So this is weird. Eileen is still in Grayling. I’m home alone. But I’m busy busy busy. Got up, showered, made coffee, did Greek, then off to Farmers Market, practiced, home for lunch.

Now I have to go see my Mom, go to the library, probably go to Miejer. I also need a bit more time at church, since I didn’t post the hymns. I did this on purpose to get my butt back there this afternoon.

So I barely have time to do my blog. There internet is acting weird anyway. It’s sllloooowww. Now my blog says it lost the connection. If you read this, it found it.

Today I head back to Holland. It has been a good time away. If nothing else I have changed my routine for a couple of weeks and had time off site. This morning the first time I took my BP it was high. Then I did a shit load of dishes and it fell 20 points or so. I have a bad feeling I may need to cut back on my drinking to help with my BP. It was low all the time I was in California. I thought it might be a result  spending time with people I care about but don’t see very often. But then I reflected that I don’t drink while visiting California. Huh oh.

Last night I dreamed I was about to give a recital at a cathedral. The musician seemed to be Stephen White (from Kazoo). Weirdly in the dream, he expressed confidence in my abilities. I didn’t have all my music with me. I think Eileen was off getting my  music for me. But suddenly it was time for me to play. I asked to see the program. Oddly enough I wasn’t too anxious. I figured I would do some improvising to make up for stuff that was on the program that I didn’t have with me. When I went to the console the people began applauding wildly. The room did not seem that big, but the applause was very loud as though it came from a huge crowd. I figured it was an illusion and that there were a lot of people there. I began speaking to tell them that there had a been change in the program, but they didn’t hear me. I asked them (regarding their applauding me) “What if I don’t play good?” I looked at some people near me and there was a colleague from grad school. She said they can’t hear you. I asked her how I was to communicate. “Yell,” she said. That didn’t work either. That’s all I remember.

A Vietnamese Architect’s Easy-to-Erect Homes for the Poor – The New York Times

These are cool.

Ben and Tony arrived yesterday. That’s the entire crew this year. Emily and Jeremy declined the invitation.

Staying the cabin has elements of traveling into the past. Most of the Jenkins clan have spent some time up here. This includes my deceased Father, my Mom, all of my children, some of their significant others. I don’t think any of my grandchildren have made it here. They live all over the world which is cool but I do miss seeing them more often. (Guilt trip for all my kids reading, Hi!)

Small children often enter my dreams as do friends and family members. I remember last night in a dream I was admiring a child who was admiring the beauty of the night sky.

Toni Morrison In Conversation | Granta Magazine

I love this writer. Bookmarked to read.

Axios

Mark recommended this news source. I have subscribed to a couple of their email updates.

Want to Get Rid of Trump? Only Fox News Can Do It – The New York Times

Home grown American state run media, eh?

50k ‘Gen Z’ Students Identify as Republican – Hispanic Heritage Foundation

The incorrect headline is enough to discredit this website and its study. If you read the article, the 50K is the number of people surveyed. There are breakdowns by categories. Trump is doing a lot of leading but I’m not sure the headline writer read or understood the article.  It looks like Tiana Lowe the author of the National Review article not only did not understand the study, but draws weird inferences from CNN to Reddit.

Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard Starts New Band: Bermuda Triangle : All Songs Considered : NPR

Apparently the above photo with my hero, Brittany Howard, in the center is part of speculation about a new band. Cool.

Mark and Leigh arrived last night right around martini time.

The ticks are presenting a bit of a problem here in paradise. Eileen is deciding whether she wants to go huckleberry picking this year. Her Mom and sister Nancy are not coming as they usually do to help with this. The tick population is up. Eileen brought sprays to treat her clothes. Leigh was out sitting this morning and despite her precautions came back in the house and found a tick on her clothes. I guess I’m basically staying in the house here at the cabin.

Ben, Mark’s son, and his husband Tony are coming up today. They texted that Tony had fallen and twisted his knee.

Tony has had major problems with his back and such and was freaked out. But they are planning to soldier on since Tony was looking forward to getting some time away from work.

I finished the first volume of Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy yesterday. I started the second volume and was slightly disappointed that it didn’t continue the main characters from the first volume. Maybe they will return, but it doesn’t look too good for that.

On Friday I will head home by myself. Eileen will be staying a few more days. Mark and his clan leave on Saturday. I am feeling more and more like I have had a vacation. This is good.

I could wait until Saturday to return, but I find that extra day after travel helpful before having to do the weekend Eucharist. Also, the prelude is one that I would like to rehearse with pedals a couple days before performing in public.

I have been spending a lot of satisfactory time with my Greek. I have finished the sixth chapter and  am working on the seventh. These “chapters” are divided into many subsections. For example, the chapter I just finished had sections 6A through 6D. This means that I have finally (after almost a year) arrived where I was before I decided I needed to double back and work more carefully over chapters 5 and 6. So I’m now working on infinitives and other grammar stuff. The readings are from Plato.

