I continue to be amazed by what is available online. I was organizing my bookmarks this morning …

and found that I have several links to complete versions of texts online:

In no particular order

books by John Donne

Ada by Vladmir Nabokov

British Library’s library of several manuscripts including ones by Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll and Mozart

I had to fuss about with this one, installing Adobe and Flash, but once I got it all up and running, this is quite the site. The Mozart manuscript includes audio versions of the excerpts in his hand.

Joyce’s Finnegans Wake sites:

Text with Gloss http://finwake.com/

Text with clickable notes http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-3.htm

William Blake archive

A lovely hypertext version of Pound’s Canto LXXXI

A digest of new graphix/comics.

http://www.marktwainproject.org/

This is the state-of-the-art scholarship project on one of America’s greatest. Contains the complete recent version of his autobiography vol. 1

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/

This Australia university has a marvelous collection of ebooks.

I was poking around, organizing my book bookmarks because I found a lovely site of poetry by Delhi poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797 – 1869). Writing in a form that interests me (the ghazal), Ghalib represents a tradition of Urdu poetry that I am finding quite beautiful.

Here are some sites:

“No I wasn’t meant to be loved” (poem by Ghalib)

A desertful of roses (a scholarly fan site which seems to collect his work…. still figuring this one out)

I am well aware that few people are interested in these sorts of books and poems. But that doesn’t diminish their value to me. I love sitting in my son’s kitchen in California (or anywhere else I can get a wifi signal) and being able to access Joyce, Pound and Twain. wow.

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Action! Romance! Social Justice! – NYTimes.com

Kristoff lists off a bunch of social justice type novels for summer reading. I started Uncle Tom’s Cabin last night (one he recommends but was already on my summer reading list).

I love this quote:

“… temptations to hardheartedness which always overcome frail human nature when the prospect of sudden and rapid gain is weighed in the balance, with no heavier counterpoise than the interests of the helpless and unprotected.”

Stowe, Harriet Beecher (2006). Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Kindle Locations 120-122). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

“The prospect of sudden and rapid gain” outweighing “the interest of the helpless and unprotected.”

Same as it ever was.

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The Author of ‘Fear of Flying’ Detects a Backlash Against Sex. – NYTimes.com

Erica Jong has some wise, interesting observations on sex.

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Gen. Tso’s Default Chicken – NYTimes.com

America’s government plays “chicken” with its financial obligations. China holds the notes and watches with interest and influence.

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Instant Music Gratification – NYTimes.com

longing for the authenticity of the 90s… back when there was a little mystery in pop music for chrissake!

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The Unemployed Somehow Became Invisible – NYTimes.com

History repeats itself in the US. Ellison’s root metaphor of the invisible nature of those on the outside looking in still obtains.

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http://www.whatwasthere.com/

Website (and phone app) that connects US cities with historical pictures. There’s one for Grand Rapids, Michigan near where I live.

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I think everyone was a bit tired here after our Friday Disneyland marathon. My daughter-in-law had her foot x-rayed and tended to. She is okay and is allowing her foot to heal by elevating and resting it.

Most of the adults managed a nap yesterday, myself included. We spent some time in the pool. For my poolside reading I chose an actual book from my grandon’s bookshelves as opposed to my netbook.

Nicholas said he had not read this and I vaguely remember David being surprised when Nicholas transferred it from David’s book shelf to his own.

I have always been interested in this book and thought it would be  a good opportunity to read in it a bit. I like the idea that Lincoln was confident and intelligent enough to gather a staff which combines allies with his former opponents. It is clearly written.

Still reading and pondering Lakoff’s book on the political mind. I have been guilty of his charge of countering the mythology and morality of conservatives with rational thinking only.

But Lakoff is also helping me understand how I don’t only conceptualize in a narrow rational way.

I do see a coherent argument against the prevailing winds of anger and incivility and incoherence in conservative rhetoric. But my coherence also includes non-rational parts such as a strong emphasis on “do unto others as you would have them do unto you: and caring for others.

Lakoff might identify this as his idea of the moral basis of government: strong and responsible empathy.

I have resisted a full embrace of empathetic thinking since listening to Rabbi Friedman outline the dangers it can entail.

It is difficult to stay psychologically differentiated when deeply emotionally empathizing with another person.

Friedman used to point out that “empathy” is a relatively new word. I double checked that this morning and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins (online version) confirmed that the word was “coined by physiologists in the early 20th century.”

Sympathy is an older word. It differs from “empathy” by removing the strong emotional identification. Instead it can be thought of as “understanding” of the other.

Sympathy originally comes into use in the 17th century with this kind of meaning.  The word, “pathetic,” sprang into use around the same time and gave birth to these words. Pathetic in this sense means ‘affecting the emotions,” literally “feeling” (Grk pathtikos, sensitive).

So:

Apathetic – without emotions

Sym (with) pathetic (feel) – to feel with another

Em (in) pathetic (feel) – to feel deeply into another’s emotions

Lakoff says “empathy”  is the moral  basis of progressive understanding of government and indeed the historic basis of democracy in the U.S. and now other countries. I can easily accept this use of the word.

He also suggests that conservatives operate more from the moral imperative of authority (from a higher power or cause).  Conservatives answer rational (old Enlightenment) thinking with moral authoritative ideas not counter-argument.

This is his whole argument. Contemporary progressive thinking fails to understand the modern necessity for using both the rational basis of understanding and the moral basis of one’s argument.

In fact Lakoff posits that the success of the conservatives in undermining the democratic basis of our country is their ability to define everything in terms of their own moral necessity, namely appealing to higher ideals while dismantling the original social contract of the United States and indeed the democratic fabric of our society.

The moral basis of progressive thought is empathy which has led to an understanding of government as protecting the public and empowering the public. The popular notions of privativization and free market are based on the profit motive. The role of government is not only to build and maintain the infrastructure of the country but to protect the public from the danger that privatization “may intervene and undermine” the moral mission of protecting our water, the safety of our food supply and so on.

This can be easily seen as a freedom issue. Government is to protect our freedoms as a society.

I can see I’m blathering on about this, but Lakoff comes up with two definitions that clarify my thinking. I will close with them and possibly comment more as I think about them.

Just before we left for Disneyland yesterday, my daughter-in-law slightly hurt her foot. By the time we were in and walking around she was limping. After some prevarication we finally rented a wheel chair for her.

