I was able to get all of my reading in this morning: Finnegans Wake, Greek Study, a music history I am reading and the book on Madison. Part of the reason for this is that Eileen ran the dishwasher last night so I didn’t have to get up and do dishes as I sometimes do. Yesterday Eileen spent most of the day with Barb. They hemmed the towels that Eileen wove. I groceryshopped and in the late afternoon took the long walk to Mom’s nursing home and ended up at church for a short organ rehearsal. When I returned home, Barb was napping preparing for a long night of work.

The book I am reading on music history (How to Listen to Great Muisc: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and Heart by Robert Greenberg is an overview of the topic for a general reader, not necessarily for musicians. Greenberg knows his stuff and keeps references to a decent minimum. But curiously all of his historical references to the classic history, A History of Western Music by Grout/Palisca, refer to the FOURTH edition. I own copies of this book in its third and sixth edition. The seventh is available. I wonder why Greenberg uses an old edition for his references even though his book was published in 2011. I googled this question but couldn’t find an answer. There is now a ninth edition which adds another author: J. Peter Burkholder. It’s an expensive little bugger (over $100 new). Maybe I’ll buy it with my music allowance in 2016.

Windows Privacy Tweaker – Phrozen Software

My techie quasi relative Anthony Wesley (boyfriend of my nephew Ben) put a link up on Facebooger recommending this software. Nowhere does it indicate it might speed up a modest computer. I’m contemplating running it.

Lead Belly Tribute Concert Coming to Carnegie Hall in February – The New York Times

Leadbelly is a favorite of mine.

The Year’s Biggest Social Justice Stories – The New York Times

Charles Blow knows Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Michelle Alexander and Dan Savage? Cool. Each of them lists social justice stories from 2015 they thing are important in this article.

‘Nut Country’ and ‘Right Out of California’ – The New York Times

This is one of those book reviews worth reading for its own sake. Sam Tanenhaus sketches the history of the conservative movement these two books cover. Interesting to learn that Steinbeck changed the original Mexican workers to white people to broaden the effect of his novels.

Anger: An American History – The New York Times

Good old American hate, it’s a tradition.

I’m waiting for our friend, Barb, to show up this morning. She works nights as a nurse and is coming to work with Eileen on hemming some towels as gifts for Barb’s sister. But first when she arrives, she will need to sleep. The bed is ready. I have already done some playing this morning on the piano. For some reason I was in the mood for fugues and played several Bach fugues and one Scarlatti fugue. Although Barb’s hearing is worse than mine and she probably wouldn’t be disturbed, I plan not to play music while she is napping.

Yesterday I put several music videos on Facebooger.

I like this duet. Dylan’s song, like many of his songs, is derived from a true folk song. Both men look to me like they are trying not to laugh as they sing.

This is a group I like. I ran across it by examining music a Hope organ student was listening to on Spotify. I know the song but didn’t know the “official” video. They performed locally recently but I missed it.

Finding music to share is easy. I listen to lots of music everyday. My choices depend upon my mood which fluctuates wildly. This Paul Simon tune is one that has a resonance of my life in it. I especially like the verse about the father who had a son. Having had to leave my son as a child, I always related to that verse.

I sort of felt like I was sharing enough yesterday, so I bookmarked some videos for future sharing, probably today. I ran across Elbow via KCRW YouTube videos. KCRW regularly has bands come into its studio for live recordings and then puts the result up on YouTube. I check it once in a while. This band impressed so much I purchased an album of their work. This song reminds me of a Ray Bradbury short story.

I’ve loved this song for a long time. Admittedly I was introduced to it by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Consequently, I do hear more it “gospelly” than Hank Williams sang it. I have fantasized about arranging it for choir and doing it at work. It could happen.

I think about this song once in a while. I sang it as a young man in church. I like this version. I see it as a continuing indictment of people in governments who send young people to their death. This also seems to have a bit of Bradbury feel if it’s from the CD David Letterman holds up, eh?

The Nirvana unplugged CD is the one of theirs I like the most. This song seems to need to be played at this time of year.

My melancholy seems to have passed this morning. Yesterday’s service went fine. As I expected people were talking very loudly during the Scarlatti. I thought I played well but Eileen was surprised I performed it so fast. I have been practicing it slowly to firm up the notes.

The choir surprised me with their abilities yesterday. I went into the pregame thinking I would have to work on their vowel sounds as usual. The Magnificat we were going to perform by Vaughan Williams is a lovely simple piece which needed pure vowels. It took a little reminding and, bang!, there were the vowels. Cool.

My blood pressure is practically normal this morning (120/87) and my weight is down a bit as well (223.6). This always contributes to a better mood for Jupe!

I have already submitted the music for next Sunday his morning. I was excited and happy that my violinist WILL be able to be present that Sunday. We are going to play a couple movements by CPE Bach from his lovely G minor Sonata. It will be fun and excellent music! The anthem for the day is one of those last minute easy ones. I scheduled it because it’s based on Collosians 3:12-17 which is only used as the Epistle for the First First Sunday after Christmas, year C and no other year. Amy, my violinist, will play along on this as well. So what the heck!

