In his book, Performing Messiaen’s Organ Music: 66 Masterclasses, Jon Gillock makes some telling observations about performing music.

He emphasizes the role of the musician as an interpreter.  He quotes Alec Guinness about acting to set the stage for this interpretation.

“An actor is an interpreter of other men’s words, often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not, a craftsman, a bag of tricks, a vanity bag, a cool observer of mankind, a child, and at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or so, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents.” Alec Guinness, Blessings in Disguise quoted in Gillock’s book.

This description of an actor makes good sense to me when applied to musicians. A musical performance is a bit of a mystical thing to me. I often feel that musicians give sterile performances. This is especially true of academics. I say that technique while necessary by itself is entirely inadequate.

Connecting to one’s self, the music and the listener is a complicated little dance. The ego has to be simultaneously engaged enough to be confident but disengaged enough to let the sound come through, listen and be aware of the conversation happening between player and listener and other players.

I am mystified when musicians act badly through music, either ignoring the audience and/or by treating their fellow performers condescendingly. These sorts of things are subtle. But they block what seems to be a sort of magic when performer, music and listener are doing something together.

I like Gillock’s idea that interpreters/composers paint pictures in sound. He is speaking primarily of Messiaen and it is something that needs saying about him in particular. But it is true of a lot of excellent music.

He compares hearing dissonance in Messiaen and missing the painted picture to standing close to a painting by Monet and seeing only dots. He makes this comparison acute by insisting that Messiaen shares an aesthetic with French composers and  painters.

I am planning on playing “The Shepherds” by Messiaen on Christmas Day as a prelude. I will write a listener’s guide to it to be put in the bulletin. I will be drawing on Gillock’s understanding and probably quote him in it.

I continued to feel worse and worse yesterday morning as church approached. By the time I was rehearsing with instrumentalists at 9:15 my head felt distinctly like a balloon and I heard everything in a sort of distant tunnel effect.

Despite this there were some pretty musical moments, I think.  The choir came through like troopers for me, even though my leadership was to say the least a bit spacey. The service was a version of the traditional Lessons and Carols service. So it proceeded with scripture and song, either choral or congregational. The choral sections sounded good to me, but I admit to not being able to discern how refined we managed to perform due to my condition.

Highlights for me included the performance of my compositions as the prelude and postlude.  I also enjoyed the use of random handbells. We have been singing a Holy, holy based on the chant Conditor Alme Siderum.

The melody lends itself to a background of random bells with notes drawn from a pentatonic scale.

I used a different five note pattern yesterday (1,2,4,5,6 instead of the usual 1,2,3,5,6 above).  I had the bells gradually begin ringing starting with the highest notes before playing the melody to the chant in the introduction.

After they all were ringing randomly, I waited a bit and then played the melody of the chant as an intro and we were off. After the hymn I had the bells continue playing until the next part of the Eucharist.

I thought it was pretty cool.

A LITTLE POSTSCRIPT:

I often notice what seems to me to be some negative energy coming off of professional musicians who worship at my church. Anxiety is high, I think at this time of year anyway. An interesting side benefit of feeling the way I did yesterday was the way it clarified for me how unimportant this negative energy (which was present as usual) actually is to me.

I ponder the energy coming from other musicians it because music itself is so important to me and how other musicians think about music can be interesting and even instructive.

But ultimately I try to get anxious people of any ilk from coming between me and what I am trying to do with my sounds.

Believe it or not, I woke up today with little to blog about. I ascribe some of this to a cold that has my head blocked up. Read my usual morning poetry (Wendell Berry & William Carlos Williams and prose (The Uses of the Past by Muller). Then sipped coffee and poked around online.

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War by remote control – Counting the Cost – Al Jazeera English

Short piece on Drone industry.

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Vaclav Havel, Dissident Playwright Who Led Czechoslovakia, Dead at 75 – NYTimes.com

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A Message Of Solidarity From Archbishop Desmond Tutu | OccupyWallSt.org

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Reflections on Iraq as U.S. Troops Leave – NYTimes.com

Letters to the editor.

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When Japanese-Americans Were Interned in Camps – NYTimes.com

More letters to the editor. This time correcting the idea that somehow the imprisoned Japanese-Americans in WWII in California deserved it. Good grief, I hadn’t heard that one. Must have missed the original piece.

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Robert Scheer: There Goes the Republic – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig

The new Defense Authorization Law is another amazing step into the void for America.

National Defense Authorization Act sent to W.H. – Charles Hoskinson – POLITICO.com

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Last Post in Iraq: this is the death knell of the American empire | George Galloway | Comment is free | The Guardian

Always interesting to see how we look from across the pond.

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Christopher Hitchens death: In Memoriam, my courageous sibling, by Peter Hitchens | Mail Online

Moving tribute from his brother from whom he was estranged until recently.

Here’s some articles I bookmarked to read about him.

News Desk: Hitch : The New Yorker

Christopher Hitchens: ‘the consummate writer, the brilliant friend’ | Books | The Guardian

The one above is by Ian McEwan.

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush: When an Atheist Dies: Religious Reflections on Christopher Hitchens’ Death

Christopher Hitchens Has Died, Doug Wilson Reflects | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Having read many essays by him and his autobiography, I think he was brilliant. I think he was wrong about Iraq, but right about a lot of other stuff including Jerry Falwell.

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Our leadership is dire, but we mustn’t despise government | Jeffrey Sachs | Comment is free | The Guardian

Interesting overview of the failure of leadership in the west.

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The Beck of Revelation by Mark Lilla | The New York Review of Books

Glen Beck, that is.

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Recently I picked up my copy of The Uses of the Past: Profiles of Former Societies by Herbert J. Muller.

Published in 1952, his observations on history are delicious and pertinent to my ear.

In his intro he says his book “is an effort to counteract the popular simplicities that have been inspired by the complexties of our age…”

Even though he is writing 60 years ago, these words ring true to me about now…. the simple and glittering attracts us as we are bombarded by more and more complexity and data….

He goes on:

His book is “an approach to history in the spirit of the great tragic poets, a spirit of reverence and of irony, and is based on the assumption that the tragic sense of life is not only the profoundest but the most pertinent for an understanding of both past and present.

In particular, it is an effort to apply a method of irony, the piety of impiety, stressing the inevitable ambiguities, incongruities and paradoxes of human history, which among other things suggest why, “in the final analysis,” there can be no final analysis.”

His first chapter begins with Hagia Sophia and Henry Adams’s point of view about it.

What’s not to like?

This is evidence to me of the value of browsing one’s own collection. My eye just happen to fall on the title. I was interested. I pulled it down and started reading.

