I struggle with so many theologies in the room and helping people understand how to contribute to the ideas behind the worship without grabbing control. Whippy skippy, right?

Speaking of books, my copy of “What are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World” by Bill Thomas came in the mail yesterday.

I read in it along with “The Mercy Papers” by Robin Rohm

and later in the evneing “The Vanished Hands” by Robert Wilson.

After the meeting of “The Heart of the Matter” group, I hung around and stuffed the new music into the choral folders then rehearsed at the organ for a while.

I am learning some Mendelssohn, Bach, William Bolcom, Hugo Distler, Krebs and Georg Bohm. I only brushed Messiaen’s Nativity since I am actually performing one of the movements from his piano work, “20 Gazes on the Infant Jesus,” this Sunday. 

Then I stopped by Mom’s apartment, dropping off her mail and the copy of Bill Thomas’s book that I ordered for her.

Took her to the Boersma cottage where Dad is living so she could have supper with him. After Eileen came home from work, we went to the 8th street  grill and had a nice relaxing meal. I built up my courage and asked Eileen if she would drop me off at home and then go get Mom at the cottage and return her to her apartment. She did, I did, and Mom was taken care of. 

Now, after writing all that (in the hopes that it might possibly interest fam members) I digress for an moment into my usual tirades (which probably interest fam members less or not).

I keep noticing the lack of literacy and education around me. I counted three instances of silly stuff on NPR laying in the dark yesterday morning. Stuff like obviously choosing the wrong verb (something like have instead of be), neglecting to say WHERE a local artist community was in a report on it,  and there was one more but it escapes me right now. It’s an unusual day that I don’t listen to people speak and notice that they are mangling the language a bit (“don’t” instead of “doesn’t”, that sort of thing).

I understand the fluidity of language and information. But I do think that clarity and coherence contribute to the quality of life of us all. Fuzzy thinking, fuzzy use of language and illogical sequencing of ideas has a consequence. But of course it’s just my cranky opinion. Heh.

Sat for two hours in my Mom’s pain management clinic waiting room. They insist that patients have a driver waiting in the waiting room during their ridiculously long appointment. Call me grumpy, but I get so tired of service providers who set up their service (for which they are paid) to convenience themselves instead of the customer/patient. (Think gynecological tables set up to be awkward for patients and comfortable for doctors.)

But I think I’m just a tad grumpy. 

Then attended my Dad’s Resident Care Conference. This occurs every three months and also sometime soon after admitting. Not sure what I think about all of this. At least these people (a nurse and a social worker) seemed vaguely aware of my Dad’s disease (Lewey Body Dementia).

My Mom was too groggy from her pain management appointment (they pump her full of drugs to alleviate bursitis pain) to attend Dad’s Care Conference.

They had given me the wrong time in my letter so I had some time to wait around and chat with Dad. He had disconnected his fancy new tv. I asked him about it and he said (I think) that he had disconnected it because it was broken. I connnected it back up and it worked fine. Dad shrugged.

I am getting more discouraged about this new blog set-up (pointing the old browser url to a new one and finding that it doesn’t always seem to be working). But also since I am discouraged about it (and some other trivial stuff in my life) I’m kind of letting it slide while I try to find a hand hold on my daily life which I seem to have lost recently.

Oh yes: SARAH SARAH SARAH SARAH

My youngest daughter informed me she scans my blogs looking for her name, heh. 

So while I’m at it: EILEEN EILEEN EILEEN

AND

ELIZABETH ELIZABETH ELIZABETH

AND

DAVID DAVID DAVID

AND 

LEIGH LEIGH LEIGH

AND

EMILY EMILY  EMILY

AND 

MARY MARY MARY

That’s everyone in the fam I suspect of reading this. 

I  think.

I hope.

Several years ago, I built my web site from scratch using word processing programs that allowed html. But I couldn’t figure out how to make it so readers could leave comments. 

Since one of my main interests in life is conversation and colleagiality, and I have been living for years in a town where I can’t seem to find much of either, I thought that converting to a template designed web site would at least allow for the possibility of some sorts of interchange. This inevitably restricted my ability to design my site. Frustrating but necessary if I wanted to add the comment dealy.

