at 11 AM, I noticed my boss driving away from church yesterday as I arrived to prep for our 11:30 meeting. I went upstairs and opened my computer and saw that she had just emailed me. She asked me (or anyone else on staff) to do her a favor and pick up a couple hundred dollars of itune cards for a person dieing of cancer. I emailed her back that I could do it.

I noticed that the janitor also emailed that he could do it, so I emailed him that I was on my way to taking care of it. I had the cards in my hands at Walgreens when I noticed a new message from our financial admin person. She informed both me and the janitor that the email was a phish attempt.

I almost fell for it. Everything was very authentic about Jen’s name and email except for a couple of details. Jennifer was spelled with one “n” and the dot in her email address was missing. Sheesh.

I woke up this morning and realized there were several more people I wanted to know that I was interring my parents ashes on Monday so I emailed them. Everyone responded with condolences and a few are planning to join us.

I rehearsed with my piano trio this morning. We played some Faure and Beethoven. It was fun as usual. I am thinking of learning a new organ piece by Calvin Hampton. I am trying to do a bit of coasting these days, but I found a very cool variation on the closing hymn tune a week from this Sunday (Old 100th). I may chicken out, but in the meantime I have already spent an hour or two with this piece.

Enjoying having the crew visit!

Elizabeth made me coffee this morning. Cool.

Elizabeth, Jeremy, and Alex arrived safely last night. I was already in bed. The trip from Chicago seemed to be complicated by traffic and other delays. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a nasty heat wave here in Holland, so sleeping was not comfortable last night in our unairconditioned house. It’s ironic because Eileen is working on getting central air installed. This probably won’t happen until after our company has left.

I see that yesterday I had a record 49 hits on this blog according to my Google analytics.

Garrison Keillor seems to be back in business.

Here’s a link to his website.

Thanks to my brother for pointing this out to me. Before Keillor’s fall from grace I used to use his Daily Writer’s Almanac to time my 5 minute time out before taking my blood pressure in the morning. His lawyers must have obtained some of the rights to his work and the Writers Almanac name. So far he seems only to have done a Writer’s Almanac for May 28 and 29, nothing for today yet but maybe he will do it later in the day now. I admit I haven’t listened to them yet. One of the things I liked about the little program was the daily listing of the people and works commemorated on the day. I’ll have to check it out.

I tried to interlibrary loan A. K. Blakemore’s first book of poetry, Humbert Summer. At first it seemed to work but this morning I got an email saying the request had been canceled. When I searched I could find the book in an Ann Arbor library but no way to request it. So I purchased a used copy of the book via Amazon. I’m not sure how I will react to Blakemore’s work but I do like the poem, “The Flower is Forever My Captain,” cited yesterday.

I have been thinking about Mendelssohn’s organ works. I own a nice multi volume edition that gives all kinds of information about the music he wrote for organ including many pieces he never published. I seem to be missing one volume of this series which is odd.

I finished playing all the way through Bach’s Clavierübung III on Monday. Still working on Scheidt’s Tabulatura Nova. 

Doctor Fuentes, my doctor

I just got back from seeing my doctor. Essentially she said that I was correct in assuming my tendon had not ruptured. Eileen noticed that my legs were different size and it concerned her. I mentioned this to the doctor, of course. But she said I should keep doing what I have been doing and contact her if it didn’t continue to improve.

Plus my blood pressure was even lower at the doctor’s office than it was this morning when i took it.

The Chinese branch of the Jenkins fam is just landing in Chicago as I write this. They are planning to rent a car and drive to Holland this afternoon.  It wouldn’t be crazy if they decided to hole up in a hotel instead somewhere along the way. If they start texting us we will let them know how hot it is in Holland.

And it is hot.

I grabbed twenty minutes on the organ before lunch. After my doctor’s appointment I stopped at New Holland Brewery and bought beer for the incoming Jenkins fam. Elizabeth and Jeremy like beer and I thought it would be only civil to have some cold ones waiting for them in our new fridge.

I stopped off at the library to be pick up an interlibrary loaned book then  off to the new bakery for some salads, more cheese and bread.

I think Eileen is relieved to have had the doctor check my foot over. That alone is worth doing it.

I’m thinking I might not go back to church and practice some more. It’s so hot. Although the church is running the air conditioning for some reason so it’s cool in there. But I’m sitting with my foot elevated working on this blog thinking that I’m basically waiting for martini time.

Martinis hit the spot when it’s hot.

I’m really look forward to people visiting. When Jeremy, Elizabeth and Alex get here, it will be the first time we have all been together at the same time. I only wish my quasi-son-in-law Matthew (Sarah’s boy) could be here as well.

And when the rest of the Jenkins gather it will be a once in a lifetime gathering I’m sure.

Life is good.

Why are Dutch-Americans so different from the Dutch? – Culture and assimilation

I have thought about this before. It’s nice to read a decent piece of journalism about it.

Eileen noticed a few days ago that my entire right lower leg seems to be larger than my left. Sheesh. I’m hoping it’s just trauma from my injury and not some awful thing I have done to my leg. Yesterday was quite a bit of activity for my hurt foot. Lots of hymn playing at church and then back in the afternoon for more rehearsal. I happen to be up to playing through Bach’s big Clavierubung setting of Aus tiefer Not.

