Tomorrow I get in the car and drive home to Holland without beautiful Eileen. There is a light fog hanging over the trees just beyond the cabin in Grayling where I am now sitting. This vacation has helped. But last night found me yelling at Judy Woodruff while watching Wednesday night’s PBS New Hour on YouTube (we have difficulty streaming this show at home and it’s practically impossible to do so via 4G here at the cabin, so I was watching the show from the night before).

Woodruff was interviewing Shannon Coffin, former counsel for Dick Cheney, and Stephen Vladeck, professor at University of Texas Law School.  It boiled down to Woodruff blocking Vladeck’s attempt to discuss the facts of the law and the case and instead goading Coffin into outrageous partisan statements and thus giving him most of the air time. Here’s a link to this segment and a transcript.

 It’s so discouraging to see American TV news people be so dumb. It doesn’t help to listen to the BBC where the interviewers are often insightful and articulate. 

We’re using up all the food we brought with us and the food Mark and Leigh left us. Last night I made a quiche using Bisquick for the crust (something I wouldn’t normally do, but I was being lazy). The cheese for the quiche was chevre and chevre crottin. I cooked up some garlic, onions, and mushrooms. We will have leftovers of this for breakfast this morning I am sure. It was pretty good.

We will drive into Grayling today to pick up some more supplies. We will replenish some stuff that the Hatch fam likes to keep at the cabin as well as stuff for Eileen and me to use this evening and tomorrow. When Eileen’s Mom and sister Nancy arrive, I guess they will be eating out more than cooking in the cabin. Eileen is looking forward to that I think.

I have been making playlists on Spotify for the books I have been reading by Alex Ross and Ben Ratliff. I’m sorry to report buy bulk medication online diazepam 10mg that I am beginning to think that Ratliff’s book, Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen in An Age of Music Plenty, is not impressing me very much. I was hoping for some help in thinking about the amazing musical abundance one can access these days. Instead, he zeros in on small ideas some of which are sort of silly like one chapter entitled “Church Bell Tone: Stubbornness and the Single Note.”

In this chapter he discusses performances in which players like Charles Mingus and Neil Young will play one note for a long time. Sheesh. I know this is something to think about but it hardly seems constituent in creating a “how to listen to music now” book. Especially in the sixth chapter out of twenty.

Ross, on the other hand, continues to draw me in whether he is writing a chapter on Radiohead or one on Esa-Pekka Salonen. In Salonen’s case, Ross describes  his (Salonen’s) exultation at passing on the L.A. Symphony to a new leader and being able to compose full time. This chapter was full of names of composers and pieces I searched for on Google. I listened to compositions by Salonen as I cooked last night.

I find it so refreshing to read about musicians like Salonen and the L.A. Symphony musicians who are post-symphonic and academic classical music idiocy in their approach to music. Ross falls into this category as well. I am grateful to discover people who have a unconstrained new sense of freedom and beauty in music.

Finished The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton. Although Botton is clearly writing from an English perspective (he lives in London according to the bio in the book), he still has a lot of useful insights and ideas about our relationship to the news and how the news could do its job better.

His basic insight (to sum up unforgivably reductively) is that the news needs more of the techniques used in literature and art.

It isn’t the news per se that is the problem, only the ‘life’-inhibiting version of it that too often abounds. However, if Tolstoy, Flaubert or Sophocles were in the newsroom, the medium might well give us more of what we need in order to keep our souls from ‘dying, for what were WAR AND PEACE, MADAME BOVARY and ANTIGONE in their original state but … news events?”

Alain Botton, The News: A User’s Manual

For example when covering economics, the preponderance of coverage is reporting on changes in stock value. This kind of reporting leaves out most of the story of businesses like the hopes and goals of the people involved, for example.

I notice that having finished this book, I look at news reports a bit differently. For example, I read the report in today’s NYT,  “As Britain takes stock of Iraq War, Iraqis grimly Assess its Aftermath”  By FALIH HASSAN and TIM ARANGO. Botton’s ideas helped me see the value in the background material in this report. Botton says that in order to understand world events in better perspective, we as readers need to have a better idea of what is normal in other parts of the world. We need to be able to see people not as others but as sharing our own humanity and frailties. I think this report does a good job of that.

 The Rise, Fall and Possible Renewal of a Town in Laos on China’s Border – The New York Times

Then there’s this report by Sebastian Strangio. He also doe a good job of fleshing out the picture on the ground in this story. This story interests me because Eileen and I visited Yunnan province mentioned in this story. We were visiting Elizabeth and Jeremy in Kunming. This story talks about a proposed high speed railway between Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and Kunming.

Sometimes when I am reading a report in the NTY, I have little patience for rambling background, especially if I think the writer is trying to do the human interest lead in to get me to read the report.

But now after considering Botton’s ideas, I see more value in this kind of reporting especially if it clothes a story that is pertinent in my view.

