My 12-year-old grandson is getting more internet literate. He emailed me this past week and yesterday he pulled me up on chat online.

We had a lengthy exchange. I learned that he has switched from playing trombone to trumpet and likes that quite a lot.  He also likes blues and church music. Wen I asked him what blues he liked, he mentioned Louis Armstrong.

He linked me in to a Youtube video of a piano piece he is learning. Wow. It sounds hard to me, but he is determined to learn it and no doubt will do so.  In response I linked him in to this video:

After a few minutes of viewing it, he messaged me back his surprise that Armstrong played trumpet. He only knew him as a singer.

That was fun.

As we were sitting and chatting, I sketched out an easy piano version of Basin Street Blues and sent it to him in a PDF.

I continue to be thrilled and amazed at how the internet can connect and educate all of us.

This morning I browsed through the OED entry for the word, “book.”

One of the things I enjoy is looking over the quotes in the full entry that illustrate meanings and senses of the word.

This is from meaning 4.a. “That in which we may read, and find instructions or lessons.” The highlighting is from DIIGO an online bookmarking service that I use that has this option. I used this service free for years, but recently upgraded to their cheapest paid version since I use it so much.

In the online edition of the OED,  there are quotes and emendations that have been made as recently as this month. I find that pretty exciting.

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The Anti-Union Roberts Court – NYTimes.com

Ever since the 2000 Supreme Court ruling I have been bemused how obvious the bias of the majority of the current court is. My reading in brain science and subjectivity pretty much blows away the notion that any of us are truly objective. If we do not recognize our bias (as many justices have protested even as they actively pursue an obvious partisan agenda), we will be at the mercy of what Daniel Kahneman and his dead colleague Amos Tversky have labeled System 1 in the brain. This is the activity of the brain that allows snap judgments and intuition.

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Why Vincent Chin Matters – NYTimes.com

An impassioned insight to American racism.

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This has been an amazing week when I think about it.

More ensemble playing (not only the piano trio, but piano duets with my colleague, Rhonda, and my student, Rudi), collaboration (with my wife, my boss and my colleague, Nick, via a flurry of emails last night about my Jazz Mass), and an actual social life (Choir party last Sat and last evening a relaxed and wonderful evening with Rhonda and her fam).

I step back to reflect because I think if asked I might mistakenly  say that my life has  a dearth of things like collaboration and social contact.

I was tickled to get a couple emails from my 12 year old grandson. He is (with some help from his Mom and Dad I suspect) beginning to dabble in this sort of communication. I of course immediately wrote him back.

Nick had some very interesting observations about my slowly emerging Jazz Mass. I only have two movements done (Sanctus composed in 2010 and the Fraction Anthem composed this past week).  Eileen and Pastor Jen helped me with the fraction anthem with insightful critiques of it’s weaknesses. I thought it might be fruitful to invite comment from some of my old Roman Catholic colleagues. So I emailed it off to Nick Palmer (who is currently music director at the diocesan Cathedral) and Peter Kurdziel (who has a relatively prestigious gig at the Basilica in Grand Rapids).

Within hours, Nick sent me a detailed critique of both movements. Bless his heart. I was especially interested in his comments on the Sanctus since he was viewing it very much about how successful he could predict it would be when taught to a congregation. My congregation sings this one since I wrote it in 2010.

Although some of his expectations were not borne out (he wondered about the successive syncopations and whether a group of singers would automatically simplify them into on the beat after one or two) he did catch one problematic section which I have agonized over and finally allowed to pass since it’s now learned by the congregation.  I’ve mentioned this before here. (link to June 8, 2012 post: Jupe continues to compose himself).

I will be pondering his other critiques. As soon as I have a finished copy of the fraction anthem I will post it. Also, I’m changing the font on the Sanctus to match the more legible font (Comic Sans – recommended by brilliant lovely wife).  I’ll put that up as well.

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Jack Caulfield, Bearer of a Watergate Message, Dies at 83 – NYTimes.com

Another obit that is a story, this one more of  a behind the scenes one.

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Grooveshark – Listen to Free Music Online – Internet Radio – Free MP3 Streaming

Mark Edgington (Rhonda’s hubby) mentioned this service to me. It’s how he does a lot of his listening, I guess. I had never heard of it.

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Style and the Meaning of Gay Culture – NYTimes.com

I think this writer makes some salient points about how something is lost when gay men basically adopt to the larger culture in their adoption of a middle class life style and ignore or turn away from what queer theory has to offer. Some shrewd comments on “style” and “content.”

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Prisons, Privatization, Patronage – NYTimes.com

Privatization as hidden government financing (and hence still a public burden, even increasing costs). Fascinating insights and information.

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Migrants Dying on the U.S.-Mexico Border – NYTimes.com

Illegal immigration is down, the number of deaths is constant.

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Why US conservatives have gone crazy – Opinion – Al Jazeera English

This writer’s outlining of the rightward swing of Clinton and Obama is something I have thought about.  Basically he is saying that Democrats have tried to move right and by their natural political tendency are open to and even seek compromise. This threatens the right which does not automatically think compromise but rather thinks that it threatens their principles and then they pull further right away from the Democrats. The Health Care Law is a clear example,  most of the program was developed by right wing think tanks, when implemented by the centrist Obama many on the right reversed their endorsement and generally pulled away from it.

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Usually I don’t show people works in progress. But yesterday and the day before I found myself doing so with “Emmaus Fraction Anthem.” I found it very interesting that the two non-professional musicians (my boss and my wife) had critical comments that were helpful and the two professionally skilled musicians (my violinist and cellist) complimented it but did not offer critical assessments.

My boss seemed interested in adding it to the repertoire of our congregation. We are now planning to introduce it a week from Sunday. She agreed with me about changing the melody to be more legato and drop the holes I put in it. You can see them on the second line (Jesus…. in the breaking …. in the breaking…).

She said it was confusing to follow. I had neglected to put road map signs on the copy I showed her (the one above).

My wife made a very helpful suggestion over lunch. She suggested that I repeat the melody used for the words “The bread which we break” in the phrase “one body are we.” She said the melody in the former was a bit tricky but attractive. I think that the melody in the latter was probably boring as well. Repeating a tricky passage helps the congregation learn it quicker and more solidly.

I think I will be able to do a final version today. Then I will let it sit for a few days. Hopefully by the middle of next week I will feel confident enough in it to give it to the secretary to put in the bulletin.

Eileen also pointed out that the font was not legible. I will have to do something about that.

