I can see from my stats that not many people looked at my post yesterday. I never know what to make of the statistics. I don’t pay that close attention. I suppose if they fell off to near zero I might just cease this public journal and continue it privately. I already do a bit of private writing when my ideas might upset readers.

At any rate, I did breathlessly chat with my youngest daughter online yesterday as I treadmilled.

It is really for her and my two other kids that I keep this journal going. It feels a bit like a parental responsibility to keep a window into my life open for my kids. This is probably in reaction to the way I felt left out of my own family of origin. Or if not left out always the odd man out. I still find it confusing that I was raised by the people I was. I can see traces of my passions in them, but only just.

I changed my morning routine a bit this morning. I have been beginning with Finnegans Wake recently. I began once again at the beginning after finishing the fourth book. I find this a charming way to begin my day and did this today as well. Then Greek.

This morning instead of turning then to Chaucer I pulled out some battered Penguin classics: Aeneid of Virgil, a couple volumes of Cicero and a collection called Early Greek Philosophers.

Chaucer refers to many classical authors in his work. So I thought I would look over the beginning of the famous Virgil poem. I’ve never read it straight through.

To fall asleep last night I listened to a Donna Leon mystery. Her main character loves Cicero and is intellectually intrigued by another character in the book when he discovers she has read Cicero as well.

The characters are both Italian and the presumption is that they studied it in Latin. But nevertheless I thought it might fun to look over Cicero.

The last book, Early Greek Philosophers, I ran across as I was looking for the first books. Though it’s a battered used book, I find that it was published the year I arrived in Holland (1987) and is an easy read.

I sort of murdered Bach in my prelude yesterday.

This was unfortunate because Hope college profs were sitting and listening. Ah well. I think the fact that one of them actually gave me a friendly wave as they entered the church disconcerted me a bit. But I can’t blame that. I didn’t practice it as much as it deserved. Better luck next time. And it wasn’t really too bad.

After the service I had one retired professor point out a misspelling in the bulletin (MiseREre not misere) and compliments from two other men. The first is a local retired choir director. The second an annual visitor who was happy I used so much organ since apparently at his home parish it’s mostly piano.

I was distracted as I talked to the second man because I was looking up my email submission to see if the misspelling was my mistake. The result was that I was nodding distractedly while being complimented and looking at my tablet. Not good.

The misspelling was my mistake. And as my lovely wife helpfully pointed out this week I only had to give the title of psalm since my brother has given me jpegs of the pointed psalms which I have previously labored over each week. Screwed that tiny bit up. Ah well.

Open the Music Industry’s Black Box – The New York Time

This article by David Byrne was in the Sunday NYT. I find his orientation frustratingly typical of how people think about music these days. I recently read a quote from Harold Bloom (in the Wikipedia article on Finnegans Wake). He ” called the book “Joyce’s masterpiece”, and wrote that “[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon [Finnegans Wake] would be as close as our chaos could come to the heights of Shakespeare and Dante.”

“Our chaos” and “[if] aesthetic merit were ever again to center the canon” are the phrases that I am thinking of, especially the “aesthetic merit” bit. I see less and less evidence that historical music is relevant to listeners these days. So be it. At least I also like other kinds of music that are more around. Byrne strikes me as pretty narrow, FWIW.

Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ – The New York Times

I think I’ve mentioned before in this space, that the innocent black guy in To Kill a Mockingbird gets killed in a prison yard while Boo the white perp gets away with murder. It’s hard for me to shake that little fact when I think about Harper Lee’s work. However I will probably read this new book for the lovely fuck of it.

A Dream Undone – The New York Times

Along the same lines this is a lengthy examination of the re institution of disallowing blacks to vote in the USA.

Yesterday as I arrived at church for the funeral, there were young children running and yelling throughout the church.

They also attacked the piano and began plunking. Soon they were joined by an adult who began playing “Heart and Soul” but soon ran off after the kids. Nice.

The crowd in the other room was quite loud as it waited for the funeral. As people entered, I began playing Bach and Mozart quietly on the piano. My strategy when confronted by a group that doesn’t seem to notice that I am playing music is to play a little softer. One elderly woman who could not walk without assistance murmured to me as she passed the piano, complimenting me and using my name. I didn’t recognize her. Finally I stopped playing. The room was filling up with people chatting with each other.

I think I have come to accept this part of being alive right now in my little neck of the woods. The parts of life that enthrall me (great music and literature) do not seem to exist for many people.

“Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
from the pages of books and from your own hearts.”

Wendell Berry, This Day, p. 306

After the service, a couple of people asked me many questions about my work. One of them let slip that she thought I looked 70 due to my wrinkles. 70? I could only smile.

“And so you disappear
Into your days, your days
Into the ground. Before
You start each day, the place
Is as it is, and at
The day’s end, it is as
It is, a little changed
By work, but still itself,
Having included you
And everything you’ve done.”

Wendell Berry, This Day p. 124

Finnegans Wake by Joyce is divided up into four books the shortest of which is the last one (p. 511 to 540 in my edition).

This morning I concluded reading this entire last book aloud to myself. Joyce ends the book in a feminine voice that recalls the ending of Ulysses. It’s surprising how reading it aloud helps the understanding of a lot of Finnegans Wake.

I found myself lapsing into a bad Irish accent in this last section.

