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My sense of my own mortality seemed to dog me through out yesterday. Most likely due to the high BP reading. It’s still kind of high this morning, but I resisted checking it a second time in the right arm. That’s when I had my scary high reading. I hate worrying about this.
I managed to get a good rehearsal in yesterday. Eileen practiced turning pages for me on the Sowerby. Then I worked over the score for a while. Besides the clever little Gerald Near postlude I have scheduled today, I ended up attending to the rest of the pieces I am learning as well: Dupres, Hampton, & Bolcom.
Eileen picked me up and we took Barb to lunch at Crane’s. Then off to an estate sale. Eileen bought a chair, a scrub board, an antique fork and an antique screwdriver. I bought four linen napkins.
The chair wouldn’t fit in the Mini so we came home. I went back to pick it up with the Subaru. Eileen and Barb went to drop off books to my Mom and trim her fingernails for her.
After we went to see the movie, The Avengers.
I wasn’t too taken with it. Like many movies seeking a wide appeal (to make money) it’s more of a ride than a story. There were a few humorous wisecracks very like Marvel comic books. I guess I prefer Watchmen (the book anyway). We weren’t the only ones to sit through the credits this time. It is truly amazing how many people of differing skills and talents it takes to make a movie like this.
Nice last scene after the credits, though. The Avengers eat shawarma.
Came home from the movie and grilled veggies and burgers (for the carnivores). A good time was had by all. Treadmilled. Onward.
I would be remiss to neglect to mention that my silly blood pressure seems to be on the rise again. Actually I’ve only had a high reading today. But I have not believed a couple of readings at Miejer’s which were high. The reason being that a couple of times I had a high reading before grocery shopping at the store’s machine. Then rechecked it after shopping and it was back to normal. It could be that as I am aging, it will swing more from high to low. Anyway, if it continues for a week I will call my doctor. I don’t want a new drug. But I don’t want to walk around with high blood pressure.
I am playing a big piece for the prelude tomorrow. It’s about ten pages long. Written by Leo Sowerby and based on the offertory hymn of the day, “I Bind unto Myself This Day. I’ve mentioned it here in the last few days. Sowerby is a workmanlike composer and I admire his work. He writes careful voice leading to lovely dissonant chords. This morning working slowly over the manual (keyboard) parts, I discovered wrong notes in the middle of huge chords in two different places. Yikes. Spent much time rehearsing them correctly.
Our friend, Barb, is visiting. I will sneak off later and practice. Also, I have asked Eileen to practice page turning for me today and to turn pages for me tomorrow. I have it worked out with photocopies.
I have had to scale the registration (choice of which sets of pipes to use when) down a bit from Sowerby’s suggestions. Otherwise the entire ten minute piece would sound the same, mostly loud.
Recently I read a pretty disturbing poem by Anne Sexton.
Red Roses
by Anne Sexton
Tommy is three and when he’s bad
his mother dances with him.
She puts on the record,
“Red Roses for a Blue Lady”
and throws him across the room.
Mind you,
she never laid a hand on him.
He gets red roses in different places,
the head, that time he was as sleepy as a river,
the back, that time he was a broken scarecrow,
the arm like a diamond had bitten it,
the leg, twisted like a licorice stick,
all the dance they did together,
Blue Lady and Tommy.
You fell, she said, just remember you fell.
I fell, is all he told the doctors
in the big hospital. A nice lady came
and asked him questions but because
he didn’t want to be sent away he said, I fell.
He never said anything else although he could talk fine.
He never told about the music
or how she’d sing and shout
holding him up and throwing him.
He pretends he is her ball.
He tries to fold up and bounce
but he squashes like fruit.
For he loves Blue Lady and the spots
of red roses he gives her
Yikes. Great. A horribly beautiful child-abuse poem.
The day I read the poem, I found reference to it in the intermittent biographical essays in Sexton’s collected poems.
It turns out that Sexton threw her baby daughter, Joy, the same way the Blue Lady in the poem throws Tommy. After that, her parents take one of the kids and the in-laws take the other. It is around this time Sexton attempts suicide. Joy is kept from her for three years and doesn’t recognize her when Sexton is deemed well enough to parent her again.
Sexton was quite taken with the poetry of W.D. Snodgrass.
Reading it recently, I found weird typos in one poetry site’s version. I emailed them.
I’m not as taken with Snodgrass as Sexton was. I think she’s better. I at least like her more.
As I’m reading the letters of Sexton (which are autobiographical and sent to people like Snodgrass and Robert Lowell both of whom she studied with), I am drawn back to poems as she talks about them in the letters.
When I re-read The Double Image (linked below) I now understood two things about it. One, that it was addressed to Joy, Sexton’s daughter. Two, that she was under the influence of Snodgrass’s “Hearts Needle” which is addressed to his own estranged child from a first marriage (not sure if this is autobiographical in his case or not).
The link below also has an embedded recording of Sexton reading her poem “The Double Image.” Haven’t had the courage to listen to it yet.
This link is to letters responding to a recent NYT editorial. I concur with the writer who says “If we recognize terrorism as a crime, then suspects need to be captured and tried on the basis of evidence, with due process.”
I have felt this way all through the so-called war on terror. Europeans (England, Italy, Spain) seem to have had much more luck than us by treating terrorists as criminals instead of warriors.
I have found that when I grocery shop on Friday as I plan to do today, it’s pretty crazy if I wait too long. So I’m going to try to keep the time I work on my blog short.
At the funeral yesterday I was pretty impressed with the way this group of people chose to remember Harry Hatch, the man who died.
In the morning, the family had a private prayer service and put his ashes where he asked. Later they were talking about it. His ashes are near his mother’s who died pretty recently. His sisters all agreed they could hear their mother’s voice in their heads saying, “Harry! What are you doing here?”
I heard this repeated throughout the afternoon with each person saying it in a precise imitation of Harry’s mom.
The memorial began at the VFW bar. People were sitting around. Some were nursing drinks. After a while, the VFW rep quietened down the group and did the standard VFW memorial.
