Last night’s performance was a bit more fun than Friday’s rehearsal. The sound guy ended up putting my keyboard through the sound system. He seemed to have done a much better job of balancing me with the sound than the guy who ran the sound for the Grand Rapids Symphony did when I performed with them under similar circumstances.

The first piece I played on was actually the third one on the program. It was an inauspicious beginning for me. Despite carefully counting a zillion and one measures of Mussourgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” and making my first entrance correctly I somehow lost track of exactly where we were and screwed up the ending. The conductor shook me off and I instantly quit playing. Fuck.

I managed to redeem myself a bit later in the silly Jurassic Park overture in which I had several exposed sections. In fact the rest of the concert went pretty well for me. I never lost track of exactly where we were and nailed the music.

Whew. The music we played was pretty goofy. Not all that satisfying to be part of. But I did like two things about this gig. First of all it’s fun to play with a bunch of other players. I love being in an orchestra or a wind ensemble. Secondly, I was grateful that I didn’t have to beg for my pay as I often have had to do in other situations. When I handed the concertmistress my music I was surprised that she knew who I was. I knew who she was because she is an active local player. But most of those people seem to look right through me a lot and not notice I’m around. She handed me an envelope with my check. Cool beans.

It was a lovely evening in the park last night. Nice breeze. It reminded me of my high school experience of Interlochen where I attended one of those summer camps. Music outdoors can be fun.

Eileen bought a table yesterday. She has been lusting after it for a few days. It is a charming piece and will probably grace her weaving room once we figure out how to organize a bit better.

1. Introspective or Narcissistic? – NYTimes.com

I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days. I sometimes wonder if I am too self-absorbed. Having Eileen around more has made me realize that I probably spend more of my time in a state of self-criticism than the sort of narcissism I suspect some may think I am guilty of. But who knows? Interesting article.

2. Origami Inspires Rise of Self-Folding Robot – NYTimes.com

Pretty cool. This weekend’s On the Media show is pretty lame but it’s about robots as well.

3. Plot Thickens as 900 Writers Battle Amazon – NYTimes.com

Not sure exactly what I think about all of this. Anyway the New York Times is giving free publicity to a bunch of people who bought an ad that apparently is in today’s edition.

4. President Obama Talks to Thomas L. Friedman About Iraq, Putin and Israel – 

Every since the Iraq war, I have had trouble with Friedman. He was a cheer leader for the war who had written books on the area. It turns out he was all wrong as so many were about that war. Anyway, I like what President Obama has to say about “maximalist” positions. I take it he means achieving one hundred per cent of any political goal. He points out that

” we will never realize our full potential unless our two parties adopt the same outlook that we’re asking of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds or Israelis and Palestinians: No victor, no vanquished and work together.”   President Obama

5. Rudderless Craft to Get Glimpse of Home Before Sinking Into Space’s Depths

I  have been following this story. Here’s a link to a simulation and info on the flight. At least I hope it’s a link. I tried to Facebooger this link and it would only show a log on for Google stuff.

My second rehearsal with the Holland Symphony was not as much fun as the first. I arrived to find that they had brought the amplifier I will be using tonight. This was a pleasant surprise. I guess one of the problems of being a free lance keyboard player these days is that one is confronted with a dizzying array of instruments one is expected to play. Then on top of this,  amplification is also a problem. Last night I had problems with both.

I didn’t seem to be on top of my game the way I had the night before. I couldn’t find an optimum volume setting. The conductor mentioned at one point the keyboard sounded “boomy.” I wasn’t sure if this was because of the sound I had chosen or the amplifier. I turned down the bass a bit after he said that. He did say we would try to come up with a balance once we were in the situation in which we will perform.  This is scheduled to be outside tonight in Collen Park.

It looks overcast this morning.  We do have a rain venue. I think it’s the Holland Civic Center which would be a nightmare since it’s a typical basketball court with a stage.

Anyway, as we approached the section where I have a solo in Jurassic Park, I got a bit lost. For some reason, the keyboard would not go into piano mode. Measures before my solo I noticed a new message on the small screen where it tells the player which sound has been selected. I knew that if I turned the machine on and off it would reset. I just didn’t know how long it would take.

I ended up playing the exposed section on a woofy harp stop. It really sounded like shit. Nice.

The conductor seemed stressed throughout the rehearsal. He kept saying he thought the room was hot.

It wasn’t that uncomfortable where I was setting, but the dude was sweating and was obviously in duress.

The Hope College orchestral conductor was principal cellist last night. I didn’t notice him playing the night before. The Holland symphony conductor guy spent most of the rehearsal commenting quietly to the Hope conductor. The Hope band director played principal flute both evenings. It may be that conducting these men added to the stress of the Hope symphony dude. However the night before I saw him chatting up the flute player in an admirable relaxed manner.

So I don’t quite know what’s going on this evening. I hope I can nail it like I did on Thursday and the stupid stupid keyboard and its amplifier don’t screw me up again.  At any rate, the manager announced last night that we are to turn in our music to the principal violinist who will then hand us a check. That’s refreshing.

I survived the Holland Symphony rehearsal last night. I was prepared. They brought the keyboard to the Zeeland Middle school where we were rehearsing, but did not bring the amp. Consequently, the only time I really heard was what I was doing was when the rest of the orchestra was either not playing or quiet.

This is the view from my stand:

The conductor,  Johannes Müller-Stosch, is conferring with Nate Walker. I have known and played music with Nate since he was in High School. Interestingly, last night he told me he was thinking of becoming an elementary school teacher, presumably a music teacher. This is funny because when he started his under graduate school a couple of years ago he was adamant that he did not want to follow in the steps of his parents, both of whom are teachers. I pointed that out to him and acknowledged that he had changed. He is an excellent bass player.

Johannes Müller-Stosch is on Facebooger. I just sent him a friend request. We’ll see if he responds. He was very friendly last night to me. He is also a very fine conductor. I can follow his very clearly and musical directing easily.