This may seem extreme. Why not just go home and come back another day? One problem is that Walt’s little surreal piece of Americana is expensive. It’s about $100 per person to get in. Cynthia, my daughter-in-law, had managed to get a couple of complimentary tickets but we still dropped $400 just to walk in the door.

And the wheel chair seemed to alleviate Cynthia’s predicament temporarily. And of course Disneyland has provisions to allow parties visiting with a wheelchair person to not have to stand in line, so it actually allowed us to do more stuff.  I admit I was concerned when at the end of the long day we had to drop off the rented wheelchair and Cynthia alternately hopped and hitched a ride on David’s back for the long line to get on the bus to go back to the parking lot.

Hopefully today she will have a doctor look at her ankle.

In spite of this we managed to do an awful lot of Disneyland.

“It’s a small world after all”

Pirates of the Carribean

Star Tours

Haunted Mansion

The Little Mermaid

Peter Pan

Storybook Land

Mickey’s House

Redwood Creek Challenge

and ended it with the huge Fireworks at night complete with a live person dressed up as Tinkerbell and flying around in the explosions.

It was a long day for everyone.

I did manage to read a bit in this book yesterday:

I am finding Lakoff’s analysis surprisingly helpful and informative.

It particularly applies to my own understanding when it critiques the futility of trying to understand contemporary stuff solely with reason.

most of us have inherited a theory of mind dating back at least to the Enlightenment, namely, that reason is conscious, literal, logical, unemotional, disembodied, universal, and functions to serve our interests. This theory of human reason has been shown to be false in every particular, but it persists.

Lakoff, George (2008). The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics (p. 3). Penguin. Kindle Edition.

” [M]ost of us have inherited a theory of mind dating back at least to the Enlightenment… that reason is conscious, literal, logical, unemotional, disembodied, universal, and functions to serve our interests. This theory of human reason has been shown to be false in every particular, but it persists. ”      Lakoff, George (2008). The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics (p. 3). Penguin. Kindle Edition.

Nifty. Kindle for PC automatically puts the attribution when you copy and paste from one of its books.

Instead, Lakoff says reason by itself is not enough to understand contemporary U.S. culture. Emotion is also needed.

People with brain damage that makes them incapable of experiencing emotion or detecting it in others simply cannot function rationally. They cannot feel what decisions will make them—or anyone else—happy or unhappy, satisfied or anxious.

The big surprise for me is that Lakoff’s politics resemble my own. Since the Republican party adopted his ideas of “framing,” I thought that he was probably in service of the right wing agenda.

But quite the contrary. Using knowledge of how the brain and its emotional intelligence influences public rhetoric, Lakoff comments that

“.. [R]adical conservatives seek and have already begun to introduce: an authoritarian hierarchy based on vast concentrations and control of wealth; order based on fear, intimidation, and obedience; a broken government; no balance of power; priorities shifted from the public sector to the corporate and military sectors; responsibility shifted from society to the individual; control of elections through control of who votes and how the votes are counted; control of ideas through the media; and patriarchal family values projected upon religion, politics, and the market.”

He also cautions about reductive use of labels

“Please do not confuse labels with modes of thought. People who call themselves “conservatives” may use progressive modes of thought in certain issue areas. Conversely, people who call themselves “liberals” may think in a conservative mode in certain issue areas. Similarly, do not confuse party identifications with modes of thought. I am interested in pointing out modes of thought and their consequences, not in putting people in boxes by party affiliation.”

I’m quite enjoying this book. It’s helping me think about some things that I’ve been wondering a bit about for quite some time.

Visiting my son in california always means dealing with a three hour time change. This means waking even earlier than usual by the local time. Right now it’s about 5AM local time which means I have actually managed to sleep in about three hours, Michigan time.

Still the house is very quiet and dark. I have to pace myself because there is a Disneyland marathon planned for today which I am sure will tax my physical resources close to their limit. But of course I am enjoying seeing my family and will have a good time doing it.

But I managed to not get up earlier by finding a local radio station to lay in bed and listen to on my MP3 player. Listening to Ian Masters news show, “Background Briefing,” on KPFK, I had an insight about the current public American political discussion.

Or should I say Jefferson Cowie‘s comments on this show  helped me understand something about the confusing landscape of American politics.

I like how Cowie, a teacher at Cornell U, talked about the futility of the left throwing only rationality in the face of the overwhelming popularity of the narrative of the right.

The idea that facts are essential but not enough coupled with the idea that the impulses that drive the right are often healthy but misinformed and misguided helps me understand how Americans have been beguiled into politically supporting agendas that actually hurt their own self interests.

I particularly liked how Cowie gently corrected Masters typifying of Tea Partyers as “useful idiots.” Cowie pointed out that the impulses that are guiding people who see themselves in revolt are historically ones that have helped reform in the U.S.  It’s just that the power that needs revolting against is not so much the state as the corporations.

Part of the needed narrative on the left is that the state can be seen as a source of reform. Unfortunately as Cowie put it “we don’t have a story.”

Cowie admitted to being a follower of George Lakhoff. But he emphasized Lakhoff’s ideas of the power of mythology and narrative.I have found Lakhoff’s ideas about “framing” to be apt but troubling. Myth and story are something I think are more helpful.

Easy to  see how these ideas are playing out when our leaders make silly comments that are then taken so seriously. As in Palin’s recent rewriting of Paul Revere’s ride to warn not that the “British are coming,’ but to warn the British of the coming revolution or something like that.

It’s just starting to get light here in California. Still quiet. Going to quit blogging and rustle up some coffee.

So I’m sitting in my son’s dining room in California. We had a pretty good trip with a layover in Houston Texas. My daughter-in-law picked us up with my 3 grand kids in tow. Eileen had a head-ache and sensibly laid down for a nap, which is where she still is.

I already had a chance to drive through the lovely hills here in Corona. My daughter-in-law went to the tire store and then needed me to come pick her up. This country is beautiful.

I’m really beginning to relax.

Life is good.

I bought a copy of the New York Times. Usually I read this online, but it’s kind of nice to have a paper copy when traveling.

I enjoyed this article about 88 pianos decorated and installed on the streets of New York City.

Sing for Hope’s Pop-Up Pianos – NYTimes.com

Here’s some links I made for vacation reading:

The Kingdom and the Towers | Politics | Vanity Fair

This is one of those articles that speculates about extending the 9/11 hijackings origin to possible countries like Saudi Arabia. I don’t put much stock in it, but it’s good vacation brain-dead entertaining reading.

