I’m sitting in a a room at Holland Hospital with Eileen. She is getting ready for her third (!) colonoscopy. It’s been a rough 24 hours for her. She has been prepping since Sunday. They have developed a more extended prep so that one doesn’t have to down a ton of the prep liquid all at once. I have had one colonoscopy. It’s not a fun deal, but one remembers very little about the actual procedure.

At Eileen’s last one, we suspect that she had an inept nurse who kept poking her IV. Eileen is a bit skittish about needles and began to faint. Dumb shits. But this time they seem to know that Eileen has this kind of history.

We slept in our downstairs bedroom last night to make it a bit easier for Eileen.

I have my new schedule at Hope. It looks like it will be a bit easier. Only two days a week since they have abolished Friday dance classes. Plus instead of two gaps on Monday and Wednesday as I have now between 10 AM and 11 AM and again between noon and 2 PM, I will only have  the first one. It’s possible I will be asked to do one more class. So far it’s three on Monday and Wednesday. I think that Julie requests me since we work together pretty well. I know I enjoy working with her. But I can work easily with any of the teachers. They are all good.

Tomorrow I meet with my priest and my curates regarding their ordination as priests at our parish. I had an email from Jodi (one of them) requesting what looked like a song by Sufjan Stevens called “Vito’s Ordination Song.” I haven’t had many conversations with our curates. I really have no idea what their theology regarding worship is and have promised my boss to  be easy to work with at this point.

I passed the request along to the boss and replied that I was looking forward to meeting with her and her husband (the other curate) and the boss and figuring out this service.

If they do want the Stevens, I will suggest that I go to the trouble to arrange it for choir and instrumentalists and include as many parishioners as possible. This will be a pain but doable. The sooner I know the better. Here’s an embed of the tune.

I listened to it yesterday. I will purchase the music and transcribe it for my resources. Totally illegal but it’s the only way to do this, since I’m pretty sure there’s not a choral version available. (I just googled it)

Eileen’s IV is successfully installed. It was a difficult moment for her and the nurses, but she just told me that she is as light headed as she was the last time. That’s good news. “Now it’s all downhill,” she says.

I have set the entire day aside to attend to Eileen. If I can I will sneak off at some time and practice organ. I had a good rehearsal yesterday. While I was practicing Rhonda the AGO dean canceled the program we had scheduled for the evening. This meant that I could wash my hair after I exercised and not have to go back out into the cold.

I broke my usual Sunday pattern yesterday and practiced organ after church while waiting for Eileen to teach a Sunday School class. I am learning four variations on King’s Weston (At the name of Jesus) by Robert Lind. I purchased a bunch of his music for some reason i can’t remember. He has published a few volumes of chorale preludes on hymn tunes by Vaughan Williams. The one I’m playing Sunday is not bad. It seems to grow out of Vaughan Williams’ own compositional style. But it may be that Lind’s teacher Leo Sowerby is the influence. I think of it as nondescript.

I will play three variations as the prelude  and finish off with the fourth as the postlude. The postlude has a bit of challenging running pedal part. Nothing virtuosic, but one I will have to practice. I spent a good deal of time with it after church yesterday.

Jen Adams my boss and Christian Baron one of our new curates are convening  parishioners who work for Hope College (faculty and staff) tomorrow evening at a local bar to discuss ministry to the students.

I have decided not to attend. Jen didn’t ask me as music director. If I went it would be to listen to how Hope people see their relationship to the college and the church.

I see a lot of negative energy at Hope and Holland. I am willing to deal with it as a choir director and music director at Grace. But I don’t need to submit my waning energies to it if it’s not necessary.

I am reminded of my first taste of Hope College politics. I was hurting from the intense departmental politics at Notre Dame during my grad study. I was invited into the home of an English professor for an evening with Roger Davis who was then the organ prof at Hope. We proceeded to get a little drunk. Roger was extremely angry and negative about Hope. He also admitted to some dishonest editing of his own teaching manual (he copied from other anthologies without doing the research or giving credit). I resolved to keep a distance from Hope.

Now I experience a lack of rigorousness in many of the Hope teachers. I’m sure they’re pretty competent but they tend to a insularity and lack of a larger context. It may simply be that they choose not to talk that much to me and that’s fine. When Christian asked me if I was going to attend tomorrow’s gathering, I attempted to gently explain to him my position as music director for a church with so much of the music faculty present.

I mentioned my need to keep negative energy to a minimum in my life.

The poor guy probably has no idea what the fuck I’m talking about. Yesterday as part of his sermon he invited listeners to doodle their idea of god on a provided page of the bulletin. Later when he asked them to put it in the offering plate, I was a bit unhappy that if they did so they would be tearing off the second part of the closing hymn printed there. Oh well.

Plus I couldn’t help but not be too impressed with this. I’m not sure of course that there is a god and I don’t tend to anthropormorphize about god. But I’m trying desperately to be supportive of our new curates despite their lack of sophistication (which is probably inevitable in novices). I thought about the idea that I do sometimes pray to god and wonder if I’m heard at all. By this I do NOT mean that like some sort of genie god grants my wish. I just wonder if there’s anyone on the other end listening. Probably not.

I drew an ear. Then I noticed that fittingly my little drawing looked like a question mark. So I also drew a question mark around the ear. I labeled the ear in case any one were to look at it and not discern what it was.

There you have it.

Saturday went much better than I thought it would. Eileen spent the day with me which was very pleasant. We dropped in on Mom. Although her face looked more battered than I was expecting and she was in bed, she was more responsive than she has been. Elizabeth and Jeremy put up pictures of Alexandra my grand daughter onto WhatsApp daily. I loaded them onto my laptop so they would be a bit bigger than they are on a phone screen for Mom to look at. She seems to enjoy this every time I do it.