At $47 per service, the pay is low for this gig. But the morale of the group is high and I enjoyed sitting in an orchestra and playing along. Hopefully my stamina will hold up through tonight’s rehearsal and tomorrow evening’s performance (another $47 each, woo hoo, the Bigtime!)

This morning I idly was reading a mailing from Wayne can i buy diazepam in bulgaria State U where I earned my Bachelors degree. The guy above, Norah Duncan,  was one of my classmates. He was a good player and conductor and a fellow church musician.

He is currently interim chair of the Music Department at Wayne. I was tickled to read his letter in the promo newsletter it puts out (link to clumsy pdf of it).

I enjoyed Norah’s reminiscence of Detroit and Wayne State in his letter. He finished his Master’s a year I left WSU and went on to eventually get his DMa from U of M. We were pretty good friends and colleagues when I lived in Detroit. We roomed together at the International Gregorian Chant Convention in Washington DC one year and had fun together.

He was the Detroit Cathedral musician and routinely reached out to those of us who were working in the trenches in Catholic churches throughout Detroit and the suburbs. He would show up at a choral concert for example and sing along in the choir. He did this with me at least once.

I have often thought that if I stayed more in touch with the schools I graduated from I could have either gone on and worked for them or at least benefited from continuing collegiality with students and teachers.  But life is good and the advent of my colleague, Rhonda Edgington, has improved my local connections a hundred fold.

I was thinking about this and realizing that I have had more local acknowledgment of my abilities than I sometime give myself credit for. I remember in particular one concert I gave at my church of my coffee shop stuff with my friend Jonathan Fegel. I had a good supportive showing from people from all walks of life at that one which was nice since it was probably one of my better concerts of this sort of material, what I call my bad Paul Simon music.

My guitar music and compositions of that ilk have fallen to the back burner these days. No matter. Life IS good.

1. The Guns of August – NYTimes.com

More centennial observations on WWI.

2. The Threats to Our Drinking Water – NYTimes.com

Another example of what government is for: regulating our water and ensuring that it is clean.

3. European Spacecraft Pulls Alongside Comet After 10 Years and Four Billion 

I think this is sooooo cool!

I continue to get up every morning and read Greek.

I recently stumbled upon a web site that had some interesting insights about teaching yourself Greek.   It’s called POCM which stands for “Pagan Origins of the Christian Myth.” Hmmm.

I began reading this site and was amused at its style and information.  It began this way:

If Christian origins gets to be your hobby, watch out you don’t get sucked in to studying ancient Greek

It went on to talk about how curiosity aroused in this way is a “gateway activity.”

My conscious motivation in studying Greek has been a love of Homer. I would like to read him in the original.

At the same time my working life and personal history is inextricably connected to the Christian church.

Which means that I also use Greek that way.

For example, yesterday I was reading in my MacCulloch church history book and he mentioned that Paul’s use of the image of living stones was “a rather idiosyncratic Greek usage … centered on the idea of Temple-building.”

I pulled out my Greek New Testament and was actually able to track down the verb Paul used in this way. Cool.

Homer as a gateway to New Testament Greek? Who new?

Anyway, I thought it was funny that the POCM website spent several paragraphs telling the reader how impossible learning Greek is and then observing that “You’re still reading. You do want to learn Ancient Greek! Good. Let’s talk.”

Then it goes on with lots of tips and observations and links to help someone like me. The person writing has obviously been down this road and has lots of good criticisms and analyses of what’s available and how well it works. Very helpful.

1. Sick of this market-driven world? You should be | George Monbiot | Comment

Excellent little article. Thank you Sarah for posting it on Facebooger.

I noticed a weird banner on abebook.com yesterday. I suspected malware.

Sure enough. I ran Spyware Terminator (Thank you, Matthew Locke for recommending this) and it found five thingos and deleted them. The banner went away. Cool.

I was anxious about my doctor visit yesterday. It turned out okay of course. This past spring I gained five or six pounds.  And in my December check up, I had gained weight as well. Damn! I have been trying to shave off weight but it’s harder than it used to be. I had resigned myself to going to my doctor’s appointment overweight. But it still bothered me. And then there was the fact that I always have higher blood pressure at my doctor’s appointment (probably largely about worrying abut high blood pressure… it makes me crazy).

All this is to say that things went a bit better than I had expected. First I got on the scale and weighed two less pounds than I had weighed at home before coming.

I had weighed 217 before leaving. I remarked to the nurse how surprising it was that the doctor scale was giving me a bit lighter reading. As a result according to their charts I had only gained a pound and half thank you jesus.

Then the nurse took my blood pressure and it was 142/78. This is high but not as high as it usually spikes at the doctor’s office. Dr. Fuentes took it later and it was down to a more regular reading of 130/80 which is still higher than it trends at home.

I have a good doctor. Her bedside manner rocks.

She chatted me up quite a bit. I found out that she speaks Lebanese as well as English and Spanish. My check up went well. My cholesterol is rising. Dr. Fuentes smiled and said it was genetic. Nice.

I do not hold my internist responsible for my physical health. I try to take care of that myself and also realize that it’s no guarantee of longevity.

I had time to come home and have breakfast with Eileen. Then picked up my Mom and took her back to the same building for a visit with her neurologist. That went well. Mom surprised me by taking me up on my usual offer to go out for lunch. We went and picked up Eileen and the three of us went to Five Brothers for burgers after stopping for Mom’s mandatory “Frosty” at Wendy’s.

After dropping Mom off back at the nursing home, Eileen and I stopped and voted.

By the time I got home, I found that I was physically exhausted. Weird. I spent the rest of the day alternating between reading and practicing the music for the Holland Symphony gig. I did drag myself to church for some organ practice then back for the mandatory treadmilling.

Eileen had booked herself for the evening taking a friend to vote and also prepping for a flash mob she will be participating in.

I settled in with a martini after a stressful but satisfying day.

1. On Centenary of World War I, Europe Sees Modern Parallels – NYTimes.com

Since history doesn’t inform much public discussion in the USA these days, every little bit helps.

2. Her Throne Defunct, a Princess Fights Eviction From Her Manhattan Walk-Up 

I think rent controls are cool. This landlord sounds like a loser to me.