I continue to read poetry in the quiet early morning everyday.

I have been reading Given by Wendell Berry as well as the difficult  Spring and All a volume in William Carlos William’s collected poetry.

This morning I was struck by the fact that the Wendell Berry book title is reminiscent of the book by Lewis Hyde I recently finished, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.

After reading, I played slowly and accurately (for the most part) 1 and 1/2 times (it’s 23 pages long) through Prokofiev’s first piano sonata.

It is his opus 1. I quite like it. I practice it entirely without pedal because this is the one that his teacher put pedaling. It is also the one in which he removed all pedal marks for publication. I don’t think one should play it entirely without pedal. Actually in places I can’t sustain all notes he written and would have to use pedal to do so. I don’t even see how it’s possible not to.

Another thing I have read about Prokofiev is as a performer he was extremely dry, preferring to let the music speak for itself. I think that’s pretty interesting as an alternative to being over expressive and think about that not only when I play his music but other composers.

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Christopher Hitchens Is Dead at 62 — Obituary – NYTimes.com

A hero of mine. I knew this was coming. He had what seems to be an exemplary life and died as he lived.

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Editorial Page Editor – Andrew Rosenthal’s blog – NYTimes.com

I like the title of this blog: The Loyal Opposition.

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Politics Over Principle – NYTimes.com

The congress has passed what apparently is a travesty of bill. the Defense Appropriations Authorization. Obama is going to sign in to law. I hope the critics are wrong.

Nearly every top American official with knowledge and experience spoke out against the provisions, including the attorney general, the defense secretary, the chief of the F.B.I., the secretary of state, and the leaders of intelligence agencies. And, for weeks, the White House vowed that Mr. Obama would veto the military budget if the provisions were left in. On Wednesday, the White House reversed field, declaring that the bill had been improved enough for the president to sign it now that it had passed the Senate.

but I don’t think so.

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Defense bill goes the wrong way on handling terrorism suspects – latimes.com

Criticism of the same bill from the West Coast.

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George Whitman, Paris Bookseller and Cultural Beacon, Is Dead at 98 – NYTimes.com

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Getting Detained and Gassed – NYTimes.com

More Nicholas Kristof on the ground experiences. This time in Manama, Bahrain.

Hyde uses the phrase, “market triumphalism,” in his 2007 afterword to his 1979 tome, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World. With it he is describing the current environment in the US. I think he does so accurately.

But more interesting to me was the brief historic overview he gave of funding of the arts and sciences in the U.S. He suggests that public funding dried up as a response to the fall of the Soviet Union. Before that, from the sixties on, the arts and the sciences were seen as evidence of the superiority of the American open system. After these areas have lost their propaganda use, money immediately began ebbing.

Hyde says that returning to art and science as propaganda is not necessarily desirable. In his afterword, he proposes a model based on Joseph Papp’s success with public theater endeavors. Specifically the way Papp intentionally used a small portion of his financial successes like “Chorus Line” to reinvest in theater for its own sake.

Hyde has helped create an organization, Creative Capital.

At first I couldn’t the Creative Capital web site to load this morning, so you might want to keep trying until it does.

Creative Capital was established in 1999. It gives “direct support to individual artists in film, video, literature, and the performing and visual arts.” “Creative Capital grantees agree to share a small percentage of any net profits generated by their projects with Creative Capital, which then applies those funds towards new grants.”

Another program he mentions along the same lines is for musicians. It’s called the Music Performance Fund.

It was founded in 1948 by musicians worried about losing income when they recorded their performances (i.e. less live performances because people could listen to the recordings).

I don’t see a way for musicians to apply on their website….. hmmm…. food for thought.

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Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs

This writer maintains that jobs are created by the matrix of the economic environment, including people who actually purchase products.

“… jobs is a function of customers’ ability and willingness to pay for the company’s products, not the entrepreneur or the investor capital”

Interesting notion.

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Steven Van Zandt: There Is Only One Issue In America

As I quoted on Facebook when linking this: “Campaign finance doesn’t need reform. It needs elimination.”

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The Sunni Awakening Braces for an Iraq Without U.S. – NYTimes.com

We’re getting closer and closer to getting out of this country.

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Russian Journalists at Kommersant Vlast Fired After Tough Election Coverage – NYTimes.com

Ongoing struggle for openness in Russia.

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When Business Is Regulated, and Isn’t – NYTimes.com

Some letters to the editor about the damage de-regulation has caused.

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Amazon’s Jungle Logic – NYTimes.com

Excellent article about writers’ point of view on a new creepy app by Amazon that allows shoppers to browse at the local bookstore and then buy from Amazon.

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Guantánamo Forever? – NYTimes.com

A sad plea to the President to veto the National Defense Authorization Act that recent legislative bi-partisan debacle of a bill that has already passed.

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What Perry gets wrong about religion in America – Guest Voices – The Washington Post

Bishop Robinson wrote this. He is a voice of sanity in our country.

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Saudi Arabia – Woman Is Beheaded After Being Convicted of Witchcraft – NYTimes.com

crazy stuff.

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News of the World May Not Be Behind Deleted Messages, Police Say – NYTimes.com

Another example of the disastrous effects of bad reporting.

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John Dominic Crossan: The Challenge of Christmas

My brother Father Mark posted this on his church Facebook page. Haven’t read it yet, but I do like Crossan.

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Recently a businessman I know was complaining that he worked very hard and didn’t seem to be making much money.  I replied that I also worked hard and had never made much money as a musician. He said, yeah but you have more fun.

I’m finishing up The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde.

He addresses his topic at length. At the end of the book he finds that his original stance that artistic gift and market commodity are irreconcilable has softened.

I like it when an author changes his mind before you eyes in the act of writing a book.

“I still believe that a gift can be destroyed by the marketplace. But I no longer feel the poles of this dichotomy to be so strongly opposed.”

Lewis Hyde, The Gift

I have been thinking about my own gifts in music and people skills and how I have translated them into making a modest living.

Hyde suggests there are three ways artists “resolve the problem of their livelihood.”

1. Take a second job
2. patronage of one sort or another (includes grants)
3. place their works directly on the marketplace

If I consider how I have resolved this problem, it leads me to think about the nature of my art. Basically I think of myself of someone in love with making music. This includes making it up, either in improvisation or composition.

For most of my life I have held down a paying job as a church musician. Being inundated as a young person with church via my family (father was a minister, his father and his uncle were both ministers), I acquired the language and understanding of a religious community by osmosis.

As I gain a musical education, I find it helpful to know bible and liturgy, the former learned at my parent’s knee, the latter as a young bookseller/rock-n’-roller in Oscoda, Michigan in the late 70s.