Reading Becoming Madison by Michael Signer continues to remind me of Facebooger. Writing of Madison’s struggle to get the Federal government funded by the states, Signer writes: “Madison realized that he could not simply send a fragile idea into the jungle of public opinion and hope it would survive.”

Facebooger is, indeed, a “jungle of public opinion.” Madison described his own idea of making a “gazette” or some kind of published magazine to counteract the “jungle” an “antidote” that would dispel the “state of darkness” resulting from a “want of diffusion of intelligence.” Again Facebooger pops to mind as a place where minds are in darkness and definitely have a “want of diffusion of intelligence.” Jes’ sayin’.

Finally today I would like to recommend a podcast. I have been listening to the New Yorker’s Fiction Podcast. In each podcast a writer is asked to choose a story to read. The writer then discusses it with the fiction editor of the New Yorker.

Here’s a link to the general Fiction Podcast, but you have to scroll down to it.

Listening to a writer and an editor discuss how a specific piece of fiction is working is interesting and informative. I find myself disagreeing sometimes but in a good way. Thought provoking. Here are a few I have enjoyed.

ANDREW O’HAGAN READS EDNA O’BRIEN

 Andrew O’Hagan joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss Edna O’Brien’s “The Widow,” from a 1989 issue of the magazine.

JOSEPH O’NEILL READS MURIEL SPARK

 Joseph O’Neill joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss Muriel Spark’s “The Ormolu Clock,” from a 1960 issue of the magazine.

Marisa Silver reads Peter Taylor’s “Porte-Cochere”

Marisa Silver reads Peter Taylor’s “Porte-Cochere” and discusses it with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman.

I get these through my Android APP. Unsurprisingly it’s more friendly to ITune users. Here’s the link for the entire list on ITunes.

We have now prepared seven of the 57 jacks for final voicing. We didn’t work on it yesterday because we were out Christmas shopping and finding a tree. The latter turned out to be a bit of a problem. We went to where we often have bought trees and the trees were not quite what we wanted (small) and were expensive and the pricing was very confusing (trees had tags with prices that didn’t count and were often lower than what the salesman told us).

We drove north on US 131 for a while looking for tree lots. Nothing. So we came back down to town and drove down the main drag. Lo and behold the Masons were selling trees to raise money for local charities. We found a tree and bought it vowing to remember this lot for next year.

I spent a couple hours prepping for this morning’s service. I am truly in the depths of burnout right now. I don’t remember another Advent/Christmas season being quite like this but maybe they have been.

I am playing a Scarlatti sonata on the piano for the prelude today. I recorded it a couple of times and found that immensely helpful. It will affect my interpretation. I find it easy to race from section to section. Better to breath more and allow listeners (assuming any one listen to the prelude. ha ha ha) to better understand Scarlatti’s charming ideas.

I have already rehearsed the Scarlatti three times this morning. I will probably go through it one more time (four times is charm for jupe for practicing, right?).

Eileen was busy so I walked by myself to see my Mom yesterday. She is doing better. She has had a cold (which I think I gave her) and been confined to her room for a while. Yesterday they let her eat in the dining room again. That’s a good sign.

It was a cold walk. One man flagged me down on the way and asked me if I was a choir director. Funny. Apparently his wife is member at Grace and he sometimes comes along. Friendly dude.

I didn’t put a video up on Facebooger yesterday. Too busy and burned out. I will try to come with something for today.

In the meantime I listen to this every year. Enjoy.

Blogging late again this morning. I slept in a bit (7 AM). Then by the time I got to reading my James Madison book Eileen had already come downstairs for breakfast.

Today we will probably get a Christmas tree. I admit that as usual I’m not exactly in the Christmas spirit. The sentimental/religious/commercial frenzy of this time of year combine to dampen my spirits a tad every year.

(Time passes)

Well, we went Christmas shopping and bought a tree. Running of time to do everything. Onward. Upward.

What are prime numbers, and why are they so vital to modern life? | ExtremeTech

After grocery shopping and playing music for an hour and a half with my violinist friend, Amy, I went into a mental holding pattern for the rest of the day. I haven’t stopped like that in a long while. I read the paper and waited for it to be time to have a martini. Sheesh.

I neglected my practicing a bit. I’m playing scarlatti Sunday and did practice it some yesterday. But mostly I just went blank.

This morning I submitted the anthems for the Christmas eve bulletin.  I also continued reading Finnegans Wake and How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and Heart by Robert Greenberg.

I am reading this book mostly to see how he approaches introducing people to music. He writes in a very conversational style that at times tries for lightness and humor. I think he succeeds for the most part so far. There were a couple of errors (He says that the Agnus Dei is the same text repeated three times…. oops…. it changes in the last line). I like that he refers to America’s founding fathers as founding parental units. That has a nice ring.