Mother, Writer, Monster, Maid | Vela

This article by writer, by Rufi Thorpe, is one of the best descriptions I remember of how necessary it is to be a real person if you are an artist, necessary to your life and your work. I like how she ends, quoting, another writer’s mom who told her, “Do what you want!” This thought is profound when we think carefully about what we actually want in life. Many thanks to Elizabeth for posting this in a link on fecesbooger.

BBC – Culture – How India changed the English language

I love discussions of the interrelations of language and the origin of words.

How to Talk to Fireflies – The New York Times

The author and others talk to fireflies using a little flashing light. Eileen and I looked at the accompanying video. Very cool. I love fireflies.

Consciousness: The Mind Messing With the Mind – The New York Times

 Consciousness doesn’t have to emerge. It’s built into matter, perhaps as some kind of quantum mechanical effect. One of the surprising developments in the last decade is how this idea has moved beyond the fringe.

I finished reading The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes yesterday. This morning I typed up my notes on this book. I’ve also started Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov. As I read the latter, I am finding the Barnes novel to be a nice sheen on the material. I think I will be able to sort out the Shostakovich of the novel from the Testimony. In fact, I am hoping that is where Barnes got most of his character and story. But we’ll see.

It looks like I am now officially not an employee of Hope College. This is the cause of a slight sigh of relief for me since my experience of this institution has been largely negative. This is despite the idea that Eileen and I were looking for a small town with a college in it when I finished my Masters degree in 1987 and chose Holland and Hope College. The irony of course is that the resources I was hoping a small college would provide to an otherwise provincial situation of living in a small town in America are abundantly available online.

So much are these resources available that the fact that I can no longer access Groves Dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, and Jstor online with my Hope staff status does not trouble me as much as I feared it might.

I never quit this position. Just like I never quit my adjunct position at Grand Valley State U. I just turned down teaching (playing class in the case of Hope) for specific semesters. It will be interesting to see if Hope follows GVSU’s pattern of never contacting me again.

In the meantime, I seem to be relaxing into vacation even though it ends for me this Saturday when I drive back to Holland for church on Sunday. I’m almost done with The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton. One of his main points is that news should provide perspective with more in depth and imaginative reporting. Perspective for myself is something I am seeking in my respite this week. I hope it works.

Eileen and I are unlocking the mysteries of technology together. Please don’t laugh but we have figured that if we’re not using the internet our 3G devices should be on airplane mode. Thus we won’t be using up our time inadvertently. We are already 2 Gigabytes over our monthly allowance. The $30 this costs us ($15 per Gigabyte) is well worth it. But it’s silly to pay for it when we’re not using it.

Ben, Tony, Mark, and Leigh drove away yesterday. I’m staying up here until Saturday. Eileen gets a day by herself and her Mom and sister, Nancy, arrive on Sunday.

It was good seeing the fam. And it’s good to have some quiet time alone with Eileen. I have been getting a lot of reading done. This is probably largely what I will do today. Eileen and I had a nice breakfast together and then, sooprise sooprise, played Boggle. We got Tony to join us a couple of times but mostly while they were here, the group just watched (or ignored us) as Eileen and I played.

I haven’t finished any books yet. But I did read all the poems in Mark’s copy of Wendell Berry’s new book (mentioned in yesterday’s post). I’m reserving my second novel (Hystopia by David Means) until AFTER I finish The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes.

Somehow I have lost my Hope College online privileges. A few days ago, I tried to log on and look at the Oxford English Dictionary and it told me my privileges had expired. I will email the dance department secretary and find out if it’s possible to have this back. If not, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll purchase a community Hope College Library card.

I have the music for this Sunday sitting in a draft email. All I have to do is email it this morning. Mary the person who does the bulletins isn’t even in the office for another hour or so.

We watched Brazil last night as a group at the cabin. It was startling to me how pertinent Gilliam’s insights about terrorism and the tyranny of the state are to the present time. The movie was released in 1985, over 30 years ago, 30 years when technology of killing and monitoring populations has exponentially increased in its efficiency.

Mark let me read in his new Wendell Berry book, A Small Porch: Sabbath Poems 2014 and 2015 together with “The Presence of Nature in the Natural World: A Long Conversation.

The second poem in it is “The National Security Agency.” It ends like this:

I’m not going to tell you whether
or when I’m coming back. Don’t wait.
Don’t try to call. I have no phone.
There’s not much left I want to shoot,
but I would like to shoot a drone.

The way states break into the lives of people is well etched in Gilliam’s movie, Brazil. Near the beginning and again near the end, people dressed in riot gear break down doors and capture malfactors whose loved ones are asked to sign a receipt for in the first case. In the second case, the viewer can no longer witness the scene (as it is being told from the point of view of Sam Lowry who is under the horrible straight jacket hood), but we do hear gun shots that presumably were killing the woman of Lowry’s dreams.

