My daughter, Elizabeth,and grand daughter, Alex, flew away yesterday. They took a plane. The above helicopter was in the play area at the airport. They arrived safely  in New York and were united with Jeremy. I admire this group for their resilience in travel. It was fun to have Elizabeth and Alex here. Sad to see them go. Glad to see them reunited with Dad.

Eileen is at an “Alto Breakfast.” I got up this morning and stripped the bed in the guest bedroom and started some of my own laundry. I was just stepping out of the shower when Eileen came downstairs. We went to the Farmers Market and bought some tomatoes for her to can later.

I did dishes and made coffee.  I’m blogging now after doing a little Greek.

Yesterday was my shrink appointment with Dr. Birky. Once again I could feel a mental relaxation after our conversation. We took Elizabeth and Alex over to see my Mom. Then back and grabbed something to eat. We took a back road over to US 131 to avoid construction which is periodically shutting down US 6. We were there with plenty of time and hung around with Elizabeth and Alex until they went through security.

I love having my adult children and their significant others around. I wish we lived closer but it’s not to be.

The Thursday visit with my niece, Emily, her husband Jeremy, my nephew, Ben, and his husband Tony, was a delight.

I do like these people quite a bit and enjoy being with them.

I like the abaove pic. I was experimenting with a timer on my phone cam. Despite how far away we are I think it looks like an old fashioned family pic.

I don’t think I was the only one to have a good time.

Alex Jenkins Daum continues to amaze me with her inquisitiveness, intelligence,  energy and imagination. I think she enjoyed the visit as well.

I’m up early. No one else seems to be awake. I have cleaned the kitchen. Then over coffee I read a few poems from my recently interlibrary loaned copy of Lars Gustafsson’s The Stillness of the World before Bach. This book has been sitting and waiting for me to check it out.

I read several poems and then I ordered myself a copy of this book, used from Amazon. The poems are translated from Swedish I believe. Nice stuff. I can’t find any of the poems I read this morning online in English. So I can’t share the actual poems without typing them in.

Yesterday was a long day for me. We began with a family trip to the Farmers Market. Then we went in search of a birthday cake for Alex. We came home and I sat down to do some work. Eileen, Elizabeth, and Alex later walked up to the Dollar Store and also the Toy Store looking for stuff for the birthday including a baby doll for Alex.

Eileen’s Mom gave Alex a heavy snow globe that fascinated Alex. It is an unfortunate choice for people traveling. Elizabeth was not involved in the decision. We have been hiding the globe in hopes that Alex will forget it. Otherwise I did offer to ship it to them. I wonder what it would be like to go through security with a big piece of metal like that (the base is metal).

Then in the afternoon, I went to church to work and give a piano lesson.  My student continues to not practice. I don’t think it occurs to him how this reflects on his respect both of piano and his teacher. He doesn’t blink at paying me to basically help him practice once a week. I continue to do the lesson because I am quite fond of him. Sick stuff, right?

At least it’s disheartening.

Speaking of disheartening, while we were celebrating Alex’s soon to come third birthday with cake and pizza, I noticed I had received an email from my boss. I think she and her life partner are back in town, but she is wisely staying away from the office (to the best of my knowledge).

Earlier in the day I had submitted a confusing choir recruitment announcement. In her emailed response, Jen pointed out that I had put the wrong date in the announcement for the “Kick off Sunday” which was to be the choir’s first Sunday. She also made some editorial changes in the announcement, something I encourage her to do.

I remained confused. But here’s what I think happened. Yesterday when I went to write the announcement I looked on the church’s calendar to confirm the date of “Kick off Sunday” this year. It was wrong but I didn’t realize it. After I received Jen’s email I figured that I had previously informed my choir by email of the start dates incorrectly. I then decided that I would go with what I told my choir in the email. But I didn’t double check this. I simply shot an email off to Jen and the office with what I thought were correction to the original confused announcement.

With me so far? It’s helpful to remember I’m sitting in my living room trying to enjoy the rare presence of my daughter, Elizabeth, and grand daughter, Alex. Okay, okay. I was also half way through my evening martini when I tried to deal with this.