This employs double pedal parts in sections.

This  means that both feet have a note to play which of course makes it a bit more vigorous exercise for my maimed foot.

I performed this piece back in 1999.

This means that I did it on the electric organ at the local Roman Catholic church I worked at then. I must have done it out of sheer stubbornness since playing two pedal notes simultaneously on an electric organ produces a very unsatisfactory effect in my opinion.

If you think about contrasting two low sound waves produced out of the same speaker to two separate pipes making a sound you can understand how it doesn’t work so good on the speaks and is much clearer with two separate physical sources.

I did notice my maimed foot registered some objection to being used so much yesterday. I came home and elevated it. That was when Eileen shared that she was worried about it. It may be I will have to have the doctor look at it, although it’s hard to imagine what she might recommend other than (R)est (I)ce (C)ompress and (E)levation. I have it elevated right now.

This morning while laying in the dark and looking at my tablet I noticed I had a message from Godwin Sadoh.

Sadoh is a Nigerian born composer whose settings of Nigerian folk tunes I have performed.

I recently reached out to him on Facebook and sent him a friend request. He accepted and this morning messaged me that he had somehow seen online that I had performed some of his music. Not sure how he discovered this (googled himself? if so Hello Godwin Sadoh!).

I told him which of his pieces I had performed and thanked him for making the Nigerian music available in his arrangements. He seemed quited pleased.

He was educated at LSU. I think I somehow learned about his work and purchased it online. I have since noticed that Craig Cramer was offering used copies of Sadoh settings but they were gone by the time I asked to purchase them.

The flower is forever my captain by A. K. Blakemore | Poetry Magazine

I’m almost done with the May issue of Poetry magazine. The above poem impressed me enough that I ordered a book of poetry by Blakemore.

Lucy and Sarah were up at 5 AM with me this morning. Lucy seemed completely at home. She went right to her toy box yesterday after they arrived. Eileen and I went to church this morning. We drove again (usually we walk). My foot is mending but wasn’t sure if a half mile walk before playing a service was a smart idea.

Good crowd at church. Lots of participation. Believe it or not, I like the hymns from today especially “I bind myself” (St. Patrick’s Breastplate) and All Glory Be to the O God (Allein Gott).

Sarah and Lucy are in the air flying from England to the USA. The people who are helping us move the old fridge out of the house were scheduled to arrive at 9 AM. Unfortunately, this meant moving the old pie safe about three feet to the left so that the fridge could clear the door. I got up early as usual but after ablutions (and making coffee) instead of Greek I started shifting the kitchen around. Eileen got up earlier than usual and joined in. We were ready by 7:50 AM and decided that there was no way we could have breakfast in the kitchen after stacking the contents of the pie safe everywhere so we drove over to the new bakery and purchased some breakfast sandwiches. Of course, I couldn’t resist purchasing some local cheese and two loaves of bread. We skipped the farmers market today since we have our hands full getting ready for the arrival of Sarah and Lucy.

I did get a chance to do some Greek while we awaited the arrival of Jon the go to guy who was going to move the fridge. I have been organizing my thinking about the many verb tenses I have been learning. Doing this ends up naturally including participle forms of the verb even though these are adjective. Step one was to list them off.  I simply went through my text up to the page I am on and counted 18 different tenses. The reason there are so many is that there are three past tenses and two kinds of verb in each case: active form and middle form.

If this doesn’t make any sense I apologize. It was revealing to me, however, why I wanted to organize my thinking since there is quite a bit to organize. This doesn’t include the important irregular forms of these verbs in certain cases. Ay caramba.

I treadmilled yesterday for the first time since hurting my foot. I went slower but did do a full 45 minutes. My foot ended up swelling after I came home. I put my foot up for the rest of the evening and skipped organ practice yesterday altogether.

While Jon and Ken (the two guys moving the fridge) were working on doing so I went to church and prepped for tomorrow. This included practicing organ as well as posting hymns. Eileen is still bustling around preparing for our company. We go to the airport in a few hours. I’m going to sign off at this point and help Eileen.

I started my morning listening to a Charlie Parker recording on Spotify as I showered.

This is a record I have had since I was a boy living in Tennessee. Oddly enough I was thinking of how Parker reminds me of Samuel Scheidt.

Both men were geniuses of the the trailblazing type. No one had ever played saxophone licks the way Parker did. His musical ideas were original and jumped out of his horn full cloth and ready to take your ears someplace new.

Harald Vogel writes of Scheidt’s 3 Volume Tabulatura Nova “Parts I and II present virtuosic masterworks, each of which is uniquely conceived; there are in fact no duplications in the various approaches to form.”

Also Vogel says that Scheidt’s volume was the “most important collection of keyboard works to be published in Germany before the eighteenth century” and was “one of the most extensive publications in the history of keyboard music.”

I have been playing my way through Scheidt’s magnum opus. Yesterday I arrived at page 68 and began playing the above piece. It was really the first piece that grabbed me at all. The dude above is only playing half of the variations Scheidt provides.