The good news was that Mom had tested positive for a Urinary Track Infection. This means that her recent personality change is most likely the result of this infection and not (as I feared of course) a loss of faculties. 

Mom hasn’t been reading, so there was no need for me to collect  her books from her apartment and return them and get new ones. Eileen and I ended up having lunch together at Panera.

Then while I did my Saturday prep for Sunday, Eileen sorted and filed music in the choir room.

I barely remembered that they were burying two members of my extended family yesterday. I hope those events went well. In both cases I had lost touch with the dead men and didn’t feel the need to plan a road trip to either funeral. But I am sorry to see them go and hope their families are doing okay.

Landing on a Comet, a European Space Agency Mission Aims to Unlock the Mysteries of Earth – NYTimes.com

Spacecraft on Comet Drills for Data as Its Power Fades – NYTimes.com

I have been following this story. It blows my mind that we have the tech to land something on a body going 40,000 miles per hour. It makes me think of landing something on a bullet which of course goes much slower.

 Millions Due in Back Pay to Dancers at Manhattan Strip Club – NYTimes.com

As an old former bar music, I’m glad to see this. Also another example of tech:

Rick’s, which is a few blocks from the Empire State Building, kept track of the dancers’ comings and goings with an electronic fingerprint scanner. That system provided indisputable evidence of the hours many of the dancers logged at the club, she said.

His Subway Listeners Venture Above – NYTimes.com

Busker takes audience to a better venue. Cool beans.

Yazidi Girls Seized by ISIS Speak Out After Escape – NYTimes.com

I cannot understand this. Terrible.  Slavery condoned by the state.

150 Years Later, Wrestling With a Revised View of Sherman’s March – NYTimes.com

Dr. Cobb said he had sensed a shift in attitudes on his university campus in Athens, east of Atlanta.

“You all the time run into college kids who don’t know which side Sherman was on — and their parents and certainly their grandparents would be aghast to know that,”

Pierre-Laurent Aimard Plays Bach at Carnegie Hall – NYTimes.com

Although I find myself less and less attracted by long definitive performances, this review is fascinating to me.

Decades of Neglect Show Starkly as Indian Schools Cry Out for Repairs – NYTime

This stuff leaves me speechless. How do we as a country continue to allow such shameful stuff?

Harry Pearson, Founder of Absolute Sound, Dies at 77 – NYTimes.com

I was surprised to read Pearson’s later evaluation that digital recording was improving. Who knew?

YouTube Music Key Is Introduced as New Rival in Streaming – NYTimes.com

YouTube pushes into paid content. I wonder how that will play out.

Yesterday I played for combined ballet classes. At least I played for part of the class. The chair invited a young exchange student from Spain to teach the class “salsa.” I played for the warm up which Julie the instructor led. It was extremely unclear how  much I would be needed for the rest of the class. The student of course was off balance since she was teaching a room of her peers in a second language. I don’t think she wanted to use me at all. But  I ended up playing for her while she taught parts of the combination which was not salsa but Flamenco.

Evidently, my attempts at replicating Maleguena type music did not reassure her enough to use me for the combination since she ran out to get her computer to play the music after teaching some basic moves. I was a bit disappointed, but not disappointed enough to hang around and find out what kind of music she ended up using.

I have been feeling like I’m running into a lot of negative energy lately. I certainly don’t blame a 24 year old exchange student for feeling funny about working with fuzzy old me. But I was slightly disappointed.

I have recently acquired an adult organ student. She is a pretty accomplished oboist who wants to learn organ. Her second lesson was yesterday. She told me several sad stories about her experiences a  musician. One in particular stays in my mind.

She was drinking with students and teachers in Europe (France? I know she lived in Germany for a while). One of the teachers confided in her that she (my student) was too much of a word person to be a musician. In fact, that she wasn’t a musician.

My response was to say that I have heard so many stories of academic musician assholes discouraging student musicians. Of course this woman IS a musician. Also, I think that music is an activity which involves more people than the player and the composer.

My Mom has been found on the floor a couple mornings this week. One day she said she “slipped” there. The other time she fell on her way to the bathroom. They are testing her for a urinary infection which sometimes produces disorientation. I hope that’s what it is. Eileen and I will pay her a visit today. I usually go over on Saturday and get her books, take them back to the library and get more for her. I’m interested to see if she got any reading done this week because I know it’s not been a good one for her.

I did have what I think of as Mom time yesterday. I had an appointment with her banker to transfer some funds around. He was late. Somehow we got to talking about my job. I found myself chatting a young conservative Christian dude up about acoustics and congregational singing and pipe organs.

I seem to have found myself up against a lot of negative energy lately. This must be part of what drives me to chat up disinterested parties about acoustics. Ahem.

I found this website in the AGO mag. Very cool. It’s a Norwegian publisher which offers a discount on music that you download (as opposed to purchase through the mail). This is what I’m talkin’ about. I only hope I can find something to download and that it’s any good. I really think this is the way to go with this stuff.

I figured out that I’m over half through the bio of Mao I am reading by Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine. Once again the design of the Kindle has been unhelpful. It indicates I am only 33% into the book. This is because it counts the collection of photographs, the appendixes and copious footnotes found at the end as part of the text. They begin 59% of the way through. Sheesh. I guess I’m pleased that I’m as far as I am.

The story Pantsov and Levine have told so far is about Mao’s complex and long rise to power within the Chinese Communist Party. They document how Stalin controlled and led this process, eventually ordaining Mao as his choice as leader for the party and consciously creating a Stalinesque cult of personality around him.

