I decided yesterday to abandon using my tablet for page turns for the Buxtehude Passacaglia (in D minor) I am playing today. Instead I reverted to shrinking the pages down to a size where I can see the entire piece and there is no need for page turns.

I was working on this piece when the sound system workers were around. After I finished it once, one of them said under his breath, “And the crowd goes wild.” Sarcasm? Maybe not.

I am annoyed that I seem to have less energy as I get older. Yesterday pretty much kicked my butt. I will need to lay low Monday and Tuesday because next week I have myself set up for a bit of a marathon beginning with my usual Wednesday stuff (meetings, choir rehearsal), Thursday rehearsals, Friday: ballet auditions for Hope College, Saturday: ballet auditions for the Joffrey Ballet, Saturday evening: a Bang on a Can concert we have tickets for, Sunday: church and in the afternoon another ballet audition session.

I am a bit tired this morning but braced for the day. My psalm article is in today’s bulletin. My boss tinkered with it and added a the last paragraph. Eileen found numerous typos in it yesterday. I will have to pass these along. I think the church will print this several weeks in order to expose it to the widest number of parishioners.

Here’s a link to the google doc of this little article.

Eileen DID get up earlier this morning. Consequently, we went grocery shopping, came home and put away stuff, back  in the car for a trek checking out local shops where we might buy an area rug for the living room. Three stores later, nothing but an exhausted jupe. At least now, Eileen knows she can’t buy what she wants locally.

This is today’s blog. I only have energy left to practice and visit Mom.

The Party Crashers – The New Yorker

I like this article. The author is on the ground in the recent New Hampshire primaries.

Taliban Used Child Soldiers in Kunduz Battle, Rights Group Says – The New York Times

I have been following the child soldier story since before the internet. It makes me ill.

Should Obama Pick Nominee? Your Answer May Depend on How Much History You Know – The New York Times

Although this is one of the statistical takes, it makes sense that the better you understand the history and the facts, the more likely you are to think that the President has the obligation to nominate and the Congress the obligation to advise and consent.

Resetting the Post-Scalia Supreme Court – The New York Times

I am a fan of Linda Greenhouse, the author of this excellent article.

America’s Stacked Deck – The New York Times

 After a characteristically brilliant speech by Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in 1952 and 1956, a supporter is said to have , “Every thinking American will vote for you!” Legend has it that Stevenson shouted back: “That’s not enough. I need a majority!

This quote says it all.

Yesterday was my grandson’s 15th birthday. I keep hoping I will be able to connect to him better via the internet as he matures. Unfortunately at this point email is not a good option for us. He’s not on Facebooger. Last time I saw him he had lost his cell phone. I don’t know if he has a new one that he texts from. It’s frustrating not to be more connected but maybe this will change as he gets older. And he is a busy dude!

I belatedly drop shipped him some birthday stuff. It’s fun to do this since he is both a reader and a good pianist. I picked out some music (Satie, Jazz) and Brooke Gladstone’s excellent Influencing Machine.

Eileen spent several hours midday at Evergreen Center. I think she did Yoga before lunch and Water Aerobics after. I had rehearsals with my cellist and violinist. We holed up in the choir room since the church is in disarray and full of workers.

‘Today I have at least one ballet audition session.

The chair of the department emailed me yesterday confirming that and some other auditions. In his email he didn’t mention the afternoon session I thought he had previously booked. I emailed me back and asked about this afternoon as well as confirming the other dates.

It is with a certain sense of dread that I return to this venue. Again there was no mention of how much he plans to pay me or how. Probably he expects me to claim extra hours to cover this. That’s what he did last time. Cumbersome, but at least that way they take out taxes.

I just checked my email and he hasn’t responded to me yet. Sigh.

I put in some serous work on Buxtehude and Distler. Listening to the YouTube recordings gave me some good ideas on how to solo out a few lines in Buxtehude. I think my interpretation will be better this way even on my bad instrument. Distler is devilish, but I’m hoping I will be ready a week from this Sunday to play it well.

Eileen has been trying to get up earlier. There are classes that are offered in the morning that she would like to consider attending. But since retiring she often lazes around until later in the morning. I’m hoping she will get up this morning and we will have a bit of time before my 9 AM audition.

I have been enjoying listening to Jamie Woon. I think he is definitely in the line of Stevie Wonder and Michael McDonald, both people I like. KCRW does this in studio recordings and I tend to like them. They also keep me listening to new music.

YouTube is quite a resource for me. Yesterday I came home from rehearsing the Buxtehude Passacaglia in D minor I plan to play Sunday. I was wondering about registration (which pipes to use to play it). There is a tradition among organists of using lots of register changes in these repetitive pieces. It’s a tradition, but I’m not aware of historical evidence for this kind of performing in the writers of these pieces and their students.

Still I wanted to find out about what players were doing with the Passacaglia. I listened to three live performances. In them, each performer made different decisions about how to change stops during Buxtehude’s Passacaglia. Very helpful. I was also a bit surprised that these highly polished videos had lapses of mistakes and confusion in the players. It was reassuring. I have quite posting videos of myself because I’m unhappy with the quality of recording and my performances. Maybe I’ll get back to that at some point.

My boss told me yesterday the church will buy me this refurbished version of the computer Yale provided my son-in-law. Cool.

My new AGO mag came yesterday (featuring the above Nichols & Simpson instrument in Dallas Texas). I have been reading this magazine for about for about forty years and continue to find it informative and inspiring. There were a couple of articles in the March issue that I found interesting. The first was Timothy Tikker’s review of Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra’s Bach and Improvisation, vol I. 

At first I thought this was probably a book I wanted to read. However, Tikker made so many intelligent critiques of it that I’m reconsidering. (I am unable to link in these article or even a link to the March issue due to the stupid stupid policy of this organization to build firewalls between people and information…. )

Also Gregory Hand makes an intelligent plea for more careful preparation and organization of one’s learning process in his article, “Writing It All Down: An Old-Fashioned Way to Learn New Music.” As you can tell from the title, he advocates writing in all fingers every time.

