I didn’t exactly nail my organ playing at church this morning. The prelude was worse than the postlude. Both of them were maiden voyages of some basic good repertoire.  The Fantasia and Fuga in C minor BWV 537 is a beautiful profound work. I enjoyed working on it and look forward to performing it better in the future.

While learning this piece, I was reminded of the priest I worked for at St. Damian’s Detroit, Father Dorr. He hated long drone notes on the organ. He had a point since their organ was one of those terrible unit organs. I remember one time during communion he sent up an altar boy to tell me to stop playing. Nice.

The C minor Fantasia begins with a long pedal tone.

I figured out how to have it not be too loud and then later add the reed via the coupler so that when it has the theme you can hear it clearly. Maybe Father Dorr would have approved. Who knows?

I have a lot on my mind these days and it affects my ability to concentrate and effectively lead the choir. My conducting in the pregame was pretty confused but I did well in the anthem in service.

Right now I am waiting for it to be close to 3 PM. We have a recital at church. Rev Jen forgot to mention it at the announcements today. Eileen said that she thought there were a lot of announcements anyway. I will be  interested to see how many people bother to come to this. I have given up on just emaling the local paper a publicity release because after doing that five times in a row and not seeing it anywhere in the paper there has to be a better way to do that.

I have already been over to the church. I was doing some last minute programs since the program I did yesterday had some mysterious sepia tones in it. I’m not sure why, but I was able to print a clean copy on my little 50 dollar printer and make 30 nicer copies.

The recitalists were already there and madly going through their music. There’s another organ recital happening at 4 PM today by my friend Rhonda at her church. I am exhausted and am thinking I will barely have enough energy to host my recital much less whip over to Rhonda’s church to support her.

I haven’t blogged for a couple of days. It’s been a full week for me. I have been enjoying have Sarah and Lucy around.

Yesterday all of us walked to The Biscuit for a nice lunch. Later Sarah managed to make it to Lake Michigan with Lucy and Eileen in tow. She always tries to see the Lake at least once when she visits.

I exercised and practiced while they did this.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the recital series at my church. I need to be more proactive about organizing parishioners to help with the publicity and fund raising. I’ll talk to Rev Jen about it next week if I get a chance. After Christmas I think it would be a good idea for me to write a little announcement in the bulletin announcement insert that the church is looking for one or more parishioners to work on these ideas.

I am looking at my work for the recital series as volunteering on my part or donating my time since I am putting a fair amount of effort into this and still not managing to have enough energy and time to touch all the bases.

Today, Greg Crowell, Sunday’s recitalist, is coming sometime in the afternoon to practice. He came Thursday this week for that. On Wednesday I had two significant ciphers (notes that keep sounding). When the second one occurred I phoned Martin Pasi. Pasi offered to talk me and Ron Brown through fixing them. Ron is a talented parishioner who helped Pasi a great deal when he was assembling and adjusting the organ,

Actually Pasi tweeted instructions to me on how to fix a stuck key and that instantly worked so we were down to one stuck note. It was on the largest pipe in the organ. Once engaged it would not cease until the organ was shut off.

Ron came and we worked on it for a while. During the process I noticed that a key on the Great manual was depressed and not returning. I mentioned this. Pasi made us work on one problem at a time. Ron was instrumental in fixing both of them.

Due to all of this I had  much less time to rest up for Wednesday evening rehearsal.

It was about 1.2 miles back and forth to The Biscuit yesterday. I then walked to Evergreen, treadmilled for my usual 45  minutes, then went on the church then walked home. It was probably something like 2.2 miles of walking. I keep track of this stuff so I know how much I am exercising and record it with my daily Blood Pressure and weight. I am managing not to gain too much weight despite all the good eating while Sarah is visiting (we ordered pizza last night). The blood pressure is okay as well, but I am hoping to return to skipping martinis and snacks and losing more weight and lowering my blood pressure after the holidays.

NYTimes: When the Truth Is Unconstitutional

I have been waiting for Linda Greenhouse to weigh in on the current Supreme Court stuff. She rocks!

NYTimes: Liberals Need to Take Their Fingers Out of Their Ears

Good article. Cites The Authoritative Dynamic by Karen Stenner and a recent article by Eric Schuner.

Did Cornel West Come for Ta-Nehisi Coates?

The answer seems to be yes without reading (or maybe understanding) Coates.

It’s not unusual to be overwhelmed at this time of year, but this year feels a bit more intense. It doesn’t help to have a madman for a president. When this is the case, when I’m overwhelmed nothing helps me so much as reading words and making music.

I think I have fallen in love all over again with Sweelinck. I have been cleaning the kitchen listening to his music on Spotify (after listening to some depressing news). Sweelinck is that rare organ composer of early music that I find very attractive.  There is a lot of organ music written for ecclesiastical use that I don’t mind but am not extremely enamored of the way I am of the French Baroque harpsichord music of the Couperins.

But now Sweelinck is falling into this category for me and that is a pleasant surprise.

And of course there is always Bach. I am learning his Fantasia and Fuga in C minor BWV 537 to play this Sunday. I plan to use the Fuga as the prelude and the Fantasia as the postlude. It’s a wonderful piece.