If you’ve never seen it, it consists of several Veterans marching to where the flag is laying and saluting it and the shrine for the dead Veteran. Two remain, on either side of the shrine. One gives speeches, the other prays. The speeches seem to be made to order for a memorial for a veteran and are read or said from memory. I’ve seen several of these and the speeches don’t seem to vary from funeral to funeral. The prayers are a bit more free and probably left up to the chaplain.
Then, the remaining veterans who have quietly marched outside and prepared to do so, fire a 21 gun salute. Then taps is played.
It is much more moving when Taps is played live than a recording is used.
Yesterday they had a live player. When I was talking to relatives about it, they seemed surprised that anything other than live music was used. I found that charming.
Then the flag is presented to a member of the family and they are thanked for the service of deceased. In this case Harry was a Marine and probably served in Vietnam.
Then everyone was invited to walk across the street to the VFW rec hall where a meal would be served. It was announced that all drinks would be a dollar for the rest of day in honor of Harry.
Harry lived next door to these buildings and worked as a bartender for the VFW.
At the rec center, many were drinking White Zinfandel which was Harry’s drink.
There was much weeping and hugging in the middle of conversations. I am present at many funerals and I was impressed with the way this one worked.
I have been thinking about the fact that the three of the poets I have made part of my morning reading are from my parent’s generation. As is Paul Fussell whose memoirs I am reading.
Here are pics and birth years of people in my family and people whom I have been reading.
David Jenkins, my father's oldest brother
David Jenkins b 1922
Paul Fussell, whose memoir Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic I am almost finished reading.
Paul Fussell b 1924
Clyde and Dorothy Hatch, my wife's parents, sitting with my niece Kim Weinert nee Hatch
Dorothy Hatch b 1924
My Mom on the left; her mother, Thelma in the center; and big sister, Eloise on the right
Eloise Reveal b 1925
Clyde Hatch, my wife's father
Clyde Hatch b 1925
Mary Jenkins, my Mom
Mary Jenkins b 1926
Jon Jenkins, the middle son between my Dad and Uncle Dave
Jon Jenkins b 1927
Anne Sexton b 1928, whose poetry and letters I am currently reading
Adrienne Rich b 1929, whose poetry I am also currently reading
Paul Jenkins, my Dad
Paul Jenkins b 1929
John Updike b 1932, author whose books I have read over the years and whose poetry I am currently reading.
These people are listed from oldest to youngest. I think of them as roughly in the same generation. I suppose Updike is a bit too young to be included. Of this group, only my Mom and her sister, Eloise are still alive.
I am struck by the many experiences of American life represented here.
When Paul Fussell exclaims in his memoirs with disgust at the then Vice-president, Richard Nixon, I am reminded that my father later voted for Nixon for president because he was too wary of that dang Roman Catholic, Kennedy.
Both Fussell and Sexton come from very wealthy families, Fussell in California, Sexton in New England. Both of these people break out of the insularity of their background and have very helpful criticisms of their and consequently our time.
I have a funeral to attend today. Eileen’s cousin and contemporary Harry Hatch (link to obit FWIW) died a week ago Tuesday. He was roughly Eileen’s and my age. She seemed a tad shook by this death as is understandable. I was surprised that she assumed I wouldn’t go to the funeral with her. I assumed I would and am planning on it. I told her that not all husband are like the Mad Man Don Draper (whom I am coming to despise the more we watch this silly series).
Actor Jon Hamm who plays Don Draper in Mad Men... a stinker in my opinion
So I need to get some practice in this morning before we drive to Muskegon. Maybe I’ll write more about my parent’s generation later.
I broke down yesterday and decided to madly learn Leo Sowerby’s 10 page piece on the melody St. Patrick’s Breastplate for next Sunday.
I spent an hour or so yesterday on it and have already begun work at the piano this morning on it. My old teacher, Ray Ferguson, used to insist that organ playing is mostly in the hands. Certainly true of this piece. Sowerby loves to write interesting chords and careful voice leading. I would like to play this one well for Sunday. Have already asked Eileen to turn pages on it. I won’t be able to reduce this score to a page turn version due to the nature of the music.
A page turn version is a reduced score taped up so I don’t need a page turner. Usually in a piece there is at least one or two points where you can lift a hand to turn a page. If I shrink the music I can usually manage to play it and turn a page or two myself at strategic spots. Again this is something Ray F. taught me.
This will be the second Trinity Sunday in a row that Grace will sing the great (and looong) hymn “I Bind Myself Unto This Day” which is the text to the melody, St. Patrick’s Breastplate.
I’m partial to Sowerby. He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and worked in Chicago. I find his music charming and interesting. I like to play historically important musicians from the denomination I am working in. Sowerby was an Anglican hotshot for a while.
Yesterday felt almost like a work day. I picked out and recommended music for next Sunday. Did our bills and my Mom’s bills. This includes balancing two check books, one for us and one for her.
Of course I did have leisure time to rehearse in the afternoon. Today I’m planning on taking it as easy as possible. This still includes reading and rehearsing.
I am on chapter 10 of David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King.
The phone rang a little after 8 AM yesterday. It was my Mom. She wanted to know when Eileen and I were coming by to pick her up for our Memorial Day backyard cookout. She wanted to rest first and was making sure she had time to do so. About an hour later she called again saying she didn’t think she was going to feel well enough to make the cookout. I told her I would give her a call around 11:30 and see if she had changed her mind.
I did and she did and I stopped by to pick her up and bring her over. She chatted with Eileen in the backyard while I prepared a lunch for us of grilled veggies, BBQ chicken breasts (for the carnivores), sliced tomatoes, cucumber spears, lo-cal potato chips, and lo-cal chip dip.
Yesterday I noticed that I hadn’t clearly indicated the intended articulation. I’m also thinking about how to make the registration suggestions more helpful. I’m skeptical that it fits the expectation of a jury as a legit submission. I can hear Zappa influence in it. But I was also skeptical when I submitted my setting of Psalm 146 (pdf) for choir and organ to a similar contest and it won second prize.
