Had a very busy productive day yesterday. I was so busy I didn’t have time to treadmill.

I sort of co-taught a small portion of  the review for the Ballet I class. The professor again this year asked me to explain meter to the class, specifically triple and duple.

It’s nice to be treated as a semi-colleague by others. This happens rarely to me these days (this excepts of course my current boss at church!).

Today the same prof has requested me to play for her mid-term (changing my Friday class from my previously scheduled teacher).

My treatment by the Ballet department profs and my boss is in such stark contrast with the way most other local musicians treat me (when they even bother to acknowledge I’m around). Sorry if this sounds a bit bitter but, recently the local theater tried to hire me last minute for the pit for a musical. They offered me $75 for three performances. That’s $25 an evening. I don’t need more things to drain my elderly energy at this point and would have probably turned them down any way. But I found their offer a bit depressing.

But speaking of colleagues, I had a short but productive meeting with my boss yesterday.  Then later I had a pleasant phone conversation with my old organ teacher at Notre Dame regarding the ongoing organ project at my church.

He explained to me that sometimes (due to profit margins) a builder can make more money on a small project like ours by charging less (100K instead of 150K). I was having trouble understanding some of the builders objections to my creative ideas of pipe placement (trying to get the pipes to speak more directly into the room).

He offered to stop by sometime when he’s in the area and take a look at our room (the church). I promised to take him out to eat if he did so.

Gave my student his last lesson for the season. He changes his residence to Washington DC at this time of year.  My one student is an octogenarian and a pleasure to teach. At my suggestion he subscribed to Naxos (an online streaming catalog).  We also discussed the new trend in editions of music that combine scholarship and practicality. I will miss teaching him until he returns in the spring.

Got home just in time to prepare supper: home made tomato soup, cheese bread and apple cranberry crisp.  Streamed Ginestera string quartets performed by the string quartet, Enso, from Naxos as I cooked.

By the time Eileen got home I had Chopin streaming from Spotify and was waiting for the bread and crisp to finish baking. I hate to keep repeating myself in this space, but life is good.

Got up this morning and read in Among Empires by Charles Maier and then finished chapter 1 “The Crisis of Profligacy” in Bacevich’s The Limits of Power.

Maier has an exceptional mind.

The history of empires and frontiers is not a central interest of mine. But I love the way this man moves throughout history and illuminates much of the madness that is going on today.

Discussing America’s global influence and presence he writes:

“Such a radiation of influence raises anew the question already posed whether America enjoys a post-territorial empire. However, it suggests a further question as well: whether the diffuse agents—banking, business, universities, media—that are based in the United States should even be seen as part of American national power. The first is a question about the contemporary evidence of frontiers and territory, traditionally conceived.

The second is an inquiry about the relationship of formally private and formally public institutions.”

This paragraph is typical of the book.

Bacevich quickly footnotes Maier in his beginning pages.

He is writing specifically about America’s crisis regarding the tension and inter-relatedness between foreign and domestic policy.

He believes that America has been denying the choice it has made between domestic responsible behavior and exploitative behavior abroad to support irresponsible consumption at home.

He cites Maier’s ideas of America as  “Empire of Production” morphing into an “Empire of Consumption” in the latter part of the 20th century.

His criticisms are bi-partisan and focus mostly on leadership from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush (the book was published in 2008…. I’m sure he would add Obama to this list now).

“Is freedom just another word for many things to buy?” asks an article in a 2006 NYT magazine.  Do we as a country hide our eyes from the choice we have made: “We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter.” The words of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense in Oct 2001 after 9/11.

I have come to the wisdom in my life that the only person I really can truly affect and change is myself. I wonder if there is some sort of corollary lurking around in world politics. Bacevich at least believes that we have ignored the solution to our internal troubles by modifying our consumption and sought solutions to our insatiable needs for consuming outside our borders (in importing goods, credit and oil).

Profligacy is defined as “utterly shameless immoral or dissipated ; thoroughly dissolute” or “recklessly prodigal or extravagant.” Even accepting the milder definition, I feel like this describes American attitudes. I can even see it in myself. I feel extravagant that I have a good life. I have a place to sleep, excellent food to eat, invaluable companionship and love from people, and a passion for a musical life.

And I’m on the margins of our powerful country. Food for thought.

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In Paris, Bells at Notre Dame Will Be Replaced – NYTimes.com

Interesting dilemma examined from several points of view.

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An Indiana School System Goes Digital – NYTimes.com

I was talking to my wife about this one over dinner last night. She wondered (and I didn’t see this in the article) if they still used paper and pencil to solve equations.

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Elizabeth Warren’s Fighting Words Draw Return Fire From G.O.P. Rivals – NYTimes.com

Elizabeth Warren seems to me to be accurately pointing to problems in our society. Odd behavior for a politician.

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Civil Rights and Resisting Arrest – NYTimes.com

People who defend policemen would say this guy is a bad apple. True. But I also see it as evidence that racism is a live and well in the good old USA.

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I have noticed a trend. I keep reading things that bring historical perspective to current events and then point out how history is being ignored.

It does occur to me that the age of image and perception in which America seems to be living not only allows for but encourages distortion, amnesia and outright false claims.

I am especially enjoying the historical perspective in  Among Empires:  American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors by Charles S. Maier.

Andrew Bacevich (whose book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism I am also reading) mentioned the Maier in his interview with Bill Moyers in Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues.

What I find fascinating about this book is the way Maier draws on all of known history of humankind, not just Western Civ. Before I visited China I read a history of China and was fascinated by the convoluted and long past there.  Having read this history I was prepared for Maier’s use of Chinese relations with the Manchurians and also Chinese expansion to the south. I’m not as familiar with many of the epics he draws on (like the Ottoman empire). He jumps from the extremely distant past of Egyptian civ to the present in the same paragraph.

This use of so many civilizations helps put his complex ideas about empire and frontier into a new perspective for me. Unlike Bacevich (who is much more polemical) Maier is not putting forth a clear indictment of the U.S. Rather, he is asking some historical questions.

Both his insights and Bacevich’s seem to be way below the Fox news type radar.

