So, this morning I got up and couldn’t get my web site to load. It’s working now. Here’s today’s blog (which I wrote this morning off line)

I am not needed for my 8:30 ballet class. Excellent. I have spent the morning reading and relaxing. I will have to go play my 11 AM and Noon class. But this reprieve is pleasant.

I have found a new writer, Ruth Ozeki. I began randomly listening to her read her new novel, A Tale for the Time Being, on the local library streaming book web site. I am very intrigued by her writing and am planning to read the book carefully. This means I will want to own a real copy that I can mark up. For now I will say that the phrase, “time being,” is being used like “human being….” There are two protaganists, Nao and Ruth. Nao is the “time being” as you can see from this excerpt.
Like her namesake, the author, Ruth is living on a remote island and finds Nao’s diary which seems to be written like a letter to Ruth.
Listening to the author read this book at night as I try to fall asleep has drawn me into this story enough to get a copy and read for real.
So it’s now on my list of books to read next.

Since I am suffering from burn out I made a sort of resolution to not schedule any more organ music I will need to work hard on to prepare. Unfortunately, yesterday I could not resist scheduling Krebs’ lovely setting of the tune, Herzlich Thut (O Sacred Head). I am now planning to play it as the Maundy Thursday prelude.

I was delighted to read Gardiner’s observation that the Bach family reminded him of The Blue Notes from South Africa.

“The [Bach extended] family had now come through the most difficult times imaginable. Music to them was never a side issue—they clung to it for survival.

“Their modern counterparts are The Blue Notes – in the way they fought apartheid in South Africa with their highy individual and searing style of jazz. I remember coming across what Moholo said and writing it down:

‘When people are oppressed they sing. You see it all over the world and through history. They may be sad, but they sing. It’s like squeeing a lemon – the juice comes out.” John Gardiner

My interior world right now is teaming with interesting ideas and music. I recently decided I wanted a few more CDs besides the one I have been listening to in the car. I like classical Indian music and treasure the recording that came with some mediocre Indian food I finally opened and used the other day.

But I thought it would nice to have some variety,  so I grabbed a few CDs to put in the car.

Missing harpsichord, I put on a promo CD I own for the above recording. It only has four tracks, but they are well played. Glen Gould has taught me not to shun harpsichord music at the piano, I opened up my copy of the Fitzwilliam Virginal book recently  and played through pieces by Bull and Byrd.

I do love this music.

Last night the AGO chapter meeting was held in Huw Lewis’s office. Whenever I am there, I look with longing at the lovely French double harpsichord sitting there (at least I think that’s what it is). I haven’t the courage to ask Lewis if I could get some time on it. Last night four of his students played some lovely north German music for us on his Walker (organ).

This reminded me of a list of composers I compiled from a passage in Gardiner’s book  on Bach.

I would like to learn more about these composers.

Kiese Leyman’s essay, “Kanye West and HaLester Myers Are Better at Their Jobs,”  in How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America also led me to make a list. This time of Kanye West’s albums which Leyman is pretty enthusiastic about.

“My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”  by Kanya West

“The College Dropout” by Kanye West

These are all sitting in my Spotify queue. I have listened to Dark Fantasy and am impressed. How could I have missed this music?

I find it amusing that I move around in such disparate music styles. It occurs to me that not many people like Buxtehude, Kanya West, Talking Heads and John Bull. But why not?

The students last night gave a slide presentation of their England organ tour last summer. One of the visits they made was to the Tower of London to the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula (St. Peter in Chains). Many people were executed there. Many buried there. They mentioned Thomas More and Anne Boleyn.

This is about where I am at in my biography of Cranmer. More has lost his head. Anne still has hers. I am amazed at the brutality of life at that time. Tyndale (the famous Biblical translator) is about to be burned alive. The theological and political controversies were so enmeshed, it’s surprising how people who were so religious did not bat an eye at watching their colleagues be killed. Of course, Cranmer himself was burned at the stake. Nice.

Finally, my reading of David Byrne led me to listen to and watch once again his movie, “Stop Making Sense.” The entire thing is on YouTube for free viewing. It strikes me in this day of pallid indie and Christian rock as extraordinary music performed in an excellent manner. Jes sayin.

1. Eight Headlines the Corporate Mainstream Media Does Not Have the Courage To Print

Read em and weep. Probably not for my conservative readers.

2. Tech Tips: A guide to upgrading, using XP computer – The Washington Post

The basic tip is trash your old computer, but there are some stop gap measures.

3. Following Orders in Rwanda – NYTimes.com

The great mystery of why so many people killed their neighbors.

4. US secretly created ‘Cuban Twitter’ to stir unrest

Daughter Elizabeth posted an article about this on Facebooger. No surprises here. I cannot figure out why the US hates Cuba so much.

5. Jerry Roberts, 93, Code Breaker for Britain – NYTimes.com

I love this code breaker shit.

I looked up from finishing Mendelssohn yesterday to find four or five people left in the room listening to the postlude. Bless their hearts I say. My organ playing is not something that seems to interest many people in this church. It has struck me as a bit ironic (if not portentous) that this community is going to spend near a half million dollars on something (organ) that doesn’t interest most of the congregation. Even so, it was a satisfying ending to a well put together and executed service. I can do no better probably.

I am finding myself increasingly disenchanted with religiosity. My experience of church has been a weird combination of the arts, history and pathology. I remain interested in the first two, but the last one makes burn out uncomfortable. And I am burned out.

I was thrown off balance Saturday when I attempted (for the umpteenth time that week) to obtain my blood pressure medicine from the Meijer’s pharmacy. Having been told earlier in the week that the pharmacy had faxed the doctor’s office I repeatedly contacted them and asked if I would be able to purchase my meds. Finally on Friday I called the doctor’s office and left a message. They called back and told me they were going to call the pharmacy. So when I called Saturday and received the exact same answer (“We are waiting on a fax from your doctor”), I didn’t take it well. After a little harassment the person who answered the phone told me that yes the pharmacist had talked to the doctor on Friday but now I needed to call my insurance company.

What bothered me most about this situation was my own over reaction to it. It left me upset for several hours. Burn out.

It makes sense that switching one’s insurance as Eileen and I have done would complicate some things for a while. It’s a bit frustrating that the pharmacy probably had the information all along that we would have to call the doctor and the insurance company before being able to fill my prescription.

I suspect that like the Liberty tax people, the pharmacy people were just reading off screens unthinkingly when I asked questions. This is no reason to ruin several hours on a Saturday, but that’s what I did.

