The roads were one-lane, snow-covered and slippery for my little morning jaunt to Grant, Michigan. I had not been paying attention to the weather, so I was dismayed when I left, having only allowed for normal driving time.  After seeing a couple of cars in ditches, I relaxed and slowed down and drove the weather. Somehow I did arrive early for my 9:30 playtime.

My violist was nervously waiting in the warm-up room. I am convinced that this Solo and Ensemble playing is some of the most harrowing performance experiences a musician is likely to have in their lives.  The students are usually pretty normal people who also play an instrument. Due to their age they often already feel like everyone is watching their every move and that they are constantly screwing up.

This young musician acquitted herself admirably in my opinion. She basically nailed all the notes, played with expression, confidence and tone.  After she played, the judge first asked her if she was nervous, saying it was important information for the the judge to adequately respond.

She then gave the young player a free lesson, talking to her about bow technique and tempo.

The parents were surprised by the judge’s response since they could tell their daughter had played well. They questioned me afterwards. I pointed out the value of learning that can occur in this situation. I told them and their daughter that she probably got her “1” (the highest rating), but that actually wasn’t as important as the music and the experience.

She did get her “1”.

While I was at the festival, I was approached by several parents and a teacher who told me that their accompanist couldn’t make it.  This was ironic because the guy was a Hope professor and supposedly lived not far from me.  I told these people up front, that I was available, but my fee was $75 (This is what I charge for doing this service. I make it a flat rate so it covers all rehearsals and the performances. Besides being a fair wage for a musician with my training and experience this allows students and parents to arrange for as many rehearsals as are actually needed instead of what they can afford.)

There were three students and their parents readily agreed to pay my fee if I would fill in at the last moment. Which is what I did.

So instead of being done around 9:40 AM, I had to hang around and play for some extra students until about noon.

One of the students was performing the first hundred measures or so of Saint–Saëns’ Cello concerto.

I found this particular accompaniment challenging to sight-read.  But I managed to pull it off.

This accomplishment was very satisfying to me. As well as making a little extra money when we need it.  The whole experience was a good one for me.

After I came home, I once again went over to church and practiced organ.

After performing that cello concerto, I thought it might be interesting to pull out some Saint-Saëns organ music. I’m not a fan of this dude. My feelings were reinforced by playing through some of his music. The Cello Concerto is very flashy and it is fun to hear someone play the cello so well. But I don’t find the music that interesting.

Instead, I read through more Bach organ trio sonatas. I am thinking that I like some of the movements a lot more than others and that they would be good for me to spend some time with and maybe perform at church.  There are six sonatas with 3 movements each and I have learned and performed many of them.  But they have been lying dormant for a while and my technique continues to improve as I age, so it is a very fun task to give myself.

Just a few links today.

I sometimes like reading music reviews. Yesterday I was reading Serious ‘Rite,’ Sultry Tango and Skillful Solos – NYTimes.com when the author mentioned that the NYT chief music critic had rated the top ten composers of all time. I was curious so I checked it out. Here’s the link: The Greatest Composers – A Top 10 List – NYTimes.com

Bach is 1. I can buy that.  He rates Beethoven as 2.  Which I don’t agree with particularly. Beethoven is definitely in my top 10. Just further down. Mozart is 3. I think he should be 2. I know this is kind of dumb exercise but it’s fun for me.  I think leaving Haydn out was a serious omission. And wouldn’t put Verdi or Wagner in the top 10 as he does.

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And finally:

Why Does Roger Ailes Hate America? – Esquire

I’m getting a bit curious about how people get their news. I think most people are in echo chambers of connecting with sources they agree with. I know that I am in danger of that myself and try to continually sample a wide variety of online print sources. I am convinced that the New York Times does the best job journalistically in the United States, but there are other good papers like the L.A. Times, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor (which I believe has ceased publishing a paper version and is only available online).

TV news is awful. I can barely watch it. Once in a while I watch the PBS Newshour. I prefer reading my news, I guess.

All this is to say that I have bookmarked the above link on Ailes to read knowing that it looks pretty biased. On the other hand, Ailes has consciously tried to influence the USA through his personal and business stuff, so it might make interesting reading.

I mailed off my manuscript to New York yesterday after having attempted to make the notation as consistent as possible. This involved a lot of changing of little details like how dynamic signs like FF are written and where little crescendo lines and accents appear on the page. Very tedious. This tedium somewhat relieved with the help of my wife’s very excellent proofing skills.

I still think that my music is as likely to strike a judging committee as weird as my pajama pants do people from Western Michigan (and others, I know, I know).

After an hour and half of intense improvising to the intense teaching of my ballet teacher yesterday,  her one comment to me was surprisingly, “I like your pants.” Yes, I was wearing some very nondescript black with gray stripes pajama pants. I thought they were probably conservative enough to not be detected as such. Oops. But I was totally amused.

Bills and grocery shopping were not all that fun for me yesterday.

Money is not going as far I would like even with added income.

I have been mulling over the money stuff at my church. I decided I wouldn’t up my pledge until after the community acted and restored minimal COL raises to the staff.  This will probably happen and then I will up my pledge the amount the financial people requested parishioners to do.

It’s kind of moot because I under pledge by 50% to give myself some breathing room money wise. So even raising it 10% will still be less than I plan to try to give.

I was so moody after bills and shopping that I took solace in Bach’s organ trios for about an hour before Ballet class. This music is pretty wonderful if technically kind of advanced. I once heard another organist say learning them was the equivalent of a master’s degree.  But I love the music and it did lift my spirits. Returning as I do to the same difficult music over and over gives me a measuring stick of my continued technical progress as a player. I’m pretty hard on myself as many musicians are since the advent of recording. A lot of the times I feel like I’m not that great a player. Maybe it’s true, but when I am more myself I can assess my abilities fairly well and know that I can play my instrument pretty well.

When I returned to the Bach organ trios, there were moments of delight when I was able to play difficult sections with more ease. This, of course, is not my main delight. The main joy for me is simply rehearsing wonderful musical ideas.  I do like Bach.

After Ballet class, I rehearsed a Vivaldi piece with the high school viola player I have been working. This morning is the festival (an hour and a half away…. so I will be jumping in the car soon). Last night my viola player was pretty stressed. She knows the piece but is dealing with performance anxiety and mental fatigue.  High school students can be so driven these days to achieve. She kept stopping despite my admonitions to not do so. I gently said she was rehearsing doing this, when she should be practicing not stopping no matter what happens.

She has a lovely sound for a high school player and has been obviously practicing the hell out of this piece. Her mother is very involved in her student career and was vocally coaching her through every meeting. This makes me crazy but didn’t seem to bother the violist much.

I will be interested to see how she does this morning. She is most likely going to do well, but there’s always a risk to a musical performance. This risk is increased by rehearsing stopping in the middle.

LINKS

My son asked me what I thought of the State of the Union. I responded in the comments of  the post from yesterday (link). Here are some more links regarding this topic:

Obama delivers State of the Union address | In Obama’s Words | The Washington Post

A transcript. Although I did listen and watch some of the speech, I mostly read it.

I plan to read some of the following reactions and comments.

on the left side of the political spectrum:

Obama Reassures Democrats (Mostly) in SOTU Address | The Nation

Mingling but No Tingling at State of the Union | The Nation

on the right side:

The Old (Liberal) Frontier | The Weekly Standard

Henninger: A Presidency to Nowhere – WSJ.com

I have already read these:

In State of the Union, Obama Pushes Projects to Stay Competitive – NYTimes.com

State of the union address: not classic but effective | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

In this last link, a commentator from the UK says that Obama is speaking to the entire public, while the Republicans are only addressing their base.

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writing in public: All art comes from art

I have been following the compilation of blogs called “Writing in Public.” This particular post looked interesting.

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THE MINIMALIST – FREEZE THAT THOUGHT – NYTimes.com

I continue to read old articles Mark Bittman has recommended from his years as the Minimalist. I even spent extra time yesterday in the frozen food section due to his comments in a previous linked article (Frosty the Vegetable )

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Greed Said to Be Throwing Feng Shui Off Balance – NYTimes.com

For real.  In Hong Kong:

Villages are entitled to ask the government to pay to repair any adverse changes to the landscape caused by such projects. That covers not just environmental damage as commonly understood but also the possibility of ill fortune brought about by tearing down a tree or placing a road in a way that might disturb the local qi, the energy that some Chinese believe pervades all things. Qi is a crucial factor in determining feng shui.

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Financial Crisis Was Avoidable, Inquiry Concludes – NYTimes.com

Hindsight is always frustrating but enlightening.

