Eileen and I both are not feeling great. Eileen skipped choir rehearsal and announced at breakfast this morning that her goal today and tomorrow is to “survive.” We have head colds.
I’m using the Blackberry to video myself so that I can estimate the time it takes for the prelude. I think the mic is picking up room noise. I don’t think it’s a file conversion problem. I uploaded this directly from Eileen’s blackberry onto YouTube. These videos are just me practicing. I’m making no attempt at doing a finished product. (Can you tell?) I put them up thinking someone might be curious what I’m doing at the organ.
This is the postlude. I videoed it for the heck of it. I like the melody it’s based on and Farlee manages to come up with some pretty interesting stuff for an organ setting of it.
I just emailed the church secretary the following about the composer of the prelude:
Noel DaCosta (1929-2002) Although of Jamaican parentage, Noel DaCosta, was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He later moved to Jamaica where he lived until age 11, at which time he came to the US. He pursued his musical education at Queen College (City University of New York) and at Columbia University. While still in graduate school at Columbia, DaCosta was the recipient of the Seidl Fellowship in Music Composition. He later studied with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence under a Fulbright Scholarship. In his latter years, Da Costa served as Professor of Music Emeritus at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University where he taught from 1970 until shortly before his death.
I lifted it whole cloth from a Pipe Dreams online article on African American Composers.
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Mexican Doctor’s Baths for Corpses Reinvigorate Cold Cases – NYTimes.com
NCIS technology in real life. Remember Juarez? Where people (mostly young women) are being slaughtered by criminals. Over 8,000 bodies await this dude. I like his careful avoidance of getting involved in the criminal proceedings. I think he likes being alive.
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The ‘Eyeball to Eyeball’ Myth and the Cuban Missile Crisis’s Legacy – NYTimes.com
This version of history more believable.
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Woman Must Relinquish Kafka Papers, Judge Says – NYTimes.com
More Kafka stuff to come. Excellent.
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