I or Eileen will have to contact both the pharmacy and the tax people today to keep things moving. I’m taking my last pill today, but it’s not that big a deal if I can get meds this week sometime.

My ballet classes will end soon. Holy week will be over soon. Hopefully burn out will ebb away soon.

John Eliot Gardiner begins the fifth chapter in his book on Bach (Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, 2013) outlining three musical dynasties besides the Thuringian Bach family, the Benda, Couperin and Scarlatti extended families.

(1) Jan Jiri,  born 1686 (12) Friedrich Ludwig, died 1792.

(1) Louis, born 1626, Gervais-François, died 1826.

(1) Pietro Alessandro Gaspare, born 1660, Giuseppe died 1777.

These musical families are roughly contemporary with Bach’s and are respectively from Germany, France and Italy. I have read about and performed music by many of the Bachs, Couperins, and Scarlattis. I’m sure I have played at least a few compositions of one of the Bendas, but was not aware of them as a musical dynasty.

It is odd that these families flourished at about the same time in history. It probably has something to do with the position of the musician in the societies at the time (a good way to keep the wolf from the door and often procure secure livelihoods for extended families). Also, there has to be something to be said for genes and mutual education and support in these circles.

Besides Bach, I am quite taken with three of these composers: Louis Couperin, François Couperin and Domenico Scarlatti. The music and stories of these men is something that has enriched my life.

I was amused by Gardiner’s blend of stiff non-Internet erudition with the slangy use of the term, “gig,” in a footnote about the last Couperin.

First he quotes from Groves (calling it the “New Groves”):

[I]n “one of the most bizarre scenes of the Republican aberration (6 November 1799), … [Gervaise-François Couperin] found himself playing dinner music on the greatest organ in Paris, at St Sulpice, while Napoleon and a nervous Directory, which was to be overthrown three days later by its guest of honour, consumed an immense banquet in the nave below, watched over by a statue of Victory (herself about to be overthrown), whose temple the church had become.”

Gardiner’s citation is oddly not from the online Groves.

Instead he tells us what volume (4) and page (873) he is quoting. Then he adds this comment:

“Somehow one cannot picture any of the Bachs, even at the nadir of their fortunes, undertaking an equivalent gig.”

So Gardiner is loose enough to use the term, “gig,” but old school enough to only cite the hard bound (thus immediately outdated) version of the New Groves.

I looked up this passage online in the New Groves. It was unaltered but Gardiner’s attribution to the author David Fuller who wrote the article was missing the full attribution of the additional author, Bruce Gustafson. Most probably Gustafson is responsible for additional newer material added to the online entry.

On the one hand, I am reading and enjoying Gardiner who is very educated and whose writing exposes a deeply learned mind capable of out thinking many scholarly approaches to his subject, but still seems to be a bit old school despite the avant-garde nature of his scholarhip.

On the other hand, I am also reading David Byrne’s How Music Works (2013)  whose orientation is fascinating but much much narrower.

Byrne knows a lot about the world of commercial popular music. But this morning I came to the conclusion that Byrne sometimes writes with the arrogance of the uneducated young person. What they don’t know about doesn’t exist unless they are pleasantly surprised by stumbling across it somehow. God forbid they should research carefully or even look shit up.

I am now making a list of outright errors in the Byrne text. But I’m still enjoying the parts of his text that talk about his world, the world of commercial music, a world I don’t know that much about.

Eileen went with me to the tax people yesterday. She does our taxes, but I submit Mom’s taxes to Liberty Tax. I do this because that’s where she and Dad used to have their taxes done when they were taking care of it. The tax people were so impressed with Eileen care and accuracy in ensuing discussions, they asked her if she was interested in a job. I was pleased.

This took most of the morning. Eileen and I then stopped off and had lunch at Crust 54, a pizza place that recently changed hands. It’s not terrible salad friendly which is what Eileen was in the mood for.

She settled for a meatball sandwich and I had a small pizza.

After that we went and visited Mom, brought her her weekly packages of Hershey bars (she’s up to 12 a week now), picked up her old library books, went to the library, dropped them off, picked out new books for her, and then took them to her.

As I said to Eileen, yesterday was largely a “Mary Day,”  Mary being my mom’s name.

In the afternoon,  I used up the peppers, tortillas and other ingredients I purchased for a recipe and improvised another two casseroles with them, one with chorizo in it, one without.

Just before I went off to practice organ, the tax people called. They had made a significant error in the form. In order for Mom not to have to pay any taxes we had to come with more deductions to itemize. This is still in process right now. Eileen emailed them the sum total of Mom’s room and board at the nursing home. I need to clarify that number by subtracting fees that don’t apply to this deduction. Fun.

The casseroles turned out well. Eileen said it was just to the limit of her preferred spicy. Maybe next time I’ll leave the “tame” jalapeno peppers out of hers.

1. A Memorial Inscription’s Grim Origins – NYTimes.com

I agree with the idea that a quotation used as a public inscription should reflect its original context. Too late probably to change this. Idiotic to remove the attribution. Good grief.

2. Lashing Out in Verse – NYTimes.com

Young weird Denmark poet.

3. Postcolonial Resentments Loom Over Meeting of Europeans and Africans – NYTimes.

It does seem weird to me that “organizers” of the meeting would forbid some people to attend.

4. Irene Fernandez, Champion of the Oppressed in Malaysia, Dies at 67 – NYTimes.com

This woman sounds extraordinary to me.

5. Marc Platt, 100, Stage and Screen Dancer, Dies – NYTimes.com

I find obits of fascinating people interesting to read.

6. The Price of a Slur – NYTimes.com

I think I come down on the “PC” side of this argument. Some of the anti-“PC” comments seem ignorant and narrow to me.

7. How Not to Enforce Campaign Laws – NYTimes.com

FEC critique written by one of its members.

8. The Aliens Have Landed – NYTimes.com

The basic point of this article is that the damage we have inflicted on our planet is as dire as an alien invasion from outer space and that we should come together now as a planet even as we are experiencing the ill effects of what was thought of as future results.

Fatigue once again over took me on a day off  yesterday. I was so exhausted physically and mentally I just sat and rested and read all morning. It was good. I did manage an afternoon rehearsal with my violinist. We have been playing a wonderful Mozart Violin Sonata.

Here’s a nice recording if you want a taste. I’m listening to it as I write.

We didn’t play the first movement quite as fast as this recording, but it was still fun. This sonata has really grabbed me. It makes me think of the Mozart of the wonderful operas. It’s a privilege to play. Maybe someday we’ll perform it.