I did that in grad school but only occasionally since then. In fact, yesterday I decided to learn Distler’s Variations on “Christ du Lamm Gottes” (“Drei Vorspiele und Satz ‘Christe, du Lamm Gottes”). At some point I fingered this work. At first I thought this was a bit annoying but I’m finding myself paying some attention to the fingers.

I’m probably just lazy and Gregory Hand makes some good points.

Weirdly I spent an hour or so, composing yesterday. I’m working on an organ piece. But it seems to be better not to talk too much about this kind of work. It tends to sabotage it for me.

I have been listening to a collection of songs used by James Joyce in his works on Spotify. Yesterday Eileen and I were playing boggle after lunch and I heard the song, “The Holy City,” start playing.

Most of the songs used by Joyce are ones I do not recognize. They tend to be parlor songs of Ireland and England from the late 19th and early 20th century. This particular song has also worked its way into American ears and is one that I usually shudder to hear.

I associate the high Irish tenor with my father and his father. This song evoked a memory of my Dad. We were visiting my brother and his wife in the suburb of Detroit where they lived for many years. My Dad was already suffering a lot of debilitation at the time: shaking hands, memory loss, aphasia (inability to communicate), among others.

Somehow I ended up at the piano and my Dad was behind me singing a song I was playing.  If it wasn’t “The Holy City,” it was something similar. My Dad (who at the time often could not talk fluently) sang the entire piece. In the climatic high notes, he broke off and began weeping.

He said he was surprised, that he did not think he could sing anymore. He was obviously deeply moved probably in a good way.

These remembered tears of my father help me understand that my own sensitivity is not just in my Mother’s genes but also in my Dad’s. I remember my Father as a guarded man especially where our relationship was concerned.

It wasn’t so much that he did not want to talk directly to me about himself and who he was. It was more that he wasn’t able to articulate it. He forced himself to tell me he loved me and often used humor to express deep feelings.

I was listening to the Slate Lexicon broadcast: “A British MP called Donald Trump a Wazzock. What’s a Wazzock?” this morning.

As the episode unfurled I pulled up the OED’s page on this word.

The speculative etymologies in this podcast are kind of funny.

I attempted to move towards personal balance and perspective yesterday as I did the Tuesday before. Eileen and I walked back forth to see my Mom. This is good not only to have daily contact with her, but when we walk I see it as some good exercise. It’s over two miles back and forth.

After we got back, we agreed that Eileen would go grocery shopping and I would go separately to the library, pick up books for Mom and then swing by the church for a quick organ practice.

I was dreading the church visit.

Some days I am so sensitive to omnipresent religion that I can only darken the door at church if I’m sure I’m alone and sometimes not even then. The prospect of workmen everywhere was not a happy one despite the fact that they all seemed like decent locals.

I took a deep breath and started getting ready to go to the library. I couldn’t find my keys. I remembered that I had left them on the kitchen table which is something Eileen does more often than me. A quick phone call and I found out that Eileen had all the keys. I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t go anywhere.

So I went to the basement and bagged up two large garbage bags of stuff. After Eileen came home, I realized that I couldn’t face church and only went to the library.

While I was there I was chatting with an older guy who is sort of a security guy for the library. He told me that he had just come as close as he ever had to having a fist fight with someone in the library.

This guy is a gentle guy. He is also pretty sophisticated and has spent years of life overseas. He said that someone got in his face and told him that if he shushed him again they would have a problem. My friend the security guy informed the angry patron, they already had a problem.

My friend and I talked about how angry people are now in the USA. When I mentioned hate radio, he said his wife listens to Limbaugh and watches Hannity.

I told him that I can see that these people are good entertainers but I think they are hurting the country. He seemed to agree with me.

I walked to church yesterday. I have designated today and yesterday as “non-church” days, but I would like to perform a Passacaglia by Buxtehude for Sunday’s postlude. It’s not that difficult but in order to perform it well I need to practice it daily.

This week and next week have been set aside by my church for the installation of a badly needed new sound system. The sound system company rep announced to the committee of people gathered to install the organ that he was the natural enemy of organists. In my presence. This left a bad taste in my mouth of course.

I have nothing against the contemporary understandings of recording and sound reproduction. By that I mean that recordings and sound reproductions are different animals from live music and congregational singing. In dealing with people who see sound as something to capture and inhibit (via panels that absorb ambient sound), I try to get them to see that in liturgical churches that emphasize participation of everyone in the room, it is the congregation that is the main actor, not the people in front.

This is of course futile and you find excellent sound people seeing themselves as opposed to old fashioned notions of reverberations of live music.

I am reminded of the Snarky Puppy videos where the music is live, but everyone in the room is wearing headphones.

So I was braced on the walk over. I wasn’t sure if the sound people would let me practice. But I needed the exercise. It turned out that the sound people had not arrived yet. Instead the electricians were wiring the congregation in preparation for installation of the new system. They had scaffolding to the top of the church and were draping lines and moving stuff. When I asked if they minded if I practiced organ, they said no.

I eventually toned down the organ when I noticed that they were shouting to each other.  It seemed to me that loud music wasn’t helping.

As I was preparing to come back home, the head electrician told me one of his workers was part of the “music worship team” at his church. Yeah, the worker in questions said, sorry I play guitar. Why are you sorry, I asked him. I play guitar. I own a D 18 Martin.

I would say he was surprised. As I was leaving he called out to me: “Good by! Bring your martin tomorrow.” “Hah!,” I said.

I attacked the basement yesterday. I put  up lights in the stairwell and proceeded to vacuum the steps. They were filthy. I will probably have to keep repeating this process. I cleaned out a small corner of the basement at the bottom of the steps. I wore one of those masks that people wear in Beijing to keep stray particles entering my body at a minimum.

Eileen walked around with me beforehand. She okayed throwing some stuff out. Which is what I did. The plan is to work on it again today.

I also did some composing, but didn’t get around to the harpsichord. Maybe today I will working on the harpsichord as well.

Civility in Politics – The New York Times

Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary writes a letter in which he demonstrates that politics can be civil.

Pee-wee’s Big Comeback – The New York Times

Another movie I will want to see. Pew-wee is great!