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Health Care Law Loses Ad War – NYTimes.com

It’s depressing to me to see the effective use of tons of money and framing as a deciding factor.

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North Carolina Eugenics Compensation Program Shelved – NYTimes.com

This is shameful.

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A Senator’s Sometimes Lonely Fight Against Waste – NYTimes.com

Senator Tom Coburn continues to piss off his colleagues. What a guy.

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857 Desks Call Attention to Dropout Problem – NYTimes.com

You can sign the petition here:

Don’t Forget Ed: The Future of America Is Education

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In Iran, They Want Fun, Fun, Fun – NYTimes.com

I often think about the fact that over half of the population in Iran is under 25 years old.

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Let’s Add a Little Dirt to Our Diet – NYTimes.com

No. Really. We need the bacteria.

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Yesterday I starting writing a congregational setting of the part of the Eucharist rite where the bread is broken. This called the Fraction Anthem for obvious reasons. The usual text is Agnus Dei or Lamb of God.

We recently started actually “fractioning” the bread before distributing it at my church. This was my suggestion. The idea is the breaking of the one bread into many parts is symbolic of the idea of we are many and one in Christ. You get the picture.

So we restored singing the “Fraction” anthem to this part of the ritual. My boss seems to have a propensity for the optional text: “The Disciples knew the Lord Je- sus in the breaking of the Bread. The Bread which we break, Alleluia, is the communion of the body of Christ. One Body are we, Alleluia, For Though many we share one bread.”

That’s what we are singing now. I thought I would try my hand at making a setting. I decided it would be a companion piece to my Jazz Holy Holy I wrote in 2010.

So I worked on it yesterday. Got up this morning with the idea I could get a draft version ready for my meeting with Pastor Jen today at 10:30.  Skipped my morning poetry routine and got right to work on it this morning.

After an hour or so, the stupid stupid program I was using (Finale) froze. I had to restart it and it seemed to have not done it’s supposed assigned routine of saving every five minutes automatically and I lost lots of rewrite.

Fortunately I am working from a hard copy I used to write it yesterday so the ideas are not lost, just the work.

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Senators Request Live TV for Health Care Ruling – NYTimes.com

I’m for this.

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Letters in response to Disaffected Catholics – Leave, or Stay? – NYTimes.com

I liked this comment from a retired historian of religions, Jean E. Rosenfeld in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

The predominant religious movement of the era is fundamentalism, the literal misreading of sacred texts and traditions that motivates world-changing political activism at the expense of rich and complex traditions.
It started in early 20th-century America among Protestant dissidents who rejected advanced biblical criticism in the mainline churches. A century later, versions of fundamentalism afflict nearly all the major world religions from India to the Vatican.

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Free Speech for Computers? – NYTimes.com

Doctor Frankenstein’s monster could walk and talk, but that didn’t qualify him to vote in the doctor’s place.

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After I had met but not married my wife Eileen, we visited the college where I had been studying musical composition,  Ohio Wesleyan in Delaware, Ohio.

The purpose of our visit was to be present when one of my compositions was to be performed by fellow students.

After the concert somehow we ended up sipping wine at the home of one of the professors who had attended the concert. He was one of those charming musical bigots who were so prevalent in my experiences of colleges. He had along with several of my other profs thoroughly disapproved of my quitting school to leave my first wife. He was flatteringly complimentary of  my piece. He remarked to me something about maybe being wrong that one could not learn the craft of composition without attending college.

He wrote music reviews for a hi fi magazine and was himself a composer in his earlier life. He was a great conversationalist and fun to be with and listen to. Sitting in his breezeway somehow the composer, Aaron Copland, came up.

“You know who Copland is. He writes that Americana crap.”

These words seemed to have a liberating effect on my wife. It seems to me that we had recently seen a reconstruction of Copland’s “”Billy the Kid” on TV. It had been devastatingly goofy, both music and dance wise, a reconstruction of the original choreography probably. My professor’s words seem to give Eileen permission to dislike Copland because thereafter she always said didn’t like his work.

I on the other hand as a musician and composer have grown in my appreciation (and simple awareness) of Copland’s work over the years. I even heard him speak a few years after this when I had returned to college at Wayne State University in Detroit.

Last night my friend Rhonda brought some Copland in her stack of piano duets for us to play through. I thought of Eileen (who was to be our “audience”) when Rhonda mentioned to me she had some Copland I might enjoy playing.

But by the time Rhonda and I got going and playing through material I had forgotten Eileen’s predilection against him. Rhonda bought two charming pieces by him for two pianos: “Danzon Cubano” and “El Salon Mexico.” They are lively, rhythmic, even tricky little pieces and we had fun pounding them out.

After Rhonda had left Eileen was commenting that some of the music was attractive and sounded interesting. I had to tell her it was by Copland. We were both surprised. It’s the first time I can remember she ever decided she liked something by him. Blind taste test, I guess.

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Why Republicans Oppose the Individual Health-Care Mandate : The New Yorker

An unusually lucid analysis of some modern political conversation.

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End-of-Life Choices Shoud Be Clearly Mapped – NYTimes.com

Jane Brody again. I liked the way one person talked about their end of life care.

“After family, I value clarity of mind and the capacity to make decisions. To live well is to continue to possess the ability to converse, to read, to retain what I learn and to coherently reflect and understand. I do not want my life prolonged if I undergo a marked lessening of my cognitive powers.”

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An Anomaly in Mating – Self-Castration Raises Reproductive Success – NYTimes.com

I love counter intuitive things like this.

By becoming a half eunuch or full eunuch, the spider reduces its weight by 4 to 9 percent. It then stands guard by the female it has mated with. Its lighter weight allows it to better fend off other males.

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Don’t Look Down – NYTimes.com

Can living in America really be considered edgy? Bruni seems to think it’s at least sort of true.

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The Betrayal of Egypt’s Revolution – NYTimes.com

Fooled again.

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Spent a lot of time yesterday looking through piano duet music.

I’m always amazed by what’s available free  online.

In my own library I had these:

Schlummerlied by Liszt
Morceaux en forme de poire by Satie

Brandenburg concertos 4,5,6 by Bach (transcribed by M(ax?) Reger
Sonata 1 by Mozart K. 357

All this is in preparation for this evening’s planned reading through piano duets by me and my friend, Rhonda.

I have suggested to her that we could actually do 2 piano things if she doesn’t mind the gicky sound of my electric piano.

In that case, I have 2 scores (necessary) for the following:

Rapsodie sur un theme de paganini, op. 43 by Rachmaninoff
L’Embarquement pour dythere – Valse Musette by Poulenc
Scaramouche by Milhaud
Piano Concerto in G minor by Mendelssohn

This one looks like fun. Believe me, we will not be reading it “Vif.”