Last night around midnight I woke up and realized that the only thing mistaken had been the botched announcement I made up yesterday and the church calendar (I admitted that I probably put the Kick Off Sunday incorrectly on the calendar myself earlier in the summer but I did change it during the birthday party to reflect Jen’s correction). However, I HAD originally informed the choir correctly.

So in bed, in the dark, in the middle of the night, I emailed everyone with this tasty morsel of failure combined with a final correction for the choir recruitment announcement to go in this weekend’s bulletin.

I will be sure and stop by the office today and see if any of this makes sense to Mary, the administrator who does the bulletin.

Sheesh. Maybe it’s time for Jupe to be put out to pasture.

This is a pic that Sarah captured while Alex and Lucy were skyping.

I had fun taking pictures  of instruments yesterday. I am sprinkling the pics throughout this blog.

Alex is understandably becoming homesick. Last night she was unhappy and needed many hugs and much attention from Elizabeth.  Elizabeth said they slept well. But when Jeremy called obviously missing Alex and Elizabeth, Alex began to sob and say (heartbreakingly), “I want to go back home” over and over.

Elizabeth was the picture of patience and began reading a book to Alex.  It’s a lot to ask of a brilliant little three year old not to mention Elizabeth and Jeremy.

As I write this, Eileen, Elizabeth, and Alex are on their way to a visit with Eileen’s Mom. Alex is still fragile. But she did calm down some enough so that when she and Elizabeth found music in one of her books she brought it to me to play at the piano. I am skipping the Whitehall trip in hopes that I can get some work done.

As I mentioned yesterday while they were at the beach watching the eclipse (successfully I might add not the least due to Eileen’s eclipse box she improvised), while they were there I walked to church and took a ton of pictures to email Sarah to do a poster for the September Grace Notes 2017 recital, practice organ and email these pics to her.

I like my pics and I have many more but I am sparing you. Sarah wisely ignored all of them and made this poster. I quite like it.

Eileen, Elizabeth and Alex went down to the beach to watch (not watch) the eclipse. I spent the morning doing a lot of stuff with Alex.

The pic above is from Sunday I think. But it’s still representative. And of course Eileen gets her time in as well.

The next pic is from today.  I sang and played for Alex. Elizabeth had a little time to shower and do what she wanted. Eileen went grocery shopping during this time.

We “skyped” with Lucy and Sarah.

Then we took ice cream to my Mom.

I’m at church practicing. I took pics for Sarah to use in the next Grace Notes 2017 poster, but they are taking forever to go through my email.

Time to get back to practicing.

Elizabeth and Alex are sitting in my living room. Alex is quietly looking at a book. Elizabeth has ear buds in and is plugged into a phone meeting. Their plane came in last night. I skipped going to the airport and Eileen picked them up. I haven’t had a chance to chat with Elizabeth yet. Alex is sleepy but friendly. I got a hug.

Next Sunday (a week from today) I have scheduled organ music by Sharon J. Willis.

I am learning the first and third movement of her “Agora Sacred Suite for Organ: a Celebration of Church Music.” The movements are loosely based on spirituals and the hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation, “Aurelia.” In the introduction to her suite, Dr. Willis says “these pieces are not arrangements but short works that represent the spirit and symbolism of each tune. In turn these melodic fragments and quotations become source material for thematic development.”

I quite like the way she does this. Her ideas are fresh and show an easy familiarity not only with the African American spiritual but rock and movie music. It works. I will have to seek out more music by her. Apparently she is the founder of Americolor Opera Alliance and has written many operas. I do like the way she writes.

The following week we close our Eucharist with the hymn, “O day of peace that dimly shines.” In the Hymnal 1982, this Carl Daw text is set to Charles Hubert Parry’s famous tune called “Jerusalem.”

I have decided it’s going to be stuffy Anglican Sunday and scheduled a postlude by William Mathias (called fittingly enough “Postlude”).  I have paired this postlude with a short piece by Parry but wasn’t satisfied with it. Then I found a love little chorale prelude called “Jesu Dulcis Memoria.” Four pages and quite beautiful.

Parry subtitles it “Jesu, the very thought of thee.” I wanted to make sure it would not be an inappropriate reference to use this prelude based on this hymn so I looked in the Hymnal 1982. The text is there but set to a different tune. There is a melody in the hymnal by this name but it is a different melody.