(Side note: I was very satisfied when Max Fisher, an associate editor of the Atlantic Magazine, not only admitted to Brook Gladstone on a recent On the Media report that he didn’t watch cable news, at the end of the report when Gladstone teased him about this, he refused to begin doing so. I feel the same about most news on American TV.)

Here’s a typical passage in Maier:

“Rome instructs because forms remain while functions change, in ways that seem at least superficially parallel. Legislative institutions claim majesty and importance, but their independence, the vigor of their internal debate, and the independent base of individual legislation weakens.

Voting as an institution remains central, but the voting becomes more plebiscitary—that is, geared to bimodal decisions of approval or rejection.

The executive claims to speak for the people as a whole,

and the representative body is stigmatized as speaking for particular interests.

Sometimes, as in Rome or the early days of the Third Reich (or in the foundation of George Lucas’s imagined intergalactic empire of the Sith), the representatives turn over their power without much overt resistance.

More generally, the empire opens up the formal claims to participation in public life or citizenship but reduces the substantive role.”

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The Return of Bowne & Co., Hand Printer at the South Street Museum – NYTimes.com

“Mr. Warner, 55, sounded as if he had been told once too often that a printer was a machine connected to one of those newfangled computers.

“The printer used to be the person who ran the presses,” he said.

…

Eighteenth-century printers, it turns out, used urine on the leather tools that spread the ink on their hand-operated presses. Soaking them in urine kept the leather supple after the printers had washed off the ink. Mr. Warner has a pair that look like maracas, but with an almost flat top.

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Stanford Researcher Finds Lots of Leaky Web Sites – NYTimes.com

If you type a wrong password into the Web site of The Wall Street Journal, it turns out that your e-mail address quietly slips out to seven unrelated Web sites. Sign on to NBC and, likewise, seven other companies can capture your e-mail address. Click on an ad on HomeDepot.com and your first name and user ID are instantly revealed to 13 other companies.

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Tunisia Elections Roiled by Dispute Over the Film ‘Persepolis’ – NYTimes.com

Another interesting cultural clash.

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Samuel Alito’s Effort to Balance the Law With What’s Fair – NYTimes.com

Struggles for fairness from the right.

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Yesterday I retreated into Simenon and Mozart to try to relax.

Mondays are a tough day for me now, having to get up at 8:30 and do a morning of ballet classes after Sunday (which usually leaves me a bit devastated in many ways).

I may have been a bit hung over as well.

I say this because I felt a bit better as the day went on, especially after exercising.

I didn’t measure my martinis the night before and I sometimes pour them with a bit heavy hand if I’m not measuring. Anyway, I feel much better this morning.

I recently read an article about Simenon in the New Yorker.

I won’t bother to link it, since it’s subscriber only (Makes me crazy). It got me to thinking about how much I enjoy this man’s writing. At the same time, BBC began running its dramatizations of some of the Maigret novels.

They’re really quite good. They use the dramatic conceit of George Simenon interviewing his character, Maigret, about the case in the story.

So yesterday I dragged out one of my many unread used copies of Simenon’s novels and buried myself in it.

My copy of Sunday by Simenon actually looks more like this:

It happens not to be a Maigret novel, but no matter, it’s still quite good.

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St. John’s College Puts Emphasis on What Teachers Don’t Know – NYTimes.com

Having profs teach as they learn a new area….. best quote: “We don’t have departmental politics — we don’t have departments!”

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Krista Branch’s ‘I Am America’ Aims to Be Tea Party Anthem – NYTimes.com

Music in the news. Unfortunately, it’s a lame tune.

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Elizabeth Warren’s Appeal – NYTimes.com

Warren makes sense to me.

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A Sensible Path in California – NYTimes.com

Jerry Brown once again moves his state in a direction that looks humane and responsive.

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Hollywood Dishonors the Bard – NYTimes.com

Saw trailers for “Anonymous.” Repellent.

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Good News! No, Really! – NYTimes.com

Bill Keller, former editor now feature write at NYT, actually finds some good news stories in the world in Slovakia, Liberia, Peru, Somalia, and Myanmar.

1. The Triumph of Dogma

Reich muses on the futility of partisanship.

2. PrideSource – First openly gay bishop talks death threats, 9/11

Interview by my nephew, Benjamin Jenkins. Makes me proud!

3. My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters | Politics News | Rolling Stone

Haven’t read this one yet. Recommended by a friend (he really is my friend) on Facebook.

4. College Diversity Nears Its Last Stand – NYTimes.com

Upcoming ruling by Supreme Court likely to alter the landscape in America’s colleges and universities.

5. Democracy’s Collateral Damage – NYTimes.com

Observations on how modern Democracies have only come into being with some pretty awful side effects.

6. The Violinist Hilary Hahn at the Stone – Review – NYTimes.com

This article has been on mind since I read it on Saturday. It has gotten me thinking a bit about how many of the musicians I know in Western Michigan seem to view music as the property of experts. The idea that ordinary people can and should make music seems foreign to them. I disagree with this notion vehemently and admire Hahn and Swafford for engaging the audience. It’s one of the ideas that keeps me connected to church music despite my misgivings about religion. I think it’s cool that a bunch of ordinary people come together each week and sing.

Yesterday,  I was amused when a parishioner (an amateur musician) engaged me at coffee hour in an enthusiastic discussion of Keith Richards’ new autiobiography. Later I reflected that the several, more accomplished musicians in the room would quite possibly not know who Richards is.

7. ‘MetaMaus’ by Art Spiegelman – Review – NYTimes.com

I’m a fan of Spiegelman. Probably won’t purchase his new book, though.

8. Maurice Sendak: ‘I refuse to lie to children’ | Books | The Guardian

Finally read this article yesterday. Although I disagree with Sendak about Rushdie, I found most of his comments entertaining.

The gentle cold rain in the dark morning reminds me of a poem I love.

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

Eileen had to work yesterday so instead of having a day off with her, I did tasks all day. I started off with cleaning the kitchen and never got around to doing a blog yesterday.  Ran the dishwasher twice, balanced Mom’s checkbook and ours, did Mom’s bills and ours, farmers market, grocery store. Sheesh.