I had figured that its almost jazzy anticipatory rhythm throughout would make its implied style inaccessible to most “AGO type” judges. Then speaking on the phone with one of the judges I was surprised to talk to someone who seemed to understand what I was doing with it.
This probably resulted in the over confidence I displayed when I took it to the local college choir conductor. He said he would look at it, but never mentioned it to me again. This was several years ago. Last year, I asked him again about it. He said he would look at it. Hmmm.
This morning I finished off a couple of books of poetry I have been reading: Today: 101 Ghazals by Suzanne Gardinier& Music Minus One by Jane Shore. Both were pretty good reads. Gardinier has written all of her poems in the form of the ghazal. She has adapted the Arabic poetic form to English. The poems are in couplets with each second line of a poem ending in the same word or phrase. I think the couplets are intended to be able to stand by themselves. So narrative and continuity is sometimes not what Gardinier is working towards. Wikipedia says that ghazals “deal with both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain.” Gardinier’s do that and add another layer of global awareness and anger to many of them.
Here’s one I like. You can see how she repeats the ending phrase at the end of each of couplet.
59
Is this why my hips ache in the morning
From dancing in circles all night with no one
Is this a kiss Your lips in a dream
Is this a prayer A whispering to no one
When the guard stops me by the river I show
my pass with its photograph of no one
Question Who will not meet you by the river
that doesn’t exist Answer No one
A tour of the emperor’s model city
City inhabited by no one
Hard on the heart Easy on the shoe leather
Cheek to cheek tango all night no one
Yours devoted to fabrications Writing
To a phantom who meets me by the river To no one
I have liked some of her other poetry more than these poems, but I admire her ability to sustain her voice throughout a book using only this form.
Jane Shore’s poems have been described as poetic vignettes which are accessible even to anti-poetic people. I think they are good despite this. The last poem in the book is a devastating story of her mother’s death. In it, her dying mother forbids the author to visit her during her last days. The mother also weirdly is described as going through photographs of herself and cutting out her picture. Interspersed throughout is a first person description of a mother and daughter assembling one of the Visible Women models.
Despite the online right wing claims, the Old Gray Lady did cover the silly Catholic lawsuit claiming violation of religious freedom. I agree that it looks like a partisan play. Framing makes me crazy.
Krugman elucidates the dishonesty around Paul Ryan and Romney’s pose as deficit hawks. More framing of issues in order to disguise intent. Not limited to the right by any means.
I realize that I spend my life in the company of ideas and art. I find it satisfying to be in conversation with poets, musicians, writers and visual artists. I also know that this is not enough. The reality of actual relationships to flesh and blood people is basic to living. Fortunately, I have this as well.
These ruminations occurred to me this morning after reading poetry and non-fiction.
Part of living at this time in the U.S. is the unreality of life around us.
We are surrounded with falsity. People hide themselves. They don’t let themselves be seen. They are ashamed of who they are. It takes some educated guessing and discernment to see beyond their masks and the goofy fakey stuff in our lives like movies and TV.
You’re Going to Be Told
“I mean, you’re going to be told lots of things. You get told things everyday that don’t happen. It doesn’t seem to bother people…. The world things all these things happen. They never happened.” –Donald Rumsfeld
You never had a brother. Your family:
a crackpot conspiracy theory, your mother’s
death from blood poisoning staged
on a Hollywood back lot. If you squint
at the memory, you can see the boom mike
dipping into the top of the frame,
the cardboard set wilting in the stage lights.
The man playing your father can’t
remember his lines. He says, I forgot
her purse. We’re out of leftovers, buy
yourself some burgers on the way home.
The money he gives you is just scraps
of newspaper dyed green. The brother
you never had drives the car, his face
fuzzed out like some obscene gesture.
He drives the car around the hospital
three times, and the building is only
a facade propped up by two-by-fours,
stuntmen in chaps and black Stetsons
perched on the roof. You make guns
with your hands and shoot them off,
and they sail down to the pavement
to the tune of a slide whistle. The brother
you never had giggles. He opens his
mouth and canned applause comes out.
He keeps driving around the hospital
in wider and wider circles, until you
are orbiting the earth. He looks out
the window and says, Death is the only
man-made object visible from space.
You say, None of this ever happened,
but even as you say it you can’t help
looking down into that small room
where your mother is dying in the middle
of the camera crew’s cigarette break.
from We Don’t Know We Don’t Know by Nick Lantz
After I read this poem, I ordered my own copy of this book of poetry.
The music went pretty well at church yesterday. I purchased corsages and boutineers for my choir members and put a thank you in the bulletin with their names. My boss made a fuss over them (and me) as well during the announcements. I hope they feel appreciated. I know I do.
I played the prelude and postlude pretty well. I realized that I needed another week on the C major Prelude and Fugue from WTC II in order to nail it. So I wasn’t too hard on myself when several little goofs happened.
I love Fiona Apple’s take on “Mistakes.” I have performed this piece in local coffee shops.
I have been thinking an awful lot about Brene Brown’s ideas of shame.
I realize that this is a significant thing for me, personally. I have been monitoring my own inner monologue more carefully and find that I do give myself multiple messages of shame throughout a day. It’s not so much in my art as in general little thoughts about my own foolishness.
It’s helpful to realize this, because my conscious self concept is one of acceptance of self. I don’t really want to fit in, I want to be who I am. But still the little negative messages are there I find. Now I argue with them.
It’s a step in the right direction.
I think of a performance where there are errors as a direct result of preparation. The trick is to continue to preserve the musical gesture as one has an accident of a wrong note or two. I think this happened yesterday.
The prelude was extremely exposed. My boss has me start later if she expects the crowd to mosey in and be a bit late themselves.
After church, at least one parishioner told me they enjoyed listening to the prelude.
I figure that means that I didn’t distort the music so much that a listener could not hear the voice of Bach in it. Bach notoriously holds up well in less than perfect renditions. Thank goodness for that.
I remembered to take a mental breath before starting the first hymn after the intensity of the Bach prelude and fugue. This helped immeasurably. When I performed the Debussy “Danse,” I plunged into the first hymn and fucked up more than usual. Yesterday this didn’t happen.
