I’ve landed on the lovely prelude of Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in G # minor piece for the Prelude for Sunday.

I think it fits a meditative mood for Lent.

And the Prelude from his Prelude and Fugue in Ab Major for the postlude.

I figure this is melodic enough to at least be present while the cong chats its way to the exits.

Of course I have been playing and thinking about this music recently, so it’s nice to have a place to at least play them in public.

Finished this last night. On to volume 2 which since it wasn’t sitting on the shelves at the library I bought as an ebook and began reading.

Romney won the Republican primary yesterday. Surprising how many votes Santorum received. What I hear of his rhetoric seems mad and full of hate (JFK’s separation of church and state made him throw-up…. Andy Borowitz, the comedian, suggested Santorum was interested in forming a new way to run his country called Stirch. Get it?)

Our janitor at church is obviously Republican and was wearing an “I Voted” sticker. I have to admire this genial guy as he sits in a room with mostly rabid anti-Republicans. We had a luncheon yesterday honoring Henry Idema who is retiring. Henry hates Republicans for sure and is a vocal kind of guy.

How Pop Culture Influences Political Expectations | Truthout

I keep thinking about this interview (which I did eventually read). Gabler has insights about how our political culture is dissolving into a movie where it’s who beats the bad guy (the opponent) that counts and not issues. As Gabler says: governing is a bad movie.

A couple of quotes I marked:

On American cynicism Americans are deeply cynical about politics generally. And one of the reasons we’re cynical is because we get it. We get how it works.

What Gabler wants from better candidates I want to know who a candidate really is. I want him to speak honestly and forcefully to me. And I also want to understand policy-wise what choices is he going to make? What interests are we going to– is he going to serve? You know, these are questions that are almost never addressed in a political campaign and yet they’re the fundamental questions of a political campaign.

A better definition of  “politics” When I say politics I don’t mean the horse race aspect of it. I mean the bargaining, the negotiations, the policy, all of those things which are the essence of real politics and political decision making, Americans hate that and they are cynical about that. They feel it doesn’t work.

Democracy or a movie Movies are clean. Democracy is a mess. That’s what makes it democracy.

Implications of  politics as movie. When we get into the cold light of the sidewalk after the movie is over, what is the impact of all this? What is it going to mean for my life? What is it going to mean for America? And if we don’t start asking those questions we can’t move this forward at all.

Apathy is a sickness and term limits are not more than a symptom of that inaction. “The price of Freedom is in fact Eternal Vigilance” Thomas Jefferson…

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Took the performance scores of my piece “Postlude on Erhalt uns” for piano trio and re-edited the originals to reflect corrections and emendations from Sunday’s performance. This piece is now available on my “Free Mostly Original Sheet Music” page.

My cellist told my wife I should publish this piece. Hah. As usual, I remain unconvinced of my commercial potential but not of the worth of doing what I do.  Quite the contrary. I like my stuff and I like doing it. I dread marketing or convincing others of the worth of it.

I have been reading in the Readings for the Daily Office from the Early Church recently and posting anything interesting on the Facebook Grace Music Ministry page.

I used to pray the office daily.

I used to have a lot more religion. I don’t think I had a lot of religion just more than I have now.

As I told Henry Idema, I don’t have the “gift of faith.”

Other gifts, sure. Just not that one.

I don’t mean I feel “gifted.” I mean that I have some things in my life that have been given to me to enjoy and do well. Just not faith.

Another poem by Ginsberg came blasting into my head this morning.

I recommend reading it because it is truly prophecy as well as poetry:

Death to Van Gogh’s Ear! by Allen Ginsberg

I like the ending. It gives you a flavor of the poem.

Money! Money! Money! shrieking mad celestial money of     illusion! Money made of nothing, starvation, suicide! Money of failure! Money of death!

Money against Eternity! and eternity’s strong mills grind out vast paper of Illusion!

Anyway, I like the poem.

Today I want to pick organ music for this weekend. Last weekend was a big effort with all the Mozart and original composition. This weekend it’s my intention to choose music that wont require tons of prep.