I did manage a couple of hours at the organ console. Recently purchased two volumes of Handel’s organ concertos.

Yesterday as I worked I played Simon Preston’s recordings of them on Spotify and made note of his tempos. The edition I purchased was Herman Keller from 1954. I suspected his suggested tempos were a bit odd and sure enough they were much different from Preston’s.

I seem to be in a bit of a funk this week.  Not depressed or melancholy so much as blank and unmotivated. This too shall pass I am sure. In the meantime, I do read quite a bit. Here’s today’s links.

1. Professor of Philip Garber, N.J. Stutterer, Defends Actions – NYTimes.com

A follow up to a previous link. I find this story engaging. It makes me wonder how two people (the professor and student) who seem so connected to their lives ended up on the opposite sides of this controversy. I do ponder how much of it has been manufactured by the reporting.

2. The Bleakness of the Bullied – NYTimes.com

Confessional column by Charles Blow. Still heart rending to me, even if a bit over the top.

3. The 1930s Sure Sound Familiar – NYTimes.com

The 30s don’t seem to sound familiar to people in power in the US right now. Making the same mistakes.

4. Russell Banks Talks About ‘Lost Memory of Skin’ – NYTimes.com

Novel about a group of convicted sexual offenders who are forced to live in a homeless camp.  People on the margins always interest me. They seem to have a unique understand of what it means to be alive. I put my name on the wait list for this new book at the library.

5. bootypop.com

New concept for me. One of my ballet instructors began talking about “booty pops” in class. Who knew?

6. New York Times Plans Staff Reductions – NYTimes.com

The terrain of news gathering and reporting continues to shift.

7. Builders of Corn Mazes Hope to Lose Visitors, and One Actually Did – NYTimes.com

Farmers use software to design corn mazes.

Eileen and I attended a performance by Enso String Quartet last night.

They are superb performers. They performed Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 12. I have been listening to and studying these quartets for ages. I have a lovely little hardbound copy of them that my brother gave me.

During the second movement, I leaned over and asked Eileen if she recognized the music. She didn’t. I suspected she might because I play the recording occasionally.

I looked up the Haydn quartet they performed as well. I was intrigued by the harmonies in the minuet.  If you click on the YouTube, the interesting harmony occurs in between :05 and :06 seconds.

I looked up the score online and this beautiful note is not in the printed score I found. How interesting. I printed off the entire quartet to study (link to PDF of it).

Reading about it online I discovered that it has very irregular phrases. The minuet would be impossible to dance a minuet to. Very cool.

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Local News | Educating Gabriel, 13, an off-the-charts prodigy | Seattle Times Newspaper

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PhotoBlog – Underwater volcanic eruptions cause large green stains on sea’s surface

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Great TED talk. Kudos and thanks to Carrie Hodson for posting it on Facebook. Hazelwood is involved in some interesting projects not least of which is the Paraorchestra (His daughter has Cerebral Palsy and he got interested in the musicality of “disabled” people – more info here: Let’s hear it for the Paraorchestra | Life & Style. If you don’t take the time to watch the TED video, at least watch this very cool trailer of a Hazelwood project.

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One Girl’s Courage – NYTimes.com

Another gritty inspiring story from Kristoff.

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Tehran’s Foes, Unfairly Maligned – NYTimes.com

Insights from former FBI director, Louis J. Freeh.

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Maurice Sendak: ‘I refuse to lie to children’ | Books | The Guardian

Sendak is a cranky old man. Great interview.

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Political Wisdom: GOP Debate Takeaways – Washington Wire – WSJ

A bit belatedly I post this link of reactions to Wednesday’s debate.

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I love this video of images from Mars.

Back at it yesterday, accompanying ballet classes. I was flattered by the teacher, Angie,  in front of the her class. She had requested that I do her class yesterday. She wanted to tape her class (something they do to analyze their own technique) and had found my accompaniment before the break helpful to the dancers. She told her class yesterday that she wished I could be their accompanist every class. At this point I (and the other pianist) move back and forth between the three teachers who have class on MWF at 8:30 AM.

I’m not sure what I do that this teacher approves of. I know that I tend to play rhythmically and change the music to fit the movements. I don’t usually use a lot of pedal on the piano (this might make the sound a bit more percussive). And my improvs tend to the simple so that dancers are sure to know where they are in the 8 measure phrases.

Who knows? I do know it’s satisfying to be treated with such respect by people who are good at what they do. I was talking about this with Amanda (one of the other teachers) yesterday in regards to the dance department itself. She asked me how my class with Angie had gone in the morning (I do Pointe class with Amanda on Monday and Wednesday).  I told Amanda that I had enjoyed it (I had) and that I enjoyed working with all three teachers. Amanda remarked that they were all a bit crazy and enjoyed working together. I told her that was excellent and unusual in the world of music and colleges.

I guess I’m not sure how unusual it is. I just have seen up close and personal several universities where studios of different music teachers are engaged in mini-wars. And at this point, I feel very isolated from other musicians. I regularly see musicians from Hope and Holland. They tend to keep me at arms length. I think this makes sense because I represent a bit of a threat or an unpredictable and confusing presence as a musician.  Whippy skippy.

This brings me to this article in The Anchor, Hope College’s student newspaper.

I think this is an interesting break down. (I also can’t believe that the Anchor doesn’t have an HTML online version online a pdf one. Good grief.) It seems to confirm my own impression that Hope is a typical provincial conservative small liberal arts college.

This is another of the graphic books (it’s not a novel) I checked out the other day. I was disappointed in this one. It’s not really “stories” or “tales.” It’s more like visual essays about the nature of mental health treatment. I put it down after reading about half of it. It has nice pictures, but I didn’t find any true stories in it, just some descriptions interspersed with lots of insider talk.

I have to stop and go to work.

I was reading Andrew Bacevich’s interview in Bill Moyer’s The Conversation Continues yesterday while waiting for my Mom (appointments and shopping).

Here’s a quick bio of Bacevich from wikipedia:

Bacevich graduated from West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army during the Vietnam War, serving in Vietnam from the summer of 1970 to the summer of 1971. Later he held posts in Germany, including the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the United States, and the Persian Gulf up to his retirement from the service with the rank of Colonel in the early 1990s. He holds a Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University, and taught at West Point and Johns Hopkins University prior to joining the faculty at Boston University in 1998.