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25 Years of Digital Vandalism – NYTimes.com

Article on international hackers and viruses by the sci fi dude, William Gibson, I have bookmarked to read.

I should make this brief today because I have to put on the finishing touches to the manuscript I am mailing out for a silly contest.

After ballet class, I met with my boss. I quite like my boss and my job, but it is occurring to me that I need to be smarter with this gig. I am putting a great deal of effort into it, which has a lot of payoff for me personally. But at the same time, I notice that the community is not really doing its part for me. I am underpaid.

Which shouldn’t matter to the guy who says money isn’t real, right?

But I think it says something about the priorities of the community I work for. When I say I am underpaid, I mean that factoring in my skills, experience and training, any pay scale I have seen says I should be making quite a bit more money.

I can’t even get my community to address the pay scale.

My boss has been working on an Human Resources committee but it’s not off the ground.

In addition to the lack of respect I think this kind of thing means in our money based way of thinking, Eileen and I do struggle with money. I am a sort of a classic struggling music guy whose income is pretty low. I struggle with other people who don’t want to pay me what I am pretty sure my efforts are worth. For example, the Grand Haven High School teacher who offered me half of what she eventually said she would pay me to accompany students. She only raised her price when I refused to work for such low pay. Also, I am accompanying a violist at the Instrumental Solo and Ensemble tomorrow. Another student called and inquired about using me as an accompanist. His band director recommended me. I told him my fee was $75. I never heard back from him and the festival is tomorrow. I can’t help but suspect that his family thought that was too much.

Oy.

Of course when the plumber came and fixed my toilet, his labor was much more than that. I don’t begrudge him his wage. I just wish people understood my work as worthy of hire.

Poor me, eh?

Anyway, I spent most of my time with my boss yesterday advising her on some matters and recommending different hymns and service music for her to consider for the upcoming season of Lent. I also sent her an email which briefly gave an over view of the upcoming readings for Lent, as well as reviewed with her what we did last year.

It occurs to me that I do well at my job. Frustrating that I remain invisible in so many places in my life.

But not that frustrating, fuck the duck. I still know how lucky I am to have my family and my music.

The trio had a good rehearsal and my colleagues enjoyed reading through one of the Haydn trios that Charles Rosen says are some of his best work. We decided to read through another of the trios Rosen has singled out next week. Eventually we will learn one. But the reading through is lots of fun.

And my violinist has agreed to pick a Bach violin sonata to learn. If she does this, I will have motivation to work on my harpsichord. I love the Bach solo sonatas.

After rehearsal I came home and exercised and cooked.

I went a little nuts with cooking:

Herb Cheese Muffins,

Bacon wrapped broiled tilapia,

stylin’ steak fries,

corn,

artichoke hearts

and blueberry pie.

All of this from what we have on hand the day before I do grocery shopping.

Not bad. And most of the recipes were low fat. And tasty.

Like I say, life is good.

Finished the contest version of my composition  “Dead Man’s Pants” yesterday. I would like Eileen to look over it for anything that looks weird but am not sure she will have a chance. I should mail it today.

Also spent some time prepping for my meeting with my boss this morning. She is looking for ideas on how to tie Lent together this year. I went through all four volumes of the Episcopal Hymnal (Hymnal 1982; Wonder, Love & Praise, Lift Every Voice and Sing II, & Voices Found). I found some stuff but nothing that I am sure she will want to use. I also reviewed the readings for Ash Wed and the five Sundays of Lent.

This morning I want to glance over what we did last year.

At Ballet Class my improvisations seemed to be better than usual for the first two hours. At its best improvising seems to allow me to enter into the present moment in a unique way. However, in the last half hour the students were struggling with a particular exercise. It involved crossing the floor and doing challenging moves while wearing the dreaded pointe shoes which makes dancing incredibly difficult. The teacher kept slowing the music down. That made it more challenging to me to be creative and continually adapt the tempo. I began to feel a bit bogged down. Oh well. Sometimes you eat the bar, sometimes the bar eats you.

Last evening a vocal teacher from Grand Haven High School showed up unannounced with music scores for me.

I was a bit surprised to see him. I have been emailing him for a few days and was thinking I would have to get more aggressive about contacting him today.

I am afraid sometimes people think I am available at all hours of the day. That’s why I protect myself with a good answering machine and guard my privacy. I like to think there are times, I’m not really open for business. Other times I make a point to be available.  And I try to return any communication, phone call or otherwise, within 24 hours.

I didn’t ask the teacher in.

He seemed to want to have a conference about scheduling rehearsals in Grand Haven next week. I told him I would email him and he readily agreed. I already have done so this morning.

I try to make other people’s lack of planning and foresight their own problem not mine. Usually people are so unconscious of their own behavior that they don’t even notice it when I do this. And of course I try to be diplomatic but not allow their lack of self awareness to affect me.

Last night I dreamed I was playing harpsichord and marimba dangling from a precariously improvised balcony.

The instruments kept slipping off. I would grab them and dangle and watch hinges bend with my weight. I wasn’t the only one on the platform. We were all accompanying a play that was happening at the front of the auditorium.

I managed to get myself down at one point and told the organizer (who seemed to my priest) that I wasn’t going back up. She and many others seemed disappointed in me.

LINKS FOR TODAY

Still haven’t listened to the State of the Union. Have decided to make an MP3 of it and put it on my player. That way I can listen to it.  Here’s a link for what it’s worth to the Youtube version.

The State of the Union – NYTimes.com

This is the NYT’s editorial about the State of the Union message. I have bookmarked it so that I can refer back to the programs and ideas that the President proposes.

A lot of the time, I have noticed that the grand ideas in a Presidential State of the Union get quickly forgotten, much less acted upon. I know Obama was out pushing his message yesterday in Wisconsin. Nevertheless, I want to have a record of what he said on Tuesday and the NYT editorial is a sympathetic list of his intentions.

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David Wojnarowicz Ruckus, as Viewed From Britain – NYTimes.com

The prudishness of the USA is an interesting thing to view from abroad.  This article contrasts the reception of an artist’s legacy between an important US museum, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and the excellent Tate Modern in London.  Both of these are national galleries. The artist in question, Wojnarowicz, whose work seems mildly controversial to me.

The Smithsonian quickly capitulated to conservative political pressure to drop his work. This actually worked out pretty good because US regional galleries who were ignoring the work picked it up.  In Great Britain, where the galleries are much more nationalized and under government funding and control, the article describes how rare this kind of pressure is.

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The Minimalist Makes His Exit

THE MINIMALIST – Frosty the Vegetable – NYTimes.com

Mark Bittman, a food writer for the NYT, is stopping his “Minimalist” column.  I found his article about this pretty interesting. I also bookmarked an old article that he wrote about turning to the frozen food section in winter for better tasting vegetables. I think I’m gonna try a bit of that.

Tune in tomorrow for more Jedi Jupiter Jenkins blather.

This recent studio recording I ran across this morning seemed a happy way to start the day. Plus I like the lyrics:

Why would I make that face? oh, why would I?
Why would I test my faith? oh, why would I?
Oh, whoa, I see that rain cloud coming right for me

Why would I say my name? oh why would I?
When I’m so far away? oh why would I?
Oh whoaa I guess I’ve always been a bit of a fighter

Chorus
From now on wear my love for you loose
From now on I am just passing through
From now on just my feeling is true
From now on call me Royal Blue
oooh

Why would I stick around? oh why would I?
Why would I get burned out? oh why would I?
Oh, whoa for me I’m always waiting in shadows
Oh, whoa for me I’m always looking for a way out

Chorus
From now on with the sky as my roof
From now on let the risk lead me, too
From now on somewhere I never knew
From now on call me Royal Blue

guitar solo

Hey .. yeah yeah yeah yeah

Chorus
From now on fly as high as I want
From now on I’ll show my weak spot
From now on in all that I do
From now on call me Royal Blue

From now on wear my love for you loose
From now on I am just passing through
From now on just my feeling is true
From now on call me Royal Blue

I think it’s weird they don’t show the drummer in the video. Is that him back behind that glass wall behind the singer/guitarist?

Last night, I didn’t have it in me to wait up to hear Obama’s State of the Union. First one I’ve missed in a while. I admit that I am very tired of seeing life through the lens of money and trying to factor understanding government through politics.  Mostly I was tired.

I have added 30 minutes of silly wifi fit exercises to my daily regimen. It’s good because it strictly times your exercising and not the time in between, so it’s a solid real 30 minutes of yoga, strength exercises, aerobics and balance games.