In addition, I am using my Greek app to help. This is a helpful broadening of the textbook approach. I am finding subtleties that are not made explicit in the teaching text explicated with a little scrutiny in the app. This is challenging but satisfying.

One of the things I know about myself at this age is that I like a challenge, especially one that attracts me like a difficult rewarding read, learning a piece of music, or studying ancient Greek.

Capitol Steps on the Air

Mark reminded me that this group does an annual hilarious fourth of July radio program. It’s embedded at the link above.

I think this will be a short blog today. I am definitely getting some rest on my vacation. I’m not sure about relaxing. My BP has been edging up. But what the heck. I am enjoying this time of being with Eileen, reading and practicing on my synth.

In my dream last night, young people were literally shooting themselves in the hand. One young man was pointing the gun at his armpit. I think this might have something to do with pondering media illiteracy. Getting older is an isolating experience for someone like me who loves to learn, who loves clarity and treasures civility.

Watching the travesty of Donald Trump’s behavior as our president reinforces some of the dismal stuff I feel. Every time he acts in a boorish manner and is called to account (mostly by the left) I get a sinking feeling that those people who take Fox News and their echo chamber at face value are more and more drawn to him, cheering him on for sticking it in the eye of what they see as the elite left in media and government.

This is such a sad spectacle. After reading Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild, I am convinced that those who cheer Trump on and at the same time are likely to suffer from his domestic policies, that these people will choose anger and glee at seeing their enemies derided over practical effects in their lives. I can only see this as a tragic lack of coherence, self-destructiveness and a sort of (weirdly almost admirable) stubbornness.

You can see it in Kentucky. This state seems to be cheering on its senator, Mitch McConnell, and President Trump as they dismantle the national government. At the same time, they are in line to lose many recently gained benefits from Obamacare and government programs. I believe that both McConnell and Trump would be overwhelmingly re-elected by Kentuckians at this moment if there was an election despite this.

Then there are the more educated Republicans who are more in love with power than decency. How educated can they be in terms of ethics and logic if they can delude themselves that it’s worth losing the dignity of the office of the Presidency to destroy what Obama accomplished in terms of health care and tax cuts.

I think I can see why I’m not relaxing that much. My own mental health might not be that good. I don’t feel like I’m gaining much perspective on vacation.

I listened to Bob Garfield’s interview of Newton Minow this morning and it got me thinking once again about media literacy. A passing remark Garfield made about people taking their Facebook feed at face value startled me. George Minow was FCC under JFK so he’s been around a long time. Minow’s solution to our current predicament of culture wars, fake news, and (Garfield’s phrase, of course) a rogue president is education.

warning: jupe gets a bit preachy from here on

A big piece of this education is helping people be literate about how they use the internet for news and information. I have done a bit of thinking about this over the years and I sometimes neglect to factor in that so many people take what they find online at face value. This is unthinkable for me.

It seems to me that Facebook itself would be a good spot to bring this topic up. I checked and there are some Media literacy pages. I immediately “liked” Milclicks (started by Unesco. “The MIL CLICKS acronym stands for: Media and Information Literacy, Critical thinking/Creativity, Literacy, Intercultural, Citizenship, Knowledge and Sustainability”

It’s good to remember that people are using the interwebs largely  uncritically. This is necessary to perpetuate the climate of idiocy that has taken hold of the USA. Everyday I see stupid stupid things on Facebook coming from both the far right and the far left. Stupidity is stupidity no matter where it’s coming from.

My bar is not that high here when talking about what I see on Facebook. The level of exchange in the comments is often about as bad as anywhere else (at least anywhere I’m reading comments…). People talking past each other, calling each other names, posting memes that ridicule people they disagree with. The antiTrump memes are especially vicious. They remind me of the antiObama ones. And I’m pretty sure these sorts of extremes entrench us into our corners instead of opening any kind of a conversation or consideration of the other person on the other side.

The internet went away this morning but it’s back. I put in some time yesterday playing on my little synth I brought with me. I like bringing it. It is so light and easy to move. That’s a big plus for me these days. I played Bach and Louie Couperin. I even did some Bach chorale partitas which are probably meant for organ but are for manual only.

warning: a little music nerd talk

The edition of Frescobaldi’s Fiori musicali I brought with me has many pages of background information. I have been saving it for when I can read through this at leisure. This morning I did so. I learned a ton.

I don’t know that much about Italian music from the 17th century. Italians that I have played include Corelli and Vivaldi. I have played music by Frescobaldi, the Gabriellis and other Italians but I haven’t actually studied much about how this music should be performed.

My first “aha” came reading the description of how the pipes on the Italian organs were voiced. Calvert Johnson, the editor of this volume, describes them as “soft, round, gentle, sweet, lively, silvery, and never aggressive.” This instantly reminds me of a recording of an Italian organ that I own. The sound of the instrument is quite beautiful and gentle. This fits my predilection about this music. It seems almost delicate to me but having a liveliness all its own.