My smaller laptop died this week. It stopped working in mid Facebooger. I contacted the tech people at church. The techie told me that Grace had used up his Dec extra hours and he would have to charge if he worked on it before Jan. He promised to look at it next month.

It may be dead.

We didn’t do much on the harpsichord yesterday (I went blank). But we did talk about the next step and look closely at some pictures of a voiced plectrum on the DVD that came with the instructions (actually has the instructions on it…. I printed them up).

Well enough. I think I’m barely staving off burn out. Sheesh.

Simon Winchester: By the Book – The New York Times

This is from Sunday. I love these interviews although there is an element of falseness about them. I was pleasant surprised that Winchester includes my hero Anthony Burgess in his imaginary luncheon with whomever he wants.

A Bad Call on the Bergdahl Court-Martial – The New York Times

The Bergdahl case is complex. I tend to agree that he broke military laws. But he seems pathetic, not traitorous to me.

Japan’s Top Court Upholds Law Requiring Spouses to Share Surname – The New York Times

Weird shit.

Alfred C. Snider, Prominent Teacher of Debating, Is Dead at 65 – The New York Times

I don’t read all the NYT obits. But this one caught my eye. “My agenda is to fight back the darkness by trying to bring the light of human reason,” Snider is quoted as saying. Worthwhile agenda.

The ‘Benefits’ of Black Physics Students – The New York Times

My respect for Chief Justice Roberts has plummeted to near zero (right there with my respect for Scalia and Thomas). This is a good sane response to a white bigot on the court. Albeit, Roberts is ignorant of his bias, but it’s obviously there none the same. He has no concept of how privileged he is.

I haven’t quite managed to moderate my over functioning on Wednesday yet, hence today is a usual exhausted/melancholy Thursday.

Here’s today’s Facebooger video for my non facebooger friends (Hi Rhonda!)

I admit I am enjoying the discipline of passing along one music video a day via Facebooger. It’s much better for that than trying to deal constructively with ignorance and hate there. I value Facebooger for keeping me in contact with fam and a few friends. I also enjoy the wide connections available to me across my interests and disciplines.

The most interesting discussions I have either participated in or eavesdropped on have been about musical topics. These remain civil for the most part. And informed usually. One in a while I step up to the plate and make a comment.

Since I’m a bit overwhelmed this morning and need to knock off in a bit to clean up for a dentist visit, I’m stopping here and putting in some links.

Thai Man May Go to Prison for Insulting King’s Dog – The New York Times

No comment.

Evelyn Witkin and the Road to DNA Enlightenment – The New York Times

This 94 year old scientist is charming and fascinating.

Britain Prunes Silly Laws on Salmon Handling and Armor Wearing – The New York

I like the laws that are only rumors of laws like being able to urinate in public if you do so in the correct manner (see article).

Facebook: the New and Improved AOL? | John C. Dvorak | PCMag.com

Dvorak is always worth reading.

” Facebook is the new and improved AOL [jupe note: this is a put down]. It’s for people who do not want to get all confused by the crazy Internet. It is Internet enough for them.

If you survey many Facebook users, you’ll find a majority of them cannot, in fact, do any sort of complex Google search”

Life without Ballet Classes is proving more relaxing. Yesterday I took advantage of my time and worked on my harpsichord. I finished shortening them and then swapped out the old tongues and put them in their slot. This swapping business was the guy at Zuckerman’s idea and it’s brilliant. It saves me a step or two.

I’m trying to do a bit every day on the harpsichord (with Eileen’s help). Our task today will be to review the instructions on the next step. That will be enough on a busy Wednesday.

It’s less busy because of the lack of Ballet Classes but I still have work to do for upcoming services plus staff meeting and probably also meet with Rev Jen.

I made a discovery this morning. I was submitting the music for this Sunday’s bulletin. I am planning to play a Scarlatti sonata on the piano, one that I have recently fallen in love with. I was checking the Kirkpatrick number since I am playing it from my old Longo edition that I purchased used. In this edition the previous owner has made copious notes on each sonata including the Kirkpatrick number.

As I looked at this on ISMLP I noticed that there was a Kenneth Gilbert version of it also available for download. This is exciting. His is the definitive version. It’s very expensive to purchase. Hope College owns it, but it’s sort of a pain to go over and check out pieces unless I have a serious reason to do so.

How cool is that? Maybe Gilbert has released the copyright for his entire edition? That would be very fine. As it is, the difference between these two versions is substantial.

Longo is the pioneer making the first (as far as I know) complete edition of these wonderful pieces. Here’s the first few measures of his version.

Note all the P,F,Sf, cresendos, staccato and slur markings. Now here’s Gilbert’s version.

Like any good modern editor, Gilbert tries to present as clear and as authentic a version as possible. Scarlatti did not write any of the stuff that Longo added, of course. Plus there are even text differences in this piece: Longo writes an A sharp where apparently Scarlatti had written A natural.

D and G stand for droit (right) and gauche (left) hands.