Yesterday before class the chair of the dance department mentioned that she wanted to talk to me about doing some composition (!) and also would I be free in May to work with the visiting profs who are doing weekday night sessions for three weeks.

I told her I was probably free but asked her to send me the dates.

She also mentioned that one of the profs wanted music from a specific ballet for her exercises. The ballet was Ramonda by Glazunov.

I found the entire piano version of this ballet online yesterday. It looks like is 150-200 pages long. That’s a lot of printing up and of course I wouldn’t probably need but a few sections.

The score is for sale for fifty dollars online. I’m tempted to purchase it except that I’m not really attracted to the music yet. I will do some listening and research before I buy the score.

But what an honor to be asked to do more work for the ballet department! And what a contrast to the way the music department seems to see me (if they even see me at all).

I’m at peace with that, of course.

I read this review of new recordings yesterday and then purchased Amos Lee’s new CD, “Mission Bell.” At first I thought he sounded a bit like James Taylor. But as I listen to the cuts, I’m still only lukewarm in my attraction, but what the heck.

I wrote the little article for Sunday’s bulletin, I sometimes try to write.

Then after ballet class, ran some errands for my Mom and then stopped at church and picked out the prelude and postlude for Sunday. Playing two settings of the melody,  LIEBSTER JESU. One by Bach for the prelude, (link to Youtube guy playing BWV 731… it’s a bad recording, but it’s a good interpretation) and another very fun rhythmical treatment by Charles Ore for the postlude. We are singing this hymn as the opening so lah da dah and yawn.

More links:

Palestinian Documents Provide Peek at Peace Talks – NYTimes.com

This really interests me. The Middle East seems stuck for sure.

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Raising False Alarms – NYTimes.com

Quote from article:

As the Economic Policy Institute has explained, Social Security “is emphatically not the cause of the federal government’s long-term deficits, since it is prohibited from borrowing and must pay all benefits out of dedicated tax revenues and savings in its trust funds.”

Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t have been clearer about the crucial role of the payroll taxes used to finance Social Security. They gave the beneficiaries a “legal, moral and political right” to collect their benefits, he said. “With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”

What’s a citizen to believe? Rhetoric out of control and lots and lots of bad information flowing past my eyes. Can’t help but wonder just exactly what is true.

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Classical Music in Review – NYTimes.com

All three concerts reviewed sound very interesting to me.

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Republicans Try to Abolish Arts Groups – NYTimes.com

It seems to me that politicians are making small ideological swipes at people they would like their dollars not to go to like Artists and poor people and ignoring the larger amounts of money that flow freely in DC. Just how it seems in my living room in Holyland Michigan.

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More to a Smile Than Lips and Teeth – NYTimes.com

This is a fascinating discussion of recent research about basic human interaction. I especially liked the part where people were unable to distinguish between false and real smiles when they held a pencil in their mouth which prevented them from unconsciously mimicking the face they were look at.

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On Navajo Reservation, Poem Helps Broach Topic of End-of-Life Care – NYTimes.com

Poetry helps the dignified Navajo People bridge the gap between their historical culture and contemporary help for the dying. Lovely story.

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Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798 – Rick Ungar – The Policy Page – Forbes

This is a fun look at how history can fuck you up. I linked it on Facebook. Two people commented. Both organists. Interesting.

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One Small Revolution – NYTimes.com

Did you know the historical Carthage was in Tunisia? Fact filled history of a changing country.

Spent severals hours working on this silly piece yesterday. While I did rewrite bits, I spent most of the time cleaning up the notation.  Inconsistencies in notation drive people like me nuts. Even little things like the fact that pasting and copying from my original caused some accents to look different from others (bold and jazz font vs. not bold and reg font).

I am accepting this small difference but am correcting the placement of many articulations which suddenly get a bit wild if they are copied and pasted. This takes a lot of time.

Time which I had since my luncheon date canceled due to a funeral.

This piece you may recall is one I need to get in the mail this week for a contest. It’s the first contest I can remember entering where there is no money prize only a performance.

I also haven’t submitted any work for consideration for publication or contests for quite a while. I have lost faith in my marketability in general as a songwriter and musician. I know I probably have a small number of people who might be interested in my work either as a composer or even performer.

But on the stodgy west coast of Michigan, I am an anomaly as both.  Or at least the way I do it.

I was chatting with one of the rare local (Grand Rapids) colleagues I have yesterday on the phone, when he said he could understand how locals might see me as something like a fuzzy pajama pants old guy musician.

I replied, “What’s not to like?”

Indeed.

My musical and artistic literacy goes unsuspected by many I am sure. But, “toujours gai, archie, toujouirs gai.”

And of course, My Life is Good!

After ballet class, I walked home to rehearse a Vivaldi concerto with a young viola player for Solo and Ensemble this Saturday.  Also, I received an email confirming ten vocal soloists which have hired me as accompanist through Grand Haven High School.

Originally they offered me $25 per singer.

This presumably included the rehearsal, little pre-festival public concert (a very good idea, btw) and the actual festival itself. I turned them down.

They came back and doubled their offer which I accepted. It made me wonder why they offered me such a small sum in the first place.  Annoying especially because almost all of the musicians in this area (including the teacher negotiating these meager remunerative amounts) are earning much, much more money than me.

But at least I’m learning to accept their crumbs less readily, eh?

My church had its annual meeting Sunday.  We are about 10k short of our projected 400k budget due to inadequate pledging. The financial people asked that people re-pledge at least $2 a week. Eileen and I under-pledge and over-give. This gives me some breathing room with that meager amount of money we make I was talking about.

We discussed it and decided to raise our pledge accordingly.

Very ironic, because the church not only pays me a portion of what I am supposedly worth professionally (due to degrees, experience, expertise, yadda yadda), they have frozen my wages.

Of course an increase to staff wages is part of what the financial people want to do with the missing money.  I’ll be lucky if I break even.

Also the financial person pointed out to community that the church provides no bennies (benefits like insurance) to its part-time people. They said that they are able to do this because the “husbands” of the staff all work. Otherwise they would be compelled to give benefits.

I’m comfortable with being a “wife” of Eileen. I just have the uneasy suspicion that maybe the financial people forgot about me and the other males on the staff.

The guy talking used to be in my choir until one day he  stopped showing up. Since he didn’t speak to me about it I suspect he couldn’t take the fuzzy old guy who is just too different from the people he knows.  Sigh. I guess I’ll never know since he never spoke to me about it.

He is, however, a much better financial guy than singer. I told him (unsolicited) that he was helping the church where he was and that it was probably a wise decision to move from the music ministry to the financial end of things.

I hate church.

I continue to spend time with Schubert at the piano. It helps my mental health, I am sure.

I had a nice moment at church yesterday. The postlude was a hoary old Anglican setting by C. H. Parry of a chorale prelude on the tune, DUNDEE.  Parry, Howells, Vaughan Williams and other English composers hear the organ in a sort of subdued romantic way, lush but restrained, certainly very subtle for American ears in this century.

I play these guys anyway since they are an important part of Anglican history and the organ’s repertoire (in my opinion anyway).

DUNDEE as a melody was first found in the 1615 Scottish psalter, The CL Psalmes of David.

The Hymnal Companion to the Hymnal 1982 says that though this tune was thought to be borrowed or modeled on the French Genevan style, “it is typical of the British metrical psalm-tune style, with its ‘gathering note’ at the beginning and end of each line.”  (The Hymnal 1982 Companion, Volume Three A Hymns 1 to 385, p. 261)

And the tune has a sort of regal beauty to it that Parry captures easily in his organ piece.

As I was performing the postlude, a young man from the parish came and sat near the organ. The only other person near was my wife who usually makes a point of listening to the postlude.  Afterwards, I expected him to come up and talk to me about something. I thought he was waiting for the music to stop to talk to me. Instead he gave me a slight complicit smile and went on his way.

How refreshing for me! It appears that he had just come back and sat by the organ in order to better hear the postlude.

There are many musicians in this congregation. But few of them give music in the church the attention and respect this kid did. What a breath of fresh air!

I was listening to a podcast from the Poetry Foundation this morning. I wanted to hear poet, Ron Silliman, reading excerpts from his poem once again. I guess I had been sort of mulling it over.

It’s an excerpt from a longer poem called “Revelator.” It begins:

Words torn, unseen, unseemly, scene
some far suburb’s mall lot

He writes with five words per line, sometimes even five syllables. I especially like the first line. [link to the whole excerpt]

The commentators in the podcast compare Silliman to Dickinson which got me in the mood to read a bit of her this morning. I could only find my old worn bad edition. Somewhere in this house are the complete poems in a good newer edition.