I abhor the concept of drones, remote killing. I abhor the concept of killing in and of itself. But when the impersonality of the “state” (US or “Brazil, the movie”) is added it sends a chill into the heart.

On several of the podcasts I listen to, the web builder software, Squarespace, is a sponsor. I find it annoying that they have decided to use the word “beautiful” in their ads and campaign. I counted in one ad the use of the of the word, beauty, 3 times.

I must be a bit of a fuddy duddy luddite, because I can’t envision a “beautiful” website. Beauty is an important concept to me.

Wendell Berry puts it this way in Mark’s book:

Beauty is the crisis of our knowing,
the signature of love indwelling
in all created things, called from nothing
by love, recognized and answered
by love in the human heart, not reducible
by any analysis to any fact.

Sonnet 65: Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea – Poetry Foundation

Wendell Berry quotes this sonnet in one of his poems in Mark’s book. Very cool.

Citing Safety, Bookseller Pulls Out of Hong Kong Pro-Democracy March – The New York Times

the state successfully represses another voice.

A friend of mine on Fecesbook “shared” this video. I found the choreography amazing. Check out and compare to the original slick video.

I’m up alone at the cabin. I have made coffee and studied a bit of Greek.

I’m happy to report that my BP finally came down today to 131/92. Sheesh. I can’t explain why it spiked last Wednesday, the first vacation day I took it. I guess the deal is to monitor it.

I’m listening to Shostakovich’s Fifth symphony as I type this morning. I have been enjoying Julian Barnes’ little novel based on some incidents in Shostakovich’s life, The Noise of Time. Yesterday I picked up Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov. This book was given to me and is inscribed by Larry Curran. Larry is on my list of friends who have dropped me like a hot potato. I knew him in grad school. I should say that I knew and grew to care about him in grad school. But one day after we had both graduated, he, another friend, and I were sitting in my kitchen. Larry went all passive aggressive on us in the conversation. i called him on it and he got up, walked out of my kitchen and out of my life. I followed him to his car calling, Larry, if you’re mad, don’t leave! To no avail. 

He was a funny guy and a killer flute player. I’m sorry he’s no longer in my life, but what can you do? Anyway, I started rereading Testimony in conjunction with Barnes’ book and could see that Barnes had clearly read and drawn on it. Pretty logical that he would.

Shostakovich is definitely a composer with a lot to say to the 21st century. He wrote within the strictures of a repressive state. His music challenges the inhumanity which still plagues us in this century in practically every country in the world, especially my country of the USA and, of course, Shostakovich’s beloved Russia.

I love this little passage in Barnes:

“Art belongs to everybody and nobody. Art belongs to all time and to no time. Art belongs to those who create it and those who savor it. Art no more belongs to the People and the Party than it once belonged to the aristocracy and the patron. Art is the whisper of history heard about the noise of time.”

I also have the score to Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues for the piano, which i adore. I have actually performed a few of these at church. I have been playing through them here at the cabin on my electric piano. Great stuff.

I also pulled out an extended compositional sketch I have been working on yesterday and spent some time with that. I hadn’t planned on making myself do much of anything on vacation, but it seemed like the thing to do yesterday and it was satisfying to do it.

How Do You Say ‘Welcome to Europe’ in Maltese? Check an Arabic Dictionary –

I love language stories.

I was peering at this headline this morning utterly confused. It’s a typo. Deer=Defer. Nice way to start the day.

My BP is still high. I guess I will be calling the doctor after I get back if this persists. Nice.

My brother told me that he uses his browser to access Spotify. This is a much better idea for me than using their silly software/application since it seems to eat up computer power and is very very slow on my big laptop. So I uninstalled it from this computer and it seems to work fine via my browser.

Emily and Jeremy went home yesterday morning. We had a quiet day of old people. Ben and Tony arrived after I was sound asleep. I woke and gave them hugs and told them I wouldn’t remember it today but I do.

I had email from a groom getting married in August and from my sub for tomorrow. The day before I had a phone call from my cellist who didn’t get the memo that I’m out of town for a while. It feels like my work stress is dogging me. But I really have no idea why I’m still stressed and have high BP. Maybe Eileen and Mark are on to something by recommending I seek professional counseling.

Eileen kept getting up in the night, asking me to stand up and then using a hammer to bang on our bed frame to keep it from falling apart. I had to apologize to Ben and Tony this morning. I think we are all in agreement that we need to fix this today so there will be less banging tonight.

Wow. The hits to this blog zoomed up to 60 yesterday. Hard to tell what that means. I woke up this morning and listened to the rain on the roof of the Hatch cabin. I got up and wrote in my journal. Listened to this song:

I couldn’t find the Dylan version on YouTube, but Krall captures it well. This is my mood this morning.

Simple Twist Of Fate

According to my BP which is still high I guess I’m not relaxing yet. But I am trying. I read a chapter each in the two music books I am reading:  Listen to This by Alex Ross and Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to :Listen in an Age of Musical Plenty by Ben Ratliff.