In practice this has ended up more as a conduit for conversations with my family and friends scattered all over the world.  This way they can keep track of me (read lurk) without having to actually deal with me, heh.

There have been moments of exchange with people I have met online. One time, the Irish author Ken Bruen stopped by (I’d link you in so you could see but I’m locked out of those posts). More usually I reach out to others via their web sites. Sometimes they reach back.

Sir Monocle has been a valuable cyber colleague for me. Not sure how we connected but now we regularly comment on each others blogs. 

But the dang wordpress template has been clunky and buggy for me. [Post Blog Note: as I was trying to load this particular blog and save it and preview it, suddenly I couldn’t get anything from jupiterjenkins.com/blog2/wp-admin/ to load. I had to restart the computer to get it to work. Sheesh. Of course I’m not absolutely sure if wordpress is responsible, since everything seems sort of like magic to someone of my ignorance.]

This is my sixth post on a redirected site. Another thing that interests me about having a web site is putting up my compositions and recordings. On the previous website that locked me out, I had a page of links to my compositions: recordings, pdfs of the notation and what not. Now due to the redirect, all of that stuff has to be re-worked and put on this new site.  Looking at a cached version online I count 61 links and files. Yikes. 

I do wonder if it’s worth it.

Hello.
Is there anybody in there? 
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home? 

from PInk Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”

And I seem to be at an ebb in mental energy. Yesterday I had the day off and spent most of the day reading, practicing piano and brooding. When I wasn’t reading or practicing, I felt kind of grumpy.

 When I get in this mood I mostly cling to my own love of music and ideas.  

Probably as a result of losing perspective, it seems to me that I run across fewer and fewer people interested in words and music the way I am. 

This past Sunday I performed two cool pieces by Bach on the organ. It was hard not see their impact on the people in the room with them as negligible. 

So I guess I just need a bit of time to gather my own mental reserves and energy to rebuild my web site and recapture my groove. 

I have to get a promo pic to local coffee house, LemonJellos, this week. I haven’t been able to arouse much of my own motivation around the upcoming gig there, short of thinking it would be cool to do some Messiaen. I haven’t talked to any musicians about playing with me or even thought much about what tunes to do. My brain just stops when I try to think about it. 

I think I’m locked out of my brain as well as my old web site.

The liberal party leader in Canada, Michael Ignatieff, seems to be an interesting fellow. I hope he becomes prime minister. I read about him in “Running on Book Sense and Charm” by Eric Konigsberg in the NYT. 

Couple of interesting book reviews in yesterday’s paper: “The Descent of Taste” by Anthony Gottlieb. reviews “The Art Instinct” by Denis Dutton. (First Chapter) and

How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They are Still on This Earth) by Henry Alford reviewed in “Old Enough to Know Better” by Alex Beam. The old people thing seems to be a new theme for me. I’m still waiting for my copy of “What are old people for” to arrive in the mail.

The U.S. Supreme court continues its march to the radical right by weaking exclusionary rules. Apparently, this has been a hobby horse of Justice Roberts for years. Great. I read about it in “Justices Step Closer to Repealing Evidence Ruling” by Adam Liptik in the NYT.  Samuel Walker writes an interesting rebuttal to Justice Scalia’s use of his book to support this recent ruling: “Thanks for nothing, Nino” in the LATimes.

 Make your own cool little cube person with just a printer and scissors at Cubbeecraft.com

This report on a recently killing of a rebel fighter turned bodyguard turned exile from Chechnya reads like a horrifying spy novel: Slain Exile Detailed Cruelty of the Ruler of Chechnya by C. J. Chivers, NYT. 

This man,  President Ramzan A. Kadyrov of Chechnya, is accused of personally participating in torture in this article. Very scarey and discouraging.

How would you like it if your utility company gave you a comparative grade on how well you are using your energy compared with your neighbors?  Utilities turn their customers green, with envy by Leslie Kaufman, NYT. 

Finally a couple of sites for online reading of books for children. First, Starfall has many reading tools available just for clicking on their site. Very cool. 