I ran across this and thought it a good morning poem:

Our share of night to bear —
Our share of morning —
Our blank in bliss to fill
Our blank in scorning —

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way!
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards — Day!

by Emily Dickinson

I spent some time yesterday with Bach English suites and Schubert piano sonatas at the piano before and after church. When I neglect to do this kind of playing, it’s like missing prayer or exercise.

I have lunch schedule with my buddy, Nick Palmer, today. Between now and then I want to work on polishing up “Dead Man’s Pants” to submit for rejection by the Manhattan New Music Project(http://www.mnmp.org/)

Then later I have 2 & 1/2 hours of ballet class accompaniment.  I observe that in my old age (59), it is meaningful to me when people notice and appreciate my music (see the beginning of this entry). This is one of the things I like most about ballet work. The music matters. The movement is primary, but the music not only helps by marking off the movement, it also contributes as an audible reminder of the expression in the movement.

It’s so nice to be listened to when so much music is barely perceived when human ears are in it’s proximity.

Less apparent than wallpaper.

I have a theory that since the advent of recording, listeners are less aware that what they are hearing is the effort of another human since most music in their lives has come from speakers or ear buds.

Of course, it’s just my opinion, heh.

The snow falling in my neighborhood yesterday was very light and fluffy.  And it was accumulating, making a thick layer of snow so light you could practically blow it away, much less shovel it. When you looked up as you walked, there was a sheen of grainy bits of whiteness everywhere.

When you work six days a week (like I am doing now), Saturday begins to feel like a day off. I didn’t get moving until about noon but can’t quite account for what I was doing before that.  I made pretty lousy French toast for Eileen and me for breakfast.

It was probably lousy because I used diet bread and eggbeaters. Some things don’t substitute well, I guess. It was saved by excellent maple syrup (in Eileen’s case) and molasses (in mine).

I also managed to do a bit of work on “Dead Man’s Pants.” I think it is a bit quixotic to even submit my eccentric work to a New York contest.  It’s due in the offices of the Manhattan New Music Project a week from tomorrow. I may have solved the biggest compositional problem adapting it poses yesterday. My original arrangement (and it was sort of an arrangement for the available musicians) was for string trio, two saxes, piano, bass, drums, banjo and vocals. The one I am submitting will be for string quartet, piano and drums.

I had to cut one section. It’s called “Tiny Lies,” and is really just another droopy jupe type fake paul simon song. I of course quite like it. But it didn’t translate well into the required instrumentation for the contest.

I am however still asking all members of the ensemble to sing and play the last few measure of the piece. This is the way I envision the piece no matter what the arrangement. That all the players would suddenly start singing the notes they were playing with conviction:

YOU MUST BE THE ANIMAL WITH THE HUMAN FACE
YOU MUST BE THE ANIMAL WITH THE HUMAN FACE
YOU MUST THE HUMAN WITH THE ANIMAL FACE

I find these lyrics quite satisfying in this context.

I suppose it’s slimly possible that some fancy New Music New York person might like it.

Anyway, it’s a good goal for me. Another little compositional problem.

Quote for today on despair from the wonderful Adrienne Rich:

” [W]e see despair when social arrogance and indifference exist in the same person with the willingness to live at devastating levels of superficiality and self-trivialization.

We see despair in the self-hatred that clogs the lives of so many materially comfortable citizens.

We hear despair in the loss of vitality in our spoken language: “No problem,” we say, “that was a healing experience,” we say, “thank you for sharing that,” we say…

Despair, when not the response to absolute physical and moral defeat, is, like war, the failure of imagination.”

Adrienne Rich, “What would we create,” republished in What is Found There : Notebooks on Poetry and Politics, 1993

I did manage to read through yesterday’s links.  Here’s a couple I have read:

Saracen International Reportedly Has Blackwater Founder’s Support – NYTimes.com

Erik Prince is from the city I live in now, Holland, Michigan. He is part of a local moneyed family. He founded a very odd and dangerous- looking organization of mercenary soldiers formerly known as Blackwater. They are still operating even though Prince I believe has decided to stay out of the USA for the time being. Their new name is Xe Services and they bear keeping an eye on.

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A Night in Tunisia – NYTimes.com

Not sure if I put this link on the blog, but it is a vivid rendering of the frightening life on the ground in Tunisia recently.

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Here’s a few more on my list to read.

Book Review: Books About Alan Lomax – WSJ.com

I have been a fan of Alan Lomax and his dad for years. They both demonstrated an interest in non-academic music and made valuable recordings of all kinds of musics.

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Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools by Joanne Barken

from Dissent.com. Looks interesting.

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How novels came to terms with the internet by Laura Miller

from yesterday’s Guardian.co.uk

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Irony Is Good!

How Mao killed Chinese humor … and how the Internet is slowly bringing it back again.

BY ERIC ABRAHAMSEN

self-explanatory

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and don’t forget

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Books, articles, and a blog by the music critic of The New Yorker

Last night, I settled in & did some tv watching while Eileen treadmilled. I checked on C-Span to find that it was covering an interesting summit of organizations (Coffee Party, Fix Congress First & others). The speaker on the live coverage was another hero of mine, Lawrence Lessig. I was interested in what he would have to say.

Turns out he is now involved with creative solutions to fixing the broken US government.  Very cool. Since this was just yesterday, his speech seems to only be available at the C-Span site.  Here’s the link: Ethics in Politics, Jan 21, 2011.

Let me summarize quickly what he seemed to be saying.

A) the government is broken by the open control moneyed interests seem have on it, this is a new historical kind of open corruption;

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B) the design of democracy is that the main influence on congress be the people of the country (He quotes Federalist 52: “…the federal government which ought to be dependent on the people alone”;

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C) this is a problem for all political interests, left and right;

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D) there have been times in history when the people voted progressively, though admittedly this was between parties (the1912  election of Woodrow Wilson over Teddy Roosevelt, both ran on anti-corruption and between them received 70% of the vote);

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E) there is a way to rechannel the influence of the people back into the system.

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Lessig supports the idea of the “First Fifty Dollars” program. The idea is that the first $50 of each taxpayer’s money paid to the federal government would be allocated as public election money. Each taxpayer would designate which candidate received this money(This would address objections to funding people one disagreed with). Candidates could opt into the fund voluntarily but would then be committed to using only dollars from this fund. This would include but be limited to an additional $100 possible from each taxpayer.

This would raise enough money to make it attractive to candidates.  ($6.1 Billion according to Lessig).

I’m probably not reproducing his ideas 100% accurately, but I would recommend you take time and listen to his entire speech.

I especially liked that he said that the corruption is a problem for those all along the political spectrum at this point.

He chided his liberal audience for not supporting the Tea Party when they had things right (anti-Earmarks, the Independent Office of Ethics in Ohio).

He said both the left and the right are being blocked by the corruption in government right now.  He is looking for principled opposition between competing ideas that is freed from the corrupting influence of money on our government. I can only applaud this.

I was interested to see that one speaker at the summit, Michael Ostrolenk, was referred to as  a respected conservative.

I was even more intrigued by the name of his organization: the Transpartisan Center.

Here he is talking a bit about this stuff: Intro to Transpartisan Thinking. Tried to embed this silly vimeo but it resisted me.

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Anyway, here are a few more links for today:

Test-Taking Cements Knowledge Better Than Studying, Researchers Say – NYTimes.com

This is funny to me, because I have been pointing out for quite a long time that tests are more effective teaching tools than accurate eval tools.

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Republicans Plan Their Own Health Bills – NYTimes.com

I’m glad to see that the right is at least cherry picking the bill they hate.

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Reynolds Price, a Literary Voice of the South, Dies at 77 – NYTimes.com

I like this writer quite a bit.  Sorry to see him go.

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George F. Will – Hubris heading for a fall

Will only points out the public sector half of the problem but that much is true. The private  sector is equally culpable in my opinion… as that terrible man Obama said recently, “how we treat one another is entirely up to us.”

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And here are a couple of links to writers admittedly on the left side of the spectrum (which is probably where I spend more of my time). Haven’t read them yet but have them bookmarked for future reading:

Obama’s Deregulation Dance With Wall Street | The Nation

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How Sargent Shriver Helped John Kennedy Become a Liberal | The Nation

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Yesterday in my beginning ballet class, the teacher asked me if I would step on the floor and partner with a student in an exercise. This is hilarious and fulfills many of my acquaintances’s visualization of me, an old fat guy, in a ballet class. I, of course, did so much to the class’s amused approval.