Then as church music gradually chose me as a profession (sic), I thought of (rationalized?) my work as providing a room, instruments and personnel to make music with

as well as providing a livelihood to contribute to my nuclear family.

In the midst of this I never lost sight of myself as a bit of artsy type.

As a church music composer, I grappled with the market. Before this I had attempted to market my poetry. I learned that many rejections lead to occasional acceptance and that there was no money in poetry.

Church music I have written has turned out pretty much the same way. Over the years I have met publishers and “successful” church music composers. I learned that their understanding of their market was not my understanding.

I saw it (and still see it) as a way to share that Lewis Hyde gift-thing.

” … the artist who sells his own creations must develop a more subjective feel for the two economies and his own rituals for both keeping them apart and bringing them together. He must, on the one hand, be able to disengage from the work and think of it as a commodity. He must be able to reckon its value in terms of current fashions, know what the market will bear, demand fair value, and part with the work when someone pays the price.

And he must, on the other hand, be able to forget all that and turn to serve his gifts on their own terms.

Lewis Hyde, The Gift

I didn’t find many church music composers who fit this bill. The ones who did tended to be outside the church music market.

Someone who does fit this bill in larger musical world is Frank Zappa who insisted on making his art work in a commercial way.

I respect and admire this.  Recently I listened to a vinyl of his wonderful “Sad Jane,” “Pedro’s Dowry,” and “Envelopes;” side A of his recording he made with London Symphony.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is vigorous strong creative writing (gift in Hyde’s terms).

“the artist who hopes to market work that is the realization of his gifts cannot begin with the market. He must create for himself that gift-sphere in which the work is made, and only when he knows the work to be the faithful realization of his gift should he turn to see if it has currency in that other economy. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t”

So I struggled to composer for the church music market. The few pieces I managed to get published fell within the publisher’s narrow idea of their market.

I am returning to considering marketing my work again. All of these years I have not ceased to write music. As I look at my work, I realize that my gifts are not solely that of a composer. I am a composer but also a church musician who thinks that church music is an art of sorts. And I continue to hone my abilities on the organ and piano and as a choral conductor and leader of congregational song.

So I’m thinking of trying to find markets for the kind of music I write. I sort of think they might be out there.

This is a long way to making the point that the compositions I made Tuesday represent an important part of my life and work to me.  Functional music is not quite the same as music made for a market. Music cannot dominate in its role in church music, but neither can it turn away from the necessity of its own gratuitous nature if it is to be any good at all.

And I do have fun doing it.

Spent most of yesterday doing arrangements for violin, viola, cello, guitar/recorder, and bass.  I pulled an arrangement of “O Come, O Come, Immanuel” out of the drawer and adapted it.

This is the third incarnation of this little piece. Then I did a kind of goofy arrangement of “Soon and Very Soon.”

My young violinist was a no-show. Fortunately I had prepared arrangements that could work with or without her.

The group seemed pretty enthusiastic about these and readily stayed a few minutes after the scheduled hour to polish them a bit.

They should work well for Sunday’s Eucharist/Lessons and Carols.

Today I have some Santa stuff to do, pick up some things, prepare some stuff for mailing.

Besides that sort of thing the day is free. And once again I’m pretty tired.

My friend from college, Marianne Lipson, offered some free music to people she knows on Facebook. I think she was mostly thinking local but when I asked her if she would mail some stuff to me she said yes.

They arrived yesterday.

Very cool.

Some Rorem:

Some Mendelssohn songs:

Scriabin (my student, Rudy, plays a bunch of these).

And a Dover edition of Mozart violin sonatas.

I’m very glad to get all of this. Offered to send a list of organ music that Marianne might be interested in owning that I would send her, but she declined. She said preferred for me to be forever in her debt. Funny lady.

Well that’s all for today.

Finished chapter 21 (of 31 plus a Final Note) in 11/22/63 by Stephen King last night. It was due yesterday. It’s a seven day book. They keep these books on an “Express” shelf so that a reader can get access to popular books for a short period of time without reserving them.  I feel like I should return this copy today and I will.

I gave myself yesterday pretty much off. I avoided beginning the arrangements for instrumentalists from my church for this evening’s rehearsal. I try to parcel out my efforts for my job in direct proportion to the remuneration and the enthusiasm of the people I am working with and for. This is another way of saying I guard against over-functioning unknowingly.

So after Eileen leaves for her day I will sit down and do arrangements for this Sunday for those players who have indicated they will be attending this evening’s rehearsal.

I guess it’s a bit of a luxury to be able to simply arrange for your players instead of searching for material (like I usually do for the choir).  My goal is to get a bunch of parishioners of wildly divergent abilities to play buy valium in spain some music together for Sunday. Should be able to pull that off easily. The temptation is to get clever. Hence my giving myself only one day to do the arrangements.

I did a lot of listening to blues yesterday.

I quite enjoy the rough sounds.

Then oddly this morning I turned back to rehearsing Messiaen

and Chopin.

For some reason I have slowly learning Chopin devilish little Prelude in G# minor.

I was startled to hear my playing on the tapes of my Senior recital (undergrad). It reminded me that I’m not a bad player. It helps med also readjust my self-assessment (which sometimes dips unrealistically as I strive to play as well as possible).

When I look clearly in the musical mirror I realize I’m competent.

Anyway.

I made apple pie last night but the crust wasn’t quite as good as usual.

Accidentally left out turkey breasts instead of chicken for Eileen’s Cordon Bleu. I kind of screwed up the Cordon Bleu a bit anyway. According to Eileen it was dry.

Eileen is a very tolerant and patient person to live with. She commented (which is the way I like it) and quietly ate some.  Then she trounced me at Scrabble.

One benefit of moving my listening equipment into the living room is that it is now easier for me to listen to my record collection.  One of my favorite old blues recordings is the compilation “I have to paint my face.” The title track is sung by Sam Chatmon. Here it is:

Imagine my surprise when after poking around a little bit and learning more about Chatmon and this recording, I found out he was the younger brother of Leon Chatmon, singer in the Mississippi Sheiks. In fact, Sam ended up doing some singing and playing as a Mississippi Sheik.

Here is one of my all favorite, Mississippi Sheiks tunes.

I discovered them late after Bob Dylan released “Good As I Been to You” in 1992. This is  a fascinating collection of covers that inspired me to run down some of the original artists including the Sheiks.

So today is my first Monday off in weeks and I’m digging it. I find it interesting that I’m turning back to some of my rougher sounds (like “I have to paint myself” and the Mississippi Sheiks). I find the blues another antidote to Xmas silly stuff.