I’ve been thinking about the theme of the piece I am playing Sunday as a postlude. I think that it’s obviously based on the chorale that Mendelssohn quotes.

You can see the shape of the melody, Aus tiefer not. Down a fifth, then back up and then a step up. I think the beautiful opening of the sonata is drawn from this shape, but in major.

I have played and loved this piece for years. Surely I’ve noticed this before. That first measure unpacks the first few notes of the chorale. One can hear it in the soprano line (E down to A then jumping to F#). It’s also present in the pedal part in inversion. The fifth of the melody becomes a fourth and then also moves to the F#. Elegant beautiful stuff. I like that Mendelssohn quotes the melody under the fugue.

Again here is a video if you want a taste.

My copy of John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven arrived in the mail yesterday. I sat down and copied  my notes into my own copy this morning. I have been reading the library’s copy. It’s a beautifully made book.

Here’s a passage that I marked. Though the prose is bit purple and subjective, I like this description of Bach and his music.

“The music gives us shafts of insight into the harrowing experiences he [Bach] must have suffered as an orphan, as a lone teenager, and as a grieving husband and father.They show us his fierce dislike of hypocrisy and his impatience with falsification of any sort; but they also reveal the profound sympathy he felt toward those who grieve or suffer in one way or another, or who struggle with their conscience or their beliefs. His music exemplifies this, and it is in part what gives it its authenticity and colossal force. But most of all we hear his joy and sense of delight in celebrating the wonders of the universe and  the mysteries of existence– as well as in the thrill of his own creative athleticism. You have only to listen to a single Christmas cantata to experience the festive elation and jubilation in music on an unprecedented scale, one beyond the reach of any other composer.”

John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, xxx

I skipped blogging yesterday because I couldn’t get my site to load. I apologize if you tried and were unable to access. I emailed my daughter who changed my server from Bluhost to one that she uses. But in these days of multi-layered ineptness, bad design and inefficiency, it’s hard to tell where the bugs are coming from.

It actually worked out well for me because I have a ton of work to do to prepare for Holy Week. Most of this work is making psalms over again with Anglican Chant tones and using the pointing in the Anglican Chant Psalter.

Despite me having previously asked my morning class teacher if she was going to need me for class (since I suspected she wouldn’t), I ended up sitting and not being needed throughout her shortened class. Anticipating that I would spend any extra  time yesterday working on my psalms, I had prepared the music software documents to allow me to work on them on my laptop before leaving for work. This enabled me to sit (uncomfortably I might add) at the piano with my laptop open and edit psalms.

I managed to do three entire psalms that way including the long Psalm 22 for Good Friday. I now have the psalmody for the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday left to do.

I confessed to Jen my boss during our weekly meeting that I am burned out in more than one way. Besides the usual work burn out my tolerance for silly Christianity has reached very near to zero. Jen’s sermon Sunday was a glimmer of Christian sanity in an otherwise madhouse where I live, work and make my meager income. I just checked and she still hasn’t changed her sermon page since January of this year.

I remember that she centered her ideas on the first line of the gospel: “As he walked along, Jesus saw a man blind from birth.” Jen asked if we see each other. This hit home  to this invisible old musician. The rest of the day I seemed to find all contacts with Christianity sort of like moving through an insane asylum.

Burn out, indeed.

I finally emailed the New York Times and asked what in the world I was doing wrong since all of their comments online had disappeared. I would see a link for an article that said it had comments, but when I clicked on that link, nothing.

I received an email back which suggested that I clear cache and cookies, make sure my browser is updated as well as all plug ins. When I went to do that I noticed an option.

I clicked the relaunch option and lo and behold my comments came back.

I emailed the NYT back and told them what I did. I received a response thanking me and encouraging me to contact them again if I had any further problems. Boy, they’ve come a long way.

An internet rule I watch people follow or break: Talk like a person

Jes sayin.

After classes yesterday I went into a mental burnout stall and sat in my chair and played online scrabble. Physically and mentally exhausted I put off any tasks I needed to do to today.

I think I am daunted when I look at the upcoming Holy Week schedule. It’s no worse than usual of course, but I find that I need more time to rest and recuperate than I used to.

In the meantime I continue to enjoy having online access to reference material. This morning I made a list of words I had looked up while reading Cranmer by MacCulloch:

waiters

peculiar

prorogued

frank pledge

winkling

You may wonder about “waiters.” I find that reading an educated author and especially one that speaks another form of English than USA English, it’s easy to mistakenly assume that words  have expected meanings.

Here’s how MacCulloch used the word:

The rest of the day was taken up in manoeuvering the vast crowd of notables across to Westminster hall and dividing them into honorary waiters and seated guests for the state banquet there…

In this case, “waiters” means “an attendant upon the bride, bridesmaid.” At least I think that’s how he’s using it.

MacCulloch repeatedly uses the word, “peculiar,” to mean “in the C of E, exempt from, not subject to the bishop of the diocese.”

I’ll let you google the others if you’re curious.

I also ran across another unusual usage in a poem by Thomas Hardy this morning.

teen

But it was not much in a world of teen,
That a flower should waste in a nook unseen!

from “The Flower’s Tragedy” by Thomas Hardy

After poking about, I take Hardy’s usage to mean “Irritation, vexation, annoyance; anger, wrath, rage; spite, ill-will, malice.” (OED 2b)

Yesterday John Donne graced the Episcopalian Church Calendar. March 31 was the day of his death in 1631. I mention on Facebook (in the Grace Music Ministry group) that I was a fan of Donne’s. Someone asked me to recommend a poem of his. I got up this morning and pulled out my Donne and looked at my notes. I had to recommend several. Here are links.

Song: Sweetest love, I do not go

A Lecture upon the Shadow

Holy Sonnets: This my play’s last scene

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun

The last is used as a hymn in the Hymnal 1982.

I continue to be annoyed at David Byrne’s lack of sophistication in his book.

I suspect him of affecting a voice that fits his commercial persona, sort of dead pan hip. But it bugs me when his footnote citations omit little details like the year something was published.

On the other hand I was happy to run down an article he cited and find it online (via Hope College access). “Thinking about Sound, Proximity, and Distance in Western Experience: The Case of Odysseus’s Walkman” Michael Bull.

It’s found in the 2004 collection of essays, Hearing cultures: essays on sound, listening, and modernity edited by Veit Erlmann.