3. Plato and the Promise of College – NYTimes.com

Heartwarming little article by Bruni.

4. Atef Abu Saif: Life and Death in the Gaza Strip – NYTimes.com

This is not so heartwarming but gives an excellent and disturbing feel for living through the hell of war. Graphic description warning.

The Western Theological Seminary was closed for the weekend. So yesterday morning bright and early I went over and checked out MacCulloch’s The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603. This covers the exact period that follows the death of Cranmer. I find myself curious as to how the church and England evolved during this period. It is interesting to readjust my meager understanding of the Episcopal church alongside the concurrent Lutheran and Calvinist reformation.

While I was there I didn’t restrain myself from looking at the new books shelf. Oh no! The library had just received four books by or edited by Paul Bradshaw.

While I was a grad student at Notre Dame I studied under some excellent Liturgy teachers. Bradshaw was one of them. I took the Office from him. In the middle of the term, he was called home to England to the deathbed of his mother. His TA Paul Nelson taught the rest of the class. Nelson was also brilliant. He went on to a short but shining career in the national Lutheran church.

Two of the books I checked out by Bradshaw look excellent.

Eucharistic Origins (oub. 2004/2012) and

The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship: Sources and Methods for the Study of Early Liturgy (2nd edition, 2002)

Glancing over these I realize that I probably will want to read them eventually. But first the MacCulloch which is not too long (172 pages).

I dropped by the Holland Area Arts Council to check out the keyboard I will playing this week for the Holland Symphony. I find it odd to be included in this event and even to be walking through the building. I have watched the Arts Council and the Symphony from afar, but haven’t been involved with them before. It’s kind of weird, but also nice (thank you, Rhonda, for recommending me if that’s what happened).

I snapped a pic of the controls. It’s kind of a crappy instrument with unweighted keys, but I think it will be okay.

Last night I decided to make Fragrant Aubergine out of Fuschia Dunlop’s Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China.

Here’s a link to Andrew Zimmerman’s online version of the recipe which is pretty close to hers. His looks like this:

A little food porn this morning, eh? Anyway, I found that when I took pictures with the flash it came out with brighter (and unrealistic colors). It actually looked more like this:

It was delicious. Eileen didn’t try it. I feel a bit guilty making such great food just for myself, but Eileen keeps encouraging me to do so.

I woke up yesterday feeling a bit dismal and had difficulty focusing well. This persisted to when I arrived at church and began to prepare for the service. After going over a couple sections in the Virgil Thomson piece scheduled for the prelude (the beginning section and the fugue of “Come ye, disconsolate!”), I went over the psalm. I wasn’t convinced I could lead it terribly well since I try to prepare singing it as well as playing it. I went over the entire psalm four times and repeated one section slowly a fifth time. Ah well. It was about all I could do in the time allotted.

I played the prelude which was a charming little Pastorale by Darius Milhaud. I was surprised to learn that not only did Milhaud study organ at one point but his teacher was none other than the famous and influential composition teacher, Nadi Boulanger.

I have been reading about her all my life as the teacher of many 20th century composers. I never caught a whiff that she was an organist. I guess its true that organists sometimes are thought to be second class classical musicians. At least historically.

Anyway, I introduced the first hymn on the organ. The congregation began singing lustily. I was surprised. It was a small group of about 60 people.  This number fills the church in a spotty manner and the people were scattered throughout the room. My spirits lifted during the hymn. Today was going to be an easy Sunday if the congregation persisted in this kind of singing.

And in fact that is what happened. The congregation sang its heart out . The psalm was  a breeze because I no longer needed to sing it as I accompanied. Interestingly there was not a lot of part singing which may have contributed to the unified strong sound.

After church, a man in a white beard approached me and began complimenting me and the community on the service. He was apparently an Episcopalian musician himself. He told me his name which I promptly forgot but did not say where he was visiting from. I thanked him for his kind words and told him he had attended a “good” Sunday.

I walked  home amazed that church had actually put me in a good mood despite the usual negative energy coming from several college profs. How about that?

This morning I was thinking about how music is broken up into smaller and smaller fields and seems dominated by commodification.

This came to mind as I lay in bed and listened to NPR report in detail on a Texas band I have never heard of. There was little talk of their music. Mostly it was the story of a band and the non-conformity of  its lead singer.

Sigh.

The composers that I spend so much time thinking about and whose music I learn, perform and study have probably always been a bit of a minority concern.

But now the audience for music and the way it hears it is such a complex and wide ranging topic. I think of musicians I have known. Some of them had no interest in music except what they perceived as compelling, be that classical musicians who did not listen to popular music or popular musicians entirely disinterested in historical music.

I am still reading David Byrne’s How Music Works. The chapter I am reading is about the music business and it is obvious that Byrne pretty much is only interested (or counts) popular music and music of other cultures. He never mentions classical musicians. Pretty weird.

This is balanced by another book I am reading: Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck by Kerala Snyder. The organ world is one that I have experienced as very specialized. After reading Thomas Cranmer’s bio, I understand how some Episcopalian musicians were drawn to the Episcopal church’s Evensong. The persistence of this service is a tribute to the incredibly beautiful language and music it contains.

I appreciate MacCulloch pointing out how Cranmer himself would not necessarily approve of the four hundred year practice that sprang from his work on the Book of Common Prayer. He himself was not into the whole cathedral thing and was actually more interested in fixing much of what he saw wrong with Holy Mother Catholic Church.

So my own distance from the predilection of some Episcopalian musicians theologically is probably close to Cranmer than the Evensong practice left in his wake.

How about that?

1. Facebook’s Gateway Drug – NYTimes.com

Facebooger plans to take over the world. Weird shit.

2. The War of Words in China – NYTimes.com

Is the Chinese government paying people to attack Wikipedia articles? Who knows?

3. Three Myths About the Brain – NYTimes.com

I think I might be partially guilty of perpetuating the last of these three. But the first two I kind of already had learned about.

4. Siegfried Sassoon’s World War I Diaries Are Published Online – NYTimes.com

For me, this is the Interwebs at its best.

