My blood pressure is creeping up, but the upper number (the one I watch the closest) is still below 140. I’m also eating too many calories while visiting. Oh well. The food and drink has been good.

I’ve also been using the wonders of the internet to compare Bach’s autograph of “The Art of Fugue” with the one published a year after his death. This is fun. Yesterday during my practice I played through the first four Countrapuncti (?) in the versions I have for organ.

I also managed 45 minutes on Mark’s treadmill. This is something I may do again today. I need to purchase a treadmill very soon. Purchasing one isn’t what’s holding me up. It’s where to put the dang thing.

I am enjoying my time away.

I’m still managing to do some work via email and that’s probably okay. My rescheduled doctor’s appointment is a week from next Tuesday. I hope my blood pressure comes down a bit before then. But whatever at least I will be seeing my doctor and talking with her about how best to address it.

Mark has been showing us episodes of Louie CK’s “Horace and Pete.” They are quite good.

I will probably purchase ones we don’t get to see here and follow it.

Today is my last scheduled rehearsal at St. Paul’s Chelsea. They are very good about letting me practice on their organ. I will give them my usual $20 donation as a thank  you.

I am hoping to return tomorrow a bit more rested than I left.

Last night we went and saw the movie, “Batman vs Superman.” Beforehand, Eileen, Mark, Leigh and I had a nice meal at the vegetarian restaurant, Seva. Mark’s daughter, Emily, and her husband, Jeremy met us at the movie theater. It was fun to be out with the fam. But the movie benefits from low expectations.

There are lots of pretty pictures.

And lots of good actors. Just bad plotting, bad cgi, and bad music.

We are going out to eat again tonight. This time at the local barbecue place, Smokehouse 52.

This should balance out the vegetarian restaurant of last night, nicely.

It’s a nice rainy day in Chelsea Michigan. I should be able to get some serious goofing off done today.

I’m blogging late because I’m actually on vacation!!!!! I got up and did my Greek as usual. Then I read at leisure in my Norton Anthology of Greek Literature and McChesney’s Blowing the Roof off the Twenty First Century. After everyone got up, we had a nice leisurely breakfast together with each of us scrounging up our food. Very cool!

During breakfast, I had a call from Holland Hospital.

Dr. Fuentes had obviously referred me immediately to Dr. Jim Dumerauf, the head of Behavioral Services at Holland Hospital.

Someone from his office was calling. Unfortunately, evoking Jen Adams’ referral had no effect and the person at the other end wanted to schedule me with someone else. I thanked her but said that I was pursuing specific people who have been recommended to me in hopes of finding someone compatible. She told me Dumerauf only tends to see inpatients (something I knew and could read on their web site). I said okey dokey and we broke off our call.

Darn. But I’m not sure he would have been what I am looking for in a shrink. I’m not entirely sure what that is. But I envision someone as smart as me (smarter even!) and well read as well as competent in their job. But who knows?

I do think it’s cool that Doctor Fuentes moved so quickly on that recommendation. I gave her ?Dumerauf’s and  Ann McKnight’s name just yesterday. We’ll see if I hear from McKnight’s office.

I will pursue this further when I get back in town.

The office administrator emailed me a pdf of Sunday’s bulletin which I printed up for Eileen to proof. This is very good.

It’s good to get some time away. Mark and Leigh are perfect hosts and we all give each other plenty of space in their cool old farmhouse. AND Leigh has a beautiful Steinway piano which is a family heirloom and I am allowed to play.

What’s not to like?

Noam Chomsky: The Republican Base Is “Out of Control”

This is obviously a leftist type web site, but I do love Chomsky.

The good news is we dropped off two tax files to our accountant to work on while we are away this week, one for Mom and one for Eileen and me. Eileen usually does our taxes. She figured them out this year and it seemed as though we would get an enormous refund ($9K!). So she wanted an accountant to look over her work.

Another piece of good news is that we put Mom’s bed back together with a more secure, welded head piece.

Unfortunately, I missed my doctor’s appointment.

It happened like this. Eileen went off to an exercise class she sometimes attends. I decided I wanted to practice organ. I have my eye on learning the E Major prelude and fugue of Bach, BWV 566. I was in the mood for Bach and warmed up with BWV 568 (a G major prelude) and 578 (the famous G minor fugue).

I decided I needed to make photocopies for page turns on this Sunday’s prelude and postlude by Eugene Butler. I had a nice conversation with our administrator. I didn’t draw attention to the mistakes she has been making in the bulletin. Instead, I told her about my doctor’s appointment and subsequent referral to a shrink. I told her it was only fair that my coworkers know what kind of crazy I am and that I would let her know.

In the absence of Rev Jen, I think my best bet is to ask the administrator to email me a pdf of the final version of the bulletin before it goes to print. My brother Mark had some good suggestions in a comment to yesterday’s post. However, in the meantime, buy diazepam uk 2013 while Jen is recuperating, my best alternative is to try and develop a good working relationship with the administrator and stave off train wreck type errors.

I returned to the console and began studiously working on my prelude for Sunday. I was about to go over it for the third of four tries when I heard  my phone ding a notification that someone was either texting me or a text conversation in which I was copied was active. I checked the phone. It was 11:02.

My appointment was at 11 AM. Can you say “approach avoidance”?