The choir sounded pretty good. I was glad I had scheduled the second anthem for communion. It was “O Come Thou Sweet Redeeming Fire,” a lovely modern thing by Daniel Gawthrup. If you’re curious, this choir sang it yesterday as well.
I think they are going a bit too slow myself. But they manage to do it very nicely a capella. Also the director’s phrasing is different than what I chose, but it’s quite credible.
The postlude came off pretty good. Again, I would have liked to have had spent more time preparing it, but you pays your money and you takes your chances.
********************************************************************
I saw several intelligent Memorial Day pieces separating out appreciation for people in uniform from the devastation of war.
With the United States more or less permanently at war, Americans profess unstinting admiration for those serving in uniform. Yet the gap between soldier and society is wider than at any time in our history. from linked article
This business article interview struck me as full of wisdom. Unusual for me to find that in the business section. Heh.
Example:
I’ve found the people who have tried things on their own and struggled are the ones who are least protective of their work and the most collaborative. Kyle Zimmer in above linked interview
I have recently added the Shakespeare Sonnets to my morning poetry ready. I found an excellent site and am reading them there since I have misplaced my two or three hard copies. The online notes illuminate subtleties of word meaning change and very helpful. I realize I have always misread the sonnets basic meaning. I knew they were addressed to a noble. But I didn’t understand the consistency of the argument in the first few sonnets (I’m on number 12). Always fun to open up a text in a new and better way.
Just for the heck of it, I clicked on the What’s New Music tab on Spotify for suggestions yesterday. It recommended the Swiss Woodwind Quartet’s CD which has Ligeti, Hindemith and Janaceck pieces on it. I played it and quite liked it. Go figure.
It put me in the mood for Hindemith, so I played through his second piano sonata yesterday and remembered why I like him so much.
Glen Gould does a good job with the first movement.
While I usually find Gould’s playing fun to listen to, often I think he distorts the music. In this case, he seems to preserve what I think of as Hindemith’s meaning.
I think Hindemith might be out of fashion these days. I’ve liked him for most of my adult life. Play his organ works.
Sunday Poem – I read this poem yesterday and quite liked it. Anne Sexton has captured something about how I understand my own weak faith.
Small Wire
My faith
is a great weight
hung on a small wire,
as doth the spider
hang her baby on a thin web,
as doth the vine,
twiggy and wooden,
hold up grapes
like eyeballs,
as many angels
dance on the head of a pin.
God does not need
too much wire to keep Him there,
just a thin vein,
with blood pushing back and forth in it,
and some love.
As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.
So if you have only a thin wire,
God does not mind.
He will enter your hands
as easily as ten cents used to
bring forth a Coke.
Charles Blow writes a moving description of Louisiana’s terrible prison for profit. Time and time again, I see us “privatizing” our public lives and am sad about it.
Eileen and I spent a few hours last night being graciously entertained by a couple relatively new to this area and their two children. It’s unusual for us to find people locally that welcome us into their homes for food and conversation. Eileen assured me that I didn’t talk too much. Mission accomplished. Nice people.
Chatted with my brother on the phone earlier in the day. We talked a bit about Brene Brown and her ideas in The Gifts of Imperfection.
Mark has begun her book several times he said. I know sometimes I start a book over because I lose interest or track of what is being said, or I have just put it down and forgotten it. This tendency is exacerbated by keeping books you’re reading on an ebook reader. The lack of physical presence of the books sometimes causes me to forget which books I am actually reading.
But at the same time I suspect from our chat that my brother and share a sort of self-help book fatigue with the way she has put together her ideas.
Though the ideas themselves are like gems stuck in the dumbing down of any book going for popular appeal these days.
The odd thing is that Brown seems hip to the limit appeal of the warm fuzzy, even to the point of being personally repelled by it. When she is describing being daunted by an upcoming presentation a friend advises her: “Here’s the thing. You are a researcher, but your best work isn’t from the head; it’s talking from the heart. You’ll be fine if you do what you do best—tell stories. Keep it real. Keep it honest.” [Brown responds] I hung up, rolled my eyes, and thought: Tell Stories. You’ve got to be kidding? Maybe I could do a little puppet show too.”
This kind of self-deprecating humor and approach goes a long way to keeping me engaged despite the formulaic and actually pretty straightforwardly self-help way she presents her material.
Personally when she talks about the importance of “loving and belonging,” I had some insights into myself when she said many people see “belonging” as no different from “fitting in.”
When in fact, she says research shows that attempting to “fit in” (i.e. “becoming who you [think you] need to be to be accepted) actually can defeat “belonging” (which she says “doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are).
I especially liked her idea of making one’s self vulnerable and allow one’s true self to be seen. This sums up a lot of what I have tried to overcome in myself. First I found that who I was often was difficult for people to deal with. This was probably for many reasons combined including my own forceful affect, my insistence on the predominance of ideas and the trading of ideas in conversation, and demanding too much of others.
After I learned to tone this down (on the outside), the trick then becomes how to let people know who you are without scaring them off, i.e. allowing your real self to be seen.
Tricky stuff. Many times when I have allowed myself to be seen this has also sometimes driven people away from me. Here I’m thinking mostly of colleagues and actual friends. Though this hurts a bit, of course. Ultimately, I am more satisfied and comfortable with that than false relationships.
Whew. A little bit of the “dear diary” stuff this morning in the blog. Having conversations with our new friends last night started my head spinning as it often does. So I didn’t sleep as well as I could have last night. Hence the rambling blog.
The new piano trio music I ordered arrived in time for our rehearsal yesterday. We began with reading the Tchaikovsky.
One of my goals was to find music that would interest us and not be too big a project to learn or even play through.
The Tchaikovsky turned out to be a bit bigger work that I was expecting. But I think the three of us found it reward to read through even at about half tempo. The violinist especially seemed taken with it.
We played through about half of the first movement before we found a place to stop. We said we would bite off that much of it to rehearse.
Then we read through the Frank Bridge Miniatures which were much more sightreadable. Unfortunately they also seemed very dated. Early 20th century English salon music.
