I found a very cool new (to me) plug in that allows me to send web articles to my Kindle Paperwhite.  It was mentioned in Conquer Your E-Reads – WSJ.com. This is especially useful for feature articles that I don’t need to read right away and can just tuck into my Kindle for future reading. I also learned how to delete items from my Kindle (hold the book icon down until a dialogue box appears).

I was messing with this stuff because I’m so behind in reading the New York Times. I had a bunch of articles in my bookmark file to read and hadn’t even started yesterday’s paper (Still haven’t).

I have a pretty full today even though it’s a Monday off from ballet class. I am scheduled to see the dentist this morning. The appointment is for a loose filling they found at my last cleaning. I may follow the dentist’s original recommendation to get a crown instead. That’s what the tooth needs, he said. But I opted for a filling which might last a year or two. In that year or two, we are likely to have to adjust our health insurance. Eileen thinks it might be better to go ahead have her present insurance cover what it can on a crown. That is, if it’s not too expensive. So I have to figure that out today.

Then later in the afternoon my Mom has back to back appointments. First she is scheduled for a breathing test, then she sees her pulmonologist who will then look at the results and check Mom’s lungs out.

Yesterday’s music performances went pretty well. First, the prelude, a lyrical little Aria by Eugene Butler worked. I noticed that I was mostly ignored while played, but I attempted to immerse myself in the music and just play it as beautifully as I could despite people chatting and moving around near me.

All in a day’s work at the Episcopal church.

I screwed up the psalm. There was a half verse and I jumped to the wrong place. Oh well. This happens.

The anthem went well despite it’s difficulty. The choir really rose to the occasion and gave it a lot of concentration. I think that my new push with Brad Richmond type vocalises is paying off in our sound. Satisfying.

I pretty much nailed the Eugene Butler Toccata postlude. After I finished there was a man standing near the organ. He complimented me and said that he would be going to the afternoon recital at Hope Church as well. His girlfriend attends there. He was visiting Grace for some reason.

Later after the Hope Church recital, he was in the receiving line. He informed those around him that he had heard me play in the morning as well. He said that at Grace they do not listen to the organ music, but talk. I laughed and said thank God you were there, dude.

Rhonda put together a very good program for the afternoon recital. She divided the concert up into three distinct sections. It was very user friendly and her audience was with her.

I admire the fact that she puts up a screen so that the listeners can see the organ console better.

The duet we played went pretty well. We mostly played together and played musically. I got a little off balance at the very end because I thought the organ was ciphering (having a stuck note). I think if I do a duet again I will study the whole music a bit more because I think what happened was that I heard something for the first time in performance and was mistaken about it.

Rhonda played very well. I especially liked her interp on the Vom Himmel Hoch Bach piece. She used high flute sounds which I always find charming and articulated in ways that brought the music to life for me.

The horn player also played well. The music was interesting. He talked to the audience about a technique one of the composers used. I always like that sort of thing.

My next project is to get my guitar technique back into shape and learn some songs for a gig on the 21st of this month.

When I first began using online resources like Wikipedia that are “crowd sourced” and hence questionable in some eyes, it didn’t take me long to realize that many published reference works are as likely to contain errors as online ones. This came home to me once again as I was reading Peter Jeffry’s long article on the origin of the Gregorian chant modes. In footnote after footnote, he points out the errors in articles and books he is citing. Errors like mislabeled charts and unreliable musical transcriptions.

I find typos and errors often in published books and articles as well as online. I guess it’s just part of the deal. One has to keep one’s brain engaged if possible.

I gave up on the new New York Times web app yesterday.

I realized that I wasn’t getting a good overview of topical news from browsing through the silly app. Combined with the fact that quoting and bookmarking was cumbersome and their silly email-this-article button didn’t work for me, I thought I would try it later.  It probably works great on Ipads. However I returned to primarily reading the “Today’s Paper” version of the online newspaper.

I did get Herrick’s new Hoopla online streaming service working. But only with Eileen’s assistance. You go to Herrick’s eresource page and click on Hoopla and register. Then one is prompted to download a plug in. Did this and tried to install it. Didn’t work.

Eileen said that they had been told at work that there was a glitch. I can’t understand why they sent out emails to patrons urging us to use the service without making the instructions more clear. Anyway, I went back to the page and clicked on the tips (which is a pdf link). Buried in the middle of the doc is this;

“Widevine Plugin must be installed. Patrons will be prompted to install it when they attemptto  play a movie, or they may download it from https://tools.google.com/dlpage/widevine. If they are unable to download the plugin, they may have to close the browser, right click on their browser icon and “run as administrator” then try again.”

The usual pain in the ass I guess. I had to close numerous tabs to close my browser. But this did work. Unfortunately I didn’t find anything I wanted to watch on Hoopla. This is my problem with visual entertainment in general. My tastes in movies and TV shows and such are very narrow.

I do like the Coen Brothers. Here’s a news conference they gave recently about their new movie (which I think looks great!).

I had a nice chat with daughter Elizabeth yesterday. She recommended that I install Instagram on my phone. Which I did. I then took the obligatory cat and snow pictures.

Today I have a full Sunday planned. The music for church will keep me alert. I’m playing a sort of goofy but technically demanding (for me anyway) postlude. The choral anthem, “Hills of the north rejoice” by Cassler, is as hard as anything we’ve ever done. I had to cut some measures due to the fact that several men will not be there (in one case will be there but will be the guest preacher instead of a baritone in the choir). I have been practicing playing the choral parts to help the choir get through this one.

Then this afternoon I have the honor of playing on a recital with my friend Rhonda Edgington. This is the organ duet I have mentioned here. I think it’s in pretty good shape. I’m more anxious about turning pages for her on other stuff. Page turning is always nerve wracking i think. But again I like being asked to do things once in a while. Thank you Rhonda….

Eileen seems to be more reconciled to how our life will shape up without her full income. I do think it’s going to work out okay.

1. 100 Notable Books of 2013 – NYTimes.com

I finally went through these. I was surprised at how few I recognized. I don’t think I read any of them which is unusual. But I did get a couple of ideas including this book of poetry: ‘Metaphysical Dog,’ Poems by Frank Bidart – NYTimes.com

2. A Lesson Before Dying – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow very wisely sums up Mandela’s wisdom.

3. Martin Sharp, 71, an Artist Who Shaped Imagery of Rock, Dies – NYTimes.com

This guy designed and executed album covers I remember. Interesting that he had so much influence.