And for forty bucks a year, you or your kid can log on and have books read to you. Familiar books like The Little Red Hen and Rattle Trap Car  on One More Story. Click here to experience a sample book (Rattle Trap Car).

Found both of these in “Click and Jane” by Virginia Hefferman, NYT.

A nice side effect to having to start over with my blog is no spam.  I was up to over 1,000 spam hits a day on the old blog. So far no spam for the new blog. Of course I have had no comments also. One of my initial attractions to blogging was the possibility of having conversations with people online. Alas, this has happened only sporadically. But what the hell. I discovered that I enjoy a little public diary writing so I persist (so far). 

Yesterday, I performed two organ works by Bach as the prelude and postlude. In both cases, there seemed to be a lot of crowd noise while I was performing. I managed to do a creditable job of executing these pieces despite the usual feeling that I was basically being ignored. After my prelude, my wife whispered good job to me. After the postlude a local music prof told me that the piece I played was divine enough to be a stand alone piece during the service with its due silence.  (This was the famous Adagio in A minor from Bach’s BV 564)  So I guess at least two people noticed I was playing. Heh.

The choir successfully performed a little canon by G. P. Telemann despite the fact that more people show up to perform than rehearse (this is another usual aspect of my working lately at church, oh well). This just means I have to concentrate on drilling the piece instead of polishing it during the pregame. 

I played marimba on the hymn, “If you believe and I believe.” In the course of writing about this hymn for the bulletin I discovered its wonderful background. It started out as an English melody imported into Rhodesia by colonizers. It was taken over by locals and given words that emphasized freedom. I guess it become sort of a freedom anthem and ended up being sung in the prisons of South African before apartheid was ended. How’s that for a pedigree? We did it with marimba, flute and guitar. 

After church, we grabbed some lunch at home and then went out to see if we could get Eileen’s Suzuki started. She had to abandon it in a friend’s driveway on Saturday evening. She was hoping that the people who “helped” her had hooked up the jumper cables incorrectly. Happily this seemed to be the case as the sucker started right up.  We brought it home and put it on a battery charger for the night. Hopefully it will be okay today.

For some reason I sat and played Beethoven piano sonatas last night for an extended period of time. I haven’t had much time for myself the last couple of weeks so this was a welcome return to some of my previoius music making at home. 

Eileen got my Mom back and forth to see Dad at Boersma cottage where he lives now. 

I am planning to take today off and just take Mom back and forth to see Dad when she wants to go. This will be my only task today.

Since all my old posts have disappeared into the ether (actually I guess they are still sitting on my server, ahem), I thought I would put up some new & old links.

Here are some new ones:

David Brooks wrote an admirable Op Ed piece in the NYT recently: “What Life Asks of Us.” He is usually a bit conservative for me, but I like what he has to say about people and institutions in this article. He might have caught the hope thing from Obama.

I have read one of his books and enjoyed it. I think it was the first one. I started the second and didn’t finish it if I remember correctly. His books are:

• On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense (2004) ISBN 0-7432-2738-7
• Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (2000) ISBN 0-684-85377-9

My buds Dave and Paul pointed me to this article: “Its a catastrophe for the apostrophe in Britain” by Meera Silva on Yahoo news. It seems some of the Brits find the apostrophe confusing in signs.

Now here are a couple of old ones that have disappeared with the old blog. 

I still think this 1994 article is prescient. 

The Economy of Ideas by John Perry Barlow

I still think Doctorow rocks and recommend his book: Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future

 The faces blur.

The face of my confused father saying good night to his wife who is leaving him once again for the night.

The face of the woman whose anger expresses itself in weird fiece cheerfulness as she arrives late and leaves early for everthing.

The face of a young father who conceals a secret grief with smiles and competence.

The face of the man speaking loudly to the air above the crowd not knowing his stupidity kills ideas and love.

The face of the nurse blankly reading a magazine.

The face of the banker ridiculously grinning talking listening to something in his earpiece.

The face of the young violinist whose out of tune notes are brave and beautiful to me.

The face of the singer who sings with her absence.

The face of the dead composer speaking and singing in my head.

The face of the man who smiles and doesn’t know his own cruelty.

The face in the mirror mutely staring back.