I love playing music with other people. I think I am basically an ensemble player. Although I do a lot of solo playing on organ and piano, I still think it’s more fun with others playing along.

I have played in 3 & 4 piece rock bands, accompanied many solo instruments on piano and organ, played in wind ensembles (mostly trumpet in high school. This includes some excellent experiences at Interlochen and state festival wind ensembles conducted by some excellent people), orchestras (8th grade? again trumpet, harpsichord with South Bend Orchestra, organ and harpsichord with Grand Rapids Symphony – 1 time), not to mention the many choirs I have conducted.

I love it all.

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PrideSource – LGBT Chevy ad goes viral

article by my talented nephew, Ben Jenkins.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicts ‘sharp disagreement’ among justices – POLITICO.com

Eileen and I watched Ginsburg’s speech on C-span. Regarding the upcoming ruling on the Health Care Plan, she said, “Those who know don’t talk. And those who talk don’t know.”

You can see it here:

Supreme Court Justice Speaks at American Constitution Society Conference | C-SPAN

But you have to click on the Video Playlist: American Constitution Society for Law and Policy Convention on the right side.

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Music mogul donates audio interviews to Library of Congress  – NY Daily News

Doesn’t look like there are plans to make this available online. Too bad.

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Falling U.S. crime rate raises more questions than answers – latimes.com

Did you know that crime rates are falling even as people are more and more frightened of each other?

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A Test of Racial Justice – NYTimes.com

North Carolina seeks to gut the 2009 Racial Justice Act. Nice.

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The Linda Lingle Channel – NYTimes.com

One entire cable TV channel in Hawaii dedicated to one senatorial candidate.  Yikes. Can you imagine the future of this sort of thing?

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Vulnerable to ‘Reform’ – NYTimes.com

A life long wheel chair bound person outlines what changing federal funding will mean for him.

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Music by Ulrich Nehls

While I was looking for piano duets, I ran across the work of this composer. I like the way he self promotes by allowing performers to use his scores mostly for free. What a guy!

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It’s probably silly to be excited about this, but this morning as I was reading my morning poetry it occurred to me that I might have online access to the Oxford English Dictionary via my staff position at Hope College.

I checked and I do! Frabjous day! Callooh Callay!

I have long been in love with this dictionary and have a copy of the compact edition which I bought back in the 70s.

Here’s some words I looked up this morning.

“But there is a different kind of performance at the heart of the renascence of poetry as an oral art—the art of the griot, performed in alliance with music and dance, to evoke and catalyze a community or communities against passivity and victimization, to recall people to their spiritual and historic sources.” from the essay “Someone is writing a poem” by Adrienne Rich

… But this evening deep in summer
the deer are still alive and free,
nibbling apples from early-laden boughs
so weighted, so englobed
with already yellowing fruit
they seem eternal, Hesperidean,
in the clear-tuned, cricket throbbing air.

…

…she finds herself,
becoming now the sherd of broken glass
slicing light in a corner, dangerous
to flesh, now the plentiful soft leaf
that wrapped round the throbbing finger, soothes the wound;

both excerpts from the excellent poem, “Transcendental Etude,” by Adrienne Rich

And whereas, you say, there are good examples to be learnt in them : truly, so there are ; if you will learn falsehood; if you will learn cozenage, if you will learn to deceive; if you will learn to play the hypocrite, to cog, to lie and falsify

PHILIP STUBBES The Anatomie of Abuses 1583

from a diatribe against the evils of the theater quoted on the Shakespeare Sonnet site I have been reading.

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How to Read a Racist Book to Your Kids – NYTimes.com

Some level headed advice and discussion.

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‘Barack Obama,’ by David Maraniss – NYTimes.com

This new bio covers the first part of President Obama’s life with what sounds like excruciating detail.

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Aung San Suu Kyi Accepts Nobel Peace Prize – NYTimes.com

Sounds like prizes can make a difference.

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Moral Dystopia – NYTimes.com

Dowd comments again on the Sandusky scandal. Eileen’s comment was that her late grandmother felt that sexual abuse of children was not becoming more prevalent, sadly only more reported.

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Russian Spy Nathan Nicholson and Father Harold James Nicholson: Newsmakers: GQ

BBC – Adam Curtis Blog: HOW TO KILL A RATIONAL PEASANT

Bookmarked to read.

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Fair Use, Art, Swiss Cheese and Me – NYTimes.com

What if your the subject of some art and it embarrasses you? Sometimes your just shit out of luck.

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Missing – My Dad – NYTimes.com

William Styron’s daughter writes a beautiful and surprising tribute to her father figure (not her dad).

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The top 10 reasons why music is compressed | The Audiophiliac – CNET News

Interesting how narrowly this techie guy looks at music. I have heard the comment before how music that insists on having contrasts in loudness and softness is not appealing to listeners (presumably listening to it in the background or in their car).

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It rained during the choir party yesterday. The host asked me to help him move a table as it began. We got soaked. He changed clothes and handed me a towel. I was wet for the rest of the evening. But not uncomfortable.

I found a fascinating piece by Albeniz in the multi-volume piano music anthology my father bought for me at a garage sale.

Albeniz was a contemporary of Debussy and Granados. They all wrote exotic piano music. I think they were aware of each other’s work. Debussy obviously is the giant of the three. But in the last few years I have been more and more attracted to composers who use folk language in their art. Guys like D. Scarlatti (whose essercizi abound with Spanish rhythms and other musical ideas) to Villa Lobos and many others.

I was surprised by the rhythmic tattoo Albeniz employed in this piece. A quick glance online reveals that the zortzico was a Basque dance form in 5/4. Who knew?

I read this passage in the Adrienne Rich essay, “Someone is writing a poem,” this morning:

“… sending letters to myself is enough for attention to be paid….

most often someone writing a poem believes in, depends on, a delicate, vibrating range of difference, that an “I” can become a “we” without extinguishing others, that a partly common language exists to which strangers can bring their own heartbeat, memories, images. A language that itself has learned from the heartbeat, memories, images of strangers.”

I was reminded of my recent musings about what I expected initially from the internet… conversations, ideas, and so on…

Earlier in the essay Rich mentions the reader as an “active participant without whom the poem is never finished.”

Rich’s emphasis on the communal and the interactive nature of her art is a breath of fresh air to me. Musicians haven’t in my hearing or reading debated this much. So often, music is reified from activity to dull object of learning.