I immediately called Eileen and asked her to grab my Blood Pressure records so I could stop on my way to the doctor’s office and get them. I called the doctor’s office to say I would be late.

By the time Eileen and I arrived it was of course too late to be seen by the doctor. I think the cut off is fifteen minutes and we just missed it. The woman who was supposed to reschedule me was a bit obtuse. After being directed to her office when I told her I had missed my doctor’s appointment she looked at me as though I were speaking a foreign language. She proceed to sneeze and yawn her way through processing me. Her final comment was that I should speak to my doctor’s assistant today when I took my Mom to her appointment since she was unable to find a slot for me in the next two weeks.

Damn.

I think I need a vacation.

French Journalist Is Detained at U.N. War Crimes Tribunal – The New York Times

Weird story.

So Holy Week is over. Now I am looking at many weeks without my boss around. This is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. Of course it is much less dire for me than for her as she recuperates from surgery. I, on the other hand, need to bounce back from burnout and cultivate constructive approaches to my job in the absence of good leadership.

I hope to address the first by a doctor’s visit today and subsequent time away at my brother’s house. I have some ideas about how to be constructive in Jen’s absence mostly centered on not fucking up by addressing problems too directly.

Our office administrator continues to make many mistakes in the bulletin. Some of these are repeats, some new. I am thinking of asking her to email me a pdf of the final bulletin in time to try to catch some of these. Originally i had thought of trying to train her better, but the fact that I have to ask her to correct the same mistakes over and over has led me to wonder if that’s a constructive approach. Maybe I only need to keep a bit closer eye on the final product.

Anyway, this morning I am planning on emailing her next Sunday’s info with the request that she send me a pdf of the final bulletin in time to catch mistakes.

There are some other problems that have emerged over Holy Week. I have a choir member who has taken it on himself to run the sound system. During the Triduum he hovered at the back of the church supposedly monitoring the quality of the sound. He was also definitely distracting the celebrant, myself and the choir. This is tricky to deal with. He is, of course, well meaning. But also not very self aware.

Jen had asked him not to do this before leaving for surgery. Hah. I’m not sure what I can do constructively about this. I fear that a direct approach will do more harm than good.

Anyway, this week will have no choir rehearsal and I will be OUT OF TOWN. That’s got to help me.

I have been finding myself drawn deeper into my Greek studies. I am going over chapters and trying to learn them better. Also reading in my Norton Anthology of Greek Literature edited by one of my heroes, Bernard Knox. This morning I picked up Robert Graves’ charming little book, The Greek Myths and read in it a bit. I find that the Greek stuff is as constituent to Western Civilization as the Christian stuff. 

I am listening to Bach Easter cantatas while preparing this Sunday’s info for the office. life is good.

This was our anthem last night. The choir was asking about Billings.

I mentioned he was one of America’s first composers but also said I wasn’t too sure about it. I checked it this morning and Wikipedia says he is regarding as America’s first choral composer. This performance is good but I liked ours better, not quite so polished sounding.

My friend Rhonda (and sometime reader of this blog, Hi Rhonda!) came to the Vigil last night. We had emailed back and forth earlier in the day so I wasn’t shocked to see her. It rattled me a bit having such a fine musician worshiping with us. The service went well. Rev Jodi did a good job. I know she was a bit “jittery” (her word). The postlude (Widor Toccata) went well in sections and was shaky in others. I have been practicing it slowly and only sped it up yesterday during the day to see how the registration would sound.

I have mixed feelings about this piece. I play it because it’s a recognizable and popular organ piece. How many of those are there? Afterwards Rhonda came up and said hi. It was a bit mortifying to have her hear me play this and not play it as well as I wanted. But toujours gai, Archy!

As I was doubting whether I should continue to schedule this silly piece at Easter every year, a parishioner came up to me and told me how much it meant to her to hear it. Sigh. I remember my teacher, Ray Ferguson, telling a story about how a visitor at Easter came up to him after his “non-Widor toccata” Easter postlude and said that he had come with an expectation to hear it. What did Ray do? He sat down and played the damn thing for him. What a guy.

So I am tired this morning, but think I can make it through fine. After church we will visit Mom and then drive to Whitehall for the annual Hatch Easter Egg Hunt. After we get back i can rest a bit. Tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment at which I will report how my new meds are working (good) and seek a referral for a shrink. The next day I will take my Mom to a doctor’s appoint. Then I can get out of town for a few days.

This is today’s anthem. I have done it before with other choirs. We will sing it in English. I think it makes a nice Easter Sunday anthem after Triduum. Plus one more time through Widor and I will be done!

26 Hidden Chrome Features That Will Make Your Life Easier – Drag Multiple Tabs at Once – Slideshow from PCMag.com

I haven’t made it through many of these. I tire at slideshows and videos. Easier and quicker to ingest prose. Still I’m sure I don’t use my computer nearly efficiently as I could.

Famous Japanese Restaurant-Style Salad Dressing Recipe – Allrecipes.com

Our local sushi place makes a great salad. I was skeptical at first but a taste convinced me. One nice thing about it is its dressing. Yesterday I adjust portions in this recipe and made a dressing for our salad at supper. Eileen thought it was similar to the restaurant dressing.

Hong Kong Bookseller Is Said to Return to Chinese Mainland – The New York Times

Damn.