Antonin Scalia, Justice on the Supreme Court, Dies at 79 – The New York Times

This may work out badly for the Republicans. I hope so. By that I mean, it may be that if they block a nomination it will help the nation see that Republicans are more interested in politics than governing and that they will not only lose the presidency but the Senate as well. Then the next president can nominate whoever he/she wants.

Saturday I figured out why I had problems using my tablet at Solo and Ensemble for music for accompaniments. When I need to adjust the tablet by moving the music up or down on the screen, I must be careful to only use ONE finger to do so. Otherwise I have a tendency to active the screen enlargement function which also seems to flip me around in unpredictable ways in the music.

I used the tablet for both the prelude and postlude yesterday and had no problems with it. It is an easy way to deal with difficult page turns.

It is bloody cold here in Holland Michigan. My phone says it is 17 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it has been windy and ice has been forming on our back steps. Eileen and I walked back and forth to church yesterday. It was definitely a cold walk.

I am hoping to get some non church stuff done in the next two days. I would like to begin to clean the basement in anticipation of putting a treadmill down there. This is a big job. I worry that the peeling paint has lead in it. Eileen and I slept down there for years and we are not discernibly worse for the wear. Eileen thinks it won’t be unhealthy.

The problem is I don’t really have a place on the main floor to put a treadmill.

Also I want to get back to working on the harpsichord and doing some serious composing.

I am enjoying the company of my books and music immensely. I do notice that a lot of the humans I come in contact with find me perplexing. So be it. The other night I was asking Eileen about preparing to pull stops for my friend Rhonda’s concert. Dress and look inconspicuous, she advised. Unfortunately I don’t think I can look inconspicuous in Holland Michigan no matter how I dress.

I have been thinking about the inanity of Facebooger. I think it is a bit of an abomination that this social media has the word, “book,” in its name. People on Fecesbooger seem to be moving away from the world of books and thoughtful ideas at the speed of light.

I have been reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. His ideas do not compact easily into little quotes or “memes” that are the basis of so much social media communication. He does, however, have wonderful insights for me. 

His reading of myth and psychology is a good counterbalance to Friedman’s family system understanding of life. I especially like how he sees the common truths in all of humankind’s myths and religions. This is a complex undertaking, but I am finding it helpful.

Just for giggles here’s a section of Lore Segal’s Half the Kingdom I read to Eileen last night:

“Hope opened the door into the ladies’ room and saw, in the mirror above the basins, how her hair was coming out of its pins. She removed all the pins and stood gazing at the crone with the gray, girlishly loosened locks around her shoulders and saw what Diane Arbus might have seen and was appalled, and being appalled pricked her interest right up: ‘I’ve got an agenda: The Arbus Factor of old age.”

Kirchner in Joyce’s Kaleidoscope begins his discussion with book IV and suggests that this is a good place to begin an understanding of the Wake. Oddly enough this is exactly what I did this time when attempting to read Finnegans Wake. The main woman character, ALP, begins a morning musing about herself, her husband HCE and the river Liffy who is of course also herself in the book… all rivers running is the main feminine symbol and representation in the Wake. So I stumbled onto a way that another reader recommends. How about that?

I ordered my own copy of Kirchner and Campbells’ Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Although Campbell’s book was published in 1949, I found references in the footnotes for articles written in the 90s (after his death). This editorial addition was not clearly attributed. The editors of the series are named, but it’s not clear where these additions came from. Nevertheless I am happy to get them. I reread the first chapter in the library copy just so I could carefully read the footnotes some of which I had skipped in my ecopy.

Eileen and I attended Rhonda’s recital last night.

I find it perplexing that I was the only local musician in attendance (or at least that I recognized). Her recital purported to be a part of a recital series presented by St. Francis de Sales. However, the musician from St. Francis was not in attendance (as far as I could tell…. I’m not 100 per cent certain I would recognize him). And no one introduced the concert. Local weird shit.

Rhonda and the two French Horn players (Greg Bassett and Lisa Honeycutt) played well. I think the program was a bit long. I count 24 movements (and this is not counting the separate variations  in a couple of the pieces). This is a lot of music. I also think it would have been interested to have fucked with the order and made it a bit less like an academic recital and more like an interesting concert.

Rhonda performed a movement from Frescobaldi’s Fiori Musicali and also three short movements from living composer, Carson Cooman,  which were taken from a work also called Fiori Musicali…. Piccoli foiri musicali in Cooman’s case.

These were separated by 3 pieces. I think it was an opportunity to put the “musical flowers” closer to each other, maybe even interpolating the Frescobaldi in the middle of Cooman’s movements.

I especially liked the “Suite for Two Horns” by Telemann. This would have made a good ending choice.

Anyway, all the music was well played and people who chose not to attend missed a good one however long.

The Year of the Angry Voter – The New York Times

Jennifer Finney Boylan makes a good point. We need forgiveness, not anger. Also, what about all those angry religious types some of whose faith says anger can be a sin?

Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory – The New York Times

This is a big deal!!

Britain Accuses China of Violating Treaty in Hong Kong Bookseller’s Case – The New York Times

It has occurred to me to wonder about this. It has also occurred to me that China doesn’t give a lovey fuck.

Madeleine Albright: My Undiplomatic Moment – The New York Times

You know that thing I said? About women not supporting women going to a special place in hell? You need some context.

James Joyce | Songs – Music | Ulysses, Portrait, Dubliners, Finnegans Wake

Following up on Kitchner’s ideas about Finnegans Wake and Joyce’s other work having strong connections with the music in them, I found that there are a couple of CDs where recordings of pieces are pulled together. They’re on Spotify.

I don’t have too much to write about this morning.

I ran across this lovely passage in Kitcher’s Joyce’s Kaleidoscope.

“The last story of Dubliners, “The Dead,” opens with a long scene at the Morkans’ annual epiphany party, a party at which the guests make music, at which the old songs are sung around the household piano. That activity of music-making, centered on familiar songs to which the Wake alludes, again and again, was a large part of the culture Joyce knew (and the culture of my own youth, my generation probably being the last to enjoy it)—virtually everyone would join in. Considered as a musical work, a gigantic songbook, the Wake issues the same invitation. Joyce may have a fine voice, one that lilts beautifully over affecting cadences—although his tongue does occasionally trip—but he should inspire us to sing with him and not merely to listen admirably. Readers of the Wake can join in even if they feel like party guests who don’t all the words and are sometimes hazy about where the tune goes.” p. xxi

Kitchner apparently goes on to develop the musical metaphor in his reading of the Wake. I find this very satisfying.