My second “aha” came when after the usual lengthy description of the many kinds of fingerings we  know the Baroque Italians used, Johnson points out the contradictions and concludes that fingering is not conclusive evidence of articulation. This is bad news for a lot of early music keyboard people who have concluded exactly the opposite. Since keyboard players at this time only used three fingers in each hand many of the scales are fingered with only two fingers. Players in the last century often used this to play scale passages in groups of two. This can sound goofy to me on Italian and English music from the 16th and 17th century. French music is another matter since it often cries out for the unevenness (inegale) used by the French.

Recently when Dick Hoogterp was listening to me play on the new Pasi he remarked that he needed to remember not to play too legato. Linda Fulton who is substituting for me today remarked that I play much more staccato than she does. I do what I do mostly  instinctively, because it sounds good to me. The whole question about how much space to put between notes (articulation) is one that needs constant evaluation.

Other surprises for me in Johnson’s critical apparatus (a fancy word for all the stuff experts stick into music and books) include Frescobaldi’s recommendation that sixteenth notes against eighth notes be played short long (like inegale) and that trills should not match runs note for note but trill freely while the other hand play its line expressively.

I’m about half way through reading the introduction and feel like I need some time to absorb the information. But I may do some playing of the  music on my harpsichord stop on my synth today.

Balkinization: Constitutional Rot and Constitutional Crisis

My brother put this May 15th article up yesterday. It does have some helpful distinctions. We are rotting not in crisis.

President Trump, Melting Under Criticism – The New York Times

One of the comments on this article is that Trump is a weak person’s idea of what a strong person looks like. True that.

The internet seems to be working here at the cabin. The water heater, not so much. last night Eileen took a shower and said that the temp was pleasant since it was so hot but that she didn’t think the water heater was turned on. I went in the back and turned up the heat. This morning I took a shower and the water was lukewarm. I went in the back and attempted to light the pilot which seemed to be out. I could get something lit but it wouldn’t stay on. After Eileen got up and we failed to mutually problem solve it together, she called her brother who said to call the service repairman who has made a few trips out here lately but not quite fixed the hot water heater. So that’s what Eileen did.

My new glasses helped with the drive up. We brought two cars so both of us had to drive. My phone went a little nuts and took us through a lot of back roads but we finally made it. After gassing up at Grayling, Eileen went on to the cabin and I went to the liquor store to purchase a martini shaker (having forgotten mine).

I have been setting aside my glasses for reading, music reading and computer work. Otherwise I get a crick in my neck when playing music from tilting my head. My niece, Cindy, said in a recent comment here that she has three tiered glasses (!) and that she eventually adjusted by using her eyes to look through the needed part of the glass. Wow!

So, we are at the cabin. Hopefully, I can get some rest and relaxation here in the next few days.

Today we leave for Grayling. But first we have to stop off in Whitehall which is not exactly on the way. Nancy needs us to pick up some stuff at Eileen’s Mom’s house to take to the cabin. This makes me a little crazy. But Eileen wants to do it so we will.

I have already done a load of laundry, dishes, and spent time on the bench at church practicing the music I chose for July  9. We are singing “I heard the voice of Jesus say” on that Sunday to the Tallis tune. Robert Lind has composed a series of voluntaries on the Vaughan Williams tunes and includes one on this one. I had thought that I would choose organ music without pedals for this Sunday so that I could practice the pieces on vacation. However, I was so charmed with Lind’s setting that I decided to use it. It’s not that hard but it does use pedals. Hence this is why I sneaked in some practice the morning we are planning to drive to Grayling.

For my postlude next Sunday I am reviving one of my favorite John Stanley voluntaries. I have been playing this ever since I sat down at an organ in Oscoda Michigan years ago. It’s nice to revive old pieces on the new organ since they sound so beautiful.

Eileen and I bought extra internet access time. We did this by changing our plan. The phone people told us to do it this way. We should be able to change it back the following month.  That way we and the rest of the clan will have some sort of internet access while we are at the cabin. How good that will be remains to be seen of course since it sometimes is spotty.

It’s surprising how tiring travel can be. Yesterday, my energy went quickly, but we managed to get quite a few things done like grocery shopping, picking up my new glasses, and checking on Mom. I had thought about practicing organ but it soon became obvious that that wasn’t going to happen.

I am seriously thinking of reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series on vacation. I read the first chapter of A Wizard of Earthsea yesterday. I may have read these before but have completely forgotten the plot.

I am trying to get used to having to wear glasses all the time. I have bifocals and that is a bit weird, always having to tip up my head to see close. I never thought about how often I am using my eyes to read or see something close. It’s most of the time really.

A couple things came in the mail while I was gone.

I ordered Twenty-four Contemporary Pieces for Solo Piano because it included my favorite Phillip Glass etude (#11) and hoped it would have some other cool music in it. I read through the first nine pieces yesterday and was disappointed. These composers seem to be writing in a sort of simple modern style that owes a lot to new age  music. So far they haven’t quite descended into George Winston but his aesthetic is not too far off. Probably these writers see their music as growing out of a sort of post classical age or something. Someone made a play list of the pieces on YouTube. I’m listening to it right now. The first piece has some effects added. Anyway, if you’re curious you can check out the playlist.