5. Reanimating Bertha, a Mechanical Behemoth Slumbering Under Seattle – NYT

Hard for me to conceive of the scope of this project. Wow!

Eileen gave me some time to practice organ after we went to the Farmers Market yesterday. She was anxious to get up to the Hatch reunion. While I practiced, she prepared the fruit we bought for the shared meal.

I had emails from Hope college about the death of the former chair of the Music Department, Stu Sharp, which informed me his funeral would be at my church on Monday. Yikes. Before the day was out I had a clarifying email from my boss that he was not a member of our church and that he didn’t have a “home church” and we were letting them use our building for the funeral. This was actually a relief to me since I wasn’t exactly looking forward to doing a Hope college music faculty funeral. Sunday mornings are already too reminiscent these days of my grad school experience when I played the weekly Eucharist and was guaranteed that many critical and unfriendly teachers would be in attendance and scrutinizing my every note.

I should add that contrary to my grad experience, I now suspect the music faculty barely notices that I’m there.

But I notice they are there.

I have a busy week ahead anyway. Tomorrow I am planning to go take a look at the synth or whatever it is that the Holland Symphony plans for me to do some performing on next Saturday.  I wonder if I will only be playing it or if they will also have some sort of piano for the piano parts. The performance will be outdoors in a park so one never knows.

Then Tuesday morning I have my semi annual check up.

I am dreading this because I  have gained a few pounds and can’t seem to shed them as easily as I used to.

And of course my blood pressure is always high at the doctor’s office even though it usually runs within acceptable norms when I take it at home.

Right after my appointment, I have to go and get my Mom and take her to the neurologist who is in the same building as my internist. Then on Thursday and Friday evening I have rehearsals with the Holland Symphony. They only pay $47 dollars per service (rehearsal or performance). When they hired me they hinted that they could pay more if I charged more but I stupidly went with the $47 figure. It’s what they pay the principal players. I’m probably no better than them.

The reunion was the usual experience. People are extremely polite. I think it’s hard on Eileen but she wants to be there. I try to be sociable enough and then I sit and read and take the occasional picture and post it on Facebooger.

I finished the ebook of Kiese Laymon’s How to Slowly Kill yourself and Others in America.This is the second of his books I have read. His writing works for me. He is an interesting combination of literacy and hip/hop social stuff. He teaches at Vassar and I “follow” him on Facebooger. I quite like his writing.

I finished reading Cranmer by MacCulloch this morning thus finishing the second of three or four books I meant to read this summer. My next big project which I have already begun is a bio of Dieterich Buxtehude by  Kerala J. Snyder.

Cranmer is the second book by Diarmaid MacCulloch I have read. The first was his overview of Christianity: Christianity: the First 3,000 Years.  I have also watched his BBC series on Christianity.

I checked it out from a local library. I recommend all three. MacCulloch’s prose is elegant and engaging. He is a contemporary man and scholar. He combines the erudition of the latter and the wit of a good college classroom teacher.

Finishing Cranmer left me interested in learning more about the history of the Book of Common Prayer and England itself. I immediately turned to my charming little copy of the 1549 and 1552 Prayer Books and read Bishop Gibson’s introduction written in 1910.

After MacCulloch’s bio, Gibson’s description made excellent sense to me even if MacCulloch helped me tweak it a bit in my own brain.

This book by MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603, is sitting on the shelf at the Western Theological Library blocks from here. It’s a bit pricey online so I’ll probably get over there and check it out today.

I will definitely read more by MacCulloch and about MacCulloch whom I find myself fascinated with. Here’s a link to a recent interview which is on my lists to read:

The Oxonian Review » An Interview with Diarmaid MacCulloch

Today is the day of the annual Hatch reunion.  After Eileen gets up (she has been sleeping in pretty regularly), she and I will brave the Farmers Market and purchase something to prepare and take to the reunion. Then we will brave the damn traffic between here and Whitehall which is complicated today by the Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven.

I got the brilliant idea yesterday that one way to get my book collection back on the shelves and in order would be to cull it of the silly stuff. I found a couple dozen books that I know I don’t want any more and started a stack for Bibles for Mexico.

I’m also encouraging Eileen to spread her workroom over both of the extra bedrooms upstairs. She is crammed into one right now. I think it would be better if she had more room. She is thinking about it.

Arab Leaders, Viewing Hamas as Worse Than Israel, Stay Silent – NYTimes

Just got around to reading this article. I have been understanding the Middle East Crisis differently since thinking of the fact that Egypt clamped down on the smuggling into Gaza that was an important source of supplies and also people going back and forth. This doesn’t get mentioned much and neither does the idea that there is a lot of complicity in Israel’s approach to Hamas in the Arab community.

A few days before he was burned to death, Thomas Cranmer had a particularly sad dream. He dreamed that both Henry the VIII (long dead at this point) and Christ rejected him.

Thus the rulers of the two realms whose clash had dominated his life both turned their back on him. At this point in his life, he was a broken man, alone. His friends and colleagues had already preceded him at the stake. He had been worn down by constant haranguing of scholars and church officials to recant his life of reforming the church and the state. This he did.

The night before his execution he gave a servant a coin and asked for her prayers saying that the prayers of a good person were worth more than that of a bad priest.

MacCulloch tells these stories clearly and with sympathy. He brings in the idea that our contemporary understandings of brainwashing and torture give light to Cranmer’s deathbed conversion back to the papal Antichrist and his church that Cranmer had battled all his life.

Some days before this, Cranmer had climbed to the roof of the gatehouse prison where he was housed in Oxford and watched a comet.

This comet was causing a stir. People saw this kind of thing as a sign. England was in turmoil and her new rulers, Mary and Phillip, were concerned. Meanwhile Cranmer watched the comet. Who knows what this great scholar and fascinating man thought as he watched it.

In her book Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China, Fuchsia Dunlop enlightens the reader about the cavalier approach of cooks to the lives of the animals they brutally skin alive or prepare for cooking.