I’ve also been dipping into much poetry including some new volumes. I even wrote a poem this morning which is something I don’t do very often. It’s kind of personal so I’m not sharing it here.

I have been following Kevin Young the new poetry editor of the New Yorker. I ran across this collection and am enjoying it. It’s interesting to see what poems he includes. I recognize a lot of them, but still enjoy reading through them.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury turns out to be a competent poet. Who knew?

I add these poetry collections to the several books of poetry I am keeping going these days. Also I am rereading Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities which is like reading poetry for me as well.

I am trying to build up the will power to go treadmill.

NYTimes: When Our Thoughts Are No Longer Our Own

This guy has some interesting ideas about the loss of privacy. I’m thinking of checking out some of the books he has written. Sigh. Just what I need. More books on my to read list. But still, this is something I think about.

NYTimes: Madeleine Albright: How to Protect the World From North Korea

I find myself repelled by realpolitik but Secretary Albright knows stuff.

The American Scholar: Why We Need Art – Natalie Angier

Bookmarked to read.

NYTimes: In Dark Times, ‘Dirty Hands’ Can Still Do Good

Some interesting thoughts that factor in the complexity of being human.

NYTimes: What’s a Bigger Threat, ‘Normalization’ or Alarmism?

Some clear thinking from Poland that unfortunately is very apt for America.

Vox Humana

New online journal branching off from the American Guild of Organist mag. It’s hard for me to get excited since so many of these kinds of things represent fundamental different understandings of online tech.

It surprised me a little at how much I enjoyed having my daughter, Sarah,and grand daughter, Lucy, at church yesterday.

It cheered me considerably.

Before and after church I had the usual people coming at me. The retired English prof decided that just before the prelude would be a good time to quiz me about the publicity for the Grace Notes Recitals.

This dude is beginning to lose his faculties. He was surprised to find out that during the organ purchase process I had asked for two committees to be formed around the recitals, one for publicity and one for development.  He told me he figured I just didn’t care about publicizing the concerts. I tried to make it clear to him that I had only so much energy and wanted to use it to arranging for the recitals. The skill sets needed for publicity and development are available in parishioners such as himself.

All this, just before sitting down and conducting the choir through one verse of “Comfort, comfort ye my people,” then performing three variations. on it by Georg Böhm.

I sometimes feel like Friedman’s dude in the fable with his nerves on the outside of his skin. The only difference is that I try not to act on my shuddering emotional reactions.

My organ playing went well yesterday. Despite the fact that Mary Miller omitted the name of my postlude from the bulletin, people seemed very interested  in my Sweelinck toccata. It was fun to perform.

Eileen, Sarah, and Lucy drove up for a visit with Eileen’s Mom yesterday afternoon.

I stopped and said Hi to my Mom, then practiced for a couple of hours.

Eileen says I’m practicing more than I used to.

It is fun to have such a fine instrument at one’s disposal, that’s for sure.

Surrounded by Books | Chronicles Magazine

Charming article by an elderly historian who sees himself living at the end of an age, the age of books and the word. I relate.

The Washington Post: Here are 7 differences Republicans must resolve between their tax bills

This bill looks like a travesty.

NYTimes: Detroit’s Untold Stories of Slavery

This historian interests me.

I guess one of the dangers of browsing for books to take home and peruse is being fooled on the accuracy of some of them. This morning, after ordering a copy of Kevin Youngs, Bunk, (more on that later) I turned to Sharyl Attkisson’s The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote. 

My first clue about Attkisson was in her bio on the back sleeve of the book in which she is identified as “host of Sinclair’s national investigative television program Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.  Whoa! I poked around and found a Sinclair interview she did with Trump where she abetted his lies. That book goes back to the library unbrowsed.

The Kevin Young book represents more aligning of the stars for me.  As I mentioned here previously I ran across Mr. Young on a New York Public Library podcast.  I thought he sounded interesting so I ran down a few books of his, poetry and checked out a copy of his most recent book, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Post-facts, and Fake News. 

Young is quite the dude. He is the current poetry editor of the New Yorker. He has published ten collections of his own poetry and edited many others. I don’t know how he was not more on my radar. But the cool thing is that two of his books, To Repel Ghosts and To Repel Ghosts: the remix are based on the work of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat. The name had a niggling familiarity about it for me.  I discovered that this was the artists that Jennifer Vonholstein, Martin Pasi’s wife, had spent some of her youth with in New York City and had recently attended a retrospective of his work in London.

That’s her in the pic above.

I don’t have time to start another book at this time, reading too many at once as it is, but I decided to purchase the Bunked book and put it on the stack. I also want to learn more about Basquiat. It is from his work that I drew all of today’s blog pics.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The neglected genius – BBC News

This is an article feature Jennifer von Holstein.

A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility – Brain Pickings

Excerpts from another book I have to order.

NYTimes: Vicente Fox: Borders Can’t Protect Us

I do like it when players write articles.

 NYTimes: Republicans’ Tax Lies Show the Rot Spreads Wide and Runs Deep

The most recent On The Media Podcast

The most recent Fivethirtyeight Podcast

I put these last two links here. I recommend  clicking on them and listening to the podcasts if you haven’t already. The first few minutes of the “On the Media” podcast enumerates the many crazy things Trump has done in the last week. The Fivethirtyedight Podcast makes a case that Trump and/or Kushner are Mueller’s targets for prosecution.