I find living in America in this day and age largely an experience of being bombarded by falsity and outright deception. And Xmas just ups the ante.

But enough of that. The sun is shining in the cold Michigan air. It’s another good day for Jupe.

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Can’t resist embedding this. One of my favorite scenes in movies. I know it’s long for people’s sensibilities these days. But I recommend taking a few minutes to watch.

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Zombies in ‘Juan of the Dead’ Chomp on Cuba’s Sacred Cows – NYTimes.com

Russian TV, Changing Its Strategy, Shows Protests – NYTimes.com

It’s hard to deny the impact of the internet and social networks. These two stories represent what might be a sea change. Amazing to watch.

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British Poet Christopher Logue Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

Sorry to see this guy go. I have read several of his adaptations of Homer. Also he has a rather excellent obit, in my opinion.

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A Wanderer, the Singer Dion Returns to the Bronx – NYTimes.com

Who knew this guy was still alive? They seem to be working on the 3rd (!) staging of the story of his life.

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The 1 Percent Club’s Misguided Protectors – NYTimes.com

Research in Africa has some implications for the situation in America.

Some inequality may be necessary to encourage investment for growth. But as recent research shows, intense inequality actually stunts growth, making it more difficult for countries to sustain the sort of long economic expansions that have characterized the more prosperous nations of the world.

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Democracy in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Birthplace – NYTimes.com

Nicholas Kristof continues to write surprising “on-the-ground” stories in Egypt and other middle eastern countries.

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http://www.sadtrombone.com/

click on the link and hear a sad trombone laugh.

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Amazingly  I slept in this morning.  Yesterday I basically went into a bit of a stall physically and emotionally. I went through the motions of doing what I needed to do (bills and such).  But I felt drained the entire day. This morning I awoke late still feeling a bit that way. I think I am very glad that I will have Monday off (no ballet classes).

I bought the $100 Sony yesterday. Brought it home and couldn’t get it to work. Returned it for a full refund. After checking it in the shop bought the Akai. The dealer knocked off $50 and through in a cord. He felt a bit sheepish. I learned that he is not exactly an expert on vintage equipment I was hoping he would be.

I set up my cheapo turntable, amp and speakers in the living room and added the tape deck. I listened to a bit of my senior recital (it’s 4 tapes) and then went on to other stuff.

The Chamber choir does not sing at Eucharist this morning. I have a lovely (easy) Buxtehude chorale prelude ready for the Prelude and an interesting (to me) Postlude by Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck based on the tune “Comfort, comfort” even though we are not singing it today.

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Recycled Battery Lead Puts Mexicans in Danger – NYTimes.com

I think this is unacceptable. I continue to marvel how an imaginary line on a piece of paper aids us in dehumanizing others.

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An Aging Jazz Pianist Finds a New Audience – NYTimes.com

Well told interesting story.  Planning to check out his sounds later.

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Here’s this link again in case you missed it.

20 Things You Should Know About the Bill That Could Ruin America

I chatted online with my quasi-son-in-law, Jeremy Daum, yesterday. He was very upset about this bill. I agreed with him and proceed to email Michigan Senators Levin and Stabenow my disapproval.

Here’s a good site for contacting your reps:

http://www.congress.org/

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If you do nothing else today, contact your senator and object to this bill.

20 Things You Should Know About the Bill That Could Ruin America

good site for this: http://www.congress.org

I was surprised yesterday to run across a shop downtown that sells used reel to reels. The Sony TC 366 (the one above) is marked $100 and the Akai 4000DS MK II (the one below) $250.

I researched them last night. Accordingly my reading tells me that the condition of the particular recorders are more important than one model over the other. I am sorely tempted to go buy one of these today despite it being the season that Eileen and I are purchasing Xmas gifts for other people.

I have dozens of tapes laying around. Some of my father  singing, my grandfather singing and preaching and myself and others performing. Would love to convert them to digital files via one of these machines.

Plus reel to reels are such fun.

Also pleasantly surprised that the person behind the counter at the local newstand was so helpful and actually familiar with books. Cool.

Eileen and I noticed that we were making a special effort to buy local.  Many of my extended family have threatened to swear off Amazon and buy local. It’s admirable and I actually do try to buy a lot from local business.

Eileen and I usually shop at Barnes and Noble in December and usually purchase their discount card. This year we chose to check out Readers World first. Since they had much of what was on my list, I went ahead even ordered books through them.

I even ordered a CD from the local CD store as well.

Eileen and I had a nice lunch at the 8th Street Grille.

I continued my local theme and ordered a sampler of mostly Michigan beers.

They come in these nifty 4 oz glasses on a wooden tray a bit like the one above.

This is a beer from Royal Oak Michigan. I sampled it because Eileen likes red ales. She liked this one as well.

Wake up the Dead is a stout made in Colorado.  It’s described this way: “Hints of raisins, black licorice, coffee and dark chocolate are followed by earthy, herbal hop notes.” I quite liked it.

Bell’s Christmas Ale is brewed in Kalamazoo. It’s kind of odd. It has a spicy start and then a more beer like finish. It had me grabbing for the description. I was surprised to find that all of its spiciness comes only from roasted hops and malts.  I admit that made it a bit more intriguing for me.

Finished off Cabin Fever brown ale brewed right here in Holland by a member of my congregation. Description from the web site: “Its rye, roast and raisin notes play off a subtle caramel sweetness and culminate in a dry finish.” I liked this and the Wake up the Dead the best. Unfortunately Cabin Fever is a seasonal beer.  I hope that doesn’t mean they will run out before I can treat my brother to a taste when he visits (Hi Mark!).

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Death on the Streets Prompts a Life on the Roof – NYTimes.com

This man inspires me.

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All the G.O.P.’s Gekkos – NYTimes.com

A pretty even-handed look at “Greed is good.”

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The Gingrich Tragedy – NYTimes.com

I see my buddy and long time reader, Johnny Keene has posted a link to this on Facebook. Interesting take on Gingrich from someone who has admired him.

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Twitter Tries to Simplify Its Service – NYTimes.com

My Twitter doesn’t look different to me. I suspect this is a phone app change.

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‘Krapp’s Last Tape,’ With John Hurt, at BAM – Review – NYTimes.com

One of my fondest memories of visits to the U.K. was grabbing last minute tickets to see John Hurt do this play. He and the play are incredible. I love Beckett, anyway. But Hurt was phenomenal.

Now he’s in this new movie that I will have to see, since I also am very fond of John LeCarre.

‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,’ With Gary Oldman – Review – NYTimes.com

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At 4AM this morning I looked out my window and saw my first snow of the season. I have to admit I smiled. I have been missing it.