In English, as in most European languages, the words for the living things we eat are mostly derived from the Latin <anima>, which means air, breath, life. “Creature”, from the Latin word for “created”, seems to connect animals with us as human beings in some divinely fashioned universe. We too are creatures, animated. In Chinese, the word for animal is <dong wu>, meaning “moving thing”. Is it cruel to hurt something that (unless you are a fervent Buddhist) you simply see as a “moving thing”, scarcely even alive?

Dunlop goes on to make the telling critique of Western consumers who are disconnected from the death of the animals they love to eat.  Even though I am a vegetarian I have not shirked the experience of preparing dead animals, cleaning fish and carving up the raw flesh of beef and poultry for others to eat. It only seems honest.

1. House Votes to Sue Obama for Overstepping Powers – NYTimes.comHouse Votes to Sue Obama for Overstepping Powers – NYTimes.com

Statistics show that as of last week, the Obama White House had issued a total of 183 executive orders, the vast majority in his first term. George W. Bush, by comparison, issued 291 in his eight years in office. Bill Clinton issued 364; Ronald Reagan 381. Executive orders do, however, vary in scope and significance.

In my Greek study text, at one point Greek sailors bemoan the change in their country. At one time Greeks were of one mind and now they hate each other. It made me think of the USA.

Having said that, I am concerned about the growing power of the executive. It’s probably inevitable that it grow somewhat when the legislative branch is so frozen as to practically be nonfunctional. My concerns are about the use of drones and ordering of covert (or even overt) military actions that result in deaths.

2. Tears, and Anger, as Militants Destroy Iraq City’s Relics – NYTimes.com

The scope of this loss of history continues to stun me.

I have been working at my touchpad skills. But the Windows 8 system keeps defeating me with all its extra strokes that call up the stupid stupid app approach to everything popping me accidentally into the dang Windows menu when I’m trying to do stuff.

I was working on editing a google doc this morning and gave up and plugged in a mouse.

Good grief.

Brother Mark asked if I would share my hymn list. It was pretty messy. I planned to clean it up before I shared with my staff. So this morning I needed to do a bunch of selecting and deleting. That’s when I decided to plug in a mouse.

I believe it was sometime after my last China trip that daughter Elizabeth gave me Fuchsia Dunlop’s charming Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-sour Memoir of Eating in China. We are heading back to China in September to see our new grand kid (Elizabeth is preggers). I never finished Dunlop, so I decided to start over in it and see how far I get this time. It is fun.

I’m in the last sixty pages of Cranmer by MacCulloch. I’ve got Cranmer to his trial under Queen Mary. Soon they burn him. It is fascinating to learn the details of how the Episcopal Church founded itself. Cranmer seems to have had a certain kind of genius, a scholarly genius. I’m learning tons.

1. In Church Attics, Clues to the Private Life of Early America – NYTimes.com

Amazing that in our short history we have stuff tucked away in churches and attics that helps us understand people who lived here a couple hundred years ago. I love this stuff.

2. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw: My Brother’s Keeper Ignores Young Black Women – NY

This writer has an important point to make. I was especially appalled by these figures:

Even more disturbing: the median wealth of single black and Hispanic women is $100 and $120, respectively — compared with almost $7,900 for black men, $9,730 for Hispanic men and $41,500 for white women.

I spent several hours yesterday planning music for church. The first step is to pick hymns for the next year. I am up to Advent. Today I’m planning to do Advent, Christmas and as much of Epiphany as I can.

I’m off to the Farmers Market in a minute. After that, I will probably get started on this project.

This afternoon I meet with my boss Jen and then give a 3 M piano lesson to Rudy.

In between all this I have to practice.  I’m taking the unusual step of doing some serious rehearsing for the upcoming wedding. I have changed the settings I use of the Pachelbel Canon in D so that is requiring some prep.  I am scrupulously rehearsing the rest of the selections which are more numerous than usual: Vivaldi’s Spring (the popular movement), Handel’s Hornpipe, Mozart Piano Concerto 21 theme, Jesu Joy, and the famous Air on a G String by Bach.

I am using Virgil Fox’s arrange of the Air on a G String because its the only one I can find right now. I have scheduled the Mozart Piano Concerto theme as the prelude for the weekend of the wedding.

That particular weekend will be busy. I am also scheduled to play with the Holland Symphony orchestra the evening of the wedding (Aug 9). This means I will be in rehearsal that week for that. The scores are not particularly demanding, but I will contact the Symphony people next week because it looks like I’m supposed to be running a synth. Every synthesizer is a bit different so I will need to look at it.

When I played with the Grand Rapids Symphony, one of the concerts was in a venue without a pipe organ. I was responsible to provide the organ part for Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra on a synth. There was no run through. The synth was coming through the PA in the auditorium we were playing and could have easily overwhelmed the orchestral sound. I told the sound guy I would relay on him to balance. I had volume controls myself, but resisted turning them up. The sound guy apparently chickened out judging from the slight frown on the conductor’s face during that point in the performance.

They never asked me back and I wondered if that balance problem in the performance was part of the reason. At any rate, I would like to do a better job with the Holland Symphony Synth.

1. 3 Killed in a Facebook Blasphemy Rampage in Pakistan – NYTimes.com

Current tech meets local needs to persecute people who believe the wrong way. Yikes. I am finishing reading MacCulloch’s bio of Cranmer. Cranmer  also killed and was himself killed for beliefs. Madness.

2. When Middle East Conflicts Become One – NYTimes.com

Some good history and insights on this conflict.

3. Adam Hochschild: Why World War I Was Such a Blood Bath – NYTimes.com

The author of this article points out that the knowledge to avoid many deaths in WWI was available. It was just ignored. Sort of like now.

4. Making Dramas About Mideast Can Be Complicated – NYTimes.com

Finding TV to watch is tricky without networks since we are no longer subscribing to cable and haven’t hooked up an antennae. We do our viewing online. Some networks make the shows available, some don’t. Also how does one hear about them when one’s social circle is pretty limited? I regularly bookmark articles like the above to check out the shows mentioned.

I received some alarming emails from Discover on Sunday morning. While I was at church, Eileen figured out that our Discover account was being used by someone else.

Discover froze the account and is sending us new credit cards.