I looked through reference books and Hymns Ancient and Modern  and The English Hymnal and could find Parry’s melody paired with the name “Jesu dulcis memoria.” But the melody in the Hymnal 1982 appears to be not exactly a Gregorian chant but a later French tune. Googling didn’t resolve this, but I plan to play the Parry anyway. It’s not a melody that would ring a bell in parishioners minds but it is beautiful.

Elizabeth took her conference call into the kitchen. Now I’m reading books to Alex. Gotta go.

I will share pics  here from yesterday’s road trip that I didn’t put up on Fakebook.

These three panels of the famous photos of Ai Weiwei dropping an ancient urn were a revisiting on his part. He decided to make panels out of Legos.

You can see the legos more clearly in this close up.

I took pictures of all three panels.

The original pics were to make a comment on how China threw away it’s own heritage at one time under Mao. I quite like the pixilated texture in the lego version.

I didn’t realize that Ai Weiwei had done so much work with porcelain. The detail and beauty of these flowers were amazing.

These “bones” are actually made of porcelain.

Like so much of Ai Weiwei’s work they refer to the tragic death of so many children in the huge mudslide this year.

The wooden cases were also made by Weiwei and his shop. They are done in traditional Chinese manner with no nails, very little glue and mostly just fittings. They were beautiful.

This porcelain dish caught my eye.

I’m not sure, but I think the flower motif refers to Weiwei’s quiet protest about having his passport taken away. Every day he put a different floral arrangement in the basket of a bike in front of his house. He photographed these and made incredible wallpaper of them. This wallpaper was part of the exhibit.

I was staring at the portrait below of Oka Doner when a docent approached me and began explaining her commission.

The entire floor is a commissioned piece of art Doner made containing over 1600 unique organic designs. I bought a book about it. Here’s a video if you’re curious. I think the work is beautiful myself.

Beneath The Leafy Crown (Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park) from Dog & Pony Communications on Vimeo.

I haven’t watched this video but plan to do so later with Eileen. (Martini time?)

We ended our visit by searching the grounds for the permanent Ai Weiwei installation,  “Iron Tree.”

This pic with Eileen gives you a sense of how big it is.

After this we drove to Trader Joe’s and did some shopping. Then home to Meijer in Holland to pick up some stuff we couldn’t get at Trader Joe’s (baby food for the dang cat, for example).then while Eileen put groceries away, I visited my Mom and then dragged myself to church for some organ practice. It was a great day.

I’m doing it different this morning: blogging between cleaning the kitchen and doing Greek. I’m hoping that Eileen and I will drive off to Grand Rapids today to see the Ai Weiwei exhibit before it closes Saturday. I like his work and want to see some of it in person.  All the pics in today’s blog are from that exhibit.

Yesterday I managed to choose anthems for November. I’m trying to chip away at preparing for the upcoming season a bit each time I go to the church. I have decided to prepare Calvin Hampton’s “The Primitives” from his “Five Dances.” I had an odd email from Craig Cramer which seem to indicate that only three people are playing at the organ dedication in October. if only three people are playing, I think I know the low man on that totem pole who has been eliminated. It’s probably a misunderstanding, but my boss is in Scotland and hasn’t answered emails about this (not that I blame her). If I’m able to, I will perform the Hampton piece at that recital and also a piece I am writing.

Otherwise, I’ll just perform them some other time.

Insecurity is a bitch. I had a nice chat with my bud Jordan VanHemert yesterday. His career is exploding as he is finishing up his doctorate. But I could still see this superb player struggling with occasional insecurity in our conversation.  (Hi Jordan!)

Jordan and my friend Rhonda continue to reach out to me. I appreciate that two such fine players find time to check in with me even though they are both very busy. I like chatting with them and I like playing with them when we can.

My brother, Mark, and his wife, Leigh, are visiting Ireland right now. I have enjoyed watching them make these trips.  Since I began some significant travels, I have always felt that Mark especially would enjoy seeing history and traveling. I like it that he’s doing that.

I’m seriously thinking of reversing myself and begin using the gym at Evergreen. My treadmill is not reliable. I’m tired of buying cheap ones that break down so easily and are a pain to both move into and out of the house. But if I’m going to spend some money, I want to get my harpsichord fixed. The builder that I wanted to fix it is not returning emails but there is another one. As soon as I think I have the money, I will look into getting the harpsichord fixed.