This morning I read a bit in “The Dead.” It unfolded differently after reading the Wake and realizing that all of Joyce’s work fits together. Gabriel Conroy, the main character and the Joyce figure in the story, worries over a speech he is giving. Should he quote Browning? His audience won’t recognize it. He should quote Shakespeare or “from the Melodies.” Before the paragraph is over Gabriel is convinced that his speech “from first to last” would be “an utter failure.”

There is some self mocking going on here  by Joyce. Gabriel’s attitude towards his speech is sometimes the stance Joyce takes towards his Wake. A self mocking tone surfaces throughout the Wake. But finally the “song” of the Wake is one of “kindness, generosity, patience, tolerance, forgiveness.” (Kitchner, xxii)

Yesterday I put the prelude and postlude into my table for page turns. I then practiced using the tablet for the music, adjusting the way it scrolls. The prelude by Marilyn Biery changes tempos throughout. This makes scrolling tricky but I think I have it worked out. Fortunately, I can scroll through the postlude (a fugue by Clara Schumann) with the same settings.

I am meeting my friend, Rhonda, this morning at 9 AM at St. Francis church. She has asked me to pull stops for her concert tomorrow night. Interestingly, while I had little interest in going to the whoopydoo organ concert at Hope this week, I was already thinking of showing up for Rhonda’s Saturday concert. Mostly I think of her as a colleague and want to be supportive.

The little instrument she is performing on is quite charming. It’s a one manual with pull down pedals (this means most of the pipes for the pedals are drawn from the pipes the keyboard plays and that the keys on the keyboard depress as you play the pedal). I’m assuming that Rhonda will need some help with manipulating stops as she wrings music out of this tiny organ.

The instrument we are having built for our church has no buttons that enable the player to instantly change the stops (pistons). This is the same as the instrument Rhonda is practicing on this morning. I wasn’t aware of this until sometime last year when I directly asked the builder about it. He said that his proposal had no provision for pistons and that it would be expensive and cumbersome for this kind of instrument to have them. I acquiesced. I hope this ends up being a wise decision. It will put me in the position Rhonda is in for this concert. If I want to change pipe sounds in a clever way (as one often needs to), I will have to have people helping with this. Stop pullers, they are called.

All three of my rehearsals canceled in succession yesterday. First the cellist emailed me and the violinist that she wasn’t up to digging out and driving in for rehearsal. Next the flute player messaged me on Fecesbook that she had hurt her back shoveling snow and wasn’t up to a rehearsal. Finally the violinist phoned me that she had to take her car into the shop and wait for it there and had to cancel.

These cancellations fit my mood which was one of low motivation…. sort of a blah feeling. I eventually built up enough steam to go to the library, visit my Mom, and go  to church to practice. After I got home, Eileen asked me how practice went. “Lousy,” I said. “I wasn’t going to tell you about it but you asked. I couldn’t concentrate. I sound like shit.”

The restaurant that Eileen and I spent many hours of fun time together is closing. The CityVu Bistro will close after Sunday. Eileen wanted to go for one last time last night. I said okey dokey and off we went. It was a bit weird. We’re poor these days so we used a gift certificate from daughter Sarah (Thank you, Sarah!) and had drinks and starters.

The manager chatted us up as he usually does. We found out that he is losing his job as of Sunday. He said his job was hard anyway now that he’s married. It’s a good job for a single guy. He’s planning on trying to sell insurance and spend more time with his wife and six year old kid. It sounds to me like he kind of got screwed, but he was matter of fact about it.

One of the reasons I went to the library was to pick my my inter-library loan copy of Kitcher’s Joyce’s Kaleidoscope. Coincidentally  My copy of A Word in Your Ear: How & Why to Read James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake by Eric Rosenbloom arrived in the mail.

I am once again reading Finnegans Wake. Maybe this time I will go much slower. So far that has been the case. I savor the beauty and comedy with a slow read. I’m thinking Kichner is going to be more interesting than Rosenbloom after perusing both of these. Kichner drew me in with his experience of being a common reader and connecting with Joyce. He calls Finnegans Wake, Portrait of an Artist as an Aging Man and refutes the idea that Joyce was building a puzzle for readers. This is more the way I am experiencing the book.

Rosenbloom is trying to talk readers into Finnegans Wake. Unfortunately in the first few pages he made some comments that I found confusing if not incorrect. But I’m still thinking about it.

I see reading books like this as a substitution for conversations with like minded smarter readers. Once again my books are keeping me going.

Traditionalists Rebuffed as Parliament Turns the Page on Parchment – The New York Times

This is the way Parliament comes into the digital age.

Finding Beauty in the Darkness – The New York Times

This is a big deal.

While the political displays we have been treated to over the past weeks may reflect some of the worst about what it means to be human, this jiggle, discovered in an exotic physics experiment, reflects the best.

My day with Eileen on Tuesday continues to reverberate with insight for me. Namely to spend my time and effort on the parts of my life that are truly important to me and not worry so much about the other stuff. I mentioned this yesterday to my boss, Jen, and called an “attack of perspective.”

My copy of Annotations to Finnegans Wake by Roland McHugh arrived in the mail yesterday.

I was happy to see that it was a later edition than the one I have been using from Hope’s library. The introductory material was completely rewritten to situate this book in the evolving literature around Finnegans Wake. Also this edition (the third) incorporates new understandings of the text. Cool beans.

I finished the first chapter in Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. Campbell wrote his book on Finnegans Wake early in his career. He is known for his subsequent work more than the Skeleton Key. It looks like Joyce kicked off a life of pondering the myths of humans in Campbell. I like Campbell’s ideas and enjoy his prose style. I am reading an ebook of it. I may have to dig up a real copy in order to better process it.

After my perspective insight I am hoping to get back to some of my projects like working on the harpsichord and transferring recordings from tape to mp3s soon.