This seems to be from online activity and not a hack of our home computers since we have found no other hacked accounts. 

We do a lot of online purchases and this is probably a result of one of them. Oh well. Thank goodness Discover doesn’t hold us accountable for the fraudulent purchases.

My careful preparation last week of the quick section of the C Minor Prelude by Dengler paid off in spades. I nailed that section with ease and at tempo. Unfortunately I hadn’t quite managed to learn one little bit in a pedal statement of the theme accompanied by one hand. I can be heard clearly fumbling on the video I posted previously. This little bit occurs four times in Dengler’s piece. Sunday I got two of the four. I see this a direct result of concentrating on the quick section with the time I had for learning the piece. I’m pretty sure I could have fixed this other detail given a bit more rehearsal.

This week I have to prepare pieces by Virgil Thomson and Darius Milhaud.

The Thomson is an excerpt from his piece on “Come, Ye Disconsolate” from his “Variations on Four Sunday School Tunes.”

I love these Thomson pieces and have performed little sections of them at church. The “Come, Ye Disconsolate” is one I haven’t done before.  Yesterday, I figured out exactly what sections of it will make a nice postlude for Sunday: the first statement of the hymn and the concluding fugal section.

I’m playing Milhaud’s lovely Pastorale for the prelude. It’s not too challenging. My used score has some charming careful notations on it that are helping me play it well. I love used music.

1. In Search for Killer, DNA Sweep Exposes Intimate Family Secrets in Italy – NYTimes

A unsettling use of tech to find a killer.

2. On What Makes One a Reporter in a Digital Age – NYTimes.com

The Texas legislature only allows reporters to watch them. Now they have to determine exactly what a reporter is, not an easy task these days.

3. The Media’s Retreat From Foreign Reporting – NYTimes.com

Some intelligent talk about the decline of on the ground reporting from one who has done it recently.

4. Bel Kaufman, Who Told What School Was Really Like, Dies at 103 – NYTimes.com

5. Why the Border Crisis Is a Myth – NYTimes.com

An El Paso county judge explains why nothing new is happening.

After church I relaxed by watching a video. A while back when we were a bit more flush with cash I purchased videos of some Ingmar Bergman films.

The first of his “Silence of God” trilogy, “Through a Glass Darkly,” was a film that influenced me greatly when I first saw it.

I have seen the second film, “Winter Light,” but didn’t remember it very clearly.

I have been thinking about my relationship to Christianity. I continue to be involved with it. I see a great deal of beauty and worth in the rituals I help lead. At the same time, I personally have difficulty with the idea that many people seem to have of God.

Since “Winter Light” is about a pastor who has lost his faith I thought it might be interesting to watch it.

So when I got home, I dug up my copy of the screen play and began reading it a bit.

Later I put the video on and watched the whole movie.

There is a marked difference between the screen play and the movie.

In the movie, the actors play the scenes very bleakly, much more bleak than the screen play. They do this not only with their amazing acting, but also a lot of the dialogue seems to have been cut out.

This is fitting because one of the themes running through this trilogy is the silence of God.

The story is what takes place on a Sunday in late November in two rural Swedish churches. It starts with communion in one church and ends with the beginning of a service in another.

In between we meet Tomas, the pastor;

Märta, a local school teacher (his lover);

Jonas, a depressed villager (Max Von Sydow);

Karin, his wife;

Blom, the organist

and Algot,a sacristan.

The pastor is dealing with his own loss of faith after the death of his wife. His lover both comforts and torments him. He is in turn unspeakably cruel to her. The depressed villager is pressed by his wife to seek out the pastor for help with the villager’s depression. After a meeting, the depressed villager kills himself. The pastor helps recover the body. Then he and his lover have a desperate private conversation in which they lash out at each other. Then they weirdly drive to the house of the dead villager so the pastor can inform the family of his death.

Then on to the afternoon service at the second church.

In the course of the story, this vaguely Shakespearian group of characters outline struggles with faith. The pastor begins and ends the film mouthing the words of the ritual. It seems obvious that Bergman means to do this in a acidly ironic way. But it still interests me how the bleak and realistic story is only understandable if one knows the Christian story.

For example, the names of the pastor and his lover, Tomas and Marta. Thomas the doubting disciple and Martha the sister of Mary and Lazarus is the sister who concerned with the practicalities of hosting Jesus while Mary “chooses the better part.” It’s a good name for the Bergman character because of her protective attitude to Tomas.

As I watched the movie this time, I saw clearly the words of the liturgy. They begin and end the film and have a large literary echo in Western Civilization.

The movie didn’t exactly answer some questions I ask myself such as why I continue to find beauty and solace in the words of the liturgy and the bible even though I have difficulty imagining God. After watching the movie I finished reading the script. This was weirdly a good way for me to spend my Sunday afternoon.

Eileen is skipping church this morning. I am jealous, but it’s my gig so I’m going. I used up most of my morning blogging time doing some Greek, reading in my Buxtehude bio by Snyder and writing an email to my friend Craig Cramer.

Craig was my teacher in grad school. He is also helping us with our organ project at church. He’s a funny dude. One of the best things about working with him was the great conversations we used to have. I miss that a lot. Now, when I see Craig, he usually makes a point to ask me what I’m reading and talk to me about ideas. I always remember that my undergrad teacher, Ray Ferguson, (whom I equally admired and learned a ton from) told Craig that I wasn’t that great a player but I was a good conversationalist and thought about ideas. I hope Ray would think my playing has improved (it has), but he does have a point and I think it colors the way Craig sees me to this day.

I found that the technique I began using to master the quick section of Prelude in C minor by Dengler worked excellently yesterday. You can read about it in previous entries if for some perverted reason you are interested. The good thing is that it freed up some of my rehearsal time to practice other things.

I also have been weirdly thinking a lot about Scriabin. I do find myself reluctantly drawn into his musical world. This is largely due to my piano student’s predilection for him. That’s one of the nice things about teaching Rudy, he is enamored with music I wouldn’t normally think a lot about. And then I get drawn in because the music is pretty wonderful.

Well no pics today. Or links. Gotta skate.