Both authors refer to musical examples and inspired me to begin playlists of the stuff they refer to. Interestingly they both made reference to “Reminiscing in Tempo” by Duke Ellington.

“Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues” is the title of the Ross chapter.  Inspired by a lecture, Ross heard Ligeti give in 1993, it attempts a huge overview of the use of a repeated descending bass. Ellington’s piece barely qualifies. Ross describes it as “thirteen-minute jazz fantasia propelled by a short chromatic ostinato.” To my ears, the repetition is varied and hardly ever chromatic except between the 2nd and 3rd note.

But I still find the piece interesting since according to Ross “It was written in the wake of the  death the composer’s mother, but it keeps sorrow at bay…”

Ratliff is looking for more clarity about how listeners are thinking about the music to which they listen. He mentions Ellington’s piece in a chapter called “Let Me Concentrate! Repetition.” This chapter wasn’t quite what I was expecting. “Repetition often leads to length, to the expansion of an idea,” writes Ratliff, “The idea of dividing a recording into a ‘part one’ and ‘part two’ in order to accommodate and justify that expansion… began not as an aesthetic conceit but a necessity, when classical pieces were divided across sequential sides of 78 RPM records. In 1935, Duke Ellington imitated that convention with a curious, inward, lovely, thirteen-minute, four sided piece, Reminiscing in Tempo.”

Ratliff’s inspiration for this chapter and the source its title is the James Brown piece, “Aint it Funky!”

Around 5:03 in the video above, you can hear Mr. Brown say, “Let Me Concentrate!” Ratliff comments, “All good repetition in music is embodied by that demand: let me concentrate!” He then moves in to talking about Steve Reich’s famous piece Four Organs which is basically nothing but repetition.

I don’t find Ratliff very convincing so far as redefining how music can be and presumably is being listened to these days. Both authors make mistakes as they try to talk specific musical techniques.

Ratliff says that the James Brown band goes from 4/4 to 3/4 (around 6:42 in the video above). To my ears there is no true triple at this point. Rather it’s just funky off beats but still in a duple way. If you tap duple throughout the break he is talking about, it seems to be more the way the band is thinking about the rhythm to me.

Ross screws up when he looks at the cadential hemiola to the ground of Dido’s aria “When I am laid in earth.” He describes the ground as “notes… like a chilly staircase stretching out before one’s feet. In the fourth full bar there’s a slight rhythmic unevenness, a subtle emphasis on the second beat (one-two-three).” To my ears, it’s a perfectly elegant cadential close which in hemiolic fashion doubles the triple feel thus: 123/ 123 to 12 3/1 23.

Despite these mistakes, I am enjoying the hell out of these books. I especially like Ross’s wide ranging movement between musical styles. I identify with this.

If I think about it for a moment I suppose it’s not too weird that I’m still pretty stressed on the first day of vacation. I can’t help but think of Wile E. Coyote.

We arrived safely at the cabin last evening. I was exhausted. I got up this morning and tried to make coffee. It was awful. Studied some Greek. Played boggle with Eileen. My BP was up this morning. It may be a few days before I am able to actually relax. In the meantime I have to get used to not having something I have to do.

I brought my keyboard but forgot headphones. I can use the keyboard to put  music notes into my software, but playing it is a problem without headphones. Fortunately, my brother has promised to bring me some.

The internet connection (via my mobile phone hotspot) seems to be working fine. I saw a deer early this morning before Eileen got up. I’m listening to Shostakovich on my laptop via Spotify. Surely I will relax soon.

The Secret Power Behind Local Elections – The New York Times

Dark money (anonymous money) is the secret power.

India’s ‘Brexit’ Took More Than a Referendum – The New York Times

This puts a bit different perspective on Brexit.

Tony Blair: Brexit’s Stunning Coup – The New York Times

Blair continues to plead for the center. Not only is it not holding, however, it seems to be almost nonexistent.

The Supreme Court’s Silent Failure on Immigration – The New York Times

Greenhouse always has insights worth thinking about.

Hell Is Other Britons – The New York Times

This is one person’s lament about being stuck in his home town in England. Some of the behavior that is bugging him is recognizably British.

The Reaction to Brexit Is the Reason Brexit Happened | Rolling Stone

This seems to be a clear eyed look at how elites continue to abandon their constituency and then wonder why they vote the way they do. Though I haven’t finished reading this article I so admire Matt Taibbi’s way of looking at things that I bookmarked the next article to read that he wrote about Trump waaaaay back in Feb.

How America Made Donald Trump Unstoppable | Rolling Stone

I was visited by my dream daemons last night. When I was a young man, I wrote a short story called “Dreams in the Hands of Demons.” In it, I told a story based on the true fact that someone I knew as a child was hit by a car. She was thrown a long distance and was knocked out. She never regained full consciousness. I imagined what her inner life must have been like. Her demons were good old fashioned Baptist evil demons.