My Summer at an Indian Call Center | Mother Jones

What it’s like to actually be at one of those call centers in India.

n+1: Whatever Minutes

about the advent of silent reading

n+1: Designated Haters

negativity at The New Republic

Guernica / With Their Heads in Their Hands

regarding “the company of saints known as cephalophores: the head carriers.”

Guernica / Nixon’s Nose

When I was twenty years old, and a college student, I defaced a portrait of Chairman Mao. For this act, and without a trial, I was declared a political prisoner and sent to a forced labor prison on Taihu Lake, where I served in a labor reform brigade in a stone quarry for seven years: five years in the labor prison and two years as an ex-prisoner laborer.

Guernica / Detroitism

What does “ruin porn” tell us about the motor city, ourselves, other American cities?

Guernica / Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

A Disney intern tells all.

I sat outside in the pleasant weather and read this book yesterday on my netbook. I downloaded it free from this web site.

It’s a cleverly constructed little mystery in which the story is told in a series of letters from one character to another. And of course it revolves around what was then known as “Agony Columns.” Agony Columns are personal ads sent anonymously in British papers of the early 20th c.

Trying desperately to get into a vacation mind set. I browsed other books and downloaded a few more for possible vacation reading.

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume apparently inspired Arthur Conan Doyle and was a huge bestseller in its time.

This book is about the topography of California. Did you know there was a 400 mile long valley between the Sierra  Navada mountain range and the Coastal mountains?

From this map (not in the book) you can not only see that valley, but it is apparent that the L.A. area where I will be visiting is on the edge of the Mojave Desert. They talk about the desert out there but it was never clear in my mind exactly where it was before looking at this map.

Unsurprisingly, Uncle Tom’s Cabin is available in free ebook form. I recently read an essay in which the author points out that the character, Uncle Tom, was not an “Uncle Tom.” I found that interesting. Plus I like the fact that a book was important in raising consciousness about slavery.

I noticed that my netbook came with the Adobe book reader software already on it. I had been waiting on downloading July’s free ebook from U of Chicago because I thought I would have to add one more book reading software to my netbook. But lo and behold it was already there. So I downloaded The Chinese Maze Murders: A Judge Dee Mystery by Robert Van Gulik.

Pretty sure I have read a Judge Dee mystery before.

When I travel, I like to take some books with me. This time I’m hoping that most of them will be on my netbook. That way if I can’t get online, I can still read.

I recently downloaded and read most of the Kindle Single, “The Enemy,” written by Christopher Hitchens right after Bin Laden’s death.

I plan to check more of these “Kindle Singles” out.  They are novella length essays and are seeking to rekindle (sic) the idea of relevant pamphlet publication.

They are mentioned in N+1’s first podcast which I listened to yesterday.

This magazine is just publishing its 12th issue and looks very interesting.

Also ran across another magazine online yesterday.

Guernica, a magazine of art & politics…..

Yesterday’s poem of the day on The Writer’s Almanac site, impressed me. Here it is:

This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labors to others,
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people,
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
Or to any man or number of men,
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves in the open air,
Every season of every year of your life,
Reexamine all you have been told,
At school at church or in any book,
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem,
And have the richest fluency not only in its words,
But in the silent lines of its lips and face,
And between the lashes of your eyes,
And in every motion and joint of your body.

by Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass

I admire the idealism in this poem. But it reminds me of Shirley Robin Letwin’s comments about the multitudinous criteria for being a gentleman “hardly distinguishes a gentleman from a saint.”

I interlibrary-loaned her book, The Gentleman in Trollope: Individuality and Moral Conduct, recently for giggles. I’m thinking of taking it along on my vacation to read.

Also have been reading Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion by Charles Rosen.

I will probably take this on vacation with me as well. I have been consulting my two volume hard back scores while reading this, but will not take those with me. I figure I can find the scores online if I have a text question.

I’m planning to use my netbook to read fiction. I have The American Senator by Anthony Trollope and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky on it and have been reading both them via Kindle for PC software.

Traveling with this kind of access is like having a bookstore in your pocket. If I decide I want to read something I can always buy it and download it. This feels like luxury to me. Amazing.

I’m still wondering how I will do without daily practice. This is always the question for a musician. We don’t really take a vacation from our vocation, only the circumstances of work. Ideally I would maintain access to an instrument even when relaxing. In fact, it’s HOW I relax most of the time.

But it seems to work out just fine even if I don’t have access to a piano or a guitar.

I know I am looking forward to time off, that’s for sure.

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An African Adventure, and a Revelation – NYTimes.com

NYTimes columnist Nicholas Kristoff has been running contests the past few years. I think they are essay contests. Anyway, the winners get to go to Africa with him and see poverty and other problems up close and personal.

This year he took a student and a teacher. His essay describing it is excellent. Recommended.

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E.J. Dionne, Jr.: What Our Declaration Really Said – Truthdig

Dionne points out that modern “conservatives” who claim precedent for their privatizing anti-government anti-tax theology from the American Revolution, specifically the Declaration of Independence are mis-reading it.

Note that the signers wanted to pass laws, not repeal them, and they began by speaking of “the public good,” not about individuals or “the private sector.” They knew that it takes public action—including effective and responsive government—to secure “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” from the linked article

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Book Review – Bright’s Passage – By Josh Ritter – NYTimes.com

reviewed by Stephen King. Josh Ritter is a musician who has gone from writing songs to writing a novel. King thinks he’s good enough to keep trying.

Book Review – Conscience – By Louisa Thomas – NYTimes.com

This non-fiction book sounds like it would appeal to me. It’s the story of two brothers who work their way through religion and the problem of war in early 20th c. USA.

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Corporate Cash Con – NYTimes.com

Those dang liberals at the NYT point out that corporations already have tons of money. Their sitting on it and waiting for consumers to regain their confidence and begin buying. Not gonna happen.

I also think Robert Reich succinctly explains the economic mess we are in in this video:

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Free Speech and the Internet – NYTimes.com

Editorial supporting freedom on the Internet.

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Online Scandal Underscores Chinese Distrust of Charities – NYTimes.com

This is an unusual look at China’s domestic  charity giving.