On May 13, 2007, Bacevich’s son, 1LT Andrew J. Bacevich, Jr., was killed in action in Iraq by an improvised explosive device south of Samarra in Salah ad Din Governate. The younger Bacevich, 27, was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division.

[link to source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bacevich]

I found his interview with Moyers focused some of my own questions and posed some I hadn’t thought of.  Concerning our current political crisis Moyers quotes Bacevich:

“Here is what I take to be the core of your analysis of our political crisis. You write, ‘The United States has become a de facto one-party state, with the legislative branch permanently controlled by an Incumbents’  Party.’ And you write that every president ‘has exploited his role as commander in chief to expand on the imperial prerogatives of his office.’

“One of the great lies about American politics [Bacevich continues] is that Democrats genuinely buy real diazepam uk subscribe to a set of core convictions that make Democrats different from Republicans. And the same thing, of course applies to the other part. It’s not true.”

After reading the entire interview, I interlibrary loaned Bacevich’s latest book.

I found Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors by Charles S. Maier on the shelf at the library. Maier is an author that Bacevich admires and points out Maier coined the phrases (both to describe the US) “empire of production” and “empire of consumption.”  I’m on chapter 3.

These men are thinking clearly and from the context of the military and social history. I find 20th century history confusing and am glad to find some credible sources to help organize my thinking a bit in these areas.

Couldn’t resist picking up a few other books while I was in the library.

I do like graphic novels (memoirs, whatever). Ironically, last night I sat with a a martini and read The Alcoholic by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel. I thought it was pretty good.

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Professor’s Response to a Stutterer – Don’t Speak – NYTimes.com

A person with a stutter who responds resiliently to other people’s stupidity.

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Britain – Aging Big Ben Has Slight Stoop – NYTimes.com

The leaning clock of Britain.

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Chipping Away at Gridlock in the Senate – NYTimes.com

NYT finds a glimmer of hope in recent rule shuffle in Senate. I can only hope they are right.

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This Time, It Really Is Different – NYTimes.com

The Way Forward | NewAmerica.net

Nocera’s column and a link to the source for a way of seeing what is happening in the economy as new and unique.

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Getting Naked in the Massachusetts Senate Race – NYTimes.com

An insightful analysis of the worthiness of two opposing candidates in Massachusetts.

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Wow. Two whole days off in a row (today and yesterday). I think I am beginning to relax a bit this morning. Spent my time reading in Lewis Hyde’s The Gift. I’m just getting to the part where he starts using Walt Whitman in his argument about gift and art.

I guess Hyde himself is a poet. He has promised to use Whitman and Ezra Pound in the second half of his book (which is where I am right now).

I actually love and read both of these poets, so it’s all good for me.

Hyde has some ideas about reason is to life as market is to gift (i.e. a corrupting influence on authentic human activity).  He hasn’t entirely convinced me about this. But I am enjoying this book immensely and will spare you, dear reader, my usual quotes.

I continue to study the organ music of Jean Langlais. I am impressed not only by its surface attractiveness but also the deeper craft of his work. When I was school, he was sort of poor man’s Durufle and kind of a bit looked down on. As usual, I wonder why I can’t embrace his work along with the other stuff that I find rewarding.  For me the proof is always in the music itself.  And I do love returning to music I have owned all my life and finding gems that I previously missed.

Since I have been working Langlais’s setting of the Gregorian Chant, “Homo Quidam,” which is in F# major, I thought it would be fun to look at my new edition of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in the same key (from WTCI).

Bach just doesn’t disappointment these days. Every note  I play seems to be infused with a vigorous beauty and intelligence. This morning I worked on the fugue.

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The Myth of Voter buy generic valium india Fraud – NYTimes.com

I heard a commentator recently say something like it’s not that Obama wants to tax the rich and that the Republicans want to disenfranchise the poor. It’s more like Obama wants to tax the Republicans and the Republicans want to disenfranchise the Democrats. The voter fraud discussion (and also the gerrymandering discussion) remind me of that.

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Is the Tea Party Over? – NYTimes.com

I liked this quote from this article:

“The editor of Texas Monthly, Jake Silverstein, sums up Perry as “a child of the mythology of the frontier,” in which “every man is more or less for himself, a good neighbor is one who needs no help, and efforts by the government to interfere are not to be trusted.”

The description of the “mythology of the frontier” seems to capture the attitude of many angry conservatives.

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Panic of the Plutocrats – NYTimes.com

More of that liberal propaganda I love:

“Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.”

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Officer Saved at Gunpoint by His Own Wedged Finger – NYTimes.com

This is an amazing story and apparently just par for the course for these brave policemen.

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Christopher Hitchens on Writing, Mortality and Cancer – NYTimes.com

My favorite brilliant conservative’s new collection of essays. Must have it.

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Virtuouso Resources Is Salon for String Players Big and Tiny – NYTimes.com

This music store tries to recreate the old fashioned feeling of a violin shop. I think it sounds charming.

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Determined to actually have a day mostly loafing, I’m only just getting around to today’s post.

After blogging yesterday, I ordered two (free) books from Paperbackswap.com.

The autobiography of William Carlos Williams and a book of his poems. Not sure which book of poems, but since I can’t find a copy of his poems (I’m pretty sure I used to have a copy), I thought I would order one.

Williams was a medical doctor as well as a poet.  I am finding Paterson surprisingly engaging for a book length poem. It seems to be a coherent antidote to the vapidity of most stuff in a vernacular that this sixty-year-old recognizes.

“Who restricts knowledge? Some say
it is the decay of the middle class
making an impossible moat between the high
and the low where
the life once flourished .. knowledge
of the avenues of information–
So that we do not know (in time)
where the stasis lodges, the university,
they at least are the non-purveyors
should be devising means
to leap the gap. Inlets? The outward
masks of the special interests
that perpetuate the stasis and make it
profitable.

They block the release
that should cleanse and assume
prerogatives as a private recompense.
Others are also at fault because
they do nothing.”

from Paterson by William Carlos Williams

Apt quote for an aging part time employee of a college who is on fall break.