I continue to play through the Shostakovitch Preludes and Fugues.

I found an interesting YouTube channel yesterday which specializes in recordings of composers playing their works.

20th Century Composers play their own Work – YouTube

I notice there are a couple of Shostakovitch playing from his Preludes and Fugues. I haven’t listened to them yet, but plan to.

I also found a new collection of illustrations of Grimm Fairy tales.

It’s not very expensive ($23.99 on Amazon). It looks excellent.

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The Mother Courage of Rock by Luc Sante | The New York Review of Books

Article on Patti Smith’s works. My daughter Elizabeth has been reading her and went to see her recently.

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Shadow and Smoke by Charles Wright | The New York Review of Books

Nice little poem by Charles Wright.

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The New World of William Carlos Williams by Adam Kirsch | The New York Review of Books

Found an essay about WCW yesterday.

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Independence for Scotland? – NYTimes.com

This article elucidates some of the intricacies and history of the British Isles I didn’t know.

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At San Francisco State, a Split Over Its High-Tech Library – NYTimes.com

High tech hits the liberry. Bout time.

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When Truisms Are True – NYTimes.com

The context (such as physically sitting in or out of a box) turns out to be important to thinking processes. Makes sense actually. Sort of a liturgical idea being shaped by immediate experience of environment.

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The Greatness of Ike – NYTimes.com

Can you spot the inaccuracies and  logical fallacies in this article? Nothing against Ike, just the columnist.

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Media’s Weird Ethics: Pretending to Be Someone Else Is Worse Than Facilitating Global Catastrophe

History is a motherfucker. Turns out under cover journalism is not new or even necessarily unethical. Never mind.

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Two strings and a piano are evidently insufficient as a postlude against the onslaught of chatter and relief of a group of people in a church who had been holding their breath throughout the first Sunday of Lent. It’s a shame, but not that big a shame.

I’m referring to yesterday’s performance of my little piece based on the closing hymn.  I am calmly satisfied today, but realize that much of the beauty seem to miss the mark yesterday. The beauty was there, I think, in the music and the prayers. That is sufficient for me.

The early Sunday morning found me at my silent keyboard, headphones on, carefully preparing my piano parts for the day. The performances later were similar as I reentered the quiet space of doing music. The Mozart piano trio went pretty well and was of course beautiful. But I was most proud of my performance of my piece, tucked in between the rushing conversations of people fleeing the room around me.

I made the piece too gentle and sublte for a postlude even though that was the title I gave it: “Postlude on Erhalt Uns.”  But our clear little performance of it was rewarding.

Maybe now I can return to some more composing.

I realize that I rarely perform for “audiences” at church. By “audience” I mean the silent conversation of energy between the listener, the composer and the performer. Instead music is tucked in between what people are doing or think they are doing at the time. We are more accustomed to invisible music. Music made by clever machines for dull ears doing something else.

Elevator music gone wild, blooming into a larger horror than ever imagined and offered to the unaware as they wait for the moment to stop and they get out.

Anyway, yesterday went very well. Eileen and I came home, grabbed something to eat and then went to check on my Mom at the nursing home. She was laying in bed fully clothed. She feels sheepish I think when we come in and she is in bed as usual even though her comfy chair has been repaired. She got up and sat it in it and chatted with us a while which is a good sign. Her main theme now is that her back hurts her quite a bit. This makes sense as we have tried to lower her confusion (increase her coherence and awareness?) and strengthen her by changing a dose in one of her pain meds.

When she was filling out (when I was helping her fill out) her intake form for her new psychologist, she indicated that she is lonely and depressed. Hopefully Eileen and/or I can pop over more often and just chat with her like we did yesterday. It does seem to raise her spirits a bit.

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The Error Iceberg – NYTimes.com

Examination of newspaper errors in general and errors in the  NYT in specific.

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How Pop Culture Influences Political Expectations | Truthout

Bill Moyers and Neal Gabler on this topic.  Video and transcript.

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Iran and Israel Share Bonds – NYTimes.com

Surprising facts about Iran, Israel and Iranian Jews.