Yesterday my lagging spirits were shored up by reading through Mozart piano trios and violin sonatas. I told my trio I needed some Mozart joie de vivre since two members of my extended family have funerals this Saturday. Two MALE members (see yesterday’s whine).

This was after playing a funeral. It was very odd because I also drew on Mozart for the prelude for the funeral. It was unusually quiet. I have a tendency to use piano at funerals and weddings since people relate more readily to a bad piano sound than a bad organ sound. I may change this after I get a good organ sound in couple years.

At any rate I do understand Mozart as a burst of human joy. The piano trio we read through yesterday was pretty dam amazing.

My niece, Emily, and her husband, Jeremy, were sitting in my living room with Eileen when I arrived home after rehearsal. We all had a nice chat and then they set out for home. Unfortunately, they ended up in a ditch not too far down the road. Eileen texted back and forth with them and offered to go get them, but they forged  ahead due to responsibilities at the other end of the road.

Eileen seemed cheered up by their visit. She has been a bit down lately. At least it seems that way to me. She did the grocery shopping for us yesterday which is unusual. This is usually my task. After Emily and Jeremy left she was smiling much more than I have seen her do so lately.

Of course, we did find out that her Mini is seriously sick and will need some serious work done. This will hit our meager savings hard. And she is scheduled for a colonoscopy next Tuesday. So I can see why she might be a bit down.

I tease her that my life is better than hers since I get to live with her which is a pleasure for me while she has to live with me. And I know I can be difficult.

The Lame-Duck Dynasty – NYTimes.com

I found this Gail Collins column on US politics pretty witty. Of course I am a brain dead far left liberal.

Campaign Contributions: Does Money Equal Speech? – NYTimes.com

Letters to the editor, one particularly poignant from FRANCES MOORE LAPPÉ author of Diet of a Small Planet.

“In a crowded hall of bellowing voices (some with electronic megaphones!), those speaking normally can never be heard, even when they are the majority. That’s America today. It is not democracy.”

Recently I was struck by Sarah Koenig’s comment that she is a moron at tech. She is the narrator and maker of “Serial” which is an online broadcast (podcast) I follow.

I don’t think that one can make a radio show these days a be a “moron at tech.”

Why would she say that? My theory is that tech doesn’t work well. For example whenever I try to stream something online I know there is a fifty fifty chance it might stop at any point. Just this morning, I tried to stream U of M radio and This American Life. Both stopped randomly.

Later I streamed Spotify successfully. Last night Eileen and I used Comedy Central’s streaming site as well as Netflix. Both of these worked. The random nature of it is part of the frustration. I miss on/off switches.

My suspicion is that reasonably intelligent people find that tech isn’t user friendly and then decide that they themselves are moronic.

Not so says I.

My wife recently told me that I spend a good hour a day yelling at computers.

This may be. She also said she thinks that’s part of why I have high blood pressure. This also may be.

At any rate, I continue to devise strategies to work with the way tech works (i mean the way it doesn’t work) in my life.

I suppose I should mention something that’s on my mind. When family members die, especially ones of the same age and gender, it’s hard not to take a look in the mirror and wonder about how long one has left (Hi Mark!).

This week my cousin Allan died. He was my Uncle Jonnie’s son. My father and his two brothers all had male kids the same year: 1951. Allan and Fred (my Uncle Dave’s oldest) are both dead. They were actually born on the same day. 1951 is the year I was born. Saturday is the funeral of my cousin Rick, son of Uncle Richard (my Mom’s brother).  He was a few years younger than the other two men.  I wasn’t close to any of these men. I know it’s hard for the families and not really about me.

Both Allan and Fred were in much better physical shape than me. Allan died of cancer. Fred choked to death recently. Eileen insists that I am looking after myself, exercising and watching my weight.  When she said this recently I wondered aloud if I would already be dead if I hadn’t tried to take care of  my health.

Oh and I have a funeral to play for today. 

When I am discouraged about my playing, I sometimes think of Healey Willan’s comment about himself: “Can’t play for beans.” Of course he could. And so can I, but I admire the ruefulness and self deprecation with which he avoids self pity.

I had trouble relaxing on my day off yesterday. Eileen wanted to take her Mini in to the dealer for work in the morning. I also received a phone call that my Mom was found on the floor near her chair that morning.

Eileen and I dropped by Mom’s apartment to check on her. She said she just “slipped.” She wasn’t terrible communicative but seemed okay. She hasn’t been feeling very well. Also, she has been a bit unresponsive and sometimes doesn’t answer my questions. I’m hoping this will pass. Eileen and I took over a nightlight that will automatically come on in the dark.I read recently where some old folks homes have them installed to help people keep oriented in the dark. Mom seemed okay with us putting it in her bathroom for her.

I continued to mess with my books yesterday. I am grouping them by author and trying to get spines out where I can see where they are.

I spent a long time with Chopin waltzes at the piano. A ballet student requested his Waltz in C# minor. I think I know which one she means. It’s encouraging that a young person would ask for something like this.

But after tangling with Chopin for an hour or so, I was tired and pretty sure that I can’t play for beans. This too will pass.

I’m running late this morning so no pics. I will include links however.

Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Laureate, Is Assailed by Schools Group in Pakistan – NYTimes.com

I don’t quite get this except as an expression of ignorance.

Preserving an Accident, the Salton Sea in California, for the Good of Nature – NYT

Part of the point of this article is that from here on out we will have to manipulate our environment in order to save it.

The Truth About the Wars – NYTimes.com

A Three star general has regrets.