I first heard of Joseph Kerman when I was teaching Music Appreciation at Grand Valley. He wrote the text they use. He died a few years ago, but appears to have been a pretty prominent music dude. His Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology was published in 1985.  This book also came in the mail while I was gone. I read the first chapter.  Academic music and study is changing. For me, it is in a good way. Kerman attempts to broaden the discussion in his field, but is limited in this book by being pre-InterWeb.

In the first chapter try as he might he never completely sheds a fusty academic point of view. But since he was born in 1924 making him 63 when he wrote this book, he doesn’t do too bad a job of trying to reach out and connect different musics in Western culture. He admits to a bias that does not include Pop music and jazz but then attempts to discuss them a bit.

As the YouTube playlist continues to play, I notice that few of these tracks are actually solo piano but include other instruments and sound effects. I like the way so many people making up music these days do so in a freer manner. But if on the one extreme is a fusty connection to academic/historical/classical music, the other extreme dips into insipidity.. There is new music that balances these extremes and that is usually the music that attracts me.

I’m back in Holland. Eileen and I arrived safely at the Grand Rapids airport. She drove home. My sight has deteriorated to the point that when I am tired and it is night it is difficult for me to see the road signs. This is not safe. Eileen was not too tired to drive us home.

I go to pick up my new glasses today.  I’m looking forward to seeing better.

I read about a fourth of Al Franken’s new book on the flight home yesterday.

I started Eddie Izzard’s new book but decided it wasn’t that interesting for flight reading. What I need for reading on a airplane is something light that will draw me in quickly and keep me interested. Franken’s book did this. It’s fascinating how he moved from a successful comedy career in writing and performing to being a United States Senator from Minnesota.

It’s also reassuring to read a book by a politician whose politics I largely agree with and approve of.

This morning working on my Greek I realized that I have successfully reviewed my way  back to where I was a year or so ago. Now as I begin work on the chapter which uses Plato’s prose I understand the grammar much better than I did. This is good.

I haven’t heard from my boss about the funeral today. I am going to assume that I am not needed. I think she forgot I was on vacation as well. She seems to be stage managing this funeral from Vermont. The funeral isn’t on the church’s calendar. I’d like to sneak over and get some practice time in today, but don’t want to run into a funeral. I emailed the office but haven’t received a response.

In addition to reading Franken, I also started Ursula K. Le Guin’s Words are My Matter. I have admired her writings for years. I had to put her book aside because it was too thought provoking for a mind numbing plane ride.

However, this morning I gathered all the Le Guin I could find to decide which book(s) to take with me to the cabin. Here are a few thoughts from Le Guin that I did digest on the plane ride.

“So long as we hear about ‘women’s writing’ but not about ‘men’s writing’—because the latter is assumed to be the norm—the balance is not just. The same signal of privilege and prejudice is reflected in the common use of the word feminism and the almost total absence of its natural counterpart, masculinism.

“Reading is a means of listening.”

“Home, imagined, comes to be. It is real, realer than any other place, but you can’t get to it unless your people show you how to imagine it—whoever your people are. They may not be your relatives. They may never have spoken your language. They may have been dead for a thousand years. They may be nothing but words printed on paper, ghosts of voices, shadows of minds. But they can guide you home. They are your human community.”

This resonates strongly with me. My human community is not only my loved ones in the flesh but my loved ones who are ghosts, not only voices but voices that sing through the music I love.

Regarding how one reads these days, on paper or on screen, Le Guin observes

The technology is not what matter. Words are what matter. The sharing of words. The activation of imagination through the reading of words.

I love that.

I’m not looking forward to traveling by plane with Eileen today as much as I usually do. Negative reinforcement from our experience coming out to California.

Our plane leaves in the afternoon again so that means a late arrival time in Grand Rapids.

My boss emailed me yesterday about playing a funeral tomorrow. She thought I was back from vacation. I told her I probably could, but when she realized I was getting in late tonight she asked if she should contact a sub. I said yes, but I would do it other wise.

It has been a restful week despite the turmoil around trip out here.

I have been able to read, relax, practice, and be with my California fam. What could be better?

Later this week, Eileen and I will drive up to the Hatch Grayling cabin for some more time off.

I will want to take some actual books with me. I am discovering the limits of reading on a screen. It can be tiring after a while. I do have a few books with me but I have mostly been reading on my tablet.

I started reading Metaphor Wars: Conceptual Metaphors in Human Life by Raymond Gibbs yesterday on my tablet. This book was published in February of this year. It updates the current conversation about “Conceptual Metaphor Theory” and defends the theory itself but not uncritically.

Gibss (and others) are building on George Lakoff’s work.

You might recognize his  name from his 2004 book Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. But it is his and Mark Johnsen’s 1980 book, Metaphors We Live By, that seems to have kicked off the debate.