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Gauging Consequences for Republicans Who Backed Gay Marriage – NYTimes.com

profiles several Republicans who broke ranks on this issue. I keep thinking that Gay issues are moving away from the usual U.S. partisan rancor. Being gay has nothing to do with being conservative, liberal or what have you.

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July 4th is often a time of family and family reunions.

My brother, Mark, and his wife, Leigh, just visited us. Leigh gave me a bunch of photos she had scanned into her laptop.  Above,  second from right is my grandmother, Dorothy Roeder Jenkins. Not sure about anyone else in this pic, but it has a summer feeling.

Correction: S(taff?)/Sargent William A.P. Jenkins was my Father’s cousin.  According to Dad’s memoirs he was called Phil (for Phillip) and served in the Marines in the above story. After his discharge he re-enlisted and made the Air Force his career. I would guess the A initial might stand for Alexander.

I think of the Jenkins family more like this pic of Granpap (my Great Grandfather) probably with one of his sons.

My father’s oldest brother, David, served in WWII.

I think both of my uncles served in the military.

As the fourth of July approaches, I am reminded of how much I love the American music tradition. Although,  I love our tradition and I love lots of other kinds of music traditions as well, of course. I notice that in reality I am a “both-and” kind of person instead of an “either-or” one in many things.

This may be related to the fact that I have always prized my ability to move easily from one musical style to another. Consequently, I’m not a musical virtuoso at any particular style. In my own mind, I’m relatively accomplished in a few (classical, jazz, popular, church music) and competent in some others.

My love of music began in the pews of the churches my Father served as minister.

My family had a tradition of singing a different part in the four part harmony on each verse, at least I remember doing this as a kid.

I’m pretty sure that’s how I learned to read music.

Then I was also very influenced by recordings as I grew up.

When I was still living in Tennessee, the young woman who baby sat us gave my parents Charlie Parker’s “Night and Day” album. I still have it.

Then there was this album, “60 Years of ‘Music America Loves Best’.” Released in 1959, I remember listening to this collection in the early 60s after we moved to Flint, Michigan.

It doesn’t just contain American music, but the guiding aesthetic behind the choices on it is definitely eclectic and had a big impact on me.

It was my first exposure to much great music from Caruso to Harry Belafonte. Styles on it range from classical to jazz to popular.

As I grew up I discovered more and more great American music.

I developed an appreciation for the tradition of Southern church and folk music.

I started examining the history of Jazz and discovered many great composers including the progenitor, Jelly Roll Morton.

I began to understand how Delta blues informed a lot of the music of the so-called British Invasion (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton). It felt like a bonus to have both styles in my brain.

And of course many, many others:

Copland, whom I heard lecture in person at Wayne State during my studies there. I remember his comment that the historical composers of America that we studied were people to him, people he knew.

John Cage had a huge influence on me, musical and otherwise. I ate up his books full of anecdotes, history and Zen Buddhism

Hard to say when I first heard Bernstein’s work. Possible in my studies at Ohio Weslyan. I have never stopped admiring it.

Zappa continues to have a huge influence on me. Of course the music that I love and admire is not limited to people born in this country.

But it is the lens through which I see a great deal of my own American identity. Consequently I’ve never been one of those lefties who hate or dislike America. Not just because of the music, of course. But turning away from the blessing of these seminal influences and continuing passions is, for me, unthinkable.

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Long After Piano Triumph, Russian Crowds Still Swarm Cliburn – NYTimes.com

Van Cliburn at 76 is still much beloved by music lovers everywhere. I like the story in this article about how the organizers of the 1958 Soviet Union Tchaikovsky Piano competition warily approached Kruschev with the idea that an American from Texas was the winner.“Is he the best?”

Khrushchev is said to have asked, and when Mr. Gilels allowed that he was, Khrushchev said, “In this case, give him first prize.”

Americans would have been astounded to know this. I know I was pleasantly surprised.

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Here’s a little update on my reading about Michigan controversies about our present government.

Blackwell ordered to pay back Highland Park | Michigan Messenger

Pontiac EM hires accused felons to run water dept. | Michigan Messenger

AG refuses to respond to request for legal opinion | Michigan Messenger

If these reports have any basis in fact, I am disturbed by them. Ideology is one thing, corruption another. I am especially unhappy that the Michigan Attorney General might have failed to exercise his duties in what looks like a partisan and/or corrupt manner.

The Emergency Manager law from A to Z | Michigan Messenger

Interesting recap of this.

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Americans are mad as hell

This article by Jack Todd for the Montreal Gazette articulates something I have been thinking about for quite a while, namely the prevalence of anger in American politics and society.

I come from an angry tradition. My father had all kinds of anger in him, as do I. It’s something I have tried to tone down and control so that I am a better person.

There is a place for anger. But Todd describes not only its prevalence in American identity but how it is being exploited to make money. Ay yi yi.

It’s a good article. One Americans should read.
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I have been thinking about being an informed citizen of the State of Michigan this morning. It appears that the movement to recall the governor of Michigan is based on his Emergency Financial Manager law. I am opposed to this law and would support it’s repeal. But I am also reluctant to support the recall of the governor at this point on this one issue.

The website for the Committee to recall Rick Snyder. I can’t seem to find names of people or organizations that are behind this movement on this web site easily. This makes me nervous.  This doesn’t pass the intitial smell test (crap detection 101).

But I did consult and bookmark a lot of state and local online news information sources.

Here’s some of my sources:

Can’t resist proudly adding this one:

I played well last night. I don’t always feel that way after a gig with the Barefoot Jazz Quartet. But it really helped me to have a playlist going in to the gig. I reviewed the tunes, photocopied them and put them in order. Even when we inevitably departed from the order, we mostly played those tunes. I had a better understanding of these tunes since I was forewarned. I am feeling more confident about what I play when called on to play from the Real Books I and II especially when I have a little warning about which tunes to play.

Unfortunately, it rained on and off for the whole two hours.  The manager’s wife was kind enough to hold an umbrella over my electric piano for much of the time it was raining. I hope I didn’t ruin any of my equipment.

Today we drive over to Lansing and meet my nephew for lunch. My brother and his wife will then proceed on from there to the next phase of their vacation.

I’m still pretty much at my wit’s end with burnout.

When I was rehearsing for my recent “beach ballet” gig (the Global Water Dance thingo), I was approached by one of the dancers to sign a petition to recall the present governor of Michigan. I declined.