I’m pretty tired this morning. Eileen and I joined our friends, Rhonda, Mark and Eric, last night. We went out to Five Guys. I was happy to find that the Holland version of this franchise is as fun as the one in California. Then to a recital. The players were the Duo Diarama, a husband and wife team from Chicago.  They are violinist MingHuan Xu and pianist Winston Choi.

They pretty much rocked. I had earlier spotified their program. They played the Bach E major violin sonata, the Brahms G major violin sonata, a suite by William Grant Stills and the Sonata for Violin and Piano by John Corigliano.

The audience on the other hand depressed me. It was good to see a couple of young interns acting as ushers both of whom I recognized. I guess they have to pay young people to go concerts like these. It’s too bad. Because the music was good. But I do wonder about this format for ears that are used to a quicker wider array of styles at their fingertips.

The audience depressed me a bit because they were elderly and polite.

Sometimes between movements, they managed to murmur their approval when in fact they should have been standing up, applauding and yelling because some of the performances were extraordinary.

There was also a strong whiff of Holland good old boy/snob/power system from the past. But that’s another depressing story.

My friends Rhonda and Mark managed to get a word with the musicians. Rhonda knew the pianist when they were both at Indiana U, I guess. He was phenomenal. The piano he played was a Blüthner which is the kind we purchased when I was director at Our Lady of the Lake. Both instruments have a warm sheen to their sound and are a pleasure to listen to. The violinist was playing an historic instrument made in the 18th century. She got an full bodied sound from it. The low register shimmered and her high notes and double stops were spot on and beautiful to my old ears.

After the concert, Eileen and I came home and stayed up too late. We watched a documentary on Netflix called “Reel Injun” which I enjoyed.

I admire the inculturated marginal ethos that permeates so much of the contemporary Native American arts.  The narrator was Cree film maker Neil Diamond.  The movie is a clear headed assessment of the amazing impact of images from movies on how indigenous people are perceived and how they perceive themselves.

Did you know the famous weeping Indian in the TV commercial was actually Italian?

The actor was apparently obsessed with Native Americans on and off screen. He married an ethnologist and they adopted people who were actually of Native American descent.

It’s an amazing documentary. I enjoyed it immensely.

Yesterday, I decided to try to skip using the metronome to gradually increase the speed of a section of piece I am working on that I mentioned yesterday.  I applied Kraus’s idea of blending alternating hand parts into one simultaneous chord. The section I am working on ended up sounding like this.

Sorry about the quality of these videos but I think you get the idea. Then I went back and played it the way it is written.

Kraus says the question to ask yourself when you are practicing is “What do I want to hear now?” I notice that I am holding the right hand chord a bit too long and it thus becomes too prominent and sort of fuddles the rhythmic feel. Of course the voicing on my organ doesn’t help balance out the sound. The upper pipes seems louder to me on this rank.

So I tried to play the right hand more staccato.

This works. Here’s the section in the context of the entire piece.

I checked the tempos with the metronome and found I was pretty close in all cases. I put this up on Facebooger in the hopes that if someone wanted to they could prelisten to the prelude and maybe get it a bit more on Sunday. Sort of the poor man’s Spotifying music you’re going to listen to like I did yesterday.

I spent another block of time yesterday working with the metronome on a section of the piece I am performing Sunday, “Prelude in C Minor” by Lee Dengler.

I started at 120 beats per minute marking with a 3/4 clicking so that “1” of “1,2,3” makes a different noise. Most of the time the metronome app functioned properly , but there were definitely a few times when it did not beep at all on a beat.

It took me an hour or so to work up the section to 168 beats per minute as it is marked.

This morning I turned to Barbara Kraus’s little book, Practising the Organ, which recently arrived in the mail to see what insights she has about practicing.

I was amused that I recognized the several piano technique books she mentioned. I own most of them and even a few she didn’t refer to in her brief survey of piano technique books.

She is working her way toward a different approach to practising than can be found in printed sources. If I am reading her correctly it has more to do with conceptualizing than anything else.

“What do I want to  hear now?” she advises the practicing organist to ask herself rather than “How should this sound in principle?” I take the latter comment to mean “what is the finished sound/musical-statement I am seeking?” This is a difficult thing that we think about when we prepare a piece. Conceiving of the musical idea we are looking to render.

Kraus talks about our “unconscious conditioning” which is quite helpful. I know how I think about a piece at the moment is critical to my ability to play it.

Take the quick section I have been working on. At first I tried to read the notes closely and accurately but not thinking too much about how they worked together. Then I began to notice that the hands (which are the difficult part but are an accompanying figure) were grouped in little gestures that form clear phrases and have a lot of repetition.

Then I noticed that sometimes the hands move in the same direction and sometimes in opposite directions. Here I made my first mistake. I thought that certain sections were moving in contrary motion (opposite direction) when in fact after a couple of sessions I realized more accurately exactly how they were moving against each other.

I think this falls under Kraus’s rubric of careful scrutiny of what’s on the page.

All of this processing is going on while I am incessantly repeating the section with the metronome, gradually increasing tempo.

Another thing I noticed was how the music changed as it sped up.

What started out as two slow beats at the beginning of a three beat measure ends up a very quick moment of down beat.

I also noticed that sometimes I was more successful in allowing my hands to operate as one alternating rhythmic idea. I am thinking of how a snare drummer uses his sticks back and forth to create a good solid single rhythm.

Interestingly I was more successful with this motion in the hands when the pedal came in and the hands were clearly accompanying.

I belabor all this because I think Kraus is onto something. I think she is correct that how a musician understands what’s on the page or as they like to say “hears” what’s there is critical.

It is fun and challenging to use this one piece by Lee Dengler as a test case to work on some of my rehearsal techniques. I’m considering posting a YouTube video of the piece tomorrow since I usually video myself in order to time a piece. We’ll see.

I was delighted  to learn that my  piano student, Rudy, has been reading Proust. He is proficient in French and is reading it in French and English. Apparently his reading group is reading it as well.

I pulled out my copy and noted that I first finished it in 1996, then re-read it in 2000 and again in 2007.

