Once again I have changed my morning routine. This morning I wanted to submit the material for Sunday’s bulletin (which I am trying but failing to do earlier than this, say more like almost two weeks before it is published). In addition I got up mulling over the fact that I needed to spend an hour or two researching dance people for my 11 AM class. The idea that I was going to spend a good part of my morning doing this had me thinking about whether I have allowed myself to be exploited by the Hope Dance department.

I have of course been complicit in any exploitation. It reminds me in part of how church musicians were being paid when I arrived here in Holland Michigan in the late eighties. I don’t know if I have the energy to address this particularly little injustice. The dance department itself is already sort of the bad boy of Hope College. They have wormed their way into the institution and seem to remain on the outside of good administration.

This morning I realized that one of the reasons I am not too upset about leaving this work is that it pays so shitty. I hadn’t thought much about that since I told myself that for me a large part of the remuneration was the “perks” of having access to excellent online resources.

But free and/or reasonably priced resources on the internet seem to be improving. There are people in academia who understand the problems with firewalls around knowledge and even champion free access.

So now it’s after 7 AM and I have my little tasks pretty much done. I did most of my research about the dancers on Wikipedia. How about that? I don’t know the good online academic scholarly dance tools. The music tools mentioned some of the people I want to be able to talk about semi-intelligently (or as I started thinking about it this morning. like a guy getting paid $25 an hour to teach college and improvising music).

I think I’m ready. The task was to provide some comments on the relationship to music of the dance philosophy of these people: Isadora Duncan, Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, José Limon, Paul Taylor and Merce Cunningham. All of these people are dead (some long dead) except Paul Taylor. Each dancer in class was given one of these people to look up. Today we all talk about it.

Yesterday I spent the entire All Saints service light headed and running on Adrenalin expecting at any moment to have to run to the bathroom. The service went very well despite these conditions. I came home more tired than usual.

Sunday afternoons find me deflated usually. Yesterday was worse than usual. My head was spinning.  By evening I felt well enough to end the day with a martini and some wine. This morning I feel fine.

Daughter Sarah called from England and we chatted with her online for a while. That helped a bit. Then we walked to say hello to my Mom. I’m going to quit blogging now and do some of my regular morning reading and studying. See you on the funway.

Gloria Steinem: By the Book – The New York Times

Steinem mentions a bunch of books that sound interesting.

How 4 Federal Lawyers Paved the Way to Kill Osama bin Laden – The New York Times

Man o man, it disturbs me greatly that we as a country continue to rationalize our evil.

Handel Museum Opens a Hendrix Half – The New York Times

On a lighter note, Handel and Hendrix share a museum and a tiny bit of history. How cool is that?

Academia’s Rejection of Diversity – The New York Times

Rejection of conservatives leads to less quality. Shockerini.