That’s as far as got. I divided up the parts for the rest of the pieces I purchased so that we could have them. I also asked the players to check out the Bernstein when they had time.
It looks a bit harder but still I’m very interested in it myself.
I confessed to my co-players that I didn’t come naturally to romantic music. I began more interested in baroque and contemporary.
They also were surprised when I confessed that I have had only two years of real piano training.
I told them the story of working at First Pres in downtown Detroit. It was an older church with wonderful facilities that were aging. At this church there was a large room where musical performances were given. In the room, was a nine foot Steinway. I gave piano recitals on it in which I began to perform some Brahms. It was the reassurance of the Christian Ed director at this church (who herself was a trained organist) that my Brahms performance was credible that led me to explore the romantics more.
Weirdly enough this year I have been looking at Tchaikovsky a bit anyway. So I guess I’m pretty enthusiastic about learning the piano trio.
I was reading this obit as I treadmilled and listened to nostalgic rock and roll (INX, Robert Palmer, Men at Work, The Cars, The B-52s, Dee-lite). Quote:
Paul Fussell had “a gift for readable prose, a willingness to offend and, as many critics noted, a whiff of snobbery to subjects like class, clothing, the dumbing down of American culture and the literature of travel.
When I read this about Paul Fussell I decided I wanted to look at his writing.
His memoir was sitting on the shelf at the library. I’m on page 76 enjoying his irony and erudition and of course his anti-war stuff.
I like to get my information from a wide array of sources with differing points of view. These are two sites that I stumbled across recently that seem to be different voices for the same point of view, definitely anti-liberal. I have them bookmarked to check.
I think Maureen Dowd is getting more factual and reportorial. I found the Gallup morality stuff very interesting.
Gallup tested the morality of 18 issues, and birth control came out on top as the most acceptable, beating divorce, which garnered 67 percent approval, and “buying and wearing clothing made of animal fur,” which got a 60 percent thumbs-up (more from Republicans, naturally, than Democrats).
Polygamy, cloning humans and having an affair took the most morally offensive spots on the list.
“Gay or lesbian relations” tied “having a baby outside of marriage,” with 54 percent approving. That’s in the middle of the list, above a 38 percent score for abortion and below a 59 percent score for “sex between an unmarried man and woman.”
For the last couple of days I have been treadmilling to the music of the Doors. This music along with the music of Bach was enormously influential on me as a young man.
I purchased the Strange Days album strictly on the cover at Kmart.
It was my practice to buy records there. I found the Doors by being strictly attracted to the cover art.
Likewise, Leonard Cohen.
When I look back on it, my exposure to arts as a young man was largely a combination of the serendipity of discovery and the whispering in my ear of my friend Dave Barber, reluctant friend and horrified mentor.
By that I mean, that I chose him as a friend probably recognizing a fellow outsider. He didn’t really want me for a friend. But found that his mother would allow him to go places with me that otherwise he couldn’t go. This was because I was the preacher’s kid.
This is me. Ahem.
In the long run, he has turned into one of those life long friends that have endured through most of the gambit of maturing and changes that is living and life.
Anyway, back to the Doors.
The music influenced me because I took the trouble to learn to play a few Doors songs on the piano. This I did with meager technique but great enthusiasm.
Later after high school (or right at the end of it), this served me more than once as I played with rock and roll bands.
Actually owned a keyboard a lot like this in late 60s.
I am convinced now that the repetition of patterns in music like the Doors is related to the eventual stumbling on to this idea of the late 20th century minimalists.
I see the move away from the esoteric 12 tone dominance in classical music as prefigured in popular music’s preoccupation with rhythm, melody and poetry.
Speaking of poetry, I also think that Jim Morrison’s lyrics were some of the crossover lyrics that are essentially good poetry.
It’s ironic at the age of sixty to be listening to songs like “The Soft Parade” and “When the Music’s Over” and realize that the ideas in them have dogged me my whole life journey through academia and church work.
The song, “The Soft Parade,” always struck me as a sort of dark Zappa portrait of religion in America. It still does.
These words could easily have been written about the little Calvinist town I live in now:
Successful hills are here to stay
Everything must be this way
Gentle streets where people play
Welcome to the Soft Parade
from “The Soft Parade” by the Doors
The soft Tulip parade?
Yesterday these lines kept running through my head:
Cancel my subscription to the resurrection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
I got some friends inside
from “When the music’s over” by the Doors
I have often had that sentiment: “cancel my subscription to the resurrection.” I’m subscribed to the “resurrection” (i.e. the Xtian church) largely due to the happenstance of being born into a preacher’s family and then utilizing this background to gain an understanding of liturgy.
I often want it “canceled” because of my inability to sanction so much of what passes for Christianity in the modern world (or historically for that matter).
“Send my credentials to the house of detention.” I used to tell people I had sent my degrees back to the colleges that gave them to me, denying them. Instead I simultaneously realized my connection to the underdogs of life (Eugene Debs “While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”) and my debt to musics not recognized by the music pedagogy of the colleges I attended.
If you look in yesterday’s links in my blog post, you will find a link to Brene Brown’s videos. As I was cleaning house yesterday I listened to them. I found my thoughts playing over her ideas, trying to understand them and see how they connected to me.
I love her idea of “vulnerability.”
Invulnerability as tv superpower
Vulnerability has been a theme of my artistic life. Musical performances that are guarded or self conscious do not interest me. To play and do music is to “let go.” One performer told me that when he performs its like a roller coaster ride and unlike any other playing he does.
I think quite a bit about the energy in the room when music is being made, the human energy.
Also I struggle daily with understanding what is happening around me and how people treat me. My self image is on a continuum from feeling good about myself to feeling inadequate. My mood can easily swing from joy to melancholy. Brown’s thoughts are helping me refocus and clarify my understanding of this constantly changing self perceptions and moods and the idea of courage and more importantly, shame.
Several years ago, I was talking to a man I respect. He is older than me. He confessed that he was wrestling with the idea of shame as he thought about the life he had led.
I was startled. I didn’t understand. I didn’t really think about shame. But Brene Brown helps me see it as feeling inadequate or that one is not “enough” in one’s person.