Today is the first episode in the new season of Majority 54 podcasts. I admire the goals of this podcast: “Jason Kander is an army veteran from Kansas City, Missouri and the first millennial elected to statewide office in the United States. He’s traveling the country to help the 54% of us who didn’t vote for Donald Trump talk to those of us who did about the most divisive issues in our country. ”

Dehumanizing other people is something I have been thinking about. Yesterday I read this sentence in Sally Kohn’s book on The Opposite of Hate: “Dehumanization isn’t a way of talking. It’s a way of thinking—a way of thinking that, sadly, comes all too easily to us.”

I was reading Kohn’s book on my tablet in the dark before getting up. Later after my morning ablutions and cleaning the kitchen, I turned to David Livingstone Smith’s Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others and ran across the source of the quote (Kohn had mentioned it, but I hadn’t remembered that it was Smith who said it).

A couple more quotes from yesterday morning from Kohn.

“[T]he question is how we as people and as societies help make habits out of independent thinking—how we can use the spaces in which we come together, from schools to churches to nations, to simultaneously understand how we’re all connected to each other and at the same time learning how to think independently.”

Thinking is what is needed to manage to abandon the limitations of our built implicit and explicit biases according to Kohn and the researchers she quotes.

Finally for today a lovely quote from Dostoyevsky from Kohn’s book.

“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is harder than to understand him.”

A google search reveals this is from The Possessed.

Yesterday morning I was in the mood to listen to Charles Ives, this morning it was Stevie Wonder. I do love the interwebs which makes this sort of flitting around so easy.

We took a bunch of stuff to Bibles for Mexico yesterday clearing a  lot of the porch. Eileen has been systematically putting sorting out stuff we don’t need. She is on a rampage and it is a good one.

Yesterday when she saw how stressed I was in trying to get stuff done Eileen gave me the afternoon off and folded my clothes for me. That helped. I spent a couple of hours at the organ. I keep thinking about what my therapist said about times of reprieve from my daily regimen of practicing. Craig Cramer said in his recent interview that he had asked his children to get up at his funeral and say that he never worked a day in his life. I have similar feelings. When Eileen asked me what I needed to do to relieve some stress yesterday, I said I needed to go to church and play the organ. This is so true. I turn to my music and it keeps me going. It’s been that way for much of my life. It doesn’t feel like work.

I finished the Rwandan chapter of Sally Kohn’s book on the opposite of Hate this morning. She went to Rwanda and interviewed people. When she combines her personal interviews with her own reading it’s quite powerful.

She points out that that humans inclination to conform to social norms is powerful even when the working norm is hate. This is true of Hutus in Rwanda and lunch celebrations in America. When looking at the terrible photographs of smiling white people and disfigured, hanging dead black people it’s hard not to recoil.

There is some hope in what Kohn writes. She quotes Hannah Arendt about Eichmann: “[He] has a curious, quite authentic inability to think.” So the examined life is more than worth living, it can help one to live humanely.

Challenging our own norms is difficult. More from Kohn: “Arendt argued that it’s an individual’s responsibility to challenge social norms and, when need be, defy them. She called such independent-mindness ‘thinking without a banister.’ But more often than not, Arendt argued, we cling to norms in the way we grip a banister on a treacherous flight of stairs.”

Kohn develops this metaphor throughout the chapter on genocide. She is fascinated that a small portion of people resisted the madness of the killing in Rwanda. She calls them “rescuers.” She points out that despite our inclination to think that we would resist in a situation of hateful norms, the pull of group norms is very strong and tends to win. But she does ask “What would make it likely, in those moments, for more of us to demonstrate such nonconformist courage?” “There is no simple answer,” she continues, “but one clue could be in what genocide scholar Erwin Staub has found—that many rescuers are themselves on the margins of society.”

This is an insight I have run across before: that people who are on the margins of our society have important lessons to teach us. Kohn demonstrates this by citing psychological studies that find a difference in the way people’s brains work. Unfortunately, when the outsider resists, she still experiences strong emotional stress and upset.

This was helpful to me. I wonder why I care about the fact that I clearly am a musical anomaly in my passions and actions. I know in my heart that I am doing what makes life worth living to me. And while I try to stay open to stuff that doesn’t attract me I can easily identify in myself the joy that so many kinds of music bring me. But why does it bother me when I know that I’m so singular among so many of the people I actually run into? Maybe it’s outsider emotional stress.

I have more, but this seems long enough for today.

So we got a new refrigerator. We picked it out last week and on Monday morning around 8:30 Best Buy called to say it would arrive between 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM. Thus we began a bit of a marathon as we prepared for its arrival and then after that continued organizing and cleaning.

We now have two refrigerators in our kitchen. The City of Holland had promised Eileen that it would pick up our old refrigerator (and a couple of window air conditioners) and give us some money for them. But when Eileen called to arrange for it, there were problems. I’m not sure exactly what the deal is, but Eileen learned that the City of Holland would not pick up any refrigerator whose doors were not securely on the appliance. In order to move our refrigerator the doors must be removed. The people who pick up the appliances would apparently not help us with this. I think they expected us to do this ourselves or get someone besides them to do this. I’m still hoping this is incorrect. Eileen emailed complaint letters to our contact from the city for this project. Eileen and I will continue working on it today. I told Eileen we should make it clear we are an elderly couple (hey it’s true) and it’s unrealistic to have a fucking program that requires us to do this.