Garry Trudeau on Bringing His Political Satire to TV – NYTimes.com

I’m linking this interview because of this anecdote Trudeau tells:

Interviewer: You went to Yale with George W. Bush.

Trudeau: When I was a sophomore and W. was a senior, I illustrated an article for the newspaper about hazing at Bush’s fraternity — D.K.E. had been branding initiates with a red-hot iron. It became a national story. The Times interviewed Bush. And Bush described the branding as no worse than a cigarette burn. His first interview in the national media was in defense of torture.

St. Francis Manuscripts Headed to U.S., in First Trip Out of Italy in 700 Years – NYTimes.com

Did you know there was a webcam pointed at St. Francis’s grave? Weird shit.

I’ve only recently resumed doing my daily Greek the way I was doing it before I received the pronunciation CD in the mail. When that came, I began again at the beginning of the lessons and worked on my pronunciation.

A few days ago I finally reached the lesson where I had left off my previous study. At first this was discouraging because I wasn’t as fluent in my understanding of the lesson. But after a couple days of working with the text, I am feeling more confident.

When I practice reading a lesson, I make sure I read it through carefully out loud four times. The rule of repeating something four times is something that follows me around not only in my language study but also my musical rehearsal.

For example, this week in addition to working over smaller sections of the  pieces I will perform Sunday at least four times each, I will play each piece in its entirety four times. Usually slower the last time to ensure accuracy.

The music this past Sunday morning was well received. I had several compliments. But I felt that my playing was a bit ragged. The sections I had worked on didn’t go as well I wanted them to. The music didn’t suffer too much. The ideas remained understandable. But I didn’t nail it the way I wanted to. Ah well.

The rule of four has lately extended into my daily playing through of music (largely piano music) that interests me. In the past I have played through music like all of the sonatas of Haydn and C.P.E. Bach or all of the Well Tempered Clavier of J.S. and sometimes made a little check by the title to help me remember where I was. When I did this I would play each piece once, rarely more.

But now when I am playing through a piece I linger over it, replaying it and replaying it. I find that this helps me understand more about how the music works. I have found that my technique is more rooted in understanding the music than having quick fingers that whip through the piece.

The more I understand the way the key and harmony and motives are working the more confidently I can render the piece.

This is probably because of the basic nature of my musicianship which I sometimes think of as a bit on the primitive side.

While I can render the occasional piece in a refined acceptably academic manner, I know that I like myself and my primitive musicianship which not only loves Beethoven but loves the Blues.

I can see it when i queue up a playlist on Spotify. Sometimes (more often when I am cooking) I want something meaty to listen to like Scarlatti or Puccinni. Other times (more often when I am exercising or cleaning house) I like music with energy and will listen to Funk or old rock and roll I know.

I am very happy that my aesthetic includes all of this. Life is good.

I found a new blog to keep an eye on. It’s called Abagond. I don’t know much about the author, Julian Abagond, but I like his slogan: “500 words a day on whatever I want.”

I ran across it when following a link on a page with a mildly clever video about white rich people “helping” Africans.

500 words a day is about my limit. Or should I say that I try to limit myself to under that amount.

No, you are not ‘running late’, you are rude and selfish

I ran across Abagond a few steps away from a Facebook link. The above article was posted on Facebook. It’s from VitaminTalent.com and was shared by an old schoolmate of mine from Wayne State right on Facebook. The website seems to be an online business that connects talent to jobs. Their blog is called “Vitabites” and the article above is lifted from an Australian blogger named Greg Savage. 

I have been known to tell choirs that “to be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late and to be late is unforgivable.” But after reading this article on lateness I realize that I don’t really experience that much of it compared to some of the people in the article.

Also, I tend to just forge ahead regardless of people’s tardiness. After all, everyone is sometimes unavoidably late. Just yesterday morning I reiterated to my Men’s section that when someone comes late I would prefer for them to let me handle it and continue to concentrate rather than break concentration (usually while we are singing) and start making room for the late person.

This is particularly difficult in the sappy atmosphere of how people see church. They are just trying to be considerate I’m sure. But I see it as mildly unhealthy mental health when late comers expect people to stop what they are doing and make room for them.

In fact, people coming in late are probably not conscious of how rude they are being. ‘

I continue to find stuff that interests me online. Believe it or not, I get quite a bit out of Facebooger. I think I have learned what interests me on it. I keep up with friends and family but skim many of their posts that do not interest me.

I found a conversation on the Episcopal Church Musician’s page pretty interesting. Since it is a closed group, I won’t allude to the people by name. The topic was how did you use “For All the Saints” on All Saints. Very interesting to see that some people omit verses or split the hymn up. Also, some groups attempt to lengthen their procession to fit the hymn. I put in my two cents briefly that we sang all the verses in the hymnal and had the choir do verse five alone.

I learned that some congregations do the choral verses congregationally a cappella. I think I might steal that notion for next year.

I also keep an eye on the Facebook Organist’s page. Yesterday Scott Bataglia wrote about having breakfast with a priest. The priest played phone recordings he had made for him. Some were of him. Others were of subs and other organists. Bataglia found the experience eye opening. It seems that he is a bit better than he thought he was especially when compared to the other organists.

This question occurs to me sometimes when talking shop and repertoire with other musicians. Unless we hear each other, we really don’t know how well we play.

Jesus and the Modern Man – NYTimes.com

Speaking of Facebooger, my boss, Jen Adams, put this article up on it yesterday. I found the next link more inspiring.

Gray Hair and Silver Linings – NYTimes.com

I love the picture Bruni draws of the two elderly people in a cancer waiting room flirting. Joni Mitchell is the same age as these people. Makes ya think if you’re as old as me.

