I have been thinking about the terms, conservative and liberal. The popular usage of these words has been distorted beyond any real meaning in the last few years. I am a firm believer that framing doesn’t actually change meaning only shape initial reaction and superficial perception. By that I mean, the way the right in America has turned the word, liberal, into a pejorative along with others (union, socialism). Meaning has to go deeper than the easy superficial use.

My father used to call himself a “progressive-conservative.”

I think anyone interested in history has to have a side of them that wants to “conserve” story.

All of us are conservative in some things in our lives, things we don’t want changed.

And then there’s the word, liberal. I always hear the “liber” in it as “freedom.” Freedom is an important concept to the human spirit.

We grapple with the idea of having freedom of will, freedom of movement, freedom of thought. These aren’t necessarily small political ideas, but big ideas that apply to most people.

So it seems that “conservatives” in America don’t “conserve” and that “liberals” aren’t looking to “free things up” particularly.

What a weird usage.

I usually identify with the political left. I guess that makes me “liberal” in one sense at least.

However, I like the label, “progressive,” it reminds me of the word, “improvement.” And I also have a problem with inaccurate understandings, uninformed understandings. Especially if these are my own, but not limited to them.

Much of the societal rhetoric that bothers to talk about ideas exposes positions that simply react instead of stakes out ways to improve our society. I think it is this reaction that bothers me.

It’s related to the psychological notion of differentiation. I take differentiation to mean “knowing where you end and I begin” …. examining one’s own situation first and taking responsibility for it…

Lack of differentiation is when we are so preoccupied with others’ flaws and actions we are not aware of our own. Friedman calls this “globbing” and it’s a good word for it.

All of this is related to my attempt to read an article on The American Spectator web site I linked lately. I thought the thinking in it started out interesting and engaging. Gradually I realized that the left was getting the blame for a lot of stuff historically. Finally when the author cited the Snopes trial as an example of progressives sneering at real Americans.

Above all, our educated class was bitter about America. In 1925 the American Civil Liberties Union sponsored a legal challenge to a Tennessee law that required teaching the biblical account of creation. The ensuing trial, radio broadcast nationally, as well as the subsequent hit movie Inherit the Wind, were the occasion for what one might have called the Chautauqua class to drive home the point that Americans who believed in the Bible were willful ignoramuses.   Angelo M. Codevilla

Wait a minute, I thought as I read, are you defending the reactionary position that evolution is not true.

I’m afraid I quit reading.  Our society is more complex than this obviously erudite writer wants to admit. I think we have a ruling class which encompasses people on all positions of the political spectrum. They are united by their profit motive and their efforts to keep money. They are not reactionary or progressive, simply greedy.

My grad organ teacher, Craig Cramer, used to say that whenever he performed he “went up against the wall.” I took this to mean that it was an ordeal, a testing, every time. Yesterday, although it was satisfying to perform two pieces by Bach on piano and organ for the prelude and postlude, by the time the postlude was over I was drained more than usual.

It had taken ingenuity to pull the choir together for the performance of the well known “Flocks  in Pastures Green Abiding.” The one soprano who had attended Wednesday’s rehearsal came very late. In the meantime, I had tried to pull together a blend between people who hadn’t rehearsed together. It was challenging. I’m afraid in the end the blend wasn’t as good as I can sometimes pull together. But it was passable.

For the prelude, I pulled one of the adult servers aside and told him I was going to play a difficult piano piece for the prelude and it would help me if they didn’t stand near me and talk while I was doing so.

He was amicable and said that they could do that (not stand near me and talk…. I suggested they stand on the other side of the choir area and talk).

So my Bach Art of Fugue 9 had its first airing. It went pretty well I think. After the closing hymn, Jodi the curate complimented me on putting an interlude in between the two stanzas of the closing hymn allowing the entire procession to leave. She had never noticed that I do this sometimes.

My G minor fugue went very well, better than the Art of Fugue 9. Later at the Curragh (local watering hole and restaurant), some people who had been visitors at the morning service complimented me on our music and said they especially liked the postlude. Will wonders never cease?

I pulled out my Pischna this morning.

This is a piano finger technique book my teacher gave me. His notes are still written in it. It was refreshing to review them this morning. I think I’m interested in reigniting my technique via scales and exercises both on the piano and the organ.

For organ, I find it helpful to use the Bach D major as sort of a technical exercise. It begins with a full D major scale in the pedal. Then there are many pedal solos to practice. I like doing the whole piece to practice technique.

So I’m tired but satisfied this morning. I put on Glenn Gould last night to sip my martini by. I was amused to find that he has recorded the Art of Fugue 9 on the organ.

As far as I can tell he does not do the main subject in the pedals but he does use the pedals for the long theme. I hadn’t thought of doing that. My organ arrangement has the quick them in the pedals. This is doable I guess but I wouldn’t be able to do too fast unless it was the only thing I practiced for a month.

Jill Twiss – The New York Times

I like these profiles where they say what people are reading and keep track. Jill Twiss turned me on to two new things:

AND

Eileen and I are probably coming late to both of these. “Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt” is hilarious. The “Undisclosed Podcast” is a good fix for those of us who miss Serial’s treatment of this ongoing story.

thank you, Jill Twiss.

Why Americans Can’t Vote – The New York Times

We can’t vote because the ruling class doesn’t want us to. it’s not just Republicans. Welcome to the citizenlesss democracy!

272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants? – The New York Times

Fascinating bit of history breaks into the present.