At the turn of the century I had a series of therapeutic dreams in which people in my dreams made helpful suggestions about the stress I was going through at my job. I  had an anxiety dream about doing Mass. Someone in the dream quietly asked me “What’s at stake?”  I woke up and asked myself the question and it eventually helped me get some perspective.

Since then (and some reading) I can see people in my dreams as daemons (roughly defined as a supernatural being somewhere between human and superhuman/godlike…. it’s a Greek thing).

Last night in my dream I was in a room with a lot of people. There were many things happening in the dream: discussions about books and music. I was looking for some music to go away from the situation and rehearse. A young woman I recognized came into the room and said without looking directly at me, “You know they’re beautiful.”

I understood her to be talking about my compositions. I asked her which ones. She replied, “All of them.” Just at this point I realized someone was in the next room performing one of my compositions on a piano. I don’t know which one, I just knew it was mine. I went into the room and discovered he was performing for two other people. I told him I was leaving. I think I was implying he was welcome to come with me.

There was more to this dream than I can remember, but it is an odd thing to have a daemon tell me that all of my music is beautiful. I think this is partly related to the conversation I had with my student about Joshua Bell’s teacher who he describes as never playing a note he didn’t love.

Yesterday in the lesson, my student had not practiced. We however went over one of his assignments, an Interlude by Brahms. I have been working on not picking him to pieces as he plays things for me. I had him play a page. Then play it again. There were some stumbles as he began to recall the piece which he basically knew but had not rehearsed. Before he played it the third time, I asked him to hum the melody as he played.

The third time was both more correct note wise and also musically more beautiful. At this point I mentioned Joshua Bell’s teacher’s love over every note. I told my student that when he hummed he allowed himself to enter into the music more and consequently got more of the details correct as well as playing it musically.

The “loving of every note” I interpret as entering deeply into the music with sheer enjoyment and awareness. For me this is an ideal of performing I seek (and often find myself experiencing). This sort of immersion helps when performing for inattentive noisy church crowds. So when I say “fuck ’em,” what I really mean is how beautiful this music is and what a privilege it is to make it just now.

When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers – The New York Times

This is along disturbing well investigated and reported piece about the damage privatizing can do to public services.

I have a busy day planned with lots of last minute details in prepping for leaving for vacation tomorrow. I’m planning to make pesto ahead; marinade the veggies for the Greek salad; grocery shop; get Mom ready for our absence by stocking her up with stuff; prep the church arena by submitting bulletin info, putting in for my sub’s check, posting the fucking hymns.

Eileen is having breakfast with the rest of the alto section this morning.

All this is to say today’s blog is short for these reasons.

How American Politics Became So Ineffective – The Atlantic

I am put off when pundits lump together Trump and Sanders.  I haven’t finished this essay yet.

The large, beautiful wooden loom that resided in our dining room is gone. Jeff, Misty, and their daughter, Amanda, took it away. I arrived from practicing in time to help Jeff load the big clumsy pieces.  Afterwards, Eileen showered. Then she insisted on going for margaritas and Mexican food. I have learned to drink a margarita at the restaurant we go to. “When in Rome” is a good policy, since martinis often are a bit odd at the local Mexican joints.

The food is good and so are the margaritas when ingested with it. We had a pitcher  of them last night. Eileen drank most of it. I drove. Heh.

I am looking forward to getting out of town for some time away. We are going to Eileen’s family hunting cottage near Grayling. We have met there for many years with the extended Jenkins clan. We stopped doing it at Eileen’s request because she was feeling the stress of being the go between person between the two families, Jenkins and Hatch. I guess now that’s not the case.

I know that I am still suffering from work stress and burn out. I had high BP readings this morning. I think this might possibly be related to the fact that today is the last Sunday for our curates. The last few months working with them has been weird. It has strengthened my aversion for fakey Jesus stuff and dishonesty between people. Fuck the duck.

Today will be easy of course. But I’m not looking forward to it. I sent out an email to several people who have drummed for me before, inviting them to come today and play along on the first hymn. So far only one person bothered to respond and that was to beg off. As usual, people ask for more opportunities to involve parishioners in the music program, but when we get to specifics, they don’t have time or inclination. I take it as a sign of the times.

Speaking of the times, how about that Brexit?

My British family and friends have been very quiet about this on Facebooger. Americans not so much. And then there’s the ongoing saga of the Trump know nothing movement. Somehow Trump managed to make the Brexit story in America about him, his golf course, and his confusion about whether the people of Scotland “won” their country back. If you don’t know about this, they didn’t. Scotland recently had a vote on becoming entirely independent of England. This was voted down and the reason seems to have largely been remaining in the EU. Now Scotland is revisiting leaving England to maintain their EU status. This is apparently too complex for Knownothing Trump. As was the entire concept of Brexit when he was asked about it a few weeks back and it was obvious that he didn’t know what the fuck it was.