That’s something I understand better.
I wrestled my shame down as a young man who married badly and had to figure out how to go on in life without anyone but himself. I told my image in the mirror that I wasn’t much, but I was all I had and that was enough. I thought of this as the end of my adolescence. I can also see it as a victory over shame.
Of course it wasn’t a permanent victory by any means only a first step in living out my life.
I listened to both of Brown’s videos. Then looked her books up. I put myself on a waiting list for The Gifts of Imperfection: Let go of who think you should be and embrace who you are.
Then unbidden my brother emailed me a copy of the ebook. Bless his heart.
I admit to reading tons of self help books over the years.
I actually seem to just read a lot period.
And I’m willing to read Brown’s book.
But I think some of this connects to my fascination and admiration of Lenny Bruce as a teen.
I know that I was naive in a lot of my reading of his work. But one thing has stuck with me. His comment that “what should be is a dirty lie.”
I remember saying this to a young Roman Catholic priest who definitely had issues. He paused and then protested, “That’s not true! That’s not true at all!”
This May is going so much better for me than last year’s May. In 2011 I over committed myself by saying yes to working the May term at the Ballet Department. They brought in three nationally known high-power teachers to each do a week of classes. It was a fascinating, challenging, rewarding experience to work with each of them, but combined with composing and preparing a piece for the Global Water Dance it left me groping for some time to rest and recuperate. Time which never seemed to materialize for the rest of the summer.
This year I am already beginning to feel much more relaxed. Spending good time practicing and reading.
Convinced myself yesterday that I’m not going to embarrass myself Sunday when I perform Bach’s “Fantasy on Komm heiliger Geist.”
Since a large chunk of the piece is simply a repeat of a beginning chunk, I worked out a reduced score page turn version of it which allows me to play the entire piece without lifting my hands.
This is necessary due to the nature of this piece. When I first heard it performed in its entirety the piece didn’t make much sense to me. Since then I have begun to hear its incessant 16th notes as a combination of the insistence of jazz rhythm with a large dose of a Brandenberg movement.
It’s funny to put so much work in a postlude since it’s kind of treated like the closing credit movie music by most parishioners. That is, they treat it as time to get the heck out of dodge as quickly as possible.
I like to compare postludes to movie credit music because my experience is that the music during the credits is usually buy diazepam next day delivery pretty good.
I have to work on my prelude (Prelude and Fugue in C major WTCII). I’m not satisfied at all with its preparation yet. Some more good thorough work should do the trick this week.
I interlibrary-loaned “We Don’t Know We Know” by Nick Lantz. I went over and picked it up yesterday. Lantz incisively uses Rumsfeld’s famous mangling of language around the awful Iraq war as a frame for some pretty good poetry and bitter observations. He connects Rumsfeld’s obfuscation with Pliny the Elder, “whose astute comments on the limits of human understanding provide a tonic corrective to intellectual pride” (As Linda Gregerson writes in her introduction to the book).
I also found some things online that I bookmarked to read and view soon:
I’m a Krugman fan. I especially like his observation that if Romney is supposed to be such a great businessman and will help our economy why when he talks about the subject does he come across “completely clueless.”
Yesterday morning before church I started wondering about the origin of an anthem we are going to sing for Pentecost.
This past season I delved into the extensive library of choral music at church to find some usable anthems. This is one that struck me as not too bad.
I quickly found the original melody online.
I found this interesting because it’s such an atypical chorale dependent upon sort of an echo effect between the soprano line and the rest of the choir.
Bach used this melody in a couple of his cantatas. The setting we are planning to sing is movement 6 from Cantata 8. The Holy Spirit words have nothing to do with the original setting.
This got me to thinking about the words. On a caprice I looked them up and lo and behold they are in the Hymnal 1982.
So in a mad dash before church I transcribed the choral parts of the anthem into Finale and put in the words from the hymnal.
Silly me.
I plan to stick the organ part under it for my own benefit for next week’s service.
I found this poem yesterday morning in my morning poetry reading.
The Angels
They are above us all the time,
the good gentlemen, Mozart and Bach,
Scarlatti and Handel and Brahms,
lavishing measures of light down upon us,
telling us, over and over, there is a realm
above this plane of silent compromise.
They are around us everywhere, the old seers,
Matisse and Vermeer, Cézanne and Piero,
greeting us echoing in subway tunnels,
springing like winter flowers from postcards,
Scotch-taped to white kitchen walls,
waiting larger than life in shadowy galleries
to whisper that edges of color
lie all about us as innocent as grass.
They are behind us, beneath us,
the abysmal books, Shakespeare and Tolstoy,
the Bible and Proust and Cervantes,
burning in memory like leaky furnace doors,
minepits of honesty from which we escaped
with dilated suspicions. Love us, dead thrones:
sing us to sleep, awaken our eyes,
comfort with terror our mortal afternoons.
by John Updike
It reflects my own connection to the arts: attempting to wake and be comforted with terror.
It does look like Chen Guangcheng will be attending NYU and rubbing shoulders in the same department with my quasi-son-in-law, Jeremy Daum. Wow. I think the man in the red bowtie that you see in shots of Chen arriving on TV is Jeremy’s boss and mentor, Jerome Cohen.
There’s a take-no-prisoners approach that does take prisoners: all of us, incarcerated in a system whose crippling partisanship is fueled in part by the hyperbolic language, bellicose tactics and Manichaean tone of candidates and their handlers.
I love the references to James Joyce in this column excoriating the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Of course it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, fish that are making many lives miserable with their bellicose insistence on a narrow understanding of their faith.
ghazal or ghasel (also spelt gazal, ghazel), a short lyric poem written in couplets using a single rhyme (aa, ba, ca, da etc.), sometimes mentioning the poet’s name in the last couplet. The ghazal is an important lyric form in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu poetry, often providing the basis for popular love songs. Its usual subject?matter is amatory, although it has been adapted for religious, political, and other uses.