(Post script on this: After publishing this post this morning, I received a forwarded email from Eileen in which Ken Freestone, the city rep, said he, himself, would come and help us old people with this. This is good news.)

In the meantime, we have been drastically reducing the stuff in our kitchen to things we really want and need. The refrigerator is much more energy efficient than our old one. This is why Eileen replaced it. But it also has less capacity. Plus we want to get rid of our small freezer in the basement. Again to reduce our carbon footprint.

Eileen was so distraught last night that I suggested we get out of the house and go look at stuff like glass containers to organize some of our food stuff, new measuring cups and spoons (the old ones are crappy and do not make up a complete set), a cool refrigerator note pad, and other stuff. This we did. This morning I spent time continuing to organize and also washed up some of the glass containers we bought for stuff like flour and rice.

Due to all of this, we have been wearing ourselves out sorting and cleaning and rearranging. This is particularly silly since we have impending visits from most of the Jenkins family which will peak in a short prayer service to inter my parent’s ashes and a post prayer brunch on Monday, June 4 at 10 AM. It will be great to see everyone, but we also have to get ready to host and house them.

Fortunately my foot is doing much better. I’m not back to treadmilling yet but every day my foot feels stronger.

I finished reading The Fire This Time this morning. This is a moving book of essays by a bunch of people. Yesterday I went on Twitter and followed as many of them as I can. They are young, brilliant, and articulate. It is both encouraging and saddening to read their essays since they are outline so well the insanity and evil of America.

Could black people in the U.S. qualify as refugees? – The Washington Post

In the last essay in the book, “Message to My Daughters, the author, Edwidge Danticat, quotes the above 2015 essay. It was easy to find. Bookmarked to read.

The Evil of Banality: On The Life and Death Importance of Thinking – Kindle edition by Elizabeth Minnich. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

I use the word, “evil,” carefully above. I continue to read Sally Kohn’s book on The Opposite of Hate. The chapter I’m working on is about Rwandan genocide (and other genocides) and just how they work. Kohn not only cites Hannah Arendt whose work on the ‘banality of evil” I have read much of, she introduced me to Elizabeth Minnich who apparently studied with Arendt.

It’s interesting to me that I keep finding books that help me think about the present fucked up moment.  Minnich goes on the list of books to read.

Masha Gessen Explains Horror, Humor and Hope for the Future

Another indispensable podcast from the New York Public Library. Gessen’s new book also sounds like one I will have to read. She is someone I have been following since Trump was elected.

So you know your life is pretty good if you make a Spotify playlist of music related to the music you performed the day before at church just for the sheer fun of listening to the music. If you happen to click on this play list there is extra related music on it and I accidentally put the wrong choral music on it.

So my burnout is ebbing. I feel good this morning. I do love my work, but I think I need to do some serious regeneration. However, if you checked out Craig Cramer’s interview yesterday, you will see that I share an attitude with him. He says he has never worked a day in his life. I often feel like I don’t have a job exactly. I think Craig and I share both a deep love of what we do and a surface simple enjoyment of doing it (most of the time).

Lucky me.

Music list from yesterday

(I posted this on the Episcopal Church Musicians closed Facebook page and publicly this morning because I am so proud of it.)

Prelude:  No. 1 & 2 (Little Fanfare and Concertino) from OP. 1/8I by Hugo Distler (1908-1942)

Opening Hymn: H 516 Come down, O love divine
Down Ampny, descant and varied hymn acc on verse 3 by Bruce Neswick
Canticle 13 S 236 setting by John rutter

Psalm 104:25-35, 37, Benedic, anima mea
double chant setting by Bryan Hesford, choir on first 2, all on rest
Sequence: H 508 Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Offertory: Come, Holy Ghost, Creator Blest by Hugo Distler
tune: Komm, heilger Geist, o Schöpfer du
setting from Der Jahrkreis, Op. 5

Sanctus L 255 setting by Grayson Warren Brown
from Mass for a Soulful People
Fraction Anthem: The disciples knew the Lord Jesus S 167
Music: Mode 6 melody; adapt. Mason Martens (1933-1991)
Communion: W 832 Veni Sancte Spiritus setting by Jacques Berthier
V 56 God flowing light by Mary Louis Bringle
Closing Hymn: L 129 There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place By Doris Akers
Descant cribbed from Akers’ recording, parts added for choir
Postlude: No. 6 (Little Toccata) from OP. 1/8I by Hugo Distler

Anyone who has played in a good musical ensemble knows something about group mind.

Siegel outlines a lot of thinking about the possibility of defining and locating the notion of mind. What is the mind? Siegel ends up describing at least four facets of it:

Subjectivity
Consciousness
Information processing
Self organization

He also says mind emerges from energy and information flow.

While acknowledging the possibility he is completely wrong, he suggests that there is mind within our separate bodies but at the same time mind between us.

Like I said, it’s not a big leap for ensemble musicians.

It also reminds me of Friedman’s ideas about family as system and broadening the notion of understanding family system beyond a collection of individuals into a living organization that is more than the sum of its parts, namely the family.