It begins with this interesting quote:

The individual is constantly here and elsewhere, alone and linked to others ….. the twentieth century stroller with a Walkman or cellular phone remains along, communicating not with passers-by but to those to whom he or she is connected.” Patrice Flichy, Dynamics of Modern Communication 

Byrne mentions the article in his chapter, “Private Music.” It’s easy to see why.

I’m sure all this blather will increase my net popularity. Heh.

I used up my morning blogging time reading this morning, so this will be short. I have to get moving and get to ballet. I nailed the Bach postlude yesterday. I don’t think many people were listening, but I tried to lose myself in his wonderful setting of Schmüche dich. I used a slightly different technique in my choral pregame rehearsal yesterday. Instead of the usual vocalises, I emphasized singing as an ensemble by alternating the four part hymn settings with repeating the anthem for the day. I  had one bass, two tenors, two altos and four sopranos. Of course this particular group had never sung together in this way before (the line up always shifts because attendance is so sporadic). I thought repetition might help ensemble to gel. I think it did. We rehearsed mostly acappella which is how we performed the anthem.

Weirdly, during the anthem the ushers rudely reached in front of the soprano section to retrieve the offering plate. This reminds me of a Roman Catholic usher who tried to take up the choir’s offering during an anthem. I’ve got many stories of rudeness like this.

I emailed the Hope College conductor about not paying me yet for playing for him a couple weeks ago again yesterday. This time he replied. It looks like they will mail a check sometime.

After I bought my John Eliot Gardiner book on Bach online yesterday Amazon asked me if I would like to begin reading it right away. It did this by a specific online Kindle link.  So by purchasing a real copy, they provided instant access until it arrived. I like that. I have the library copy, but this means I don’t have to lug a rather large book with me today in order to read in it at work. Cool.

I look forward to when a purchase results in access to both a hard copy and a digital  copy of a book. This would make it much more convenient.

I think this is the week where I will muster my energy and prepare all the psalms for Holy Week. In each service, when a psalm is used we are now singing it to an Anglican chant. This means I make a version that is pointed with the chosen chant with my Finale software. I don’t mind that much because it creates an elegant musical moment in the service. But it is more work.

1. Shakespeare’s Plays Are a Natural Fit With Dance – NYTimes.com

When I subscribed to a real copy of the New York Times I used to peruse every section (except sports). Now I find that I only regularly access the three sections of International News, National News and Opinion. Some of this is a combination of clunkiness of their evolving online portal. Some of it is the slowness of my computers. At any rate, yesterday I managed to hit the arts section and find some pretty interesting articles. The one linked above has numerous historical references to dances made from or about Shakespeare.

2.A New Rameau for Specialists – NYTimes.com

A Couple of Nights of Disruptions – NYTimes.com

O.K., Singers, Let’s Move Along – NYTimes.com

These three links I marked to spotify music mentioned in them.

3. Joseph Kerman, Colorful Critic of Musicology, Dies at 89 – NYTimes.com

The New York Times finally did an obit on Kerman.

4.Two Cheers for Rach 3 by Joseph Kerman | The New York Review of Books

The obit linked in this article by Kerman. Bookmarked to read.

5.Few Safe Places for Central African Republic’s Muslims – NYTimes.com

Christians killing Muslims. Nice.

6. Ukraine’s Hopes Riding on a Chocolatier – NYTimes.com

The Willy Wonka of Ukraine running for president. Russian banned his candy. You can’t make this shit up.

7. ‘The Story of the Jews,’ by Simon Schama – NYTimes.com

‘Overwhelmed,’ by Brigid Schulte – NYTimes.com

On Sundays I always try to read the Magazine and the Book Review as well as other sections. These are two reviews I bookmarked to read later.

According to Google Analytics, you, dear reader, are part of a dwindling few. 9 hits on Friday. Ah, the joys of increasing obscurity. Nevertheless I persist if only for myself. It’s sort of like performing excellent music and wondering if anyone notices. Or doing an improvisation in a room full of sweating sincere athletic young dancers and wondering how they hear what I am doing. How does it compare to what musics they listen to on their own? Are many perceiving the ideas in the music at all?

Yesterday I began to firm up a resolve to perform a movement from the Mendelssohn A major organ sonata as the postlude next week. Originally I had scheduled a lovely elegant setting of Aus Tiefer not by Jan Bender. It is short, not that hard and quite beautiful (in my obscure estimation).

But on Friday (the day of the 9 hits), I pulled out the Mendelssohn for the heck of it. It quotes the chorale as well. I was surprised at how easily this piece of music came back to me. The echoes in my head are not always helpful. I can remember a teacher telling me quite late in my training that I had no pedal technique. When I combine negative ideas like this with the obscurity of laboring in a small Episcopal church or a small college dance class, it’s sometimes difficult to maintain a clear picture of my own abilities.

I live with my most severe critic, of course, myself. But I can easily see that my abilities are not that of a virtuoso. But I think that my relentless practicing helps. So the Mendelssohn seems to fall into the category of performing excellent music to the best of my abilities when called on. So I think I will use it as the postlude next Sunday. It would be cool if I did a little bulletin article that talked about the relationship between the postlude, the choir offertory (the Bach four part chorale setting of Aus Tiefer sung in a Catherine Winkworth English translation adapted, and the psalm for the day (130… the text of the chorale).

Also rattling in my brain is what I hear in the theology and meaning of Mendelssohn’s setting. It begins with a joyous A major section, but quickly moves to a lovely minor fugue with the chorale tune emerging in the pedal as a cantus firmus (“fixed song”). After a few pages the beautiful A major section returns. This reminds me of the intelligent way my church prays through Lent, a time often when Christians beat their breasts and contemplate their miserable navels. Instead there seems to be a healthiness in the gathered community that I serve. A combination of contemplating the stories of this year’s Lent with a clear-sighted persistence of idealism if not naivete. (The stories this year are The desert temptation of Jesus, Nicodemus coming to Jesus in secret by night, The Woman at the well, the healing of the blind man, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead).

Yesterday, while making my weekly library visit to return my mother’s books and pick out a slew of new books for her to read, I glanced at the new shelf and saw John Eliot Gardiner’s recent biography of Bach.

I checked it out, read the preface and some of the first the chapter this morning, then ordered a copy for myself.

I also succumbed and ordered Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg  Milner, one of the books David Byrne refers to that I haven’t read yet and the piano transcription of Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert.

It can be dangerous to keep books in your Amazon queue.

1. An Engineer’s Eureka Moment With a G.M. Flaw – NYTimes.com

What happens when an investigator compares old and new parts with the same identifying part number and find the new one changed.

2. High Culture and Hard Labor – NYTimes.com

Building a world class cultural center with indentured workers. Nice.

