I am feeling better this morning. Maybe this dread illness is finally going away. Last night I was not as exhausted as I have been when it came time to go to bed. All signs to the good.
Yesterday I spent the entire day resting. For me this meant alternating between reading and playing piano. I guess that’s what I usually do with time off anyway. At least if I’m not working on composing some music or something.
I dipped into my Dostoevsky (Brothers Karamazov), Reinventing Bach, Musicking (by Christopher Small), Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Diarmaid MacCuloch), and “Six Months, Three days” a short story from Some of the Best from Tor.com 2011.
The short story was pretty weak but I don’t mind a sci-fi short story once in a while. I spent most of the time however doing escape reading in A Feast for Crows (Book 4 of Games of Thrones).
In between I snuck bits of Bach English Suites and Mendelssohn piano pieces in on the piano.
Today I have no scheduled tasks, other than prepping for upcoming stuff. I usually turn in music on Tuesdays for the bulletin a week from Sunday. In this case that would be Lent II. I am thinking of scheduling simpler organ music for this Sunday (Eileen’s suggestion as she watches me sweat bullets over preludes and postludes). I also am playing at my Mom’s nursing home on Thursday for Valentines day.
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‘The Endgame’ and ‘My Share of the Task’ – NYTimes.com
In this book review Bacevich takes propaganda volumes by players in the Iraq war to brilliantly shreds.
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The Ignorance Caucus – NYTimes.com
One side believes, at least in principle, in letting its policy views be shaped by facts; the other believes in suppressing the facts if they contradict its fixed beliefs.
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Amazon.com: Morimur: Hilliard Ensemble, Christoph Poppen, Johann Sebastian Bach: Music
This interesting recording is mentioned by Paul Elie in Reinventing Bach. It illustrates a theory that Bach was quoting certain chorales in the unaccompanied violin sonatas. The Hilliard Ensemble sings snippets of them (including a cappella bits from the cantatas) and they are interleaved with the violin piece. I do love the Hilliard Ensemble. I bought the MP3 album since it’s not on Spotify.
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