Listening to Nicolas Hénin on this morning’s podcast of this week’s show of On The Media I couldn’t help but revel in the clarity of what this man has to say about terrorism. I recommend you listen to it for yourself. But after living with terrorists as a captive for ten months he says they are TRIVIAL, in US speak: high-schoolers looking for the baddest of the bad to rebel with. So when we ape their propaganda and perpetuate the idea that they are clever and living a glamorous life style we are spreading their narrative.

Kill the narrative, Hénin says.

Here’s an article by him from the Guardian, published this past Wednesday about the Brussels stuff.

In the fanatical world of Isis, your duty is to kill and die | Nicolas Hénin | Opinion | The Guardian

I’m thinking seriously of purchasing the Kindle version of his book.

Eileen is having breakfast with the rest of the alto section this morning. I got up a bit later than usual and have only done my Greek and am now blogging alone in the kitchen. She is going to bring them over here after to breakfast to show off her looms.

The choir did another good job last night. So did the curates. Triduum is moving along in a smooth fashion. I do miss my boss, however. I have seen that she is active on Facebooger so that’s a good sign.

The Hénin insights about the jihadists reminds me of how the Republican establishment is reinforcing the Trump narrative that he (elite businessman and TV star) is the outsider, the authentically blunt and truth teller, while Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and others are part of the problem not the solution. For a party which seemed to have perfected the insidious notion of “framing,” they’ve dropped the ball on this one.

As I read McChesney’s books, I believe that Trump in addition to horrible fear mongering and stirring up good old American hate is moving into a vacuum of public dissatisfaction that is reality based.

Abortion Rights Advocates Cry Foul at New Step in Fetal Tissue Inquiry – The New York Times

US Government at work. Ay yi  yi

Radovan Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb, Is Convicted of Genocide – The New York Times

Big news! How many Americans notice this?

Three more days of work ahead of me. I awoke this morning pretty fatigued already.

I hope I can rest along the way in order to function well.

Last night went easily. I was especially proud of my choir’s performance of “I give you a new commandment” by William Mundy. We do most of Maundy Thursday in the basement. It has low ceilings of course and there is absorbent material everywhere. It’s a typical hostile singing environment.

I invited whoever wanted to come to a 5:45 warm up. I was surprised that most of the choir arrived for this time. I think it helped our sound tremendously. The purity of the vowels were especially good last night. This is critical when singing so close to the listeners in a dead acoustic.

Today I am meeting with the curates (who are running the show while Rev Jen is recuperating from her successful surgery yesterday morning) at 1:30. They handled themselves well last night.

I continue to think a great deal about Bach’s “Art of Fugue.”

While I am reading through many of the movements, I am working hard on number 9. I need to learn more about the contemporary scholarship about the numbering but the one I mean is the one I first heard the Swingle singers do.

I still love this recording. And while not exactly trying to replicate their interpretation it is in the back of my mind while I am learning this piece, especially thinking about bringing out the original slow melody that is the theme of the entire work. Also, the idea of making Bach a bit jazzy has dogged me all my life. I think that he has some important basic commonalities with jazz like a steady driving beat and predominance of bass line. It helps me make the music a bit more alive when I factor that in.

On the reading front, I am enjoying dipping into McChesney and Nichols little book, Tragedy and Fear. I am reading the section on the 2004 election which I remember. They point out how CBS dropped the ball by choosing to repress the truth about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq (there weren’t any) until after the November election.

In doing so, the authors maintain that they ceased to be a news organization. There are few of these left these days anyway.

And I’m still plowing through Blowing Off the Twenty First Century by McChesney. Using my Moon+ Reader to read this is a bit cumbersome.

The footnotes don’t work but I have learned how to get around this by simply constantly rebookmarking where I am reading and the notes in the back. It works, but I only go to a footnote when I am curious.

When i think of booknotes I think of my beloved grad teacher in liturgy, Neils Rassmusen, who killed himself because he knew when his diagnosis of AIDS became known his considerable reputation as a liturgical scholar would suffer. He said in his soft Swedish accent, “Do not neglect to read the footnotes.”

So usually if I’m reading a book, I look at every footnote, partially in homage to a gentle scholar I studied with.

Overreacting to Terrorism? – The New York Times

Rationality fades in the face of fear. Of course one is more likely to fall in the bathtub than be involved in a terrorist attack.

Yesterday afternoon I began to feel like things might be looking up a bit for our hero. Last Saturday evening I realized that we had no legal, working cars. Yesterday, we picked up the Subaru which is now in working condition. The car repair people called me and asked me what I wanted to do. I said fix the exhaust system. That turned out to cost less than $150. Sheesh. This is exactly what I wanted done in the first place, but the car people thought the car needed to be thrown away and that I should buy a car from them for $3K.

So now all cars are legal and working for the moment. Cool. I also have choral anthems chosen for the rest of the season. That’s a big weight off. I do have the next few days to get through, however, for a church musician these are days of culmination of weeks of preparation. Not too much for it, but to simply execute the plans and see what happens. Last night I took the choir through the Triduum booklet. They seem prepared. We have a plan.

So factoring in my new found caution that I may be mentally ill, I embrace the simple feeling that things are going well for the moment.