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Ghent Altarpiece Gets Own Interactive Web Site – NYTimes.com

I love this stuff. There is a link to the site in the article.

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A Doctor on How Physicians Face the End of Life – WSJ.com

Common sense on the last phase of life: Attributes of “… a graceful death…” include “… being comfortable and in control, having a sense of closure, making the most of relationships and having family involved in care.”

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“Industrious, affable, having brain on fire
Henry perplexed himself; others gave up; “

John Berryman, Dream Song 58

Like I did with my initial read of Paterson by William Carlos Williams I am basically just reading Berryman’s The Dream Songs cold without any background reading or information other than consulting the dictionary.

I have always done this sort of thing: throw myself right into something complex. I admire Zappa for this. Having only a high school education, as a young percussionist he threw himself into the world of Edgar Varese.

At my age, this is only one of my approaches. I discovered recently that Paterson has been revised and edited by Christopher MacGowan. He is the surviving editor of the two volumes of WCW I just finished and was solely responsible for the second volume. It’s only a matter of time until I pick up his Paterson and learn more about WCW’s incredible poem.

As I pondered The Dream Songs this morning the dictionary yielded excellent results. Examples of new words I learned:

tinchel – a circle of sportsmen who surround an extensive space and gradually close in on game… Gaelicl, timchiol circuit

The tinchel closes. Terror, & plunging, swipes.
I lay my ears back. I am about to die.

Dream Song 56

Issa – Haiku poet, Kobayashi Issa… the name Issa literally means ‘one cup of tea’

Issa & his father who
sat down on the grass and took leave of each other.

nitid – bright, lustrous Latin nitidus – shining bright nit[ere] to glisten

Nitid. They are shooting me full of sings.
I give no rules. Write as short as you can,

both of these words from Dream Song 54

You get the idea. There were several more just this morning. I figure there are probably edited editions available with explanations if not web sites with the same. But as I said, I enjoy throwing myself directly at the art.

This morning’s upcoming service of Lent I will include some fun music: Piano trio movement by Mozart for the prelude, “Adoramus Te” by Mozart for the anthem and a world premiere of my latest composition based on the closing hymn for the postlude.

I need one last practice session this morning on the electric piano with headphones while Eileen sleeps. It will be interesting to see how this all comes off.

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Hamas Supports Syrian Opposition – NYTimes.com

Hamas and the U.S. on the same side? Weird.

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Academic Turns Grief Into Crime-Fighting Tool in Honduras – NYTimes.com

There are some brave wonderful people in the world.

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On Religion — In a New Ritual, Many Find Solace Online – NYTimes.com

Memorial Facebook pages for dead loved ones. Logical. Funeral homes are probably in a frenzy of anxiety over this one since they offer those ghastly online memorial sites. My dad has one.

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Guantánamo Conditions Have Fallen, Military Lawyers Say – NYTimes.com

The terrible story continues.

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Billy Strange, ’60s Session Guitarist, Dies at 81 – NYTimes.com

The composer of “Limbo Rock” and “A Little Less Conversation” has died.

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The last couple of mornings I have spent time playing through some of the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues for piano. I was reminded of his work by listening to the 2008 Randy Newman Desert Island Disc program online on BBC.

They are more fun to play than listen to, I think. I feel that way about blues as well. More fun to do than hear.

The ballet class yesterday was interesting in that it preceded the opening night of the rather elaborate winter show called Dance 38. This literally means the 38th year they have presented a dance concert at Hope. Pretty amazing. Eileen and I have comp tickets for next Friday’s performance.

The dancers’ energy ranged from pale fainting anxiety to excitement.

I learned Thursday that my boss’s partner has come out of the closet at Hope. I find this encouraging. I hate working for institutions that are so filled with hate (colleges, churches) so it encourages me when I discover that good things have actually happened.

Of course now my boss and her significant other hold their breath waiting for her to get fired. They have already decided that she is going to quit in two years anyway. That partly prompted the coming out.

I also learned from another colleague that a friend of hers was shot and killed on Wednesday. It is particularly wrenching to watch people dealing with stuff like that.