I’m not a supporter of our present governor. I didn’t vote for him. Nor do I agree with most of his policies. But they do strike me as policies. I can’t understand why exactly this movement to recall him has formed.  It seems to be primarily about governor Snyder’s tax reform and his emergency financial manger law.

I definitely disagree with the latter. And don’t completely understand the former. But I think that Michigan is in trouble. It seems to me that Snyder understands that and is trying to come up with solutions. My inclination is to not step outside of the system unless an injustice has been done or corruption is pretty obvious.

I have an extreme reluctance to shoot at public leaders these days. I think we need and are lacking in real leadership. I see a lot of this as simple bad mental health and lack of education. We have incredible free floating anxiety in the US culture.  This anxiety is then amplified by TV and talk radio which seems to intentionally stoke the situation for ratings.

I read Obama’s Wednesday press conference while treadmilling. Then I read reaction to it. There seemed to be a disconnect from the ideas of the president and the reaction of people who disagree with him.

I am especially unimpressed by anger and fallacious argument techniques such as vilifying (ad hominem), and vapid emotional appeals, and the phrase “most Americans/people feel this way” (appeal to popularity fallacy).

Fallacious and specious rhetoric is not the exclusive province any of the current political persuasions in the USA right now. I fear that the movement to recall politicians in Michigan is guilty of utilizing these as much as the national anti-President Obama group.

I get on a plane to California a week from today.  I’m looking forward to some badly needed time off.  Tuesday evening I received a package in the mail from Zingerman’s.

Zingerman’s is a wonderful deli in Ann Arbor. I mean a spectacularly wonderful deli. They are running a summer sale so I bought several of their $8 loaves of bread for $4, some fancy olive oil and a cheese making kit.

Zingerman’s recommends freezing loaves you are not going to eat immediately. Also they recommend heating the loaf in the oven for 20 minutes. This does bring out flavor and crustiness.

We have already finished one of the loaves. The bread is all hard crust wonderful rye and pumpernickel.  This is bread that I enjoy but Eileen doesn’t. So it’s fun to have people (Mark and Leigh) around to share it with.

Yesterday Mark, Leigh and I did the local farmer’s market. I was unable to resist purchasing some cherries (which are just coming in here), smoked fish, raspberries and pumpkin butter. Having company gives me an excuse to buy some great stuff, I guess.

We had lunch with my Mom (without Eileen who was  at her job). Then supper at the pub outdoors. Life is good.

This evening I play with Barefoot Jazz Quartet on the street. Got up and plugged in all my batteries to charge in the hopes that I will be able to keep my amp and keyboard working for the time needed tonight.

I have been having serious thoughts about jazz and its place in my head. I have been thinking of it as an historical academic style like baroque music or romantic music.  I guess I think of it as a historical style (as opposed to a living tradition) because in my head when I think of jazz I think of people who are dead like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington.

There are certainly some good living players. But few of them seem to me to be doing what Keith Jarrett has done and continued to push back the borders of this particular style even as he performs in traditional jazz piano styles. In my understanding this pushing back of borders was stylistically essential to the great jazz composers and players.

I am critical of jazz as an academic style because even though the pedagogy is codified it relies too  much on recordings for my taste. If indeed it has evolved (devolved?) into a literate academic style, the people who are trained to play it are fully capable of utilizing clear notational practices. But this is not the case with the Real Books we play from in the Barefoot Jazz Quartet.

The music barely sketches out the pieces with a melody and some chord shorthand. It is designed as a reminder of a recording or recordings of pieces. I have encouraged my little jazz band to think about repertoire and developing play lists. This would help me narrow the field of the tunes so I could learn them better.  But this doesn’t seem to be the modus operandi of this group.

So often I find myself sight reading pieces not carefully notated in a live situation. This is not a problem for me, but the players who call the tunes might have a specific interpretation in mind (usually from a recording), so that my sight reading and “on-the-spot-free-interpretation” might seem to them to be “wrong.” In fact, I enjoy making little tunes my own through on the spot playing.

I also get quickly bored by trying to ape recordings. I always have. But what the heck. I’m the old guy and glad to be asked to play. And I specifically do not want to be the “old-guy-in-charge” since that is my usual role in music. More fun to follow the lead of others if I can. So far so good.

Okay, here’s another short blog. My brother and his wife are visiting and it looks like maybe my nephew will even stop by. So I have plenty of people to listen to my rants other than Eileen (who is my listener extraordinaire). So I have less time and words for the blog.

But I do have to remark that the secretary of the dance department at Hopeless college emailed me and asked for my ID number so they could pay me for the Global Water Dance gig.  She didn’t mention how much and I was afraid to jeopardize the situation by acting anything other nonchalant and didn’t ask. More on this as it develops.

Links:

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Brooke Gladstone’s Graphic Commentary of Media’s ‘Influencing Machine’ | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS

I’m a fan of “On the Media” buy valium egypt which is the show Gladstone is on.

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Some laws shielded from voter referendums | Michigan Radio

Heard this story go by briefly and then wanted a little more info on it. Michigan Radio has improved their local coverage in my opinion.

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Convener in Chief – NYTimes.com

Brooks describes differing leadership styles.

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Fred Steiner, Television and Film Composer, Dies at 88 – NYTimes.com

I think this guy has influenced me. He wrote the theme song for Rocky and Bulwinkle, did background music for Star Trek and Gunsmoke. I wrote a piece in school in which I stole the ending from the Bullwinkle theme.

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http://www.borowitzreport.com/

Mark mentioned this report. It is very funny.  Probably mostly for liberals.

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I am still exhausted mentally and physically. Here are some links I have been looking at with commentary.

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Afghan Girl Was Tricked Into Carrying Bomb, Officials Say – NYTimes.com

Hard to know whether to be angry or heart broken when reading reports like this. If true, it is unspeakable.

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160 Million and Counting – NYTimes.com

This article by Russ Douthat struck me as reveling in the conclusions of Mara Hvistendahl that abortion has done some serious damage to the balance of the genders world wide.  Women are way behind in population.  And the reason is gender specific abortions of females.  This is alarming.

more links about this:

Where Have All the Girls Gone? – By Mara Hvistendahl | Foreign Policy

Mara Hvistendahl

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Human Relations Commission’s Jim Larkin resigns over Holland City Council’s ‘no’ vote – Holland, MI – The Holland Sentinel

It is interesting to watch the local struggles around gay issues. I have suspected that among educated conservatives there is a shifting attitude in the US on this issue. There is no inherent political persuasion in sexuality.