Prehistory’s Brilliant Future – NYTimes.com

Good article on topic. Scary quote: “Scientists estimate that because of the current destruction of natural habitats and the disruptive power of climate change, we may lose anywhere between 20 and 50 percent of all living species by the end of this century.”

The ‘Center’ Always Holds — FAIR

Fair rips up the media’s myths on the recent election. Good read for tired liberals.

So maybe it wasn’t the midterm elections that increased my spam traffic. This morning I had over 1600 comments that were directed to my spam cache for me to delete. That’s high.

It’s been odd watching Eileen prepare to teach a Sunday School class. She is very frustrated by the poor quality of the curriculum and the inexperience of the leadership at church. I figure if public and private education in the US is bad, religious instruction is probably worse on average.

Also, I’m convinced that people seek out mediocrity in church situations. It seems to provide a sense of security or something. I have always found this annoying, especially when otherwise intelligent people change gears when they come to church and indulge in poor taste and sentimentality.

I’m pretty sure Franky Schaeffer was on to something with his comments in Addicted to Mediocrity: 20th Century Christians and the Arts.

Still applies.

I have encouraged Eileen to give people constructive feedback about the specifics in the curriculum she objects to (such as the impenetrable length of the bible lessons). I hope she does.

The Before pic…. how the pantry looked a few weeks ago…..

The last few days I have begun sorting my gargantuan book collection. The first goal was to get stacks of books off the floor, out of the way and grouped alphabetically. I cleared the upstairs pantry on Thursday.

The After picture…. the way the pantry area looks right now.

Yesterday I cleared a lot of them from the extra room upstairs.

In the meantime Eileen attacked the pantry, sorting and discarding stuff. This was tiring but satisfying.

I also picked organ music. I sometimes feel like Father Mackenzie in Eleanor Rigby, but instead of writing the words to a sermon no one will hear, I practice music that on one will hear. But what the fuck. At least I get to play some decent music and get paid.

The prelude a week from today will be a charming little fugue by Wilhelm Friedman Bach.

He was one of the Bach boys (sons of Bach). It wasn’t until relatively recently that I realized what an entourage this crew probably was. Talented, hard working and probably all cracker jack musicians.

It’s a charming little piece and shows that W.F. was thinking more gallant than his father.

Doing the above Buxtehude canzonetta as a postlude. I’m pretty sure these are not mediocre but  either way I guess I’m good.

How the Berlin Wall Really Fell – NYTimes.com

You might want to refresh your knowledge about this….. Reagan didn’t do it….

Pregnant, and No Civil Rights – NYTimes.com

This story makes me crazy. Is this really how we want it?

post updated at 11:55 AM Sunday, Nov 9 2014

I was unusually satisfied with my improvs for ballet class yesterday. Given the freedom of originating musical ideas I find myself drawn into popular music languages. Inevitably I come up with a blend of techniques. I muse that this blend would probably not interest highly literate classical musicians who seem content with following the footsteps of the academy at a time when it is losing its credibility with many listeners.

I think I’m probably one of those people, the ones who find the stiff academic approach less and less interesting.

Speaking of musical interest, last night Eileen and I attended a dance concert. I found that much of music used left me pretty disinterested. One choreographer chose a weird version of Gershwin’s Summertime. It seemed to be disco with lots of silky electronic sounds and possibly sung in Japanese. The dancers did tap dance holding fans bringing to mind Southern belles. The huge screen in the back was filled with changing images of yellow flowers, some of which were sunflowers. Eileen like this one. I thought it didn’t work.

Still thinking about the music they used, the final piece utilized what sounded like a Chopin piano concerto and Beethoven’s Ninth. It was an interesting piece of choreography, but I wonder about the music. What did it mean exactly in this context? The choreography utilized an odd moment when the famous melody which set Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” began. The dancers started to chuckle in a sort of rueful way. It was as though they were recognizing the melody and finding it a bit humorous in the context of their dance. This kind of worked. But then they began to laugh hysterically and continue to do so for much of the remaining piece which didn’t work as well for me.

One interesting piece was dedicated to Nelson Mandela.

It was a lengthy mix which utilized a strong South African beat with loops of Obama and Mandela talking.

It struck me as lightly ironic in the  time and context of the moment. Obama’s party just having been lashed in defeat in the midterms.  And then there is the Dutch connection to the white regime of South Africa which is very strong locally.

There were no students of color in this dance.

So when the choreographer had them continually dancing jubilantly and even defiantly, it seemed slightly incongruous, as though the dancers themselves didn’t quite understand what the jubilation was about but were more than willing to dance their hearts out about it.

I was surprised to run across references to popular culture in the bio of Mao I am reading (Mao: The Real Story by Alexander Pantsov and Steven Levine). In 1937, not too long after The Long March, Mao and his forces settle in for the first time in a bit larger city, “Yan’an, the largest city in northern Shaanxi.”

The “extreme left-wing American journalist Agnes Smedley” soon arrives there.

She takes up residence with the rest of Mao’s forces in the loess caves. These caves were man made dwelling dug into the soft mountains. Here’s a pic of them more recently.

Mao and the other high ranking officials of his forces stayed in the city. Mao is quite taken with Smedley’s young beautiful translator, Wu Guangwei. He visits them often.

“Soon he and Smedley conceived the idea of organizing a dance school. They got hold of an old gramophone and several foxtrot records, and they arranged a musical evening at a church that had been abandoned by missionaries who had fled the city. Scandalized by such overt “debauchery,” the wives of the CCP leaders boycotted the dance lessons, but their husbands happily took part.}”

So Mao and the ruthless leaders of the Communist revolution (who have not yet come into power over China but are still battling Chiang Kai Shek and the Guomindang) are happily cavorting to western foxtrot records as they take a bit of respite in Yan’an.