I think that looking at the increased Trump craziness and the fact that Mueller is closing in on him or Kushner might be related. It’s not inconceivable to me that Trump is becoming even more unhinged as he sees the approaching events. God. I hope he doesn’t start a war with Korea.

Another happy thought from Jupe

My piano trio had an unusual rehearsal yesterday. As a group we are clear that we are getting together for our own pleasure. When Amy the violinist arrived she asked if we could do something other than our current Mozart project to warm up. This is not unusual for her. She likes to warm up with something.

I suggested we do some reading in a very old collection we have, Carl Fischer’s Favorite Trio Album edited by Gaston Borch, copyright 1914. 

We played a piece by Chaminade (pictured above, I didn’t know she was a woman. My other members of the trio would probably find that satisfying). Then Tchaikowsky.

Amy loves the romantic stuff. We played another piece from this collection. We kept playing through pieces from this collection for our entire time together. Amy left charged up and happy. Actually all of us did.

I have come to realize how much I enjoy playing music with other people. This includes but is obviously not limited to my trio, the Grace choir, and the Grace congregation as it belts out hymnody and service music.

It may be this pleasure that keeps me putting off retiring despite ebbing energy.

Speaking of ebbing energy, the last two days have been challenging for me that way.I have managed to exercise (treadmill) for the last three days, returning to my pre Thanksgiving regimen. But I have had lots of fatigue. It’s hard to tell exactly from what it is stemming, probably a combination of stuff.

Kick Against the Pricks | by Laura Kipnis | The New York Review of Books

I was impressed with Larua Kipnis in a recent podcast, I Have To Ask: The Laura Kipnis Edition – Slate Magazine Daily Feed (podcast). This is a good read better than the interview in the podcast.

In Carpenter v. United States, Neil Gorsuch showed his independent streak.

Finally something positive from this brilliant but highly reactive justice.

Episode 73: Malcolm Nance —

Episode 73 of the podcast, “How to be amazing.” I listened to this this morning. Nance is a retired cryptographer and intelligence officer. His story is startling and his take on where we are now in the US is frightening. Only listen to this if you are ready for some frightening reality. He comes from a multi-generational military family from Philadelphia. He speaks many languages. He was on the ground at 9/11 as well as the 1983 Beirut bombing. He saw the Iraq war as a bad mistake before we went there. He is a patriot whose patriotism has been shaken by the election and actions of Trump. His description of a possible war with Korea is terrifying.

No more Writer’s Almanac for jupe. I usually listen to this five minute podcast while I sit before taking my BP. This morning there was not a new one. Bye Writer’s Almanac. If you go to the website there is a statement about this. They are also planning to change the name of the current Prairie Home Companion.  This latter move is one I have thought they should have done anyway if it’s to survive in its new format.

NYTimes: Louvre Abu Dhabi, an Arabic-Galactic Wonder, Revises Art History

This seems to be a clear eyed assessment of a new museum. I love the comments. One commenter pointed out the weirdness of the Louvre selling a franchise of its brand. It is indeed very odd.

NYTimes: The Internet Is Dying. Repealing Net Neutrality Hastens That Death.

I’m reading Bob Schieffer’s book, Overload: Finding the Truth in Today’s Deluge of News. Chapter 7 is about Walter Mossberg, a Wall Street Journal reporter who asked to start a computer column in the 90s. Born in ’47, Mossberg asks the question (quoted by Schieffer) “Has all the new information made us more informed?” He remembers an excitement I shared about being able to access information online.  Even though this kind of access to the Internet is a small portion of its use (Remember, my daughter Elizabeth reminded me, the Internet is for Porn!),  the internet as a functional tool of learning about stuff will probably suffer if not die if it continues in the direction it’s heading especially with the impending FCC ruling.

NYTimes: War Criminal Dies After Apparently Drinking Poison in Court

Wow.

NYTimes: The Masterpiece Cakeshop Case Is Not About Religious Freedom

Jennifer Finny Boylan consistently turns out good writing. Here’s another example.

NYTimes: When Politics Is Criminalized

Alan Dershowitz parsing the problem.

NYTimes: Free Speech, Personified

Pauli Murray spoke up in defense of having having George Wallace speak at Yale while detesting his ideas. She lost but her ideas have since been institutionally vindicated. Oh, and also she was the African American woman to become an Episcopalian Priest. Article written by the current president of Yale.

NYTimes: The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido

by Stephen Marsh. Laura Kipnis, on the current “I Have to Ask” Podcast from Slate,says that Marsh is a better novelist than thinker. She sounds pretty smart to me on this podcast. The whole discussion of sexuality seems to be taking a only small bits of this big topic into account. A classic example of the blind men and the elephant mistake.

I don’t pretend to understand sexuality. I just know it’s much bigger than the discussion about abuses now coming to light.

NYTimes: How to Get Your Mind to Read

Knowing stuff helps you read. who knew?

Unsurprisingly, I was exhausted yesterday. Nevertheless I mailed packages to the Northville harpsichord dude, submitted bulletin info for this week at church including a music note, exercised and spent two hours on the organ bench rehearsing.

