I tried to give myself an entire day off yesterday. I shirked my self imposed weekly task of submitting the bulletin information to the church secretary for a week from Sunday. I have done my best to get my church organization to think further ahead in planning worship. When I worked for the Roman Catholics, I urged them to use what protestants call “bulletins” (RCs prefer the more trendy “worship aid.”). They were kind enough to give me money and permission to print up a weekly page for three masses. I worked further ahead than my present gig so that the Friday before a given Sunday, I had a finished copy of the upcoming bulletin for the following Sunday ready to print.

We are almost that far ahead at my Episcopal church now.

But yesterday I put it on the back burner.

Instead I tried to do nothing (this means read and practice I guess). Around 11 I had the notion to move furniture. I have three file cabinets presently in the new room (main floor bedroom off the newly renovated bathroom). I have made another little task for myself to get them out of the room this week. So yesterday I made a start.

This meant first moving my treadmill off the porch to make room for files there as well bring it in to the house for the cold winter months (the porch is unheated).

This I did.

This actually was kind of a pain. The treadmill barely fit through the doors. Then I moved one file to the porch. I removed the two drawers which still had stuff in them to make this a bit easier. Also I had to clear a path in my cluttered living room to do this.

 

That was enough for one day. I plan to move the other two this week with Eileen’s help. I will empty the drawers in them and we will  balance them on wheels (the handle on the dolly pictured above comes off and forms a little cart). I think the two of us can roll them to the porch and then I can fill them back up with stuff for the winter.

 

This is what the room looks like now. If you look closely you can see the two lateral files I want to move. The idea is to get this room ready for visitors at Thanksgiving. At this rate,  I might make it.

Since I will no longer need my remote speakers for treadmilling (it is now sitting right  next to the computer speakers which are the best speaker system in the house), I used them to set up the shower and the kitchen for sound. I tested one speaker in each room with the laptop pumping out the sound through the little wireless thingo. Worked great. I am now in pig heaven. I can take a shower and listen to music (which I did twice yesterday). And cook and listen to music. Wow. Very cool.

1. Randi Zuckerberg’s Honest Confusion — Daily Intelligencer

 

Another review of Mark Z’s  sister’s book.

He is the Facebooger guy who has already been immortalized by what looks like a tedious movie. I have posted a link to another review of this book by Judith Martin (Miss Manners). This review by Kevin Roose is wise in the way it looks at online life (Unlike Randi Z). Roose has insights into the not yet finished settling-in of understanding what we are doing online. He names our ambivalence.

I heard someone talking this week about the perils of our technology. It reminded me of a prof I had in undergrad school who was tyrannical in his insistence that when he played recordings of music no one was to do anything but listen. I think he had it wrong. I obviously shower and cook to music. But I see the perils of tech, but I also see and experience an amazing explosion of access to information (professional research journals, reference tools like the OED, a dizzying array of music available for listening, instant purchase and downloading of ebooks).

I am interested in how we develop etiquette with our evolving tech as well as how it is changing us.

I prefer a clear-eyed insider and user like Roose.

2. Clear-eyed Margaret Atwood | TLS

Speaking of “clear-eyed,” This review of Atwood’s new book makes me want to go back and re-read the first two volumes of her current trilogy. I like that Amanda Wilson (the intelligence behind the blog Dead White Guys) says of her blog that “we’re on Twitter because Margaret Atwood is on Twitter.” This makes me smile.

3. David Hykes – True To The Times (How To Be?) (CD, Album) at Discogs

David Hykes is blowing me away. Professor Brad Richmond introduced me to him in a talk he gave this week on choral conducting. Hykes has taught himself to sing in a quasi-Tibetan way in which he can produce high overtones with his low long sung notes. He then uses this idea in very cool compositions. I totally recommend this guy.

As usual I got quite a bit out of Richmond’s talk. I have been madly checking out other stuff like the Swedish conductor Eric Ericson who died this year, but exerted a powerful influence on choral sound world wide.