It’s not long before Mao is spending a great deal of time with  Wu Guangwei who is not only  Smedley’s translator but also an actress.

Mao’s wife confronts them and goes a bit nuts, beating on Mao with a flashlight and attacking Wu Guangwei and Smedley as well. Smedley’s give Mao’s wife a black eye and Mao tells her “You’re acting like a rich woman in a bad American movie.”

More Western pop culture references. Wow. Who knew?

As usual Wednesday kicked my butt. I went full speed all day. Put several new anthems in the folders of choir members. It didn’t help that the clock in the choir room was not put back and while I was madly preparing for the evening rehearsal got confused about what time it was and lost an hour. I rushed home thinking it was after 5 PM when it was actually an hour earlier.

The choir was in more than usual disarray last night. It was very much like herding cats. Several people were late including Eileen who barely made the rehearsal. Two members who were not present called me on my cell phone during rehearsal. One texted  just before rehearsal that they weren’t coming. For Chrissakes we only have about 15 members. My determination to give a good rehearsal was unbowed but this morning I am exhausted and deflated.

I have been thinking about Merton quite a bit. The distinction between liturgical worship and non liturgical worship in the Christian church seems to be lost on people who don’t understand quite what liturgical worship is.

In our society we constantly reinvent ourselves especially in our eyes. There is often a vacuum in our consciousness where human ritual once dwelt. Thus we invent public rituals that seem hollow when compared to more evolved human rituals.

Thus the continual need to come up with cutesy shit for weddings and funerals. Humans make meaning. It’s one of the basic things about us.

But when the meaning is rooted in decoration not symbol it does seem more empty to me.

… [w]hile liturgical symbol is a vital and effective force in the life of prayer… mere decoration is inert, confusing, and a kind of dead weight on prayer. It distracts not in the superficial sense of substituting once concept for another, but in a deeper way: by drawing us from the realm of intuition and of mystery into the more superficial level of sentimental fantasy.

Thomas Merton, “Absurdity in Sacred Decoration”

Merton has more to say on this, but I’ll leave it at that.

Jen Adams and I were talking about the lack of awareness of liturgical understanding even amount liturgical church leaders (priests and musicians), how rare it actually is.

I was thinking of the above Merton quote during our discussion. Maybe I’ll email it to her and put something up on Facebooger.

I  am feeling even more discouraged today about US politics. More than the issues that seem to have won the day on Tuesday, I’m concerned how fear and ignorance is driving our public discussion. Surely, this is not as pandemic as it seems. Surely.

My blog spam has fallen the last two days. Today’s was around 900, yesterday’s 1400, the day before 1600. It’s hard not to ascribe it to the US midterm campaign. But who knows?

So a few of the people I voted for were actually elected yesterday. Peters for Senate and several of the College board members. They were all Democrats. But mostly Republicans trounced Democrats here in Michigan as they did in other places.

Millages passed. The wolf proposals all failed. I voted for the millages and against the wolf proposals.

Few surprises in today’s national results. Too bad but there you go.

I tried to relax yesterday. Tuesday is truly my one day entirely off with nothing scheduled. Wednesday is shaping up as my roughest day. I managed to look at some Xmas choral music on Monday between classes. Today I want to print up at least one new anthem for this evening.

Also I just dumped a psalm into my laptop so I can work on that today as well. The goal is to have the psalms for this Sunday and the following Sunday in the hands of singers tonight. That’s probably doable.

I don’t have much time to blog this morning. But I think I want to put a couple of quotes up just in case some of my religious readers happen by and don’t know them.

Thomas Merton was (is?) a long time hero of mine. I have read of tons of his works. He is my kind of Roman Catholic: intellectual, tolerant and insightful. He has also influenced Jupe the church guy:

A bad book about the love of God remains a bad book, even though it is about the love of God. There are many who think that because they have written about God, they have written good books. Then men pick up these books and say if the ones who say they believe in God cannot find anything better than this to say about it, their religion cannot be worth much.

from  “Poets” in New Directions 17, Thomas Merton

and in 1960 he wrote

… [I]n an age of concentration camps and atomic bombs, religious and artistic sincerity will certainly exclude all ‘prettiness’ or shall sentimentality. Beauty, for us, cannot be a mere appeal to conventional pleasures of the imagination and senses. Nor can it be found in cold, academic perfectionism. The art of our time, sacred art included, will necessarily be characterized by a certain poverty, grimness and roughness which correspond to the violent realities of a cruel age. Sacred art cannot be cruel, but it must know how to be compassionate with the victims of cruelty: and ONE DOES NOT OFFER LOLLIPOPS TO A STARVING MAN IN A TOTALITARIAN DEATH-CAMP. NOR DOES ONE OFFER HIM THE MESSAGES OF A PITIFULLY INADEQUATE OPTIMISM. from “Sacred Art and the Spiritual Life” caps added.

I spent my valuable morning off this morning finalizing my choices in today’s election. It is interesting how if you have time and motivation googling can help you understand candidates.

I have been thinking about the  noisy mean-spirited partisan discussions in our nation’s capital and other places. I think they do not represent America. I think that the common values that are needed to have a democracy still probably exist in our country. But that they are drowned out by the unreality of the partisan angry debate.

First of all, if the country was really divided in the way the polls and elections seem, why are we not on the brink of civil disorder, i.e. fighting in the streets. I know there are some street demonstrations, but I don’t think we are looking at the breakdown of society that precedes true chaos.

I think this is because most people are living their lives. And sadly, mostly people don’t pay much attention to government especially these days when people in government are so bad at the job of governing.