When I got home, Eileen, Sarah, and Lucy were preparing to walk downtown and have supper and then presumably attend the Parade of Lights (or whatever). I hugged them and apologized for not joining them and staggered into the house.

I have been especially enjoying rehearsing organ music. I am learning a new Bach fantasia prelude and fugue (c minor, BWV 537). Yesterday I also set my sights on another prelude and fugue that isn’t too long (e minor BWV 533). The c minor is especially beautiful. The brevity lends itself to use at church, although I am not above scheduling longer pieces. I öam planning to use the fugue of the c minor as the prelude in a couple weeks and fantasia as the postlude.

In addition I worked over the Sweelinck toccata I am performing this weekend. Taking into account his wonderful echo pieces, I did some registration tricks to allow the melodies in the toccata to sound more prominent. i think it sounds cool.

As do the three little variations by Böhm I am also performing this weekend as the prelude.

This morning my morning poetry read randomly landed on a poem about pipe organ pipes and late autumn.

On the Deepest Sounds

by Lars Gustafsson, translated by Christopher Middleton (I think)

There is a pipe in big organs,
the thirty-two-foot basso, the contrabassoon,

huge vibrating pillar of air, late autumn
when rises in the wells,

the subterranean network of waters and wells,
and it is more a sorrow than a sound.

At this lower limit where the music ends,
something different wants to begin.

Body more than sound, body and darkness,
and late autumn, when the wells are rising,

but since it is lower than earth,
lower than music, lower than lament

—it does not want to begin, it does not begin,
and therefore it does not exist.

Now it is closer, now it is distinct!
Now it will soon be audible, far and wide.

Here’s a link to another translation.

I love the line: “more a sorrow than a sound.”

The beauty of the Pasi pipes is like that for me. A visceral beauty. Tangible emotion. It’s something I have not had a great deal of experience with. My guitar sounds were beautiful. Some of my piano sounds. But organ, not so much.

I have commented before here, I believe, that I derive much of my satisfaction from the beauty of the design of the music more than the actual sound. I have thought this was a good thing for me because it allowed me to take gigs with bad instruments where I could make enough money to support the fam or at least do my part.

I accepted the Grace gig because of Rev Jen, not the organs. Maybe a part of me missed church music. This could be. But now it is clear to me how much I enjoy making music with other people. Playing at church allows me to do this weekly.

Yesterday afternoon Matthew, Sarah’s partner and Lucy’s Dad,  got on a plane to fly home to England. It has been fun having him around. I forget how delightful it is to have good conversations with people other than Eileen and Rev Jen. Sarah and Lucy are staying for an additional couple of weeks.

I managed to pick up my rental car successfully. I had reserved a minivan so that I might transport my harpsichord to the harpsichord shop of Chris Brodersen in Northville, two and half hours away. Matthew helped me get the harpsichord into the minivan.

I got away around 10:40. My phone guided me to the Brodersen shop easily. However, it was a bit dismaying to find the owner so reticent and obviously unhappy to work on  my old instrument.

I have forgotten how snobby musicians can be.

I think that both Christopher and I were not too impressed with each other. He probably saw an aging hippy who didn’t have a clue about harpsichords.

I, on the other hand, experienced him as a grumpy not too sharp snob.

It took quite  a bit of time for him to get around to telling me he would work on the instrument. He ignored the instructions from Zuckermann (fair enough). He asked for the lead weights to reinsert into the keys also he said he couldn’t work on the instrument without the jack rail (which I had forgotten all about). I promised to ship the weights and the jack rail to him.

I do wonder about Zuckermann’s instructions to remove the weights. When Brodersen taped a few weights on a couple of keys they worked very well. Part of my problems with voicing was getting the key to return. This was easily solved by weighting it as was done in the original 1969 design.

Brodersen exhibited little curiosity and problem solving. I am hoping that he is anal enough to do a good job on my instrument. I’m really at his mercy. I don’t have another line on a harpsichord builder. He feels like my last hope before considering sinking considerable money into a new (used) instrument.

I was surprised how much his negative energy affected me. I tried to stay polite and cheerful and probably ended up sounded even more imbecilic to this middle aged Birkenstocked dude.

It was an unpleasant ride home pondering all of this. I got back about 4:30 PM.  This was too late to exercise or practice organ. Eileen listened sympathetically to my report. I did not skip my evening martini (sooprise).

I am feeling more positive this morning. But not about snobs particularly. Just about myself.

I have finished reading several books in the last few days. The way I read books these days is to keep several going and dip into them almost every day. Eventually they get entirely read.

I learned a lot from Tyhimba Jess’s book of poetry based on the life of Leadbelly  As usual Jess makes some beautiful poems. But more than that he helped me understand how little I knew about the man, Huddie Ledbetter. In the picture above you see him as he wished to be seen: a snappy dresser with a smooth and polished performance.

Reading Jess’s poem has changed the way I see the Lomaxes. Leadbelly was hired by John Lomax, Alan’s father, paid poorly and treated with contempt. It is, of course, easy to use our point of view from this age to revile earlier ages when things were much different. But, I have admired Alan Lomax and his father for a while for their collection of so much folk music. Now, I am beginning to see a fuller picture and am planning to do a bit more reading about Leadbelly’s life.