Thanks to my brother for giving me an ebook copy of Blowing the Roof off the Twenty First Century. I am on the fourth chapter. This is actually a collection of essays written over the last 16 years or so with some chapters written for this 2014 publication. McChesney sees (saw?) an opening for radical change in the USA. Unfortunately as I read this book, I begin to understand the Trump phenomenon better.

Besides the obvious fear mongering it looks to me like Trump is also capitalizing on the pervasive discontent that McChesney sees being caused by the take over of our country by business ethics of large corporations and rich individuals.

Combine that with the break down of journalistic reporting which has largely been replaced by media dedicated to making profits. This plays into Trump’s content free campaigning.

In another 2005 book I have been reading,  Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy, McChesney and his co-author John Nichols make a telling comparison between Presidential candidates John Kerry and George W. Bush.

Kerry operated under the belief that the American media are the watchdog of Democracy, that fairness and truth would surface in it. And the Swiftboat people ate him alive.

Bush heeded his shrewd adviser, Karl Rove. who taught him to “distrust, disparage, and, above all, manipulate mainstream media while working closely with a burgeoning network of right wing talk radio hosts to advance his candidacy and discredit his foes.” Bush could expect “nothing from mainstream media except an empty balancing act that would treat any statement he made—no mater how absurd—as the equal of expressions from his opponents.” (p. 127)

Does this look and sound familiar? I think it also shows how Bush and Rove in effect paved the way for Trump’s skillful manipulation of the media. McChesney and Nichols write “There has been an utter collapse of credible political journalism in the United States to the point where powerful politicians are better positioned than ever to manipulate the coverage of campaigns, and citizens are left ill-equipped to participate in a meaningful manner in their own elections.” (p. 126)

I finally got around to registering as a contributing member to IMSLP. I have watched this online source go through all kinds of changes and use it almost every day. $22 a year. What a bargain!

Eileen and I spent time looking for my old Kindle yesterday in order to make the deadline for the update. I don’t really use it much. I prefer the Kindle app on my tablet. Eileen found the old Kindle. It took a while to recharge but I did get it updated.

I randomly picked up Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly: from Troy to Vietnam recently. I was dutifully reading the acknowledgements when I ran across her thank you to Jeffrey Race “for introducing me to the concept concealed under the jargon, ‘Cognitive Dissonance.'”

I was intrigued. I have thought of “cognitive dissonance” as the distress which ensues from contradictory statements or evidence. After reading what Tuchman has to say, I think I had it wrong.

Tuchman writes: “Psychologists call the process of screening out discordant information ‘cognitive dissonance…” Oh! It’s the act of screening, denying the contradiction. Boy did I have that wrong.

Tuchman continues and says that cognitive dissonance is “an academic disguise for ‘don’t confuse me with the facts.'”

The entire book, The March of Folly, is an examination of countries actively working against self interest. This seems apropos to understanding America right now (not to mention other countries).

In a previous read, I noted  that Tuchman also introduced me to the  related concept, “wooden-headedness” which she defines as “assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs.”

Both of these ideas are handy when trying to make sense of persistent wrong-headedness in our current world.

In addition to turning to Tuchman, I found myself perusing through Richard McChesney’s Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times.

 On July 16, 2003 (judging from handouts tucked into my copy of this book) I gave a book talk on this book. So I guess I have read it all the way through. I have extensive notes in the back which is usually a sign that I have read extensively in a book.

I learned a lot of history from this book. I am interested in how McChesney is thinking about our current journalistic and political mess. I discovered that my library has a couple books by him sitting on the shelf. Planning to look at them today.

The second book above is actually on order at my library. I’m now on the reserved list for it.

I finished sketching a plan of choral pieces for the rest of the season yesterday. They include this piece.

I couldn’t get a copy of this piece to study, but it sounds like a good for us. I ordered it.

I also ordered Phillip Glass’s “Etudes for piano.”

I can remember when he wrote and recorded them. I thought it was a clever idea to write one’s own etudes to improve one’s technique. But at the time I couldn’t get my hands on the score. But now it’s readily available. I ordered it too.

‘I Will Survive,’ Dirty Words Routine Added to US Registry – The New York Times

Great stuff.

Yesterday was my third rough day in a row.

I’ll not belabor it here. The short story is that Mom’s car is now insured and has a current sticker on her license plate. This took us until 3 PM or so. Many phone calls, each one with an annoying phone tree.

I did manage to look at Bach’s original manuscript of the Art of Fugue while waiting endlessly at the Secretary of State. God bless tech, eh? I was satisfied to see that the shortened ending in the version I am using is the way Bach ended it. Most versions add measures in which there is a final statement of the fugue subject after the chords followed by long silences. Also the tie in the pedal part at the end is in the original as well.

Eileen was a huge help all day. Not only the usual moral support, but helping me sort Mom’s and our separate files.

We are much more organized today than yesterday.

The odd thing is how I reacted to getting stuff done. I continued to feel emotionally in a free fall and self recriminatory all day despite gradually accomplishing stuff. By the end of the day I was devastated. Is this mental illness?

Blood pressure even lower this morning than yesterday (The crowd goes wild at this tidbit of information!). I am washed out this morning. I managed to get some organ practice in at the end of the day yesterday. But am a few steps behind in planning for the post Easter season.

Still haven’t heard from Holland High School regarding the money they owe me.

I hope I can rest some today and gain some badly needed perspective and equilibrium.