Looking forward to performing this piece Sunday. Someday maybe I could do it on harpsichord. Hah!

Forgetting that yesterday was supposed to be sort of a day off after Sunday, I filled up my newly emptied Monday with lots of activity.

I spent my personal music allowance by ordering music by Nico Muhly, Rachel Lauren, James Woodman and Böhm. Today I will put in for reimbursement for this purchase and for the cost of my replacement jacks. This ordering business took up quite a bit of time. it was not helped by the fact that Sheetmusicplus.com insisted that I log in and when I did it erased my order my order of 12 titles. Sheesh.

Then Eileen and I began work on the harpsichord. The first thing that happened was our used drill failed. We decided to go to the hardware and purchase a drill and a tool to cut the jacks to size.

Not only did we need a drill to fit the bit for the sander thingo, we also had decided we needed to move a nut pin a bit to the right to free up the string better from one jack. This involved a very tiny bit so we needed the drill to do both. Fortunately the man at Ace Hardware was very helpful and recommended the drill above. It was only $35 but works excellently. We moved the nut pin.

As per the instructions that came with the refurbishing kit, we glued a toothpick in the old hole. You can see that these three pins are now more evenly distant from each other. God knows why they middle pin was so far off.

We splurged and spent $22 on an instrument that will do the trick for cutting the jacks (above). We then proceeded to cut the end jacks pictured below on either side.

This was a long and tricky process involving sanding one jack too short (again!!!). I now have only one extra jack. Eileen was invaluable in this process. She suggested we use her cutting board to line up the jacks. This morning I got up and laid then out.

Eileen is more confident than I about proceeding now. I was very discouraged at how tricky it was just to get the jack to the approximate length so that the plectrum is just below the string. The next step will be to cut the other jacks to draw a line across the jacks and cut them to the approximate length, number them, and then begin to put the old tongues in them.

Before ordering music, I went through a few months of AGO magazines looking for music to buy. In the September issue I ran across this little article.

Rhonda had told me she was going to do this, but I don’t always read the magazines carefully (or frankly open them up), so I was surprised to see this. Pretty cool.

Also this:

Joy is the organist who preceded me at Grace. She died not long after this picture was taken. Good job, Rhonda!

I also spent a good deal of time picking out anthems yesterday. I added a second anthem for this Sunday which will be Lessons and Carols. Then I looked at the anthems that St. James Press had put together specifically for the two Sundays after Christmas. I asked the choir last Wednesday if anyone would be interested in singing these Sundays. I got enough hands to proceed. St. James Press has designed very easy and highly lectionary related anthems. I pulled them down and plan to hand out at least one of them tomorrow night.

In his book, How to Listen to Great Music: A Guide to Its History, Culture, and Heart, Robert Greenberg has a funny parody rationalizing putting music history into historical periods.

To periodize or not to periodize? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged academes by periodizing (and thus to blaspheme through generalization) or to address large-scale stylistic trends without prevarication; ’tis a fardel to bear, and bear it we shall. For such utile aids are not to be scorned, but embraced lest even greater misunderstanding be our lot. O Baroque! O Classical! O Romantic! Though the thorns of despised love be your reward,, we will invoke you even as we curse you, for, like our knees, thou art poorly made, but we cannot walk without you.

from How to Listen to Great Music by Robert Greenberg p. 37 

I’m still reading Becoming Madison: The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father by Michael Signer. A fascinating section I was reading this morning describes Madison’s excellent critique of the Socratic method.

He says that the Socratic method is “captitious and insidious.” “Captious” didn’t come up in the OED. A little poking around on the web leads me to believe it means “Excessively ready to find fault.” Important to know it means that. Madison goes on that one should “not so much confute” an opponent’s argument as “show the superior advantage” and the “Honour and Justice of your own opinion.”

I am a reader of Plato and enjoy the Socratic dialogues but have never thought of how cruel Socrates is to his listeners, tricking them into bad arguments.

Madison’s ideas are much healthier in my opinion.

He was writing this as a student evolving his own method which I mentioned yesterday.

All Politicians Lie. Some Lie More Than Others. – The New York Times

I love the website Politifact. This is written by the editor of the website, Angie Drobnic Holan. I think the existence of websites like this are a small ray of hope in the current insane climate of US politics and public discussion.

Review: I’m With Her, Three Americana Virtuosos – The New York Times

I love the fact that reading this online I could click on a link and hear this group.

I like what Signer puts on his web site: his “deep concern about America’s leadership predicament and the fact that Congress seems to be broken.” He wants to strengthen democracy. I’m for that.

If you read yesterday’s blog you may recall that Signer was interviewed on “On the Media” and that I liked what he had to say. Yesterday I went to the library and checked out his book on Madison.

After reading in it a bit, I was overjoyed to find that he was using Madison to discuss leadership.

In the introduction he says that Madison employs what he, Signer, will call his “method.” It’s an interlocking set of nine tactics.