4. Michael Kammen, Historian of U.S. Psyche, Dies at 77 – NYTimes.com

This guy wrote some books that look interesting to me. Maybe I’ll have to check them out if I ever get off my Gregorian chant kick.

5. Streaming vs The Niche, episode #6891 | Zoë Keating

My nephew Ben tagged me with this link on Facebooger. Keating has some interesting observations about striking out ground as popular musician who is making enough money to live comfortably. I don’t think she sees the whole picture or least she doesn’t see people like me who are silly enough to buy music online even when they can get it relatively dirt cheap on Spotify.

So the dang New York Times has introduced yet another interface to the  paper. This app is web based. I began messing with it yesterday. Some of it I like because it restores the ability to browse more than just headlines and one or two sentence synopses. But my bookmarking web site (diigo.com) doesn’t work with the interface. The interface also doesn’t allow highlighting or copying of text. There is a button at bottom of each article that says “email this article.” However it doesn’t respond when I click on it.

So if I want to bookmark a specific article, it seems the only way to do it is to open a different NYT interface (“Today’s Paper” or “Home Page”), find the article and bookmark it. This is cumbersome.

I have a history of trying to use the New York Times digitally before they were ready to adapt. They began their web presence with a completely free paper. At that time, I attempted to subscribe digitally and drop my home subscription. There was apparently no way to do this. I contacted the paper a few times, but whoever I spoke to was bewildered by my request. There was literally no way to do it.

Now the New York Times is basically set up for Apple users. This latest web app is obviously an attempt to widen their usefulness to all users. But like the New Yorker, these august providers of information and ideas limp when they try to take on the wild wild web. They attempt to trap it into their own old paradigms. How frustrating not to be able to copy a sentence or two from an online article or bookmark it as a URL. Good grief.

And I don’t think myself as that much of a techie, only someone who values what the web can connect me to and enlighten me about.

1. Remarks by the President on Economic Mobility | The White House

I find reading speeches so much more helpful than listening to them.  I applaud this speech by President Obama. It doesn’t dispel my skepticism about the prospects that the American government will start functioning, however.

2. Superpedestrian – The Copenhagen Wheel

 Tony Wesley put this link up on Facebook. It seems to be a bicycle that stores up energy as you use it and then uses it to power your bike when you need it to.

3. Aldi grocery store: best in America, related to Trader Joe’s.

Who knew?  Thanks to Emily Bastien for putting this link up on Facebook.

4.ThinkPenguin.com | Penguin Laptops, Desktops, and Accessories with Linux & GNU 

Cheap linux based laptops. Wow. Found this at a Holiday gift link for the conscientious put up by Sarah Jenkins. Thank you.

5. 100 Notable Books of 2013 – NYTimes.com

Bookmarked this a while back and haven’t a chance to go through it. I read through it every year.

6. Comcast CEO Thinks Its Customer Service Problem Is Mostly A Matter Of Scale | Techdirt

This article confirms a lot of the crap one thinks about cable companies. Eileen’s income drop due to retiring early next month will force us to alter how we use Comcast, dropping our cable and moving to web based TV and entertainment. We already access Netflix through our WII (thanks to Mark Jenkins who put up Netflix on it while he was visiting years ago).

Still pretty tired today. Yesterday I did coast through the day. It was relaxing but I remained exhausted all day.

Eileen came home early (compensatory time off for an early breakfast the day before) and made supper while I treadmilled. This was nice. Lately if anyone cooks it’s me, since Eileen is pretty stressed and exhausted after work.

I signed up for Goodreads. Not sure how much I will actually use it. But a librarian I know (Mary Cook) put up a blog post recommending it on the Herrick District Library Blog. I keep track of my reading already online via a permanent URL from my bookmarking service (https://www.diigo.com/). Before that I used to write down titles in my journal that I had read.

Goodreads is free. You can share info on Facebook (I am trying not to do that much). You make lists of books you have read, are reading and want to read. It suggests other titles via typical social networking links from members (i.e. people who read your book also read these books like it).

I was discouraged when I looked at the books voted the best for 2013 by members. It was mostly bestseller easy reads. Few titles I had read or had any inclination to read. Still I think I would like being in a reader’s social network so I’m giving it a try.

Today’s blog is short because I spent most of my morning filling the crock pot with veggies. I still have tons of veggies from my CSA. They are starting to wilt. So today I cut up kale, leeks, celery and onions, shredded a potato and a carrot, fried some mushrooms, and put it all in the crock pot. If nothing  else it will end up a killer vegetable bouillon.

__________________________________________

This is as far as I got this morning when the internet went haywire. Or something did. I think it may have been my laptop slowing down. At any rate, I rebooted both the internet modem and the laptop which pretty much ate up all the time before I had to meet Rhonda to rehearse our duet scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

___________________________________________

1.Amsterdam Has a Deal for Alcoholics – Work Paid in Beer – NYTimes.com

They got the idea from Canada.

2. Large Companies Prepared to Pay Price on Carbon – NYTimes.com

Despite being largely Republican backed many corporations are preparing for global warming.

3. The Secrets Inside Us – NYTimes.com

A new body part. Cool.

4. Fate of Detroit’s Art Hangs in the Balance – NYTimes.com

Kevin Orr actually says that the art is an essential asset. Others want to sell it.

5. Michael Robbins ISSUE 10 – The Economy

This new poem by a poet I like contains a phrase I have heard my son say numerous times: “Angels are real.”

6. Thoughts on the Chromebook 

John Scalzi’s thoughts on his Chromebook. It sounds like a cool cloud laptop.

7. Hopi Tribe Sues Paris Auction House – NYTimes.com

France thinks its legal to sell other country’s artifacts. Maybe they think Native Americans are Roma.

8. Ari’s Take: Carry Your Instrument On The Plane – It’s The LAW

So this musician shows up with a copy of a new law that says airlines have let you bring your instrument on board under specific conditions.

9. Afterword, by John le Carré | Harper’s Magazine

Recent article by Le Carre.

the same old question that we are asking ourselves fifty years later: How far can we go in the rightful defense of our Western values without abandoning them along the way? My fictional chief of the British service — I called him Control — had no doubt of the answer:

I mean, you can’t be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government’s policy is benevolent, can you now?