I am admirer of Lakoff anyway. He has been on “On The Media” a few times recently with wisdom about understanding Trump’s approach to the presidency and how to work with it in your own head as well as how to report on it if you are a journalist. As far as I can see, although the quality of journalism is definitely on the rise in response to the madness, not many are taking on Lakoff’s suggestions besides the people of “On The Media.”

It seems obvious to me that thinking of a presidential debate in metaphors of a boxing match or elections as horse races has to influence how we see them. But as Gibbs shows quantifying and understanding this clearly is not easy.

David has left for work and we have said our goodbyes with hugs and “I love you”s. Nicholas will leave next.

Eileen and I will shoot for leaving around 10:30 which will give  us an hour and half to forge through the traffic, return the rental, and actually arrive at the airport.

 
Tomorrow we get on a plane to come home from our annual California visit. I think it has been a good visit. It’s fun to see how my grandkids are growing up. It has been reassuring to see David after his illness. My daughter-in-law, Cynthia, is a conscientious and gracious hostess. Today both David and Cynthia work all day, Nicholas attends summer school. Eileen and I are home with Savannah and Catherine. I will probably go practice organ one last time.

I finished off The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer. It’s not a particularly bad novel. The most interesting part was the 99 year transformation of places the main character observes. It’s interesting that he experience the 19th century as a reprieve from the other visits and ends up, of course, in the Blitz.

I started reading Aldous Huxley’s 1958 book of essays Brave New World Revisited. He talks a lot about the coming over population but also about authoritarianism and dictatorships. Brave New World was written in the 30s, 1984 in the 40s. Huxley thinks his insidious benign dystopia was closer to what might actually happen than Orwell’s Stalinesque dystopias (1984 and Animal Farm). And, of course, he is right.

Huxley’s insight might be reduced to “we do it to ourselves” instead of Orwell’s “the state does it to us.”

As I said yesterday, vacation is going well. I had a chance to spend some time with David and Nicholas yesterday and that was fun. In addition I am having time to read and practice which is always good.

I’m returning to reading Pale Fire by Nabakov. When I was in my teens I had a little paperback copy of this book. It fascinated me that an author could write a story by making what looked like an annotated edition of a longer poem, all of it made up: the poem, the footnotes, the people involved. I recently figured out that Nabakov didn’t intend that one flip back and forth between the poem and the footnotes. Rather the book is designed to read straight through. This is helpful when reading an ebook version of it. 31% into it.

I’m sitting in the kitchen alone. I think I’m the only one awake. This is a still time in this busy household. A few years back I would be joined by Cynthia’s Dad, Butch. He has since passed away and is missed in this household.

Since no one’s around I feel comfortable quietly listening to this amazing music.

What does it mean for a journalist today to be a Serious Reader? – Columbia Journalism Review

Stumbled across this article this morning. I love reading about others reading habits. It’s encouraging to hear anecdotal stories about people’s love affair with reading.

I had leisure time yesterday to finish a long short story I had started in Murakami’s Men Without Women: Stories. I also spent time with my beloved Dylan Thomas.

I have read most of his poems so reading them usually means returning to old friends. Again I began reading Thomas when in my teens.

I’m still reading Outcasts of Time and Zink.  My ebook reader tells me I’m 86% into the former and 40% into the latter. They are both good light vacation reading.

I’m 85% into The Ballad of Halo Jones by Moore and Gibson. I read a lot of it in a library copy. The ebook copy is actually easier for me to read since I can enlarge the page and read Alan Moore’s fascinating dialogue and description easier.

I’m also dipping into John Donne’s poetry and the beautiful moving descriptions of John Muir of the area I’m visiting.

Then there’s Greek and some more nerdy music reading I have brought along. You can see vacation is indeed going well.

A Presumption of Guilt | by Bryan Stevenson | The New York Review of Books

I am a fan of Bryan Stevenson. He is doing some good corrective work explaining how our present problems in the USA form a direct line from our shameful enslavement of Africans.

The Torturers Speak – The New York Times

State criminals. As are most of our public national leaders from the last and this century.

According to the Writers Almanac, it’s Stephen Dunn’s birthday today. He is a poet I admire and read. Garrison Keiller read a quote from him that, though I am but a lowly church musician, I admire.

 “You must be a little driven, and what you’re doing must be crucial to you in order not to be defeated by the likely neglect that awaits you, the lack of rewards, and the fact that, by and large, your culture doesn’t take you seriously.”

Of course, I’m no Stephen Dunn, but I relate to the “driven,” “crucial,” “lack of rewards,” and not being taken “seriously.”

I was talking to David M. Lines yesterday and we both agreed that people like us (organists/musicians) do what we do mostly for love of it.

Eileen, Savannah, Catherine,and I picked up Nicholas after school yesterday. Then we took the grandkids for the annual bookstore visit. Earlier I had told Savannah we didn’t have to do this this year. It’s hard for me to fathom why people read. I’m always surprised when I find that they actually do these days. The kids all found books to read. I usually choose one book for them, but this I was at a loss. The Ancient Greeks had a word for this state: “aporeo” which also means “to be in doubt” and “be puzzled.” My Greek text mused that it was odd that English has no word for something so obvious. I agree.