Although I pretend to myself that my Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays are a three day kind of weekend, on Friday afternoon I start to feel pretty whipped. This could be from having to get up and go do a ballet class on Friday morning. It’s not so much that I mind being awake at that time of day, it’s more that I need some space for my head to be calm and quiet as I read and think.

So here I am on Saturday morning fully enjoying the luxury of sitting and reading portions of my latest stack of books and ebooks. This morning this was not only the usual McCulloch Cranmer bio and Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age,  I also had time for Thomas Hardy poetry, David Byrne’s goofy How Music Works and my recent discovery How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon.

I have decided that How Music Works sorely needed a fact checker. I have resisted googling phrases to find out if Byrne lifted sections whole clothe from Wikipedia. Whether he did or not, sections read like it and there is insufficient citations to back up some of his dubious claims (like ignoring Bartok and Kodaly’s taping of folk music when talking about the Lomax father/son recordings of same). I still enjoy it. But it is like listening to someone rant rather than a clear discussion of his topic.

Kiese Laymon instantly accepted my “friend request” on Facebooger. He has around 2K  Facebooger “friends.” His website, Cold Drank, registers over 1 million hits (or “Cold Dranks served” as it says at the top of the site).

This morning I read his essay “Hip Hop Stole my Southern Black Boy.” I thought it was an eloquent piece of prose. Laymon convincingly combines anecdotal life experiences with a deep understanding of American culture.

We black Southerners, through life, love, and labor, are the generators and architects of American music, narrative, language, capital, and morality. That belongs to us. Take away all those stolen West African girls and boys forced to find an oral culture to express, resist, and signify in the South, and we have no rich American idiom. Erase Nigger Jim from our literary imagination and we have no American story of conflicted movement, place, and moral conundrum. Eliminate the Great Migration of Southern black girls and boys and you have no Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland, or New York City. Expunge the sorrow songs, gospel, and blues of the Deep South and we  have no rock and roll, rhythm and blues, funk or hip-hop.

Diese Laymon, “Hip-Hop Stole My Southern Black Boy”

Laymon is right. One of the things that has fascinated me for years is how the evil of slavery is constituent to the genius of America.

I’m not terribly conversant with Hip-Hop so I relish his recommendations of artists in this essay. I recognize (and have admired for ages) Outkast. But most are unfamiliar. That’s why God made Spotify I guess.

1. All Dogs are Blue by Rodrigo De Souza Leãao

Ran across this book yesterday. I think it looks fascinating.

2. Geoff Dyer · Diary: Why Can’t I See You? · LRB 3 April 2014

Dyer humorously and gamely describes the experience of watching your body fail. I guess this is an old guy read but I relate to the way this man loves his brain.

3. Discoveries Challenge Beliefs on Humans’ Arrival in the Americas – NYTimes.com

I couldn’t get the video to play but I love stories like this.

4. Christian Charity Backtracks on Gays – NYTimes.com

Too much hate in America.

5. Using Flags to Focus on Veteran Suicides – NYTimes.com

“Each flag represented a veteran who had committed suicide since Jan. 1, a figure that amounts to 22 deaths each day.”

6. America’s Taxation Tradition – NYTimes.com

Current extreme rhetoric ignores history. I continue to be confused about how a citizenry expects government in the form of infrastructures both physical and system oriented but doesn’t want to pay for it.

7. 529 Reasons to Doubt Egyptian Justice – NYTimes.com

This story boggle my little mind. I am speechless before such terrible stuff.

Up poking around online. I read this essay and was so impressed I bought a Kindle book of How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in a America by Kiese Laymon.

It was this quote from Laymon’s essay, “The Worst of White Folks,” that did it for me.

The worst of white folks, I understood, wasn’t some gang of rabid white people in crisp pillowcases and shaved heads. The worst of white folks was a pathetic, powerful “it.” It conveniently forgot that it came to this country on a boat, then reacted violently when anything or anyone suggested it share. The worst of white folks wanted our mamas and grandmas to work themselves sick for a tiny sliver of an American pie it needed to believe it had made from scratch. It was all at once crazy-making and quick to violently discipline us for acting crazy. It had an insatiable appetite for virtuoso black performance and routine black suffering. The worst of white folks really believed that the height of black and brown aspiration should be emulation of its mediocre self. The worst of white folks inherited disproportionate access to quality health care, food, wealth, fair trials, fair sentencing, college admittance, college graduations, promotions and second chances, yet still terrorized and shamed other Americans who lacked adequate access to healthy choices at all. White Americans were wholly responsible for the worst of white folks, though they would do all they could to make sure it never wholly defined them.

This makes a ton of sense to me.

I also found Laymon on Facebook and sent a “friend request.”

1. Racist Satire of Obamas Hits a Nerve in Belgium – NYTimes.com

““What’s happening is the normalization of hate…”

2. A Nation of Takers? – NYTimes.com

Kristoff redefines the rhetoric of the right and focuses on some welfare cheats that get ignored.

3. Black Bean Chorizo Casserole with Pickled Onions – Recipes – The New York Times

On a lighter note, I bought ingredients to make this recipe yesterday. I will make half of it without the chorizo for myself, using chorizo in the other half for Eileen.

Someone seems to have purchased 55 copies of my anthem, “Around the Throne,”  this year. I received a royalty check for $13.81 yesterday. Usually I only receive pennies per year of royalties and MorningStar waits until there is enough royalties to justify cutting a check. I wonder who bought my anthem. It’s hard not to suspect someone who knows me purchased it. But one never knows.

Similarly, I received a credit of $10.22 for an antitrust settlement between Amazon and some publishers. The money just keeps on rolling in.

Eileen is off to do some shopping with our niece Emily today. She will drive across the state, meet Emily and nephew Ben for a meal then do some shopping at some shops that specialize in what she needs.

I have the day off. Will probably meet with my violinist. My cellist just emailed and begged off piano trio today.

I gave a good choir rehearsal last night. I had them do a lot of a cappella singing with an eye on our piece for this Sunday. I did some study before the rehearsal, but admitted to Eileen that I was also slightly influenced by a recent episode we watched of Inspector Morse.

This pretty terrible BBC mystery series is set in Oxford. This along with some hilariously bad acting makes it just tolerable to watch as a bit of escapist fluff.

One episode we watched recently featured a visiting American choral conductor and several scenes of him conducting an Oxford choir in some lovely singing of Tudor anthems. I remember thinking how much easier the repertoire is in the acoustics of Oxford churches than in typically dead American churches.