After having decided to pursue the possibility of being in some way clinically depressed or at least depressed enough to seek therapy, it’s hard not to reevaluate my weirdness in terms of mental illness.

This morning I am low and not feeling highly functional despite a morning of Greek and James Joyce plus submitting (finally) music info for Easter Sunday Bulletin. I am planning on trying to teach the office administrator to think a bit more clearly about the appearance of how she designs the bulletin. She’s a smart woman. I think this is the approach to go with. I will need to do it carefully, however. Tricky stuff, trying to help people improve their performances, especially when I’m not actually in a position clearly designated as her supervisor.

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” Is Our Most Misread Poem

This is kind of an odd link. I am aware that Frost’s famous poem is misread. Frost is a poet I have read a good deal. Donald Hall’s portrait of him in Their Ancient Glittering Eyes is quite good. Frost himself is alternately misread as a steely ambitious backbiter or a avuncular uncle. Watching the tape of him reading at JFK’s inauguration on TV it is easy to fall in the latter category. I did before I started reading his work more extensively and reading about him. 

In a nutshell the misreading of this poem is that it is not about choosing a road that others do not. It’s about self deception and the unreliability of memory. The ending flourish is probably too long for the age of Twitter, and thus only the final line is credited with meaning not the entire idea that “in the future I will remember it this way.”

In addition to everything else this past Saturday (see previous post), when I came home, Eileen was sorting old mail in the kitchen. As I came in the room, she discovered an old letter from the Secretary of the Stat of Michigan with forms for renewal of Mom’s license plate on her car. Mom’s plates expired on March 9, 2016 (Dad’s birthday). Uh ho.

I immediately ransacked the glove compartment looking for proof of insurance so that we could renew the plates today. Unfortunately, the only proof of insurance I could find had expired in July of last year. After some frantic searching both Saturday and Sunday it has become apparent that we have been driving Mom’s car without insurance for months and now the plates are expired. I guess that makes us criminals, eh? If you are a police officer and reading my blog, please do not come and arrest me. Today I will call Mom’s insurance broker and ascertain that we are, indeed, uninsured and then proceed to insure the car and get its plates renewed.

The Subaru is sitting at the car repair shop waiting for us to come and get (probably today) and take it to the junk yard. Eileen’s Mini sits in the garage (as it does every winter) temporarily suspended from insurance.

Yesterday’s service had some discouraging moments mostly concerning the bulletin. I noticed Saturday that despite my best intentions the words the choir sang by themselves to be sung during the outside procession (the verses in other words) were garbled. I instructed the office administrator to put the words under the response and indicate at the end of each line that there was a refrain. This she did. But instead of typing out the words, she cut and pasted them from the music. Thus as one does in music, every syllable is isolated and difficult to read on its own. Best laid plans, eh?

Also, the title of my postlude (Countrapunctus I from Bach’s Art of Fugue)  was not in the bulletin. I just checked and it was in the email in which I sent the music info for Palm Sunday. I found this disappointing. My cellist and I played through the first movement of Brahms’s cello sonata the theme of which he lifted directly from Bach. I was hoping she might possibly make a connection. Plus I am planning on learning more movements from this work and performing them at church. It would be nice if they were indicated in the dang bulletin.

On the other hand, the music went well yesterday. I thought the anthem was pretty  much spectacular. It was a John Ferguson treatment of “Ah Holy Jesus,” very dramatic and with a lovely viola solo throughout. As usual there were profs from Hope there and as usual they did not speak to me at all. Hey, it wasn’t perfect but it was pretty good. It baffles me that other musicians from Hope see no need to support me with an occasional indicator that they are noticing my work. I’m probably just over sensitive about this (especially on Sunday mornings).

Amazingly, my blood pressure reached a new low this morning (120/93). I feel goofy reporting that here, but I suspect that family readership would wonder if I didn’t give the figure when I refer to it.

The Real Reason for Trump’s Rise | TIME

This Republican writer doesn’t quite rise to accurately explaining Trump. She seems to think his followers are being very logical in supporting an outsider when in fact the movement seems more about style than substance.

Dear Diary,

As you might expect, yesterday at Solo and Ensemble Festival was a bit crazy. The officials were highly cooperative with allowing me flexibility to accompany three students who were scheduled minutes apart. However, the string teacher phoned me before lunch asking me if I would accompany a sixth student. I said yes. He said he would give her my cell phone number. Makes sense.

After playing my three overlapping events I checked my phone. Sure enough someone had tried to call me during them. I called the number back and connected with the sixth student whose scheduled time had already past. I know now that I was so rattled that I didn’t noticed I had left my coat sitting on a locker while talking on the phone.

I don’t think I’ve ever sight read a classical gig. Let me say at this point that these people (mostly the string teacher) are acting weird. All of these students were under rehearsed with their accompanist (me!).

The Horn judge pointed out to the young horn player I accompanied that in college these days the pianist was not just an accompanist, rather is often thought of as a collaborator. If that is the case, and I believe that musicians who are playing together are collaborators, there was much more music to be made with these young people.

But I’m probably thinking differently than the teachers and students. But then that judge is also thinking differently as well.

The sixth student turned out to be a cellist and played well. As did I all day.

I had lots of time to work on Greek and read (I mostly read Satanic Verses  on my Kindle). Probably the most stressful hour of the day was after my last student. At this point, I was pretty exhausted. Two students had not paid me. Mr. White had assured me that they would pay me directly this time. Last time I received a check from the Music Booster Association.