Finally, I returned to Sally Kohn’s book on hate this morning.

In trying to understand white supremacy (and not incidentally terrorist groups) Kohn talks about how people are drawn to hate groups not by the hate but by the human need to belong and be accepted. The hate comes later after the bonding.

a lot of people who join extremist hate groups don’t even really hate the maligned out-group so much as they crave approval from the in-group they’ve embraced. The hate comes later.

Sally Kohn

This need to belong also pulls us as humans toward some of our better angels like empathy, compassion, and kindness.

while the desire for belonging may be part of what draws people into hate groups, that innate pull toward empathy turns out to be a powerful antidote to extreme hate.

Sally Kohn

Of course, Kohn is interviewing Arno Michaelis a reformed American Nazi. She is looking for hope in a world of hate. It’s interesting to think that it’s not the hate that is innate is us as humans but the need for each other.

Catholic Church Music, & Organs at the U of ND by Craig Cramer

Craig BCCed a link to this  article. Bookmarked to read.

I had a good meeting with Dr. Birky, my therapist, yesterday. We talked about my burnout. I mentioned here yesterday it may be that I’m navel gazing my way into thinking I’m more burned than I am. I do need some time for regeneration. But that might not be the same thing as burn out. Focusing too much on one idea can end up being unhelpful when it’s not accurate.

Birky provided two instances for me to think about. His daughter works with horses. He said that when she is teaching them she works with them for an hour or so a day for a week or two. Then she literally stops and puts them out to pasture.

He also mentioned the fact that professional athletes deliberately cease training for some time every year.

We were discussing my practicing regimen which is daily and sometimes looks to me to be a bit compulsive. Since then I have realized that whenever I make my annual visit to the California branch of the family I don’t practice organ. Neither do I do so when we do our annual visit to the Hatch cabin in Grayling. So there are times in my year when I am sort of out to pasture.

A phrase in Siegel’s book, Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, jumped out at me this morning: ” [our] narrative process can reinforce itself, as the story shared by us becomes the story within us which then sculpts the story we live ourselves into.” (emphasis added)

I sometimes think that it’s easy for me to rehearse negativity if I’m not paying attentioin. This rehearsal whether it be of past bad behavior or fear of future screw ups can contribute to the likelihood I will act in a way I don’t want to.

I would rather “scuplt” my story to reflect and act on my love of Eileen and my family and live myself into a life of making beauty in music and other ways.

At the restaurant last night, our waiter brought a cell phone to our table. He apologized for not contacting us when it was left there. It was my lost phone. Looking back at old posts I can see that I realized I didn’t have the phone after we had eaten at this restaurant. I had assumed I had lost it earlier in the day and didn’t think to check at the restaurant.

I’m still grappling with burn out. I was wondering this morning if burn out qualifies as rigidity or chaos. You may recall those two banks on the river of integration in Siegel’s metaphor. I’m thinking rigidity. At any rate, I am bothered by the navel gazing aspect of worrying about burn out. Too much focus on self. Tricky to get out of of. I meet with my therapist this morning. I’m sure we’ll discuss this.

Afternoon Addendum

Now it’s after lunch and I have had my appointment with Birdy, practiced and then had lunch with Eileen (followed by the ritual boggle game).

I do find myself in a better space after chatting with my therapist.

I need to ponder our conversation.

Eileen is waiting for the furnace people to arrive and give her an estimate on how much it will cost to replace our furnace.

My Scheidt arrived today. They are beautiful books and I look forward to exploring them. In the meantime I have been working on reading carefully through Bach’s  BWV 682 based on the German chorale, Vater unser im Himmelreich.

Peter Williams calls this “Perhaps the most complex of all [Bach’s] organ chorales, both for composer and performer.” I have some questions about how to realize some of the dotted notes. Today I forgot my excellent Leupold edition and when I got to church pulled out my old Barenreiter edition. I noticed that the editors place some of the sixteenth notes over the third note of a triplet, seeming to suggest a little Frenchified playing (inegale). I love being able to pull the original version published in Bach’s lifetime off the web.

I haven’t checked out the measures in question yet (I left my Barenreiter score at work). But I did notice something about the published version. This composition is really an elaborate trio sonata with the chorale melody in long notes in the upper voice in the right hand and in the lower voice in the left hand. The scribe for this version made these notes very large which actually makes it a bit easier to see what is going on when you are playing. Check out the red arrows below.

I have added to my echo chamber sources of news and analysis.

Two podcasts: Pod Save America

And Pod Save the World

They are unabashedly left wing and staffed with former Obama aids and NSA people. Recommended.

Burn out continues. I feel like I’m living in a hermitage. It’s not a bad place to be, under the radar. I think my trio is going to rehearse today. At any rate, I plan to be there at our usual time and if no one shows I’ll practice organ.

A Goddess Reimagined

I listened to this New York Public Library podcast recently. Emily Wilson, one of the two participants, is a hero of mine. I am delving deeper into Homer, both her translation and Pope’s. I also have the Greek text and have referred back and forth a couple of times.

Madeline Miller is the other participant in this pod cast. She seems very interesting. Maybe I should read some of her books as well.