It is unmistakable that the books ends on a high note, ALP the feminine persona seems to be ranting on about this and that and reminiscing about her life with HCE the masculine persona. It is quite lovely in many places.

“It is the softest morning I can ever remember me.” James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

One of the insights I have had recently is that Joyce’s dream in this book is a redemptive one, one that embraces the full breadth of what it means to be human.

This is surprising and brave since he was writing between WWI and WWII, not a particularly happy time in a lot of humanity. But nevertheless I am encouraged by his poem of a book.

This morning I immediately began at the beginning of the book since it finishes in a circular fashion ALP’s rant of a last sentence.

Today is the Hatch reunion. I have a funeral and Eileen has given me permission to skip it. Yesterday I found myself caught in a strong feeling of melancholy that seemed to come from nowhere in particular. This ebbed and flowed as the day went on. My organ student quit. She showed up late for her lesson hand, checkbook in hand, to tell me she a rotator cuff that had spontaneously ripped. She was frightened and upset. I tried to console her and did not charge her for the lesson. She hung around for a bit while I practiced, chatting her up in between. Despite my mood, I could see she was hurting. Later I reflected once again how lucky I really am in my life and health.

I listened to part of the current On The Media show this  morning.

I especially liked this segment:

A Skeptic’s Guide to Health News and Diet Fads – On The Media

It reminded me of my current skepticism about how people get and understand their news information. When I combine this with the hate filled rhetoric of some people on Facebooger, I am a bit discouraged. I don’t think it helps my melancholia but I am reluctant to conclude that it is a major part of the cause of my own mood.

I am both inspired and tired. I am inspired by Joyce, messing with my book collection, my boss, my wife and many other parts of my life. I am tired, though, of church, of invisibility, of hate, of ignorance, of being tired.

All in all, I think the balance is for being inspired.

It’s a pleasant morning in Holland Michigan. I just emailed my boss with an idea my violinist had yesterday just to get it off my mind. Amy pointed out how much it would free up the back of our church if we lowered the entire choir area to the level of the congregation. This idea comes at an very inconvenient time. We have a plan to alter the area to prepare for the new organ. If we were to consider doing Amy’s idea it would change almost every aspect of our present plan. I tried to pass it on to my boss yesterday but she was already gone for the day. So I worried over it until this morning. I wrote the email just to get it off my mind.

Today is the last day of July and I feel like my summer has slipped away. I still haven’t found that sweet spot of rejuvenation that I dream about the rest of the year. I haven’t done any composing this summer and my books are in disarray. Nevertheless it is a pleasant morning in Holland and I feel unreasonably relaxed (especially after getting that email off my chest).

How Germany Prevailed in the Greek Bailout – The New York Times

This is a long article I read yesterday while treadmilling. I have been watching the events in Europe. It seems to me wrongheaded to punish Greece the way the Union has chosen to do. I have been listening to a book about WWI in the evening. Night before last I was kept awake by its ideas.

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark was a $1.99 Kindle deal recently. I purchase it and for $1.99 more was able to purchase the audio book which is coordinated to the ebook (whispersynced  as it were).

Clark meticulously analyses the time before WWI. He is doing so with an eye on what is happening in the world now. Most of the actors in WWI misunderstood entirely what they were doing according to Clark. At the end of the book he mentions they were all convinced they were going to war as an act of defense not offense.

It is this misunderstanding, this gap between what was happening and what the leaders thought was happening which Clark says ha the most to teach us in the present day. As I watch the USA and the Eurozone continue to institute austerity (especially for others) as a solution to economic problems and pull back from the real human problems of feeding the hungry of the world and tending to our broken planet (and not killing each other), I can’t help but wonder if there are solutions and cooler heads whose voices are being drowned out and/or ignored.

I’m coming up with a slightly new system for organizing my books. I am putting some books in sections, shelved by theme as it were. My boss and her partner do this. I have been evolving this way for a while. All my poetry is together. All my books on music are together. Recently I decided to put my African American Spiritual books, folk music books and collections into one place. Sort of my folk music section.

You can see my small ballet section on the lower right which I need to keep out of necessity during the school year.

I have my hymnals in one place.

I have started a section I think of as Music and Liturgy which includes Church Music as well.

This morning I came up with the idea of having a choral technique section. I have quite a few books just on this topic and it will be handy to have these reference books in one place for ease of access.

And I plan on keeping my current church books and hymnals in one place for easy reference.

This last thing is not a new idea.

I like looking at books and was recently inspired by looking at my brother’s collection. I also worked on putting more books in order upstairs yesterday. This all has a serious calming influence on me.

As I continue to think about issues like gun control and police deaths and killings, it has occurred to me that implicit in much of the discussion is whether or not violence is a way to solve problems.

I saw something on Facebooger that made me think. One of the problems with carrying guns openly is that it suggests that violence is an answer to conflict. And it suggests this idea to our impressionable children. Wow. I hope that’s wrong.

Under Oath, Donald Trump Shows His Raw Side – The New York Times

I can’t believe people seriously think this man would be a good president. God help us.

Unearthing Jamestown’s Leaders, and a Mystery – The New York Times

Very cool. First Anglican clergy in the US.

Don Oberdorfer, 84, Top Diplomatic Reporter for Washington Post, Dies – The New York Times

I wish I had as much confidence in people doing journalism today  as this man’s contemporaries had in him.