I have the usual Thursday fatigue this morning.

But I am looking forward to an afternoon of rehearsals. In addition to my piano trio rehearsal, a cello rehearsal and a violin rehearsal I have invited a woman who plays flute to meet with me. She is a parishioner and piped up the other day when I was seated near her and her husband at the Annual Meeting. I was talking about Solo and Ensemble and she mentioned that she remembered taking her kid to it. I asked her if she had ever played at Solo and Ensemble herself. She held up her fingers and said for four years. I asked her if she was sure she wanted me to know that. And then told her I would be contacting her soon for a meet up to do some playing.

Today might be that day if she shows.

I’m starting to blog a bit early today. My friend, Rhonda, is threatening to come by for some tea and talk at 8 AM. This gives me an hour.

I finished the last section of Finnegans Wake this morning. I began reading this book last August with this last section. Now I have read it straight through from beginning to end with the completion of this section. Once again as he did in Ulysses Joyce closes out with a wonderful feminine gasp of beauty.

In Finnegans Wake it is Anna Livia/Livy riverwoman who closes out the morning with a rushing monologue as she sits on the banks of the river and is herself the river. I love Joyce’s love of life and his dance of beauty. Tomorrow I will begin again to read this excellent work from the beginning.

Yesterday was sort of a day long date with Eileen. We already spend regular times each day together: having breakfast together, playing Boggle. Yesterday we went to see a movie together. The movie was “Hail Caesar” and was  a bit of a disappointment.

It’s not a bad move and lord knows the Coen brothers have made those. But it can’t seem to make up its mind what kind of a move it wants to be. Is it a comedy? Sometimes. Is it a 21st century Hollywood combination extravaganza and largely drawn characters and story? Sometimes. Is it a sly look at the underbelly of the movie industry of the forties? Sometimes. Finally it tells the story of Mannix, a weirdly devout man (we see him several times in the confessional), straight shooter, tough guy. Unfortunately it never drew me in to care much about his story. But it is clearly delineated. As I say, disappointing.

After the movie, we dropped by to say hi to my Mom. Then we went off to El Rancho and had margaritas and excellent food for our meal together. Plus lots of good conversation. I marvel that Eileen still seems interested in and interesting to me. This is beyond lucky. More like blessed.

In the course of our conversation yesterday, I bounced the notion off Eileen that local college and organ politics are nothing I ever signed up for. I felt a small twinge of guilt for not attending the first organ extravaganza at Hope College last night. However, I definitely had no interest in attending. The music is not that interesting to me. The people involved (the performers) live in a completely different world than I do though we are near each other physically.

Although I enjoy church work, my passions do not lie exactly there and are explicitly in different places than the college musicians. My books, my music, my composing, these are the things that I have cherished all my life. They are my ambitions. I want to go deeper into them.

I often write here about the disconnect between me and local stuff.  Recently I have been recalling that this disconnect is between the way I have wanted to live my life and the way the people here live theirs. This is not blameworthy. On either side.

New Ways Into the Brain’s ‘Music Room’ – The New York Times

This isn’t that great an article. But I do find the science interesting.

The Adventurer’s Guide to Finnegans Wake

I am increasingly realizing that there are tons of people interested in Finnegans Wake online. Here’s a site that looks cool.

I was thinking about and practicing some Chopin nocturnes yesterday. I recently had an insight that I am largely a self taught pianist. This is good to remember. I have found Chopin’s use of quick scale gestures over a steady rhythm confusing. For example in the B flat minor nocturne he does 22 quick notes over 12 eight notes. This is means 11s over 6s.

Fortunately there is a great deal discussion of this online. I came to the conclusion that (surprise, surprise) Chopin means exactly what he has written. This is the way recordings are usually done as well. This means working on polyrhythms with a vengeance if I ever want to play some of my favorite music well at the piano. There are lots of self help videos on this online and I garnered some good ideas yesterday.

I found someone who has also read Finnegans Wake.

Unfortunately she is a fictional character in Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.

She went icy. ‘Chamcha, listen up. I’ll discuss this with you one time because behind all your bullshit you do maybe care for me a little. So comprehend, please, that I am an intelligent female. I have read Finnegans Wake and am conversant with post-modernist critques of the West, e. g. that we have here a society capable of only a “flattened” world.” The Satanic Verses, 261

Organ committee meeting

I walked to church yesterday for a meeting. My boss, Jen, asked me to meet with the architect who is redesigning the back of the church to fit the specs of the new organ. There was also a parishioner at this meeting.

Jen assured me afterwards I had been helpful. I know she was right, but I wasn’t happy with my contribution. Neither was she entirely. I think (and hope) it was due to a combination of fatigue and bouncing back from illness. As they discussed the particulars, I resisted putting up a barrier between the player and the church area to protect him for safety. However later I said it didn’t really matter to me.

Jen said it was confusing to determine what was important to me. I told her it was simple to me. The physical adaptations of the area and the room to provide better acoustics for our worship are much more important to me.

At first the architect proposed extending the platform into the church area. Later I realized that he had not entirely recalled our particular situation. I (along with Jen) explained to him that we didn’t have room for that kind of expansion no matter how minimal.

When we moved our discussion to the church, the architect recalled his original ideas which were exactly what I had talked about in our meeting. This was comforting. I also brought up the hardening of the walls. Apparently this is still going to happen. I guess I’m a bit antsy since in my last church renovation hardening of surfaces was part of the plan which was ultimately abandoned (accidentally?).

Also I mentioned the air conditioning and repeated John Boody’s wise words that “prayer deserves quiet.” (I love a good constructive quote)

Being part of a project like this that takes so long and so much discussion and so many meetings leads me to wonder exactly what the outcome will be. I hope we can put in a good instrument, improve the area in the back of the church and improve the singing acoustics. This would satisfy me.

I liked it that the architect focused on where we were planning to put the piano. After some discussion he came up with a brilliant idea. We have four areas in the church for people in wheelchairs where we have shortened pews. Since we don’t feel comfortable removing pews because our community is growing, he proposed swapping one of these areas out with a pew in the back of the church. We would need a bit shorter pew to accommodate a spinet piano such as we have.

