I spent my usual blogging time wrestling with my tablet this morning. I accidentally set up a default with it that caused it to malfunction when I attempted to download another Vierne piece to analyze using Rollin Smith’s info about the organ roll recording Vierne made (if this is incomprehensible to you and you’re curious see yesterday’s blog).

First it was stuck on a default setting that automatically popped a music file into my ebook reader. Then when I managed to change that in the defaults it didn’t exactly go back to default and kept opening up the ebook reader even though I was “telling” it to do something different.

I finally had to uninstall the ebook reader (which I have been using to read Gilead by Marilyn Robinson) and finally downloaded the Vierne piece. At which time I was so exasperated that I decided to skip the Vierne reading/thinking this morning and do my blog.

I did not, however, skip my morning Greek, Merton and MacCulloch reading.

Merton’s three part essay on Boris Pasternak takes up the first 68 pages of his Disputed Questions.

This morning I learned that Pasternak knew Rilke the poet and Scriabin the composer as a child. He (Pasternak) even entertained the notion of becoming a composer and presumably studying with Scriabin.

This of course inspired me to pull out my Scriabin and play through several pieces.

My piano student, Rudy, loves Scriabin so I have collected some of his music and have studied it to help Rudy play it. Rudy spends the winters in Washington DC. I am hoping he will call me again this year for a summer of lessons. He is getting elderly (85?) as am I (63) but fut the whuck.

Switzerland: Scientists Find the Secret to the Holes in Swiss Cheese: Hay Dust – 

Goofy but kind of interesting.

Another Huge Statue in Russia? Not Rare, but Hugely Divisive – NYTimes.com

St. Vladimir and Vladimir Putin. A coincidence?

Selling Off Apache Holy Land – NYTimes.com

Bookmarked to read.