Today, the same man, with better teeth and hair and a much smarter suit, can be heard explaining away the catastrophic illegal war in Iraq, or justifying medieval torture techniques as the preferred means of interrogation in the twenty-first century, or defending the inalienable right of closet psychopaths to bear semiautomatic weapons, and the use of unmanned drones as a risk-free method of assassinating one’s perceived enemies and anybody who has the bad luck to be standing near them.

10.China Will Struggle to Walk the Talk on Legal Reform – China Real Time Report – WS

My son-in-law, Jeremy Daum, is quoted in this Wall Street Journal article. Excellent.

Well my semester has ended at Hope college (as ballet class accompanist). The kids have another week of finals. The ballet department tries to get its finals out of the way before the rest of the college.

My 6 month check up went well. I have a tendency to suffer from “white coat syndrome.” This means that my blood pressure spikes at the doctor’s. So it’s a good thing that I take my blood pressure daily and keep a record of it. The doctor examines it each check up. It generally is pretty good (lower than 120/85). So all my numbers are good for my age. This is true of the blood work anyway. I am overweight. The doctor and I noticed a pattern (I noticed it and mentioned it). I tend to weigh a bit more at my winter buy diazepam europe check up than my summer one.

Since I am playing at an afternoon recital this Sunday, I am spending some time each day with the piece on the instrument I will playing it. I have to say Hope Church (RCA) is one of the few churches in town I feel welcome. The people there are unfailingly friendly.

By the time I got to rehearsal last night I was exhausted.

We had an important rehearsal. About this far from Christmas, I want to make sure people know the music and are producing their voices as well as possible. I was surprised at how well the rehearsal went and happy with my leadership (unusual).

This morning I have already been to the dentist. They found a loose filling. I have to return on Monday.

Now the rest of the day I can basically coast.

Someone I knew in the past died recently.

His name was Rick Ridley. I knew him when I was courting Marcia my first wife and then for the brief duration my marriage to her (four years). We mainly meet in the kitchen of Marcia’s huge polish family in Flint, Michigan. Rick and I would sit and play guitar or chess together.

After I moved to Delaware Ohio for a couple years of college, Rick visited me. I don’t recall but he must of arrived with Maricia’s sister Kathy whom he eventually married and divorced. At the time I was choir director for a little Methodist church in the sticks. Rick went with me to keep me company on the drive to the Wednesday rehearsal. Rick sat quietly through the rehearsal and watched. On the drive home he told me that if I could make my money doing what he had watched me do that evening I should do so because he felt I was quite at home before a choir.

Funny what we remember.

Today is my last day of ballet classes. I also have a doctor’s appointment, a choir rehearsal and then a party afterwards. It looks like a busy  day but should be the last one for a while.

Finished reading Le Carré’s new novel, A Delicate Truth. As far as I could tell he doesn’t use the phrase in the title until the afterword acknowledgements: “Most of all I must thank Carne Ross, former British foreign servant and founder and director of the not-for-profit Independent Diplomat, who by his example demonstrated the perils of speaking a delicate truth to power.”

A quick google of his name reveals that Ross testified in hearings on the Iraq war and directly contradicted Blair’s (and Bush’s) contention that they had attempted diplomatic alternatives or that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction being held by Hussein. I guess that’s the real “delicate truth to power” Le Carré is talking about.

Blair comes off badly in this novel, as do the Americans. I read a couple of reviews. Both mentioned Le Carré’s notorious disdain for Americans. One reviewer reported watching Le Carré get drunk and rave about it. The other said that if Le Carré’s political opinions qualified him as an American hater, then so was half of America.

I guess we know which half, eh?

1. The Stem and the Flower – NYTimes.com

David Brooks has been away. I like his comments in this article about how normal people should spend no more than 10 % of their time and thoughts on politics. It’s not the stuff of life.

2. For Gay Community, Finding Acceptance Is Even More Difficult on the Streets – NYT

I found the description at the beginning of this article moving and beautiful. But then I’m a damn liberal.

3. My Upper Peninsula – NYTimes.com

After reading this article by Jim Harrison I decided to read more of him and checked out a book of his short stories and started reading them yesterday.

4. Geordie Greig’s ‘Breakfast With Lucian’ – NYTimes.com

This is a book review. The book being reviewed didn’t sound as interesting as another title the reviewer brings up: Man with a Blue Scarf : On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud.

For some reason I didn’t know the late Lucian Freud was Sigmund’s grandson.

5. One Drug, Two Names, Many Problems – NYTimes.com

The dangers this needlessly can pose.

6. Who Is Watching the Watch Lists? – NYTimes.com

Quick guide to the many terrorists (and others) watch lists.

7. Migration Hurts the Homeland – NYTimes.com

The “homeland” is the homeland of the migrants who come to the USA and do not return to help their country of origin.

8. The Almost Year-End Quiz – NYTimes.com

This is fun. I think I got 4 out of 9. See if you can do better on news from 2013.

9. For Some Folks, Life Is a Hill – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow is eloquent here and criticizes both people at the bottom and top of the hill of life.

10. Banning the Negative Book Review – NYTimes.com

Nonsense to ban the negative.

I was  up early this morning typing in some reading notes on a book I want to return to the library soon and the phone rang. Lately a call at this time of the morning is related to a crisis with my elderly mother living in a nursing home. Not so this morning. It was daughter Elizabeth calling from Beijing. She was off work and marking time until going to a “drink and draw” session at a French restaurant there. We had a nice chat interrupted only by the usual glitches of Skype on a cell phone.

I hung up, got dressed and drove up to my doctor’s office and had blood drawn for my semi-annual physical tomorrow. I think I insulted the person who registered me. After she slid a pamphlet about my privacy rights under HIPAA across the desk indicating I didn’t have to take it, I began questioning her about the benefit of having a bunch of health care providers under one roof (Spectrum Health).

Apparently there’s none, but she was sorry to hear that I found my and my mother’s health care providers there sort of fumbling around and not seeming to connect very easy.

The HIPAA is what brought to my mind. Oh well.

I even experienced further evidence of the general inefficiency of this building this morning. When the nurse called my name to take my blood she noticed there were other people sitting in the waiting area. She asked if they were waiting for blood draws. One person spoke up and said that he was. She said he should register. He said that he had. I followed her into the cubicle and she immediately checked her computer for the guy. As she was looking he popped up. She called through the curtain to her fellow blood drawers that the guy was there now.