On the other hand, Holland is a reactionary provincial place where there is growing movement toward the ignorance of Christian fundamentalism.  I had a prof at Hope college recently observe that she thought the leaders there want to make it a “Bible” college.  Others I ask about this concur.

I keep meeting students who are lovely people but shockingly ignorant and naive. At least when I was at Notre Dame, South Bend, in the late 80s the kids were very smart in their conservative politics. Give me a smart educated conservative any day, one with some self awareness.

I share Jim Larkins confusion that people who oppose adding sexual orientation to local discrimination laws in Holland insist that they are not acting in a way that is anti-gay.   This is a position that I’m sure could be defended, but I just haven’t read anything that makes sense to me.

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Our Untransparent President – NYTimes.com

Critique of Obama by a former supporter.

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New Statesman – The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now

This is a troubling article to me. The author of the review, Terry Eagleton, seems as confused about religion as the people he criticizes.

Example:

“Salvation is a matter of feeding the hungry and caring for the sick, not in the first place a question of cult and ritual. There will be no temple in the New Jerusalem, we are told, as all that religious paraphernalia is finally washed up and superannuated.”

This is not totally accurate as a generalization. It is definitely an evangelical understanding of Christianity…. which is itself kind of new from the long perspective of history.

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From Abbottabad to Worse | Politics | Vanity Fair

Another essay by the dying Christopher Hitchens.

Pakistan Unhitches Hitchens « TheSouthAsianIdea Weblog

A refutation of Hitchens . I find the metaphor this writer chooses troubling.

There’s something insultingly reductive about painting Pakistan as the “spouse that makes one foam at the mouth” and Hitchens as her angry husband.

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U.S. Support for Pakistan: A Long Messy History : The New Yorker

Another essay about Pakistan.

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Johann Hari: How to survive the age of distraction – Johann Hari, Commentators – The Independent

Not sure I buy this writer’s take on ebooks. I think he is describing his own failing abilities to concentrate.  When I read ebooks I do not go back and forth to my email any more than when I’m reading a real book.

I finally might be to the point that I am able to do some badly needed summer relaxing. In fact it may already be happening. I usually remember my dreams. But when my stress goes up, I notice that I do not remember them as much. The last two evenings I have remembered them. I think this may be a good sign.

Late last century when I was still working for the local Roman Catholic church, I was feeling a lot of stress about my work. I had a lot of anxiety dreams. In one of them, someone calmly looked me in the eye and asked me, “What’s at stake?” I awoke with this thought. It was a turning point in my attitude toward my work. I think it led me to change my life. I quit my job. I began spending more time doing what I wanted to do with the time left me to be alive.

I am still processing my recent experience writing and performing a work for the Global Water Dance on Saturday. This project began as a passing remark by Linda Graham the chair of the dance department at the local college.  I was finding my work with her teachers in the department very rewarding. When Linda asked me if I would write something she could choreograph for an upcoming event, I said I was interested. Originally she said that I would be one of two composers and she was directing two simultaneous local expressions of this world wide event: one to be held on the beach of Lake Michigan and the other just north of the city on Lake Macatawa.  Also that there was money to pay for my work.

I put the date on my calendar and briefly glanced at the web site of the event and put it out of my mind.

After the semester ended this year, I confirmed with Linda that the event was still on. She said yes. She called a meeting of people interested in dancing which I didn’t attend since I was composing.

The date of the performance continued to come nearer and Linda had not told me much about what the music should be. I contacted musicians and wrote a movement for her to hear. I took it to her and, unsurprisingly, her choreography was completely different. I was intrigued to write something for her dance design, so I went back to the drawing board and wrote a piece that fit her choreography. I emailed her my understanding of the choreography which I used in my piece, even notating it right in the score.

I, also, had sent her both the score and an mp3 of the MIDI (shudder) version of each piece I composed, so she would have some idea of what I was coming up with.

The day before the first rehearsal of my musicians and her dancers, I was copied on to a mass email which had an outline of what the dance looked like now. Not only were there now six sections (originally there were four), but Linda put another musician’s name on the outline besides mine.  This threw me off. I immediately emailed her back.

Linda,

I have looked at your updated choreography and passed it on to my players. I am surprised that the new choreography seems to interrupt the continuity of my (carefully worked out) composition and interleaves it with music written and performed by other musician(s) who I do not know.

I was prepared for cuts or whatever, but not what feels like blind collaboration (a blind musical date?). My skepticism comes from witnessing previous less than desirable results from of this sort thing.

I tried to write something that reflected our discussion and that would be flexible and hold together despite shortening or lengthening or even cutting. But that doesn’t appear to be what you wanted. This looks like it will possibly alter the basic meaning of my piece. But at this late date I will do my best to make it all work.

No worries.

See you tomorrow,

S

Linda wrote me back apologizing and giving me a bit more information. It turned out the musicians were drummers, so that was a bit of a relief. My skepticism mentioned above, however, was warranted.  In practice, it turned out these added musicians were not very sophisticated or skilled.

I was feeling a bit anxious about pulling this all together in the last week before the performance. Linda seemed to be evolving the choreographing, responding to the site and the dancers. I tried to adapt the music to help her as we went. It ended up working just fine. But during the evolution of the music and the dance I saw a lot of change. Some of these versions did in fact do violence to the music I wrote. In the end after experimenting and adapting, we only ended up cutting one of the original four sections I wrote. This changed the way the music worked of course, but I had written a sectional piece with the idea that sections could be cut.

I learned that I need to stipulate some timing if I am expected to compose something for a specific event.

Also I am also wondering if I will get paid. I try to talk money early when I agree to something in music. I neglected to do this in this case, so I’m partly responsible for the lack of clarity.  Next time, I will probably try to avert this if asked to do something like this. I have discussed pay with my players, of course. They are reluctant for me to pay them if I myself do not get paid. I am planning to mail them each a small check within the week whether I get paid or not.

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Sympathetic Serial Killers – NYTimes.com

Article about the topic by Jeff Lindsay, the creator of Dexter.

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Senoi, Kilton Stewart and The Mystique of Dreams: Further Thoughts on an Allegory About an Allegory, G. William Domhoff

I stumbled across this writing this morning’s blog. I was looking for more information on the Senoi whom I have read about. I have some ideas about dreams that I think may have come from an essay I read years ago on these guys. Domhoff essay, linked above, seems to refute some of the charming ideas in that original essay. I am planning to read this article and think more about the ideas. Nevertheless, the idea that dreams are important to communal psychological health still holds charms for me.