Van Jones’ timely work, Beyond the Messy Truth: How We Came Apart * How We Come together has much to commend it. Jones is doing the tricky act of talking sense and then walking the talk during a time of increasing madness in America. His insistence that we liberals need a coherent conservative opposition on which to hone our own ideas and together move forward is heartbreakingly accurate.

Nothing Personal photographs by Richard Avedon and text by James Baldwin is being republished next month. Baldwin’s prose burns off the page and accuses America of its current sins as well as its historic ones. I have preordered a copy and pulled out my Baldwin books to read and reread.

I think Rhonda gave me the copy of Othello  I finished this morning. Shakespeare’s language sings of course. I had never read this play. It is a discordant and troubling story told in beautiful language.

My morning reading included a three part poem by Lars Gustafsson called “Three Poems from the New World.” This poem is found in his collection, The Stillness of the World Before Bach.

I noted with a smile that the first section is about the Oneida Colony. I can remember writing a paper on this colony in high school. I think I was  intrigued with its combination of free love, communal living, and religion.

Here’s how this part begins:

I. “The Perfectionists” Colony in Oneida, N.Y.

Countless shadows populate this world
mens’, womens’, infants’ voices
small as the crickets under the trees.

I think this has a clear small beauty that reminds me of Japanese poetry.

Gustafsson was Swedish and writing in his own language about the United States.

But it’s the second section of this poem that stuck with me. It’s called Maple Syrup. In it Gustafsson finds that the taste of American Maple syrup (“an acid, clear-yellow liquid, burnt sugar, fresh sap and something else, unknown”) is “the taste of America,” “Concord and Los Alamos, Utica and the killings in Mississippi.”

He goes on:

And the boy hunting squirrels with his gun beneath the trees
This enigma is too hard for me: I thought there was innocence,

but never that it could be thick as prison walls.
I have never felt this acid taste before, this sap,

bu I knew it must exist: here it is everywhere,
in the tepid air, it blends  into the strong neon lights…

… Whoever has felt this remarkable taste,

its acid, will never again take the word “innocence” in his mouth
without feeling how it grows on his tongue, how it slowly
changes . . .

In his collaborative book with Richard Avedon, James Baldwin writes:

We are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country—to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world—and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; God help the innocent here, that man or woman who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love.

James Baldwin, Nothing Personal

This is just a smidgen of the starting insights Baldwin writes in this short book written the year after JFK’s assassination.

When I read these passages this morning I was struck by the connection between the two visions of America.

The acid taste of maple syrup and the word, “Innocence. and the  idea that we in America fail to trust each other enough to speak from the heart and this is no place for the innocent or the lover.

Evergreen Commons is closed for Thanksgiving. Otherwise I would go over and exercise today. I probably would have done so yesterday as well. Instead I went to the library and browsed a bit and found some very interesting books to take home and look at.

I’m already many pages into Bob Schieffer’s Overload: Finding the Truth in Today’s Deluge of News. It is looking at a question I think about a great deal. It was published this year and deals with the Trump phenomenon.

Here are some excerpts.

Dead Cat Strategy

“Whether Trump knew it or not, his was a version of a political strategy first defined by Lynton Crosby, an Australian political consultant who later worked in the campaigns of British prime minister, David Cameron. Crosby called it the ‘Dead Cat Strategy,’ which held that no matter what the conversation at a dinner party was about, if you threw a dead cat on the table people started talking about the dead cat.

“Time and again, no matter what the campaign conversation was about, Trump threw another dead cat into the mix and people talked about that and him.”

Good Analysis of the Clinton Campaign

“Whatever else can be said about it, the Clinton campaign was operating the old way and by the old rules—a huge, consultant-heavy staff focused on raising money and dependent on constant polling to develop policy statements and talking points in an effort to ‘control the narrative.’ By the old rules, campaigns shielded candidates from situations in which they might get unexpected questions or tough follow-ups. Clinton did few interviews, and campaign workers seemed more determined to shield her form voters and reporters than finding ways to connect with them.”

Sort of the opposite of Trump’s constant exposure.

Trump as a “toon”

When Bob Scheiffer interviewed Maureen Dowd she had these comments:

“I usually think of campaigns as Shakespearian because I studied Shakespeare in college, but this one was more like that old movie, Who Killed Jessica Rabbit, which was Toons (animated cartoon charecters) interacting with humans.

“Trump is a ‘toon running against a human,’ and the collision of those two cultures makes it very hard for the press to know how to deal with him.”

“It’s a whole new thing. The collision of reality television and social media with politics…. He [Trump] is dominating every news cycle, stepping on his own news cycle, then tweeting something that ruins the message.

“And it’s funny that it’s a seventy-year-old man who’s introduced Twitter to the campaign…”

More from Schieffer later.

I also checked out the following books.

I also picked an interlibrary loaned copy of Avedon’s 1964 collaboration with James Baldwin, Nothing Personal.

The library copy was rebound with a warning to treat it gently.

We made it through out marathon day 2. In fact, I had time to go over to the church and practice in the morning. Sarah walked over to Mom’s nursing home and then texted me just as I was finishing up. I went over to visit Mom with her and then take her and Lucy back to the house.  We had lunch then packed up to go visit the Hatches for the rest of the day. The visit went very well with all parties on their best behavior and apparently even enjoying themselves.