Vic Firth, Who Gave Drummers Their Sticks, Dies at 85 – The New York Times

This guy sounds very interesting. He got his first symphony job without a degree. That’s not gonna happen these days.

2 College Presidents, on Higher Education – The New York Times

These two college presidents wrote letters to the NYT. I think they make some good points.

I tried to make yesterday a non-church work day since Monday (and Sunday evening) were taken up with church stuff.

It was predicted to be very hot. I exercised before noon while it was still bearable.

I spent a lot of time yesterday with Schubert and his piano sonatas. I continue to demand more rigor in my practicing. This means more care about notes and rhythms, even practicing a section hands separately in a piece I am just reading through for pleasure.

I find Schubert tricky. He must of been an accomplished pianist. He puts interesting details in accompaniments and of course his melodies are beautiful.

I tried to install Windows 10 this morning on this machine, but it keeps going into a loop. Sooprise sooprise. Since it was released last night, maybe that indicates a large volume of people trying to download. Or maybe my computer is fucked up. Or maybe my connection is slow. Good grief.

I thought I would install it because Eileen’s eyes lit up when I told her I had read that Minecraft is free with Windows 10. Apparently she’s curious about that.

Windows 10: ten things you need to know before it launches | Technology | The Guardian

I found that info in the link above. It’s kind of a witty little article.

I spent some time yesterday goofing around with a colleague’s problem he mentioned on Facebooger’s Episcopal Musician Page. He is doing a combined service with another Episcopalian community. They only have the Gather Hymnal (NOT Gather Comp, just the dang Gather Hymnal which is basically the GIA Catalog at the time of all the hits). My colleague only knows The Hymnal 1982. He doesn’t seem to know much about the supplements.

The Gather Episcopalians didn’t recognize anything my colleague suggested for their combined Eucharist (including “I am the bread of life”! a top ten tune for their ilk).

I thought it sounded like an interesting challenge so I sat down and played with the hymnals for while and came up with suggestions. I included several excellent texts that would fit the readings and could be sung to such tunes as Joyful Joyful and other familiar melodies.

I emailed and PMed my colleague. He seemed mildly appreciative of my work. He responded so quickly I don’t think he looked at it very carefully. But no matter I had fun doing it.

Since he is from Michigan, I can’t help but wonder if the dude who put the Gather Hymnal in the pews at the parish where I work had something to do with this other Episcopalian community. One of the first things my boss and I did was get rid of it.

Another weird thing happened on Facebooger yesterday. I have a history with the local organ prof here in Holland. I have known him since the 80s and we seem to always be on the opposite sides of stuff (U of M vs. Wayne State, 1979 Prayerbook vs. 1928, eclectic worship music vs, GLORIOUS Anglican stuff). I have reached out to him a few times on Facebooger but he has not “friended” me.

Yesterday I put up a picture of the flyleaf of a Hymnal 1940 I own which seems to have been inscribed with Healey Willan’s autograph.

It was great fun to read responses. One person linked in a web site with examples of Willan’s autograph. And then this local organ dude commented. Wow! I checked to see if he had accepted my friend request and it was still pending. Apparently he has a book autographed by Willan and said that my autograph was genuine.

I’m not sure he’s right. But I was flabbergasted that he commented on my post. I mentioned to Eileen he might not have noticed it was from me. Heh.

George Lakoff: ‘Conservatives don’t follow the polls, they want to change them … 

Some interesting stuff about why we are so fucked up these days.

Filmmakers fighting “Happy Birthday” copyright find their “smoking gun” | Ars Tech

I have always been annoyed that “Happy Birthday” was copyrighted.

Political Polarization & Media Habits | Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project

Most of these findings confirm my suspicions, but not all of them.

I need what is lost,
although I love as well
the flow that took it….

Wendell Berry

In this poem, Berry seems to be looking out at a river from a house on stilts. He watches as the river moves and changes the landscape (p. 317 in his collection This Day for those of you following along.)

.

I like this phrase and think it applies (for me at least) to a lot of living.

Yesterday ended up being pretty much a work day for me. I got the notion Sunday night that I would experiment with the files my brother gave me. He gave me access to a directory of his with the Anglican Chant Psalter entirely in Jpegs. The psalms in this book are “pointed.” By means of dashes, dots and slashes, this indicates how they can be sung to Anglican Chant.

This is significant because I have spent the last year or so, remaking these silly things by hand in Finale (my music software) with varying degrees of success.

Sunday night I dumped jpegs into a Paint program for editing down. Then dumped them into a Finale doc for next Sunday’s psalm. Then I made a pdf of them. This turned out to be singularly crappy, so I turned off the computer for the evening.

Yesterday I got up with the idea I would consult with the executive administrator who prepares our weekly bulletins. I downloaded Mark’s zipped file onto the church computer and then told Mary (the administrator) to unzip them where she could find them.

I explained the process of preparing Psalms for the bulletin, then emailed her a set of instructions for next Sunday. When I checked with her in person if she understood and felt competent to proceed, she was ready to roll. Very cool. Many thanks to Mark for helping me with this!

This will give me an hour of my time back a week and will probably take Mary all of five minutes to do with her software and it will look better in the bulletin!

I also began organizing my Hymnal Collection yesterday.

I’m have weaned this group of books down a bit. I am putting them in order by title which is kind of arbitrary but at least is some kind of organization. I actually tend to find them by what they look like.