I have spent time this morning practicing piano, therefore I don’t have as much time to blog. Like yesterday I went through my four octave major scales and then played slowly through the Art of Fugue 9 four times. Yesterday I did one of these four play-throughs up to my performance tempo in order to time it. It came out at just over four minutes. There is an awful lot of content in that four minutes and I look forward to performing this piece as today’s prelude.

A few days ago I considered playing this piece on the manuals of the organ. I experimented with different sounds. Ultimately I decided that Glenn Gould was right. The piano is a better instrument for polyphony, better able to bring out voices. The organ was superior in sustaining long notes so that they could clearly be heard. But the inner voices got more lost.

I know that I am not the musician Gould was. Nevertheless I can learn from his ideas, eh?

I spent hours yesterday practicing. I began the day with scales and Hanon at the piano. It’s been a while since I have done my scales and Hanon. Practicing Hanon reminds me of a story I read once about a reporter covering Oscar Peterson. The reporter interviewed the Canadian in his apartment. After saying good-bye, he heard Peterson begin his Hanon exercises from the hallway as he left.

If it’s good enough for Peterson to return to, it’s certainly good enough for me.

I found my scales and Hanon slightly rusty.

I first got serious about scales while living in Oscoda and helping my brother, his wife, and Eileen run a used book store. Predictably business was often slow. There was a room in the back where we kept a piano for lessons. Many days I spent hours back there practicing scales and Hanon exercises.

At this point, my training was a couple years of piano lessons from Richard Strasburg at Ohio Weslyan U in Worthington. Under his tutelage I had reached what pianists call the “sonatina” level of playing. In other words, not exactly bachelor of music level.

However, Strasburg’s pedagogy was outstanding. It pointed me the way toward learning more about how to play piano. His was the last piano lessons I ever received. Since then I have been an autodidact.

I have spent many hours with the piano literature. I can remember in the 80s playing Brahms in a recital at my church (First Pres downtown Detroit). The minister of education had her masters degree in organ. I remember talking to her about my own lack of confidence in my Brahms playing. She told me I played it beautifully and I had nothing to apologize for. Thank goodness there are musicians like her in the world. This was an important turning point for me I can see now.

Currently I sort of think of myself as a guerrilla musician.

In warfare, guerrilla fighters are unconventional and shrewd, often seeing the situation much more clearly than their opponents. (Think Americans in the Revolutionary War or North Vietnamese in the Vietnamese War).

I probably have too high an opinion of my abilities here. But if I don’t believe myself, I don’t think there are many trained musicians locally who will. None of them are like that woman in Detroit who looked past my flaws to the music.

I have a life long trait at throwing myself directly at difficulties, whether this is the prose of Sartre’s On Being and Nothingness in my early teens or persisting with Ligeti’s incredibly difficult piano etudes and attempting to learn Classical Greek in my 60s.

My piano playing is to many listeners apparently one of my strong suits. Locally I think the trained musicians only recognize my improvising abilities. This is probably more about them than me, since I know I’m a good improviser but I’m also a good pianist, organist and conductor. These attributes seem largely invisible to the local academics. No mattter.

America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution | The American Spectator

This is a long article I linked yesterday. I was reading it this morning when I discovered that The American Spectator sees itself as conservative. Cool. I love reading people that are coming at things differently from me. There ideas about the ruling class seem pretty bipartisan so far in this 2010 article.

I don’t exactly know why Classical Greek stuff is so important to me. Unlike many of my interests at this age I have difficulty tracing origins of my interest in Plato, Homer, and the great Greek playwrights.

Probably Mortimer J. Adler had something to with it via his Great Books anthologies.

Also studying history of any part of the Western Civilization (e.g. music, art, literature, politics , philosophy) leads one back to the Greeks. The terms Greeks used for their modes are still used to talk about some musical modes. Terms like Dorian, Mixolydian and so on.

I have read both the Iliad and the Odyssey through at least twice in English. For some reason it catches my imagination.  I am intrigued that its origin was probably aural. I would like to know how the poetry works. I understand that it’s in couplets. But look forward to learning much more when I can read it in the original Greek.

I suppose I have to think about the fact that studying the New Testament and Liturgy also inevitably leads to Greek study. I know that my Dad taught me a great deal that I only realize when I examine my own understanding carefully. For example, I knew that the sigma (the S) is written differently inside a word than at the end. I think my Dad told me this.

He also probably talked about the Greek words for love (agape, eros, philia… ). Reading in psychology and anthropology also leads to thinking about classical Greek ideas and myths.

I struggled this morning with my Greek. At the end of each chapter is a particularly thorough and difficult set of exercises. The one I am working my way through now is a series of paired sentences, one in Greek to translate to English and then another in English to translate to Greek. As you understand and translate the Greek sentence, you are then supposed to apply some of the grammatical understanding to coming up with a Greek translation of a different English sentence.

Difficult.

I missed a harpsichord recital yesterday. My friend Rhonda was unhappy that she couldn’t attend and urged me to go. I didn’t. Besides my usual laziness I think it was partly because I would find it heartbreaking to be so close to harpsichord literature (which i adore and can play) and know that I don’t entree to Hope’s harpsichords.

It’s slightly possible I could gain this access. But not likely.

The organ/harpsichord guy at Hope will not “friend” me on Facebooger despite repeated requests. I can’t blame him entirely. He and I have a “past.” I tried to reconcile with him years ago, but apparently that didn’t work for him.