One can only agree with George Will as he scurries away from the imploding Republican presidential campaign and the part itself. Trump is an amateur. As well as a bigot, hater, demagogue, yada, yada.

I woke up in the night thinking about the music I am writing. I had some ideas about it (which I did remember this morning).

I also realized that if I wanted to submit some solid past compositions as part of an application for an AGO competition I do have some work that is strong in my opinion, both in the choral area and organ area. I forget all the stuff I have written. Ironically most of it is sitting right here on this web site. I am proud of my Psalm 146 for choir and organ, my Little Recessional for Organ, the Pentecost Suite for marimba and organ, my Jazz Mass. 

But it’s a bit late to come up with a good solid new choral and/or organ idea to be submitted by July 1. No matter. At least I’m writing again. I can only hope it persists. Making up stuff is something that makes me glad to be alive.

So does finding books to read. Yesterday when I was doing my Mom’s weekly library trip I ran across several books that would make good summer reads.

I found Alain de Botton’s The News: A User’s Manual in the large print section as I was scouring for books for my Mom in the small non-fiction section. I didn’t recognize the book but the topic is something I think about quite a bit. Cool.

After finding all the books for my Mom I wandered over to the new books section. New books sections in libraries have been my friends for a long time. I love browsing them. Hystopia is a novel within a novel. Both of them are set in an alternate universe where JFK was not assassinated until a seventh assassination attempt. The book within the book is written by a veteran of the Vietnam war (still raging in this alternate reality). The inside flap says something about this fictional author being in conversation with war narratives like Homer’s Iliad and the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” Cool.

Ben Ratliff has set out to write an updated How to Listen book. He moves past older ideas about music like genre and informed listening. Instead his discussion is divided up into chapters like “Let Me Concentrate! Repetition” and “As It First Looks: Improvisation.” I look forward this New York Times jazz and pop critic’s take on a complex time.

If the guy on the cover of this book reminds you of someone like Dmitri Shostakovich then you’re already on the right track for how this book works. The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes uses Shostakovich’s life to tell a fictional story. I remember reading a review of this book. I was very glad to pick it up off the new shelf of my library.

Yay libraries!

Ralph Stanley, Whose Mountain Music Gave Rise to Bluegrass, Dies at 89 – The New York Times

I admit that I was only vaguely aware of this guy before his memorable appearance in “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Still I do love obits and this is a good one.

I am still thinking about what it means to sketch music daily. I knew an artist once who said that he felt that he must put a line on a piece of paper every day. This was his minimum.

Writers are always writing or talking about some sort of daily routine, often quantifying how many words a day they write.

I watch the word count on this blog and try to keep around 500 words (not counting comments on links).

It maybe that a daily foray into composing will not mean producing a little complete musical piece every day. I have found that it takes me days to come up with a coherent musical concept beginning with little flashes of inspiration. These flashes often seem to later be cleverly interlocked in ways I did not anticipate when thinking them up and writing them down.

So yesterday I wrote what seemed to be an A section of a short piece. This morning I decided to continue working on it. Yesterday when i finished, I began how I thought I wanted the A section to continue. This morning I finished that section and indicated what the contrasting B section will be like. Also I began to understand that the little exercise I am writing sounds a bit like a fucked up boogie. That might make a nice title. “Fucked up boogie”

I also think that part of daily sketching of compositional ideas needs to involve a little chunk of time. Yesterday I looked up after having come up with some ideas and not much time had passed. i resolved that if it takes me an hour or so sometimes to do this silly blog, I should spend at least a half hour working on a musical sketch. I went back to work and didn’t look up again until much later. Same thing this morning.

Part of composing is knowing when to stop and let the ideas go back to wherever they live and grow to gestate further.

So I have managed two days of composing sketches. I have always thought of composing as “making up stuff.” That’s how it feels to me. So far in my musical life my well of ideas for improvising is something that does not seem to go dry. If I sit down at a piano or organ I somehow always have something to say musically. Granted it’s not always particularly profound or earth shattering, but it is always fun.

And I can remember after listening to a composition being performed the distinct interior emotional/psychological reaction/pleasure: “I made that up.”

Armed Good Guys? ‘The Reality of a Firefight Is a Form of Madness’ – The New York Times

This is a letter to the editor from Edward W. Wood, Jr. in Denver, Colorado. It says something that I often think even though I have never been in the situation.

The reality of a firefight is a form of madness: shifting silhouettes, dimly perceived, pop of weapons, freezing fear, trembling hands, most of all the stink: sick, sweet odor of blood mixed with the odor of feces and urine, stale sweat, cordite. Who and where is my enemy?

I did something a bit out character yesterday. I mounted a new towel rack in the kitchen. The old one was covered with plastic and was falling to pieces. This caused me to think that little bits of plastic were possibly falling into food as I prepared it near this stupid rack. We bought a new rack months ago. It’s been sitting in the kitchen in a box. I noticed it yesterday and decided to attack it. I love YouTube. I found some helpful ideas there and I think I’ve done a pretty good job of putting it up.