This episode had a hilarious ending where the murderer ended up on top of the organ in the chapel threatening to jump. They soothed her with the choir continuing to sing in its rehearsal. I love the Brits.

1.The Casserole Catches Up – NYTimes.com

Though there are some rather snotty remarks in the comment section about the pedestrian nature of casseroles, this article made me consider making one the attached recipes or a variation or two on them.

2. For Sale, Playing a Heady Tune – NYTimes.com

45  mill for a viola. There’s a joke in there somewhere.

3. Butter Is Back – NYTimes.com

Another culinary link. I have persisted in attempting to follow the advice of the teacher of the nutrition class I took centuries ago: The less processed the food, the better, emphasis on fresh fruits and veggies. I do use butter occasionally.

Eileen, Craig Cramer, and I had a nice meal together last night before Craig met with the Organ Committee at Grace. Craig also came over to our house and chatted for a while while we waited for it to be time to go to the meeting. It’s bitter sweet to have this guy around. He is intellectually very sharp and I enjoy his company immensely. It reminds me of times in my life when I have had many friends around me who were not cowed by my passion and actually interacted with me about ideas. I’m lucky to have had that time. And I did mention to Craig how pleasant it is to have Jen Adams (my boss) and Rhonda Edgington in my life now. I guess I’m still pretty lucky.

The committee meeting ran very smoothly. Craig was his usual relaxed bright charming self. I believe it was a very helpful meeting. Afterwards one of the members said to Jen, I guess we’re looking at tracker. By this she probably was realizing that all of the people the committee had consulted so far (myself, Huw Lewis at Hope and Craig) recommended tracker. So it’s onward and upward. The committee meets again next Tuesday and I’m hoping we can finalize the decision on the type of organ and begin  contacting builders.

I spent some time yesterday choosing organ music for upcoming Sundays. I am going to play a lovely Bach chorale prelude on Schmücke dich. Deck thyself my soul with gladness is a usual English translation of this lovely melody. This piece is a masterwork. It’s not terribly short. I have decided not to repeat the first section (much as that pains me). I’m still skeptical that my audience will connect, but it is wonderful music and we are singing the hymn at communion Sunday.

“There are certain works of art—by Dante, Bach, the makers of Chartres Cathedral: the list is endless—whose power seems inseparable from their epiphanic, transcendent references.”

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age

The following Sunday, the psalm for the day is 130. It is a deep and profound psalm that begins “Out of the depths.” We will be singing a lovely  hymn that draws on the German melody, Aus Tiefer Not. This hymn is “In Deepest Night” by Susan Cherwien with the tune by Emily Porter.  I recently led this hymn at an AGO recital and then performed my own chorale prelude on it. The anthem for the day on this Sunday is the four part chorale of this melody by Bach. I have chosen a simple but elegant organ setting by Jan Bender for the postlude. It is extremely short. Maybe that will make up for my long windedness this weekend.

1. Welcome to International Justice Mission | International Justice Mission

Organization of Gary Haugen which is dedicated to what it’s title implies.

2. Egypt’s Miscarriage of Justice – NYTimes.com

Man o man. They just sentenced an enormous number of people to death. Stupid ins so many ways not mention immoral.

3. The Republic of Fear – NYTimes.com

Fear is definitely a problem in our world. Brooks pointed to the Haugen organization and book above. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.

4. Joni Ernst in Iowa Senate Race: Think Castration, Vote Conservative – TIME

Presented as comic relief in this article, I was not only amused but thought the following description disturbingly accurate.

“There is so little left in national politics to delight us. The candidates, for the most part, are scripted, strident and narrow people who betray their actual humanity at their own peril. The races are costly, vicious affairs. And Americans almost never approve of an elections outcome once the winners settle into office.”

I forgot one of the pleasant aspects of a routine are the holes where one can recuperate. I managed to get my church work done between ballet classes. Since I have installed Finale on my laptop, I am able to prepare the pointed psalm for the bulletin anywhere I take it. I have long since put all my planning docs in the cloud.

So when I walked home from work it was with pleasant relief that I realized I would now get over 24 hours off. Am I burned out or what?

1. Dangerous Minds | Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes: Rare interview together from 1961

I remain fascinated by this couple. Plath and Hughes are both poets who I have read and influenced the way I see things. The audio file is at the bottom of the page.

2. Upcoming  TV series — Of course it will end up a pale image of the Coen brothers work, but from my point of  view this will still make it  better than almost everything else in the “TV” format. Even the trailers are fun.

3. Wealth Over Work – NYTimes.com

Ever heard of “patrimonial capitalism”? It is a system “in which the commanding heights of the economy are dominated not just by wealth, but also by inherited wealth, in which birth matters more than effort and talent.” You know. Like the USA right now.

4. Confronting Putin’s Russia – NYTimes.com

I was so impressed with this article by a former Russian US Ambassador that I put it up on Facebook. Since I have a wide range of contacts (“Friends”) on Facebook, I try not to put up inflammatory type stuff. This struck me as more informative than flame. But that can be the echo chamber effect (on me).

5. This Is What 80 Looks Like – NYTimes.com

I have long been a fan of Gloria Steinem. I like her attitude towards aging.

“Fifty was a shock, because it was the end of the center period of life. But once I got over that, 60 was great. Seventy was great. And I loved, I seriously loved aging. I found myself thinking things like: ‘I don’t want anything I don’t have.’ How great is that?” But, she added, “80 is about mortality, not aging. Or not just aging.”

6. Joseph Kerman, musicologist, critic, cultural shaper, dies – SFGate

I first became aware of Kerman when I was assigned his text for a Music App class I was teaching at GVSU. Subsequently, I realized he was scholar of note and bought and read at least one of his books. He didn’t rate a NYT obit as far as I can tell. Which shows to go you.

7. Students See Many Slights as Racial ‘Microaggressions’ – NYTimes.com

Though I’m in total sympathy and agreement with the critique of people interaction in this article, I suspect it contributes to seeing racism as an individual act and not its current huge US incarnation as the systemic evil it is.

8. Detroit Symphony Dives Headlong Into Streaming – NYTimes.com

I’m planning on checking out some of the free streaming of world orchestras mentioned and/or linked in this article.

9. Seventh Generation – Stand Up For Safer Chemicals

I can’t help but feel uneasy about a company selling products that is petitioning the government. Still haven’t signed their petition, but probably will.