He and I probably live on different planets of being. His is more academic and British. Mine more autodidactic and definitely American. Maybe he just thinks I look weird. Who knows.

Anyway, Rhonda, if you read this, this is part of my reluctance to go hear that recital. I also picture a harpsichord rattling around in the large auditorium (where the new pipe organ is hidden). But judging from pics on Facebooger they held it in a more intimate setting.

That must have been nice. As Rhonda says the recitalist, Greg Cowell, is a fabulous player. I’m sure he did well.

However I glance over at my harpsichord with its eight functional notes and my spirits sag. I’ve got to get back to working on it. Soon.

I’m embedding this talk again because I think it’s so important. I reposted it on Facebooger where I point out that McChesney says at one point  (18:46):

 
In the United States… when decisions are being
made, if you’re not at the table, when those
decisions are being made, you’re what’s being
served at the table. Right now the American people
are on the plate, they’re not on the table. Democracy
means you get them at the table as full participants
in the discussion.

 America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution | The American Spectator

When I searched for this metaphor quoted above I ran across its use in this 2010 article. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks interesting.

I am plowing through George Steiner’s book, Antigones. I have a life long interest in classical Greek poetry , philosophy and drama. Ostensibly each morning I spend time scraping away a few molecules of my ignorance of the Greek language in study. Behind this determination to learn Greek are a host of connections to texts by Plato, Homer and the playwrights (Sophocles, Aristophanes, and others).

Steiner begins his examination of the endurance of the Antigone story in Western Civilization’s “Literature, Art and Thought” with the philosophers. Many of the thinkers he draws on are familiar to me: Kant, Shelly, Matthew Arnold, Goethe, Hegel, Nietsche and others. Steiner is obviously working in a intellectual vein that also includes more modern thinks like Kierkegaard and Borges (both of whom I have read a bit in) and even Walter Benjamin and Adorno (whom I have not read; the latter of which Frank Zappa seems to have been influenced by).

The upshot of this is that he mentions a writer that I have not heard of, much less read: Friedrich Hölderlin.

Apparently  Hölderlin was a very influential Romantic German poet and thinker. As described by Steiner I find his ideas intriguing. Hölderlin was interested in translation and did a German one of Antigone that was thought of as doggerel at the time (early 1800s) but was later considered the ‘highest poetry.’ He seems to have anticipated some of Borges’s fascinating ideas about the recreation and originality of translating from one language/culture to another.

Anyway, this morning I thought I should read “Patmos” which is one of Hölderlin’s last poems. Like Schumann, Hölderlin suffered from mental illness and spent a great deal of his life locked up in a tower.

(Schuman actually based a piano suite on Hölderlin’s works according to Steiner: Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133. My copy of this music has no mention of Hölderlin.)

Here are links to the poem and an article by the translator. Warning: the poem is long and uses lots of Christian allusions (Patmos is the island where John is traditionally thought to have had his visions that he records in the crazy book of the Bible: Revelations).

Despite my own atheism I enjoyed the allusions. This is helped by the fact that Hölderlin himself rejected the ministry because of his own unbelief.

Patmos | Harper’s Magazine

 The Tower Between Being and Time | Harper’s Magazine

Speaking of long stuff, this morning I listened to the BBC news synopsis before getting up. Thus I needed something to listen to while cleaning the kitchen and making coffee. I found the following video. Man o Man. McChesney and Nichols (whose book, Tragedy and Farce: How The American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy I am reading) have some shattering insights into what is happening to the planet via technology and the basic change in humanity we are facing. They are scholars. I haven’t listened to this entire talk yet. Did you know that FDR proposed a second Bill of Rights in his last State of the Union (link to Wiki article on this).

I recommend listening to this men. So far I have found it intellectually stimulating and thought provoking.

Talk by Robert McChesney and John Nichols co-authors of the book “People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy” recorded March 9, 2016 at Town Hall Seattle.

 Scientists Unveil New ‘Tree of Life’ – The New York Times

Eukaryotes (cell based life) is only a small twig on this tree. Wow!

In Science, It’s Never ‘Just a Theory’ – The New York Times

The lack of understanding around this makes me crazy.

So yesterday was full. I worked hard on my Bach piano piece in the morning. Called Ann McKnight the therapist and set up a meeting in June (her first available time). She said she was a provider for Priority Health (our insurance people) and that she did not need a referral. Eileen (who was at Evergreen when I made this call) pointed out that we are an HMO and that McKnight might need a referral. I left a message on her answering service to this effect.

Eileen busied herself with taxes and I walked to church to practice organ. Eileen attended a swimming aerobic class in the afternoon. After that we drove up for my doctor’s appointment.

The appointment went well. Doctor Fuentes is easy to talk to and intelligent. We went thoroughly through why I asked for a referral to mental health care people. She told me that she had already referred McKnight to our insurance so we were covered there.

She gave me the usual GP questions about depression for thoroughness sake (Thoughts of suicide? Binge eating?). She said I didn’t have warning signals of clinical depression but agreed it would be a good idea to pursue the mental health thing.

She also looked at my BP readings and listened to my heart. She was pleased with progress there. And I actually was a pound lighter in the weigh-in than the last time she saw me (I still need to lose weight, thought). The nurse took my blood pressure and it was low. This is a big deal for me. Doctor Fuentes and her staff think I have “white coat syndrome” because I often have initially high blood pressure readings but usually calm down and have better ones before I leave their office.