I have finished putting my music books in order in the living room corner. It’s alphabetical mostly by author (sometimes by subject — all the Bach books are together for example). It is through letter M. You can see why I need a new treadmill. It’s only held up by several cords tied on the right there. It was fewer cords until they broke while I was treadmilling the other day. I managed to catch the contraption without killing myself (a miracle) but splashed water every where.

Now I have it rigged up like this. Eileen is not happy with this, but we really aren’t in a position to spend a couple hundred dollars on a new treadmill. Again kudos to my brother Mark (who seems to have a bit more time for helping these days for some reason, heh). He pointed out a local free treadmill listed in Craigslist. O yeah. Craigslist. Good idea Mark! Thanks!

Since I can’t afford/don’t have room for more bookshelves, my strategy is to use every last inch of bookshelves for books. This will probably help a lot.

Some people put this up on Facebooger (it seems to have originated from someone calling themselves the Comical Conservative).

I started poking around to see how true it was. As best I can tell there are not actually statistics on crime just in Kennesaw. But I did find this weird article recently posted on the Daily Mail.

Inside the small Georgia town of Kennesaw, where EVERYONE is armed | Daily Mail

No wonder the Brits think we are a bunch of gun wielding hillbillies, eh?

My cursor disappeared again. It only happens in Google Chrome. This time I took the advice of some people online and used my Task Manager to shut down all Google Chrome processes then restart Chrome. That worked.

I’m on my fifth day of resuming my daily treadmill exercising. It is killing me. I guess it’s a good argument for not ceasing it. I’m not sure if it’s the heat, my age, or what, but after a half hour of my usual routine, I am sweating like a pig, red faced and exhausted. I alter my routine accordingly, even though I’m not experiencing any classic stress reactions (like chest pains). I continue to exercise for forty five minutes and also make sure I have walked at least two miles. But I am easing up within these parameters. Sheesh.

I promised my boss to try to do a liturgy without weeping yesterday morning. She said she was shooting for that as well. She also told me that she had reassured herself that I would show up two days in a row. I pointed out that this was not a convincing thing to tell me. Heh.

Jordan wailed yesterday. We had a significant return of mourners from Joy’s funeral the day before. My boss and I were hoping they would return and participate in the liturgy since they were so engaged on Saturday. This happened.

In addition, they were able to hear Jordan’s lovely rendition of “Rhosymedre” on sax. It is beautiful that way and I have difficulty seeing how any one would not like both versions, the organ and the sax and organ version.

I asked Jordan to play on the opening hymn, the offertory hymn (this one was last minute) and the first communion hymn. Just before the postlude, Rev Jen acknowledged him and the cong applauded. It was pretty cool.

I also had lots of nice compliments about music at Joy’s funeral including from Julia Huttar, daughter/priest/organist person!

Oliver Sacks: My Periodic Table – The New York Times

Sacks is dying and doesn’t not expect to make his next birthday. But he continues to grind out these incredible pieces that are life affirming. What a dude!

What Makes a Shooter Do It? – The New York Times

This article gave me pause on the extreme hate filled messages I read on Facebooger from individuals. Yikes. I hope they just stay hysterical and don’t pick up their beloved gun and hurt someone.

I got up this morning and made banana bread with the marked down bananas Eileen and I purchased yesterday. I can smell it baking.

I was surprised at my emotional reaction to Joy Huttar’s funeral. It’s always hard to watch people grieve. Her daughter ended her “homily” in tears. I, myself, began weeping and continued to weep for much of the service. I not only have inherited my father’s weird anger, I have inherited my mother’s emotionalism.

Although I wear my heart on my sleeve and am overly sensitive, I cannot always tell what exactly it is I am feeling, only that I am overwhelmed. It can trouble those around me, who can’t find an explicit reason for my tears (if they notice them). The weird thing is, I can’t find one either.

I didn’t know Joy that well. We were colleagues and acquaintances. We share a vocation for church music and that may have been some of it.

I had to smile as the gathering group talked loudly through the prelude. I began the prelude about a half hour before the service time, something I usually do. I played lots of Bach and bit of Brahms. Joy hated the fact that people talked during the prelude at the regular Eucharist services. I don’t. I like the fact that people need to connect with each other before praying. And I’m used to being ignored.

I play the music for itself and for myself.

The place was packed. I didn’t see many local musicians or AGOers, however. At the first thundering congregational response: “And also with you” or whatever it was, I knew that I would have my hands full leading this strong a group with my weak old organ.

I tried to set brisk tempos in the introductions to the hymns. The congregation picked up on them nicely. Good thing. Because I’m not sure I could too much to change a tempo they chose as group.

We did do some a cappella. I wanted to do much of “When peace. like a river” a cappella, but several singers from my own choir were not listening to the rest of the congregation and they got so far off that I was forced to come back in the with the organ. Again, a smile through tears.

I couldn’t stay afterwards. I know this is a pastoral weakness of mine, but after playing a service there’s really no one besides my boss (who is busy) in my community I feel comfortable talking with.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Eileen asked me. And she was right. It wasn’t the circus I thought it might have been. I should have known better, I guess. My banana bread should be ready soon. I hope it came out alright.

The Rev Owen Chadwick obituary | Books | The Guardian

Owen Chadwick, Eminent Historian of Christianity, Dies at 99 – The New York Times

I found the Guardian link in the NYT obit. I’m sure I have at least one book by this historian but it’s not filed correctly yet in my library.