But the upshot is that there would be more room for the piano and we would only lose about one person’s worth of pew and one of four areas for wheelchair people. That’s cool.

The next step for the organ committee is for the architect to consult with our accoustician and for Jen to find out from our builder what kind of wood he is using and what his color scheme of staining it is to help the architect think about some acoustical panels he is planning to put in.

Step by Step on a Desperate Trek by Migrants Through Mexico – The New York Times

An amazing look at the trek across Mexico on  the ground with real people.

Google has this as it’s image for today. Chinese New Year: Year of the Monkey. I prefer this picture for that:

Grand daughter Alex looking good in China!

I think this morning I am no longer ill.

But I am typically exhausted for Monday and still a bit shaky.

It was interesting performing Philip Glass at church yesterday. In the first few measures, a woman leaned over between me and some of the notes I needed to play. She looked in my face and observe how clever it was use an ipad for music. I fumbled and tried to look pleasant and keep my place in the music.

I noticed and Eileen corroborated that it seemed like the music was affecting the mood in the room. It became slightly more subdued as I played the piece (Metamorphoses One).

I wondered if more people were listening. Eileen thought it was subtler than that. Some sort of dim awareness of the group that music was different and kept changing.

I have found performing music of this style (Pärt, Glass, Adams) that it somehow has a meaning that comes forth in performance that eludes my understanding but not my perception. In other words, people “get” this music.

Later in the service, a parishioner told me he liked “that piano piece in the prelude.” After service, a different parishioner remarked that he had never walked in to church hearing Philip Glass being played.

This was far more reaction than I thought would come from this use of this piece. That’s kind of cool.

I was shaky all morning. This did not prevent me from pointing out the horns on Moses on the bulletin cover to the choir. They seemed skeptical about my explanation (Moses got his horns on Michelangelo’s famous sculpture due to a mistranslation in the Vulgate).

I even mentioned that there is a picture of Salvador Dali holding his hair in horns making fun of this. Unfortunately I couldn’t find it online to put here.

I finished Lori Segal’s Shakespeare’s Kitchen last night.

I like the fact that it is a series of interlocking short stories. But read together they seem to have a weird theme of finding fleeting happiness in an extra marital affair between two of the main characters, Ika and Leslie.

It was a hard theme for me to swallow despite liking all the characters involved.

I do like the way Segal moves back and forth in time in the story. In the first short story she introduces a character, Nat Cohn, and shows his entire life and death. Then she moves on in the next story to back up and talk about the time before he died in which he is a minor character in the ensuing plot.

Not only that but we end up liking him a bit more by learning more how he acted in the context of his life as a poet in the Concordance Institute, the think tank of published people who make up the characters in the stories.

My favorite story remains the one that attracted me to the collection: “The Reverse Bug.” But I think its theme of the breaking in of the universality of human suffering on the cosseted life of the lucky is a less important one to the overall story of the stories.

I had an insight into Finnegans Wake this morning that Joyce was making a statement about the interrelatedness of all people. His use of languages and stories from multiple cultures puts me in mind of the inverse of Friedman’s insistence that human behavior can be understood no matter what the local social construction of reality consists of. 

There is a weird universality to that thought that seems to connect to Joyce’s dream world which connects all human cultures or at least as many of them as he could jam into his book. This is even more cool when you think that he completed this book just before WWII. Colonialism was rife in the first half of the 20th century. The rest of the century is the history of its demise in between the rich Western countries and the rest of the world.

We badly need Joyce’s vision today.

Although, I am definitely not as ill as I was, I’m still struggling towards normal. Yesterday I had a plunge in morale. One of the things I think about in my sixties is how my sensitivity (hyper sensitivity) has shaped my personality. I seem to walk through life exposed and vulnerable. I find myself weeping at perplexing things. Weeping at beauty, at sentimental stuff, weeping for reasons I can’t put into words.

The weeping is the physical part of an inner turmoil that is part of my daily life. I have worked at keeping this hidden. You know, boys aren’t supposed to cry kind of thing.

It occurs to me that this sensitivity has contributed to my own hyper self critical nature. I have wondered where that came from. I didn’t experience my family of origin as critical of me or ostracizing me. Quite the opposite really.

I do think this morass of emotion has driven me to improve my musical abilities and to create. Weird, eh? I guess we must befriend our demons.

So yesterday I felt insecure and depressed. Whippy skippy.

This morning a typical Sunday morning is a bit daunting after being in bed for a few days. Eileen helped me prepare at church yesterday by posting hymns for me. I sat at the organ and rehearsed the psalm and some of the hymns for today. I know it will go fine.

I timed the Philip Glass piano piece I am performing today twice. The tricky part for me is that the piece alternates sections with clearly marked tempos. I found that I have a tendency to think I am going too slow and end up rushing these. There was a difference of about two minutes between interpretations (4 minutes versus 6 minutes). This was helpful. I practiced the separate sections with the metronome. Tempos are tricky enough when the adrenaline is going much less when one is recovering from illness.

As always part of me is amused at the pains I take in my work when it seems so peripheral to all the humans in the room. Like Langston Hughes I live in books and also in the music.

I think I will  be okay today.

French Spelling Changes, 26 Years in the Making, Cause a Fracas – The New York

Good-by mr. circumflex!

Lexicon Valley

If you’re a word freak like me and you like Bob Garfield (OTM) you might like this podcast.

I was hoping yesterday to recover but it was not to be. After an energetic start to the day I began to feel weak and had to spend a good deal of time in bed. This does not portend well for tomorrow. Eileen is still not a hundred per cent. If my illness goes like hers is I have several days left of being incapacitated. I think I can probably stagger through work tomorrow, but it would be nice if I could get some energy back today.

Tonight is the second of two local concerts given by Hope College. I admit to lots of ignorance around their practice of Musical Showcase.

These annual recitals have been given in Grand Rapids at Devos Hall. This year they are doing them locally at the new Musical Arts auditorium. It seems odd to me that they charge for these here since they involve students both as soloists and as ensemble participants. It’s even odder to me tonight that they are charging for a faculty recital by Andre Le, piano, and Hew Lewis, organ. [Note added later: This is wrong. This recital is next Tuesday. Tonight’s recital is probably a repeat of last night. They are, however, charging for next Tuesday.]