I, on the other hand, think I have a weird inclination to see weight gain as failure. So they weigh me and my anxiety is high about failure. Then they take my blood pressure. Yesterday I didn’t worry about it having gained weight. I knew that I had.

I also see this odd inclination to equate testing with success or failure in my own Mother. I know that I feel like I fail several times a day. But I rarely give up in the face of it. It’s usually musically related but not always.

I remind myself that I easily accept failure and shortcomings in others, why not in myself?

Doctor Fuentes was amused by my concern about lead poisoning. Apparently since the Flint debacle this is something she hears more. She instantly said we would test my blood for lead levels. I will go to the lab next week for a blood draw.

This morning my friend Rhonda has graciously agreed to play piano duets with me. I haven’t prepared the scores the way I wanted to but I am looking forward to this.

Last night I stumbled across a wonderful live recording of Keith Jarrett and his trio playing standards. Here is the entire lengthy video.

This recording is one of the best arguments I have seen for returning to the classic Fake Book tunes to make artistic statements. I have only listened to about twenty minutes of this video so far, but it blows me away. Jarrett and his trio definitely have something to say artistically that I rarely hear in academic Jazz. Of course Jarrett himself is a direct line to the Jazz tradition having participated in some Miles Davis recordings including one of my favorites, “Bitches Brew.”

Maybe I should add, that one of the things I love about Jarrett’s playing is the lyricism of his improvised melodies. This definitely is to the fore in what I have listened to of this recording.

I managed to speak to two mental health care givers yesterday. That’s the good news. The bad news, both John Gibson and Ann McKnight are full up right now and not taking new patients. McKnight offered to see me in June. I told her no because I hadn’t talked to Gibson at that point. But now I’m think she might be my best bet. I have a doctor’s appointment today and will ask her to refer me to McKnight.

I also emailed my boss who recommended two of these people. She is out of commission for a while as she recuperates from major surgery. She did, however, tell me I could email her during this time if something was on my mind and this definitely qualifies.

Yesterday was also the third Monday in a row I have observed myself experience an emotional crash.

I was getting tasks done. I called the tax accountant and set up an appointment for her to see us in the afternoon and finalize 2015 tax returns for Mom and Eileen and me. Called the shrinks. Spent serious time at the piano and organ preparing for some rigorous Bach performances at church this weekend.

Meanwhile, Eileen was finalizing our tax reforms when the dang computer printer refused to work properly. I managed to stay calm through this. We decided to go to the grocery store (probably a mistake), buy a new ink cartridge and while we were there pick up stuff on our ongoing grocery list.

This went okay. But by this time my feet hurt and I was dragging. On the ride back from the store, Eileen said she was too tired to mess with it anymore and that we should install the ink cartridge the next day and see if that worked then. This made sense.

So it’s after 5 PM. We’re home and I have the groceries put away and am merrily making my evening martini. Eileen pointed out that I had not been managing to clean drinking glasses thoroughly, since she noticed residue on some in the cupboard. At first I did okay with this, but eventually I crashed emotionally and felt entirely like a failure until bedtime.

Let me clear. This is not about Eileen’s behavior but about mine. If I thought Eileen was acting creepy I would instantly tell her and would not be writing about it here. She has been involved in what looks like an emerging pattern because she is really the only person around me. But not culpable.

So today I want to continue to intensely prepare for Bach for this Sunday. I have already spent some time with the piano piece (Art of Fugue 9) this morning. I am of course dreading my doctor’s appointment, but hope I can remember everything to tell her and to ask her. 

Mark Green: How Republicans rig the game – NY Daily News

I follow Ralph Nader on Facebooger he (or his staff) recommended this article.

The music went well yesterday at church. The two organ pieces I prepared and played by Alice Parker took an inordinate amount of changing of stops (sounds) throughout. I have become stubborn and insist on sometimes playing music that has soft sections in it for postludes. People pretty much ignore me anyway. And talk loud, of course. After the postlude yesterday (a charming jig for organ by Parker), my two listeners (Eileen and the Bass who is also a Methodist Minister) seemed appreciative. In fact, the Bass was chuckling which I counted as a sign of success since Parker asks for the performer to play her dances “with Humor.”

Eileen is at Evergreen for “Enhanced Fitness.” This means movement to music.  I awoke at 3 AM last night and didn’t really get back to sleep. I think that contemplating therapy was on my mind. After I finish this blog, I’m going to call Lynn McKnight and ask if my doctor gave her a referral. Thinking about going into therapy can be overwhelming for me. I have such difficulty getting people to understand my point of view. And if the person I am talking to is not familiar with stuff that is important to me (like certain books, music and poetry) I am often bogged down in trying to reorient them. Meanwhile, the eyes of my listener often become veiled or confused. What the fuck am I talking about? their body seems to say to me.

I am determined to give therapy a try. But at the same time, I feel weighed down with my own inability to relate to people around me these days. And I’m not that consciously unhappy. Nor do I plan to adapt to others’ confusion or lack of orientation. This leaves me with a metaphor of being invisible.

I’m also planning to call the tax people. We haven’t heard from them since we dropped off Mom’s and our taxes a while ago.

I think I need this day off.

Two hours of performing classical music and jazz with my friend, Amy, didn’t take too much of a toll on me. I was glad. Aging is tricky. Is my fatigue related to my schedule, my age, or some form of depression? So I am tired this morning but not exhausted.