I was reading Finnegans Wake out loud this morning and found myself lapsing into a George Carlin voice.

This makes sense since the book is really jokey and doesn’t take itself seriously at all.

Too bad Carlin’s dead. He could make an excellent audio book of Finnegans Wake.

My organ student canceled her lesson yesterday. She offered to pay me anyway. I told her she could. Eileen and I need the money. It remains to be seen if she actually will. She said she would leave a check on the organ, but of course it wasn’t there later in the day.

I took advantage of the time and did my Mom’s weekly book dance, typing the names of books she has had this week into a google doc (which is getting big), finding a new large print Christian fiction book to order for her on Amazon (she pays), and returning the books to the library and finding more books and taking them to her.

After this I went to the church and prepared for this weekend’s liturgies. Today is the funeral of Joy Huttar the former organist at the church I work. I have known Joy since 1987 when we moved here. I found her impressive, her husband who has outlived less so. It’s a churchy family so like many of these they can be a bit of a nightmare for pastoral staff at a church. Anxiety is high.

Thursday I went into the office and found my boss and my executive administrator hunched over the computer.

My boss said that the bulletin for the funeral was done. They both looked a bit stressed.

Later that day, my cellist remarked that people from the congregation “ought” to show up in droves. We are, indeed, expecting a large crowd. I find it slightly ironic that Joy is being so celebrated in her death by so many people who most likely ignored her playing. Or maybe that’s just what they do to me in church. Heh.

Most of the priests she served under will be at the funeral today. Yikes.

I find priests and musicians in the Episcopal church are kind of a mess, often self absorbed to the point they barely see the rest of us. I know, I know. I’m one of them these days. But at least I’m thinking about this stuff.

Joy was never like that. She was quiet but thoughtful. She often remarked on the music program. I already miss her intelligent listening.

I asked Eileen if she thought many of the priests I have worked with would attend my funeral. No, she said. I nodded in agreement.

So I took some pains to make sure I’m prepared for today’s funeral. Eileen and I will go over an hour early just in case it is packed. This will give me a chance to brush up some of the organ pieces I will playing.

After giving a piano lesson yesterday, I returned to the organ bench to continue preparing for this weekend. It’s funny. The more skills I seem to acquire the more I find I want to practice hymns for services. Most of them I could easily sight read. But practicing helps.

I’m working from our bigger laptop this morning. The old one is still working but now I figure it’s only a matter of time before it collapses. We are in a full blown austerity budgeting situation due to our recent gallivanting about the country. So I don’t think we’ll be hiring anyone to fix the old laptop for awhile. That worked before. Maybe we’ll do that again.

In the meantime, I’m trying to make our stupid stupid Windows 8 big laptop work a bit better. This morning with a little googling I managed to get my cursor back in Chrome. It has been gone for a while. I’m hoping the fix I did will last a bit longer this time.  For what it’s worth I found the fix here.

I finished the 2002 article, “Richard Hooker’s Reputation” by Diarmaid MacCulloch this morning. It’s not available online so no link. If you should perversely desire a copy, email me.

I started reading this in California because I missed MacCulloch’s prose and insights. Although I’m not that educated around the history of the Episcopal church, I found this article interesting. There was even a telling insight in the conclusion of the article that I feel impelled to share here, since it’s too esoteric for Facebooger (hah)

.

”The disputes which currently wrack Western Christianity are superficially about sexuality, social conduct or leadership style: at root, they are about what constitutes authority for Christians.The contest for the soul of the Church in the West rages around the question as to how a scripture claiming divine revelation relates to those other perennial sources of human revelation, personal collective consciousness and memory; whether, indeed, there can be any relationship between the two.”

Although your eyes probably glazed over as you attacked the quote, it is quite salient to all the hubbub on same-sex marriage and other “social issues” that are befuddling Christian churches. I offer here in case one or two of my readers might be interested.

I continue to be appalled at the lack of simple reasoning and civility on Facebooger. I will probably persist in trying to add my reasoned, civil two cents, but it feels more and more futile.

I think it relates to how people are getting and processing information. It seems many people are only seeking out information sources that are basically polemic and not reportorial. This contributes to the short-sightedness of people I care about on Facebooger.

The intense rhetoric which seems to be borrowed from right wing propaganda sources shuts down all discussion. Name calling and outright misinformation is some of the main currency of this conversation. I can only shake my head and wonder at it.

On the other hand, Facebooger has helped me find some new music. Example:

My great niece shared this and commented that she is in it. Well. She’s in the crowd of zillions of people. But this is a cool song, I think.

Of course I love the hazmat/gasmask dancers. Right up my alienated alley.

My laptop may be on its last legs. It did a thermal shutdown last night as I was using it. I left it to cool overnight and it’s working now (I’m writing this blog on it). It came on with a death rattle like sound. It’s still my preferred way to interact with the internet for the most part. I will be sorry to see it go.

Today I have four rehearsals beginning with one with my friend Jordan VanHemert at 10 AM. He is playing this weekend and that will be fun. Then the piano trio is scheduled to rehearse. I took Nicholas to the church last Thursday thinking he would be able to watch and listen to us rehearsal but no one showed. I must have canceled since I saw the cellist at church and she said she would see me today. So at least I will get a chance to rehearse with her.