I just chatted with Eileen and she pointed out that if I only use the gym, it will be free to me under my Medicare. Seems like a no brainer.

Are there white nationalists in the White House? | PolitiFact

Politifact doesn’t give this question a simple rating because it’s so complex. But the short answer is that the charge is too extreme.

More history in the news.

George Saunders: what writers really do when they write | Books | The Guardian

I like Saunders.

The Books We Don’t Understand | by Tim Parks | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books

Bookmarked to read.

Our internet service went down yesterday afternoon and was gone for the whole evening. It was discouraging how dependent I am on it these days. I was reduced to pulling out my Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) to look up Carl Roger’s usage of the word, “molar,” in the sentence: “… enunciating the laws which appear to govern alteration in human behavior, whether in the situations we classify as perceptions, those we classify as learning, or the more global or molar changes which occur in therapy, involving both perception and learning.”

The Websters had no definition that helped. However, my good old American Heritage Dictionary did.

Molar: “Physics, of or pertaining to a body of matter as a whole, perceived apart from molecular or atomic properties.”

So sort of “global” but in a more scientific, physical way.

This made good sense since in this chapter, Rogers was attempting to reconcile his client based therapy with good science.

I am finding Rogers very helpful. I like his strong belief in the basic goodness of humans. I like that he manages to condone a redemptive understanding of life without descending into religion.

In Chapter 9 in the book he attempts to describe a functioning person in terms of the “good life.” pdf of chapter online

I understand myself as living the “good life” but not in terms of high functioning necessarily, just being lucky as I have said in this space many times.

Roger calls on some of my favorite religious thinkers: Kierkegaard and Martin Buber. Reading this book confirms my own point of view in many ways. I hope I can learn from it as well.

Carl Rogers | Simply Psychology

This is a good link for some explicating of Rogers.

I made it through the marathon of the last few days. I played well with few mistakes. Even church went well that way. It’s tricky to work on accuracy but not concentrate on it when performing. I think at church I was thinking about playing accurately because I knew I was tired and needed to keep up  my concentration. So it was on my mind. But at the same time I did reach into the music as I performed and tried to think more about its meaning in the moment. I did that a lot too. It helped that I had put in preparation but not overdoing it too much, pacing myself.

This morning  I got up and had to clean the cat litter and put that in the garbage to be picked up. Then I showered and went to face the dishes.

There seemed to be a lot this morning, but I suspect that was my own fatigue talking.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I fell a second time on Saturday night before the performance. I wanted to talk to the conductor and it seemed easier to jump off the platform than to walk through the musicians to the front. I jumped and once again my momentum was more than my strength could handle. This time I landed on soft grass. I am learning to be smarter about what I ask my body to do.

The choir seems to be unhappy with the quality of the new robes. It would have been more helpful to have received this information earlier. I have been nagging people to do try on the new robes since the spring when we received them. There is still one person who has not done so. Apparently they are made of cheap polyester and will be as hot as the old ones. Oy.

last night’s concert went very well. My confidence in my work there was bolstered by a nice compliment beforehand from Dr. Fashun, the conductor.  I think it might have been shrewd of him to thank and commend me while we were discussing the balance of the electric keyboard, both onstage and through the P.A. I admit I was surprised because I have been sweating this gig and working hard at music that was tricky for me.

So I relaxed and played very well. This is what made me suspect Fashon of being a bit calculated. I could see him encouraging musicians all the time I worked with him this week. He did come off pretty genuine but that doesn’t mean he’s not paying attention to what he is doing.

The hardest part for me about being a keyboard player with an orchestra is counting rests and hoping you are in the right can u buy valium in bali place. This especially true for solos. Dr. Fashun was pretty consistent about cueing  them but it is dangerous not to be sure where you are.

I don’t think I really understood how exposed my parts were until the concert. I guess that explains why a violist I know came up to me during Friday’s rehearsal and thanked me and commented that I was adding a lot.

I liked the music the orchestra played last night. It has inspired me to revisit “Carmen” by Bizet and also check out “Le Cid” by Massenet. Suites by both composers were part of last night’s program.