Despite the lack of snow, I have been enjoying walking to work in the morning and seeing some pretty gorgeous sights. I noticed steam pouring from a home on my way to work. It was back lit by a rising sun creating a different and brighter color from the darkened home. I also keep seeing birds now that the leaves are gone. It seems like crows and other large black birds enjoy sitting at the top of tree bare of leaves.

I am relieved that I don’t have to do the last day of class Students are encouraged to take a special session offered this morning in the swimming pool with one of the therapists. Otherwise (if they don’t want to swim) they offer a class session which doesn’t involve much dancing or at least doesn’t need this accompanist. Cool.

I broke my usual pattern this morning. After reading a bit of poetry, instead of my usual non-fiction, I read Stephen King’s new novel, 11/23/11. I have to take it back to the library in the next few days. I’m on page 300 or so. It of course has over 800 pages. I alternated between King’s easy prose and playing Mozart and Mendelssohn on the electric piano.

Another great morning!

I have decided to delay performing the two Messiaen organ meditations I am preparing from his Nativity suite. These are his movement on “The Word” and on “The Shepherds.” Amazing stuff really. I am thinking of scheduling them as preludes after Christmas sometime with some solid explanation in bulletin notes. This music is beautiful but it might require a bit different sensibility than the one people in my congregation have around Christmas (which seems to go from anxiety to sentimentality then back to anxiety with doses of depression/melancholy….. you know like most of America… ahem).

I don’t want to sound too smug, but Messiaen’s beautiful challenging music is sort of an antidote for me personally to the banal and desperate consumer season that passes for Christmas in our churches and society. I figure this antidote is appropriate in the Episcopal church. But I have decided not to challenge people around the last Sunday of Advent and Christmas eve, though. These were the two times that I thought the Messiaen might be most appropriate.

I have interlibrary loaned Jon Gillock’s book, Performing Messiaen’s Organ Music. It is very useful. He studied with Messiaen and has a chapter on each of Messiaen’s organ pieces (66 in all). When my music allowance is renewed in 2012 I plan to purchase this excellent book.  I am planning to use it write my bulletin explanations (which I’m sure I will share here, another ahem).

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The Age of Man Is Not a Disaster – NYTimes.com

A group of scientists wrote this thought provoking essay on the current age of the earth they have dubbed the Anthropocene.

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Joining a Dinner in a Muslim Brotherhood Home – NYTimes.com

Nicholas Kristof shares his insights and hesitations about the Muslim Brotherhood via personal conversations and experiences.

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Feeling a tad less melancholy today. That’s nice. My evening meal out with Eileen last night was very enjoyable. I do enjoy her company. It’s probably because she so patiently and intelligently listens to me.

I was drained yesterday by the time we sat down to martinis (mine gin, her’s chocolate – ! ). My morning ballet classes were especially satisfying. I was pretty pleased with my improvisations. In the early class, the teacher had requested me as accompanist even though I wasn’t scheduled so I could accompany her final exam. I find accompanying exams slightly nerve wracking because I don’t want to throw kids off when they are being evaluated. I have another set this morning. I try to be especially clear and consistent when I do this.

In my pointe class, Amanda Smith continued her wise discussion of performance anxiety. I do admire this teacher and her explanations. She told a story about her dance class in Ada Michigan which described ironically as a bit rich and reserved. The kids were a few days away from a grand performance of The Nutcracker and were focusing largely on technical questions. Amanda said told these high schoolers that sometimes you have to just say “WHAT THE HELL” and just dance. One small kid said she was thinking that but thinking “What the HECK.” Amanda told them that was okay, but that they had to really mean “HECK.” She described them later lining up to dance and whispering to each other, “what the HECK.” Very inspiring to this old musician who continually tries to “just play” and remind himself that in the words of Bill Murray’s character, “IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER.”

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Haven’t been getting to links lately, so here’s a few.

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New movie that looks interesting.

Silence Is Golden – NYTimes.com

“Paying attention to anything will be the missing commodity in future life. You think you’ll miss nothing, but you’ll probably miss everything.”

“It’s a weird paradox that the essential feature of technology is talkativeness, but usually without the sound of human voices attached.”

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Text – Obama’s Speech in Kansas – NYTimes.com

I think this was a good speech. I didn’t watch it. Instead as is my usual procedure I read it.  I recommend reading it all the way through if you haven’t. It’s rhetoric was a little high flown in places, but I think the content was pretty balanced when you read the whole thing. Most of the criticisms I read in the following links are refuted by quotes from the speech itself.

Some reaction from people who oppose Obama:

Henninger: Obama’s Godfather Speech – WSJ.com

This writer draws a picture of Obama as strictly the leader of the Democratic party figuratively plowing his motorcade into bystanders he is ignoring. Unfortunately I don’t think the bystanders are all that “innocent” if one is thinking about people who are trying to get Americans to ignore their hand in the public cookie jar (via huge subsidies and low taxes for people who in Obama’s words are not millionaires but people who make a million dollars every year).  I think it’s pretty obvious that Obama is as embedded in the US power structure as any Republican or pundit. How in the world do you think he got elected? I have disagreed with his kowtowing to the banks and financial leaders even as they and their rhetorical reps pillory him. Easy to shoot at the black guy even when he’s basically on your side, I guess.

Here are a couple more links of people who oppose Obama.

The Last Incarnation of Barack Obama

This one says that both Obama and Teddy Kennedy were leftists. I find that pretty laughable (being far left of either one).

RealClearPolitics – Obama vs. Capitalism

I read a lot of distortion in these reactions. I didn’t read many articles that supported Obama’s speech. I suspect there is distortion there as well.

FWIW I think the hysteria of partisanship (brought to you largely historically by figures like Gingrich, Rove and Norquist) has so far  removed political discussion from calm coherence that people expect distortion, especially distortion they agree with. I find it particularly troubling when history gets re-written (this seems to be Professor Gingrich’s specialty as far as I can see).

I haven’t read anything that refutes Obama’s contention that trimming government (via recent tax breaks or early 20th century monopolies) has ever actually helped the economy. The right seems to be all theory to me right now. Theories and of course stoking anger and emotions against the president and more prudent (conservative actually) approaches to American problems.

President Obama in Osawatomie – NYTimes.com

For my part, I think that the NYT (that bastion of lily livered communists and fellow travelers) has it right:

Mr. Obama correctly framed the choice for voters: The country can return to policies that stacked the deck for the wealthy and left everyone else to fend for themselves, creating what he called “you’re on your own economics.” Or elected officials can step in to keep competition fair and ensure the government has enough money to protect the vulnerable and invest in education and research.