I haven’t been practicing as much as I was before the California trip. I will probably ease back into that. I do want to continue to organize my books. I am finding it very satisfying. But it does take time.

It is calming to have made it through my six month check up. I was anxious about it. I haven’t been exercising and have been having a martini every night. Time to get back to exercising and losing weight.

I am embracing my solitude. Thomas Merton is helping. Of course my solitude is not real solitude the way a trappist monk does it. I have the companionship of my wife and do connect to people like my daughters and my boss. But I do feel a sense of aloneness in the way I see most of life. I am reading Merton’s essay, “Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude.” Here’s a quote.

“Even though he may be physically alone, the solitary remains united to others and lives in profound solidarity with them, but on a deeper and mystical level.” Thomas Merton

I don’t feel quite as mystical as Merton does, but this does relate to the way I seek the companionship of authors and composers through their work. It always reminds me of Mortimer J. Adler’s idea of conversation of ideas between books. Thank goodness for this. It keeps me as sane as I am (which may not that sane!).

The Only Realistic Way to Fix Campaign Finance – The New York Times

This is by one of my heroes, Lawrence Lessig. He continue to attempt to fix our broken country. I am for it.

Buddy Buie, Producer and Hit-Making Songwriter, Dies at 74 – The New York Time

Helped write “Spooky,” the song that taught me some cool chords.

It has been fun to have my grandson, Nicholas, visiting. For some reason, I have been thinking of the many lost friendships I have had over the years. I resist falling into self pity about this stuff as much as possible, but there’s no denying that I miss the intimacy of friendship with many people who are still living but have chosen to shun me or keep me at a comfortable distance.

I was thinking of one friendship yesterday as we walked the beach of Lake Michigan. When I was not too much older than Nicholas and attending Flint University of Michigan, I can remember skipping classes and driving to the northern shores of Lake Huron with a friend. We drove all night and arrived in the late dawn. We put our sleeping bags on the beach and laughed and joked and dozed. It’s a good memory for me.

The feeling of distance between me and others that I have had as friends over the years is indeed bitter sweet. I try to think about the sweetness of the memories and let the bitterness go.

I made some serious headway yesterday in organizing my books. I worked both on the main floor which houses mostly music books

and the second floor where the bulk of my books is housed.

I am both grouping books in spine out sections and also doing some more careful alphabetizing. Eileen told me that she figured at some point I would get inspired to work on this. It was inspiring to see the books of my brother recently. I recognized many of them like old friends and admired the idea that they were spine out waiting to be further organized.

I’m not sure I can finish this job quickly. Nicholas asked me how long I thought it would take me to do so, I laughed and said I didn’t know, but quite a while.

As Beijing Becomes a Supercity, the Rapid Growth Brings Pains – NYT

This article begins with a description of elderly people saving a place in line for their adult kids. I recall that some Chinese have no respect for standing in line. When we were at the Beijing airport (the domestic side not the international) it was startling how people pushed in front of you while you politely waited in line.

Those Who Would Remake Myanmar Find That Words Fail Them – NYT

Fascinating story about how the lack of certain words in the local language shape thinking and understanding.

Berkley Breathed is posting his new Bloom County episodes on Facebooger. I relate to this one and immediately reposted it on Facebooger.

Eileen says “they got Steve” since I have been posting lots of goofy stuff on Facebooger. It is in direct response to family members who seem to have bought racist, right-wing craziness hook, line and sinker.

I no longer feel that I can directly respond to them since their language is one of pejorative and polemic and very little logic and is often a bit incoherent to me. So instead I mount a counter offensive of links and pics that are hopefully constructive and not quite as reactive as what bugs me.

The doctor said my health was doing okay yesterday. I had gained a few pounds, my cholesterol was up a bit and my blood pressure was still of concern but floating just under the alarming level.

What the doctor said specifically is my numbers and health were such that if I was doing all that I could to lower my blood pressure and cholesterol and weight it might be time for new meds. But we agreed that I still could work on my weight and continue my exercise for the time being and not take on a new drug.

At 63, this might be the best I can do. I do plan to try to lose the weight I gained this year.

I also stopped off at the house of the husband of a recently deceased woman whose funeral is this Saturday.

I don’t normally do stuff like this, but the woman and her husband are long standing members of Grace and my boss and I agreed a little extra TLC was warranted.

We sat quietly on his porch talking after my doctor’s appointment. He is living at his house alone now I think, but has grown children living next door. I noticed that he was reading The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams by Philip and Carol Zaleski.

I believe my brother Mark mentioned this book as well or at least one on the same topic.

Nicholas gets on a plane tomorrow to return to California. It has been fun having him around. I will miss him.

I was very inspired by seeing my brother’s book collection ensconced in his lovely shelves, spine out. My books have been in disarray for about three years and I miss them. I can usually (but not always) find a certain book, but it takes me for ever and I can’t browse as easily. I moved a book shelve from the porch to the living room recently to house the beginning of my music books. I started shelving them yesterday….

So I did use piano in the prelude yesterday (if anyone is reading this and following). I wasn’t as exultant as I was earlier in the morning, but it still seemed right at the moment. I improvised on several of the melodies we were going to sing in service. I wasn’t consciously showing off for my piano playing grandson. I like to think I would have done the same playing if he hadn’t been there listening. When I play a service, it’s a bit like any performance. One is aware that one is (or could be) listened to, but that can’t be the upper most factor in your mind as you play. It must be the music itself.