After pissing off the young bureaucrat who checked me in, I didn’t comment.

I discovered that another of my liturgy texts has been updated.

I just ordered a used copy online.

I do not regret pursuing a degree in liturgy. Hell, maybe I couldn’t even do it. The head liturgy dude at Notre Dame when I was there (Mark Searle) didn’t want the music students to take liturgy classes until they had a bachelors in theology. I know that I would never pursue that. But at this stage of my life and work I am interested in getting slightly updated in the areas of liturgy I studied and now work in. My present boss, Jen Adams, has made it clear that she values my private liturgical and collegiate comments as much as she values my musical skills.

At the same time, I am also grateful that I didn’t attempt to pursue a degree in music theory.

I was thinking of this while reading Charles Rosen’s lovely debunking of motivic analysis in music. This was something I enjoyed doing and studying. I believe it was the clarity of my undergrad work in motivic analysis that led Dr. Richard Parks to offer me a Teaching Assistantship in music theory at Southern Methodist U when he took over the music theory department.

Rosen’s essays in The Frontiers of Meaning all ponder the lack of clear lines between nonsense and meaning in music.

Rosen speaks from a very traditional, erudite, informed performer’s point of view.

It is interesting to hear him poke little holes in traditional understandings of music, its meaning and its importance.

I close with an example.

“It is only too easy to produce uninteresting triviality by finding similar or identical motifs in unrelated passages, particularly in tonal music … the final step toward nonsense is taken by attaching significance, and sometimes even very specific referential meaning, to largely unrelated recurrences.”

Eileen is taking Mondays off for a while. She is doing this in the hopes that she will find the other days she works less stressful. I on the other hand have a class at 8:30 AM on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays until the end of this term. So I’m up reading and preparing to leave in a couple hours.

On Saturday I was pretty tired but dragged myself over to church to practice organ. There was only one measure in my weekend organ music that I found challenging. I seem to continually to stumble on this measure (in the prelude) in my Saturday practice. On Sunday however I repeated it many times accurately in my preservice rehearsal at the organ (before the choir pregame) and it went fine in performance. The postlude went the other way. It had been going well in rehearsal but I made the mistake of starting it at too quick a tempo. It didn’t settle down until about a third of the way into the piece. Ah well. (The pieces I am referring to are prelude: “Trio on Helmsley” by Robert B. Lee and postlude: Lobt Gott den Herrn, ihr Heiden all arr. by Helmut Walcha.)

I had difficulty getting a good blend from the choir before service yesterday. I warmed them up extensively. As a director one can sometimes tell when singers attention is wavering. That was the experience I had in yesterday’s preservice rehearsal. We were singing “Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem” by Thomas Tomkins. They knew the piece pretty well. But it is difficult to get a cohesive sound from singers when their attendance is erratic. This is just something one has to deal with these days I guess as music performance as  a discipline and rewarding experience continues to diminish in relevance to contemporary living in my culture.

Changing players becomes more difficult as the number of singers involved is reduced. Small choirs are tricky in their own way.

All this is to say that the choir gave its bests performance of Tomkins in the service yesterday, always the goal. I asked the sopranos to switched around the order they were standing and doubled the parts more carefully on the piano than I had in rehearsal. It’s hard to know why a performance has been a good one, but that was my strategy and they did sound much better.

It could have been something as simple as singing in a larger room.

At any rate, that happened.

This week I have planned to do some serious practice on the organ. I am playing on a recital on Sunday afternoon (one piece, Rhapsody by Naji Hakim, an organ duet with Rhonda Edgington). The postlude next Sunday is a challenging little toccata by Eugene Butler. In addition I have added some interesting and challenging pieces to my daily practice.

Yesterday I was rehearsing Anton Heiller’s “Fantasy on Salve Regina” at the piano. Eileen asked me what I was playing. When I told her what it was she said she liked it. I said, me too.

I started Peter Jeffrey’s 60 page article, “The Earliest Oktoechoi: The Role of Jerusalem and Palestine in the Beginnings of Modal Ordering,” in The Study of Medieval Chant: Paths and Bridges, East and West edited by Jeffery.

I don’t find his prose as friendly as a lot of contemporary scholarship. Nevertheless I am interested in learning more recent research about just how the Western idea of 8 modes originated.

Once again I find a personal serendipity in the footnotes. An article by André Barbara is cited (“Octave Species” in Journal of Musicology, summer 1984). Barbara was my Medieval music teacher in grad school. He was a gentle man who failed to be given tenure by Notre Dame. This was especially startling to me, because of another prof (whom I thought were much inferior to Barbara as a scholar and teacher) was granted tenure the year Barbara was forced to leave Notre Dame.

Calvin Bower whom I run across with some consistency in footnotes was cited once again in Jeffrey’s footnotes (from the same issue of Journal of Musicology as Barbara). I find any mention of Boethius leads to Bower. Bower carved out a respectable scholarly niche with his dissertation on Boethius and subsequent research.  He was chair of the music department when I was at Notre Dame. I took psalmody from him.

I have many memories of Bower. I remember him saying that other Roman Catholics told him he played hymns like a Protestant. To which he retorted scornfully, are you trying to say I play them well?

I moved from reading Jeffrey to practicing my Greek. Then I began trying to pin down the specific Gregorian chants used in some organ music I am learning.

It looks like I’m going to add Anton Heiller’s “Fantasy on Salve Regina” to my learning pile along with all of Naji Hakim’s “Esquisses Grégorian.”

I am doing some less austere reading. John Le Carré has a new novel out.

I’m on page 84. I think I have basically read all of Le Carré’s books.

I recently ordered a bunch of music from a distributor who is going out of business and is selling off his stock at very very low prices (most of it was 70% off). It came in the mail last night. It was fun to go through it. Much of what I ordered I did on faith not being able to find out too much about the music (Did it include instrumental parts?). Most of my purchases were vindicated. I am trying to use up my 2013 personal music allowance the church gives me.

1. Despite Filibuster Limits, a Door Remains Open to Block Judge Nominees – NYTime

The arcane “blue slip custom” allows a senator to block a judge from his or her own state despite the new filibuster rules. Apparently the filibuster ban will be most important to D.C. federal judge appointments. Much less impact than the howling pundits have been talking about.

2. Abortion Cases in Court Helped Tilt Democrats Against the Filibuster – NYTimes.com

Previous compromises Democrats made with Republicans have impacted their willingness to change the rules. This is because Republicans have not reciprocated with compromise.