For example here in Michigan we have a movement that if the state legislature doesn’t vote on road repair within two months, there are people who want to put it to a public referendum. To me this says to our government, if you don’t govern there are other ways to do the important jobs like taking care of infrastructure like roads.

I believe that more people are reasonable than unreasonable. I admit that I might be “protesting too much.” But I think it’s important to remember the number of people who live here in the United States and who we are really.

To me, America means a fascinating history of many things: the American Revolution, emerging rights of Women, People of Color and the acknowledgement of the validity of many ways to approach sexuality.

In addition we can claim many unique contributions to human stuff like Jazz, Rock and Roll, literature, poetry. These keep me sane.

Of course not only American stuff, but when one is inundated with such anger and mean spiritedness, it’s important to seek the perspective of thinking as clearly and accurately as one can.

So I think I’m ready to vote. I don’t expect to be encouraged by the results of this election. But I still think that rising to the challenges of citizenship is  a  faint glimmer of hope and responsibility that one ignores at  the peril of not only oneself but others in our country.

Yesterday after church, I printed up sample ballots for Eileen and me for the upcoming election on Tuesday. She sat down for an hour or so and went through the candidates. I was planning on basically voting Democract this time. I can remember fourteen years ago when I trusted the system a bit more and I voted for Ralph Nader. Boy do I regret that vote since the Supreme Court went against its own philosophies and handed the government to the Republican nominee.

But that’s history. I have now learned my lesson. Vote for viable candidates not the ones you most agree with.

Eileen has surprised me with a few of her choices (which she said she didn’t mind if I “copied.”) I will now research her choices in a few races. Also she very helpfully found out that Jarnes Hasper has withdrawn as the Democratic candidate for our State House District (90th). I will leave that blank rather than vote for the Republican.

I was surprisingly rested yesterday. Church went well. Today’s funeral was in the back of my mind, but Rev Jen managed to resolve all the stuff before the day was out. We will have two solists, both of whom ran through their solo with me after church yesterday.

It will be a full day no doubt. And I am tireder this morning than yesterday but what the heck.

I had a great dream last night. I was sitting in a garden with a bunch of other people haranguing them. For some reason I was talking about stuff in life I found to be miraculous.  Specifically “fucking” and “red wine.” I also added that I was very glad to have lived as long as I have and would like to live longer.

Wow.

I didn’t mention music in the dream which is kind of funny.

Speaking of music, it all went very well yesterday. The choir sounded good again. The organ music went well even though it was a bit confusing in the prelude since once again the altar servers stood close by and talked loudly.

Eileen said she was talking with someone at this point who wondered why the servers were lining up for the procession. Eileen told her that I had made a pause and they thought the prelude was over. The person to whom she was speaking apparently was surprised I was doing anything over that at the organ.

This reminds me of years ago when I was music director at a downtown Detroit parish. The church was near a home for mentally impaired men who attended service en masse. If my offertory got too loud, they would all stand as a group thinking it was time to sing the Doxology (it was a Presbyterian gig).

Pavlovian, n’est pas?

I cut back my organ rehearsal a bit this week. The week prior to performing the St. Anne fugue, I was rehearsing more than two hours a day on it. This week, I have been practicing not only the upcoming organ music, but also working on other pieces.

I am trying to pace myself energy wise. Yesterday didn’t work out so good for some reason. Part of it was some negotiations with people around the funeral scheduled for this Monday. Our procedure at church is that the family talks to Rev Jen and then she and I work out the details. But I don’t usually have direct contact with the family.

Saturday morning there was an email in my inbox from a family member. I immediately emailed Jen and asked her if I should pursue the request in the email.

She didn’t reply right away. I tried to then set it aside. But in retrospect I think this negotiation which continued by email for much of the day hung over me.  It’s still unresolved exactly what I am expected to do Monday, but I do feel more prepared having found and downloaded an easy of version Howard Goodall’s Psalm 23, the Theme for the Vicar of Dibley (the music in question).

it’s very easy.

Last night I dreamed about Christmas eve. In the dream, I was exhausted. You know. Like real life these days. I also couldn’t find a dress shirt for services then I realized I was wearing it.

Sheesh.

Yesterday I moved the piano away from the front of the choir area. Today’s anthem is one I am conducting from the organ console. When I do this, the choir has to stand further back. This means their sound is muffled by the acoustical bubble behind a huge stone arch.

I’m also not terribly prepared for today. I know the music okay, but not forwards and backwards the way I have been trying to prepare.

I tell myself I’m going for pacing myself. It will probably go fine.

The time change seems to be working in my favor this morning. I feel more rested than yesterday.

The Pitiful Whimper of 2014 – NYTimes.com

It’s hard not to be cynical about Tuesday’s election. What a fucking mess.

Recipe: Pan-Fried Noodles With Some Spice – NYTimes.com

Since returning from China I have been making fried noodles with chili sauce and whatever else is at hand. Yum.

Health Dept. Worker Suspended. One Complaint: He Talked Like a Robot. – NYT

I found this story very amusing.

Recently I’ve started listening to the podcast, Serial.

As Sarah Koenig, its creator and narrator succinctly puts it, it is “one story told week by week.”

The first season is about a murder. Koenig reexamines a situation to find out who is lying about it.

It’s a spin off from This American Life, which I initially enjoyed but tired of due to the unevenness of its quality

.

This morning I bookmarked New Tech City after listening to an episode of it on this week’s On the Media. It also is a podcast. The episode This American Life included was about Ladar Levison and William Binney. Two men who like Ed Snowden are dedicated to exposing the US government’s invasion of the privacy of the lives of its citizens.