For what it’s worth here’s the YouTube playlist I made related to the program. There’s a lot of music on it, since I put full suites of which we only played a few movements. But I do like this music.

Eileen’s  back started bothering her on Wednesday this week. By yesterday it was hurting so badly that she made an appointment with a massage therapist. I think it helped her but she is still hurting a bit.

Last night walking from my car to the rehearsal room at Zeeland City Middle School. I somehow managed to fall on the pavement. I was hurrying and had too much forward motion and misjudged my ability to pull out of it. Before I knew it I was on the ground. I scraped my knee in a couple of places. Another musician helped me gather my stuff. Fortunately my two devices, phone and tablet, which I was carrying escaped unscathed. Not so the old guy. I was hurrying to get to rehearsal a bit early to download the manual for the silly keyboard I am playing and see if I could turn off the reverb. I did manage to find the manual online.  There were instructions about adjusting the reverb, but after I appeared to have set it to zero it persisted in all the stops I used. As the conductor said about the harp stop, “It is what it is.”

This morning I got up with some new aches and pains. Apparently I hit my side and my right hand on the pavement. Nothing fractured, but I am sore. At least this way I will have an excuse if my playing is not stellar tonight. I’m actually expecting it to go pretty well.

Eileen is dragging today. I went to the Farmers Market and grocery store by myself. I move faster that way any way. After lunch we went and said hi to Mom, then to the church for some quick prep for tomorrow morning. Eileen helped me with the hymn boards while I practiced the prelude,  opening hymn, psalm, and postlude. Then we drove to First Reformed Church to sit in on a rehearsal of Charlie Parker string recordings being played live by Jordan VanHemert and company.

Jordan has hired these guys to play tomorrow at First Reformed Church services.

It was fun to hear this amazing music live. Apparently the string parts from these recordings were obtained by someone who put them into a notation software.

These recordings have a special meaning for me because they are the first recordings I heard of Charlie Parker. A young woman in my Dad’s church in Tennessee, Jessica Devoti by name, gave my parents a recording of them. This would make it at least before 1963 when we moved away from Tennessee to Flint, Michigan.

Eileen and I stayed for about an hour listening. The group included Nathan Walker on bass and Graeme Richmond on cello. Nathan, Jordan, and I have worked together since they were in high school. Now all three men are degreed musicians with Nathan and Jordan working on graduate degrees. It’s satisfying to watch people that I know continue on in music and play so well.

I’m home now, planning to rest and maybe practice a bit before this evening’s performance.

This recording it s one of the tunes we heard today. Iand the other ones that Jordan’s group is playing were not on my old record. But they are from the same sessions.

Going into last night’s rehearsal I felt that I had prepared as much as I could. If it didn’t go well, it would not be because I had neglected to do so. Before rehearsal I realized that Holland Symphony had a different conductor from when I played with them before. I really liked the old guy, but the new one is growing on me after last night.

(Quick update: Looking at the Holland Symphony website, it looks like the old guy, Johannes Müller-Stosch, is still the conductor, but Christopher Fashon is conducting the pops concert I’m playing in )

First of all, the virtuoso octaves I worried about were not exposed at all. So I was able to do what according to marked fingerings other keyboard players have done and simply drop the octave and play a solo line in unison. The first rehearsal for this kind of gig is very helpful because you learn when you have to be on alert for exposed sections. I marked these last night and will be working on them today and tomorrow.

The conductor asked me in rehearsal if I could make the harp sound on the electric keyboard have less echo. I told him I would work on it. So when I wasn’t playing I looked carefully over the dashboard for this instrument but couldn’t crack the code. I have emailed the manager to ask if she could help with this.

I remembered how much fun it is to play in a large ensemble last night. I do like making music with other people. I also like this program quite a bit even though it’s lengthy. The conductor has done a pretty good job of bring some rhythmic Latin music (albeit tailored to a white audience) to Holland.

I learned a lot in rehearsal about the music we are performing including that Tico Tico is pronounced more like cheeko cheeko in the Portuguese.

Today is another work day. I am going to leave in a minute to go to church to plan and practice organ. When I leave pictures out of these blog posts it takes so much less time to do them. So forgive me, but only words today.