3. London Mayor Raises Eyebrows, and Ire – NYTimes.com

Hate speech from London sounds a lot like American speech. “Greed is good” and the poor are stupid and deserve their lot in life says Boris Johnson.

4. Boris Johnson: Intellectually Questionable |The Guardian

The Guardian parses out the stupidity of Johnson’s own analysis.

5. Georgia – Lost Alzheimer’s Patient Is Shot – NYTimes.com

The gun madness continues.

Before our company left yesterday, we all sat around sampled different varieties of apples that Emily brought.

Of course the tasting was not limited to apples. We all grazed all day on the leftovers.

But then they were off.

Here’s hoping all had as good a time as I did.

My guess is they did.

I had some music I ordered arrive yesterday.

The composer, Naji Hakim, is a Lebanese born French composer. He studied with Langlais and is the author of the duet I am performing a week from tomorrow with my friend Rhonda E.

I like the duet and thought it would be interesting to see some more of his music. So I eagerly sat down at the organ yesterday to preview this piece. “Esquisses Grégoriennes” is nothing like “Rhapsody” for two players. It was written for a Roman Catholic organist in Boston and is based on Gregorian Chants.

When I play pieces on chants (or even chorales for that matter) I like to see the original material the composer uses. I got up this morning and began looking at the chant in the first movement, “Nos Autem.”

The words are from a chant in the Liber Usalis and also in the Antiphonale Monasticum.

It is the introit for both Maundy Thursday and The Feast of the Holy Cross. Since the organist to whom the suite is dedicated works at Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, I thought this was part of the connection. However, the melody in the organ piece was not the one above.

After a little more digging, I found the melody that is used in the first diazepam 10mg buy cheap four measures of Nakim’s movement.

It was in my Antiphonale Monasticum. However it only explains the first four measures. In the fifth, Nakim embarks on what looks like a psalm tone, but I can’t place it.

Just for giggles I transcribed the melody into my workbook.

The words mean “But it behooves us to glory in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ: in Whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection; by whom we are saved and delivered. — (Ps. 66. 2). May God have mercy on us, and bless us: may He cause the light of His countenance to shine upon us; and may He have mercy on us.”

1. Old Finnish People With Things On Their Heads | Lara Sanchez

 Very funny pics.

2. Where Is the Love? – NYTimes.com

The lack of compassion for the poor and the infirm in the USA continues to astound me.

“A Princeton University psychology professor, Susan Fiske, has found that when research subjects hooked up to neuro-imaging machines look at photos of the poor and homeless, their brains often react as if they are seeing things, not people.”

3. Redistribution, Anyone? – NYTimes.com

Practically every act of government is an act of redistribution. So says Russell Janis, senior lecturer in economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in his letter to the editor.

4. Salinger Stories ‘Leaked’ Online – NYTimes.com

 My daughter had already sent these stories to Eileen and me and she had already read them by the time I read this story in the NYT.

5. BBC News – Spanish pianist faces jail over noise pollution claims

I haven’t read this article. Thanks to Susan Tomes who linked it in on her blog.

Thanksgiving was a busy day. I got up very early and put the turkey in the oven. Too early. It was done by 10 AM. Fortunately, it was still warm and moist by the time we had our meal.  We went and got my Mom very close to serving time. So we had nine people for -Thanksgiving dinner (a late lunch actually). My sister-in-law, Leigh, made a delicious yam/cranberry casserole. She and my brother also brought food: cranberry sauce, Mama Stamberg’s cranberry sauce.

My niece, Emily, brought food and drink as well.

Pumpkin Maple Custard baked in an heirloom pumpkin,

Chorizo-stuffed Dates with smoked blue cheese,

and Crème Brûléed Pork Belly. I tasted the meat based stuff and everything was great. We had a huge feast with the usual stuff: turkey, stuffing, mashed  potatoes, rolls.

It was kind of fun trying to do some gluten free options to include my niece who is gluten-free these days.

She sent gluten-free stuffing which I used. I didn’t factor in the idea that gluten-free fake bread products are dryer than their gluten counterparts. This turned out not to be a problem.

My Mom didn’t last too long but I think that she had a good time being with everyone. I apologize to extended family that I was too busy to take pictures. Leigh took one family picture  (of everyone but her!).

This morning when we were all sitting around the living room using our devices (phones, ipads, computers, and such) Tony (Ben’s significant other) remarked that this is what morning looks like in 2013 (people sitting around quietly tapping on electronic devices).

So, I’m up early as usual only this morning I am going to have get cooking (literally) very soon. The turkey is almost 15 lbs so I need to get it in the over around 7 AM.

Yesterday I was  a busy little bee.

I was trying to get the house ready for company, do my usual work for church (submit music for bulletin for a week from Sunday), practice organ and make a pecan pie. Eileen said we should make a pecan pie both because she likes them and in honor of my late father who loved pecan pie.

Finishing up The Frontiers of Meaning, a collection of three essays by Charles Rosen. I keep thinking of what he says about about music veering into sheer nonsense. Coming from the august mind of Rosen this is quite the revelation. “Music has its existence on the borderline between meaning and nonsense,” he says. One way he makes this point is by showing how great musicians have been profoundly mistaken about music. Citing perpetuation of obvious mistakes in scores by the best players, he says that “nothing is too silly to be sung or played once you get used to it.”

“Familiarity has its dangers… particularly when it allows us to settle comfortably into error—the name generally given to widely accepted error is tradition.” The italic emphasis is Rosen’s.

Rosen’s scholarly observations put a nice sheen on  my own questions about the meaning and functions of music for people today.

In talking about the ambiguity of a performer’s informed relationship to musical notes on the page he tells this quaint little story.

“There used to be a union rule for the technicians who ran the tape machines at recording sessions, and took directions from the sound engineers and producers, that they be unable to read music—on the only too comprehensible grounds that if they could, it would give them unfair advantage over their fellow technicians. There was, in fact, a technician at CBS Records who knew how to read a score but was forced to pretend ignorance: if you asked him to cut the tape, you had to give him a signal, and were not permitted to show him the score, indicating the place to cut by pointing at the text, if there was anyone else in the room.”

He also relishes the foibles of the great musicologists.