I didn’t buy any books nor did Eileen. Instead, I perused my tablet while the kids chose their books.

After that we came home and Eileen made supper for everyone.

Today the “girls” are going out to swim meets and such. The “boys” will probably hang around the house. Eileen has assigned me to figure out meals for today and tomorrow consulting David discretely. The weekend is really the only time the whole Calif Jenkins fam is free this year so we are planning to spend some time together.

My BP has been down for a while now. I do think it helps me to see the extended fam in the flesh. Hugs help and are difficult to do on line.

Another good California vacation.

The Slants on the Power of Repurposing a Slur – The New York Times

Article by one of the members of the band. Interesting background. Not surprising.

They Call Us Right Wing — I Call Us Mainstream | The Rush Limbaugh Show

Only main stream because the majority of citizens are sitting on their ass or rather spending their time trying to keep their lives together.

I managed to get over to Riverside Methodist Church yesterday and get some organ practice in. The organist there is David M. Lines, a man I went to grad school with. While my friend, Bob Hobby, was visiting in Holland, I mentioned that I was on my way to the Riverside area to visit family and was wondering where I might get some organ time in. He mentioned that David was living and working in Riverside and would probably help me. As indeed he did.

It is startling to see someone you haven’t seen since 1987. Both of us have done a lot of living since then. David was extremely gracious. It was good to see him and good to see him doing so well. He has two adult daughters and seems to be living a good single life. He is much more relaxed than he was in grad school, but those were different times for all of us as I pointed out to him.

I’m planning on going over again today and maybe Monday. This weekend is Music Appreciation Sunday at David’s church. He was practicing Widor’s Toccata when I arrived yesterday. He told me I could report to our old teacher, Craig Cramer, that I “caught” him using rhythms to practice his Widor. I actually hadn’t noticed what he was doing when I got there, only that he was practicing. The secretary from the church office politely led me over to the church and let me in.

Later I mentioned to him that I don’t get down to Notre Dame much. He said he hadn’t been back since grad school.

As has been happening to me, an intended hour of rehearsal easily turned into more like two hours. It was good to return to some projects I am working on (In dir ist Freude by Bach and Carson Cooman’s Organ demonstrator, “Hiker’s Gear.”) as well do some reading of Frescobaldi and Buxtehude.

Vacation is going well. It’s good to see everyone and do some catching up. Definitely a relaxing time.

Aldous Huxley on the Transcendent Power of Music and Why It Sings to Our Souls – Brain Pickings

This little “Brain Pickings” offerings usually are a bit on the Reader’s Digest side. However, in this case, since the work is out of print, it  offers some beautiful quotes full of insights about music. It also seems that Huxley was writing at least one of his essays on a June night. Fun to read in June. Cool.

A Lost Art in the Arctic: Igloo Making – The New York Times

“The Last Runner” made me wonder about igloos. Here’s more info.

Emerging from Trouble at Ojai Music Festival

“Trouble” is name of a composition by Vjay Iyer. The prose is purple in this article but it makes me want to hear the music.

I CARE IF YOU LISTEN | New Classical Music News

So the previous review is from this blog/mag. The name comes a reaction to the seminal essay by Milton Babbit, “Who Cares If You Listen?”.

The Contemporary Classical Composer’s Bullshit Generator

When I subscribed to the “I Care If You Listen” newsletter they emailed me some links to old essays they think are cool. This one from 2011 is definitely funny. Code that generates plausible pretentious composer babble.

F*ck you. Pay me: Some Thoughts on Musicians and Money.

This is another of the essays “I Care If You Listen” linked in its email. You have to sift through it. Some parts are not so good. Like the section on recommending contracts then the author lets slip that he hasn’t actually DONE this yet. Sheesh.

However, the concept of remuneration and its discussion is one that is near and dear to this musician’s heart. And of course I love the title of the article taken from a linked 30 minute video that is tempting to watch.

At this time of life I notice that I am continually drawn to beauty. Not only beauty, but often a delicate form of it. This is my attraction to poetry. Often when I get up I check the headlines via Google News, the New York Times and Washington Post. But I can hear an English teacher from my high school pointing out that poetry was more important than news. This has turned out to be true for me.

I listen daily to the Writers Almanac. There’s a poem a day. Once in a while they pick a good one or one that I find attractive. Usually like so much I see around me the poems are pretty insipid. But I keep looking for the delicate beauty.

I think my attraction to music has elements of this in it. I am interested in the delicacy of the solo piano, the solo harpsichord and chamber music in general. Admittedly I do play an instrument that can play loud and not at all delicately when I sit down to a pipe organ or an electric organ. But I notice that so far I have rarely drawn the big ensemble stops on my new Pasi. Instead I bask in the beauty of one or sometimes two stops at a time.