One student, the horn player, told me he had paid the string teacher. The other student who didn’t pay me was the last minute cellist. It’s weird asking people for your money. And it takes a toll on me.

I phoned Mr. White and explained the situation including the fact that one of the string players had short changed me by $5. I then spent the next 30 minutes or so cooling my heels while he found the string teacher and ascertained how to proceed. He told me they would cut me a check for $85 on Monday. I told him that was fine.

Unfortunately when I went to put on my coat to get in the car, I realized it was not mine. I then began frantically back tracking to try and find my coat and return this coat to its owner. This took some time. I think I got some exercise yesterday running around a two story high school.

I ran across the cellist and asked her if the string teacher had given her money for me. It turns out he did and she gave me an envelope with $40 in it. i phoned Mr. White and left him a message we were down to $45 owed.

I continued to wander

Finally someone called out “Sir!” to me and I turned to see a student, his father and a room chairman coming toward me. I apologized profusely for picking up the coat. It turns out there were car keys in the coat so the owner and his dad were frantic.

I continued wandering until I spied my coat where I had inadvertently left it on the locker.

I then drove home to post the hymns for today’s service and practice the psalm and the postlude. Long day.

I  need to leave the house in less than an hour in order to arrive in plenty of time for my first scheduled accompaniment at the State Solo and Ensemble Festival being held at Grandville High School. In preparation for spending most of the day at a high school I have already checked my Kindle on my tablet for my Greek texts and other books I am reading including Finnegans Wake. Having most of my current reading on my tablet is very convenient when having to hang around in public. I have decided to blog now and not take my laptop so I won’t have to keep track of it.

I was surprised this week when I received a last minute email from the Orchestra Teacher at Holland High School. Could I add another student to my list of accompaniments on Saturday? I responded yes and heard nothing back. Yesterday I emailed him and asked if I was still on for this mystery student. He emailed me back and said the student would meet with me after school along with the band students. He also said that the accompaniment was easy.

Well it was as easy as I thought that would mean. I could sight read it a bit but it was a typical Suzuki Vivaldi Concerto orchestral accompaniment. Which is to say half the invention of the editor and half Vivaldi and not simple at all.

The student met me with an envelope. Mr. White, the band director, told me the students would pay me directly this time. Unfortunately, the amount in the orchestral students was $35 after Mr. White and I had negotiated $40 per student. Sigh.

I will mention this to Mr. White since he is the only person there who has talked clearly about money with me. I won’t mention it to the student and I don’t know the orchestral director there very well despite having known who he is for years.

This stuff makes me crazy.

I am supposedly accompanying 5 students today. Weirdly they are mostly paying me different amounts. Three of these students have gone through Mr. White and the orchestra director. I thought they would pay me $40 each. that would be $120. Now at best that will be $115 for three. One other student from Holland High negotiated with me separately or at least her Mom did. They are the people for whom I began with my usual rate of $125 for this service at the District Solo and Ensemble. When I realized that other students were going to pay less I renegotiated it down to $67.50. This seem to satisfy them and they hired me again for State for the same amount. I have one other student from West Ottawa High School who has already paid me $125. So total pay for today will probably be around $300.

My Subaru died. I had it in the shop because the exhaust system failed and it was really too loud to use. I got the call from the shop that it would cost more than I was willing to pay to fix this. The shop wants to sell me a car, but Eileen and I will probably limp through this summer with just the Mini and Mom’s car and then think about whether we can afford to replace the Subaru.

I need to stop now and make myself some lunch. God help me today.

I continue to ponder Joseph Campbell’s interpretation of the fairy tale of Brier-Rose where everyone in the castle falls asleep and the Arabian Night story where everyone on an island had turned to stone. Add to this (again coming from Campbell) Lot’s wife turning to salt when she looks back at Sodom and Gomorrah and the distasteful story of the Wandering Jew who is condemned to forever wander the earth for insulting Christ carrying his cross to be crucified.

Campbell makes a case that in order to mature one must break out of the magic spell of one’s parents (one’s background?).  He calls this the “magic circle drawn about the personality by the dragon power of the fixating parent.” To be caught in the trap of one’s own personality is the refusal to answer the call (of destiny?) he is talking about.

He also speaks in terms of artistry and creativity. Sometimes it’s necessary to go through this spell of time in order to arrive at “the occasion of a providential revelation of release.” His description of this sounds very like the idea of “flow” or the sudden ease and bewildering arrival of artistic ideas.

I continue to ponder this stuff. It’s almost like I’m preparing for therapy, eh?

Something is slow this morning, either the internet or my computer. Ah well. I’m waiting for speedtest.net to load so I can check it. Unsurprisingly, it’s taking forever to load.

Hmm. It doesn’t seem to be my internet connection. My next suspicion is my browser, but I’ll deal with that later.

Yesterday was a long busy day for me. I dragged myself over to church for a very productive meeting with Dawn Schutte, our acoustical consultant, Andy the architect and Rev Jen. They all agreed that the sound system was making too much noise. Dawn had ideas about moving it out of the room and into the chapel where it will still make noise, however she had ideas about how to muffle it, including turn the dang thing off when not in use.