His first use of this is in a direct challenge to Patrick Henry’s attempt to make a law about churches and religion in Virginia in 1784. Signer will show how this notion was anathema to Madison. Here’s the nine tactics which are worth thinking about.

1. Find passion in your conscience

2. Focus on the idea, not the man

3. Develop multiple and independent lines of attack

4.Embrace patience

5. Establish a competitive advantage through preparation

6. Conquer bad ideas by dividing them

7. Master your opponent as you master yourself

8. Push the state to the highest version of itself

9. Govern the passions

Now it’s in the afternoon on Sunday. I had to stop blogging and get ready for church which went well.

Sarah is skyping with us but I begged off so I could finish this.

I only have one more thing I wanted to blog about. I mentioned the NYT article about the podcast, “meet the composer.”

This morning I Iistened about half of the one described in the article about Nico Muhly. It’s quite good. I recommend it. I like Muhly quite a bit. I didn’t know he had written organ music but apparently he has. I will be ordering some of it before the New Year.

New jacks arrived last night, so I should be getting back to working on the harpsichord soon maybe even today. Eileen is having breakfast with the rest of the alto section this morning. She’s still getting ready.

I don’t have much to say today. As usual on Saturday morning I listened to the new “On the Media” show. I particularly liked the segment where they interview Michael Signer about demagoguery.

Signer only recently decided that Trump is an actual demagogue.  Signer uses James Fenimoore Cooper’s criteria.

A demagogue must pose as a mirror for the masses

must trigger great waves of emotion

must use that emotion for political gain

must seek to break the established rules for governance

It’s that last one (seeking to break established rules of governance) that eliminates so many. But of course Trump now qualifies with his unconstitutional idea about keeping people from a certain religion out of the country.

Signer also says that lampooning the demagogue doesn’t do any good. The best antidote to a demagogue is to take them seriously and confront their lies and terrible ideas  head on, Signer says.

This will probably color my future stuff on social media. It already has to some extent. Yesterday another family member (a distant Jenkins this time!) gave evidence of ignorance and lack of understanding around the Trump phenomenon. Yikes. When this happens, if I decide to respond,  I try to come back succinctly and as calmly as possible. Also not use Facebooger for a venue for serious discussion since I have pretty much failed every time I have tried to do this.

I have had at least one hit (like/comment) on all the videos I have put on Facebooger since deciding to do so more regularly. That’s enough for me.

Vatican Says Catholics Should Not Try to Convert Jews – The New York Times

This is a big deal. I’m not that much in to church these days. At least not the way I used to be. But this is a significant (and healthy) turn around.

The Best Classical Music Recordings of 2015 – The New York Times

I am missing my record player. I have a turn table but no functioning amplifier. And of course no significant funds for this. I am encouraged to see that record players are making a come back. I noticed at Barnes and Noble yesterday that the chain was carrying a turn table with speakers attached for $169. Good price but out of my current reach. We stopped at Salvation Army yesterday looking for old amps or record players. Nothing yet. I’m sure something will cross my path eventually.

Hopefully yesterday was my last exhausted Thursday for a while since ballet classes are over. It wasn’t a bad day. I met with Rhonda and Jen as scheduled. These are pleasant relaxed meetings for me. Nothing like work or stress.  I asked Rhonda for suggestions for music to purchase with my remaining music allowance of 2015. We also talked about improvising an interlude to a hymn and my postlude this Sunday. These are great meetings for me. I like having a colleague to bounce stuff off as well as talk about improvisation.

When I asked Jen if she thought it was okay to use some of my remaining organ music allowance to pay for my second round of jacks for the harpsichord, she said that the church would simply pay for them since I have used the harpsichord there previously and presumably will use the harpsichord there in the future.

This is generous of her. I think it pays to air my dirty laundry on Facebooger because Jen said she was trying to figure out a way to pay me for the jacks (a weird Christmas present?). She completely understood what I had done and sympathized.

Speaking of Facebooger, I failed to restrain from confronting some hate and ignorance of my extended family yesterday. We are living a new time of hate and fear in the USA right now (Thank you politicians). It becomes more difficult to ignore misinformation and misunderstandings.

Step-by-Step: How to Roast a Perfect Prime Rib Using the Reverse Sear Method |

Bookmarked for my favorite carnivore, Eileen.

With ‘Meet the Composer,’ Nadia Sirota Illuminates New Music – The New York Times

I subscribed to the podcast but frustratingly the one about Nico Muhly has not been released. Muhly is a composer that Rhonda mentioned to me. He is someone I have followed and thought about but did not know he had done organ music. Cool.

Yesterday I seem to be feeling burn out. I know. I know. It was the last day of ballet (at least for a while) so I should feel relieved, but that didn’t exactly happen.

On the upside my new copy of the Oxford Classic edition of Finnegans Wake finally arrived in the mail. The main reason I want this edition is so that I can pin point exactly references to it. There is a standardized pagination and even a standardization of citing line by line from this edition.  Very helpful.