I begin to suspect that the purpose of these recitals is to reward (attract?) donors.

I think tonight that the floor of the hall is reserved for free seats for donors or “friends of Hope.” Students and other plebians can pay $10 to sit in the bad seats. I could be wrong about this because I haven’t been paying too much attention.

It strikes me as odd for a college to charge for this sort of thing. I see us at a time when the arts need support and exposure. I feel the same way about choral and organ music. Maybe it’s a combination of old man crankiness and weakness from being ill, but the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my brain.

Last night around 3 AM I found myself downstairs searching for my current composition notebook. I had awoken and for some reason had some ideas. Usually when this happens I can convince myself that in the morning they will be insipid and there was no need to get up and write them down. Not so last night. More evidence of illness?

Both my weigh and my blood pressure have plummeted. Nice. I guess the way to get healthy is to get sick, eh?

Eileen was kind enough to check out a book for me at the library yesterday, Shakespeare’s Kitchen by Lori Segal. I have been taking advantage of being bed bound to stay abreast with all my reading. This book is a good addition to my current list because it is engaging and not too hard to read.

Besides that I have been reading Virginia Woolf, Yukio Mishima, Samuel Beckett and Salmon Rushdie.

Yesterday I reached a section in Rushdie’s Satanic Verses which reminded me a great deal of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Quite abruptly Rushdie changes his story from the main characters introduced so far to an Imam living in exile in Great Britian. The picture he paints of the Iman is, of course, far from flattering.

A little googling reveals that Rushdie has admitted that Khomeini was the model for this character. It makes one wonder if Khomeini’s subsequent fatwa was influenced by this section of the book as much as the sections which tell stories about Muhammad .

I’m feeling a little better this morning. No aches other than the usual old guy ones. I’m feeling weak the way you do after an illness. I hope it’s gone.

I plunged back into Finnegans Wake yesterday for round two.

I am definitely learning to read this book better.

I was discouraged when in a New Yorker podcast I was listening to, author Cynthia Ozick and editor Deborah Treisman agreed that nobody but scholars have actually read Finnegans Wake.

This undermines the whole aesthetic of Finnegans Wake which is one of playful jokiness and joie de vivre. Nora, James Joyce’s wife, said that she could often hear him laughing uproariously as he worked on the book. And it is funny!

But maybe I am more like a scholar then a common reader in an age where headlines like this appear on my Google News Feed:

1 Dead, Another Injured After Real-Life ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ Car Chase – ABC News

Excuse me? Bonnie and Clyde were themselves, were, you know, part of real life being  real people.

Nevertheless I feel like and think of myself as a more of a common reader.

I probably picked up on this term from Virginia Woolf’s great two volumes of essays called The Common Reader.

These volumes are sit on my reading stack right now. Woolf is definitely wonderful and I have been enjoying dipping into these.

I also think of myself as more of a lover of music than a conventional musician in almost any sense.

Usually not too below the surface of my thoughts about music is Duke Elington’s great maxim, “If it sounds good, it is good.”

This doesn’t mean if it sounds good to ME, it’s good. It means that music is defined by how it sounds. Not how popular or unpopular, current or obscure. At least that how I think of it.

There are a ton of books available these days for readers of Finnegans Wake. The Oxford Edition which was done by two guys who translated Finnegans Wake into Dutch (the “Dutchifcation” of it, as they refer to it) has an updated bibliography of books about Finnegans Wake.

I looked over the list and interlibrary loaned this one.

A Guide through Finnegans Wake by Edmund Lloyd Epstein was published in 2009. It looks like it could be helpful through a second read. So many of the books I have looked at are authors trying to ease the way for readers into Joyce’s last book. I understand why these are necessary and am even tempted to read one or two. However, it would be more interesting if I could dig a little deeper the second read.

Speaking of The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, last night I listened to a reading of “The Reverse Bug” by Lore Segal (pdf).

Although written in 1989, this fascinating little story has a lot to say about how we connect to each other these days. The plot is basically about two people in an “Conversational English for Adults Class.” Both are connected to family with a dubious past. Paulino Patillo, a Bolivian whose Father was a census taker of Jewish families in Germany during WWII, presumably making lists of those to die. Paulio himself sadly takes out newspaper clippings about his father and reads them to the class. Matsue, an acoustical engineer who was “employed in soundproofing the Dachau ovens so that what went on inside could not be heard on the outside.”

A “reverse bug” is a device that pumps sound into a room instead of taking it out of a room. By the end of the story it is obvious that Matsue has installed such a devise in the local college’s “New Theatre” where a panel on genocide was scheduled to happen. After Paulino is removed for spontaneously reading newspaper clippings about his dead father, screams begin to fill the hall. Their source cannot be found.

I see this 1989 story as a commentary on how our lives are now filled with the screams of those who suffer. This can happen via so many ways but mostly on the Internet. We are now aware of so much. A “reverse bug” is one way to think of the Interwebs.

In Democratic Debate, Candidates Clash on Money’s Role – The New York Times

I read this report this morning about last night’s debate. Although I think Clinton has had a sincere liberal career, the pragmatism of her and her husband, Bill, has done at least as much harm as good. I agree with Bernie. I think he is telling the truth about money and influence in our government.

Journalist Who Sought Refuge in Thailand Is Said to Return to China – The New York Times

 Of course I am more aware of all this China stuff since I have loved ones living there. This is disturbing as is the next link.

Taiwan Families Receive Goodbye Letters Decades After Executions – The New York Times

I have been listening to a lot more public radio (ill, you know?). I am appalled at the rapidly diminishing quality of the journalism. Triviality and emotionally manipulative stories (like, shudder, Story Corps) have crowded out stories like the one at this link. It is a story worth of reading and thinking about.

Yesterday afternoon I came home exhausted after a couple hours of meetings at church and prepping for the evening rehearsal. I lay down in hopes of getting a second wind. Unfortunately, my body aches increased and I could tell I was coming down with something.