The exercise was one in which two people kneel facing each other, align their spines, and gently push each other with the top of their heads.

Then the teacher for some reason used me to demonstrate the next exercise where one partner gently places his or her hand on the top of the person’s head while standing and keeps it their as the person slightly bends their knees.  Again this is about alignment.

They spent most of the hour doing all sorts of these kinds of exercises.

They have been doing an exercise which involves in succession 6 steps, turn; 5 steps, turn; 4 steps, turn; 3 steps, turn; 2 steps, turn; turn, turn.  In their first class I was asked to improvise music to fit this rhythmically. Which I did. Then, in each succeeding class, the teacher returned to this exercise. I repeated my improvisation a couple of classes, then changed it, then decided it might make a neat compositional problem to write a melody that would fit this and still be easy for the dancers to hear the changes in.

I was playing through this when the teacher arrived yesterday. She immediately figured out what I was doing and told me it was the first time anyone had written a melody to fit with this exercise.

Of course, since I was prepared, the rule applied and we didn’t get to it in that class. But maybe next time.

Today’s link is to an article written by Bono: What I Learned From Sargent Shriver – NYTimes.com

In case you haven’t noticed Sargent Shriver died. He was instrumental in the making of the Peace Corps and Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty.”

I liked this quote in his obituary:

Break mirrors, Mr. Shriver advised graduating students at Yale in 1994. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘Shatter the glass. In our society that is so self-absorbed, begin to look less at yourself and more at each other. Learn more about the face of your neighbor and less about your own.’

But what caught my eye in Bono’s article was the fact that he quoted Sebastian Temple’s goofy rendition of the lovely Prayer of St. Francis.

Bono mentions Shriver singing this song as a good Catholic. Yikes! I have led congregations in this song many times. It is indeed beloved. I like to think it’s because of the words not because of the inane melody by Sebastian Temple. (I think it’s goofy whether Sinead O’Connor, the choir of Westminster Abbey or Susan Boyle sing it.)

I remember listening to Sebastian Temple’s rendition of it when I first started playing it. He did it in sort of a goofy calypso.

As I read Bono’s description of how Sargent Shriver and his wife mentored him and Shriver’s son as they developed international charity programs,

I couldn’t help but wonder if Sebastian Temple would have gotten a thrill out of Bono mentioning his song.

I woke up early thinking about poetry.  It is in the cracks of life that I find my meaning. This is probably why I like accompanying ballet so much, because it is such a small and delicate thing to provide the musical framework for strenuous careful physical poise and activity.

These cracks contain the poetry of life for me. I recall once again a high school teacher who used to pompously proclaim read poetry not the newspaper, more meaning and reality in the former.

Now I read both. And I realize that many people do neither.

Here’s a poem by Elizabeth Alexander,

the poet who wrote a poem for Obama’s inauguration:

Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we ourselves
(though Sterling Brown said

"Every 'I' is a dramatic 'I'"),
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I'm sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

This morning I listened to a podcast of Alexander reading this poem. link to hokey religious radio show I have lately become enamored of)

Later she says this:

“.. my poet self, she’s all intuition. There’s no program. She’s just, you know, doing as Adrienne Rich says, diving into the wreck.

Her job, again, to quote that great poem from Rich, she says, ‘I want the wreck itself, not the story of the wreck, I want the wreck itself.’ “

Which got me thinking. I think I like “living in the ruins” (reminds me of the title of a great novel by the Southern writer Walker Percy which I quite like)…

I also am all intuition and creative understanding and want the wreck itself.  Here’s a link Rich’s entire poem.  She is someone I have read and admired.

Poetry is my oxygen.  It’s what I find in those cracks I mention above, in the people who are forgotten and even invisible.  I am becoming one of them. Gratefully.

Jupe

There. I thought I would quote myself. Heh. Well enough of this.

I did some composing yesterday, working on tidying up “Dead Man’s Pants” which I may get finished in time to submit to a composition contest.

Wrote a little melody for today’s beginning ballet class that had to be done in the successive time signatures of 6,5,4,3,2,1,1, in order to fit the combination.

Spent an hour in a church committee meeting.

Then a couple hours of ballet-class-accompanying interrupted in the middle by a class discussion of a dance concert I recently attended.

Very interesting to sit silently in the back and listen to what students have to say about other students’ choreography and dancing. I also watched the teacher closely as she led them through the discussion. As dancers, these students are careful observers of the dance.  They admired the performance but could detect incongruities in it and even speculate about the possible intended ideas of the design of the dances.

They of course know the performers and that helps.

I was struck by the diversity of opinion and understanding as well. From one student who objected to the use of street noise as music for a dance until the second half of the piece involved music to another student who said the dance to the noise was one of her favorites on the program (me, too, I thought silently).

The teacher told me later I was welcome to join in the conversation. I told her I was curious to hear what the students and she had to say at this point.

I didn’t say that I am a fourth of the way into a history of dance and am learning quite a bit. Knowing something of the history of music and literature it is interesting to walk through the same time span from a new point of view that weaves in and out of the familiar.

I have thought about dance most of my creative life, beginning with a little song I wrote years ago. I sometimes say to musicians, “Music is gesture. How can you interrupt a gesture in a performance, an action, just because you played one wrong note or rhythm?”

I realize now that I was assuming a lot about movement, most of it justified but not thought through. Now I am thinking about body and movement.  With the body as instrument, the artist approaches a unity and coherence of human beauty that appeals to me at the most inner core.  It’s where I love music and poetry.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I now have my only 8:30 AM ballet class. I like getting up and bundling and walking through the brisk Michigan winter morning to class.Yesterday my little Christian college was one of the few schools that stayed open locally.  The snow was heavy and wet with a last layer of freezing rain.

Later when I was walking to get my car from the shop I noticed a man and two children making a huge snowman. Great weather for that.

Behind the snowman was a very cleverly made igloo consisting uniformly shaped large snow bricks obviously made from packing them into the same box object.

I decided to play a composition by an old classmate of mine for the prelude this Sunday. The composer is Lynn Trapp.

The piece is based on a pop-music-like Spanish ballad sometimes called Fishers of Men.

It reminds me a bit of pop Spanish music tunes like “Guantanmero.”

Not quite as good as that, actually. Anyway,  there seemed to be a coda sign missing from Lynn’s composition. I figured out a solution for this notation glitch, but I thought it would cool to email him and give him a chance to let me know exactly where the coda sign went.

His website was easy enough to find. But oddly there was no email for him. There were phone numbers. But I hesitated to call over such a small little thing. Often my friends from the past are not all that happy to hear from me. Ahem.

It said that Lynn was a director of music at a church. He is a life long church musician so that was not surprising. I tracked down the church and found an email for him on its website. But it bounced back. Ah well. Fuck it.

For Eileen’s supper last night I improvved a white chicken chili after studying other recipes. I combined Eileen’s favorite bean soup recipe with chicken and bacon.

In keeping with being a total doofus, I am proudly posting the recipe.

Chicken White Chili – adapted from another recipe by SBJ, 1/18/2011

1 Can of great white northern beans
2 med potatoes, grated
½ onion, grated
2 C chicken broth from boullion, divided
1 t cumin
juice of half of a lime

1 Chicken breast, fat trimmed and sliced thin
2 T olive oil
1 slice center cut bacon
2 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
1 t chopped jalapeno pepper (opt.)

combine beans, potatoes, onions and 1 C broth. Add cumin and lime juice. Cook until potatoes are soft and mushy. Add 2nd cup of broth as needed.

Slice chicken breast and toss with olive oil. Refrigerate.

When potatoes are about done,  start bacon in cold pan. Cook bacon until done, then remove to drain. Add jalapeno pepper and garlic and cook for 2 or 3 minutes.

Add chicken and more oil as needed. Cook chicken until it begins to carmelize.

Add chicken, jalapeno pepper and garlic  to pot.

Makes about three large servings.

Yesterday’s Links

Barack Obama: Toward a 21st-Century Regulatory System – WSJ.com

I have to admire Obama’s governing style. Reaching out to our weird
angry exploitive business community in the US after they trounced his
ass in the last election. Must be for the good of the country.

On a similar note, I emailed my house representative yesterday, gently
imploring him to consider not voting yes to repeal health care. Ha. This
area of Michigan is so Republican and reactionary it makes my head
spin. Anyway, I tried to be civil and coherent. Couldn’t hurt, I guess.