She also had excellent ideas about how to maximize space for the music ministry and address our acoustic problems in this area unobtrusively but effectively. All good stuff.

I then practiced upcoming organ music. I have decided to play some unusual music. For Good Friday, I am doing a piece based on the melody, “Were you There?” by Evelyn Simpson-Curenton.

The prelude fo Easter is an unusual setting of “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” by Richard Popplewell.

For Easter II, I am doing both a prelude and postlude by  Eugene Butler.

These pieces will require some prep but they are not huge mountains to climb.

My cellist caught me off guard yesterday with an incredible complimentary assessment of my improvisations this past Sunday. I have confidence in my ability as an improviser and composer, however I also think that it’s easy in this day and age of the cult of personality to overrate people one admires.

It is important, however, to take compliments gracefully which I try to do.

 A revolution happened last night, and no one noticed | Historiann

Little known fact. A woman just received thousands and thousands of votes for presidency, more than anyone else in the race. Little known fact.

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Disliking Hillary Clinton | TIME

Deborah Tannen (a hero of mine) reminds us that no male politician has to worry about wardrobe, make-up or hair-do the way wimmen do. Helpful definition of double bind and how this applies to women in politics.

Bring It On – The New York Times

Greenhouse points out the differences between Bork and Garland. History helps.

I’m running behind this morning. After doing dishes and making coffee, I started looking for an old Hosanna I wrote a few years ago to use this Sunday. The choir rehearsed it last night, but the office couldn’t find a copy to put in the bulletin. After searching around for a bit, I did find it and email it off.

Today is full day for me. I am meeting with my boss, Jen, the acoustic consultant for the organ project, Dawn Schutte, and the Architect, this morning. The meeting is slated for 9 AM but Jen was clear I didn’t have to be there that early. She is meeting all day, on and off, with leaders for this project. I got out of most of the meetings because I have rehearsals all afternoon, including an extra one with a bass clarinetist I am accompanying Saturday at the State Solo and Ensemble Festival.

I think I am doing a bit better, depression wise. Yesterday Eileen was glum and low energy all day. Maybe it’s a system thing and my depression tinged her a bit. That’s probably far fetched. My blood pressure keeps edging downward slowly.

After the Fact – The New Yorker

Jill Lepore reviews The Internet of Us with an eye on the current madness in our election process.

The Trump Campaign Gives License to Violence – The New York Times

I guess I’m a stereotypical liberal in the eyes of reactionaries. This editorial outlines the situation clearly and accurately.

I was going to write about Joseph Campbell’s insights about the scene in Little Brier-Rose where everyone, not just her, falls asleep.

“She had no sooner touched the spindle when the magic curse was fulfilled, and she pricked herself in the finger. The instant that she felt the prick she fell onto a bed that was standing there, and she lay there in a deep sleep. And this sleep spread throughout the entire castle. The king and queen, who had just returned home, walked into the hall and began falling asleep, and all of their attendants as well. The horses fell asleep in their stalls, the dogs in the courtyard, the pigeons on the roof, the flies on the walls, and even the fire on the hearth flickered, stopped moving, and fell asleep. The roast stopped sizzling. The cook, who was about to pull kitchen boy’s hair for having done something wrong, let him loose and fell asleep. The wind stopped blowing, and outside the castle not a leaf was stirring in the trees.

Round about the castle a thorn hedge began to grow, and every year it became higher, until it finally surrounded and covered the entire castle. Finally nothing at all could be seen of it, not even the flag on the roof.”

It was this scene that he connected to a scene in the Eldest Lady’s Tale in the “One Thousand and One Nights,” where travelers stumble onto a island where everyone has suddenly turned to stone.

“So we landed, and going up into the city, saw at the gate men hending staves in hand, but when we drew near them, behold, they had been translated by the anger of Allah and had become stones. Then we entered the city and found all who therein woned into black stones enstoned. Not an inhabited house appeared to the espier, nor was there a blower of fire. We were awe-struck at the sight, and threaded the market streets, where we found the goods and gold and silver left lying in their places, and we were glad and said, “Doubtless there is some mystery in all this.”

However, I’m not sure I completely understand his insight, so I’ll just keep thinking about it.

This book came in at my request at the library yesterday. The topic is not as arcane as it might seem. Plus books written in the lasts decade or so have a tendency to be very readable and clear, more so than those written in the last two centuries. Probiert the author provides some witty ammunition to people who are interested in learning his subject.

He begins, “I do not think that intellectual pursuits should require justification; but for those who are embarking on the learning of the Greek accents and need to explain to their friends what has gotten into them, here are some excuses:”

He then lists off six bullet points including if one intends to “pursue ancient Greek papyrology, or palaeography, or textual criticism.”

Sheesh. I’m just a bit curious about how this works, that’s all.

I have long admired Mortimer J. Adler’s notion that ideas and books are themselves in conversation with each other, reading and thinking about one can often lead to reading and thinking about another, putting them side by side in the old cranium and seeing how they correlate or do not correlate.

This morning I began as usual with some Greek study. As I have mentioned here I am going over sections in my text I have already passed through but attempting to deepen my understanding and retention of their concepts, especially the grammar.

Then I turned to Antigone and finished reading Fagles’ translation of it in Knox’s The Norton Book of Classical Literature. I wanted to finish reading this play so I could better evaluate and possibly understand George Steiner’s book on how this story has had an impact on Western thought, Antigones.