I thin this is why I have landed on the idea that music is “something you do.”

And I like the idea of “musicking” a word Christopher Small coined to include all participants in the process. Not just players and listeners, but dancers, people who cleaned the room, anybody who has anything to do with the process.

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Tough Guise (Unabridged) Preview | Media Education Foundation

This seems to be online access to video about media distortion recommended by Brene Brown.

She also recommended this one:

An earlier version seems to be available online.

Killing Us Softly 3 –

Neither is on Netflix.

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Reporter Interrupts Obama During Statement on Immigration – NYTimes.com

Lack of civility contributes to the erosion of the quality our public discussions. Just my opinion.

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Michigan’s Attack on Women’s Rights – NYTimes.com

Michigan stupidity makes the NYT editorial page.

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During yesterday’s practice, the Saint-Saëns organ pieces I am learning began coming together. The musical logic of the Prelude in B Major had pretty much eluded me until yesterday. I found the meter confusing. It’s in 6/8, but each 16th note is divided up into triplets. Thus the meter is very compound feeling.

I found it difficult to hear the complete measure as a unit. Yesterday I began counting each measure in two groups of nine. That did the trick. Cool.

I made page turn copies of both pieces and began rehearsing from them. I also worked a bit more on Buxtehude.

At home for some inexplicable reason I played through a couple of Tchaikovsky piano pieces. It was very odd. I quite enjoyed them. What is happening to me? Heh.

I called my Mom and invited her over to have lunch with Eileen and me. She begged off. Then changed her mind and called back within an hour to accept. Went and got her. The three of us had a pleasant lunch in back yard. Eileen walked back to work. I drove Mom to wait in the library parking lot while I went in and got her more Christian romance novels to read. She must be reading 6 or 7 of these a week if not more.

This morning I need to make viola scores of the hymns for tomorrow. At least the ones I envision my violist playing along on.

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With Science, New Portrait of the Cave Artist – NYTimes.com

Amazing that a cave is described in this article that “appeared to have been revisited and painted many times over a span of 20,000 years.” It’s like science fiction.

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Sioux Group Asks Officials to Reopen ’70s Cases – NYTimes.com

This is a convoluted story. What in the world is going on? The reporter dryly reports official “suicides” that were found with knife wounds. Weird.

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Does Wine from New Jersey Taste the Same as Wine from France? : The New Yorke

Objective tests continue to mortify experts. Satisfying.

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Chronic Fatigue Researcher Won’t Face Theft Charges – NYTimes.com

Intellectual dishonesty never fails to amaze me.

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Bahrain Compounds the Injustice With Doctors’ Convictions – NYTimes.com

So these doctors treated patients and then were arrested and tortured. Now most of them have been sent to jail.

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What Republicans Think – NYTimes.com

I love the author’s use of a “debauched musician” as an example of an over paid rich person.

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We Don’t Need No Education – NYTimes.com

In the comments section to Krugman’s article, “palnicki” from Columbus, Ohio penned this observation:

Remembering history is not a common human activity. After WWI Germany had austerity imposed on it. When the depression came along and greatly increased the pain, the matter was temporarily resolved when a megalomaniac stimulated the economy reneged on national debts and attacked those who imposed the auterity and stole as many of their national assets as he could. Will we repeat this horrid solution?

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How Greece Squandered Its Freedom – NYTimes.com

So many of this author’s historical comments reminded me of America right now. Not good.

Example:

We lost the self-discipline, moderation and inventiveness that once helped the Greeks achieve great things, and we succumbed to political expediency, delusions of grandeur and a fatal sense of entitlement.

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Eileen walked home during the day yesterday and we had  lunch outside together. She has been taking advantage of the good weather to do this. Then I picked her up after work and we went to our favorite restaurant. Even before we sat down the waitress asked us if we wanted our “usual.” This meant a gin martini for me and an espresso martini for Eileen. We sat outside and drank, talked and ate. It was a very nice anniversary. And what is more this is a usual date for us at least once a week. I marvel almost every day at how good my life is and how lucky I am to be living with Eileen.

I seem to be on a Saint-Saëns kick. Fauré was his student.

Both composers have my attention these days for some reason.  They have lots of music available online. My piano trio is learning Fauré’s piano trio. Yesterday my violinist didn’t show for rehearsal, so the cellist and I played through material with just the two of us. It’s slightly surprising how helpful this. We worked on the Fauré and Hovhaness. After the cellist left, I put up Sunday’s hymns on the hymn board then settled down and practiced organ for a couple of hours. Spent most of the time on the upcoming Saint-Saëns pieces. But I also returned to Buxtehude.

Are you asleep yet?

I have been wondering about this blog. When I started doing this online blathering, the term blog wasn’t even coined yet. I wanted to build my own website. I envisioned a platform where I could put up interesting ideas and stimulate conversation.  As quickly as possible I included a way for people to comment.

I had not anticipated how easy it is to lurk and not connect. It’s what we all do online.

It has occurred to me that maybe this daily pouring out of “dear diary” stuff might be winding down.

Nothing lasts forever.

When I skipped a day recently, my daughter in England (hi Sarah) was a bit concerned that I hadn’t put anything up for 24 hours. My wide spread family is indeed one of my motivations for doing this. I’m pretty sure they read this on occasion if not regularly.  I clock about fifty hits a day.

And then I do check Facebook for my fam and friends. That is a way people connect.

Oh well. We’ll see. I know that putting up something once a day makes checking here more worthwhile (not that I actually come up with stuff that many people necessarily think is worthwhile).  I usually write about 500 words. I know that many people who check here don’t read them that carefully. That’s one reason I put up pics. Another reason is that I like collages and serendipitous juxtapositions.

I got up a little later than usual this morning but I have already read some Shakespeare and Updike (poetry) and filled the dishwasher. Now I need to stop this and do my and my Mom’s bills.

See you on the funway.

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Syria Says It Has ‘Cleansed’ Al Heffa – NYTimes.com

I hate this use of language. It distances as it enlarges evil. IMO. Not to mention the awful actions it describes.

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Books: Camille Saint-Saëns (sorted by popularity) – Project Gutenberg

Saint-Saëns was a bit of genius. A prodigy in many ways, he wrote several books and edited an edition of Rameau. This is a link to several of his books available online in both in English and French.

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Churches Challenge Britain Over Same-Sex Marriage – NYTimes.com

C of E and the RCs jump in bed together. Fuck it. Now that’s a marriage of shame if I’ve ever seen one. May they both sink.