Why Traditional TV Is in Trouble – The New York Times

Eileen and I haven’t had a TV for a while. We watch online.

Leaving Herland | The Point Magazine

Have I mentioned The Point magazine here? My brother, Mark, turned me on to it. Good stuff.

Eileen is pretty stressed out. She is working on renovating the house and also purchasing a new fridge and furnace. This morning she came downstairs trying to figure out how to work with our contractor to fix our leak. After breakfast we went to the farmers market then to Best Buy to look at fridges. Right now she is out mowing the lawn.

I am still stressed myself. I have been trying to relax. It helped to chat with my granddaughter Alex recently. She sang a song for me and I played some piano for her. All good. In addition, for relaxation and study I am playing my way through several works: Clavierubung III by Bach, Fiori Musicali by Frescobaldi, and Goldberg Variations by Bach as well.

I am anticipating my three volumes of Scheidt’s Tabulatura Nova will arrive this Saturday. (Thank you to Peter Kurdziel for recommending this edition) I would like to jump into it when it arrives. In the meantime I realized that I hadn’t really played any of the Fiori Musicali performers edition. I am charmed by the music but am not sure I can use it at church.

I am about half way through a first reading of Frescobaldi’s Fiori Musicali.

Bach owned a copy of this work.

Peter Williams points out that Bach published his Clavierubung III about a hundred years after Frescobaldi published his Fiori Musicali.

There are similarities in these two works. Frescobaldi’s music is to be used in the Mass. Bach’s Clavierubung uses the German Chorale Mass tunes of Luther.

We’re not sure how Bach used much of his organ music. Williams speculates that the Clavierbung represents a sort of idealized organ recital that Bach might have given say when he was testing out the many organs he was paid to evaluate. It begins with an amazing Prelude in Eb which is paired with an ending Fugue.  I am about halfway through playing this volume.

The Rebel Harpsichordists | The New Yorker

Then I noticed Alex Ross wrote about two new version of the Goldberg Variations. I didn’t read his article but sat down and started playing them at the piano. As of this morning  I have played through the aria and twenty four variations on the piano.

Also in the last few weeks I have fallen in love with a Fantasia by William Byrd.

I have been playing through it at the Pasi. It sounds very cool. I’m seriously considering scheduling it for a week from Sunday. I would play half of this lengthy charming piece for the prelude and the other half for the postlude.

Immersing myself in this music does seem to help my morale. I am feeling very disconnected. But this beautiful music draws me in and heals me a bit.

I think I’m still burned out. Church went fine. But yesterday afternoon I found myself yelling at my brother-in-law in at the annual Hatch gathering for Mothers Day. It doesn’t matter quite how it went down. But I was very unhappy with myself for reacting to him.  Just before we left, I apologized to him.

The frustrating thing is that I came home and googled one of his outrageous claims, the one that had upset me the most, and discovered that he had been accurate in saying that more college students die annually than people in the military. I had been sharing my fears for family members (including bloody Hatches) who were serving in the military.

My fear stems from realizing that although the military can be a way for people to get jobs and education, it is in the end a trade off in which the trade can cost their lives if not ruin them if and when we go to war.

My fears come from a life of objecting to war and watching friends go to war, some of whom were killed.

So Walt, (the brother in law I yelled at), is a retired army recruiter. It’s obvious why he would have that sort of argument up his sleeve. But Dave, Eileen’s brother, actually served in Vietnam. He was, of course, quiet.

On the ride home, Eileen said she was glad I spoke up to Walt. I do think he was upsetting other people in the room besides me with some of his outrageous comments. I am still unhappy that I wasn’t able to keep my cool at a dang family gathering.

It’s interesting to me that I responded to Walt with historical comments. That war kills people and lots of them. Look at the American Civil War. But he is right. More students die annually than armed service personnel at least in 2016. This is even more amazing when you consider how many more people are in the military than in college. But you can google it for yourself.

For my part, I’m glad that I apologized to him. He’s just a goof ball, not really malicious. I also hope that I can keep my resolve to not do this again. Next time, lordy, let me keep my fucking mouth shut.

I am grateful to have a few days off. I’m afraid the burnout continues, but I am beginning to be a bit more rested. It has been a week since I injured my foot. I think it is improving. I hope it is, anyway. I wrapped it this morning. It is a bit swollen and inflamed looking. The bandage helps.

We went to the movies last night and then after a nice meal at a vegetarian restaurant came home and watched TV. This morning I listened to a report on the radio about Charlie Puth, a pop star with perfect pitch who records his ideas and sometimes his music on his phone. I have never heard of him or his mega hits. Popular culture is moving away from me. The movie we saw was typical of many movies I see: more like a ride in a carnival than a story. Thankfully the fancy seats in the theater allowed me to elevate my foot. I woke up this morning mentally thirsty for my Greek studies and my morning reading.

I continue reading in The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race. 

The first essay I read this morning, “Where do we go from here?” by Isabel Wilkerson, contained the following disturbing sentences:

“We seem to be in a continuing feedback loop of repeating a past that our country has yet to address. Our history is one of spectacular achievement (as in black senators of the Reconstruction era of the advances that culminated in the election of Barack Obama) followed by a violent backlash that threatens to erase the gains and then a long, slow climb to the next mountain, where the cycle begins again.”