“In Paul Henry Lang’s once famous Music in Western Civilization, we find the following surrealist sentence, which was pointed out to me many years ago by Oliver Strunk: ‘Tchaikovsky does not belong in the company of the great in music: to call him the “modern Russian Beethoven” is footless, Beethoven being patently neither modern nor Russian….’ Strunk assumed that this Alice-in-Wonderland logic must be a misprint, but when he called it to Lang’s attention, Lang was adamant. ‘It’s what I wrote’ he claimed stoutly, and stood by it.'”

You gotta love that. I instantly marked this passage in my Lang.

Well, I took a little break from blogging and the turkey is now in the oven.

1. New Clues May Change Buddha’s Date of Birth – NYTimes.com

Only doing links today. I love shit like historical layers of stuff in the earth. Very cool.

2. As Homeless Line Up for Food, Los Angeles Weighs Restrictions – NYTimes.com

I cannot fathom the callousness that is so prevalent now. Aaron Lewis says it well: ”

Aaron Lewis, who said he makes his home on the sidewalk by a 7-Eleven on Sunset Boulevard, chalked up opposition to what he described as rising callousness to people in need.

 “That’s how it is everywhere,” Mr. Lewis said. “People here — it’s their only way to eat. The community doesn’t help us eat.”

3. The Bibliomancer

 This blogger on Bookslut (which I check regularly) recommended a book which looks fascinating, The Gentrification of the The Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Susan Schulman. Have to get a copy to read.

4. Multiverse Big Band at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola – NYTimes.com

 The music reviewed in this article sounded like fun. I spotified names and came up with some good listening. I especially like Chris Washburne.

5.James McBride on His Novel <The Good Lord Bird>- NYTimes.com

I think I’m going to have read this author..

6. The Untold Story of Military Sexual Assault – NYTimes.com

This article mentions in passing a startling statistic: more men are raped in the military then women.

7. Drones Offer Journalists a Wider View – NYTimes.com

Using drones to take impossible pictures from the air. Plus privacy considerations. Interesting topic.

8. Why the Y? – NYTimes.com

Y as in Y Chromosome. Maureen Dowd talks about how males might possibly be on their way to obsolescence.

I have been hired to play guitar next month at a party. I haven’t played guitar in private or public for several years. Consequently I am disciplining myself to play some each day to revive my technique (not to mention the needed callouses on the left hand). This has been very interesting. I am not the same musician I was even a year ago. Like most people, I’m a moving target. I have firmed up many rehearsal techniques to enable me to continue to practice and perform. I find that sitting down at the guitar now is different. I am less interested in what I used to play (which was mostly my own songs and popular music). So I have been working my way through a book of classical guitar music. All I really need to do at this point is get some time in on the guitar and learn the songs I need to perform for the gig. One of them involves slide guitar (a piece by Leo Kotke) so I pulled out my slide as well.

Eileen had yesterday off as well as today. We spent most of yesterday moving stuff around in the house. Note the clock in the back of the above picture

I had to roll up the rug so we could shove stuff around.

The clock is a Hatch family heirloom. We decided to move it to the guest bedroom on the main floor.

It was to go in this corner.

This is where it is now. Note messy room soon to be straightened.

We also had to  move three bookcases which used to sit in front of these three bookcases.

One of them went where the clock had been

Eileen remarked yesterday that most people would be horrified to realize that they had company coming over due to the apparent disarray. We aspire to what most people probably think of as messy.

One of the three bookcases that was standing two deep in the dining room went to the other side of the room to the right of the window seat.

And one joined its brothers upstairs. Note the mattress. We also lugged this up there in preparation for visitors.

So we were busy little beavers yesterday. Before Eileen got up I had moved the computer in front of my bookcase of music. My body is kind of achy this morning. At one point yesterday, Eileen turned to me and said, “We’re old!” No argument here.

After the funeral on Saturday, my self confidence was shaken and I was feeling tired. Despite having played most of the music competently, I was concentrating on those fleeting moments I had “crashed” and the laughter of people in the back row. I usually express this kind of reaciton in myself as “I SUCK!”

That I was off balance was obvious.

Exhausted, I decided to persist and to go through the motions of rehearsing the music for the next day’s service. This proved beneficial. As I practiced I went from frustrated to calm. At the end of my rehearsal I realized that even though I wasn’t as prepared I wanted to be to play the Prinz/Bach concerto movements the next day, there was little need to beat myself up over it. Indeed doing so would result in a much less enjoyable experience and a worse performance. In the end I resolved to come fifteen minutes early as usual and go over sections (especially in the prelude – the first movement) and let it go at that.

This worked very well. Not only did I perform very well yesterday, I was calm and happy for the whole morning. This aided me in leading the choir into a pretty good performance of their anthem. Admittedly it was kind of show boat piece by Robert Leaf. I don’t do many of these, but once in a while it is a good idea to schedule something a bit dramatic. One of the reasons I avoid it is that choirs can get so involved in a piece like this that they end up making sounds that are not beautiful. I spent a lot of the pre-service rehearsal working on warming them up vocally. This paid off for the most part.

The anthem, “To Our King Immortal,” was for soloist, SATB choir and organ. I divvied the solo parts up between a single soprano voice and all the men. Then I divided the choir physically. I had the men stand to the far left of the stage, the women to the right, and the soloist on the floor near the piano. This emphasized the back-and-forth nature of the piece. This was a subtle connection to the organ concertos I played for the prelude and postlude, especially the first movement (prelude) which also alternates between a tutti and a soli part.

After service, I was surprised at the many comments (even from academics) about this anthem. My boss (who was busy convalescing during the previous day’s funeral) said that she had reports that the music at the funeral had gone very well.

Just shows to go ya I guess.

1.  Black Author wins Copyright Case for Matrix movie | Jason Skywalker’s Blog

I put this link up Friday. It’s a bogus story. Thank you to Elizabeth for clarifying. I admit that I hadn’t paid close attention to it.

2. Alarm Will Sound

Music group I bookmarked after my friend Rhonda mentioned them. I’m pretty sure I have listened to their performances before.

3. Veteran Union Activist Fasts to Support Rights for Illegal Immigrants – NYTimes.com

Again Elizabeth pointed this story out to me. Then I read about it in this link. I especially find the politicians dismissal of the fasts chillingly inhumane.

4. In Defense of a Loaded Word – NYTimes.com

The language we use about race and racism is fascinating to me. Banning a word always reminds me of the novel/movie “Z.”