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Calcium and Vitamin D Ineffective for Fractures, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Says – NYTimes.com

I’ve been doing some reading in Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. He explains some very interesting ideas about statistics and studies. It helps me put oscillating recommendations as the result of a recent study like this in better perspective. Often the study seems to be asking one question but is reported as answering a different question.

This is also something Kahneman deals with. When we react to something often we change the subject by answering a different (easier to deal with) problem in our head. Example: Should I vote for Romney(Obama)? Yes, I think he looks cute (I don’t consider that whether he will govern well or not).

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Skipped blogging yesterday. I read a couple of Shakespeare sonnets and then began working on an arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ organ piece, “Rhosymedre,” for viola and piano. I am fascinated that this organ piece is now public domain and available online.

link to pdf of original

link to pdf of my new piano score

link to pdf of viola part

This ended up taking most of the rest of the morning. When Eileen left for work, I went over to the church and practiced for a bit. Came home and got right back to work on the piece.  I looked up just before 1:00 or so and realized that Eileen was going to walk in momentarily for her lunch hour.

I got weird the other day and decided to learn a couple of Saint-Saens organ works to perform a week from Sunday.

I landed on him because I invited a soloist to sing a solo by him.

The gospel that Sunday is Jesus speaking to the storm and saying, “Peace, be still.”

I figure that this little song about protection kind of fits the readings.

I also figure that Saint-Saens is an aesthetic match for tastes in my congregation that I am not all that drawn to (i.e. the romantic, the rilly romantic).

I know the singer will enjoy rendering this.  I think it’s make a nice balance to some of my other more “quirky” choices.

The organ pieces are Prelude in B Major, Opus 99, No. 2, and “Allegro giocoso” from Seven Improvisations for Organ. These are tough little pieces to learn in two weeks but doable.

This guy is actually going slower than I was thinking of going. Finding recordings slower than my own interpretations is pretty rare for me.

Here’s a recording of the other piece.

In the afternoon I drove out to the lake where my piano student lives in a lavish home and gave him his first lesson of the summer. He winters in D.C. We have been working together for some time. He has learned most if not all of Faure’s Barcarolles.

Two old men sitting at a piano.

Today is Eileen’s and  my 37th Wedding Anniversary. I bought some flowers last night and decided it was silly to hide them and surprise her this morning. This is what I usually do with stuff. So to break pattern I left them on the table so we could begin enjoying them earlier. I told her it was my gift to both of us. This is really the truth.

I returned to my rereading of Brothers Karamazov yesterday. I am enjoying the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation and getting more out of it than I ever did from other translations.

I mention it because of the terrible news about Syrian government troops using children as shields and torturing them.

I was reminded of the point in the novel where the brothers Ivan and Alyosha are having a heart to heart about God and faith. This is the chapter just before the famous “Grand Inquisitor” chapter.

Ivan makes an argument that due to the death of innocents (and many other complex evil incidents which according to the notes Dostoevsky pulled from contemporary events), he either cannot believe in God or must somehow disavow God. “It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.”

It struck me that the atrocities we read about every day all over the world are not new, but nonetheless are shatteringly horrifying.

“The society whose modernization has reached the stage of integrated spectacle is characterized by the combined effect of five principal factors: incessant technological renewal, integration of state and economy, generalized secrecy, unanswerable lies, and eternal present.

The spectator is simply supposed to know nothing and deserves nothing. Those who are watching to see what happens next will never act such must be the spectator’s condition.
Guy Debord, quoted in Adrienne Rich’s book of essays What is found there.

This quote relates to the helplessness one feels when confronted with evil.

I am reminded of the character, Charles Wallace Murry, in Madeline L’Engle’s series Time Quartet.

He a little boy whose bravery in the smallest of things becomes a critical hinge in the cosmic battle against evil. It always makes me think of how important the choices we make in our lives can be even when they seem so trivial or we feel so helpless.

An irrational belief in the importance of how we choose to live takes issue with Shakespeare’s cynical phrase, “That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows” from Sonnet 15. Even though Shakespeare may be right in the sense that ultimately life/reality has no meaning other than itself, it seems to me that living a life of integrity and simple kindness might be the only response to nihilism. I know I struggle between Ivan Karamazov and Charles Wallace Murray.

I shouldn’t be feeling so melancholy today. I had lots of time off yesterday.

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John Irving – By the Book – NYTimes.com

Reading Irving’s new novel.

This is kind of a lame interview however. Not sure the interviewer had read the new book. Oh well. He missed some real opportunities to query Irving about the relationship of the formative reading patterns of the main character in the book to himself.

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‘It began when Wallace wrote Franzen a fan letter in the summer of 1988’ | berfrois

Short little article describing a friendship between two writers.

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Another Bank Bailout – NYTimes.com

All over the world, banks get bailed out while populations get screwed.

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‘College,’ by Andrew Delbanco – NYTimes.com

‘Power and Constraint,’ by Jack Goldsmith – NYTimes.com

Two new interesting books now waiting for me in my Amazon cart. I put them there so I won’t forget them. I don’t necessarily then buy them there. Haven’t even checked the library yet.

Two solid reviews.

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Today I am planning to do more relaxing, reading and practicing.

My blood pressure seems to have dropped back into reasonable low readings. I suspect this might be connected to my intentionality around relaxing.

Or maybe not. Who knows?

I was surprised by a lovely passage at the end of Adrienne Rich’s essay, “A leak in history” as I was reading this morning.  She talks about the loss of “vitality in everyday life,” the loss of people doing things they are good at simply because they love it. She goes on for a page or two about music.

After my mid-life crisis (where I turned to doing more things in life because of passion), I quietly began to think  of myself as an amateur, that is, one who does something for the love of it.

amateur (n.)
1784, “one who has a taste for (something),” from Fr. amateur “lover of,” from L. amatorem (nom. amator) “lover,” agent noun from amatus, pp. of amare “to love” (see Amy). Meaning “dabbler” (as opposed to professional) is from 1786. As an adjective, by 1838. from Online Etymology Dictionary.

This notion was resisted by my colleagues who persisted in seeing themselves and me as skilled practitioners of our art.

But on the side, I knew (and know) that I do what I do out of sheer love of it

Rich ends her essay this way:

“To ears accustomed to high-technology amplification and recording processes, the unamplified human voice, the voice not professionally trained, may sound acoustically lacking, even perhaps embarrassing. And so we’re severed from a physical release and pleasure, whether in solitude or community—the use of breath to produce song. But breath is also Ruah, spirit, the human connection to the universe.”