I have been listening to Bach’s cantata that utilizes the melody, Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele (Deck thyself, my soul, with gladness – yesterday’s communion hymn and also the melody that Brahms used in the piece I played for the prelude). Here’s a lovely version of the first of it on YouTube.

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Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen – NYTimes.com

The Secrets of Government Killing – NYTimes.com

Man o man. The state at its worst.

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5 Reasons The Amazon Kindle Beats The IPad | Fox News

Eileen and I are eyeing this new version of Kindle. It’s not available yet. But it looks interesting.

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The Vietnam War, Still Haunting Obama – NYTimes.com

Remember Marvin Kalb? He’s still around and brilliant as every. He wrote this article.

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Stop the Machine Protest Closes National Air and Space Museum – NYTimes.com

Just in case you missed this.

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Judge Finds Manipulation in Recall Vote in Arizona – NYTimes.com

The people who use dirty tricks continue to outfox democracy.

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Two Festivals for Thinkers Vie for the Minds of Chicago – NYTimes.com

Festivals for thinkers. Wow.

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Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party compared | The panel | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Panel of commentators, including one of my favorite liberals, Erik Altermann who also wrote this article:

Think Again: The Era of the ‘One Percent’

William Grieder, another person I admire on the left, had this short little comment:

Why DO They Occupy Wall Street? | The Nation

quote:

“Liberty Park [where the current demonstrations began – SBJ] is now Zuccotti Park, which the real estate developer who bought the land renamed after himself. Doesn’t that pretty much say it? The egotism of capital has obliterated the softer values and virtues of labor and everyone else—anything that got in the way of the engine of modern capitalism. It is not just the millions of innocents who have been trampled by the profit-harvesting machine. The Wall Street guys and their lackey economists even captured the political culture and corrupted its meaning.”

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Got up a bit later than usual for a Sunday morning. Then got pulled in to poetry by William Carlos Williams.  It’s getting late so I thought I would put up a quick entry.

I decided I would learn some more of the Langlais organ pieces I already owned.

I turned to his piece in F# major, “Homo Quidam.”

After examining the gregorian chant this piece is based on, I decided there was a misplaced “fine” in Langlais’s score. It makes sense to follow the melody of the chant in determining how to jump around in the piece. Langlais seems to assume that the player understands what a “responsory” is and lays out his music a bit unhelpfully with just a few “signos.”

Still it is a lovely thing.

I did make pizza maragrita on the grill last night. However, I failed to remember that one browns a side and then flips it over. I just laid the dough on the grill and dressed it. So the bottom was black and inedible. Eileen was extremely good-natured about my failed cooking (as she usually is). We scraped the tomatoes, mozzarella and basil off which tasted pretty good. Ah well.

In the afternoon we saw the movie, “The Ides of March.” I think the background of an election doesn’t help this movie even though the story is actually about the struggle between the people who advise candidates. The music was interesting. The story seemed a bit weak to me.

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E-Mail Shows Senior Energy Official Pushed Solyndra Loan – NYTimes.com

Same as it ever was.

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U.S. Envoy, Peter Van Buren, Takes Caustic Pen to Iraq War – NYTimes.com

Liberated, but They Have to Live There – NYTimes.com

On the ground in Iraq with the state department.

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The End of the Future – Peter Thiel – National Review Online

Innovation Starvation | World Policy Institute

The death of ideas from the right and left.

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Breyer and Scalia Testify at Senate Hearing – NYTimes.com

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Confronting the Malefactors by Paul Krugman- NYTimes.com

Krugman continues to make sense to this reader:

When talking heads on, say, CNBC mock the protesters as unserious, remember how many serious people assured us that there was no housing bubble, that Alan Greenspan was an oracle and that budget deficits would send interest rates soaring.

I have been up for an hour thinking about and playing through my new edition of a volume of Bach’s organ music. Specifically two of the manual pieces: Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit BWV 672 & Christe, aller Welt Trost BWV 673.

If you are an organist, you need this book. It is one of two new Bach editions that I have purchased recently and have left me excited about the current state of performance scholarship available to students of Bach.

The introductions and critical apparatuses of both provide lots of information including some logical solutions to questions thoughtful performers will ask themselves.

Both represent new waves of scholarship and its application.  The organ volume is one of many planned by its publisher (Wayne Leupold). The consulting scholars (Christoph Wolff and Quentin Faulkner) involved are well known to any one who reads in Bach studies.

It’s kind of amazing in this day and age of general lack of education and historical knowledge, that at the same time such examinations of the past represent new light and understanding shed on old topics like which notes did Bach intend and how shall they be played.

The Well Tempered Clavier (as I have mentioned before in this space) represents over 10 years of meticulously picking over previous editions and extant manuscripts.

Then there’s the music in these books.

It could be my own huge ignorance coming to light, but I continue to find new and exciting beauty in Bach.  In just the two I was playing through this morning, I discovered how he uses fragments of the melodies to derive beautiful and excellently conceived counterpoint. Yikes! What music!

Yesterday I went to the Music library and checked out a bunch of titles to consider purchasing.

I am reassessing my ideas about Jean Langlais. I have played from his “Vingt-quatre Pieces” (volumes 1 and 2) for many many years. I purchased them before I began my very earliest organ lessons and used them.

I remember having lunch with my teacher, Ray Ferguson, and another organist (both of these men are now dead). At the lunch several things happened. One was that the waitress asked what we all did for a living. Ray and the other guy said organist. Without thinking, I replied that I was a church musician. Sigh. I guess it’s still true.

We were discussing commissioning a living composer for an upcoming national AGO conference. Both men were not interested in Langlais (who was obviously still living at that time).  I just kept quiet since I was the least skilled and educated of these three.

But I now look at music a bit differently and think that Langlais wrote much music that I admire. So I’m thinking of purchasing a bit more of his stuff (in order to use up my 2011 organ music fund provided by my church).

Since I’m running on and on here, I will conclude with two lists of titles. One that I looked at and decided not to purchase, a second that I looked at and decided to purchase.