I have been writing a daily blog entry for many years.  It occurs to me that this is a good discipline and has probably helped me focus and clarify my own ideas for myself. I have been feeling the loss of doing any composing. I mentioned yesterday a couple of contests that I’m probably not going to enter. One reason is that the way they are set up is too incestuous for me. Instead of encouraging innovative thinking from a wider context, the judges want to get a look at the applicants resume and previous work. I’m probably just old and cranky but this seems to suggest that they want to make sure applicants are using musical language they approve of which to my way of thinking is the opposite of innovative creative thinking.

I’m probably wrong about this, but it’s colors the contest for me. But the most important reason I’m not entering is that my chops are rusty from disuse. The creative energy I need to write well is related to not being burned out and having some perspective. You know, all that stuff I’m not really doing well lately.

So,  I’m thinking of adding to my daily regime a daily musical sketch. I usually don’t talk about this sort of thing because it tends to sabotage my motivation and I end up not doing it. But I see this as a bit more mundane like daily practice, blogging or treadmilling.

Leonard Ciampa interviews Peter Krasinski in the July issue of the AGO magazine. I can’t link you in since the AGO weirdly keeps its magazine behind firewalls.

If you don’t recognize these names, don’t worry, neither do I. They are bigwigs in the organ world I guess. On his website, Ciampa has a quote from the Boston Globe about him being a “genius” so there you are.

Anyway, I like what Krasinski says about improvising. He says that he thinks many improvise either mostly using their head or their heart. If they use their head, the music is academically correct but dull, if they use their heart they may be making good music but it’s more intuitive than informed.

I think what I’m trying to do in my composition efforts right now is prime the pump of my heart since that’s where my ideas come from: inspiration.

I stepped on a dead bat in the living room yesterday. This makes me unhappy as I try to release them when they are trapped in the house. We were cleaning because Eileen is meeting with a rep from our health insurance company to discuss what to do when I turn 65 this year. I feel slightly guilty that Eileen is taking care of this for me, but she seems okay with it.

I  think I am struggling to relax into summer. I am contemplating submitting a composition proposals to the AGO, one for choral and one for organ. The submission is rather involved and requires a description of the proposed composition, a resume, and previous compositions. This is probably more than I have in me at this point especially since the deadline for all of this is July 1 of this year.

I have had some ideas rattling around in my head. Unfortunately they haven’t been for choral pieces and my organ writing seems to be going nowhere right now. Nevertheless composing would be an excellent relaxing (and fun) summer activity for me if I can muster the motivation.

Greek is going well. I’m in a challenging stretch but it is rewarding. I’ve just about finished reading King Lear and am thinking of reading Timon of Athens next. Eileen may have sold her loom. She has been talking to some people from Southern Indiana who are very interested in it.

Today Eileen will go exercise before the insurance rep arrives. I will do the farmers market attend a short staff lunch, probably meet with Jen. My student left a voice mail that he wants to meet later in the day. So maybe that’s what we’ll do.

Sonia Sotomayor’s Epic Dissent Explains What’s at Stake When the Police Don’t Follow the Law | The Nation

John Nichols take on recent ruling.

Facebooger ruined my first attempt at yesterday’s blog post by deleting a meme I wanted to write about. Eileen and I can’t exactly figure out why. Neither of us can remember the meme exactly, but it was an anti-Trump one. What caught my attention was the vituperative comment a high school friend put on the meme defending Trump.

I thought I should respond because the comment was full of misinformation and misunderstandings. Bad information and reasoning are threatening are democracy right now.  At least I think so. I wrote a response to my friend without posting it, deciding as I often do to let some time pass before sharing my reaction and ideas. This helps me.

So when I returned to it yesterday morning, the meme was still in my browser. Unfortunately as I began to look through Facebooger for a bit larger version of it, it (the meme, the comments, the whole shebang) went away. Now Eileen (who also saw the meme) and I cannot determine in our own minds what caused Facebooger to exert this censorship. Was it the meme itself? Since we can’t remember exactly the content, it could be that it went over the top. Was it my friend’s comment which was not obscene but full of incendiary words that might flag it on Facebooger? Words and phrases like “one world government crowd” and “Donald Trump is admired and even loved by those who know him.”

Who knows? It’s just a tiny little mystery which confused me enough that I didn’t put in the blog yesterday.

I did, however, spend several hours writing a bulletin article for this next Sunday’s Eucharist. Rev Jen and I have been talking about how unfocused the beginning of our Eucharists are at Grace. Rev Jen thinks we may have swung too far on the pendulum from a “me and Jesus” quiet moment before worship to loud and extended conversations that create chaos.