I am reading the introduction in this edition and it’s the first time I have seen in print (that I recall) a reference to Lewis Carroll as the originator of the portmanteau creation of words that both and subsequently James Joyce use.

It’s always seemed pretty obvious to me that Carroll was the inspiration for this aspect of Joyce’s writing in his final work.

 Maybe it was so obvious that other commentators haven’t seen the need to mention it. 

As usual I am exhausted on a Thursday. I have a full day of meeting with people but that shouldn’t be stressful. If all goes as planned I will meet with Rhonda and talk about improv with her, then meet with Rev Jen and then with my violinist, Amy. Dawn’s having some physical problems with her hand right now and is taking a hiatus from trio.

Still no indication from the dance department if they are going to employ me next term or not. I heard a report on the radio yesterday about how adjuncts make up half of college profs these days and they get seriously jerked around, underpaid and over scheduled. I guess ballet accompanists are even further down this rung.

Eileen keeps telling me to just forget it and go on with my life. This is the plan but it has been hard to live through this period of not knowing what’s going on in people’s minds.

What Bill O’Reilly Gets Wrong About Ronald Reagan – The New York Times

I love it when people like George Schulz (former Secretary of State under Reagan) write articles. You know they have a vested interested, but they also have had more direct experience of what is sometimes being talked about.

100 Notable Books of 2015 – The New York Times

I look forward to this annual list.

Ethan Hawke: By the Book – The New York Times

Best answer to the interview question: What’s your favorite fairy tale?

I klike the fairy tales about superficial celebrities who, through living a long time and doing no hard work at all gain powerful insights and great depth of knowledge. Ethan Hawke

A Carved Stone Block Upends Assumptions About Ancient Judaism – The New York Times

Wow. This stuff fascinates me.

Today could very well be the last time I accompany ballet at Hope. As usual the teachers are not forthcoming on how they plan to use the accompanists in the next semester. I expect Julie (the instructor with whom I have been working for the last couple years) to be very cordial at our parting today. I don’t think she suspects how badly the department treats peons like me.

Eileen pointed out that I charge more to teach per hour than the college pays me to accompany ballet. I told her I knew it, but in fact it hadn’t occurred to me.

I found my last conversation with Julie odd. Once again she asked me if I knew of any pianists who would be interested in accompanying ballet. She and/or presumably the department have ruled out my first idea which is to have student musicians do this work. Too many scheduling problems, she said. I think the departments are rivals myself. It certainly bothered the chair of the dance department to find out how much less he is paying pianists than the music department. He seemed upset but hasn’t communicated further with me.

I just checked and the dance department hasn’t posted any pics or bios of pianists yet.

She also weirdly indicated to me that one of the other pianists was not quite up to snuff. Sigh.

It will be a relief to have dance over. This is little ballet of back and forth is tiring. I have reconciled myself to not doing this work next term. In the meantime my second set of jacks is on its way to me. I would love to replace the effort I use for accompanying dance with assiduous work on refurbishing my harpsichord.

One of the important builders of my kit was Ray Fryer. His son, Ronn, was my friend at the time. Many of us were working on my harpsichord kit. Mr. Fryer was a carpenter. He saw what we were doing and simply took the basic box of the sound board away from us. He himself glued and constructed with the care of a master carpenter. I have always said that the extraordinary sound of the instrument came from Mr. Fryer’s work on it. Mr. Fryer passed away this week at the age of 94. Ronn and I are estranged, but I am friends with his ex-wife, Mary (Eileen’s sister), and his kids, Cindy and Jody, now adults whom I have known since their birth.

I am learning some new (to me) Bach for this Sunday. I had a good practice session yesterday on the F minor prelude BWV 534. I think I can only go so long without learning some new Bach or Buxtehude or something meaty.

I’ve also been goofing around with  a movement of Próle de Bébé (The Baby’s Family) by  Villa-Lobos. This work is a set of movements each one of which is based on a doll. I have been looking at “Caboclina (A Boneca de Barro)” (The Clay Doll).

Here is a fine recording of this movement.

I have this video bookmarked for random video shares on Facebooger. So you see I haven’t given up on sharing music. Sarah “liked” my Monday video and that’s good enough for me.

So yesterday morning found me on the phone with Steve Salvatore of Zuckermann Harpsichords. Mr.Salvatore had emailed me a generous offer of “splitting the cost” with me for a new set of jacks. This meant that instead of $182.40 for a set, I would instead have to pay $104.15 including shipping and handling.

This seem more than fair. I was hoping for some discount due to quantity. An individual jack is listed as costing $3.20. I gave him my credit card number on the phone and he promised to get them out right away. Bless his heart.

Confronting an exaggerated sense of self importance seems to be my constant state of affairs. Someone from church had invited me to post daily music videos I liked on Facebooger (as I mentioned here Sunday). Then she, my daughter Sarah and another musician friend living in Carthage , Tunisia, urged me to continue posting videos. “More please,” wrote the person who had invited me to put them up.