I dragged myself to rehearsal last night. The choir was patient with me. Eileen was not well enough to attend this rehearsal.

This morning I am still not a hundred per cent. I have canceled rehearsals for today in hopes that I can rest and get better.

Children who fear being sent back to Nauru attempt to commit suicide – Business Insider

This popped up on my Google news feed. I’m not sure I have a handle on the entire situation. Illegals seem to be living in terrible conditions on islands off Australia. They don’t seem to mention where they were from originally. I guess this is not that pertinent a fact in the age of displacing large numbers of people seeking safety and security.

To Prevent Back Pain, Orthotics Are Out, Exercise Is In – The New York Times

I love these science news flashes of stuff that seems like common sense.

This morning I finished the third section of Finnegans Wake. This means technically I have now read the entire work. Last Fall, I began reading the fourth section. When I finished it, I immediately began the book again. This makes some sense. The last sentence of the book is completed in the opening passage.

I plan to continue reading this book. It’s an amazing and hilarious read.

I was tickled to see that George Saunders has a short story in The New Yorker Magazine for this week.

It came in the mail yesterday and I immediately read it. I do like this guy. He’s just warped enough for me. The story is called “Mother’s Day” and revolves around two equally repellent women and their relationship to their off spring.

Speaking of family, I ran across an idea this morning in Burgess’s book on Finnegans Wake that I’m not sure I had thought much about before.

Speaking of the blurring of lines in the narrative in Finnegans Wake, Burgess says that “wars are merely a vast projection of family conflict.” Having thought a bit about how families work, I hadn’t really connected family dysfunction to war. I’ll have to ponder that.

Eileen has been ill since Sunday night. She has stayed in bed. I have made sure she has what she needs during this period. I have been recuperating myself from my crazy weekend. Usually by now, I am more rested than I am this morning.

My friend, Rhonda, has invited me over to her house this morning. I texted her to let me know when she’s ready for company. In the meantime, I will wait and see how Eileen’s morning unfolds. If she’s not up and Rhonda texts me, I will text her (Eileen) to let me know when she’s awake and I will return to make her breakfast.

If she needs me before Rhonda texts then I will hang around here this morning nursing her.

I was disappointed that by afternoon yesterday I didn’t have energy for the two mile walk back and forth to Mom’s and also go to the bank and the grocery store.

I had to opt for the latter because we were out of Chicken Noodle Soup. When Eileen is ill, she often lives on Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup. I have to have some of that in the house.

We have staff meeting today at church. Then I have choir this evening. I have three new anthems to “stuff” in choir slots. Eileen was going to do this for me, but I’m not sure she will go to choir tonight.

John Kerry keeps calling the Islamic State ‘apostates.’ Maybe he should stop. – The Washington Post

Words and meaning matter. After reading this article, I understand why it might not be a good idea for a Western Non-Muslim to use the term, apostate, for terrorists.

Closing Arguments Given in Key Voter Rights Trial – The New York Times

I find it unconscionable, that one political side has decided that limiting the right to vote will help them. Fuck that.

This video was on Fakebook yesterday. I am definitely closer to agreeing with Sanders than any other candidate.

Poems are made by fools like Blake,

But only Joyce can make a Wake.

Anthony Burgess, Here Comes Everybody: An Introduction to James Joyce for the Ordinary Reader

I finished Tenth of December by George Saunders yesterday. It’s been laying around waiting for me to pick it up again. Saunders has the kind of mind that intrigues and entertains. I especially liked the short story, “The Semplica Girl Diaries.”

In it, he has his usual hapless narrator rambling on while the reader tries to figure out in exactly what universe the story is being told. I especially like the way Saunders gradualy introduces the main characters, the Semplica Girls. It’s not until the sixth page of this 60 page short story that they are obliquely alluded to:

In front of house, on sweeping lawn, largest SG arrangement every seen, all in white, white smocks blowing in breeze and Lilly says: Can we go closer?

Leslie, her friend: We can but don’t, usually.

After a few more pages of wondering what “SG” referred to, it occurred to me that they were probably the Semplica Girls of the title. The narrator is the diary writer, however, not the Girls themselves. And his sentences are bumpy constructions as above, often omitting words.

Gradually you learn that the Semplica Girls are imported from foreign countries, have a “microline” that runs through each of their heads that connects and shackles them,  that they are suspended eerily in a supposedly aesthetic arrangement and whose presence in lawns indicates social status even as the owners talk about how having them helps the Girls themselves.

They come voluntarily both to escape terrible situations from their own countries and to send money home to their families.

Sound familiar?

I picked up Saunders to read after Nathan Lane confessed in a New York Times celebrity interview that he had not read Saunders new book yet, but it was on his list of mandatory reading. I can see why. Saunders is just warped enough to help me understand how to live in the future (It IS, in the words of Firesign Theater, a lot like having bees live in your head).

Yesterday was Langston Huges’s birthday.

I love the quote below put up by Writers Almanac.

After pointing out that Hughes haunted the public library in Lawrence, Kansas, because it was one of the few integrated builds there, Hughes is quoted as saying:

 “Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas.”

“I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books….” I relate.

curious dreamers,

curious dramas,

curious deman,

plagiast dayman,

playajest dearest,

plaguiest dourest

James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

Joyce is describing his two main characters, HCE and ALP, man and wife, but I think the lovely jokey words apply to the world of books as well.

Apparently, today is Joyce’s birthday. At least according to Writers Almanac.

I’ll quote a toast from Joyce to celebrate:

And may he be too an intrepidation of our dreams which we foregot at wiking when the morn hath razed our limpalove and the bleakfrost chilled our ravery!

Paul Krugman Reviews ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’ by Robert J. Gordon – The New York Times

This review is worth reading for its own sake. Although we think we are living at a time of immense change, Gordon insists that the present does not measure up to the Industrial revolution in terms of radical change. History helps.

Bill Bryson’s ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’ – The New York Times

Daughter Sarah loves this guy. New book.

Richard A. Posner’s ‘Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary’ – The New York Times

This looks like an interesting read.

How Moon Dust Languished in a Downing Street Cupboard – The New York Times

What to do with gifts from the cousins?