I know this is a bit harsh even a bit pretentious (“Heavy, heavy, dude”). But I still find it beautifully said. And I also know that ears of listeners accept a wide range of sounds these days: “singers not professionally trained” may even tend to dominate many recordings.

But the idea that something is missed out on when one doesn’t do the singing or the music or the art or the dance is the thought that continues to echo in my head.

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In Brazil, Violence Hits Tribes in Scramble for Land – NYTimes.com

More indigenous people make way for civilization.

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Cathedral Renamed – NYTimes.com

Catholics take over Crystal Cathedral. It will be called Christ Cathedral. Fitting somehow. Schuller the founder of  the Crystal Cathedral hales from holy old Holland Hope College.

Plus Crystal Cathedral apparently moves to a Catholic church site.

God is good.

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From Peace Prize to Paralysis – NYTimes.com

Memorable quote from Kristoff:” [W]e have the spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize winner in effect helping to protect two of the most odious regimes in the world.”

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The G.O.P.’s Gay Trajectory – NYTimes.com

This proves my bias that being gay doesn’t mean being anything other than being gay.

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His story, our story – FT.com

Simon Schama on Shakespeare.

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While I was making coffee in the kitchen this morning, a bat began flying around from corner to corner. I closed the door to keep him in the room. Opened the back door to provide an escape. He landed above the sink. I continued making coffee and eventually started urging him to fly again with a broom.

Eventually he fell into a pan and I slapped the dust pan over it (“I am definitely going to have clean that pan well”) and escorted him outside.

This all sounds calm, but it wasn’t.  My blood was pounding and my hands were shaking. I was glad I had already taken my morning blood pressure before he showed himself (it has gone down the last few days).

Finished reading Sexton’s Complete Poems this morning. Then I paged to the end of her collected letters and read about her last years. She manages to estrange herself from her previous support system of fellow poets and family. She divorces her husband. She surrounds herself with more shallow admirers. It looks like she was cutting herself off from those she cared about. Then she calmly committed suicide. Sad stuff.

I found her poetry deteriorating toward the end. This is not entirely fair because the poems at the end of the collection are unpublished and un-revised. But still, they did get weaker in my estimation.

A section of one of my morning poems by Updike inspired me this morning.

Ohio

Rolling along through Ohio,
lapping up Mozart on the radio
(Piano
Concerto No. 21, worn but pure),
having awoken while dawn
was muddying a rainy sky,
I learned what human was:
human was the music,

natural was the static
blotting out an arpeggio
with clouds of idiot rage,
exploding, barking, blind.
The stars sit athwart our thoughts
just so.

In the next section of the poem he obliterates the “static” and compares the “empty road” to the “hammered melody.”

This made me want to play some Mozart this morning (“worn, but pure”).

I didn’t have a piano concerto to bang out so I turned to one of the piano trios we have been working on and rehearsed it silently on the electric piano with headphones. Very satisfying.

I’m still reading Adrienne Rich daily. This morning after reading a few of her lovely “Twenty One Love Poems” written about middle age lesbian love, I returned to her essays.

Found this excellent sentence:

regarding current loss of community and subsequent public interest, Rich writes:

“When a vast, stifling denial in the public realm is felt by every individual yet there is no language, no depiction, of what is being denied, it becomes for each his or her own anxious predicament, a daily struggle to act ‘as if’ everything were normal.”

from the essay “A Leak in History” by Adrienne Rich

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The revolutionary potential of the Queen’s English | Brendan O’Neill | spiked

“It isn’t only old farts who should stand up for standard English.”

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Approval Rating for Supreme Court Hits Just 44% in Poll – NYTimes.com

Institutions in the USA seem to be in crisis. Just another day in the Republic I guess.

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Ivory Coast – 7 Peacekeepers Killed – NYTimes.com

I find it so troubling when these kind of deaths occur.

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Chinese Activist’s Death Called Suicide, But Supporters Are Suspicious – NYTimes.com

He couldn’t hold a spoon but somehow he killed himself. Hmmmm.

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Suicides Eclipse War Deaths for U.S. Troops – NYTimes.com

This totally makes me crazy. We never care for our broken people.

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Yesterday I spent time on the phone with people from Comcast (my bill skyrocketed from $122 to $214) and AT&T (Mom’s billing was confused due to switching service from digital to “High Speed Internet” when she switched rooms. They were preparing a shut off on an unpaid balance I was unaware of).  This was in the course of the weekly session of balancing my checkbook and my Mom’s checkbook and paying bills.

By the end of the day, I felt like I had spent the day working.  Good thing I did some composition work early in the day.

I met with the organ maintenance guy at church. I have been having a cipher (note stuck on). I also asked him to do some other minor maintenance while he was there. I promised to email him details on the upcoming organ project.

Today I need to do that and prepare parts to give to my jazzers for my setting of the “Holy, holy” (mentioned in yesterday’s blog).

Eileen and I did manage to talk to our daughter in England for an hour or so on Skype.

We haven’t spoken in a while so that was nice.

I’m hoping today I can have more time to relax.

I’ve been working my way through this issue of the New Yorker. There is some fine prose in it including a piece by Ray Bradbury. Ironic that he died on June 5 and this is the issue for June 4 & 11.

One of the amazing stories in it is online. “The Black Box” by Jennifer Egan loses some of its punch online due to the conceit of the story. There are 47 little sections of objective phrases of instructions and comments like “You must remain conscious.” Through these Egan tells a wild story of a woman posing as a spy.  The loss on line is that each section in print is inside a box. So there is a delicious pun on the title which is also important to the story.

Speaking of Bradbury, Neil Gaiman has written a tribute to him for the Guardian.

This morning I read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare.

I find the online site (link to sonnet 12 on it) very helpful. Dr. G. R. Ledger, formerly Honorary Fellow, Classics, University of Reading, U.K., now retired is the creator of the site. He says that this sonnet is one of the “finest sonnets in the history of language.”

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New Account of Bo Xilai Meeting With Wang Lijun – NYTimes.com

Real life murder mystery.

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Far-Right Politician in Greece Slaps Rival on TV – NYTimes.com

I found this description amusing: “Golden Dawn … has rejected the neo-Nazi label attributed to it despite its use of a symbol resembling the swastika and the tendency of its followers to perform Nazi salutes in public ”

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In Italy, Blind Baseball League Fosters ‘Freedom’ – NYTimes.com

Blind baseball. Who knew?

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What Pogue Actually Bought – NYTimes.com

What techie equipment David Pogue is currently using.

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The Moral Diet – NYTimes.com

David Brooks muses on recent studies of small dishonesties in our lives.