I don’t mention these people by name in order to be appropriate. However, I found it interesting that in Randy Newman’s interview in 2008 he indicated that if he could come up with a good song and it offended someone he loved he still would not hesitate to make it.

When asked, he pointed to a song he wrote about his first wife, while married to his second. Her reaction was not good. She asked him not to perform it if she was at a concert, but he couldn’t remember if he respected this request or not.

I think he is an excellent song writer and composer, so it gave me food for thought since I do censor myself from time to time in order not to offend people I love or care about.

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The attic of the past, and other lyrics by Louis Ginsberg

Discovered this morning that poetry was the family business at the Ginsberg household. Allen’s dad published at least two books of poems (the first two rhyme are not terribly great) which Allen refers to in a poem I read this morning.

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Selecting a Seatmate to Make Skies Friendlier – NYTimes.com

This is kind of odd, using Facebook to select people you are willing to sit next to. I guess it makes sense if you are traveling alone. I always enjoy travelling with Eileen and would only think about this if I was heading off by myself.

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Political Lessons, From a Mother’s Losing Run – NYTimes.com

Thoughtful article about Mitt Romney’s mom who ran an unsuccessful campaign for senate and was a former movie star. Who knew?

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How to Halt the Butchery in Syria – NYTimes.com

The Syria thing is out of control. I totally abhor war, but do wonder about how we and other countries do not seem to be able to stop this. This article outlines a strategy.

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Guernica / Juan Cole: Logical Errors and Propaganda in Republican Debate on the Middle East

I admire this article which parses public speech in terms of fallacy errors.  Always a useful approach.

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Q&A: Nir Rosen’s predictions for Syria – Features – Al Jazeera English

Thoughtful observations from an on the ground observer at one of the world’s finest news organizations.

I love this:

“Law is a culture that puts other cultures, like religion and ethnicity, in a working relationship with each other. The US invasion of Iraq destroyed its legal culture. As a Kurd interpreter said to me in 2004, “Toppling a regime is like toppling a tree; you can’t just make another tree.” I believe law is a culture implicit in each human person. It is the idea that nobody is stupid, not even me, so why not work together on simple things like trash and loud noises?”

from the article at the link

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What caused collapse of Mayan civilization? | Fox News

A reduction in rainfall that might have precipitated societal unrest and/or disease.

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Are Obama, GOP hopefuls fibbing on auto bailout claims?

More clarity about obfuscation.

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Barney Rosset, Grove Press Publisher, Dies at 89 – NYTimes.com

Grove Press was a publisher I admired as a kid.

Often I looked at the spine of a book I was reading (William Burroughs, Samuel Beckett) and saw its imprint.

I didn’t know much about the press itself other than the fact that many of the books I pulled off of book store shelves to purchase and read had its imprint. So I was interested to read the obit of its founder yesterday.

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After the Ash Wed service this week I came home and fell into bed feeling like a body cold or flu was coming on.  For 48 hours, it really got no better or worse. Yesterday I did the ballet class, met with my boss and had a piano trio rehearsal feeling like any moment I would be really sick.

My piano trio read through my composition and that was fun. The violinist seem to like it. We are playing it as the postlude Sunday and that will also be fun. I am still trying to learn the piano part.

I came home and basically sat in a chair for five hours until Eileen got home.

I tried to read but basically just sat there. Finally I went to bed and listened to stuff online.

I went over to the Desert Island disks archive at BBC. I listened to a bit of the one that featured Roger Waters (Pink Floyd dude). I was appalled that they only played a chorus of his first pick and not the whole thing.

But I guess that’s the attention span thing.

His first choice was “Helpless” by Neil Young. Well I like both Pink Floyd and Neil Young but was basically bored and annoyed with this approach so I queued up the 2008 show that featured Randy Newman. It was much more interesting.

I guess I’m more interested in Newman than Pink Floyd.

Got up this morning (feeling much better) and played through a couple of  Shostakovitch preludes and fugues after listening to Newman’s choice of Shostakovitch’s 15th symphony as one of his desert island disks.