I recently stumbled upon two uses of ghazals. My cellist is quite in love with Hovhaness’s piano trio we have been rehearsing. I have some of his piano music as well and have done some of his other music including choral pieces. I interlibrary loaned several of his piano pieces. Yesterday I played through the ghazals and found them quite lovely. Ordered a copy online.
Coincidentally, I have been enjoying the poetry of Suzanne Gardinier. I read two books of her poetry before deciding I needed to have my own copies. I also ordered a third to read: Today:101 Ghazals to read. She uses the poetic form of couplets and a repeated phrase ending each couplet.
Gazelle, not to be confused with Ghazal
Hovhaness replicates this musically by using a phrase over and over as accompaniment to melody. His Two Ghazals are to be treated like a bouree or minuet dance movement repeating the first Ghazal after playing the second.
I am thinking they would make lovely piano preludes at church.
Yesterday I played a wedding. In doing weddings I often brush up against people and their experience of event and music in interesting ways. Yesterday our little church was packed. Energy (and the subsequent noise) was so high that you could barely hear my Debussy and Bach piano pieces I played for the prelude.
I switched to organ and played my postlude for today’s service (“Postlude” by William Mathias) which is a cheerful little thing. The crowd noise increased so I just quit playing. Pastor Jen went to the front of the church to greet people, let them know we were about to begin and invite them to take part in the service especially in the singing.
The couple had chosen extremely predictable music for walking in and out. I began Pachelbel’s Canon in D as the noise began to resume from the high energy crowd. It subsided a bit as the parents of the couple were escorted in and then the bridesmaids and bridegrooms. The bride herself held back until I began playing the Wagner “Here comes the bride.”
Interestingly (at least to me), the congregation was not much of a singing group. I began the hymn, “Joyful, joyful,” with a pretty strong organ registration. Since the singing was tepid I cut back in volume a bit to let the group find its voice (something I routinely do). The singing improved slightly but was still in contrast to the high energy and positive vibes that were obviously in the room.
Afterwards, Pastor Jen and I were musing on the singing. I don’t think it was a conscious decision on the group’s part to not sing. As I told Jen, I just think people are out of the habit of making their own music.
It’s too bad, I guess. But we got the couple married off anyway, of course.
John Updike uses this word in his novel, A Month of Sundays. Updike sucks me in as a reader not only because he tells interesting stories but he obviously loves words.
I finished reading this novel yesterday. It’s told in the voice of an Episcopalian priest who is spending a month in the desert recuperating from bad behavior with golf, afternoon drinks and daily writing of each chapter of the book as a kind of therapy. Today we would probably send him to a sex addict rehab center.
He is both pathetic and engaging as Updike tells the story in his voice. At the end of the book he is still acting inappropriately. Hilarious little tale.
I love the interwebs. Not only are printed music scores available free online for Schubert’s piano trio D. 28, there is also what appears to be a contemporary manuscript version presumably in his own hand. You can click on the pic above if you want to go to the MSLP site linking all of these in.
The printed score looks like this:
The same section in the manuscript:
The cello part is especially beautifully handwritten:
The violin and cello part are much more neatly copied than the score.
I was messing around with this because I found some mistakes in the printed score. Whoever prepared the cello part omitted about seven measures of rests in two places. Easily fixed after determined.
Also, the printed violin and cello scores omitted many articulations that are in the printed piano score and can be confirmed looking at the manuscripts.
This kind of stuff always makes me think of how people often seem to idealize scholarship as a mysterious and complicated endeavor.
When in my case checking out some editions and manuscripts of music often leads one to restore or change very basic ideas like the notes and articulations.
Almost every time I have turned to a manuscript to figure out an editor’s intention I have learned something I didn’t know about the piece.
And now, of course, this process is enhanced by the excellent access often provided online. Cool beans.
I attempted to prepare a meal for Eileen and me last night and had mixed success. Trying to cook some meals from Devin Alexander’s excellent cookbooks.
I think I just needed to bake it much, much longer than the recipe indicates as my cakes came out with a slight crust on top and liquid beneath. Tasted fantastic, just liquid instead of cake.
Sister Ruth was the first nun I had ever met. I said: “Didn’t you take a vow of obedience? Don’t you have to oppose abortion rights?” She answered: “The church can tell me where to go and what to do, and I will obey. But no one can tell me what to think.”
I’m getting to blogging a bit late this morning. I had two happy emails to answer.
In reply to an inquiry about whether the local American Guild of Organists could use Grace church for practice and lessons in an upcoming event for young organists, Rhonda Edgington emailed me. She is a new local church musician I have been wondering about so it was very nice to hear from her. She checked out my blog and asked if Eileen were my wife and generally chatted me up a bit. I replied with a long winded reply. I’m hoping we might connect up for a chat sometime. Such a breath of fresh air to meet someone locally of her caliber and enthusiasm.
In the other email, my friend and colleague Jordan VanHemert the sax guy, has taken me up on my offer to give him free piano lessons (since he can’t afford to pay). Haven’t had a new student in quite a while, so I really look forward to this.
I had my eval with my boss yesterday.
Man, I am so lucky to work with this person! She gave me rave reviews. I am looking forward to working more closely with the Christian Ed people in the fall. We are planning a Wed evening for the parish which would include a meal, formation and music rehearsals.
Wednesday Addams. Get it?
The past few mornings I have been itching to read some more traditional poetry as well as my beloved contemporary living poets. I landed on Shakespeare sonnets this morning. I couldn’t find any of my copies of the sonnets, so I used this site which I quite like. The title to today’s blog comes from the first sonnet which I read and studied a bit this morning.
After piano trio rehearsal yesterday I spent a few hours on the organ bench. I’m learning a piece by Calvin Hampton that probably doesn’t fit in church. It is a great piece, however! It’s the “Primitive” dance from his five dances for organ.
Here’s a decent rendition (the first part of this video of two Hampton dances) ably rendered by Matthew Mainster.
Also have been having weird attractions to Franck. So I played some of him as well as prepared “Andantino in G Minor” for Sunday’s prelude.
I found a lovely “Offertory” by Andrew Carter (3rd movement of his “Saint Wilfrid’s Suite) I want to learn and worked on that a bit. I’m also eyeing some Walcha and Langlais to learn soon.