“The last reversal of black advancement was so crushing that historians called it the Nadir. It followed the leaps African Americans made after enslavement, during the cracked window of opportunity known as Reconstruction….”

“It is as if we have reentered the past and are living in a second Nadir. It seems the rate of police killing now surpasses the rate of lynchings during the worst decades of the Jim Crow era. There was a lynching every four days in the early decades of the twentieth century. It’s been estimated that an African American is now killed by police every two to three days.”

I wrote these passages down in my journal this morning. I just copied the last two sentences into a Facebook post. We in the USA are living in a terrible new era with the worst vestiges of our past revealing themselves as never having gone away.

I also read the essay, ” ‘The Dear Pledges of Our Love’: A Defense of Phillis Wheatley’s Husband” by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Phillis Wheatley, an eighteenth century poet, was the first African American poet. After Anne Bradstreet, she is the second American woman poet. This essay outlines some intriguing misconceptions about her and her husband. The title of her essay was taken from Wheatley’s “To a Clergyman on the Death of his Lady.”

While checking her out online I ran across Jupiter (!) Hammon.

Wow. He was a slave born in Huntington, NY.

Here’s his picture.

Phillis Wheatley was born in Western Africa. Brought to the US as a slave and was purchased by the Wheatey family and given her name derived from the name of the ship that brought her here.

Known for her genius and erudition (fluent in Greek and Latin by the age of fourteen), she maintained a connection to her young life in Africa befriending another person also torn from their home there, Obour Tanner. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers points out if you look closely at the above engraving you can see the nose ring she is wearing and speculates she brought it with her as a child from over the sea.

NYTimes: How the Supreme Court Grasps Religion

Greenhouse points out the disturbing inconsistency in likely rulings in upcoming cases. The conservative (Trumpian?) majority on the court sees the Masterpiece Cake shop case as an unwarranted infringement on the religious convictions of a baker if he is demanded to serve a cake up for a gay wedding. However, ruling against Hawaii in Hawaii vs. Trump is no infringement at all on millions of Muslim people in the world who will be (are already?) forbidden to enter our country.

I guess I needed time off. My BP has dropped the last two mornings. I haven’t been skipping my martini while visiting my brother. I have been lazing around reading, practicing piano and guitar, and doing my daily morning Greek.

Also I drove into Chelsea yesterday and practiced organ at one of the local churches which allows me to do so. Still I tired easily and only rehearsed music for this Sunday. Afterwards I stopped at a grocery store and picked up some stuff including an ace bandage for my foot.

The bandage seems to have been a good idea. Eileen promptly wrapped up my ankle. It feels much more comfortable with the bandage on. Today I will wear it all day as well including when I go practice organ.

I read a fascinating article in Mark’s copy of the current New York Review of Books, “The Pleasures of Translation,” by Emily Wilson. I have read a book by her on Socrates and have started reading her translation of The Odyssey. She is reviewing Mark Polizzotti’s Sympathy for the the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto.

The silly article is behind a firewall online which makes me a little crazy. I had never realized how important the concept of having works in translation is to being an educated human being. No one can know all the languages of all the great human works. Thus translations are important to students, teachers, and common readers like me.

Being an academic translator, Emily Wilson admires and astutely critiques Polizzotti’s non academic approach to his subject. His freedom from the restrictions of the campus mentality was inspiring enough to me that I ordered a copy of his book, along with Kevin Young’s new book of poetry. They should be waiting for me when I get home on Saturday.

NYTimes: Michigan’s Discriminatory Work Requirements

Racism at work right here in my state.

NYTimes: Trump’s Most Foolish Decision Yet

Susan Rice’s expert critique of the decision to abandon the Iranian agreement.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Kanye West in the Age of Donald Trump – The Atlantic

The West/Trump alliance has drifted vaguely past my awareness. I like that Coates talks music here as well as his clear dismemberment of West.

I skipped my martini, wine, and snacks last night. And of course my blood pressure is up this morning. Sigh. Eileen was off to a weaver’s guild meeting last night. Before she left I told her I was going to have my evening martini. I did this so it wouldn’t feel like I was sneaking drinks while she was gone. However, I decided to skip the martini in her absence.

Yesterday was a very busy day as we prepared to leave town today. Eileen got so stressed thinking about hosting family in upcoming visits, that I suggested to her that we would only take this week off and remain in town next week despite having canceled the midweek choir rehearsal. This seemed to calm her down a bit.

I think my ankle might possible be bruised. This morning it’s swollen in a slightly different way and inflamed. Great.  No pain. Just a tightening of the tendon. I am chicken to push it too much. I would like it to heal.

I picked up my interlibrary loaned copy of The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race edited by Jesmyn Ward. I’m on page 58 of 215 and am finding the writing inspiring and excellent.

James Baldwin looms over this collection as one might expect. In the first essay, “The Weight,” Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah writes about visiting Baldwin’s dilapidated home in Paris long after he was dead. Baldwin was about the same age as her grandfather. I expect all of the writers in this anthology are close to that age. Baldwin has had an influence on my life as well, reading his novels as a kid. And then his essays as an adult.