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The Emperor’s Messenger Has No Clothes: Belén Fernández Dresses Down Thomas Friedman | Truthout

I try not to dwell in my own echo chamber of sources that I’m pretty sure I agree with. But I was impressed that Fernandez has written a book that seems to agree with my assessment of Friedman ever since the Iraq war.

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I surprised myself this morning when I turned the last page on the second volume of the collected poems of William Carlos Williams. I have enjoyed reading his poetry. I think I am drawn to American voices. I am reading the rest of Allen Ginsberg’s volume of “Kaddish and Other Poems.” I also read the first twenty or so of John Berryman’s Dream Songs.

Nice lines in Berryman’s sonnets:

My psychiatrist can beat up your psychiatrist

Rilke was a jerk

Dream Song 5

Reading Ginsberg and Berryman is a return to the loves of my youth.

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Volunteers Offer Salamanders a Chance to Mate – NYTimes.com

I learned a new word in this charming little report:

“herpers — those people engaged in the act of searching out amphibians or reptiles —”

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Guantánamo Suicide Suit Disallowed – NYTimes.com

America continues to turn its back on itself.

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Mother of American Sentenced to Death in Iran Visits Him – NYTimes.com

One wonders if this guy was actually doing something illegal. Nevertheless I hate all states that detain people like this.

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The American Century Is Over—Good Riddance – by Bacevich

Bacevich continues to knock it out of the park for me. I gave one of his books as a retirement gift to the Rev Hendry Idema this week. In this article he re-reads a Life article entitled “American Century” which appeared in the Feb 1941 issue.

“Luce’s essay manages to be utterly ludicrous and yet deeply moving. Above all, this canonical assertion of singularity—identifying God’s new Chosen People—is profoundly American. (Of course, I love Life in general. Everyone has a vice. Mine is collecting old copies of Luce’s most imaginative and influential creation—and, yes, my collection includes the issue of February 17, 1941.)” Bacevich from the linked article

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I was incorrect when I said I had finished reading Allen Ginsberg’s poem for his mother called “Kaddish.” Apparently it goes on for several more pages. I was fooled by the appearance of this poem (which I quite like).

“Hymmnn” – Allen Ginsberg
“In the world which He was created according to his will Blessed Praised

Magnified Lauded Exalted the Name of the Holy One Blessed is He!

In the house in Newark Blessed is He! In the madhouse Blessed is He! In the house of Death Blessed is He!

Blessed be he in homosexuality! Blessed be He in Paranoia! Blessed be He in the city! Blessed be He in the Book!

Blessed be He who dwells in the shadow! Blessed be He! Blessed be He!

Blessed be you Naomi in tears! Blessed be you Naomi in fears! Blessed Blessed Blessed in sickness!

Blessed be you Naomi in Hospitals! Blessed be you Naomi in solitude! Blest be your triumph! Blest be your bars! Blest be your last years’ loneliness!

Blest be your failure! Blest be your stroke! Blest be the close of your eye! Blest be the gaunt of your cheek! Blest be your withered thighs!

Blessed be Thee Naomi in Death! Blessed be Death! Blessed be Death!

Blessed be He Who leads all sorrow to Heaven! Blessed be He in the end I

Blessed be He who builds Heaven in Darkness! Blessed Blessed Blessed be He! Blessed be He! Blessed be Death on us All!”

Naomi is his mother’s name.

I was also quite taken with the penultimate section of the poem. Here’s some excerpts.

IV from Kaddish

O mother
what have I left out
O mother
what have I forgotten
O mother
farewell
with a long black shoe….

with your sagging belly
with your fear of Hitler
with your mouth of bad short stories
with your fingers of rotten mandolines
with your arms of fat Paterson porches
with your belly of strikes and smokestacks
with with your chin of Trotsky and the SpanishWar

Paterson is the city in New Jersey where William Carlos Williams lived most of his life. Paterson is also celebrated in his masterwork by the same name. Ginsberg ends this part of “Kaddish” with a beautiful section about  her eyes.

with your eyes
with your eyes of Russia
with your eyes of no money
with your eyes of false China….