When Jen brought this up to me, I said that one idea would be to suggest (via bulletin notes?) how this time has changed in worship. Previous to the liturgical reforms and its evolved understandings, the prelude time was often a time to come very quietly into church and pray while soft music was playing. Now I am not that bothered by the rambunctiousness because I understand the beginning of the service as a process of gathering community which some silly liturgists say begins when one awakes on Sunday morning and starts getting ready to go. Those silly liturgists make sense to me.

But the gathering does not necessarily need more than a greeting to each other. What then, I asked Jen, shall we teach people to do at this time? I suggested encouraging them to greet each other then sit and prepare for Eucharist. I think it would be good to encourage them to look at the readings for the day. These readings are available to parishioners in leaflets. They could look over the bulletin and begin to see how the service is usually built around ideas in the readings and the specific feast. They could, of course, listen to the prelude.

I have been thinking about how wonderfully Leonard Bernstein helped listeners understand and appreciate music. I often notice that not many people seem to be zeroing in on what I am doing at the organ. Many times what I am performing are wonderful pieces of music. Why not help people or at least provide them with a window into the profundity that is often happening in their vicinity? This is what I’m attempting in next Sunday’s bulletin note. I see it as a very small step toward what Jen and I have been discussing. Here’s a link to what I am emailing the office this morning. I think it’s pretty good.

A Tale of Two Parties – The New York Times

Krugman thinks there’s a difference between the two political parities in the USA. He could be right.

Cathleen Schine’s ‘They May Not Mean To, but They Do’ – The New York Times

This looks like an interesting read to me.

A. B. Yehoshua: By the Book – The New York Times

This is worth reading and noting books that this guy recommends. It’s a bit more thoughtful and informed than this column often is.

I did make Salata Mese for us after church yesterday. I only used half of the cheese and marinaded veggies so we can have it again today if we want.

At church, Jen announced that our curates have a gig at St. Philip’s, Beulah, Michigan. I think this is their last week. Jen announced we would honor them next week. I’m hoping they don’t seek a pow wow with Jen and me this week. The last few weeks have clarified for me how far apart our understandings of church and liturgy are. It would be difficult to talk to them constructively and helpfully about that at this point. But we’ll see.

I am continuing to enjoy learning about Aristophanes. I have started slowly reading the scholarly edition of The Clouds that I own in Greek. There are about 120 pages of introductory material before you get to the actual text of the play itself. They are written in typical dense, meaning-packed, scholarly prose and i find myself looking up words.

So far I have looked up stemmatology (the study of the transmission of texts, esp. in manuscript form), doxographer (a writer who collects and records opinions of the Greek philosphers…. doxa – opinion… grapher…. writer), and scholion (an explanatory note esp. on ancient Greek or Latin writers… schole …. Greek for “school”).

Sheesh!

Eileen and I went to the Farmers Market yesterday. We bought kale, eggs, strawberries, spinach, asparagus, cauliflower, zucchini, summer squash, onions, and lettuce. After we came home I crushed and sweetened the strawberries from our previous trip and we used them to make strawberry shortcake (with store bought sweet cake).

Then I parboiled the cauliflower, zucchini, and some green beans from the freezer. My plan is to make Salata Meze (Greek Salad) with them. First the cooked veggies need to marinade. Then I will lay out rinsed lettuce and spinach, dump the cooked veggies on it, top with sliced onions and tomatoes. On top I will put some locally made feta cheese which we bought with this salad in mind.

Here’s a link to an online recipe that is very similar. Like my original recipe, this one calls for black olives. I have always made it without them because no one I was cooking for but me liked them.

I did the Mary library trip after that while Eileen did dishes. Dishes has evolved into my job, but she asked me if I wanted her to do them while I was cooking. I responded with a hearty yes! But I still got up this morning and washed up the few dishes left from last night.

While at the library I not only turned in Mom’s old books and found her some new ones, I also checked out the book Anne McKnight thought I should read, Falling Upward: a Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr.

I’m not necessarily planning on reading it. A cursory glance vindicates my comment to McKnight that much of the self help stuff is thinly veneered wisdom that is already present in more unadulterated way in the culture.

I can’t help but gently notice that in our hour together she typecast me as someone interested in spirituality. If that is true, her definition of it differs from mine.

Eileen dropped me off near the church and I  prepared for today. I also picked out some music to perform a week from today. We are singing “If Thou but Suffer God to Guide Thee,” which is sung to the wonderful chorale “Wer nur den lieben Gott”. At least that’s my recommendation to my boss. I am planning to play a couple of settings by Bach for the prelude and another one by Harold Vetter for the postlude. They won’t require much prep and that’s partly what I’m looking for right now.

Christo’s Newest Project: Walking on Water – The New York Times

This is a very cool installation in Italy which is open to the public through July 3. The saffron fabric is buoyed up so that one can walk on it. There are no guard rails.

Home Should Not Be a War Zone – The New York Times

Written by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a voice of sanity in a society gone mad.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

Additional history…. stuff I did not know.