10. Paul Ryan, Culture and Poverty – NYTimes.com

Columnist Charles Blow comes up with a telling description that fits a lot of public rhetoric and discussion these days: “an ever-swirling mix of inspiration and insult, where the borders between the factual and the fudged are intentionally blurred and cover is given for corrosive ideas.”

I have difficulties forgiving intentional obfuscation no matter which partisan side is doing it.

My interface for making blog posts appears entirely different this morning. I suspect my daughter Sarah updated my online software. It took many minutes to initially load, so if you’re reading this and patiently waited through a long load of the page, I thank you.

I don’t have too long this morning before I’m going to have to go to work. Back at it.

I have been spending lots of time at the piano with Brahms. I think this is a result of learning the accompaniment to the first movement of his E minor cello sonata. I ordered my own copy of this piece along with the first three Bach violin sonatas to play with my piano trio people. Nice stuff.

I smiled when I read this in MacCulloch’s bio of Thomas Cranmer: speaking of the 12th century Welsh fantasist, Geoffrey of Monmouth, MacCulloch wryly comments that his “Arthurian fables” later meet “their nemesis in Walt Disney and Monty Python.”

MacCulloch lives and teaches in Oxford. There was a charming article in the NYT yesterday describing Oxford. I enjoyed reading it and remembering walking the streets there and even staying in a B and B.

David Byrne is also rattling around in my head this morning. He described working up a dance show in his post Talking Heads phase. He put out the word he was looking for performers for his show which would involve “movement” deliberately avoiding the word dance in order not to give the impression that dancers would have to do “Broadway jazz dance.” I like that he comments that “I see dance as something anyone can do.”

Anyway I think the audition process was very cool.

They had fifty dancers to whittle down to three. Byrne weirdly remarks “Cruel, but well, fun too.”

One of the choreographers Byrne hired came up with this procedure: it consisted of four rules.

1. Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight count phrase

2. When you find a phrase you like, repeat it over and over.

3. When you see someone else with a stronger phrase, copy it.

4.When everyone is doing the same phrase the exercise is over.

I like this so much I’m going to share it with Julie Powell a dance instructor at Hope I will probably see today.

Byrne writes what happens: “It was like watching evolution on fast-forward, or an emergent life form come into being. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. Then one could see that folks had chosen their phrases, and almost immediately one could see a pocket of dancers who had all adopted the same phrase… This pocket of copying began to expand, to go viral… within four minutes the whole room was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison.”

I can’t help but hear Byrne’s prose in the voice of the dry narration of the narrator of True Stories which he plays.

Then he goes on to describe this phenomenon.

“After this vigorous athletic experiment, the dancers rested while we compared notes. I noticed a weird and quite loud wind like sound, rushing and pulsing. I didn’t know what it was: it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere. It was like no sound I had ever heard before. I realized it was the sound of fifty people catching their breath, breathing in and out, in an enclosed room. It then gradually faded away. For me that was part of the piece, too.”

I love that.

A couple mornings this last week I added David Byrne’s How Music Works to my morning reading. I should say re-added it since I had read a bit into it when I bought it.

I love the title of his book. However, I think what he is calling music is limited to his own venue of commercial popular performance art. I quite like his work in general and think both it and his observations on contemporary living and art are interesting. They provide a needed balance to an “educated” approach.

I’m pondering the two performance experiences I went through yesterday and not quite sure why they both had some hollowness in them.

The first experiences was accompanying my high school cellist at Solo and Ensemble. I learned Friday night that this excellent player is in the ninth grade. So it was not too surprising that he was not terribly articulate in my conversations with him, especially about the music we were playing. Also, despite having gone through district Solo and Ensemble, he was so unprepared that our playing time was delayed while everyone fluttered around him helping him photocopy a judge’s copy and then number each measure of his piece for him (!).

It is odd that such a talented player was so unprepared for the situation. He is young only in ninth grade. His playing was prepared and musical. One wonders if his teacher sort of wrote off the whole State Solo and Ensemble deal. Hard to say.

He played the best I’ve heard him. I tried to immerse myself in the piece both in preparation and performance, so I wasn’t as analytic as I could have been about his playing. The judge commented that the pieces is actually a duet for cello and piano which is something I had told the player the night before at our rehearsal. Eileen said she noticed that he played a bit softer this time when the piano had themes. I confess that I was so in the music I didn’t think about it. But I believe her.

So the musical performance was good, but the experience was odd. I’m more used to talking about what I’m doing with other performers I guess.

The second performance was an hour and half of the local Holland Chorale Masterworks concert with instrumental accompaniment.

This was the first time I had heard this group since coming here to Holland in the late 80s. At the time I heard them sing Brahms’ German Requiem in English with organ accompaniment. It was pretty ghastly. Last night was not ghastly but it was weird.

I’m still trying to figure it out. This might be where David Byrne comes in. He tends to back and see the entire experience as a piece of performance art.  The overall feeling of the evening was stiff for me. I’m not sure why. It could be that parts of the performance were a bit under rehearsed and performers anxieties were coming through. The conductor was extremely restrained but clear in her technique. For some reason she seemed more like an orchestra conductor to me than a choral conductor. Maybe because she used a baton with such skill.

I suspect that the interplay between the music, the musicians and the audience is what troubled me in a subtle way. The choices for the evening were excellent: Vaughan Williams, Holst, Galuppi, Schütz, Bernstein. As a critic I might say that most of it didn’t “gel” into a coherent performance. There was little excitement and no evident musical risk taking is the best I can do as a critique. Also I missed music by anybody living or recently alive. I guess one is limited when one titles the concert “Masterworks,” eh?

The best performance of the evening was the Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms which is a great work. But even this had some shaky moments but for the most part seemed well prepared if carefully performed. The boy soprano did well, however. Still processing all this.

I’m still counting today as part of my spring break. Got up and read as usual. Then broke pattern and began preparing Eggplant Parmesan for the oven. I noticed that  my phone was  beeping with a conversation taking place between my daughter Elizabeth in Beijing, my daughter Sarah in the UK and my lovely wife Eileen presumably still in bed upstairs.

I love the interwebs!

By the time Eileen came downstairs I was frying the eggplant. I do enjoying cooking. I wish I was cooking something Eileen would eat, but she demurs when it comes to eggplant.

Here’s before.

And here’s after.

After improvising an excellent breakfast of leftovers (Fried cubed eggplant, garlic slivers, sliced mushrooms, frozen peas and egg whites), I settled down to convincing my computer to make MP3s of the piano pieces I recorded yesterday.