So I persisted. I noticed yesterday that compared to previous music videos I had put up under the challenge these later videos were not being noticed or at least not “liked” to the same extent.

In order to post videos of this kind I have to sort of keep an eye out for them and be sure to bookmark them when I find myself running across them. I guess I will continue for awhile. I suspect Facebooger of putting my video links lower in the “feed” of my “friends.” But who knows? Maybe posting them early in the morning is a bad idea. Maybe they aren’t as “wonderful” as my three encouragers thought.

I get it that seeing what music a musician likes could be interesting. But I also feel sheepish about the fact that I’m oversharing, once again.

Here are a couple of quotes I like from recent Writers Almanac shows.

I have been listening to this while waiting to take my blood pressure in the more. The length of the show is the recommended time one needs to sit still, feet flat on the floor, not talking, before taking one’s blood pressure.

“The word dysfunction has I think served its purpose and has now lost its meaning. Every family like every person is imperfect after all. The idea that there’s a family somewhere who functions is an odd concept.”

Susan Minot

“we shouldn’t be looking for heroes we should be looking for good ideas..”

Noam Chomsky

America Needs a National Slavery Monument – The New York Times

I’m for history and historical markers. It’s a bad time, I think, for people to be making decisions about this sort of thing. Too much misinformation and intolerance informing the public debate. Better to wait until heads cool, if they ever do.

Let Math Save Our Democracy – The New York Times

Supreme Court is looking at some pretty weird shit today. See the next link.

White Supremacist Law Group Has Scored Two Key Cases at the Supreme Court | Alternet

God help us.

How Terror Hardens Us – The New York Times

What saves us from the fear of death is culture, writes this author and other scientists she quotes. Terrorist incidents provoke this fear unconsciously. It then motivates lots of weird behavior. Vote for Trump.

Alexander von Humboldt and the Invention of Nature: How One of the Last True Polymaths Pioneered the Cosmos of Connections | Brain Pickings

I “follow’ Brain Pickings on Facebooger. Usually they rehash shit I already know about. But in this case, I learned something. Never head of von Humboldt, but it’s an intriguing idea how he was able to shift thinking and affect so many important thinkers.

I finished Donald Hall’s chapter on Dylan Thomas this morning in Their Ancient Glittering Eyes. I think I learned more from it about Thomas and my admiration for him than all the other books I have read about Thomas combined. Hall doesn’t neglect the outrageous stories about Thomas.

But at the end of the chapter he gets more profound. He critiques the idea of a public suicide and includes Sylvia Plath, John Berryman and others in his discussion.

He quotes Lewis Hyde about Berryman: “In the future it would be nice if it were a little harder for the poet to come to town drunk and have everyone think it’s great fun.” Hall goes on to say this phrase should “be engraved over the desks of lecture agents, program chairs and poets.”

Hall is slightly guilty about his complicit behavior in his stories of Thomas. He sees himself as young and does a bit forgiving there.

But more importantly for me is the clarity with which he parses Thomas’s aesthetic. He see Thomas as a poet of pure poetry and nothing else. Ultimately, this is not enough to make great art. Being word mad and brilliant is not enough.

Hall writes “But what is pure poetry pure of? It is pure thought and pure of feeling, pure of vision; it’s largest emotion is love for itself.”

Some years ago I undertook to read the entire works of poets I admire. Thomas was inevitably one of them. He was a large influence on me. He was on my mind when in my misery about leaving my first wife and son I learned to drink whisky.

But at this age, I realize that one of the things I got from Thomas was his love of good poetry. I had a record of him reading poetry which I loved in my teens.

He introduced to me to many poets whose poetry I still love: Gerard Manly Hopkins and Thomas Hardy, for example.

For some reason I think that Hardy quit writing his wonderful novels because of the critical reception of them by the literary world. Instead he turned to poetry. His was the first collection I ever began to read straight through. This morning I see that I left off on page 790. The bookmark at this page is from a book store called The Book Loft in German Village in Columbus Ohio. This means I was reading Hardy at that time of my life when I was living in Ohio, before I left Marcia and David. I never finished reading the entire works which go on for 200 more pages.

Hardy’s poetry is not about pure poetry. His poems are concrete and often practically anecdotal in their material. I see why Thomas like him. At my age now, I find the stories in the poetry as engaging as Hardy’s craft in image, rhythm and rhyme.

I think I’ll finish reading him.

I’ll leave you with Hall’s definition of art’s task: “… to pursue vision, to discover motions of spirit and of human consciousness, which it is art’s task to enlarge.” This makes sense to me.

I was rereading the instructions for refurbishing my harpsichord yesterday when I realized I had misread 3/64ths to mean 3/16ths. Thereby I had over shortened every jack  in the instrument. Oops.

Eileen toyed with the idea of rebuilding the base of the jack with epoxy and resanding it. Instead I think I’m going to just order another set of unfinished jacks and basically start over.

Eileen remonstrated with me about posting on Facebooger about this.