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I have been up working on editing compositions. I now have a completed version of the Little Recessional Dance ready. I want to let it sit a bit to see if I will continue to feel like it’s ready to submit to the Greater Kansas City American Guild of Organists organ composition contest. Here’s a link to the PDF of it I put up on my music page if you’re curious.

I received permission from my boss yesterday to use my setting of the “Holy, Holy” this Sunday. It’s in a sort of faux Jazz style and I thought it would be fun to do with the musicians who will be there.

I have thought of changing a note in this piece. I think my original melody presents some problems for a congregation to sing.

If you look at the “Hosanna” above, you can see that the word is repeated. I think the melodic twist in the second Hosanna might be too much change from the first one to be as user friendly as I try to make congregational music these days.

A friend at church agreed with me about this. She may even have been the one to point it out to me. Last time we sang it, I mentioned to her I was contemplating changing the note. She had changed her mind and told me I should leave it.

Then there’s the problem of changing something on the congregation after they have learned one way.

Fuck it. I’m going to leave it.

I had fun at my piano trio rehearsal yesterday. We played through the first movement of Faure’s Opus 120 twice.  We all liked it. Then we played through some of the Tchaikowsky piano trio.

At first our tempo was much too ambitious. We started over and did it slower with more success.

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Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction Master, Dies at 91 – NYTimes.com

Not news I’m sure, but this is a solid obit of a good writer.

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The hard truth about political compromise – Boston.com

Haven’t read this, but it looks interesting. It does annoy me when a site does not provide an option to read an article on a single page. The way I read I often refer back to sections in an article. Searching through three or four URLs for something can be frustrating. In face, I usually skip articles that don’t allow the single page option. In this case, I thought it might be worth it to bit the bullet and click through.

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What your Facebook picture says about your background

They are actually doing research about this? Who knew?

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No Recall – NYTimes.com

Ross Douthat observes that America is no longer in the position it once was of being able to provide benefits for parts of the population without shortchanging other parts. He quotes this article which I have bookmarked to look at further:

The Politics of Loss > Publications > National Affairs

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I had a very full day yesterday. I took Mom to the doctor, attended a fine organ recital, lunched with Eileen, practiced organ, rehearsed with young jazzers, treadmilled and then had drinks and food with Eileen at one of our favorite local restaurants (Citi-Vu). In between I reworked an organ composition.

I am looking for ways to more precisely notate it.

It did look like this:

Now it’s more like this:

I actually just noticed that I sped up the tempo. I think I like it at the slower tempo and will probably change it back.

I spent a good amount of time yesterday trying to get Finale (the music software I use) to work for me. For some reason, the version of the document I was editing omitted the ability to use short cuts when adding articulations. After much fussing with it I ended up making a new doc which did have the short cuts and dumping the entire data into it. Sigh.

I finished reading Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn sitting in my Mom’s shrink’s office.

When I was visiting my brother and his wife in New Hampshire we went to see the movie, “Being Flynn,” which was based on this book.

De Niro plays the father in the story.

His presence is very strong in the movie.  Earlier on the day we saw the movie, I had noticed the book in one of the bookstores my brother was taking me around to.

After seeing the movie, I thought it might be interesting to read the book.

It’s unfair to compare a good movie to an excellent book. The story that the author tells is one that seems to be embedded in his own life. It’s hard to tell how much is real and how much is invented. Even whether much is invented.

By the end of the book, I finally saw the character De Niro plays much differently. The movie, of course, took liberties with the story in the book. I have learned to forgive movies for doing that. How else can you cram a long complex story into a two hour visual experience?

But Flynn can write. Reading this book makes me want to read more of his work. His hand is sure as he uses techniques like suddenly turning the story into a movie script. He also produces some of the prose of the mythical book, The Button Man,  the father is writing in the movie. One wonders if it is actually something his father wrote or that he invented. Probably the former.

He compares the book to Moby Dick.

In Moby Dick, he writes, the whale doesn’t appear until the last part of the book and then to destroy Ahab. Likewise, the son in the story (Flynn himself) doesn’t get to see  The Button Man until the last part of his own book.

The book is about sorting out your own personality in relationship to your parents and your family.

It did help me to see the movie first. I’m sure it affected how I read the book. But I now much prefer the story from the book.

On discovering that the wild tale his father told him about his grandfather (his father’s father) having invented a life boat was actually true,  Flynn writes

“The problem was to keep the body above the waves. The trick was to breathe only air. My grandfather’s patent was used by seven countries during both World Wars. Thousands of heads floating above the waves. I’ll be damned.”

I think this sums the book up nicely.

Flynn never really believed the stories his father told about his grandfather testing his life rafts by dropping them in the lake from a great height. But the chapter after he reads his father’s book (which he ultimately describes as dissolving into incoherence) is the one where he discovers his grandfather’s  patent.

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City is full of the bullshit and wonderful stuff that you can discover about your family if you look long and hard enough.

I spent all morning yesterday staring at my computer screen and poking at the keyboard. I started out by picking hymns for this Sunday and then after blogging went back to it and picked out hymns through August. Whew! Now that’s done anyway.

It’s been a luxury this week not to have to practice primarily on the upcoming Sunday’s prelude and/or postlude. I have been picking pieces that require daily diligence and eat up a good portion of my rehearsal time. Not so, this week.

Oddly enough I recently found a Buxtehude prelude completely fingered and unlearned. I have been spending time with it the last few days. I don’t usually write every finger like I did in grad school. But it does help learn the piece very thoroughly, if slowly.

I keep thinking of my teacher, Craig Cramer, being amused when I would be frustrated at playing the right note with the wrong finger. Right notes. That’s the idea, right? So what’s the big deal, I ask myself, if I happen to use the wrong finger?

Now I think more about what’s on the page that will distract me in a performance. Often less is more with little written instructions to myself.

But since the hard part (writing in the finger numbers) is done on this particular Buxtehude I’m experimenting with learning a piece in the grad school way.

I also have been spending copious time with Bolcom’s setting of “What a  friend we have in Jesus” and Hampton’s “The Primitives” from his Five Dances for Organ. This will be the second dance I have learned from that collection. The other one was called “An Exalted Ritual.”

I quite like these pieces by Hampton but am not sure how “The Primitives” would work as a piece in church. No matter.

Also learning a couple little Dupres pieces from his “Fifteen Pieces for Organ Founded on Antiphons.” I own a ton of Dupre’s music. Organists learn this stuff. I’m not sold on most of his work. But since I own it, I thought I would learn some of it.