I have decided to resurrect some cool organ pieces that will sound pretty wonderful on the new instrument. The choir is learning “Maria walks amid the thorns” by Distler. The group that was there Wednesday night showed progress in understanding this subtle and beautiful music. It inspired me to pull out a couple of organ pieces by Distler to also play the Sunday of Advent that we sing this motet.

I began working on the Bicinium movement of his partita on “Wake Awake” and also the first/last movement of his piece on “Nun komm der heiden heiland.” I played the entire latter piece on my bachelor’s recital. I do like it quite a bit although I can remember the organ teacher on loan from U of M making snarky comments about the writing in it.

As I write this Eileen is researching vacuum cleaners on her phone. She is so happy with the little portable vac she recently purchased to replace our crappy one that she wants to get a larger one to replace our regular one. Sarah, Matthew, and Lucy are out walking around. It’s a beautiful crisp morning in Holland Michigan. Earlier this morning we all drove over to the Wooden Shoe to have breakfast. The sky was beautiful with pink clouds off set nicely by the blue sky background and the naked black trees in the foreground.

Podcast #191: Kevin Young & Bunk—Hoaxes, Hooey, Hocum; Cons, Plagiarists, and Forgers | The New York Public Library

I listened to a bit of this. I find Kevin Young inspiring and have already interlibrary loaned his new book.

3000 year-old Urartu castle found under Lake Van in Turkey

There’s not much to this article but I found it interesting. It reminds me of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

NYTimes: A Conservative Plan to Weaponize the Federal Courts

Bookmarked to read. I’m getting so when I see an article that looks good even in the NYT I bookmark it so I don’t lose track of it. I think this is a flaw in the NYT app, that it is so haphazard in how it allows the reader to access all the current articles available.

Outing the Inside | by David Salle | The New York Review of Books

This is a review of a collection of work by Louise Bourgeois.  I admire her work immensely. All of the pics into today’s blog are of her stuff.

I had a bit of a marathon day yesterday. First thing I spent time with Finale putting in the hymn, “Comfort, comfort ye my people” so that my choir could sing it in four parts and also in the key of G major. It is my plan on the first Sunday of Advent to have them sing a verse before I play three of Georg Böhmn’s variations on it.

Then after breakfast I went to three places before arranging to rent a minivan next Monday to take my harpsichord to the Chris Brodersen’s shop.

After that to church. First I printed up corrected posters of our December recital. I gave Sarah the wrong spelling of the name of one of the musicians. So she had to go back and correct it and email me the new one which I then used to replace the old ones around the church and also on Facebook events.

I madly worked at church preparing for last night’s rehearsal. About half way through my tasks Eileen called and said she needed the mini to take the high chair to my Mom’s nursing home for the birthday party. I dropped everything and went home.

Mark,  Leigh, Ben, and Tony had arrived. We all went over to Mom’s nursing home for a birthday meal together.

Mom lasted about an hour.

Then we went to church so that several of the visitor’s could see the new organ.

After that  we all went back home for a chat and eventually some snacks. We ordered a pizza. Then rehearsal.

Today we do a Hatch Thanksgiving. Marathon Day 2.

Nautilus | Science Connected

It’s always interesting to me to listen to how people are getting their news. Tony, my nephew Ben’s husband, mentioned this site.

NYTimes: Colin Kaepernick and the Legacy of the Negro National Anthem

We sing “Lift Every Voice’ at church regularly. The trick is to not to take it too fast.

NYTimes: He Played Kennedy. Then He Became Himself.

Wow. I remember Vaughan Meader’s recordings well. My fam of origin had some of his records. I think I still have one of them. It is a bit sad to read about him bumming money.

NYTimes: 100 Notable Books of 2017

Dear reader, you know I love book lists. I haven’t finished any book on this list, but am reading a few of them.

‘American mercenaries’ are torturing arrested Saudi princes

Weirdly this link was on Drudge’s “right” list. Right as in “right wing.” I don’t see anything that “right” about the report. But it does mentioned Blackwater as involved in this ongoing weirdness.

I have been thinking a lot about Italo Calvino (1923-1985)..

The New Yorker has two podcasts in which living authors read stories by him. I like listening to them at night. They play over and over on my tablet and enable me to quit thinking and fall asleep.

Here are links to them if you’re curious.

“The Daughters of the Moon” by Italo Calvino read by Robert Coover.

“Love Far From Home” by Italo Calivon read by Salmon Rushdie.

The first of these two stories is one of Calvino’s Cosmicomics. I have recently ordered both the Kindle book and a real book of this collection. I also purchased the narration that comes with the Kindle book.

“The Daughters of the Moon” contains a thinly veiled critique of consumerism and specifically mentions Thanksgiving. Although it was written in the mid 60s, it was published in the New Yorker posthumously on Feb 23, 2009.

Here is a cool excerpt:

“That morning, the city was celebrating Consumer Thanksgiving Day. This feast came around every year, on a day in November, and had been set up to allow shoppers to display their gratitude toward the god Production, who tirelessly satisfied their every desire. The biggest department store in town organized a parade every year: an enormous balloon in the shape of a garishly colored doll was paraded through the main streets, pulled by ribbons that sequin-clad girls held as they marched behind a musical band. That day, the procession was coming down Fifth Avenue: the majorette twirled her baton in the air, the big drums banged, and the balloon giant, representing the Satisfied Customer, flew among the skyscrapers, obediently advancing on leashes held by girls in kepis, tassels, and fringed epaulets, riding spangly motorcycles.”