No:

1. Two meditations for organ by Samuel Adler

2. Toccata, recitation and postlude by Samuel Adler

3. Two Pastels by Anthony Donato

4. from looking at his work in Wayne Leupold’s First Organ Book, Dennis Janzer didn’t interest me as a composer

Maybe:

1. Trois Implorations by Jean Langlais

2. Fête by Jean Langlais

3. Neuf Pièces pour Grand Orgue

4. Six preludes for organ by Ernest Bloch

5. Two pieces for organ (Fugue and choral) by Arthur Honegger

6. from looking at work in Wayne Leupold’s First Organ Book, I am interested in the organ works of Robin Dinda, George Lachenauer, Janet Correll, Austin C. Lovelace, and John G. Barr
If you have an opinion, let me know or leave me a comment.

Spent the early hours with Beethoven sonata 27 this morning.

I am evolving a much more careful practice approach to reading music. Under tempo, of course, with an emphasis on careful correct notes and rhythm. But also stopping and doing hands separately to allow accuracy.

So my reading didn’t sound much like the final piece (especially as played by the excellent Wilhelm Kempff in this video), but satisfying to me nonetheless.

I had another full day yesterday. I ended it by finally returning to doing some cooking.  I made potato leek soup, ridiculously easy cheese bread,  and apple crisp. Served an improvised pear-walnut-blue cheese-balsamic vinegar salad.

I was exhausted by the time we sat down to eat. But I miss cooking.

Thinking of making pizza margarita this evening instead of ordering in. Eileen hinted that it would be good to have pizzas from the grill. Maybe I’ll do that. Or maybe I’ll just order pizza.

I am feeling pretty deflated this morning.

Part of this is that I was anticipating not having to play a ballet class this morning. But the fall break doesn’t begin until 5 PM. I do like doing this, I just miss having unstructured time off.

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Czech Republic – Woodrow Wilson Is Honored With a Statue, Again – NYTimes.com

Did you know that Czechoslovakia put up a statue in honor of Wilson in 1928 and that Hitler tore it down later? I didn’t.

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A Changed Russia Arches an Eyebrow at Putin’s Staged Antics – NYTimes.com

This article interested me because of the opening description of a staged incident of Putin discovering artifacts underwater, then the wonderful dance of repudiation from the Russian PR guy. Fun stuff.

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Lancet Report Cites Rate of Late-in-Life Surgery – NYTimes.com

Doctors gotta doctor. They can cut for what they understand whether you’re dying or not.

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Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, Civil Rights Leader, Dies at 89 – NYTimes.com

Yeah, yeah, I know, Steve Jobs died. But this guy is much more interesting to me.

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Crisis Pregnancy Centers and Propaganda – NYTimes.com

I see these pregnancy centers a lot in Western Michigan. Despite the times, I still believe strongly in a woman’s right to control her own body, not the states (i.e. I’m pro-death as I like to say….. you know. pro-abortion.

Is anyone really pro-abortion?)

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I had a very busy day yesterday even though I had no ballet classes or other appointments.

I wrapped and sent off 4 packages in the mail: 2 to England, 1 to California and 1 return package of Eileen shoes to godknowswhere. After practicing organ for a couple hours, I came home and madly cleaned house.

Last night a kitchen design person met with Eileen and me for a preliminary discussion of kitchen renovation. This will be phase 2 of fixing up the house a bit.

I’ve also received some of my birthday gift in the mail.

This is an amazing edition of a book of music I have literally been playing and thinking about since I was an early teen.  It took over ten years to prepare and apparently represents a pretty exhaustive look at previous editions, all extant manuscripts, not to mention a fascinating table of tempos in editions and performances.  I’m pretty much in love with this particular book and am going over it very carefully.

I have been following Bocolm’s work for a while. Broke down and bought his complete rags. The music is technically demanding but lots of fun so far.

I have been in love with Takemitsu’s music for quite a while as well, but have never learned any of his piano music. I haven’t looked at these yet, but am anticipating checking them out soon.

I also decided on Tuesday to play Brahms and Vaughan Williams for prelude and postlude Sunday.

Brahms wrote some lovely chorale preludes one of which is based on Schmucke dich.

This is not the edition I am using.

Vaughan Williams has written a nice postlude type piece on Hyfrydol, our closing hymn.

These will make nice organ music for Sunday.

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A Bonnie Glass Of Highlands Gin – NYTimes.com

This gin looks good to me.

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Pear Salad and Crostini, From Early-Autumn’s Bounty – City Kitchen – NYTimes.com

Also went to farmers market yesterday and bought pears, nectarines, apples and basil. Tis the season.

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Britain Plans to Tighten Anti-Squatter Laws – NYTimes.com

Apparently in the UK people not only  move into empty buildings but also steal buildings from rightful owners by occupying them. Wow.

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Dalai Lama’s Visa Request Is Denied by South Africa – NYTimes.com

This is disgraceful but not surprising. China pressure on South Africa leadership.

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Keep Works in the Public Domain Public – NYTimes.com

An unusual argument from a usual suspect in the film industry.

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russpoldrack.org: NYT Letter to the Editor: The uncut version

I recently flippantly linked a  NYT article about loving one’s phone. This is a coherent blow by blow taking apart of the notion.

Here’s another:

Blog Archive » the New York Times blows it big time on brain imaging

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BBC News – Folk musician Bert Jansch dies aged 67

I have been a fan of this man for many many years. Sorry to see him go.

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We’re Sorry You Ever Came To Our Store & Wasted Our Precious Time – The Consumerist

Arrogant business people.

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Reading in Baruda-Skoda’s Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard this morning, I ran across this quote from Quantz in a footnote:

“Dance music in the French Style, e.g. sarabandes, must be ‘layed seriously, with a heavy yet short and sharp bow-stroke, more detached than slurred. That which is delicate and singing is rarely found in it. Dotted notes are played heavily, but the notes following them briefly and sharply. Fast pieces must be executed in a gay, hopping, and springing manner with a very short bow stoke, always marked with an interior stress. In this fashion the dancers are continually inspired and encouraged to leap, and at the same time what they wish to represent is made comprehensible and tangible to the spectators; for dancing without music is like food in a painting.”