Interestingly I haven’t been pulling out Bach who is usually my favorite.

Who knows why.

I also have actually gone over the selection the jazzers are planning to play Sunday: “Green Dolphin Street,”  “There is No Greater Love,”  and “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”

Today I’m planning to arrive as soon as possible at a noon recital by a new acquaintance, Rhonda Edgington. She is playing at Pillar Church. They run noon recitals about once a month (?) in the summer. My Mom has a doctor’s appointment at 11 AM so I will be cutting it close.

Then lunch with beautiful wife and rehearse with the jazzers. Life is good.

Just finished choosing hymns for Sunday. I did this before blogging this morning so I’m writing a bit later than usual. The jazz trio (Jordan VanHemert, Nathan Walker and Drew Belanger) invited me to sit in Sunday when they play at Grace, so I guess I am playing Sunday.  Anyway I don’t have to prepare the prelude and postlude other than meet with these players tomorrow afternoon.

Recently finished reading Fussell’s memoir, Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic. It’s an odd little book. It has a strong beginning and middle. But nearing the end as he works himself closer to the present it gets weak. The weakest moment is his dispassionate description of his divorce. He talks about it very matter-of-factedly then throws in a sentence saying it was as messy and hurtful as those things usually are.

My copy of his BAD or the Dumbing of America arrived in time for me to immediately begin reading it after the memoirs. It’s even weaker. Much of this is due to its novelty structure (Each chapter is a BAD something or other like BAD behavior or BAD banks).  Written in 1991, it is very dated in its criticisms. Fussell is sometimes witty but this book is a disappointment. Not sure I’ll even bother to finish it.

My copy of his Class: A Guide through the American Status System also came in the mail. I received both it and BAD from my Book Exchange Web Site that I belong to and participate in (You agree to enter titles of books you are willing to mail to others. When you are called on to do so, you earn a point for each book which allows you to request other members’ listed books. I like this.)

I am very interested in America’s class system. Fussell’s book is probably dated and a bit superficial but I’m still interested despite some disappointment in his other books. I am also planning to read the book that made his name.

The Great War and Modern Memory seems to have been influential in informing the discussion of war with a reminder of its horror and madness from the point of view of the soldier, something I think America has forgotten.

In his memoirs, Fussell describes sitting in a British research library and going through thousands and thousands of personal letters and documents of soldiers from WWI, most of which had not been looked at since they died.

I think it’s worth looking at. Thinking of reading it as an ebook though.

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The North West London Blues by Zadie Smith | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

I am a fan of Zadie Smith’s writing. This article is about the plans to tear down the library and bookstore in her hometown in England and put up housing.

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Yoko Ono talks to Simon Schama – FT.com

Schame and Ono. Short but worth reading.

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‘

The One,’ RJ Smith’s Biography of James Brown – NYTimes.com

Rev Al Sharpton reviews a James Brown bio. The review is kind of like listening to him talk…  lots of purple prose and bias. But what the heck, I love Brown.

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Jonathan Lethem on Talking Heads’ ‘Fear of Music’ – NYTimes.com

Bought this book as an ebook after reading this review.

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This Republican Economy – NYTimes.com

What should be done about the economy? Republicans claim to have the answer: slash spending and cut taxes. What they hope voters won’t notice is that that’s precisely the policy we’ve been following the past couple of years…

So why don’t voters know any of this?

Part of the answer is that far too much economic reporting is still of the he-said, she-said variety, with dueling quotes from hired guns on either side

Paul Krugman quoted from the article linked above

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Music, Books and Online Piracy – WSJ.com

This doesn’t prove that music lovers are crooks. Rather, it shows that actually selling things to early adopters is wise. Publishers did this—unlike the record labels, which essentially insisted that the first digital generation either steal online music or do without it entirely.

quote from article linked

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I played pretty well yesterday. My 9.5 minute piece by Sowerby went well. I managed to play 99% of the convoluted chords he wrote as written. I flubbed several exposed pedal solo notes which can happen. But I thought I brought the music to the listeners.

That is until after service when a parishioner was quite adamant that Sowerby was far too dissonant for her ears.

“Is all his stuff like that?” she asked. It’s certainly not all based on hymn tunes, I replied.

Unfortunately I am not always as tactful as I want to be when people come at me before or after service. I told the woman that Sowerby was actually a conservative composer. I knew that she would recognize Messiaen’s name and mentioned him to her. She wrinkled her nose. I told her it was all part of the Christian song, n’est pas?

She admitted that, but detests “dissonance.” I told her that many of us don’t really hear this music as dissonant. I asked her if she liked movie music. She said yes but that the movies she goes to do not use dissonant music.

By this time I had abandoned my usual attempts at deflecting comments with techniques like reflective listening and calm. I told her that John Williams used dissonance. She protested. I told her Williams steals whole hog from dissonant old Hindemith. I even cited the piece, Mathis der Maler because I think it’s where Williams found the Star Wars theme.

Dam.

Before we were done I was begging the woman to continue to tell me when she dislikes things because I do in fact find this information helpful.

I wish I could control my reactions better but sometimes I don’t and there you are.

On the positive side, my Mom agreed to come over to my house and sit in the yard with me, Eileen and friend Barb. She even stayed for supper. Very nice. By the end of the day I was pretty exhausted.

Onward. Upward.

Here’s couple of quotes from today’s reading. Byte size.

“I am a machine of ideas. I adore (in a funny way) to think.”

Anne Sexton in a letter to fellow poet, W.D. Snodgrass

Me, too! I also “adore to think.”

Attentiveness! The pinpoint is the locus
Of Excellence in lands of softened focus.

John Updike, Midpoint, Canto IV

Such a gentle way to talk about the USA: a land of softened focus.

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In Economic Deluge, a World That’s Unable to Bail Together – NYTimes.com

Observations on recent developments in the world economy.

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In Pakistan, 4 Acquitted in New York Bomb Plot – NYTimes.com

Not sure what this means. Certainly bad for U.S./Pakistan relations which are not stellar right now.

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Dreaming of a Superhero – NYTimes.com

Dowd continues her salient critique of President Obama.

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Out of Tragedy, a Good Life – NYTimes.com

Senator Snowe will soon retire. Here’s an interesting article by her about her life.

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Starving Its Own Children – NYTimes.com

Sudan.

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The Amazon Effect | The Nation

As in Amazon.com.

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Politics – Lawrence Lessig – An Open Letter to the Citizens Against Citizens United – The Atlantic

I totally admire Lessig. I also abhor Citizens United.

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