This is a kepi:

NYTimes: Lyndon Johnson’s War Propaganda

All governments are jerks (and apparently dishonest).

How to Make Potatoes – NYT Cooking

This is kind of interesting. I picked up some tricks.

Here’s what’s coming to (and leaving from) Netflix in December

FWIW

BBC Radio 3 – Saturday Classics, Max Richter

I like that this playlist (scroll down) includes such a wide range of styles. BBC do not leave their shows up indefinitely. This one expires on Dec 17, 2017.

My doubts about yesterday’s recital were completely unfounded. Nick put together a program that was stellar in concept, composition, and execution. It is just the kind of in-the-moment forward-looking kind of concert I am looking to host. Since I did not know Nick’s pieces it wasn’t clear to me quite how the music would sound. I think what we heard yesterday was basically a program that Nick and his husband, Jarek, put together for a performance in Poland. Jarek has a family member who was martyred in the Nazi purge of Poland. I learned yesterday that of the millions of Poles killed by the Nazis half were Christian and a good number of them Roman Catholic Priests. Michal Kozal was one of them.  Kozal is Jarek’s last name. The Kozal family meets annually in Poland to commemorate Michal’s life. It was at one of these meetings that I suspect that the four people who played yesterday performed basically the same recital. I didn’t think at the time to ask Nick if this was so.

Two of the compositions were pieces by Nick. One was a set of organ variations on a Polish hymn, the other, the main piece of the day, “Octave of a Suffering Servant.” The writing was wonderful. In between the violinist (who was spectacular) and Nick performed  Górecki’s “Little Fantasia” for violin and piano.

I am trying to be quiet right now since everyone (including Lucy) seems to be sleeping in so I’m not going to look for a video to embed of this marvelous piece. But I thought it was beautiful and moving and brilliantly composed.

It was a small crowd gathered yesterday. I seemed to have drummed up a few attendees with an email I sent out. I’m trying to build up an email list of interested listeners building on the AGO list. I don’t remember seeing any organists. it’s a shame, but I have decided not to feel bad about my recital series’ weak publicity and also lack of development (as in a “friends of” committee that looks to keeping the funds renewed). Fuck it, man. I can only do so much. Adding the series (and the organ itself) has increased the intensity of my work many fold. It’s rewarding but it is already a lot of work.  I’m not about to add responsibility for doing good publicity or fund raising for this series. I have raised these topics several times. But I actually wonder if there are that many people in this area that would be interested in the kind of quality programs we have been putting on. Certainly many of them haven’t heard of what we’re doing, that’s for sure.

I forgot to go get my daily kiss from my elderly mother in the nursing home yesterday. I know that this won’t matter too much to her. She might not even have noticed. But daily visits do seem to help her and it was a mistake on my part. I realized last night and decided not to mention it to Eileen and Sarah right away. We were all tired. I was tired. No need for other people to feel bad about something we couldn’t change (it was too late to go see her and I was halfway into my evening martini).

The morning service went very well. The choir did a good job.

My prelude and postlude had many notes but I managed to hit most of them in a musical manner. Nick told me that he felt his playing was a bit “off” yesterday. I gently chided him with effusive well-earned praise. Later I thought, sure, I heard some flubs. I almost always do. But he played a lot of notes most correctly and everything was very musical. It reminds me this morning of the brief chat I had with Jarek. He apologized for choking up a few times in narrating the moving story of his family member. I told him that we need the humanity of that sort of thing. I think this morning that Nick’s imperfect playing and Jarek’s tears were part of what I liked about the performance.

Pope Francis awards Arvo Pärt with the Ratzinger Prize – Estonian World

This article says that Pärt “has been them most performed living composer six years in a row.” They don’t say how this was determined, but I guess it’s believable.

Today should be interesting.

It looks like Sarah, Matthew, and Lucy are going to go downtown for an early breakfast.

Eileen is still in bed, of course. It’s about 7 AM. The British fam is adjusting to the time change. Lucy is doing very well with the change as far as I’m concerned.

I’m wondering how the recital will go off this afternoon.  I have known Nick for a long time, but we have gradually fallen out of touch especially since he came out of the closet and ended up as Roman Catholic Cathedral musician in Grand Rapids. We used to compare notes about compositions. I have a feeling that our aesthetics have parted ways, mine becoming more poppy and  radical, Nick’s becoming more conservative, but it’s just a guess. I may know more after this afternoon.

At any rate I am very happy to have him and his husband and friends perform at Grace this afternoon.

I am hoping the choir will sound good this morning.

I was so pleased with how they were doing Wednesday that I announced the pregame would be in the choir rehearsal room. It’s nice when I can do this since it’s a bit less disrupting to the worship when we are not rehearsing when parishioners arrive for Eucharist.

The time before prayer has become a bit more sedate at Grace. It can be quite noisy. Often this noise is coming not from children or even young people but from the older people in the church, usually those preparing to lead worship as adult acolytes or readers. We, of course, have tried to gently encourage people not make a great deal of noise at that time.