The basic idea of this play is articulated toward the end of it.

“… of all the ills inflicted
men the worst is lack of judgement.”

Creon is furious that Antigones has gone against his decree that the body of her brother, Polynices, must not be honored in the usual ritual because he betrayed the city of Thebes by attacking it.

Eteocles, the other brother of Antigones, died defending the city and his body is treated with the rituals of respect. The brothers killed each other in battle. All three, brothers and sister, are children of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta.

Creon decrees Antigones death despite the protests of his son, Haemon, who was to marry Antigones, and his soothsayer, Tiresias. Before the story is over, Antigones, Haemon and Creon’s wife, Eurydice, have all taken their lives in the face of Creon’s judgement.

Creon does repent of his judgement on Polynices and therefore Antigone, but too late.

She and Haemon have already killed themselves. Their death has a Shakespearian echo for me.

After finishing this play and pondering a bit this morning, I found Joyce a little too happy to read next. (For me Joyce’s work is a cri de coeur of joie de vivre …. to use two French phrases in row… I understand them to mean “cry of the heart” and “joy of being alive”).

So I turned to the next chapter of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, “Refusal of the Call.”

Campbell’s work is a delightful blend of Freudian and Jungian psychology with many fairy tales and traditional stories.

In this chapter he draws on Richard Burton’s multi-volume translation of Thousand Nights and a Night. 

I happen to own several old beat up volumes of this work. Campbell footnotes volume I and III. I went upstairs and pulled them down to check out.

Then later, I randomly picked up a volume of selected essays my much beloved, Michel de Montaigne’s Essays.

I began reading one entitled “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The first sentence: “Judgement is a tool to use on all subjects, and comes in everywhere.”

Republican’s, You Went F*$%* Mad. Here’s What Happened. Here’s How We Can Fix You. — Medium

Matt Orr traces current Republican weird stuff to Barry Goldwater. He’s coming from the left, but this article includes facts with polemic.

Unsurprisingly, my friends and family are reaching out to me with expressions of concern and support about my thinking about depression. I had an email from my friend Rhonda recommending a local shrink. My boss who is herself going through a major surgery soon and has her own stress was very solicitous. My daughter, Sarah, called online from England for a video chat.

As I told Sarah, I’m not unhappy.

Rather thanks to my brother’s insight I can see where an array of stuff I am going through points to the possibility of some kind of mental illness or depression.  Why not check it out?

Also, I find my escalating blood pressure alarming.

So now I have to wait until the day after Easter when i see Dr. Fuentes to figure out how to connect with a psychiatrist (preferred) or a psychologist my insurance might possibly pay for.

In the meantime, I continue to be very interested in “The Art of Fugue.” I listen to it and also play through it. My postlude this Palm Sunday is Counterpunctus I from it. Yesterday and today I have been playing through the two part canons. It is surprising how much music Bach can pack into these pieces. Chilly Gonzales’s notion that classical music asks too much of the listener these days keeps going through my head. I think I reject this notion. Gonzales seems as stuck in unhelpful notions as any classical musician I have known.

I keep thinking music is music. Some music will inevitably demand more attention and concentration in the listener than other music. There’s room for it all in my head (and yours probably). Once again food is a great analogy. Sometimes you want a candy bar. Sometimes you want a meal or dish artfully prepared and presented.

I’ve also started reading and thinking about Sophocles’s play, “Antigone.”

I was reading in Bernard Knox’s introduction to The Norton Book of Classical Literature than I bought Saturday at the book sale in Chelsea. He mentioned in the introduction George Steiner’s “brilliant” book, Antigones,” Knox says that Steiner’s book demonstrates the commanding influence this play has had over modern Western thought and feeling.

I was intrigued. The plot to the play did not spring to my mind.

I interlibrary loaned the Steiner book and began reading the play. As I read it, I remember the plot. Antigone buries her disgraced brother, Polynices,  after he and her other brother, Eteocles, have killed each other in a battle over the city of Thebes.  Eteocles was honored in death by King Cleon. Polynices was forbidden to buried and his body was supposed to be left as carrion.

As I was blogging today I figured out that I already own The Norton Book of Classical Literature. I didn’t recognize the book at the sale because the paperback looks like this:

and the hardback like this:

I don’t know exactly where my paperback is anyway. So what the heck.

We are safely back in Holland. Yesterday, Eileen, Mark and I went to the Chelsea Library Book Sale. We all went in with the idea of moderating our acquisition of more books. Only Mark succeeded. I was amazed at the quality of the selection. I picked up some very nice books. Eileen found a bunch of children’s books she wants to keep around the house for visiting children (Alex the grandchild pops to mind).

We came home, hit Meijer.

My new drug was waiting for me at the pharmacy. Afterwards Eileen graciously unloaded the car of our stuff and groceries allowing me to immediately use the small portion of my energy left to go to church to practice today’s damn postlude.

My trip to Mark’s bore more fruit than I could possibly imagine.

It’s helpful to get other people’s perspective that’s for sure. This week I am looking at Solo and Ensemble preparation.

I think I have four students I am accompanying at State Solo and Ensemble on Saturday. I will need to rehearse with each one of them before then. I still haven’t received one student’s accompaniment, but it’s conceivably in my email as a pdf.

Now to get through today!