Today, I’m thinking of grocery shopping and making a supper for Eileen instead of doing our usual Friday night pizza. She’s trying to change some of her eating habits and since I’m the cook I’m trying to help.
Just about done with Updike’s A Month of Sundays. It’s hilarious. It’s about a Episcopalian priest who is some kind of rehab for failed priests who is writing his therapy out. I have been in the mood for Updike prose since reading so much of his poetry.
While domestic and international formations influence one another, it’s worth focussing on the interplay between international configurations and locally grounded social movements.
I finished reading Modern Life by Matthea Harvey this morning. It’s a charming little work.
Did you know that “smaze” was a word? Harvey used it in a poem so I looked it up. “Smog” + “haze” = “smaze.” It was coined in 1955. All this according to Dictionary.com.
I just ordered a copy of this book. Reading online reviews revealed to me the structure of two sections of poems in the book called : “The Future of Terror” and “The Terror of Future.”
While I noticed Harvey’s heavy usage of alliteration, I failed to perceive that in each poem in the first sections, she used words in alphabetical order from “G” to “S” and in the second section from “S” to “T.” Get it? She is either working her way alphabetically from [F]uture to [T]error or from [T]error to [F]uture, non-inclusively.
I fell in love with this little poem which occurs as the next to the last poem in “The Terror of Future.”
TERROR OF THE FUTURE/9
The teacups tied to strings along the walkway
stayed silent, had no warning songs to sing.
We shook talc onto our tastebuds
and watched the skyrockets, starry-eyed,
until night blacked them out like a giant
malevolent Sharpie. Scouts gathered
in the square and surveyed the Room
For Rent signs. In this and only this did we have
supply and no demand. It was a long time
since anyone had felt a quiver on the railroad.
We argued timetables, regardless,
(I was just glad you were speaking to me).
You wanted to go to the provinces.
I wanted to see the palace. Of course,
given the state of the ozone, we weren’t
going anywhere. We weren’t outdoorsy
anyway. Our anoraks were moth-eaten
for a reason. You said, I am morose, a new kind
of rose. I pointed hopefully at my foot and said mistletoe? No. You wouldn’t get within a meter
of me. Later, when your lungs filled with liquid,
you might have said love, you might have said leave.
I said I love you too and left the room.
There was no ice storm, no helicoptered-in help,
no Hollywood ending. Just a gasp and then
no more you, which meant the end of me too.
from Modern Life by Matthea Harvey
On Pentecost we are doing a little arrangement of a Bach chorale. I decided it would be a good Sunday to do some Bach on the keyboard. I’m learning the C major Prelude and Fugue from the WTCII (BWV 870) to play on the piano for the prelude. It’s a happy little thing.
For the postlude, I am finally learning “Fantasia on KOMM, HEILIGER GEIST” BWV 651. I remember when one of my colleagues in grad school played this piece on her Master’s recital. Learning it, I am surprised that is relatively easy. At least easier than my Master’s recital Bach piece which was the D major prelude and fugue. I always thought I would learn this piece some Pentecost. It’s time.
I goofed around most of the morning yesterday since my Mom called and said she was too ill for her shrink appointment.
I picked out hymns for this Sunday and then went over to the church to pick out the Prelude and Postlude. For some reason I bogged down on this. I wanted something that wouldn’t take too much to get ready for performance. I found several pieces I would like to learn but wasn’t willing to dedicate hours and hours this week to learn them before Sunday.
After a couple of hours, I landed on “Andantino” by Cesar Franck for the prelude.
I have performed it in the past. It has a lot of melody and for some reason I found this satisfying enough to schedule it as the prelude.
For the postlude, I landed on “Postlude” by William Mathias. I can’t quickly find a video or online recording of it to share. I seem to like most everything Mathias wrote. I have played this one before and it shouldn’t take too much to have it in good shape for Sunday.
William Mathias, Welch composer, 1934-1992
Came home and grabbed some lunch. Listened to a message from my Mom on the answering machine, then returned her call. She was in the mood to get out so I went and got her.
She seemed to be feeling much stronger than usual.
That was encouraging.
She was in the mood to have something to read.
So on the way home we stopped at the library and I went in and consulted Eileen on some reading material for Mom.
Took Mom back and then came home and made supper for Eileen and me. Cooked up some Chicken Enchilasagna (Tune Enchilasagna for me).
One of my vacation fantasies was to begin once again to submit my compositions to publishers for possible publication this summer.
I do this because despite everything I continue to compose. And some of my compositions it seems to me might be useful for other musicians, especially church musicians since most of them were written to be performed in church.
So yesterday I spent over an hour reviewing and organizing old compositions and sketches residing on my hard drive.
Later it struck me I should review those pieces posted here, since they would be in some sort of final version. I’ll probably do that soon.
It is both encouraging and disheartening to examine so much work. The sheer quantity of compositions that builds up over the years despite lack of ambition. Sheesh.
Cover of the first edition according to Wikipedia
I finished The Alteration by Kingsley Amis. I found it a delightful if modest entertainment. Nice plot twists, excellent command of language, and lots of fun alt-future touches like a reformed (literally) United States which seems to exist as the only non-Catholic and non-Muslim area of the world.
The last couple of days I have wheelchaired my Mom outside her digs into the sunlight.
This seems to be good for both of us. I think the spring has reinvigorated her a tad. My daughter, buy liquid valium online Elizabeth, has had the excellent brainstorm to get Mom an Ipad. Apparently she has ordered a pink one with an inscription on it. Grannie (grandmother of her partner, Jeremy – “Quasi-grandmother-in-law?”) took to an Ipad much more readily than some other tech. I am hopeful that my Mom will find an Ipad more user friendly and connect up a bit more with the fam.
I grocery-shopped
and made supper for Eileen yesterday.
She was out and about at work and came home for the meal. She was supposed to leave work early to get a compensatory hour off for an hour worked earlier in the day before the library opened. She forgot and came home at the regular time. I’m afraid she needs more vacation!