Both the book and movie end with the bad guys in an unspecied country (a lot like Greece) completely repressing the rebels. All mention of them are banned as is the letter “Z” they had used as a symbol of  a brutal assassination.

5. Are Kids Too Coddled? – NYTimes.com

I notice that certain little kids will give me berth because they seem to see clearly that I will not be the adult that caters to them. I like that.

On a similar note I head Chris Matthews on C-Span yesterday.

It reminded me of the Rachel Maddow phenomenon. By that I mean that I have read a book by Maddow and found it and her thinking brilliant. However I cannot watch her on TV. I agree with Chris Matthews about many political ideas. I cannot watch him for long though.

But on C-Span he was speaking at a Book Festival as an author. He said something like this:

What we need in Washington is not more Democrats or Republicans. What we need is more grown-ups.

He quoted Charles Schulz’s definition of kids and grown-ups. Kids get to sit in the back sear of the car and whine and complain. That’s what kids do. Adults have to put gas in the car, drive it and decided where to go.

At the funeral yesterday, the family provided me with a prodigious list of music to pick from to play for the prelude. I ended up using all of their suggestions. I began with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. My first real exposure to this piece was a choral arrangement I heard in high school. I was playing on a choir concert. But another pianist was chosen to accompany the arrangement. This was a wise choice. I believe the number I was asked to play on was a pop tune. It could have been “I say a little prayer for you” written by Burt Bacharach and a bit hit for Dionne Warwick. I seem to recall there was some time changes in it.

At any rate, I thought the Moonlight Sonata sounded pretty cool as a Swingle Singers like piece. I didn’t really learn it until much later. And then like most stuff, I taught it to myself.

After the Moonlight Sonata, I played a goofy arrangement of the theme of the rondo of Beethoven’s violin concerto.

This arrangement by Godowsky was all I could quickly find online. I ended up playing most of it down an octave so it wouldn’t sound too trivial.

Then I played the third requested piece, “Träumerei” by Schumann. I own multiple volumes of his works for piano and played from that.

By this time there were many people sitting in the room. I usually wait to begin a funeral or wedding prelude until the first person is seated. Then I basically ignore the group and concentrate on not messing up the music.

Schumann was my last piano thing for the moment. I then went to the organ and played a transcription of the famous theme from Mozart’s Clarinet concerto.

I thought I heard sobbing during this. All of the music so far would not be music that I would normally choose for a funeral. I learned early in my work as a church musician that wrenching beautiful music doesn’t necessarily help grieving people. In fact it can exacerbate their feelings of despair (hence the sobbing).

At this point, someone came to the organ and told me that some principal mourners were running late.  We were experiencing our first snow fall so this made sense. This allowed me to play the final prelude piece requested, “Air on a G string” by Bach. I had a moment of panic earlier trying to find my score for this. I own several versions. I found Virgil Fox’s arrangement and played that.

All of the music so far had gone pretty well. I finished Bach and it seemed as though we were not ready to begin. The atmosphere seemed rather heavy after all of this music. I wanted to lighten up a bit and do music like what had been requested. This is when I made my mistake of the day. I tried to play a piece and fell apart. The piece was “In dir ist freude” by Bach. It’s a happy little thing and I thought would register it a bit softer and play it. I killed it.

Near the end I was experiencing despair! I heard laughter coming from the back row. At least the atmosphere was not as dismal, but in the throes of trying to save the little Bach piece, it felt like they were laughing at my attempts. Still no word on when to begin. I launched into hymns beginning with the hymn for the day, “For the Beauty of the Earth,” then playing “For All the Saints.” By then we were ready to begin.

At the end of the service the family had requested, “When the Saints.”

I was hoping people would sing along and did an introduction that I intended to sound like an invitation to sing. There was some faint singing but it didn’t really take off. I then played several choruses in my bogus jazz style. That seemed like enough. I finished off with the slow movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique piano sonata.

I wasn’t very happy with my train wreck. I ran into a mourner later who complimented me on my piano playing especially the Beethoven thing I ended with. Noting that he didn’t mention my organ playing, I admit I was a bit happy to hear that my playing hadn’t been entirely perceived as a disaster at this funeral.

Sigh.

I don’t really have time to post this morning. I got up and starting reviewing my Greek (such as it is). This took up all of my morning reading time along with ordering some discounted music.

I realized that I have been attempting to read the  Greek in the articles I have been reading. The footnotes are largely of articles in Greek so in order to understand buy valium toronto what I am reading I try to make out the references. This is not as impressive as it might seem since can cognate many words if I can read the dang letters.

Anyway, I have to go grocery shopping and I have a funeral this afternoon. No time to blog.

Began organizing my book collection on the second floor of our home yesterday. I moved the three shelves above into place and cleaned them a bit.

I began unblocking the upstairs cupboards. As I removed the books I put them in order by author.

As a bibliophile this work is a sheer pleasure for me. I love my old books.

The multi-volume collection of Benjamin Franklin’s writings never fails to remind me of my grandfather Ben Jenkins who always seemed to me to be cut of the same cloth as the famous American Ben.

I remember reading (and probably still own) the one volume paperback abridged version of Sir James Frazier’s The Golden Bough.

I found the multi-volume version at a Herrick District Library sale. That’s also where I purchased the Ben Franklin volumes. I spent a couple hours yesterday dusting and sorting books, stopping occasionally to browse through a volume. It will be good to get them back where I can find them again.

My goal right now is to unblock the upstairs cupboards and make a path to our second guest bed so if need be someone can crash there on Thanksgiving.

I think this is doable

Eileen is formulating a plan for the future. At this point she is definitely going to quit her job. She will probably retire sometime after the first of the year. She will have to wait thirty days before applying to be rehired part time in the Children’s department. She goes back and forth about the desirability of returning. She loves the work, but the working conditions are onerous enough that she is tired of it. Last night she said she might never even apply for the part time gig. I encourage her to take off as much time as she can convince herself to take off after she retires.

This will impact us financially. But I’m pretty sure we can easily pull it off. As a retiree she will receive $300 a month toward health care insurance. If she continues with the policy from the library the monthly bill will be $1k. My boss, Jen Adams, has expressed interest in seeing if the church can kick in another third or so. This is only a possibility. That would pull the amount down to a more reasonable monthly insurance bill. Also, there’s always the Affordable Care Act. I heard on the radio yesterday there are 42 providers on the Michigan scene.