Yesterday I skipped reading Carl Rogers (On Becoming a Person) and Greek to work on scores for the upcoming symphony rehearsal. I have figured out that if I read thirteen pages a day between my appointments with Dr. Birky my therapist I will finish this book before I see him in a couple of weeks. So this morning I have 26 pages to read because of skipping it yesterday.

In addition to helping me brainstorm about the upcoming improv recital yesterday, Jordan helped me with some rhythms in the symphony music. There is a lot of Latin music in this concert. I think that’s fun and have been concentrating on learning what look like crucial, exposed piano parts. But there were some non crucial looking jazzy bass lines that I had Jordan look over my should on yesterday and help me get them right. More help from him! Cool!

There are a couple of passage of fast octaves in the right hand that I have been working on as well.  I have been experiencing a bit of fatigue in these passages even at a slower tempo. This morning I applied some of my relaxation exercises Dr. Strassburg taught me years ago to these passages. It strikes me that at this age with so many aches and pains I need to discern between aging stuff and stuff I can remedy with relaxation. I hadn’t thought of this until this morning.

Dr. Strassburg taught me in our initial lessons an exercise he called “attack-release.” In this exercise, he told me I was to “attack” a note and “release” the tension in my body. I was not to go on to the next note until I felt relaxed. This exercise came in very handy while warming up to play four hour gigs at bars later. I did a form of this this morning on my octaves. We’ll see if it ends up helping.

An added complication of attempting to cover the piano part for this gig is my dupuytren’s contracture. I am constantly monitoring the changes in my abilities and looking for work arounds. This is much easier to do when I am preparing for church where I can choose most of what I attempt. When working as a hired gun, it’s a bit trickier.

So I’m blogging now to give myself lots of time to practice and work on planning church music today. That’s all that I have on the agenda.

Maryland City May Let Noncitizens Vote, a Proposal With Precedent – The New York Times

Apparently letting noncitizens vote has a history in the USA.

I wrote this this morning:
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Another quick blog post today. I’m under the gun for the symphony concert coming up and need to spend time with the music. I went yesterday and checked out the keyboard. It’s a new keyboard (at least to me) with weighted keys much like my Yamaha. It’s a bit lighter but definitely not a synth touch. So I pulled out my Yamaha this morning and starting plunking away on it.

I am hoping to get some serious planning done this August. I spent an hour or so yesterday getting a jump start on upcoming Sundays. I now have bulletin info including prelude and postlude for the rest of this month. Today I plan to copy the recital info that Jen and I were buy diazepam nz working from on the wipe board to the google doc she made about upcoming recitals. That will free the white board for planning anthems. I like to put them up on the board and get a sense of the balance of quality and difficulty.

My piano student canceled. So all I have today besides practicing is meeting with Jordan VanHemert. I am planning to pick his brain about my September improv recital.
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At this point Eileen came downstairs and we had breakfast and I stopped.

I did all the stuff I said I was going to do today. The meeting with Jordan was especially fruitful as I hoped it would be. More later, I have to go practice some more.

I’m trying to ease back into doing more work each week. In addition to my usual church stuff this week I am playing with the Holland Symphony Orchestra Saturday at their outdoor pop concert. Yesterday I discovered a couple of pieces that I hadn’t identified as challenging and read through for the first time yesterday. They are doing several Latin pieces. The keyboard part seems important in them and has some rhythms I will practicing right up until performance.

I realized that executing them on the synth they provide will be different and a bit easier than doing it on the actually piano. I can tell from the way previous performers marked the music that I’m not the first person to leave out octaves in order to make exposed parts more playable.

I am meeting with Judith Meyer the manager of the symphony in a few minutes to check out the synth I will be playing Saturday. This is just a precaution that I don’t get something thrown at me in rehearsal that I don’t know how to run.

That’s all I have time for today!

This morning I turned to poetry before doing anything else. I lay in bed and read poetry by Basho and Derek Walcott on my tablet. After I got up and did my morning tasks, I continued reading poetry in real copies of Walcott, as well as poems by Hardy and Tyehimba Jess.

This is a photograph I believe of Millie and Christine McKoy. They are fictionalized in Jess’s Olio which I am reading. They are real life people. Siamese twins who were celebrated for their ability to sing. They manage to shake away the white people who were exploiting their abilities and then make a fortune for themselves. Jess’s poetry is amazing.