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Them That’s Not Shall Lose – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow points out that “…according to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly half of all members of Congress are millionaires..” Ay yi yi.

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A List of Fallacious Arguments

I keep returning to this list. It helps me sort through the fuzzy thinking that dominates much of public comment and rhetoric.

When I was a high school student, I used to wander the halls after school bullshitting with teachers, mainly English teachers. At the time, I used to say that was when my real daily education began.

I am thinking mainly of my last few years when I attended a brand spanking new school with a formidable array of newly hired talented teachers.

One of them used to pontificate at length about poetry, literature and what have you. I can’t remember this guy’s name, but I do remember one thing he said about poetry: that it was more essential and pertinent to life than what was in newspapers.

He was preaching to the converted when he talked to me. I loved poetry then and I love it now. I read it. I wrote it. I sent my poems to be considered for publication to many magazines and journals. I managed to get a few poems published. I even won a poetry contest with a pretty bad poem called “Dame Flint.”

I don’t remember when this passion began or even clearly understand its roots. My parents were not that fond of poetry.

I suspect a couple of things. When I was toddler there was a woman who “watched me” as we said. She was important in teaching me to see the beauty around me. Nature walks were part of the deal. I’m not sure I can actually remember this. Probably it is just my mother’s description later.

I trace my love of music and poetry possibly to this kind of eye opening guided perception as a child.

The other thing, oddly enough, is probably exposure to lots and lots of Bible. In my early youth this would mean, the King James translation which is indeed full of beauty and poetry.

I also suspect that my predilection to see life not as transaction (the pervasive point of view of my society) but as experience may relate directly to my early love poetry. In my case this experience is full and satisfying.

When I see art, music and poetry reduced to commodity I am saddened and if possible demur.

I was pleasantly surprised recently when looking at a new (to me) aggregate filter blog called 3quarksdaily.com. They occasionally feature a  recommended poem along with their links.

That got me to thinking that I often use the internet not only as the greatest reference library imaginable

but as a source for new poems and new poetic thinking.

I know my brother has told me that he begins each day with a visit the Writer’s Almanac which features a daily poem.

I try to check it out daily. Also both of us make use of the Poetry Foundation site which features tons of poets and poems.

Historical poetry is rampant online. If I’m looking for a certain poem I often google the first couple of lines and can find the whole thing.

And then there are the free ebook websites which are good sources for out of copyright poetry. Manybooks.net is one that I use frequently but there are others.

My high school teacher’s comment about poetry and the newspaper has an element of truth to it. But it is also extreme and shortsighted. I need both poetry and the news. I need ideas and ideas explained and proposed. I need historical background and the results of scholarship.

For me, it’s all there on the interweb. Life is good.

Again I find myself pretty busy. Too busy to blog for long this morning.

Eileen and I bought her a Blackberry Playbook yesterday. She seems happy with it. She’s still figuring it out.

An old friend of mine, Ken Near, put this video and several others up on Facebook recently. The beginning few minutes is Willan improvising. I quite like it. Ken sang in the ritual choir at Willan’s parish, St. Mary Magdalene, Toronto. Of course, Willan was long dead.

Ken also pointed me toward this web site:

Sheet Music, Chant Books, Hymns — MusicaSacra

It seems to have free copies of modern adaptations of Gregorian chant in English. Very cool.

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Hackers release Arizona state files – Americas – Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera released this story recently. Haven’t noticed much in the American press yet. Could be I just have missed it.

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Will Japanese Virtual Performers Hurt the Music Industry? – Technorati Blogging

Tecnorati opens very slowly on my little net book. Nevertheless, they seem to have some interesting articles.

More:

A Joint Venture That Aims to Prevent Illegal Downloads of Copyrighted Material – Technorati IT

Obama Signals Era of Permanent War – Technorati Politics

Wyoming Has Moved to the Cloud – Technorati Technology

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20 obsolete English words that should make a comeback | Matador Network

I love words. Here are 20 I never heard of before!

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Seeking to perpetuate my attempts at “vacation” mentality oddly enough found me sitting at the organ at church yesterday. My prelude and postlude for Sunday are ones I know very well, so they are not requiring a lot of rehearsal. So I turned to stuff for fun and interest.

I began with Mendelssohn’s Preludes and Fugues for organ. I am easing into a deep appreciation of this composer, shedding the prejudices of my teachers and some musicologists. I increasingly think Schumann was not mistaken in his estimate of Mendelssohn as the “Mozart” of his time.  His music is clear and classic, Apollonian not Dionysian.

It is ironic that he is stereotyped as ephemeral, trite, kitschy (Charles Rosen) when in fact I find his music to be timeless, eternal, calm and rigorous in its craft and beauty.

So I return to his organ works which so many organists deem as not “romantic” enough preferring the works of Vierne and Widor which I myself actually often find a bit cloying.

After some Mendelssohn I spent time with Bach’s G minor fugue.

I have a memory of this piece being taught in a Music Appreciation class when I attended middle school (Junior High we called it then). I can picture the overweight huffing teacher trying to engage a room full of boys (I think it was something that alternated with gym class) with organ music. It seems so outrageous to me now. I’m not even sure how accurate the memory is. But, I love this piece and periodically work it up. The video above is a dramatization of it with midi and visuals. I think it explicates the way the piece works quite nicely.

The irony of me seeking to relax with the very stuff of my work is not lost on me. But actually it makes sense. I have been stressing out over the Barefoot Jazz Quartet and even more so the Global Water Dance rehearsals and performances. This is good stress about things that interest me. But returning to the solitude of the organ bench and the solace of my craft as an organist is soothing and logical.  I do love the music. And I love my work.

I just need to give my self some space and quiet to gain perspective and get my “groove” back. I guess I haven’t entirely lost my groove since I am composing, learning and performing  music which is basically how I want to spend my time.

My friend, Jordan V., emailed me yesterday that he had found on Lemonjello’s web site an announcement that they were not hiring music acts for the summer. Usually by this time the owner has asked me to consider playing a gig there. I figured maybe he finally decided to give in to my lack of popular appeal. Jordan kindly disagreed with this and insists that I have a kind of appeal. I am flattered that he says this. It’s not an inconsiderable compliment coming from an adept musician.