But the important thing is that Eileen moves from despair to happiness. We have always been a bit poor until the last few years. I will return to watching the pennies more carefully and this will most likely work out fine.

One of my altos is a professor of nursing at Hope College. Wednesday night she brought a couple of singing bowls to demonstrate to the choir and me the idea of vibrations in the body centers.

Since attending Professor Brad Richmond’s lecture on choral technique, I have been incorporating some of his ideas about choral singing. An important one is the resonance of not only the sinus cavities when singing but the entire body. Professor Richmond is tapping into the notions that a vibrating resonant approach to singing helps increase ones overall health as well as singing voice.

I loved the fact that choir members were saying they could feel the vibration of the singing bowl in their bodies. Some of them felt the Heart bowl my alto activated for us in their chest and other places. Very very cool.

The professor of nursing pointed out that the chakra energy points are related to the acupuncture points. How cool is that? Chakra I believe is Tibetan in origin.

1. Coursera.org

If you were wondering where to access free online college courses, this is one site.

2. BookBub Offers Daily Deals on Free or Discounted Ebooks

Daughter Elizabeth put this link up on Facebooger. I haven’t checked it out thoroughly yet but it does look interesting. Thanks, Elizabeth!

3. Black Author wins Copyright Case for Matrix movie | Jason Skywalker’s Blog

Son-in-law Jeremy (husband/partner to Elizabeth, both of whom are living in Beijing) put this link up. Thanks, Jeremy!

4. How Doctors Die – Showing Others the Way – NYTimes.com

Dying when one sees it coming is truly an art.

I had planned to post a video of the choreography some of the ballet students came up with for my composition, “Julie’s Waltz,” this morning. The instructor gave me a DVD at class yesterday and told me there was a video on it. However the DVD  does not seem to have anything on it. Best laid plans. If I get my hands on a video of the students dancing to my waltz I will post here and on Facebook.

In the meantime I look forward to some relaxing time on my Thursday off.

All I have scheduled is a piano trio rehearsal and that comes under my heading of Stuff I Do For Sheer Pleasure.

I have a memorial service coming up Saturday. The family has a list of music that they wanted me to pick from for the prelude. It includes Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, “Rondo” from Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, “Traemerei” by Robert Schumann, Air on a G string by Bach, and the famous slow part of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto. I have managed to run down all of these and will have them all ready to play on the piano or organ on Saturday.

This Sunday I am playing the first and last movement of Bach’s transcription of Prinz’s concerto in G (BWV 592) for the prelude and postlude respectively. I have been working on them for a week or so. Hopefully they will go as well as the other pieces I have been playing public recently.

Checked on Mom yesterday. She seems to be doing okay. Tomorrow is her birthday. Eileen and I will make  a bit of a fuss over her.

I cleared a bunch of bookmarks off my browser this morning. I am hoping that might speed up my online experience. At any rate it will streamline it for sure.

I got up this morning with my head spinning (not literally). Exhausted and also unable to stop thinking about stuff I want to get done. Made a list and then made coffee.

1. Weighing Free Speech in Refusal to Photograph Lesbian Couple’s Ceremony – NYT

It is striking to me how the Gay rights discussion echoes the Civil Rights movement.  If one imagines that the couple involved in this suit were bi-racial, it seems pretty obvious to me they should win their suit.

2.Prosecutor in Racially Charged Shooting Case Near Detroit Is No Stranger to Spotlight – NYTimes.com

Keeping an eye on this weird killing.

3. Watchful Eye in Nursing Homes – NYTimes.com

Shocking stories of hidden cams in nursing homes.

4. The Shame of American Health Care – NYTimes.com

Some stats I want to remember in this editorial.

My friend, Rhonda Edgington, has invited me to join her in playing a duet on her Advent organ recital. The piece is “Rhapsody”” by Naji Hakim. I  have been working on learning my part. Yesterday we went through it together for a second time. I felt pretty good about how I did when playing with this talented musician who has come rather recently onto the Holland Michigan music scene (such as it is). I have been systematically practicing this piece in the hopes that I will play well on Rhonda’s recital. It’s been a fun discipline to try to adapt my tempos and interpretation to hers. I think I have gotten a little comfortable with my own ideas. It’s been a while since I’ve worried too much about playing things in a quick tempo. Yesterday morning before working with her, I sat at my organ bench and took a passage (a page or two actually) and did the traditional metronome approach to learn a faster tempo. By that I mean, one starts out at a comfortable speed regulated by “mister metronome.” Then one click at a time uses the metronome to very slowly increase the tempo. If one knows the music, this can work. I have done this a few times with some of the passages in “Fantasy.” It has paid off pretty well and the sections are pretty solid. Fun stuff. Thanks, Rhonda!

After that I went over to the library for my first visit to the new music section at the Van Wylen Hope College main library.

They moved it from its location in the music building recently to a much more spacious setting on the second floor of the main college library. I had some books I mentioned yesterday in mind to check out and examine more thoroughly. The only thing I really find myself  missing about being physically in a library or a bookstore is the random contextual find.

Glancing over the shelves where the books I was looking for were located it was easy to see the newer spines. I pulled out several and found some more recent work in the areas I’m thinking about.

I see scholarship as an ongoing conversation. Since I pay attention to footnotes, I am always interested in the larger conversation of any book I am reading. I realize that the footnote is frozen at a certain point in the conversation, but it can also help a reader move closer to the present scholarship.

So for instance, I was reading in MacCulloch’s Christianity the First Three Thousand Years (originally published in 2009). A footnote in it led me to a collection of essays on Byzantine liturgy and music. A footnote in an article there opened up some scholarly discussion in the form of books and essays about the ontology of music. This discussion took place largely after I graduated from grad school. Running down those books and authors, I find other more recent works by them which updates the discussion even further.

I know this stuff can seem arcane to the disinterested. But I am struck again and again about the pragmatic things I learn in the course of this kind of curiosity detective work. For example, this morning I found myself rummaging around trying to find my copy of Chopin’s Bb minor piano sonata. I wanted to correct an error in all modern editions I had just read in Charles Rosen’s essay “The Frontiers of Nonsense.” I had found this essay in a randomly chosen book by this recently deceased pianist and scholar near one of the other books I was looking for yesterday. In it  besides the marvelous ideas that are always present in his prose, he mentioned that the repeat sign in the first movement is in the wrong place. Couldn’t find my copy, but you get the idea.