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Amy Chua Is a Wimp – NYTimes.com by David Brooks

Speaking of conservatives, Brooks writes about the necessity of
socialization to cognitive learning and processing. Good stuff:

“Participating in a well-functioning group is really hard. It requires the ability to trust people outside your kinship circle, read intonations and moods, understand how the psychological pieces each person brings to the room can and cannot fit together.” David Brooks, “Amy Chua is a wimp”

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News Is Power in Washington, and Aides Race to Be Well-Armed – by Ashley Parker NYTimes.com

This is an interesting description of how young ambitious aides get up
very very early and scour the internet for the latest breaking ideas and
news for their bosses.

“There’s no news cycle anymore…” David Perlmutter, the director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa quoted in Ashley Parker’s article above

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And here’s one I haven’t read yet, but plan to:

Boston Review — Stephen Steinberg: Poor Reason (culture of poverty)

Steinberg apparently teaches at Queens College CUNY. His area of
expertise is race and ethnicity in the US. I think the point of this article is to
further refute that some kind of black culture in the US contributes significantly
to poverty. As I said I haven’t read it yet.

I forgot an appointment my Mother had with her shrink yesterday. They called and we managed to rush over for a rescheduled appointment.  I ended up pretty much off balance for the rest of the day.

I had begun the day rewriting a piece I am considering submitting to composition contest. Then I got to thinking about it and recordings sitting on my hard drive of it.

I did some editing of the recording of the live performance.  I trimmed the beginning, turned down the volume in the last minute or so when the entire mix changes (you can still hear it) and snipped out a split second of silence that occurred inexplicably in the middle.

It’s still a humbling experience to listen to a recording of yourself in a live situation, not thinking about being recorded only the music you are trying to make.

It’s tempting to not share such a recording.

But my audience really only consists of my extended family (some of them) and a few local acquaintances and I do know that a few of them have a mild curiosity about this sort of thing, so fut the whuck.  I put it up on Facebook and posted it here.  Click here for the mp3

This morning I am tired and sore. After a long day, I did the wii exercise bit for a half hour then my usual forty minutes on the treadmill.

I certainly don’t feel up to working on my composition this morning. Maybe later today.

Links I have clicked on recently:

Nigeria’s Promise, Africa’s Hope – NYTimes.com

Chinua Achebe the great novelist outlines history
of and hope for Nigeria.

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Darkness on the Edge of the Universe – NYTimes.com

The universe is riding the wave of its own expansion
enabling it to impossibly travel faster than light.
Fascinating explication and sci fi like stuff.

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Polish Apple Pancakes Recipe | Taste of Home Recipes

Yesterday’s breakfast.

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Send Huck Finn to College – NYTimes.com

Lorrie Moore says Huckleberry Finn is too hard
for high schoolers due to its actual complexity.
She also recommends better things they might read.

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Hereville preview — the first 15 pages

The last graphic novel I read.

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Barber Excursions – No. 3 – Piano World Piano & Digital Piano Forums

An interesting discussion of a piece I have been playing.
The third movement is incredibly difficult due to the composer
demanding a seven against eight rhythm.
All for the cowboy tune of “On the Streets of Laredo.”

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GOD’S ACTION IN THE WORLD – John Polkinghorne

Still thinking about this guy. Interesting talk he gave in 1990.

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I’m toying with submitting a revision of a composition I wrote last year to a contest. The contemporary classical music website Sequenza 21 (http://www.sequenza21.com), in partnership with Manhattan New Music Project(http://www.mnmp.org/) is calling for scores for a 2011 concert of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble – ACME (http://acmemusic.org).  (Click here for the info)

The instrumentation is string quartet, piano and percussion.

“Dead Man’s Pants” the piece I wrote last year for my dead father, fits easily into this ensemble.

There is one section I would have to omit, however, which is the banjo song, “Tiny Lies.”  This leaves three other sections which I think would work.  I began goofing around with it this morning.

The last section does have words. My original intention was that all players in the ensemble would play and sing the final text, so this would still work. The text, in case anyone is actually reading this and might be at all  interested is:

“You must be the animal with the human face
You must be the animal with the human face.
You must be the human with the animal face.”

I actually don’t think I have a snowball’s chance in hell that my little provincial score would appeal to a sophisticated New York crowd. But I felt that way about the last score I entered into a contest and it surprisingly placed second. This was some years ago for an American Guild of Snobby Organists contest. The piece was an almost jazzy setting of a psalm text for choir and organ. My feelings that it might not be a learned musician’s cup of tea were later born out when I showed it to the choral conductor at the local Christian college for possible performance with his silly college choir. He thanked me very much and never mentioned it to me again.

But whothehell. The problem is that the deadline is January 31. So that doesn’t give me much time. There wouldn’t be a whole lot of composing. I actually wrote out a percussion part for the original performance but then encouraged the player to improvise his own, so I have a written percussion part. I would have to rescore it for just string quartet instead of string trio and 2 saxes, but that actually would be pretty easy because there are never more than four independent lines in the composition.  The piano part would essentially stay the same.  I would have to compose at least one transition to cover the omission of the “Tiny Lies” section of the original piece:

The original structure was this:

Dead Man’s Pants theme: ms. 1-28
“Small Rain” theme ms. 29-57
“Tiny Lies” song ms. 58-239
“Small Rain” thematic material 240-275
“Dead Man’s Pants thematic material 276-287
“You must be the animal” section 288-320

I know this all pretty abstract without hearing the piece, but it’s what’s floating around in my head this morning. (Here’s an update from later this same day. I broke down and made an mp3 of the horrible recording of the decent performance from Aug of last year.
Click here for the mp3.)

I had fun at church yesterday.

My prelude was “Wondrous Love: Variations on a Shape-note Hymn,” Op. 34, (1959) by Samuel Barber. This piece was a bit of a challenge on such a small instrument, but I was pretty satisfied both with my registration (what pipes I chose to use) and my execution.  The choral anthem was little more than a slight arrangement of a modern hymn tune setting (tune: ST. ANDREW by David Hurd) of the old sawhorse text: “Jesus Calls Us.” I thought it was a pretty decent arrangement because I divided up the choir and had a solo soprano begin the piece, added the rest of the women, Men on the second verse and so on. I composed a descant for the last stanza and the congregation was invited to join in.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the composer would think of what I wrote to go with his tune.  I recently had a bit of an email exchange with him in which I asked for permission to re-register one of his organ compositions so that it would be doable on my small organ. He said he would prefer that I not perform it. So I didn’t.

This left a rather odd taste in my mouth about contacting the dude. So I probably won’t share my descant with him.  I don’t want to find out out that he objected to me doing that as well.

The postlude was the “To Go Out” section of Virgil Thomson’s Church Wedding Organ music. It didn’t go as well as the Barber, but I admit I sometimes “husband my resources” and concentrate on the prelude because sometimes people actually listen to it; the postlude, not so much.

One person did tell me they noticed the title (“To Go Out”) and thought it was cool. I also like the title quite a bit and it was part of why I chose to learn that movement.

The after service choral rehearsal also went well. It was a completely different group of people (as usual). I had two more male singers, plus my new soprano and several absences of other people. I enjoyed the rehearsal quite a bit.

Yesterday afternoon, I “facebooked” a blog post from an author who was experiencing copyright trauma yesterday.

Her name is Saundra Mitchell and here’s a link to her very interesting description of having many readers but no sales.

Interesting ideas on Krista Tippett’s NPR show newly christened “Being’ (formerly called “Speaking of Faith). I admit that I am still somewhat chagrined as I find myself drawn back into religious stuff via the constant renewal of my interest in church music and continuing to stumble across ideas that connect me with spiritual thinking.  But I must conclude that my personality which seems to be one of struggle with understanding and meaning inevitably somehow connects with spirituality and ideas of greater meaning and that’s just who this dude is.

Tippett’s current program is an interview with scientist/theologian John Polkinghorne. I was listening to the podcast this morning when I realized that what he and Tippett were saying about one aspect the nature of evil hit me as completely logical and inevitable.

The idea that there is a dark side to all possible sequences of events. That life is not only clockwork (like the rising of the sun and the orbits of the planets)

but also is clouds (chance and fractals).

And that the  freedom and unfolding of uniqueness inevitably leads to the complete gambit of possibilities which are logical and inherent.

So if tectonic plates behave the way they do, they shaped the form of the continents we have on earth to day but also create tsunamis.

You can’t have one without the other.  If all possible permutations of living cells are possible (and needed) for evolution, there will be some cells that run amok as cancers as well as cells that evolve into sentient beings.

I’m not being as eloquent as the learned Dr. Polkinghorn. You might want to listen for yourself. Link to “Being” show called “Quarks and Creation.”