The notion that the market will take care of all problems if taxes are kept low and regulations are minimized may look great on a bumper sticker, but, he said: “It doesn’t work. It has never worked.” Not before the Great Depression, not in the ’80s, and not in the last decade.”

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Colbert Pushes ‘Corporations Are People’ Referendum – NYTimes.com

This is fun.

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Compromise and the Supercommittee – NYTimes.com

I’m Sorry – The Scariest Words in Politics – NYTimes.com

When America Apologizes (or Doesn’t) for Its Actions – letters to the editor  NYTimes.com

Compromising…. apologizing…. acting like adults…. none of this flies these days.

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Vietnam – More Than 100,000 Casualties From Explosives Since War Ended – NYTimes.com

tragic

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Unusually I put up 2 posts yesterday. The reason was that Xmas Credo #1 was probably not totally appropriate to Facebook since I am “friends” with many young people and religious people who might find it objectionable or puzzling.

The banality and disconnect of Xmas sentimentality seems to be telling on me a bit.

As usual I turn to ideas that comfort me with their challenge and edge.  The rant posted in Xmas Credo #1 struck me as amusing and pertinent. I think it says something clearly about “believing” and the credibility given to surface ideas, images and forms in the wonderful world of American rhetoric, entertainment, art, literature, what have you.

To simultaneously believe (or not believe) in God three ways is easy for me to understand. I usually tell religious people I am an atheist. This clears the air a bit. “I had no idea” one gentlemen responded to me. He had just been expressing anger at how a church community had treated him. I could tell he was re-adjusting my category in his head.

Anyway, I am mentally exhausted and facing more religious responsibilities as the holidays heat up.

I pretty much decided yesterday that Messiaen’s music would not be “happy” enough for the banal Xmas celebrations I am facing. His vision of meaning is one that attracts and makes sense to me. Recently I was rehearsing his music at a piano in a studio and someone walked in and remarked how “tense” the music sounded. It was in fact beautiful to my ears. But this person who was not uneducated in the ways of art and music heard it like movie music I guess.

Wednesday turned out to be a true “hump” day for me this past term. Hopefully today is my last one. Eileen (Mrs. Jupe) and I already have a date to go out tonight after she gets out of work. I look forward to that.

I have been writing very private poetry about my life. I have shown it to no one but quoted bits of it to Eileen.

I sometimes see the hysterical divides in our political discourse (which has leaked into and damaged personal discourse) as empathy versus responsibility.

Empathy is often supposed to be a relativistic, soft-headed liberal response.

Conversely, responsibility can be stereotyped as hard-heartedness, blaming the victim, and thinly disguised selfishness.

I am convinced we need both concepts in our lives. But I have been thinking of the criticisms of empathy that my dead mentor wrote in his book.

However lofty the original concept of empathy (a word that only came into the English language in 1922), societal regression has perverted the concept into a force that sabotages well-differentiated leadership. It is often a power tool in the hands of the dependent who want others who are stronger than they are to adapt to them.

It also serves as a rationalization for the inability of those in helping positions to develop self-control and not enable or interfere, a disguise for unacknowledged anxiety that leads to a quick fix, and an indulgence for those who are not in a position where they have to make tough decisions. But the most deleterious effect on leaders of the subversion of empathy is that it has contributed to a a major misorientation about the factors that go into growth and survival and the nature of what is toxic to life itself.

Ed Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (1999 edition) p. 28

“I,” she told him, “can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe.”

“Really?”

“I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen—I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” She stopped, out of breath.

Gaiman, Neil American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition

I found myself doing some odd reading yesterday. I downloaded an ebook copy of Le Morte D’Arthur by Malory and read several chapters.

I did so after reading a review of Peter Ackroyd’s new “translation” of it.

I like Ackroyd quite a bit. He has done some very interesting writing. His works include a biography of a city (London),

another “translations” (actually a reworking) of an early English poem (Canterbury Tales),

and engaging fiction (English Music).

This last one is quite the romp utilizing a sort of dream prose than brings very many English characters to life in its prose (fictional and real if I remember correctly… I know Alice is in it and I think Dickens himself). I especially like his use of the word, “music,” to indicate the poetry or charm of English ideas and people.

The review of his new book, The Death of Arthur, intrigued me enough to want to double check the original before considering Ackroyd’s version.

I also turned back to continue reading Brothers Karmazov.

I left off about a third of the way through. The characters (two of the three brothers: Ivan and Alyosha) are engaged in philosophical discussion that culminates in Ivan telling the famous “Grand Inquisitor” story. He calls it his “poem.”

Reading this prose is much like reading non-fiction. It’s about ideas as much as story.

Finally, I was waiting for Eileen at the library and decided to check the 7 day shelf to see if Stephen King’s new book was available.  It was. So I checked it out. It’s the usual huge volume by King. But his prose goes by quickly so I should be able to read most if not all of it in a week.

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This is how we choose a president? | Hugh Hewitt | Columnists | Washington Examiner

It’s sort of encouraging to see people on both sides of the partisan divide questioning the idea of a reality show host leading the next GOP debate.

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‘Eat More Kale’ T-Shirts Challenged by Chick-fil-A – NYTimes.com

Copyright infringement discussion.

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Send In the Clueless – NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman muses that the GOP may yet “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” He observes that appealing to the GOP base in the primaries produces cynical or naive maneuvers in possible presidential candidates.

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City Cracks Down on Washington Square Park Performers – NYTimes.com

Washington Square. I was pretty excited to see this historic park last time I was in New York. Public performances of music interest me.

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100 Notable Books of 2011 – NYTimes.com

Only read one of these: Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks. Stephen King’s novel is on this list, I believe.

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Sweet Judy Blue Eyes – My Life in Music – By Judy Collins – Book Review – NYTimes.com

New memoir. I didn’t know that Stephen Stills’ “Suite Judy Blue Eyes” was named for her.

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The Doors – A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years – By Greil Marcus – Book Review – NYTimes.com

This review is by Camille Paglia someone whom I’ve been reading and mostly admiring for many years.

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So I ordered a newer book of poetry by Wendell Berry. Given was published in 2005. I find Berry’s work uneven. Some of it attracts me deeply. A lot of it is descriptive and narrative and I don’t always find this kind of work by him that attractive.

But I do like the poem, “Some Further Words” found in Given.

Again, I event think this poem is uneven. I object to his views expressed in it that a fetus is a child. I don’t object to his poetic notion nicely expressed. I just think it plays into some of the hollow words that he criticizes elsewhere in this poem.