But I do notice that I’m not immensely popular and my gigs are sparsely attended. Which is not to say that I don’t appreciate the people who value my work. I long ago figured out that my art appeals to a minority of listeners. I live in an area in which the intellectuals are conservative and a bit provincial. It is absurd for me to expect a large following.

If I lived in an urban area or a less provincial one (say Ann Arbor) I would still appeal to a minority but I think I would get a bit larger following because what I am doing would be understood better.

But I could be wrong about that. And it is something I’m not too concerned about since I get my basic pleasure from writing music and then somehow having it performed. It is the “doing of it” that appeals to me.  Of course, part of this process is the work of the listener. Which is why I come out of my hole and perform occasionally.

And of course people can and sometimes do listen to my work at church.

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Wal-Mart’s Authoritarian Culture – NYTimes.com

Some interesting background on the situation recently highlighted in a Supreme Court decision.

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Huntsman Enters Race With Promise of Civility – NYTimes.com

Public promises of civility always get my attention. I remember when George W. Bush made the same promise. I even wrote him a letter when he was president thanking him for his efforts in this area……

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Recipe – Pan-Roasted Spiced Cauliflower With Peas – NYTimes.com

Last night I kind of made this for myself, chicken-mushroom-pea pasta for Eileen and messy but excellent strawberry pie for both of us. Mmmmmm.

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Technorati

Crooked Timber

n+1

3quarksdaily

I created a new folder of bookmarks called “filter blogs.” These links are all in it. I think of them as “aggregate sites” but “filter blogs” sounds cooler.

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Why Masturbation Helps Procreation – Newsweek

Fun little article about the evolutionary adaptive reasons for masturbation.

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This Youtube video is a recording of my prelude Sunday, Prelude: Voluntary in D minor, Opus V, No. 8 by John Stanley, all 3 movements. The player is Tibor Pinter.

I am trying to sort of pursue a vacation mind set this week.  I have spent some time in my favorite local coffee shop, Lemonjellos, just goofing off. Yesterday I had lunch there.

There are two locally owned coffee shops in Holland, Michigan where I live. JPs

and Lemonjellos.

They both seem a bit uptight and religious to me. Holland is the birth place of the split between two conservative denominations: the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and the Reformed Church of America (RCA). The RCA is a tad less reactionary than the CRC.

Lemonjellos is definitely more like the RCA in my mind. Its owner and clientele are younger and have a bit rougher edges. I have watched it evolve from a vision in a young coffee barrista’s brain to a sort of upstart local savvy business. In the past they have invited me to play there about once a year. So far this year, the owner hasn’t indicated a continued interest in having me play again. The last time I played the crowd was small. Since there was a cover, the young people stayed outside and I lost any chance for them to hear my work.  If I get invited back, I will definitely ask that there be no cover.

I am interrupting my attempted vacation mind set to work on music for the local expression of the upcoming Global Water Dance. I have mentioned it here I believe. Yesterday morning Keith Walker, Jordan VanHemert and Nathan Walker dropped by my house to rehearse “Ebb and Flow.” The rehearsal went well and I was gratified to begin to hear this piece take shape. They agreed to run “Easy on the Water” which relates to “Ebb and Flow” as a first movement of two so far but is not part of the upcoming performance. It was my first attempt to write music for Global Water Dance performance.

These two pieces make a decent beginning at a multi-movement piece. The players seem enthusiastic and interested in the work. Nathan the bass player asked me once again when I am playing at Lemonjellos this year indicating that he would like to be part of it. I had to tell him I haven’t been invited and actually might not be invited. Nathan said the trio we were rehearsing would be a good addition any playlist at Lemonjellos. I find this flattering. If asked I would definitely invite these players to participate.

As my conviction about my compositions and music grows I notice that my music has more and more limited appeal to anyone who might happen to hear it.  It would be foolish not to notice this. But equally foolish from my point of view to pay much attention to it.

I’m pretty clear in my own mind about why I do what I do.  Most of what I do grows out of a passion for sound. Of course the people involved are constitutive. Music in my mind does not exist without people whether that’s the composer, the performer or the listener.  All three are essential.

But I notice how so many other things sort of accrue around music in many people’s experience. The music itself is overwhelmed by less crucial things like immediate appeal of the appearance of the performers. The entertainment value can drown out deeper meaning. What is happening in the music and interaction between the sound and the humans seems to be less and less and  important.

Instead music is too often reified from an  activity of profound human making of meaning to a commodity of reduced meaning and quick surface appeal.  I am sorry to see this happen. I think it sells short the point of music. Something is definitely lost when this happens.

On the other hand my conviction that I am meant to be a music maker has strengthened with each passing year I get to stay alive.  I love making music. I love being in a room with other people making music. This is one of the reasons I continue to enjoy church music.

A 20th century convention of congregational participation as a norm means that it’s my weekly job to get a bunch of people to make music in song together. This is challenging in a time when so many people do not feel capable of making music except by turning on an ipod. But it is gratifying to me when I can hear the counter cultural sound of a group of ordinary people singing in harmony…

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Stereotyping Patients, and Their Ailments – NYTimes.com

Dr. Danielle Ofri writes about an amazing patient, Mr. S. After reading this article I kept thinking about Mr. S. He was a criminal and drug addict whom people continued to misread and stereotype. In Dr. Ofri’s words, “he didn’t fit the picture.” His personality comes through vividly in this essay.

I love his Buddhist like acceptance and embrace of the life he has found himself living.When asked  about “how he felt about the misdiagnosis of H.I.V., he simply shrugged: “It is what it is.”

I heard this exact phrase come out of the mouth of a world-renowned dancer recently.  In both cases it strikes me as something to ponder.

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In Celestial Twist, Black Hole Swallows a Dying Star – NYTimes.com

Sci fi for real.

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The Vegas Valley Leopard Frog Is Endangered, but No Longer Extinct – NYTimes.com

The mysterious disappearance of frogs and bees strike me like canaries in a coal mine.

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Using Forensic Sculpting to Solve Cold Cases – NYTimes.com

I sent this link to my wife. It reminds me of TV shows she likes to watch. Only real.

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Roundworm Could Unlock Secrets of the Human Brain – NYTimes.com

Another vivid portrait of a person, this time a young determined brilliant scientist, Cornelia Bargmann.

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