It is along these same lines that I was mildly astonished to find myself reading in the 1929 collection of journal entries of a young minster in Detroit named Reinhold Niebuhr called Leaves from the Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic.

It’s an old paperback which has been sitting around my life for years, I’ve always meant to read.  I get these hungers for poetry and meaning sometimes just like I get hungers to read books that have information about history and people (like Apollo’s Angels).  Last night I just happened to pick up Niebuhr’s book.

I am interested because he seems to have been a healthy influence on religious thought. He also filled the pulpit in a downtown church in Detroit from 1915 to 1928.  I spent some time myself in downtown Detroit in 80s  attending Wayne State U. I also worked in downtown church (First Pres) for about a year during this period.

Here is the first sentence (on page 13) that leapt off the page at me:

We are a world-conscious generation, and we have the means at our disposal to see and to analyze the brutalities which characterize men’s larger social relationships and to note the dehumanizing effects of a civilization which unites men mechanically and isolates them spiritually.

The words, presumably written in the original 1929 edition, could have been written last week as we seek to understand our violent nature as humans and the impact of an increasingly present technology in so many aspects of our lives in the first world.

Speaking of this tech, yesterday I spent a half hour or so in front of the Wii. Eileen borrowed a fitness Wii CD rom and physical platform.

The program told me how much I weighed, asked me to set a goal for getting my weight out of the obese range, taught me some yoga poses all involving a bio feed back on balance (since I was standing on the platform), walked me through several games which involved co-ordination and body balance.  Pretty cool.  When we get money again (right now we are temporarily cash poor) we will buy this dang thing.

Eileen and I went to a dance concert last night.  The group calls itself “[Undefined] Movers.”

They seem to be made up of college age students, probably all from the local church oriented college, Hope College, where I now work part time.

Here’s a quote I found on their website:

“We mourn for the scarce appreciation for art in this country. We mourn for those who never got the chance to dream like we are dreaming. But through and within and between the mourning…we move.”

From the program for last night:

“The members of [undefined] movers. decided that they had creative dreams inside that needed to be voiced. Most college students who have felt this pull waited until after graduation to begin their journey, but we could find no reason for waiting. After careful thought, conversations, and planning, we decided to embark on this rare opportunity and take a step outside of what an average college student does. This company offers a chance to give back to the communities that have supported us so extensively. Our vision is to combine various art forms in order to create performance art that enriches the community and develops mature and innovative minds. We are looking to blaze our own trail and set off on a journey where few have ventured. We couldn’t pass up an opportunity such as this when we hold such passion in our souls.”

The program consisted of seven pieces. All included dance, three used live music (jazz quartet, an unaccompanied duet of women singers, and tenor saxophone), one used sculpture, one used recorded street sounds (my favorite), one used a loop of Robert Frost reading his famous poem, “The Road Not Taken.” Two used pre-recording music: a song by Zero 7 and a piano piece by Ludivico Einaudi. I liked the Zero 7 song which was very upbeat and provided music for a playful quartet of dancers. The Einaudi seemed very new age to my old ears. I know that this kind of music has a lot of meaning for people, but it kind of bores me.  Here’s a link to a youtube recording of his work. I don’t think that’s it’s the actual piece, but the pianist (Jeremy Limb) is the same.

The music was well executed. The duet sang a song by the group Saving Jane. I heard someone behind me murmur that it was their favorite song or that they just love that song or something to that effect.

The dancers’ movements seemed graceful and well executed to me.  I will be interested if I overhear any discussion or critique of their work. I know last night’s concert was an assignment for one of my Ballet classes to attend and analyze. That’s how I found out about it.

I made a quick pizza (using cheapo grocery store premade dough) for Eileen and me last night. We watched a couple of old Jon Stewart’s and then went to the concert. We had planned to drive to GR to meet with some friends but begged off due to the weather (which of course wasn’t quite as bad as predicted, but still it’s wise to be safe). But we still decided to go over to 8th street and attend the free dance concert.

It looks like I’m developing a morning routine to listen to the Writer’s Almanac first thing.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday.  Good quote from the Writer’s Almanac website:

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” M. L. King, Jr.

I was thinking yesterday about my own conscientious objection to the conscription of the Vietnam war.  I distinctly remember that phase of my life. I was interviewed by the local draft board. I had written a letter explaining that even though I felt I was too young to have to make the discernment, that as best as I could understand it, I morally objected to war in all its incarnations.

Interestingly the draft board did little more than try to provoke me to respond to them with anger. I didn’t. I got my C.O. (as we called the conscientious objector classification). I still morally object to war, but know that it can be complicated. Cynically I wonder if the fact that my father was a minister had anything to do with being granted the status.

Today is also the tenth anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia.

There is an interesting prose piece on the Writer’s Almanac about this.  They don’t provide a permanent URL but here’s the link to their site. If you are accessing this after Jan 15, 2011, you might have to click through their archives to find it.

I remember when Wikipedia began gaining some online credibility. I resisted the concept until I realized that my experience with all reference books indicated that they were riddled with errors. Sure enough, in the article on today’s site, they say this:

[One]” ..  major criticism is that Wikipedia is inaccurate, which would make sense since there are no credentials required for writers. However, a study published in Nature compared the accuracy of Wikipedia to the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica, and was surprised to find that the accuracy was comparable — on average, about three errors per Britannica item and about four errors per Wikipedia item.” The Writer’s Almanac Website

There is a fun story about someone who tried to see if he could seed Wikipedia with a fake quote from a composer who had just died in 2009. Of course, he found his quote in some humorous places, including the prestigious Guardian U.K. newspaper. The latter was one of the few sources that printed a retraction when the perpetrator let it be known what he had done.

The quote stands as a good synopsis of Harold Reingold’s “Crap Detector” approach to the Internet:

“The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn’t use information they find there if it can’t be traced back to a reliable primary source.”

Editor of the Guardian newspaper on finding it had used a badly attributed quote from the Internet.

I accompanied a different teacher yesterday at Ballet class. It was the Ballet III class and the first meeting of it for the semester. The teacher and I had never worked together before but I found it easy to understand what he needed from the music and improvised accordingly.

Before the class I had been flirting with the mild depression that I sometime get. After the class during which I stayed creatively alerted for about an hour and half, I deflated into deeper melancholy which really didn’t lift until after experiencing the dance concert in the evening.

Not sure what that means, if it means anything at all.  It was similar to what sometimes happens to me on Sunday afternoons after church. I think it has something to do with the creative process and the energy I put in to it.

Here’s a post script: Today is also the date that Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time premiered in 1941 with POW Olivier Messiaen at the piano. From Composer’s Datebook web site…. another good one for Jupe.

I’ve been pretty lucky the last few days to run across a lot of new music.

The people I follow on Facebook often embed a video. I usually at least listen to the video. If I like it or am interested in it, I download the video and then rip an mp3 of the music.

For example, an young acquaintance of mine put up this video.

I’ve never heard of the band American Football, but according to Wikipedia they are an Indie group active around the end of last century.  I was drawn to the sound of changing meters in this song.

A few days earlier, my niece tagged me in a message recommending the band, Black Prairie. I found this on youtube.

I have long been a listener to KCRW and was happy to find that they posted videos of live in studio bands. And I liked Black Prairie quite a bit.

I checked out some other KCRW videos on Youtube and found this:

Which I quite like. I found a couple of other bands I liked but soon discovered that a lot of the music in the KCRW videos did not attract me. But what the heck.

I also found several trax on Utne’s monthly music sampler. This selection only stays up for a month. But while it’s up, you can download mp3s of music they recommend.

From the January selection, I pulled down these.

“Electricity Turns Them On” by Wires.Under.Tension

“Wrong Piano” by Cowboy Junkies

“Joyride” by Dave Holland and Pepe Habichuela

These links are temporary.  And they are not all I downloaded, just the ones I find that I like.  I saw Dave Holland playing with Christ Potter and others last year. Very impressive.

Here’s a couple that my nephew put up on Facebook.

New music for your eyes and ears. Life is good.

I have now served as piano accompanist for all three of my classes this semester: Beginning Ballet, Ballet II, & Pointe Class.  This morning I have an 8:30 AM Beginning Ballet class. Tomorrow my Ballet II class is canceled but interestingly I have been asked to accompany one of the other teachers’ class. They didn’t tell me what class it is. But I immediately agreed.  I enjoy this work and am learning a great deal. Much of what I am learning is applicable to music and living in general.

Also, I continue to read Apollo’s Angels.