I suppose we were in a well to do home in a fancy suburb of Holland. The party was catered. The daughter of the anniversary couple tipped us $40 after we had played. Most of the people at the party stood away from us across an area of comfy chairs and sofas. They felt distant. Occasionally someone would come over and assure us they were listening and they appreciated us. Once, a young boy sat on a nearby sofa and listened intently as we played.

I played a Yamaha home electric piano owned by the husband of the anniversary couple. The keys were not as weighted as my own Yamaha. The sound was not terribly good, but I was glad not to have to haul my own equipment to perform. My electric piano doesn’t sound that good anyway.

My friend Rhonda must have read about me preparing piano duets since she emailed me yesterday. We are planning to meet this Wednesday to play some.

I was discouraged when i weighed this morning.

I am gaining weight. And of course I have a doctor’s appointment Tuesday. I am planning to contact Ann McKnight this week. She is the second therapist Rev Jen recommended to me. When I called last week her answering machine said she was out of town until tomorrow.

I’m not convinced that I am suffering from a dire mental illness, but I will continue to pursue this.

McKnight is not covered by our insurance. It’s possible there might be a way to submit her fees as an out of network provider. I’ve asked Eileen to check into this. If McKnight doesn’t work out, I will return to John Gibson.

This all will cost money out of pocket apparently.

We spent a bit more money than we should have this pay period. The $270 from yesterday’s gig will go right in the account to cover bills (and possibly shrink fees).

The Voter Support Agency Accused of Suppressing Votes – The New York Times

I now understand the weird campaign to stop Americans from voting in several ways. There is the obvious idea that Republicans benefit from lower voter turn out.

But McChesney also postulates that the depoliticization of our society via loss of franchise benefits the oligarchy (which is not limited to a political party). It echoes the “bread and circuses” notion of ancient Rome. And of course racism drives the American dream.

I spent an hour or so poking around in the Hope College library trying to find information about “Flocks in Pastures Green Abiding” or “Sheep may safely graze.” Katherine K. Davis did a version which is copyrighted 1942. This predates the publication of the Oxford Easy Anthem Book (1962). However a little more poking around online shows that Roper’s arrangement from the OEA was published in 1946.

Sometimes it’s helpful to simply browse materials when doing this kind of search. This is what I did yesterday. I didn’t learn much. I think my next step will be to carefully compare the original cantata text to Phyllis James’ “translation” which Roper uses.

Looking at the above it looks like Davis wrote the text: “Sheep may safely graze.”

I pulled together a bunch of piano duets yesterday.

My friend Rhonda mentioned playing duets together.  When we did so previously, I found myself stumbling quite a bit to keep up with Rhonda’s tempos. She is a good reader of course. So I’m thinking of practicing a bit before we end up playing some together. I love Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos and own volume two of Max Reger’s weird 4 hands piano transcriptions of them. I also have a creaky old edition of Opera overtures of Mozart and Weber for four hands. And Schubert’s symphony.

Today my goal is to survive prep for tomorrow’s church and a two hour gig with Amy the violinist.

Why Musicians Need Silence in an Always-Connected World

In this interview with Stephen Hough, he makes some excellent points about classical music. I especially like his ideas about not dumbing music down to the audience. Very cool. And very different from Chilly Gonzales’ weird resentment of classical music’s demands on listeners.

Yesterday Janice Ian celebrated her birthday by sharing a new song. I like it. I especially like that she has a “bridge.” This third section (after a few verses and choruses) of the music which offers a bit of variety seems to be omitted these days by many pop writers.

So Saturday I have a gig with my friend and colleague Amy Hertel Piersma. She booked it for us. For $250 a piece we will play for two hours. It’s a surprise 50th Anniversary party in a home. The people putting it on requested a mix of classical and jazz. We have developed a pretty cool play list including some pieces she and I play very well: a Mozart violin sonata movement and two movements of an incredible CPE Bach violin sonata. In addition to this we have added some lovely Loillet and Telemann. Amy is making a little collection of Jazz tunes she recognizes in my Real Books for both of us. This will be fun two hours for me.

I sometimes let the library set my reading patterns, putting books that I have checked out higher on my daily reading list than books I own. Consequently, I have been working on the following two books.

Bernard Knox has called George Steiner’s book, Antigones: How the Antigone Legend has Endured in Western Literature, Art, and Thought “a profound analytical discussion of the impact of [Antigone] … on the modern consciousness.” That was good enough for me to want to examine it. Now I’m reading it in earnest. Steiner delves deeply into areas that interest me like philosophy (Hegel) and Romantic poets (Byron) and there understanding of “Antigone.”

The book is full of thought provoking sentences like “The coordinates of Idealism are exile and attempted homecoming.” I think of myself as a life long outsider which is a kind of exile. Steiner is speaking in a strict sense about Idealism in terms of philosophical discipline, but it still causes an echo in my little pea brain when he says later “self-exile seems implicit in the life of consciousnesss, in the capacities of the human ego to think ‘outside’ and ‘against’ itself.” This observation rings throughout my own consciousness. I see myself as someone who often embraces his own struggle.

The other library book I am madly reading is Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy America. If you read this blog with any regularity and attention you know that co-author of this book, Robert W. McChesney, is on my intellectual radar these days as I think about our political system and media. I am reading an ebook copy of his book,  Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty First Century: Media, Politics and the Struggle for Post-Capital Democracy. In it, he mentioned Tragedy and Farce as important reading to understand his ideas.