When Rudy asked what I liked so much about Proust I stumbled around saying something about memory and also the ingenious construction of the plot itself. I was careful not to ruin it for him.

It was fun giving him our first lesson of the summer. I do enjoy the fact that he brings me in contact with music I probably would not study otherwise. Now I have to pull up some Liszt and Scriabin to think about.

I continued to pummel away at the section of this Sunday’s prelude I am trying to bring up to tempo. Yesterday I worked at the organ exclusively on it. I found that adding the pedal part was a bit trickier than I thought it would be. I had to slow way down and work my way back up the metronome. I wonder how far I will get in this process before the performance.

I received Practising the Organ: The shortest Connection between the Hands and the Feet is the Ear by Barbara Kraus in the mail from Germany yesterday. It looks to be a very practical little book and I look forward to consulting it if not reading it straight through.

Notice the spelling in the title. A quick glance at some reference books confirms that it is the UK practice to distinguish between “practice,” the noun, and “practise,” the verb. In American English the former is used in both cases.

How about that?

I spent some time talking to a guy with a strong Indian accent on the phone yesterday about our internet service with Comcast. I was trying to find out what speed we are paying for. We have been having troubles watching Jon Stewart and with what appears to be interruptions in service.

It turns out we are subscribed at 20 Mbps (download speed) and only receiving about 1. We did a reboot of the modem and the router and it increased the speed back to where it should be. The person on the phone suggested that we keep an appointment with a service rep for tomorrow and monitor how our service is working.

It did go down yesterday but quickly came back after I rebooted the wireless modem. We probably need a new one.

I also spent an interesting time in organ practice yesterday. A section in the piece I am performing as the prelude Sunday goes quite fast.  I decided to use the metronome and the old fashioned idea of starting at an easy pace and repeating at one click higher to gradually increase speed.

I started out around 120 and got it up to 130. Later I worked at the piano at home and started at 130 which was feeling pretty comfortable and got it up to 172 easily. This takes quick a bit of time and a lot of repetition. The section is marked 168 so I should be able to have it ready Sunday assuming I continue to practice in this way.

The silly metronome app on my phone screwed up several times. Good grief. I learned to put the phone on blank screen because if I don’t, the metronome app loses a beat when the screen goes blank. Also I think it was skipping a beat here and there, but that could have been me.

The piece is “Prelude in C Minor” composed by Lee Dengler. I bought it on sale last year. When I went through it at first I didn’t think much of it. But after my vacation, I played it again and was surprised that suddenly the piece made so much sense to me. I quite like it now and am looking forward to performing it Sunday.

Edward Snowden interview – the edited transcript | World | The Guardian

Interesting interview with Snowden. Linked in a New York Times article. Worth reading.

Karl Albrecht, a Founder of Aldi Stores, Dies at 94 – NYTimes.com

I find these  brothers fascinating. Karl’s brother owns Trader Joes.

I Had a Boyhood, Once – NYTimes.com

This woman knows how to write. A good read.

Give Us a Bishop in High Heels – NYTimes.com

Charming little report on the new stuff in the Anglican world.

Thinking Humanity: Free books: 100 legal sites to download literature

Cool site. Thank you to David for posting on Facebooger.

What Writers Can Learn From ‘Goodnight Moon’ – NYTimes.com

Excellent story of reading this book.

Who’s Right and Wrong in the Middle East? – NYTimes.com

Sensible observations and misconceptions corrected.

How Tests Make Us Smarter – NYTimes.com

I’ve often wondered if educators talk about how tests are learning tools. I know that I have benefited from testing myself.

This morning I skipped blogging and went and practiced organ. I have promised myself a “church free” day after yesterday. So now I don’t have to go back to the church building anyway today.

Yesterday I was pretty disturbed at the contractors we are talking to about installing a PA system. While I was out of the room (was that on purpose?) they told my boss that the installation would cost from $50K to $75K.

I think this is way out of line. So does my boss. Hey! What happened to the digital revolution? All the hardware costs tons less than it used to. Anyway, I was not happy about that.

I continue to play through 48 preludes of fugues of Bach for fun.

The D# minor ones I find especially  challenging and have to muster some will and concentration to play every note of them correctly. I often play through a piece four times before I feel like I’ve sufficiently drilled it, even just for a read through.

I found the D# minor fugue in the second volume enchantingly beautiful. I thought it might be interesting to turn to Hermann Keller’s little book on these pieces and see what he had to say about it.

I was disappointed to read that he hears this fugue as carrying “a heavy burden of thought” and “dominate by great seriousness.”

There might be several things at play Keller’s observations. First of all he is writing in 1965. Musicology has a come a long way since his work. Secondly, he seems to be affected by the “minorness” of the piece.

For a late romantic to choose this key would possibly signal some of the things he hears in it.

But who knows? All I know is that I find it beautiful and play it in a quietly calm way.

I contrast Keller with David Byrne whose book has the amazing (arrogant?) title How Music Works.

I have been thinking a lot about the various musical worlds I move between and connect in my own brain.

It’s easy to fault musicians who primarily speak the pop music language for being ignorant of so many other musical style. Byrne is a prime example. His book could have really used a fact checker not to mention some consultation with some music people with knowledge beyond the world of commercial music.

But I also find the “educated” musician is just as likely to be narrow in a different way. Whatever music they have concentrated on in their education unsurprisingly often dominates their thinking and drowns out other musics. Since I think of learning as a life long endeavor shutting out music one doesn’t have sympathy with or understand is not the act of a learner.

Consequently, the people with the academic music degrees often don’t count much of the music that other people listen to.

I thought this might be changing, but I’m not so sure.

I rub shoulders with people locally that not only see me as a hack most probably due to my appearance and lack of posturing, but they also have difficulty seeing other musicians who play other kinds of music as even on the radar. At least that’s how seems to me.

I unfortunately move between these kinds of musical worlds which often has the effect that my abilities and understandings are invisible to people in different music worlds. But what the heck.

I bring all this up to say that I get as much out of reading Byrne as I did out of reading Gardiner. Just different stuff.