I had a brief conversation with one of the ballet teachers about this book. She said it was on a poster in the hall and that she was planning to read it. I fumbled about saying that the author had some interesting takes on ballet that I questioned. She said, “Like Ballet is dead.”  I nodded. Her take was that what the author was defining as ballet was very narrow and traditional. She also said we now have no Ballanchine which she said was the musical equivalent of having no Schoenberg.

I responded that I wasn’t looking for a Schoenberg, that I thought art was fragmenting, decentralizing, in an interesting way. She gave me an odd look when I said I liked new music.

When I mentioned the recent NYT articles on Nutcracker Ballets presented this past Xmas, she didn’t seem too enthusiastic. A period piece, she called it, even though I said the point of the article was the many varied interesting takes different dance troupes had taken on it. I didn’t go on to say what I was thinking,  that it was good evidence that Ballet wasn’t dead. Out of my depth.

I continue dipping into Zuckerman’s Wisdom. This morning I read part of Alan Arkin’s section.

I found his ideas about collaboration interesting and filed them away for thought:

Collaboration doesn’t work when you hang on to your vision as if it’s what God is waiting to hear and learn from. But a good collaboration is when you’re willing to sacrifice and throw your own view out for something that’s more exciting or more interesting.

A young musician once told me of his disappointment in his fellow musicians when they weren’t flexible enough to experiment musically in public spontaneously or follow each other when someone started changing something.

Collaboration is something I tell myself I am interested in. But I’m not ready to throw all of vision away, just take risks. As I said I will be thinking of Arkin’s comments.

Another thing he said, I found interesting:

We’re brought up in a culture that tells us, ‘You are what you do.’ When people say, ‘Tell me about yourself,’ we immediately talk about career, as if that is a complete and perfect definition of who and what we are. In many parts of the East this is not the case. Someone will say, ‘Tell us about yourself. Are you a painter?’ And the response will be, ‘No, I paint, but I am not a painter.’ There’s a recognition of the separation between who the person is and the activity they’re performing. They are a person and they are just doing something. That was a big lesson for me, recognizing that I am something other than, and maybe more important than, what I do. To learn not to define myself by what I do for a living and that my work is an outgrowth of who I am, rather than it being the reason for who I am.

I have thought about this as well. When I make music,  I find it helpful to try to just “be” in the music, not think, but just “be.” And I have thought often about what it means to “be” as opposed to “do” or even think in words.

This morning, I checked on the daily Writer’s Almanac on NPR even though I am subscribed to the podcast.  (Did you know today was Horatio Alger, Jr.’s birthday and that he resigned in disgrace as a minister after having been accused of having sexual relations with some young boys in his congregation?).

At the bottom of the page was a list of other websites from American Public Media. One caught my attention. It was called “Being.” I clicked on it and found to my chagrin that the old NPR religious show “Speaking of Faith” had changed its name to “On Being.” I keep getting sucked back in to religion. Yikes!

I have performed most of Samuel Barber’s variations on Wondrous Love for organ before.  But it occurs to me that repeating excellent music is not a bad idea. Also I didn’t learn the last variation last time I did this at church. So I have scheduled this one for Sunday.

We are singing “What Wondrous Love is This” as the second communion hymn Sunday. We are also singing David Hurd’s lovely little melody called St. Andrews as a choral anthem.  The words are “Jesus Calls Us; O’er the Tulmult.”

I was pleasantly surprised when several members of the choir seemed to know this lovely obscure little tune.  I am asking the congregation to turn to the hymn in the hymnal and listen to the first four stanzas and join us on the last. I told the choir I would probably write a descant for the last stanza. I am thinking of doing this this morning.

I am also learning an interesting little organ piece by another American composer, Virgil Thomson, for the postlude. It is the second of two movements in  “Church Organ Wedding Music” by him. Written in 1940 and revised in 1978, the first movement is called “To Come In” and the second “To Go Out.” I am learning “To Go Out.”  I figure that this music is rarely heard and I do like it.

I have just started subscribing to a bunch of podcasts online, including The Writer’s Almanac.  I love hearing who was born today ( David Mitchell,  Jack London both of whom I have read) and what else happened on this date (Anniversary of Haiti earthquake). And then a poem.

For years I used to read Poetry Magazine.  In 2003, it received a huge Lilly grant (200 million buckaroos) and is now free online with free podcasts and readings of poems. Cool beans.

I emailed this poem to my brother the priest this morning.

Have You Eaten of the Tree?

BY PAUL HOOVER

And the fourth river is the Euphrates

The first day was a long day
and the first night nearly eternal.
No thing existed, and only One was present
to perceive what wasn’t there.
No meaning as we know it;
difference was bound in the All.
On the first day, water,
on the second day, land,
on the third day, two kinds of light,
one of them night.
On the fourth day, laughter,
and darkness saw it was good.
But when God laughed,
a crack ran through creation.
On the fourth night, sorrow,
staring away from heaven,
torn in its ownness.
No evidence then of nothing,
but worlds upon worlds,
underwritten, overflowing:
the worlds of fear and of longing,
lacking in belief,
and the pitiful world of love,
forever granting its own wishes.
Out of dust, like golems,
God created man and woman,
and cast them into chance.
And man was subdued in those days.
All that could leap, leapt;
all that could weep, wept.
First of all places, Eden;
last of all places, Cleveland;
and a river flowed out of Eden,
inspiring in the dry land
a panic of growth and harvest season.
The newly formed creation
took from flesh its beast
and from each word its sentence.
And early loves and hatreds blew
from thistle to thorn.
Each thing that God created,
he placed before man
so that he may name it:
cloudbank, hawk’s eye, lambkin,
and for each thing that man made,
God provided the name:
andiron, Nietzsche, corporation.
All speak of pain
subtle in its clamor,
as when the child, dying,
sinks into its skin
as under public snow.
Heartrending, each termination;
God-shaken, each beginning.
At the dawn of smoke,
pungent as creation,
the long chaos rises over these trees.
For we opened our eyes in Eden,
with the taste of fruit on our lips.

(Genesis)

I like many lines in this poem. “All that could leap, leapt; and all that could weep, wept.” And then, “First of all places, Eden; Last of all places, Cleveland.” But the ending is very good. Another day in Paradise for sure … heh.

So Google Chrome Browser has a feature which will sync your bookmarks from one computer to another.

Unfortunately I have developed two sets of bookmarks for my two computers. Yesterday I spent hours trying to set up the bookmarks on my desktop browser so that I could sync them to my netbook. I felt like my brains were leaking out after about three hours.

I guess it was a good way to spend some time off.

I hit a glitch with the super secret Hope college web site for accessing their wireless on campus.

I couldn’t get the web site url to work properly in a copied bookmark. Sigh. It was right about at this time I decided that maybe I wouldn’t sync the two computers.

I also gave in and downloaded Juice, a free software that will subscribe to podcasts. I have resisted this so far.  Itunes is dominant in this area and I do not do Itunes. Every once in a while I will attempt to install it but fail.  So I used Juice to subscribe to several podcasts (This American Life, On the Media and several other NPR podcasts).

The New York Times seems to only allow Itunes as a subscription service to its podcasts.

It’s just as well since the NYT podcast page is bewilderingly disorganized presenting a list of podcasts that are organized not by date (!), but by some other mystifying way.

I just figured it out! I thought I would go over to the NYT podcast page and try to understand that organization so I could bitch about it.  It’s organized alphabetically, not by time, in this order:  Backstory, Bookreview, Front Page, Music Popcast, NYT Tech Talk, Science Times, The Caucus, The Ethicist, Times Talk, Weekend Business.  These are all idiosyncratic NYT’s podcast titles. Note the alphabetizing of titles under “The.”  Sigh. Some of these podcasts change weekly, some “occasionally.” I think this is haphazard and have mentioned it in emails to the NYT.

It amazes me that the old grey lady (the New York Times) is so backward in its tech.

If you click on a share on Facebook button on one of their articles, it pops you into a request to access all of your Facebook info and permission to email you about stuff. I don’t do this. I simple copy the url of the article when I share it.

The idea of “syncing” has never appealed that much to me.

Windows Media 11 is obnoxious about how it wants to sync stuff with my MP3 player. It only syncs playlists. Very helpful (sarcasm). And my MP3 player has no other way to make a playlist expect by downloading the entire list from Windows Media. No way to organize files into a play list on the player.

These methods of thinking designed into these tech things seem cumbersome to me, designed for ease of use by users who don’t quite get what they are doing.

I suppose this is just my age showing.

Thinking of MP3s and Podcasts as files.

Anyway, I have given up in both cases and do things the way they are designed.

But I still haven’t installed Itunes. Heh.