Today is definitely a day when I am feeling washed out from the week end. Saturday was a full day. Eileen and I went to the Farmers market, then I went and practiced organ. I made us late for leaving for the Hatch reunion. Plus as usual the reunion fell on Coast Guard Festival weekend which means driving through crazy traffic in Grand Haven.

Seeing Eileen’s extended family and being with her through this experience is both fun and also a bit stressful. It’s so much better than it used to be, but it still takes energy.

Sunday morning I went to church early enough to practice my postlude. I went through it slowly four times. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to help when it came time to play it. I had the first two pages in very good shape, but it got harder for the last two pages. I wasn’t happy with how I performed it but by the time I got to the tricky part the congregation was ignoring me for the most part and talking loudly. Probably a good thing.

Yesterday afternoon I spent a good amount of time with Bach on the piano. I have been playing through the three part inventions (sinfonias) and finding them very satisfying to play. Then I started playing through the Goldberg variations. I played through a couple of those this morning as well. This music has the effect of calming me and strengthening me.

On Friday, I spent an hour with Eddie Bullinger, a parishioner, making the soundtrack for his stop motion video he made of the installation of the Pasi organ. This was fun! Now he will do the final edit. I will link it here when it’s public.

Both he and Bill Bier’s assistant used a hand held recorder to make a better recording than a video soundtrack on a device. Eddie allowed me to take a picture of his. I am surprised at how inexpensive this little dealy is.

I’m definitely interested in getting one of these to make recordings with. It’s made by Zoom, the company that made the first digital recording unit I purchased (and no longer have).

The Transformation of the ‘American Dream’ – The New York Times

This author traces the change in the concept of “American Dream” from egalitarian to financial.

Russia hacked our election because the spies took over – The Washington Post

I have’t quite finished reading this article, but it reminds me of the non-Trumpists in the above link. Paranoid nationalism is rampant in the world. I think that Brexit is largely a nationalistic movement. All of these countries pulling back from each other at the exact time we need to be repairing our world.

Yesterday afternoon Eileen thought it was too cool to go down to the beach as we had planned. Instead she suggested we go to the movies. She said she wanted to see “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

I readily agreed. It was the first time I had sat in a movie theater with my new fancy dance glasses.

This turned out to be a good thing because there was lots of use of out-of-focus foreground or background shots. I am getting quite used to using my new glasses for driving or for sitting in the pew at church. Yesterday I set out without them for an errand and immediately noticed.

So they help with the whole movie theater experience.

But I didn’t like the movie. SPOILER ALERT FOR SECTION THAT FOLLOWS!

I found so many things weird about this movie. The plot was preposterous and disconnected. Many of the apes in Caesar’s tribe spoke with ESL. Caesar was mysteriously able to read their signing without looking at them. There were so many plot twists that it seemed definitely to be a committee decision to include them.

The humans start the movie by attacking Caesar’s outpost. It’s very high tech (communicating by helmet mic and eventually using high tech night laser finders) versus sharpened spears on the apes part. During the initial battle I kept expecting something to happen to turn the plot. But nothing really did. The apes won this battle.

The humans return and Woody Harrleson’s character. The Colonel, kills Caesar’s wife and one of his children.

Caesar and a few others set out to kill The Colonel. Unfortunately while they are on their way somehow The Colonel and his men capture and enslave the entire Caesar tribe.

The movie then turns into a sort of “Bridge over the River Kwai” war prisoner movie. Both the original “Planet of the Apes” movie and “Bridge over the River Kwai” movie were based on books by the same author, Pierre Boulle.

From there we have an escape plan during which The Colonel and his men are attacked by a more efficient human army. During the battle, even though they are losing, The Colonel’s men begin killing the escaping apes for some reason. Caesar attempts to blow up the entire camp at this point by igniting fuel supplies. The more efficient human army beats the Colonel’s group. They are celebrating when they see Caesar. One lone gunman raises his weapon. Then….. an avalanche happens.

I can’t go on.

The music was goofy as well. Since I’ve already given a spoiler alert I will point out that an early theme in the score bears more than passing resemblance to “It Aint Necessarily So” by Gershwin in Porgy and Bess.