At the end of the semester, I promised Julie the instructor I would make recordings of the three pieces we had shown to the dancers for projects after break. Yesterday I tried to record them with my phone at church. Yuck. Came home and installed Audacity on my laptop and tried it with the mic on the laptop. Still yuck, but not quite as bad as the phone videos or voice recorder.

Then came the arduous task of converting the Audacity files to mp3s. This is where I bogged down last night and decided to put off this final pain in the ass step.

I did manage to install another plug in for Audacity that would convert their files to MP3s. The name of the program is Lame which is a convention in recordists naming programs that help you make MP3s. I guess they think MP3s are lame. I totally get that until I see how people (me for example) do a lot of their listening in situations where fidelity is not much a factor.

Anyway, I managed to make the recordings and email them to Julie.

Whew.

My remaining day will coast by I’m sure. I want to practice the Brahms I have been learning for the High School Solo and Ensemble person. Then Eileen and I will leave around 3 to drive to Grandville High School where the Solo and Ensemble is being held. I’ll play then we’ll stop somewhere for a romantic meal together (hopefully romantic… at least together). Then Rhonda has given us tickets to a Holland Chorale Concert this evening of Psalm settings. That’s what attracted me to this concert. So we will attend after supper.

In the meantime, I have to prep for tomorrow at church. This involves setting up the pregame choir rehearsal and rehearsing organ for the service.

I think it’s been a good break for me.

I have struggled to rest and relax but have managed to do a bit despite the ongoing stress of church work and not getting paid from my Hope High School Honors band gig. I emailed the conductor but the email bounced back saying he was out of the office. Oh yeah. Spring break. I’ll give him another week.

My Solo and Ensemble family have already written me a check. When people prepay services, I wait and cash the check after earning it. It just seems safe.

1. Narcissism: Know thy selfie | The Economist

So. Narcissus didn’t recognize himself in the reflection, just fell in love with it. Apparently he was repulsed when he realized it was him. Did not know that. Or if I did I forgot it.

2. People power | Rationalist Association

Again I’m posting articles I have bookmarked to read.

This first one seems to be about using the history of art to understand humanism and religion.

3. The Big Dig | Boston Review

Book review of  Steven Moore’s history of the novel which expands the conventional thinking of when it arose and what it is.

4. Molly Worthen for Democracy Journal: Faithless

Book review of George M. Marsden’s new book on evolving liberal morality in the face of ebbing faith in the 1950s.

5. Music Criticism Has Degenerated Into Lifestyle Reporting – The Daily Beast

Here the music criticism is of popular music. How it could degenerate is intriguing. Wonder if any of these people have heard of classical (non-popular?) music?

Warning, dear reader. My daughter Sarah is considering updating my wordpress version of software I use to make this blog. She thinks it might “break” the blog. So if sometime you come here and the blog refuses to load or something, know that we are working on restoring it as soon as we can.

Also chatting with Sarah online yesterday she mentioned that this blog doesn’t load well on her Ipad. As different devices like smart phones and pads proliferate, my experience is that the ease of their compatibility diminishes. Eileen is often checking stuff on her phone or kindle fire and is unable to interface with it as efficiently as a simple computer browser.

This leads me to one of my complaints: that people who are designing all this stuff don’t actually design it for users. Rather they design for themselves and people like them.

Case in point. Remember the old toggle switch approach to activating technology?

Like turning on a radio or record player?

Now every access to a devise requires multiple interaction to get it to do simple things like play music or read an article.

When I was complaining about Windows 8 logon screen, my brother who is a high volume tech user said he was used to logging on to many devices.

But it still buy diazepam online australia makes me crazy that if I shut my laptop for a minute and then decide I need to return to it, I have to give it a password. This is nonsensical to me.

Also I listen to the radio and audio books quite a bit with computers. Often I wish I had a old fashioned radio to just turn on when the computer does its usual balking or mutlilayer resistance to simply playing the radio or audiobook.

And while I’m bitching, I love Windows propensity to just assume that now is the time I have to stop everything and update. Good grief.

I understand the security concerns behind these measures, I just find it a bit contradictory that when I need to use a tool, first I have to take maintenance steps, not just occasionally but frequently. I hope its just buggy aspects of this kind of tech that will fade a bit over time. But I’m not too optimistic about it.

1. A Wedding in Intensive Care – NYTimes.com

Kind of sappy, but still….

2. After the Protests – NYTimes.com

Surprising drawbacks to how well social media works.

3. America’s dirtiest secret

You’ve got to be kidding! There are no regs on the books for toxic waste for America oil companies? (thank you to daughter Elizabeth for this link)

Last week I rehearsed alone with the cellist of my piano trio.

Today I am planning to rehearse alone with the violinist. I enjoy the solo literature of these instruments immensely. Both of these people are excellent players and like to read through music. I am planning to go to church and go on ISMLP and print up some music for us to read through. I happen to own the Mozart violin sonatas accompaniment and have printed up at least one movement of the violin part. I will do a few more and also some Bach violin sonatas. That should be fun.

Today most likely I will receive final documents in the mail for the sale of my Mom’s Fenton property.

This has been an ongoing hassle for the last week with me emailing back and forth with our realtor there in Fenton, printing up papers, signing them, scanning them back in and emailing them.  It’s a pain, but it’s much less of pain of having to drive over and attend to this in person.

It looks like I’m hooked by another MacCulloch book. Thomas Cranmer: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch is a bit more scholarly than his Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. The latter is scholarly with numerous footnote paths for one to follow, but it is necessarily a broad look since it covers such a wide topic. Cranmer interests me because the more I learn about the origin of the Protestant churches, the more complex the whole thing seems.

I also admire the language of the time which roughly includes Cranmer’s work with the first Book of Common Prayer, Shakespeare and the King  James translation of the Bible.

Today I read that Cranmer married while he was studying at Oxford. MacCulloch points that had his first wife not died in childbirth along with the child Cranmer would not have become a priest and the course of the Reformation might have been very different.

“For want of  a nail” and all that.

I love this kind of historical shit!

1. If History Is a Guide, Crimeans’ Celebration May Be Short-Lived – NYTimes.com

Historical observations as well as how this looks from Atotsi, Georgia which declared it’s independence from George in 2008 and was recognized but not annexed by Russia.

2. Budding Liberal Protest Movements Begin to Take Root in South – NYTimes.com

Minute movement is more like it.

3. The Graves of Forgotten New Yorkers – NYTimes.com

Turning graveyards into parks and memorials.

4. Pakistan’s Culture Wars – NYTimes.com

The USA is not the only strong hold of the crazy right.

5. A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet | Autopia | Wired.

Plausible.