Interesting analogy since food in a painting while not real can still be very beautiful and interesting.

Eavesdropping on reaction to last week’s dance recital from dance teachers and students at Hope College was very surprising to me.  They were critical of the failure of the dance company to completely adapt to the small stage at Knickerbocker where they performed.  Also they felt like their dance was a bit on the “classical” side when they were expecting more Jazz and Modern style.

For my part, I felt like the performance outweighed these criticisms. Mostly because I was so impressed with the way the choreography fit with the music in detailed and beautiful ways.

But I did wonder about making a dance for a recording. They used recordings of Miles Davis & Steve Reich I recognized and other recordings I did not recognize.  The origin of the Davis recordings obviously have a debt to spontaneity and improv. But this aspect of the music is gone when it becomes a fixed recording. Even without actual improvisation, all live music has an element that is impossible to be captured in a recording.

The conductor/performer Sergiu Celibidache, whom my friend Mihai mentioned to me recently, was also sensitive to this distinction which is lost on so many listeners (and probably performers) these days.

“Celibidache’s approach to music-making is often described in terms of what he did not do instead of what he did. For example, much has been made of Celibidache’s “refusal” to make recordings even though almost all of his concert activity actually was recorded with many released posthumously by major labels such as EMI and Deutsche Grammophon with consent of his family.^[2] Nevertheless, Celibidache did pay little attention to making these recordings, which he viewed merely as by-products of his orchestral concerts.

Celibidache’s focus was instead on creating, during each concert, the optimal conditions for what he called a “transcendent experience”. Aspects of Zen Buddhism, such as ichi-go ichi-e, were strongly influential on him. He believed that musical experiences were extremely unlikely to ensue when listening to recorded music, so he eschewed them. As a result, some of his concerts did provide audiences with exceptional and sometimes life-altering experiences, including, for example, a 1984 concert in Carnegie Hall by the Orchestra of the Curtis Institute that New York Times critic John Rockwell touted as the best of his twenty-five years of concert-going. ^[3]”

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergiu_Celibidache

It seems to me that dance choreographed to live music is a different animal from dance choreographed to recordings. I fully understand the efficacy of using recordings these days, but I do wonder about what is lost.

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Using the Web Wisely in a Health Crisis – NYTimes.com

The usual wisdom from my heroine, Jane Brody.

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Offbeat Corporate Giving – A Park Inspired by Planters Peanuts – NYTimes.com

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Tuning Out the Noise (1 Letter) – NYTimes.com

This letter writer is an orchestral musician. I found his comments from this point of view very interesting.

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Testing Scotland’s tuition fees – Telegraph

Scots Rejected University Tuition Increase, but Not for Other Britons – NYTimes.com

So Scotland is attempting to charge the rest of the United Kingdom tuition while allowing Scots to attend for free. My daughter paid exorbitant fees to attend university in the UK while her British friends paid little or nothing. This has changed. Now they charge a bit more for the Brits. It will be interesting to see if Scotland gets away this.

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Scientists Report Ozone Hole Over the Arctic – NYTimes.com

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Justice Stevens Memoir, ‘Five Justices [sic],’ Recounts Court Years – Sidebar – NYTimes.com

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Trail of 100 Giants Fall in Sequoia National Forest – NYTimes.com

They don’t know why two great trees are down.

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The Cronyism Behind a Pipeline for Crude – NYTimes.com

Same as it ever was.

” …[I]nstead of listening to bright people like Mr. Hansen who know what they’re talking about, our government’s staffers are blowing kisses at lobbyists. That’s exactly why cronyism is such a problem. The people writing these e-mails don’t have expertise — they have connections. If this is happening in the State Department, why should we not assume it’s also going on in the Treasury Department’s dealings with the big banks, and just about everywhere else in government?”

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It’s a chilly dark fall morning in western Michigan. Instead of trying to relax this morning with some reading, I’m blogging first. This has something to do with my own fatigue.

I’m still pretty tired this morning. And a bit depressed as well. I think this is a combination of sheer  physical exhaustion from my ongoing schedule,  the end of the Sarah’s visit from England and the fallout from Sunday’s intense musical performances.

But upward and onward.

I have a ballet class this morning, will be taxiing my Mom to a shrink appointment, and cajoling her to have lunch with me. Somewhere in there I have to do my silly little church work which now includes updating my Music Ministry Facebook page with links to upcoming readings as well as choose a prelude and postlude for Sunday.

So even though I’m tired and melancholy, life is still good.

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Wow. Lots of different covers for this novel. I’m about half way through it. Last night I was reading it while Eileen was watching  a PBS video of him singing and talking. Good old PBS won’t allow the entire video embedded. Here’s a portion of it.

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I’m a fan of Lawrence Lessig. He has a new book out and was interviewed this morning on the radio. Here’s a link to an excerpt: To Rescue Politics, Adopt Small-Donor Reforms: Lawrence Lessig – Businessweek

I don’t think it’s a secret that our government has been captured by the people with the most money (that would be corporations not unions, ahem). At any rate Lessig seems to be making a case for giving the government back to the people by changing the financing of elections. I’m for it.

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I’m embarrassed to admit that for some reason I thought William Kennedy was dead. I read his Albany series. I’m glad to hear that I seemed to have missed some subsequent novels.  Chango’s Beas and Two-Tone Shoes is his latest. Here’s a link to a review: William Kennedy Goes to Cuba and Back – NYTimes.com

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Frank Zappa, his groupies and me | Music | The Guardian

New book from Zappa’s secretary.

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Sergiu Celibidache – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have coffee at the student union between classes sometimes. Mihai Craioveanu, the violin professor at Hope  (and also a member of my church) sometimes chats me up. Last week he mentioned this man as an interesting person in music history. A conductor that insisted on many rehearsals and few recordings. Celibidache began his career as a jazz pianist and ballet class accompanist. Mihai thought I might be interested. I was.

This week I asked him to spell the man’s name again so I could effectively google him.

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Home Page for the National Music Museum

Yesterday Mihai mentioned this museum in South Dakota as well. Extensive collection of early instruments. Mihai told me it was underwritten by someone who made their money in computers. Very cool.