Anyway, here are some sections I admired in “Some Further Words.”

A knave with a degree is a knave. A fool
in a public office is not a “leader.”
A rich thief is a thief. And the ghost
of Arthur Moore, who taught me Chaucer,
returns in the night to say again:
“Let me tell you something, boy.
An intellectual whore is a whore.”

…

When I hear the stock market has fallen,
I say, “Long live gravity! Long live
stupidity, error, and greed in the palaces
of fantasy capitalism!” I think
an economy should be based on thrift,
on taking care of things, not on theft,
usury, seduction, waste, and ruin.

…

“Intellectual property” names
the deed by which the mind is bought
and sold, the world enslaved. We
who do not own ourselves, being free,
own by theft what belongs to God,
to the living world, and equally
to us all. Or how can we own a part
of what we only can possess
entirely? Life is a gift we have
only by giving it back again.
Let us agree: “the laborer is worthy
of his hire,” but he cannot own what he knows,
which must be freely told, or labor
dies with the laborer. The farmer
is worthy of the harvest made
in time, but he must leave the light
by which he planted, grew, and reaped,
the seed immortal in mortality,
freely to the time to come. The land
too he keeps by giving it up,
as the thinker receives and gives a thought,
as the singer sings in the common air.

…

No one has made
the art by which one makes the works
of art. Each one who speaks speaks
as a convocation. We live as councils
of ghosts. It is not “human genius”
that makes us human, but an old love,
an old intelligence of the heart
we gather to us from the world,
from the creatures, from the angels
of inspiration, from the dead–
an intelligence merely nonexistent
to those who do not have it, but —
to those who have it more dear than life.

…

And so I would like to be a true
human being, dear reader-a choice
not altogether possible now.

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Betty Haas Pfister Dies at 90 – Wartime Pilot With Passion for Flight – NYTimes.com

This person sounds fascinating to me.

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And Now … Professor Gingrich – NYTimes.com

Appearances are not reality. I believe Gingrich has damaged American public conversation by deliberately demonizing his enemies (when he was speaker).

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Began my day as I have been reading the poetry of William Carlos Williams. The more I read of his poetry the more I am convinced of his genius. I love his voice.  Here’s a good example from a previous morning.

DANSE RUSSE

If I when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

It was soon after reading this that I found myself playing through the Russian composers, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev (Russe = russian).

After reading more of WCW, it is obvious to me that the “happy genius” of this poem is the speaker of much of WCW’s poetry. He is solitary and in love with the pulse of life he finds in himself and his surroundings.

Now that’s joie de vivre.

I turned from poetry to the music of Distler this morning. I am madly trying to learn his toccata from his Partita on Wachet Auf (Op. 8 No. 2).  This morning I checked his metronome markings on this movement. I was happy to find that they are not as fast I thought they were. I think I might be able to learn this in time to perform it during Advent.

Also learning a couple more movements from Messiaen’s Nativity Suite. I have been studying and playing this music since the 80s. I love Messiaen’s mystical visions and how he achieves a beauty and freedom through strict compositional devices.

I worked on manual parts for Les Bergers (the Shepherds) and Le Verb (The Word) both yesterday and this morning. (This means I practice the keyboard parts only … it’s what I did with the Distler as well…. it is especially helpful to me to do this at this stage of learning) It looks like these will be ready in time to use. Les Bergers is, I think, supposed to be the reaction of the shepherds to having seen the Nativity. It starts as though they are stunned by the what they have seen with slow and shimmering chords. The music gathers strength and then goes into a haunting dance suggesting a bizarre shepherd’s piping his new found joy. The performance on the video I embedded recently seems to slow down as the dance gets more complicated. I am planning not to do that.  I think it should find itself caught up in an increasing dance of joy. So at the very least I plan not to slow down.

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Britain’s GCHQ Uses Online Puzzle to Recruit Hackers – NYTimes.com

This is cute. Both my daughter living in the U.K. and I posted this on Facebook. You have to be British to win a job as a spy, however.

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Officers Punished for Supporting Eased Drug Laws – NYTimes.com

It fascinates me when the one dimensional stereotypes of our public discussion are shattered. These are policemen who have intelligent and strong opinions that life would be less violent if drug laws eased. They’re probably even Republicans. But that does not save them from losing their livelihoods when they express this.

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Profit-Taking Inside Congress – NYTimes.com

Insider trading legal for politicians. Legal or illegal, it’s still unethical.

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Newt’s War on Poor Children – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow dismembers Newt over these statements (sounds a bit like a high school biology project, doesn’t it?)

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J.F.K.’s Legacy, as Seen by His Grandson – NYTimes.com

Another interesting letter in the New York Time’s letters to the editor.

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How To Brew Coffee – National Coffee Association

Handy link my friend Nick Palmer put up on Facebook. Thanks, Nick!

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The things one learns when one reads sci-fi!!! This is a bombadeer beetle. It manages to create a little explosion of hot gas when it is threatened. Very cool.

Ran across mention of it in MetaGame by Sam Landstrom an ebook I bought recently as a daily Kindle deal for 99 cents.

BTW I am enjoying this little sci-fi future game romp quite a bit, reading when I am treadmilling and run of online articles to read.

At the end of a ballet class, it is the usual etiquette to at least applaud the accompanist, if not dance a stylized bow to him/her (curtsying or bowing at the end of a last slow dance – to warm down a bit – called the reverence – rev -er-AHNS). Appreciation is high for the musician. Dancers are instructed to make eye contact and murmur a thank you.

Of course this doesn’t happen every time, but many times. Yesterday the 8:30 class seemed especially appreciative. I noticed that I was flattered and even doing a small bit of private basking in this.

I know this is goofy. I am a hard person to compliment. People at church express appreciation at practically every service I play. That seems different somehow. Musicians are trained to receive compliments graciously.  But I find that inevitably music for its own sake is not that intrinsic to my church work. The music is necessarily secondary to the praying. And in liturgical worship, music itself is not seen as a “sacrifice of praise” as it sometimes is in other traditions.

I think the simplicity of what I do as a ballet accompanist attracts me. Sound and movement is really all we are doing.

I have been allowing myself to include in my improvisations melodies and rhythms from a wider and wider range of styles. So now my improvs not only sound like tangos, waltzes, or more expected sounds, I also have been improvising in the style of Scott Joplin, Indie rock, Mexican popular music, and other ones that occur to me that seem to fit what the teacher needs.

This quite fun for me.

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The Spirit of Enterprise – by David Brooks- NYTimes.com

People see lobbyists diverting money on the basis of connections; they see traders making millions off of short-term manipulations; they see governments stealing money from future generations to reward current voters

The result is a crisis of legitimacy. The game is rigged. Social trust shrivels. Effort is no longer worth it. The prosperity machine winds down.