I am thinking about Frescobaldi a lot. I didn’t bring my recently purchased historical annotated edition of his Fiori Musicali. I have much study to do about this work via this edition. However, he is still on my mind. The Fiori Musicali (Musical Flowers) turns out to be liturgical music. I am more interested in his vaster output of dances and variations. I think they will sound lovely on the Pasi. And delicate.

I am attracted to the delicate skein created by an artfully contrived and well written novel. Over the years my initial impression of the complexity of the writers I love like Joyce and David Foster Wallace focuses into understanding this kind of writing as delicate beauty.

All the more delicate in the noisy and flashy world I live in now.

Getting away from my usual routine helps me look a bit deeper into myself and understand these sort of things.

Vacation is going good.

Can Jonathan Haidt Calm the Culture Wars?

There are some rumblings on the right that have caught my attention. Specifically the Heterodox Academy seemingly founded on the idea on the need for diverse and wide conversations. However this movement has not shaken the fuzzy idea of equivocating the evolution of free speech with the repression of real people (of color, poor people, gender diversity). So I read this article with an alertness for distortion. And there is distortion there. Academics as so bad at marketing and branding and they are often used. The recent addition of Bret Stephens to the editorial page of the New York Times is an example of good intentions gone haywire, since Stephens is not a clear thinker. Clear thinkers on the right would be helpful right now since the right dominates the conversation (they won, remember? and have been winning for a while).

Berkeley author George Lakoff says, ‘Don’t underestimate Trump’ — Berkeleyside

Nothing particularly new here, but it’s good stuff. Unfortunately Lakoff reminds me of Ed Friedman who provided brilliant insights to many levels of our society (government, military, church) only to be basically ignored as Lakoff is being ignored.

Eileen and I made it. After missing our flight out of Denver to Ontario last night, we had to stand in line for hours to get a voucher for a place to sleep and meals. Rodeway Inn wasn’t terribly fancy but it was better than sleeping in the airport. I had a friend who offered to let us crash at her house not far from the Denver airport. Fortunately we did no have to do that.

We set the alarm for 3:30 so we could be ready for our taxi which was coming at 4 AM. Everything worked fine. It was startling how crowded the airport was at that time of morning. The security line was very long but moved quickly.

We flew from Denver to San Fransisco and then to Ontario. We are now at hotel California Jenkins style. The  mountains are still beautiful here.

On the way I entirely read an ebook copy of Brooke Gladstone’s new book, The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Times.

It’s quite good. I think she is much smarter than her co-host, Bob Garfield, whom I admire but has not been very helpful in this Trumpian era. He does a good interview. But Gladstone goes to the heart of things bringing together an amazing array of ideas from Neil Postman, Ursula K. Leguin, Philip K. Dick, David M. Eagleman, James Fenimore Cooper, Michael Signer, Ned Resnikoff, Hannah Arendt, George Lakoff and Jonathon Swift.

Many of these thinkers are on my radar but some are not. I’m grateful for all the Gladstone brings together in this book and am thinking seriously of rereading it soon. I’ll spare you details at this point, but I am thinking about this stuff.

In addition, I decided it might be fun to see if I could read the next little section in my Greek Text. I have been doing a lot of reviewing for the last six months or so. I’m beginning to think that I’m getting a handle on the grammar that the text uses Aristophanes’ The Clouds.

The next section is based on Plato and that’s what I attempted to read at sight while flying from San Fransisco to Ontario. I had good success. It helps to know the story which is drawn from the Trial of Socrates. I’ve actually read a good deal in Plato. I often disagree with him but enjoy stretching my brain cells.

Speaking of my brain cells, I think I’m going to rest them at this point. More tomorrow.

2011: What Scientific Concept Improve Everybody’s Cognitive Toolkit? Edge.org

Umwelt. Gladstone quotes Eagleton about it.

Russia’s ‘Gay Propaganda’ Laws Are Illegal, European Court Rules – The New York Times

At least the European Court is making sense.

A College Built for Canadian Settlers Envisions an Indigenous Future – The New York Times

Canada’s relationship to its indigenous population is a history of shame and belies their reputation as the “good guys” on the continent.

What the Watergate Committee Taught Me – The New York Times

LOWELL P. WEICKER JR  is the last living member of the committee. He wrote this article.

Paul Zukofsky, Prodigy Who Became, Uneasily, a Virtuoso Violinist, Dies at 73 – The New York Times

This guy sounds like a dink, but I’m still interested in him.

Derek Walcott museum closes amid row over Caribbean tourist developments | Books | The Guardian

A dead poet I like in the news.

Today should be an interesting day. Our flight leaves at 5 PM from Grand Rapids. This is the time my day’s are usually winding down and I have a martini. Eileen told me yesterday that I could still have my Tuesday martini, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. In a recent short story in the New Yorker, It’s a Summer Day  by Andrew Sean Greer, the main character, Arthur Less,  has an airplane adventure in which he ends up very groggy from sleeping pills. It’s a funny story, but it reminds me that I function most clearly without alcohol.