I had already checked this book out and was reading the illuminating chapter on the November Presidential Election of 2004. (Did you know that GW Bush was caught using an ear piece feeding him answers in the debates that year? The New York Times killed the story just before the election that year as at the same time the right crescendoed the hideous Swift Boat lies about candidate Kerry) McChesney’s mention of his own book motivated me to return to the beginning of Tragedy and Farce to see what else he has to say.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton Turn to Attacks on Credentials – The New York Times

This is a troubling turn of events in the Democratic presidential primaries. I have been trying to understand it. I have a suspicion that Sanders and/or his campaign might have been reacting as much to the following Washington Post headline as to anything Clinton actually said.

So church work is percolating along in the usual crazy manner. I have been courting a parishioner, encouraging her to meet with me weekly and work together on her flute playing. She message me yesterday that not only could she not make our appointment today, but she really needed to back away for the time being due to health reasons. Perfectly reasonable.

Then i received a text from a choir member. He wouldn’t be coming to rehearsal even though he knew I would be introducing new music. When I arrived at the rehearsal, another chorister had written on the calendar that he would be arriving late due to a lecture being giving on The German Requiem of Brahms (which he and other members of my choir are singing with a local group). Several people have signed out for upcoming rehearsals. We only have six weeks left.

I continue to attempt to draw volunteers into more commitment by providing some cool music and good rehearsal techniques. This fails. I realize this is not something unique to my situation. In our society in the USA people’s commitment to extra activities has changed drastically. This makes little things like amateur choirs and handbell choirs very difficult to do well.

I gave a good rehearsal last night. But it was difficult. I systematically presented the new material attacking two of the three challenging pieces with strategic rehearsal techniques that seemed to pay off immediately.

We ended the rehearsal going down the organ and singing through Sunday’s Alice Parker anthem (easy) and the E. Stanley Roper rendition of Bach’s “Flocks in pastures green abiding” (not so easy). The people present did a good job with this especially for a first run through evening.

Speaking of this last piece, as I prepared for last night’s rehearsal I realized I didn’t know anything about how this famous adaptation from Bach’s Cantata 208 came into popularity. Since then I have been poking around, googling, looking at text books and trying to figure out where the choral harmonies and text came from since they are not original to Cantata 208 which is a hunting cantata.

Afterwards I had two choristers wanting to continue to attend the Brahms lectures. They will go for two more weeks. One of them immediately backed down when I began explaining to her my strategy of learning some cool music. She had (of course) arrived too late to hear this explanation that I gave to the people present at the beginning of rehearsal. The other chorister was undaunted when I pointed out that it was inconvenient to church choirs to schedule an important series of lectures on Wednesday evenings because we were not the only church choir rehearsing on this night. He pointed out that the church where the lecture was being given must not have their choir rehearsal on that night.

Sigh.

I will continue to keep trying to figure out where “Flocks in pastures green abiding” originated. Plus I think I’m going to look closer at the original score from the Cantata and see what I glean from that.

I perceive that I am feeling low this morning. The copy machine has been on the fritz since last Friday (very low toner cartridge).

Mary told me that this happened because the company that regularly sends us all of our supplies for our printers sent a package that she thought contained black ink but only ended up having color ink in it. Usually, she went on, she can order toner and have it arrive the next day. She was expecting it the past few days. If it arrives today, it will come after two when the UPS deliveries usually come. This is a bit late for me.

I need to make copies of one anthem for this evening. I am going to go to Kinkos this morning and just do it. I had originally thought I would do two anthems, but yesterday I looked at the version of “Sheep may safely graze” in the Oxford Not So Easy Anthem Book and decided it was superior to the St. James Press version I was thinking of doing.

The organ accompaniment is a little more difficult. But the St. James Version omits the entire B section of da capo Cantata movement. The B section is quite beautiful and I don’t want to omit it. Hence I spent an hour or so working on the organ accompaniment in the Oxford version (which we own) yesterday.

There was a stupid meme on Facebooger yesterday that said something about real friends not turning their back on you. The phrase, “turning their back on you,” sort of lodged in my brain. I wonder if it’s an apt description of how some people treat me. It’s sort of the “being invisible” notion but seems to include the idea that I will continue on my merry way despite being ignored and/or avoided.

I am thinking especially here of a few men I have known as friends and colleagues who have chosen to pretty much terminate our relationship from their end. Don’t worry. It’s probably just the mental illness talking.

Mark mentioned that it’s easy to “pathologize” one’s behavior. I instantly recognized that behavior in myself. Mention a symptom, mental or physical, and a part of me instantly suspects that it describes me. Not helpful, believe me.

Eileen and I walked to The Good Earth yesterday for breakfast. My phone told me it was .9 miles from our home. Oddly while we were there the phone thought it would be .8 miles back to the house. Hmmm. I finished up my blog yesterday at the restaurant and had Eileen proof it (and okay the mention of our “silly misunderstanding”). Both of us missed the typo in the title. Thank you, Elizabeth, for pointing it out. It’s fixed now.

Iceland’s Prime Minister Steps Down Amid Panama Papers Scandal – The New York Times

Interesting that this report from the NYT doesn’t mention the organization that actually did the leg work for this acquisition of info. On the Media is where I learned about it in this podcast:

Behind the Panama Papers – On The Media – WNYC

this is the website of the organization: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists:

 The Panama Papers · ICIJ

I think the description of how these reporters used a Facebooger like interface to work on this vast amount of material is very very cool (it’s on the OTM podcast).

It also puts me in mind of something I read recently in McChesney: Journalists in order to be journalists these days need to be scholars not lawyers. By that he meant scholars who dig into information to understand and even prove own notions wrong. Of course most so called journalists these days (especially broadcast types) are more lawyers or even hucksters.