I wonder if some of this is connected to a general lack of awareness of etiquette in our culture. I have had some trouble convincing choir members not to robe and disrobe in the church. I think this is a bit weird. But both Rev Jen and I think that this a bit of decorum that we wish to preserve. After all, none of the other people dressed up in fancy robes in the service do this.

I also notice that often choir members are some of the most oblivious people during the prelude and postlude although in general this is changing and lately  I finish the postlude to applause and turn around and see a good number of parishioners listening and waiting for me to finish. Having a fancy dancy organ helps.

So I’m blogging during martini time, something I don’t usually do. Sarah, Lucy, and Matthew are visiting.  It has been very pleasant to have them around. I forget how much I enjoy chats with Matthew. (Hi Matthew!) And of course it’s lots of fun to be around Lucy and Sarah. But I’m not making too much time for blogging.

On Friday, i showed up at my shrink only to discover he double booked my time with a couple he counsels. He forgot me. My violinist pointed out that now he owes me bigtime! He actually was quite flustered and upset. I said that we would just meet in two weeks even though he offered me a couple more times on Friday. I am considering phoning him beforehand to confirm the appoint just to fuck with him.

Today I managed to finish the program for  tomorrow’s recital. Sarah managed to get the poster done a short time ago. I had already decided that I was not going to return to church to make copies and put them up just so they would be ready for tomorrow’s Eucharist. I emailed the final copy to the recitalist and my boss. If there are no changes, I will probably make posters between Eucharist and the recital and put them up. It’s my general goal to have the next recital’s poster up the day of the current recital. But I am at peace with how things have fallen out this time since Sarah only landed in the USA on Wednesday and I’m pretty sure that Rev Jen would prefer me not to stress out about it.

I think our set up is working for the visit. I do fear that it is a bit of stress for the world travelers, but we have it set up that they can have their space. We have set up a second bedroom specifically for Matthew to escape to for alone time. I also have my electric harpsichord in that room so when he’s not using it I myself can escape in there if need be.

I have managed to keep up my regimen of exercising. This morning while the rest of the group was downtown I went over and treadmilled.

Paris Review – Jorge Luis Borges, The Art of Fiction No. 39

This came up on my Facebook feed. I do like Borges.

Examination of Chopin’s pickled heart solves riddle of his early death

Benefits of pickling.

NYTimes: When New York City Was a (Literal) Battlefield

I like this kind of history.

NYTimes: Virginia Makes Every Voter Count

Voting is part of the solution to our current madness in the USA

I have been neglecting my blogging. It’s been a busy time for me for some reason. Part of it has been preparing for the imminent arrival of the British branch of the family.  Sarah, Matthew, and Lucy are on a plane from England even as I write this. They will arrive here sometime this afternoon. Eileen will pick them up at the airport in Grand Rapids.

I have moved upstairs. Previously,  I have been keeping my clothes in the downstairs bedroom out of convenience (easy access to the washing machine and dryer). I also moved my morning ablution equipment (BP machine, scales, toothbrush, and similar stuff) to the upstairs bathroom. This way when I get up in the morning I won’t need to go into the bathroom adjacent to the kid’s room downstairs.

Last night Eileen and I had a date night. We have both been working hard to prepare for this visit so it was nice to have everything ready and spend some time together.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on living, writing, and being black in Trump’s America.

Ran across this recently. I have subscribed to the podcast embedded here. I’m always looking for good podcasts. Coates is a hero of mine. I haven’t listened to this yet nor read the edited transcript at the above link.

NYTimes: Susan Rice: Trump Is Making China Great Again

I find it valuable when players like  Rice weigh in. ahem. I haven’t read this one yet either. Hey. I’ve been busy.

I got up this morning and wrote a quick blog post. However, it struck me as a tad negative so I decided not to publish it. Instead I’m writing this afternoon and I am in a much better place. Church went very well. I nailed the organ music and the choir sang “Keep your lamps” and the first verse of the psalm a cappella and sounded good.

I played music by Johann Gottfried Walther: two arrangements of Wachet auf for the prelude and a prelude and fugue for the postlude. The music strikes me as solid writing. I brought home a volume of his chorale preludes to play for fun (!) on my electric harpsichord. Also, his solidly written fugue was so attractive that I have been finding myself drawn to playing through more fugues.

Eileen and I stopped by the library so I could pick up my copy of Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Odyssey. I have been putting off going to pick it up since I am also reading her book on Socrates and don’t really need another book on my reading stack. But if I didn’t pick it up soon I would lose the chance to check it out. I have been reading the introduction just now and it is predictably very good.

‘We Have to Look at How Tolerant We Are of Violence in Homes’ | FAIR

This is sadly a repeat of an excellent interview from a year ago. I think the women being interviewed displays clarity.

NYTimes: Three Composers on the Necessity and Pitfalls of Political Music

One of the three is Caroline Shaw a favorite of mine. Bookmarked to read.

NYTimes: A Stranger From the Past Confronts Roddy Doyle’s Latest Hero

Roddy Doyle wrote the book, The Commitments.  I love it and in this rare case the movie based on it. His new book looks like fun.

NYTimes: Facebook Is Ignoring Anti-Abortion Fake News

This distortion in our public discussions makes me crazy.