Brooks mostly meant Europe, but I think this describes America very well.

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Barney Frank, Often Prickly, Always Quotable — Political Memo – NYTimes.com

Have admired Frank for years.  Will miss him as a congressman.

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Secret Santa in the Senate – NYTimes.com

Speaking of congress,  Al Franken has convinced some of the reps to do a secret santa thing…. very cool.

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A Stephen King Thriller – What Motivated Oswald? – NYTimes.com

Stephen King talks back to a conservative NYT’s columnist…. letter to the editor.

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British Inquiry Is Told Hacking Is Worthy Tool – NYTimes.com

Nothing that Mr. McMullan said was particularly surprising; anyone following the phone hacking scandal that engulfed News International and its parent, the News Corporation, over the summer is now more than familiar with outrageous tales of tabloid m-alfeasance. What was startling was that Mr. McMullan, who left his job in 2001, eagerly confessed to so much and on such a scale – no one else has done it quite this way – and that he maintained that none of it was wrong…

Mr. McMullan said that the public interest is what the public is interested in…

Mr. McMullan said he thought that privacy was “evil,” in that it helps criminals cover up their misdeeds

Using a Britishism for “pedophile,” he said, “Privacy is for pedos.”

This guy was in Cameron’s government? Good grief.

Eileen (Mrs. Jupe) had to be  at work at7:30 AM this morning so I had company during my usual solitude time. Very nice. But I’m starting to run a bit late myself and don’t have much time to blog.

Here’s a couple of cool quotes from this morning’s reading (I typed them in earlier)

“[I]magination is not to avoid reality, nor is it a description nor an evocation of objects or situations, it is to say that poetry does not tamper with the world but moves it—It affirms reality most powerfully and therefore, since reality needs no personal support but exists free from human action, as proven by science in the indestructibility of matter and of force, it creates a new object, a play, a dance which is not a mirror up to nature but—.”

William Carlos Williams quoted  in his bio on Poetry Foundation

And D. H. Lawrence on being an American:

“{T}here are two ways of being American, and the chief… is by recoiling into individual smallness and insentience, and gutting the great continent in frenzies of mean fear. It is the Puritan way. The other is by touch; touch America as she is; dare to touch her! And this is the heroic way.”

D. H. Lawrence quoted in same WCW bio as above

I am learning two movements from Messiaen’s Nativity for upcoming services. I discussed their use with my congenial and helpful boss yesterday. They’re not the usual Xmas fair, but we found a couple of slots for them. Now to actually learn them.

Here’s the one I might do on Xmas II (The Sunday after Xmas):

And this one on Advent IV.

I will use both of these pieces as preludes. If I can learn them in time. I have been working on them everyday this week.

I didn’t have time to listen all the way through to these two Messiaen videos. But I did watch the following one repeatedly. I think it’s great. I put it up on Facebook but just for fun here it is again.

Finished reading To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis last night. It’s another of her history time travel novels like the famous Doomsday Book which I have also read.

But To Say Nothing of the Dog is more of a comedy of manners in the style of P. G. Wodehouse with a few basic sci-fi twists.

I love her references to some of my favorite fictional characters throughout (Jeeves, of course,

but also Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane of Dorothy L. Sayers invention).

And I also enjoyed the background of Oxford both in the future and in the past.  It was a good read.

It looks like I am re-reading A Failure of Nerve by Friedman for the third or fourth time.

I made the startling discovery this morning, that the new version omits quite a bit from the original. It is more than a re-organization of Friedman’s manuscript. These omissions probably make it smoother and more like other non-fiction prose. But I find myself preferring the “voice” of the original in which I can clearly hear a Friedman I recognize.

For example I could not find this entire story in the new book:

One evening I boarded a flight in Dallas headed for New York. At least 20 minutes went by past take-off time, and the doors still had not been closed.  When I asked the chief flight attendant what the problem was  she replied that the smoke detector in one of the lavatories was broken and they were waiting for someone to fix it. Appalled at how many people-hours were being wasted, I asked,  “Why don’t you just rip it out  or seal it off?” “Oh sir,” she responded, “you can’t do that.” When I went back to my seat, my neighbor and I began to commiserate. He was a liquor distributor and several of his young-adult children worked for him. The conversation got around to women in the market place, and I asked him if he planned to bring his daughter into what was traditionally a a man’s world. He answered, “I had been hesitant, even though she’s probably the most competent and responsible member of the litter. But after a recent experience, I have changed my mind.”

He told me this story. His daughter had been working for an ad agency that had a deadline for a multimillion dollar proposal. Everyone went home, leaving her in charge of making sure that the proposal made the last plane out. But someone snafued, and they missed the overnight mail deadline. So on her own, she called the airport, found out the cost of a private jet, and decided that as extravagant as the cost might be, it was a small price to pay to insure the contract. When her immediate superiors came in the next morning and found out what she had done on her own responsibility, they were furious; but, said her father, “That’s when I decided to take her into the business.”

This book is about separating the “women” from the “girls.” Here is how I shall go about it.

Friedman was contrasting the passivity of the chief flight attendant with the ingenuity of the passenger’s daughter.  Maybe the new editors found the whole story too dated and sexist. On the other hand, it caused me to think about Friedman’s point of what kind of leader he tried to help, one that, in his words, is committed to a lifetime of “continual self-regulated growth” and “transformation” by “one’s experience.”

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At Top Colleges, Anti-Wall St. Fervor Complicates Recruiting – NYTimes.com

I find this encouraging since the college students I rub shoulders with at Hope tend to be very conservative and at least admire the titans of commerce.

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Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Telemarketer Abuse Cases – NYTimes.com

The justices agree that this case is “odd,” but that’s all, I guess.

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‘Higher Gossip’ by John Updike – Review – NYTimes.com

I am life long admirer and reader of the late John Updike. Glad to see more of his prose being made available.

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The Certainty of Memory Has Its Day in Court – NYTimes.com

From Nancy Goldner, ‘More Balanchine Variations’ – NYTimes.com

I wasn’t aware of Goldner’s work. Probably will have to read her.

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The Certainty of Memory Has Its Day in Court – NYTimes.com

I am very interested in memory and brain science. I hadn’t thought of the implications of the new thinking for court cases. Wow.

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Tool Reveals Which Celebs, Models Have Been Photoshopped

Thanks to daughter, Elizabeth, for pointing me to this article.

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Stalin’s Daughter Dies at 85 – NYTimes.com

This woman’s life story is pretty amazing.

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