I noticed that I went through a similar trajectory of mood yesterday that I did the Monday before. I started out fine but by the middle of the day I was watching myself reproach myself in terms of inadequacy. I’m not sure where this comes from. But often on the day after a performance my emotional terrain is one of discouragement and even failure.

I phoned the office at church to find out if the copy machine had had the toner changed. I went to use it over the weekend and it had a message to change the tone cartridge. Mary said that she had ordered one last week and it would be in today or tomorrow with any luck.

I was  (am) hoping to get some new  anthems ready for tomorrow night’s choir rehearsal. This will involve legally photocopying two anthems. I asked Mary to email me when the cartridge arrives.

On the way home from church, Eileen and I had silly misunderstanding. After this I noticed a mood shift that was disproportionate to any discussion with Eileen. Maybe I AM mentally ill, eh?

The mood lingered the entire day. I returned later to practice organ. I decided that two weeks is not enough time to learn a completely new prelude and fugue by Bach. Instead I am going to perform the G minor fugue that I love so well.

I will pair it with a rendering of the Art of Fugue 9 on the piano for a prelude. The choir will sing a cantata movement for the anthem: the famous “Sheep may safely graze.” This is one of the two anthems I want to make with the photocopy machine. St. James Press has done a new version of this old favorite. I can probably use one from the church’s choral library instead.

It is ironic that I agonize over this stuff since it’s indeterminate how many people pay attention at church. I had a funny dream Sunday night about performing a concerto for some kind of odd instrument which involved strawberries. I was playing the strawberries by oddly tapping them dexterously. They were wet and falling apart. The ending of the piece was coming and when I went to play the last strawberry it fell wetly into my hand. I ate it and looked at the crowd. The group was watching me with humor. A few people clapped and then stopped.

Then a long silence as I looked at the audience. In the dream I shrugged.

Ph.D. Thesis – Singing as one: community in synchrony | Guy Hayward – Academia.edu

This guy put a link up on Facebooger to his doctoral thesis. It looks interesting but a bit long.

When Whites Just Don’t Get It, Part 6 – The New York Times

Today is Booker T. Washington’s birthday. I got this from my daily listen to the Writer’s Almanac. Keillor quoted him as saying:  You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

Also listened to the New Yorker Politic podcast:

This morning I head a woodpecker pecking away  when I put the garbage out. Yesterday, I heard him as well. Also, Eileen and I saw a robin walking back and forth to church. I do like having the birds back.

I was very tired after church yesterday. I was thinking of going to hear a concert by my colleague, Rhonda. I thought it started at 2 PM. But when I got dressed to go, Eileen pointed out that it actually started at 4 PM. Since I was dressed, I drove to say hi to my Mom and then to church to practice organ. The Alice Parker pieces I am learning need as much attention as I can give them. I played well yesterday but I could tell I didn’t know the pieces as thoroughly as I would prefer.

When I looked up from practicing it was about ten minutes until Rhonda’s recital. I thought of rushing and trying to get there but it took me too long to get in the car. I feel a little bad not supporting a local colleague, especially since many of the other local organists don’t show for these fine recitals. (Sorry, Rhonda!)

This song sums it up:

I have already emailed off the info for this Sunday’s bulletin. Again I requested a pdf to edit. I missed some stuff in the last proofing that I hope to get changed this week. I wish I could get the office to work further ahead than a week on these things. When I was in charge of bulletins (worship resources I think they called it) at Our Lady of the Lake, I had a process of about four weeks with four bulletin in four stages of preparation.

By that process, I would finalize a bulletin at least a week before needed so that it would be ready to publish.

Oh well. It seems as though locally planning ahead is an old fashioned attribute. And god knows I am a person from the past not the future.

As I was going to see my Mom a guy shouted out as I approached he and an elderly woman to join them in the elevator that he liked my hat (I was wearing my jester hat because it was fucking cold yesterday). When I joined him in the elevator he then complimented my beard. “How long have you had it?” he asked. I paused and said probably about forty years. I told him I shaved it off once in that time and my wife asked me not to do that again.

Old fashioned jupe with his extremely old  beard I guess.

There are pluses to being invisible due to age.

President Obama’s Interview With Jeffrey Goldberg on Syria and Foreign Policy – The Atlantic

I linked this before but only finished it this morning. This article shows a very adroit and intentional President Obama. Long.

Angela Merkel’s Unpopular Goodness – The New York Times

Merkel seems to have sacrificed her reelection possibilities by doing the right thing.

A C.I.A. Grunt’s Tale of the Fog of Secret War – The New York Times

I love intelligent people talking about the C.I.A. or the military. I might have to read this guy’s book.

It was good to get some time away and it’s good to be back home as well. I had music waiting from me that had arrived in the mail while I was gone.

I can remember wanting to see this music when Glass released recordings of them. I do think his picture on the cover is a bit goofy. And I’m not totally sure what I think of this music yet. I played through the first etude this morning. This book contains 20 etudes in 2 “books.” It will fun to get to know this music.

Also there was an envelope with  multiple copies of the above spiritual. Apparently my mail man is not concerned about leaving music where it can wet. Both packages were drenched. My neighbor laid out the piano book to dry and I did the same with anthems. No harm done I guess. It’s probable that I usually retrieve packages before they get wet. But I wonder that someone would leave packages outside in inclement weather.