I told her that when one stumbles at a psalm tone (as I had done last Sunday) in front of a group of people, one is used to public failure and that I wanted to let some people know who are probably aware of the fact that I am trying to get my harpsichord back.

I’m blogging late again.

I managed to sleep in a bit which was good. But this takes away some of my morning time. I have already made coffee, read in Finnegans Wake, and done some Greek. I’m skipping some of my other morning reading to do this blog.

I have had a few requests to continue posting music videos on Facebooger.

Originally I had a challenge do so for a week which I had ignored until the woman who gave it to me bugged me in person at church last Sunday. Then I complied thusly:

Day 1 Can’t Feel My Face – Walk off the Earth (feat. Scott Helman)
Day 2 Glenn Gould 1/4 Goldberg Variations (HQ audio – 1981)
Day 3 Post Modern Jukebox Give It Away – ’60s ‘Austin Powers’ – Style Red Hot Chili Peppers Cover ft. Aubrey Logan
Day 4 Roomful of Teeth – Shaw: Allemande (1st mvt) from Partita for 8 Voices
Day 5 Silentó – Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) 
Day 6 Vera Hall Trouble so Hard
Day 7 Snarky Puppy – Lingus

It’s ironic that I have a few people bugging me to continuing doing this, since I myself work so hard to find ways to find new music. But it’s also flattering. I will probably post more music videos more often, if not every day.

Dylan Thomas told Donald Hall that he, Thomas, had only written three great poems. There were “This Bread I Break,” “Poem in October,” and “Poem on His Birthday.” I’ve linked them in case you want to do what I did this morning, read them immediately.

I’ve been reading Thomas my entire adult life. I like these poems, but don’t exactly understand why they are “great.” I’m willing to take his and others’  word for it (William Tindall for example). If I think on it, it is often the phrase or image that attracts me in Thomas or others’ poetry. I can pin point the attraction, but I am less and less interested in what makes art eternal or great.

I also have difficulty with the concept of leaving a legacy of work. The artists I admire the most, people like Bach and Shakespeare, seemed unconcerned with this as far as I can tell.

To me they seem to have lived in the moment of their work. That moment was eternal enough for them and probably contributed to the work’s excellence.

But what makes something excellent or great? This is too tricky for me. I’m more sure of what attracts me and what I  find beautiful, insightful, funny and/or moving.

I try to gauge the honesty of my reaction.

Speaking of honesty, On the Media parses lies and psychology of lies a bit this week.

Maria Hartwig, a deception and lying behavior expert on the program stipulates that we all lie on a daily basis, usually at least a couple of times. Indifference to the truth is different from willfully deceiving or misremembering. But all three affect the truth of what we speak to each other and ourselves.

Here is an article I found this morning and bookmarked to read by her.

Telling Lies: Fact, Fiction, and Nonsense, by Maria Hartwig | Psychology Today

I recommend the entire On the Media episode this week.

Deception Is Futile When Big Brother’s Lie Detector Turns Its Eyes on You | WIRE

Another article I found this morning…. from 2013.

Nicolas Henin: The man who was held captive by Isis for 10 months says how they can be defeated | Middle East | News | The Independent

His solution is create “no-fly zones” that will protect the population. Ain’t gonna happen, no doubt.

Eileen got up an hour earlier than usual this morning worrying about our insurance. Or should I say she got up resolved to work on it today. We had breakfast and played Big Boggle. Now she is waiting for this computer so I’m going to do a short blog.

I don’t have too much to say (believe it or don’t). We did find a $10 drill yesterday at a used tool store called Redemption Hardware (thank you, Rhonda, for pointing us that way!). Eileen ordered a chuck key for it for a couple dollars. We should be up and running soon.

This is good because the file I purchased is not rough enough to quickly file away the plastic end of the jack. I am considering combining this step (filing the jack so that the plectrum sits in the correct position below the string) with final voicing.

The final voicing (as you might expect) is the last step before the harpsichord becomes playable. Theoretically anyway. I am curious to see how this works because part of the process was to remove the old lead weights on each key. Now it will only be the weight of the jack that will cause the key to return to the rest position (up). It will make for a very delicate set up if it works.

I keep telling myself that if I fail at least I’m no worse off than when I had a broken harpsichord sitting in my house.

I was pretty exhausted yesterday. I skipped my 2+ mile walk for the third day in row. My blood pressure has been in the low 130s for the upper number which is pretty good. I have been following the recommendation in the article I linked and sitting still for five minutes with my feet flat on the floor, not talking, before taking it.

I’m supposed to drop off my laptop that heats up at the church today for the tech guy to have another swipe at. He seems not to want to replace the fan and keeps fooling around with other solutions. I guess I don’t mind. Again I don’t have a second laptop at this point so I’m not losing anything if he can’t fix it.

Well that’s enough for today. I want to get off this computer so Eileen can have it for the day.

How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment – POLITICO Magazine

I’m reading this article from 2014. It seems convincing in its history and analysis. We’re fucked.