New Tech City claims to examine how technology impacts our lives.

I don’t use these podcasts via any service like Itunes (on which they both apparently are carried). I just listen to them on my computer.

I find “On the Media” to be consistently interesting and informative. Besides the New Tech City segment, I highly recommend the first two segments of this week’s show “Elections after Citizen’s United” and “Rocky Mountain Heist.”

The latter segment talks about how an expert on campaign finance disclosure was fooled into appearing on a rabidly anti-Democratic campaign film called “Rocky Mountain Heist” If you like irony, you will enjoy that segment.

American Drone Strike Kills 6 in Pakistani Tribal Areas – NYTimes.com

I thought of the US government’s continuing program to kill people remotely this morning when I read these words in “A Saint About to Fall” by Dylan Thomas

The skull of the earth is barbed with a war of burning brains and hair.

Strike in the time-bomb town,
Raise the live rafters of the eardrum,
Throw your fear a parcel of stone
Through the dark asylum,

Malala Yousafzai Donates Prize Money to Rebuild Gaza School – NYTimes.co

This person continues to inspire me.

Peering Into the Darkness – NYTimes.com

An article about writing. I think the author, Joe Hill, is a good writer.

Exhausted as usual on Thursday, I rose yesterday and immediately did corrected copies of the upcoming psalms for the next two Sundays. In each case, we had noticed trivial mistakes in them in choir rehearsal.

It looks like the Republicans are heading for many victories next Tuesday. I find this confusing.  I cannot bring myself to vote for a Republican these days. Though almost all politicians seem to have lost a sense of public service and instead are operating in interests that do not serve the country as a whole, the Republican rhetoric is the most extreme and intransigent.

I have to hand it to them that they have reframed the reality so that many young voters (according to polls) are holding the President and the Democrats responsible for a general lack of governing even though they themselves are at least complicit in this, and in my opinion, have deliberately set out to divide and conquer those with whom they disagree.

Gunnar Myrdal talks about the idea that a democracy is a discussion between those who have opposing opinions with values in common. This is no longer true in the political arena of United States. But I believe it’s not exactly what is happening in the minds of the citizens since I tend to think that at heart we still do have values in common.

Well, I will vote as usual. I always do.

I wonder how many people making noise now actually vote. I think the more people to vote the better. Right there, I am in disagreement with the Republicans who seem to think that money is speech and are discouraging voting (especially of course among those who would not vote for them).

I am not as tired today as I was yesterday. The piano trio read through Tchaikovsky. Thank goodness, my colleagues went slowly enough for me to play some of the notes in his piano trio (which is dedicated to Nicholas Rubinstein! Yikes!).

I have been reading through Fanny Mendelssohn piano pieces.

This one I have found very haunting and keep playing through it.

(Side note: my bookmark service [Diigo] allows me to add a footnote to a saved pdf file. I did this in the online version of this piece. It shows corrections which my edition does not have. This feature will come in very handy for me, since I am always looking at pdfs online.).

I also have been reading Dylan Thomas in the morning.

This shit keeps me sane.

Galway Kinnell, Plain-Spoken Poet, Is Dead at 87 – NYTimes.com

A poet I read.

Pressure in Japan to Forget Sins of War – NYTimes.com

The right ward noise of politics is not limited to American Republicans. I read constantly that this kind of intolerance and bigotry is on the rise in Europe and other places.

Yesterday I decided to schedule a couple organ pieces by the composer Harald Rohlig. He’s just one of those many composers tucked away in my brain that I think are competent.  I was madly trying to put together the information that I submit for the bulletin for a week from this Sunday.

I am attempting to make Tuesdays a work free day. At the same time I try to work a bit ahead with submitting the bulletin info. I used to do this on Tuesdays reserving Monday as a work free day. Monday was a good day for this because the weekend (Sunday anyway) often leaves  me exhausted and drained.

But now I have an 8:30 AM class on Mondays. So I haven’t quite figured out what a good weekly schedule is for me yet.

Anyway, I did this work yesterday in between all my scheduled stuff. I thought I would put Rohlig’s dates in the bulletin. I looked him up on line and discovered he died on Oct. 25 this year, just a few days ago.

His funeral is tomorrow.

This is weird. I was talking to Eileen about him since he is one of the composers that Concordia seems to be re-issuing. I recently purchased a used volume of one of these re-issues and it’s sitting next to my chorale prelude file waiting to be  indexed.

I found out more about Rohlig yesterday than I ever knew (thank you Wikipedia). He was in the Hitler Youth.

This seems lecture notes for a talk he gave called “Living Under an Unjust Regime.” His dad was a Methodist Minister who knew Bonhoeffer and who ended up in a concentration camp. Rohlig served in the German Luftwaffe and was eventually captured by Americans.

Unlike many of his European contemporaries, he obviously did not immigrate to the USA during the war, but instead came over in the fifties.

I find his writing fresh and well put together.

This is a piece I wrote last year for ballet class. Yesterday the instructor decided to use it again. I found it on YouTube, noticed that there were forty seconds of goofy shuffling around at the beginning and trimmed it.

Julie is having her Pointe class develop their own choreography for this tune.

Georgia Judge Dismisses Lawsuit on Voter Registration – NYTimes.com

It looks like systematic voter repression to me: guaranteeing influence of money with Citizen’s United and at the same time making it more difficult to vote.

The Department of Education Offers States Guidance on Equality – NYTimes.com

More evidence of the ongoing racism of our institutions in the USA.

When Prosecutors Align on Guns – NYTimes.com

And then there is the madness of guns and violence in our country that Congress refuses to address. Thank goodness somebody gives a shit about this in the government.