The Hogan arrangement is pretty straight forward. This spiritual is in our hymnals but I wanted a bit fancier version for my choir to learn. I couldn’t find a copy online to examine. But I did listen to this video and decided it would be a good version for us.

On vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had already chosen organ music for next Sunday. We are singing a choral anthem by the great composer, Alice Parker. I happen to have a slim little volume for organ called “Double Dances.” I am playing two of these next Sunday and they are charming. And not particularly easy for me.

For the prelude I am playing the first movement called “Passacaglia.” It’s marked “With humor.” I quite like it. I am omitting the short second movement, “Sarabande with Arabesques.” For the postlude I am playing the last movement, “Jig.” It will take a bit of rehearsal this week, but this is very satisfying music to me and worth the work.

 Review: For Roomful of Teeth, It’s All About the Polyphony – The New York Times

Despite the review, I think this sounds interesting. I love this group.

No April Fooling Please, We’re Chinese – The New York Times

Forbidden by the Chinese. Or are they joking?

Today we drive home. I think it’s been a good time away. I also don’t think I was quite as  burned out this time. My blood pressure came down to 130 over something. That’s an 8 point fall from yesterday. Just keeping you up to speed. Ahem.

After Greek this morning I turned to further comparison of versions of “The Art of Fugue.”

I think it’s interesting that the movement I am trying to learn (9 in Czerny and the 1751 publication and V in the Bach autograph) is written in two ways: with the quarter note getting the beat in the autograph and with the half note getting the beat in the other two.

I think quite a bit about measures and meter. If you look above at the section where the theme of the entire work enters you can see clearly there is a bit of a different feel. Bach’s has two half notes in a measure. Metrically this can be seen as more of a “down up” feeling. The second has one whole note per measure. This can have a continual “down” feeling on each note.

If you look at the beginning the two versions, you can see that Bach has a line in the middle of his first measure.This would make it more like 2/4. But then he goes on with 4 beats per measure. If you compare the second entrance you can see that in the second version, the fugal answer (the second statement) is identical to the first rhythmically occurring in the same way. You could count it “& – 2”. But in the older version when this entrance occurs, Bach has shifted it from beats 2 and 3 (if you think of the first measure in 4) to beats 3 and 4. This is typical of many Baroque composers. They shift material from a strong position to a weaker one metrically. Not sure exactly what it means but this is lost in the later version.

Also the autograph has many fewer ornaments than the published version.

You can see that whoever did the 1751 edition added a “trillo” (as Bach calls them in his ornament table).

I am doing a comparison of these two editions and making notes, but when I arrived at this fugue, I got a bit bogged down in it because I’m learning it.

It looks like we are going to leave sometime this afternoon to return home. Leigh has lessons this morning. Mark is meeting with one of his writer groups and won’t be home till after lunchtime. He and Eileen are going to some weaver things together. Then we’ll be on the road.

Barney Frank is not impressed by Bernie Sanders.

Frank is always worth listening to. He sounds off on several issues here. I also copied links from this article to read in the future:

President Obama’s Interview With Jeffrey Goldberg on Syria and Foreign Policy – The Atlantic

and

Don’t Break Up the Banks. They’re Not Our Real Problem. – The New York Times

The latter is by Steve Eisman, the real life person that Steve Carell portrays in the movie, The Big Short.

Learning From Obama – The New York Times

I think Krugman is often spot on and he is in this article. One of the commenters pointed out that President Obama is one world leader who has accomplished quite a bit in his two terms, more than most other world leaders in the same environment. Plus there has been a concerted effort to block everything he tried to do by the opposition. I am not a 100% fan of his presidency, but I do think it’s amazing how much he has done.

My blood pressure is creeping up, but the upper number (the one I watch the closest) is still below 140. I’m also eating too many calories while visiting. Oh well. The food and drink has been good.

I’ve also been using the wonders of the internet to compare Bach’s autograph of “The Art of Fugue” with the one published a year after his death. This is fun. Yesterday during my practice I played through the first four Countrapuncti (?) in the versions I have for organ.

I also managed 45 minutes on Mark’s treadmill. This is something I may do again today. I need to purchase a treadmill very soon. Purchasing one isn’t what’s holding me up. It’s where to put the dang thing.

I am enjoying my time away.

I’m still managing to do some work via email and that’s probably okay. My rescheduled doctor’s appointment is a week from next Tuesday. I hope my blood pressure comes down a bit before then. But whatever at least I will be seeing my doctor and talking with her about how best to address it.

Mark has been showing us episodes of Louie CK’s “Horace and Pete.” They are quite good.

I will probably purchase ones we don’t get to see here and follow it.

Today is my last scheduled rehearsal at St. Paul’s Chelsea. They are very good about letting me practice on their organ. I will give them my usual $20 donation as a thank  you.

I am hoping to return tomorrow a bit more rested than I left.

Last night we went and saw the movie, “Batman vs Superman.” Beforehand, Eileen, Mark, Leigh and I had a nice meal at the vegetarian restaurant, Seva. Mark’s daughter, Emily, and her husband, Jeremy met us at the movie theater. It was fun to be out with the fam. But the movie benefits from low expectations.

There are lots of pretty pictures.

And lots of good actors. Just bad plotting, bad cgi, and bad music.

We are going out to eat again tonight. This time at the local barbecue place, Smokehouse 52.

This should balance out the vegetarian restaurant of last night, nicely.

It’s a nice rainy day in Chelsea Michigan. I should be able to get some serious goofing off done today.