Yesterday it was, I think.

The congregation was not a particularly strong singing one yesterday. This means that I try to provide sturdy audible accompaniment to support what singing is going on. I will check with the boss on Wednesday to see if the organ was too loud on the psalm. I wasn’t very confident that the singers could carry the verses of Anglican chant so I played a bit on the loud side. I learned from Eileen’s comment about the pointing I provide in the service (the pointing is the dividing up of the words into the tune of the chant which varies with each line). She said that the congregation tends to follow my rendering even if there is a mistake in the printing. That’s good to know. It’s a bit of a challenge each week to do the psalm but I like it.

I think I like a challenge.

I like the challenge of continuing to learn Greek and the challenge of eliciting James Joyce’s humor and joie de vivre embedded in his work. This morning I spent a good deal of time with Finnegans Wake working back and forth between my ebook copy and my real copy. There is room in the margins on the real copy for notes. I tend to note in writing phrases that stand out to me that I can figure out but might not figure out on a second read. Plus the writing in the margin helps me know how far I far in actuality read in this puzzle of a work.

It’s fun having my grandson around.

Yesterday, he complimented me more than once on my playing at church using the same exact phrase each time: “Good playing.” I came home and began loading up his mp3 player with music that I think he might like. I put Mozart’s 40th on his player and gave him a miniature score of it. I also put some Rachmaninoff on since he seems to like lush piano stuff. Plus Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations and lots of other stuff.

After giving him some sheet music and talking to him about music he spontaneously gave me a huge hug. It helped me recall that there is a child in this child-man. Eileen made barbecued chicken and veggies for supper.

Today I have my six month check up. I’m dreading it as usual. I have gained weight but my blood pressure has gone down since its trending high while I was working both of my jobs in the spring. I have a good doctor. I tend to try to do what she recommends.

I looked at the leading Iran hawks’ cases against the deal. They’re utter nonsense.

I find myself reading left wing news a bit more these days. I have a couple of “friends” on Facebook who are rabid right wingers and post some pretty innervating links that are distorted and angry. I guess I need the balance of things that seem a bit more sane.

Conservatism as a Mental Illness | Psychology Today

Having done church work most of my life, mental illness is something I think about quite a bit. Bany X. Kuhle makes a convincing list of signs of mental illness he sees conservatives behavior exhibiting. Borrowing from James Whitney Hicks he specifically mentions

denial, delusion, hallucination, disordered thinking, anger, anti-social behavior, sexual pre-occupation, grandiosity, general oddness, and paranoia

This all reminds me of a Wendell Berry poem I read this morning, “Let Us Not Condemn the Human Beings,” from This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems (p. 349).

The first section is a kind of caveat about cursing. No need to curse the people themselves. But the second part is a curse. It curses bank accounts and “corpses incorporated” which I take to mean corporations. He curses the latter with these lovely lines: “corpses/ incorporated that cannot see/ or feel, think or care, that eat/ the world and shit money. Fry/ in Hell in their own fat…”

The last section is a reminder that when you curse you “confess/ that you condemn yourself..” Ahem.

This morning I find myself oddly in the grips of an unreasonable optimism. This emotion usually reminds me of Mozart whose music I often understand as a a cry from the heart of the joy of life.

I went to bed feeling very isolated and solitary. I woke in a completely different place. I was planning on playing two sets of preludes and fugues for both prelude and postlude today at church. These are little pieces probably by Krebs but often attributed to Bach, the Eight Little Preludes and Fugues if you will.

Instead in the middle of the night I started to think of improvising a piano prelude, one that might draw listeners into my mood of joy.

We’ll see, of course. This mood was reinforced this morning as I read in and about James Joyce. I am determined to continuing dipping into his magnum opus, Finnegans Wake. The more I read in it and about it, the more I understand it as a cry of joy and optimism in the face of despair.

Joyce draws on the human wisdom of cycles of life. He apparently was influenced by Giambattista Vico and his ideas of humans moving through phases: theocratic, aristocratic, democratic and chaotic. And then out of chaos, theocratic reemerges.

Joyce and Vico seem to think that a “thunderclap” brings about a renewed look to spirituality via a theocratic age. I wonder if the mad technology of our time is our thunderclap?

“bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!”
― James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

But Vico’s is not the only four fold pattern. There’s also the Greek mythological eras: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron. And the Hindu yugas cycle.

These four fold ideas (like the four seasons) imply a return that is essential to Joyce’s entire opus. If you think of the end of Ulysses, the dream of Molly Bloom which ends in a wonderful song of YES  YES YES, you get some idea of my recurring yes in the face of despair and gloom. Fuck the duck and pass me the song to sing.

Once again I am blogging from my tablet. We are visiting Mark and Leigh at their new home in Gregory. We brought my grandson, Nicholas, over to meet the fam over here.

The new abode is a nice two story old buidling situated next to a stream with a couple acres of property. As far as I can tell, it’s pretty much a dream home for Leigh. Mark has his office set up beautifully with new blonde bookshelves. Things are looking good for his retirement!

One of the fun parts of visiting a fellow book lover is perusing shelves of books. This morning I picked Scribbledehobble edited by Thomas Connolley to peruse. It’s a transcription of a working notebook of James Joyce.