I think my wimpy vacation has begun. I say wimpy because many people do this better than me. I do think that visiting Mark and Leigh right after Trinity Sunday was a very good idea. Since then I have been able to convince myself it’s summer and I can goof off more.  Our annual visit to California necessitates one Sunday off. I have also taken the next Sunday off since we are planning to get out of town and hole up in the Hatch Grayling cabin with the rest of the Michigan Jenkins clan.

I am planning on traveling as light as possible. I’m seriously limiting the books and music I take, hoping that my tablet will do some serious substituting for bulky real books and music. I was disappointed in what Buxtehude was available on line so I’m planning to take my Dover Buxtehude collection. It’s a handy clean copy that I often perform out of, especially after consulting better editions.

In addition I found an interesting book online that looks like a good vacation read.

The Outcasts of Time by John Mortimer is a sort of a medieval sci fi something or other. Two brothers find themselves dying of plague and confronted  by some sort of being (The Devil?) who offers them a deal, They only have six days to live. Would they like to live them in the 14th century into which they were born or how about one day every 99 years? Well there would be no novel if they didn’t choose the latter. I’m on chapter 3.

I heard from an old colleague from Notre Dame who is the organist at First Untied Methodist, Riverside. He said I could practice there while visiting. I have his phone and will call him tomorrow. At this point I’m thinking I’d like to get some time in tomorrow, but I may be too pooped from the trip or need to hang around and not go away from fam.

Like probably many people in the USA I have been pondering the terrible rifts in our political situation. I have been thinking about the lack of self awareness of extremists. In fact I have been pondering lack of self awareness both in myself and others. I think  that acting as though there are other people in the world who matter besides the ones that look and think like you is a good goal. I have it as a goal and try to apply it to people who strike me as wrong headed and ill informed and even angry and violent.

There must be people all over the political spectrum (from extreme to non participative) who are attempting awareness. Social media distorts so many things about being alive and having relationships. Its broad reach to so many is impressive however, its tendency towards one dimensional presentation of self (and sooprise soorpise everyone seems so happy and successful), this tendency is not so impressive nor helpful.

I continue to ponder the characters In the movie, “The Fast Runner.” This movie does a good job of presenting the human condition. The actors are amazing. I don’t think there is a word of English in this movie, but the expressiveness of the actors is striking. The humanity of their characters and their social mores comes through in a charming way. Of course not every thing is sweetness and light, but I ended up with more hope for humanity (and America in specific) after this movie.

The people portrayed live life with humor and clarity even as they tolerate each other’s foibles. Not a bad goal.

How John King’s String Quartet Fuses Western and Arabic Music

I haven’t read this yet. I made a pdf of it for vacation. I did find the following YouTube rendition of a String Quartet by John King. I like it.

This morning I am blogging earlier in my morning. I have washed the dishes and made coffee. I have checked WhatsApp for pics and videos of Lucy and Alex (new grandkids)  to email to myself to show my Mom. Next is usually Greek. However, since by the end of the day yesterday I decided to skip blogging, I thought I should do this earlier.

My relationship to having a web site where I can leave a note and links everyday has changed since I began.

I’m not sure what year it was but it was in the 90s that I had the idealistic idea that the internet would be a good place to have conversation. I was inspired by the wonderful conversations I had in Grad school. Conversations that I had begun to sorely miss. I still miss these but have grown used to consoling myself with poetry, literature and music.

Then I began to realize that this was a good place for my distant family and friends to easily check in and see if I was alive and what might be going on with me.

This urgency has diminished. I see my adult kids immersed in their own lives. I like having adult kids and I like that they are independent as well as loving. This all seems about right.

Now I’m not sure why I am blogging.

It seemed no big deal when I realized I didn’t want to do one last night.

Instead I went to church and practiced organ for a couple of hours.

It might be that on Sunday night I will do what I did last night which was mostly read through music. I did rehearse a couple of Bach pieces on my radar, but then I turned to other pieces by Bach and Buxtehude.

People have asked me if I was excited about this organ all through the process including the finalization of its installation. I have to say what I mostly feel is like I am living in a waking dream.

I find that the beauty and integrity of the different ranks feels like a luxury. To be able to pull combinations of stops that actually enhance the music I am playing is new for me. Usually I have to use my ingenuity to not violate what I perceive is the spirit of the music. Now I just pull stops and go. Wow.

Eileen and I watched “The Fast Runner” last night.

I managed to stay awake through most of it. What I saw was spectacular. I was reminded that the woman at the eyeglass frame shop said that I would be able to see TV better. Though I don’t really have a TV I do watch stuff on the computer. Yesterday I pulled my chair closer to the computer in order to read the subtitles. I wonder what it will be like to see a bit better.

Tomorrow Eileen and I get on a plane for California to visit the branch of the fam that lives there. It will be good to make our annual trip out there and see everyone in the flesh.

A Thousand Thoughts by Sam Green — Kickstarter

A movie about Kronos String Quartet.

A Mother’s Death, a Botched Inquiry and a Sheriff at War – The New York Times

Leadership in 21st century USA: “He lies because he can.” Long excellent read.