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Yesterday I bogged down in some grammar essays about active and passive voice.

Lingua Franca – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Language Log » The passive in English

I find that when people speak in the passive it sometimes indicates weirdness. Hard to generalize about this weirdness, but usually there’s some anger and denial in there somewhere. At least that’s what I have been told (passive voice).

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Compassion Fatigue – NYTimes.com

Though interesting I find this article skims the surface a bit. I am not convinced by the implication that public insensitivity is related to the emotional fatigue of helping professions. What about mob mentality (which seems to function when people applaud horrific things happening to other people)?

Not to mention that over and over I often hear less thoughtful commentators jumping quickly to the conclusion that people they disagree with are irresponsible, lazy (don’t those people on demonstrating on Wall Street have jobs?), and deserve their problems.

For my part I think we need to combine responsibility with generosity for the best public approach.

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With More Doctorates in Health Care, a Fight Over a Title – NYTimes.com

“But many physicians are suspicious and say that once tens of thousands of nurses have doctorates, they will invariably seek more prescribing authority and more money. Otherwise, they ask, what is the point?”

God forbid it should be learning and improvement…. what a sorry state we are in when everything is reduced to power and money…

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Unsurprisingly, yesterday took quite a bit out of me.

I think I was a bit giddy at church with the prospect of performing some fine music well. It was fun. It all went pretty well. There was lots of crowd noise during the prelude. But I ignored it and tried to just enter in to the spirit of the music.

I also am taking note that I actually receive many compliments each Sunday morning both before and after church. Before church a woman I did not recognize told me how much she appreciated the music at Grace. After church, compliments abounded on the Mendelssohn and Bach pieces we did.

I find both the noise and the compliments enervating. In order for me to play well I have to enter into a vulnerable place where I am most myself.  I think that noise and distraction are ultimately part of public music performance.

Thomas Merton taught me that distraction itself is part of contemplative prayer. If that is so (and I think it is), then distraction is also part of public music performance.

So the noise was not particularly challenging to deal with.

Compliments are always challenging to receive. If they are not offered one wonders how well one has been received. When they are offered, it’s important to receive them graciously in the spirit they are offered.

I do find it disheartening when I come up for breath that listeners (or more properly non-listeners) sometimes treat the music so cavalierly. But this is something I have mail order valium experienced more and more in Holland Michigan. It is probably largely of my own making by seeking a venue where people don’t really listen much or appreciate the kind of music I make.  On the one hand, it’s not what many people recognize as good music in their daily lives. On the other hand, I have several fellow musicians who hold back both their comments and their approval which makes me suspect they are critical of my work.

It reminds me of the organ students at U of M. Apparently I was known as the organist who played in a converted gymnasium during my stint as music director for St. Timothy’s Trenton (which was indeed a terrible electric organ in a converted gymnasium).

This is probably just the reflections of a tired mind.

Yesterday was also the annual outdoor Blessing of the Animals. This means that I have to transport my electric piano and outdoor amplification equipment for this short service. I have been thinking about Bach’s Art of Fugue and his Chorale Partitas.

I performed the entire set of one of these for a Bachelor’s graduation recital (Sei Gregusset). And have since learned most of the the others. Yesterday I chose to play several movements from his “Ach, was soll ich Sunder machen” Partita. It made sense. All of the movements I played outdoors were for manual only. I played them on the two electric piano stops. I thought they sounded pretty cool.

Another good poem from William Matthews on the Writers Alamanac

A Night at the Opera

by William Matthews

“The tenor’s too fat,” the beautiful young
woman complains, “and the soprano
dowdy and old.” But what if Otello’s
not black, if Rigoletto’s hump lists,
if airy Gilda and her entourage
of flesh outweigh the cello section?

In fairy tales, the prince has a good heart,
and so as an outward and visible
sign of an inward, invisible grace,
his face is not creased, nor are his limbs gnarled.
Our tenor holds in his liver-spotted
hands the soprano’s broad, burgeoning face.

Their combined age is ninety-seven; there’s
spittle in both pinches of her mouth;
a vein in his temple twitches like a worm.
Their faces are a foot apart. His eyes
widen with fear as he climbs to the high
B-flat he’ll have to hit and hold for five

dire seconds. And then they’ll stay in their stalled
hug for as long as we applaud. Franco
Corelli once bit Birgit Nilsson’s ear
in just such a command embrace because
he felt she’d upstaged him. Their costumes weigh
fifteen pounds apiece; they’re poached in sweat

and smell like fermenting pigs; their voices rise
and twine not from beauty, nor from the lack
of it, but from the hope for accuracy
of passion, both. They have to hit the note
and the emotion, both, with the one poor
arrow of the voice. Beauty’s for amateurs.

I’m up early and hoping my daughter made it safely back to England.  Distracting myself studying Bach’s Art of Fugue. What a magnificent work! I think I agree with Jordi Saval:

” the Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue

‘overcome the most rigorous challenges, whilst never sacrificing the expressive quality and musical eloquence which, even in his most elaborate and complex passages, provide the unbroken thread of Bach’s musical discourse.” quoted in Uri Golumb’s online pdf article “Johann Sebatian Bach’s The Art of Fugue“

Playing through the fugues on the keyboard,  I discover over and over moments of rare beauty in the midst of the complex counterpoint.

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Samir Khan, Killed by Drone, Spun Out of the American Middle Class – NYTimes.com

American citizen accused, tried and executed on the spot.  The movie, “The End of Violence,” has long been a reality.

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Central Falls, R.I., Library Fights to Stay Open – NYTimes.com

Inspiring story of locals keeping a library open. Here’s the link to the actual library: Adams Memorial Library

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The Nuremberg Scripts – NYTimes.com

Idealism is missing in action in America. This article reminds me of a time when it was not:

” ‘[O]ur system is not lynch law. We will dispense punishment as the evidence demands.’ Led by the Americans, the Allies were insistent that the Nazi defendants be treated fairly; Burson’s pride in that ethos shines through on every page. This postwar idealism was one of the Greatest Generation’s finest qualities. Today’s cynical, divided country sorely misses it.”

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You Love Your iPhone. Literally. – NYTimes.com

Love is different from addiction.

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