I don’t think I am a 21st Century movie person judging from this movie and the atrocious movies in the pregame trailers. Most of which I would give $20 not to have to watch.

I’m a grumpy old man for sure.

My son, David, has been having trouble commenting here. He messaged me about yesterday blog, commending me for reading Rogers, someone he has read and whose techniques he is versed in and has used. If you have trouble commenting please email me or message me.

On Tuesday I relented a bit and chose upcoming organ music that will require some (but not too much) prep. This Sunday is Transfiguration. I didn’t see that coming when I sketched in some easier organ music to play. I had to reevaluate. So, instead I am playing two pieces by Emma Lou Diemer: “Psalm 117” and a chorale prelude based on the tune Wareham to which we are singing Transfiguration words.

Then for the following Sunday, I simply scheduled what I played three years ago when these readings came up. They are trios by David Harris based on two hymns in the service. Trio playing is not something challenges me in and of itself. And I think they are nice settings. And like so much of the music I have played in the past they become transformed on the Pasi.

The postlude is a calm beautiful setting of the closing hymn. This Sunday the prelude (Psalm 117 by Diemer) is actually quite loud and fast. I like to schedule organ music I think is appropriate. This means that I don’t always play a soft prelude and a loud postlude.

I have also been hired to play at the Holland Symphony’s outdoor concert next Saturday. The lineup includes some lively Latin music. I have been working on the piano parts so that I can do a good job. This is the second time they have hired me for this concert. It’s nice to be asked back. I think their usual keyboard player is unavailable.

Eileen and I were hoping to get some more beach time in today, but it’s looking like rain. I thought I heard thunder earlier. Maybe it’s not to be.

Finding Common Ground, Despite Ideological Divides – The New York Times

An article by Linda Greenhouse always interests and informs me as does this one. Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein say that one way to dilute the extremism and asymetrical stymieing of our government is to make sure more people vote.  More people voting would enhance the possibility of centrality in candidates. They even go so far as to endorse mandatory voting which would lessen the need to fire up the voters with extreme rhetoric and positions designed to get them to the poles.

One commenter reposts a comment that recommends increasing the number of seats in the House of Representatives. She believes that would go a long way to clearing up some of the grid lock.

This morning reading On Becoming a Person by Carl Rogers I was amused to read:

“… if I can form a helping relationship to myself—if I can be sensitively aware of and acceptant toward my own feelings—then the likelihood is great that I can form a helping relationship toward another.”

Rogers himself prefaces this statement with the phrase: “One way of putting this which may seem strange to you is that….” But for me it seemed a bit of a convergence between him and a recent insight I expressed here (see “a small insight for an old musician“). I was pointing out that if I try to support and validate other people’s musical actions, it might behoove me to do so for myself as well. This and trying to be as kind and accepting to myself as I try to be to others make up a sort of “helping relationship to myself.”

In this same chapter, Rogers comments that the “locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility lies” within the self.

I didn’t read Rogers at the beach yesterday. I took a bag of books. By the time we decided to leave I realized that I had read a bit in each book. This is my pattern. This is one reason real books help me a bit more than ebooks. I can forget I am reading something if it’s tucked away in a etablet but if the physical book is present I am more likely to remember I am slowly reading it. I picked up this habit years ago when I read an essayist who pointed out that if one read a few pages a day in a book eventually one will have made it all the way through it.

Here’s my beach reading from yesterday and the page number I reached sitting on the sand.

left off at page 162 of 222.

Left off at page 145 of 197.

These stories are mind boggling. I read in its entirety the fifth one in the book yesterday, “Memories We Lost” by Lidudumalingani at page 81 of 292.

I am on chapter three in this book, “Seeing Through Words: an Introduction to Basho, Haiku and the Suppleness of Image” I discovered that this chapter seems to have been published at least as a separate Kindle “single” ebook.

Left off at page 82 of 300.

Left off on page 224 of 606 but I read more in my ebook copy this morning laying in bed.

Left off on page 222 of 388. I might put this one down. Robinson doesn’t have much to say to me and Le Guin writes rings around him.

I offer these in the spirit of my own curiosity about other people’s reading. A woman was sitting at a picnic bench reading a book yesterday that suspiciously like It’s Even Worse Than It Looks. I didn’t have the courage to strike up a conversation but was curious.