I read the introduction and was much amused when Connolly admits he is colorblind. This is significant because Joyce used colored crayons in composing Finnegans Wake. The (color)blind scholar… nice image. Well, it’s time to stop since I’m working from my tablet and it’s driving me crazy.

I’m doing things out of order this morning. I have done my Greek.

But now I’m blogging so that I can go over to the church and catch some organ practice before Eileen and Nicholas get up. We are planning to visit my brother today in Ann Arbor. This means I have to get Mom her books as soon as the library opens. No real time for me to practice for Sunday but now.

As usual I’m pondering my recent visit to California.

It takes me time to process seeing family especially family I only see once a year. It’s nice to have Nicholas here. However the trio musicians did not show yesterday. This was disappointing for me. I wanted Nicholas to have the opportunity to watch our rehearsal. I’m not sure why no one showed. It’s very possible (probable?) that we did not have a rehearsal scheduled the day after my return from California.

I was very surprised when a conservative friend of mine posted a link to a article by Ann Coulter on Facebook yesterday. It seems to me that the conservatives on Facebooger I know are linking information from very biased sources. I suppose they think of the New York Times as biased. But I will take it any day over the extreme media of right (Coulter, Limbaugh) and  even of the left.

My conservative friends are getting more hysterical not less. There doesn’t seem to be room in their conversation for people they don’t agree with. I know Coulter and Limbaugh ridicule those they disagree with to the point of distortion.

I didn’t exercise yesterday. I am still pretty tired from my trip. Opted for a martini instead. Ahem. I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday which I am not looking forward to. My blood pressure is not extremely high right now, but my weight is up. I lost weight before our California visit but gained during it. Sigh.

We had a nice lunch at the Curragh with Nicholas yesterday. I enjoyed watching him in this kind of environment, chatting him up and distracting him from his phone (despite the fact that it’s not a smart phone).

I’m doing this blog on my laptop.

I’m having some issues with it. The CrashPlan back up program seems to be doing weird things. I think this is in part due to the Geek Brothers installation of Trend Micro which keeps telling me I’m not protected and stopping the whole machine with a warning (I am protected, I just didn’t buy it through them). In addition I tested the upload speed of Comcast since returning and it is crawling. Good grief.

I just checked the progress on the CrashPlan. It says I only have some hours left in uploading all my files for protection, but at the same time I would swear that the number of files uploaded is lower than it was Wednesday night. I could be wrong about that, I guess.

I should submit bulletin info for a week for Sunday soon. I left the prelude and postlude blank for this weekend and am thinking of doing some of the little preludes and fugues attributed to Bach but actually more likely by Krebs. These are not hard for me, but it would be nice to play well. Hence, the idea of going over this morning.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Race, Hip-Hop and Being Praised by Toni Morrison | Rolling

Good interview with this dude. I suppose the right thinks of him as corollary to their favorite ideologues. I think he is a clear thinker and a good writer. But maybe that’s because he’s in my online echo chamber. I’ll take the Atlantic over hate radio any day.

I looked at the leading Iran hawks’ cases against the deal. They’re utter nonsense.

Vox is an example of biased reporting I know. It’s just my bias.

Yesterday was travel day from California back to Michigan.

We brought grandson Nicholas home with us.

Arrived home well after midnight. We found out that MacDonald’s is open late in Holland when we stopped for food. How about that?

It’s good to get back. I enjoy visiting but I also enjoy returning to my home.

I read a good chunk of Toni Morrison’s Beloved on the flight home.

I was surprised to find out that this novel was inspired by a true life instance of a slave killing her own child to protect it from the horrors of slavery.

I continue to be impressed with this writer.

I’ve also been dipping into James Joyce’s work including rereading for the umpteenth time, Dubliners.

This time, I’m factoring in the insights of Anthony Burgess in his Here Comes Everbody which I am also reading.

Good to be back with my laptop. I’m much more comfortable with it than my tablet for general use. But I’m getting better at the tablet and do appreciate it as well.

This is all I have energy for today. See you tomorrow.

A new low in hits on the blog, although I’m not sure what exactly the hits on my Google analytics mean. We are preparing for another day of traveling. This time we will have my grandson, Nicholas with us.

We spent yesterday doing last minute activities. We helped Cynthia my daughter-in-law get a new phone for Nicholas since he recently lost his. Cynthia and David limit Nicholas’s phone to one that can call and text with limited Internet access. Finding this kind of phone required multiple trips to different stores (Sam’s, the AT&T store, Target) but we finally managed to purchase and activate one for Nicholas.

We also did the annual bookstore trip with the grandkids. That’s always fun.

This trip has taught me that onscreen typing is not the problem with using my tablet as my main computer access. Instead I find weird little glitches annoying and difficult to overcome. These glitches include little things like the clunky interaction with the WordPress editor for my blog. There doesn’t seem to be a way to put links here easily. I didn’t try putting a link in rich text doc then cutting and pasting it. But what a pain.

Also, reading an article in a scholarly journal becomes cumbersome due to constantly being bumped off and having to re-login. Then having to begin over again in a lengthy article at the beginning using the online reader provided by the journal. When I tried to just download the pdf to read, my tablet gets confused and doesn’t do it properly. Sigh,

I’m beginning to think this might not be just my ineptness.

It’s going to be a long one today, but I am looking forward to being back in my usual environs.