Although I have always essentially lived in a sort of white people cocoon, the African American influence on me has been strong. I think this has to do mostly with music. Also, when I was in my mid teens I discovered that the denomination of my parents (Church of God) was about half African American, yet there were no integrated congregations. This added weight to my already growing disenchantment (rejection) of the Christ heritage.

It probably added to my interest in understanding and noticing the influence of black people on  my life. As I began to understand all kinds of differenthistory, I had one revelation after another thinking about it. It was a revelation to me to understand that harmony was an intellectual invention of Western Civ beginning in the Medieval Era when musicians began to consciously combine tones. This made comical the rock and rollers I knew with their bashed out chords and claims of purity and authenticity. There would be no “Louie, Louie” or Led Zeppelin if some dusty old Medieval monks hadn’t started tinkering around with two note chords.

Similarly I have spent the rest of my life understanding how the terrible fact of brutal American slavery of Africans was intertwined with so much of the music I love. Not just rock and roll, but the many faces of Jazz, and Blues.

My interest in folk rock groups of the sixties (and Bartok it must be said) led me directly to my love of folk music of all peoples.

This is especially significant being alive at this time in the USA. It is difficult to consider how American racism has come into the light like the ugly creature it is and is driving our country right now. I have never had much affinity for main stream American political parties. Now I feel more estranged than ever. This will not stop me from voting in a local election this morning before heading out to my brother’s home in Unadilla for some serious vacating.

At the same time, music and poetry and literature (and well written essays like the ones in Jesmyn Ward’s fine anthology mentioned above and Granta magazine) make my life especially rich and rewarding.

Often since I read so widely each day, I will find a thought rattling around in my head and not remember exactly which poem, essay, or article it is from.

This morning I figured out that Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah’s essay on Baldwin closed with a quote by him that I couldn’t stop pondering. Here it is.

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the face of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we return.” James Baldwin, quoted in the above mentioned anthology, p. 31,(a simple google search reveals it’s from his book The Fire Next Time.)

My choir did such a fine job yesterday it inspired me to consider canceling the final two rehearsals of this choral season. Our anthem next Sunday is a three part piece which the choir has picked up well. The following Sunday a three part Distler setting is scheduled. By calling a post service rehearsal next Sunday I can go over this little motet once more before performing it on Pentecost, May 20.

I emailed my boss and asked permission to do this. At the same time I emailed my brother and his wife telling them I intended to take them up on their generous offer to use their home as a hermitage this week. Jen quickly responded that she thought it was a good idea. She also added I should relax and put my foot up. She is an experienced athlete and understands the kind of injury I have sustained in my foot.

At this writing, it looks good for several days away from Holland something I sorely need.

I went over last night and rehearsed upcoming organ music. I have scheduled stuff that needs rehearsing. This means contacting the church that allows me to practice in Chelsea near my brother’s house.

My organ music went well yesterday. I was especially proud of the way I registered the Magnificat by Ned Rorem. Rorem’s organ music leaves a great deal to the imagination of the performer, not specifying more than dynamics. In the Magnificat, he has two themes, a dance-like one in 6/8 and a chorale in 4/4. It didn’t take too much imagination to register them with distinct sounds. At the end of the piece, he combines the two themes elegantly. So it’s logical to play them on two different manuals. This all came off very well yesterday.

And once again I need to say the choir performed very well. We sang a piece called JLM (Jesus Loves Me) by Bradley Phillips. It is a sensitive and unusual recasting of the words of the children’s hymn. The choir and I both like it.

I also admire his online bio provided on the St. James Press website where his music is available.

“A native Texan, Bradley Phillips studied oboe and organ at Baylor University (BM) and Florida State University (MM).  He composes for both commercial and sacred spaces.  His passion for world music, non-traditional instrumental combinations, and innovative liturgical treatments are his hallmark, in and about his home of Atlanta, GA. Churches he serves quickly become acclimatized to hearing a Celtic harp imbedded in the congregation during the psalm reading, or the soft ostinato of an African mbira  played by an acolyte during communion, or a crew of tuned-PVC players pounding-out  rhythm for the closing hymn. Brad is also a registered piano technician and serves colleges, churches, and professional venues around Atlanta.”

I am feeling unusually optimistic this morning and it’s not only about getting some time away. Yesterday on Facebook someone posted a link to the programs for the upcoming General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the closed group Episcopal Church Musicians. The ensuing comments were copious.  You can look for yourself at the link below, but the liturgies and the music are a bit on the bland side and do not reflect the wide variety of prayer in the Episcopal church.

Besides the usual snobby comments, there were many thoughtful criticisms of the line up. All in all, I am surprised when it dawns on me that there are other Episcopalian communities led by the likes of Bradley Phillips and some of the commenters on the Facebook page who would recognize what we are doing at Grace.

Worship — General Convention

This is the page with all of the programs for the upcoming General Convention of the Episcopal church on it. Note the lack of copyright notification and organ and choral music.

In Place – The North Wall, Oxford

My daughter, Sarah, messaged me this link. There is a nice video synopsis of some interesting and beautiful music on it. Thank you, Sarah.