with your eyes pissing in the park
with your eyes of America taking a fall
with your eyes of your failure at the piano
with your eyes Of Ma Rainey dying in an ambulance…

with your eyes being led away by policemen to an ambulance
with your eyes strapped down on the operating table
with your eyes with the pancreas removed
with your eyes of appendix operation
with your eyes of abortion
with your eyes of ovaries removed
with your eyes of shock
with your eyes of divorce
with your eyes of stroke
with your eyes alone
with your eyes
with your eyes
with your Death full of Flowers

Allen Gisberg’s mother, Naomi, played the mandolin and the piano. She suffered from some sort of madness. She did receive a lobotomy. I find  this poem quite beautiful.

I had lunch with Henry Idema this week. I discovered he has published two books. When I expressed interest he gave me copies of them. Last night I started reading his Freud, Religion, and the Roaring Twenties.

Henry is the assistant at my church. He is retiring next month. This book was based on his doctoral thesis at U of Chicago.

I read Freud as a young person. But I’m finding Henry’s clear prose is teaching me to understand Freud’s ideas better.

But more on that later, maybe.

I have now finished several volumes (1-5) of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman graphic novels. Some it is quite good. Some of it is okay.

I Moved your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else’s Maze by Deepak Malhotra was offered as a discount kindle book recently. I bought it and read it. It’s kind of parable about being and action. It was okay.

I’m also about a third of the way into Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It started out very weak, but now is going better. I  can’t tell if I’m developing a tolerance of her prose or if she improves as the book goes on.

I had a bad night last night.

I had aches and pains. I was sure I would get up with a bad cold but I don’t feel too bad right now. I have been pushing myself lately to get a lot done. I’m hoping that I just was sore because I didn’t have time to treadmill yesterday.

Today I have a ballet class to play for, meeting with my boss (something I look forward to) and a piano trio rehearsal.

At the rehearsal we will be working on the piece I wrote for us to play Sunday. The piano part is a bit challenging and I have been madly trying to learn it.

Music went very well at last night’s Ash Wed service.

The choir was very small. I put the organ behind them on the Brahms which could have been done a cappella if a few of the absent members had been there. It sounded very good in service.

My two Brahms’ organ pieces went well. Both of them were ones I don’t think I’ve every performed in public before: O Gott, du frommer Gott and O wie selig seid ihr doch, ihr Frommen by Johannes Brahms.

Brahms wrote these pieces near the end of his life after his muse, Clara Schumann, had died.

At her death, he was devastated and assumed he would never compose again. In fact, he wrote some lovely stuff which includes these pieces, some amazing piano pieces and the clarinet sonatas.

It’s been a hectic couple of days. But finally I have managed to get my Mom’s meds adjusted. Finished reading Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish this morning. It’s in memory of his mother. Its images are stark and engaging. Apparently Ginsberg’s mother was mad. At least that’s the story in the poem.

I have been carting my Mom around in a wheelchair since she is falling so much and remains weak.

Hopefully the change in meds will take effect within a few days. If not, I’ll have to look into changing some of her other meds.

Images from the past few days:

The young nurse calls my Mom “Sweetheart” as she takes her blood pressure, pulse and blood oxygen level.

Then she labors over a computer screen and keeps apologizing to Mom and me for taking so long.

When I mentioned that the man we both knew had written a couple of books, the woman behind the desk said that she knew and that was another thing that they all found funny about him.

The big man in the cafeteria agreed with me that man hugs are sometimes appropriate. Neither of us moved.

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The Jerusalem Syndrome: Why Some Religious Tourists Believe They Are the Messiah | Wired Magazine | Wired.com

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Playboy Interview: Paul Krugman : Playboy.com

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Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, Uncle Sam, Global Gangster | TomDispatch

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Jimmy Sabater, Master of Boogaloo, Dies at 75 – NYTimes.com

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Today is “Fat Tuesday” all over the world. People will party like there is no tomorrow this evening. This relaxation of normal mores that allows crazy behavior makes sense to me in many ways. But at my church, they are delaying the party until Saturday after Lent has begun.

This incoherence happened without my boss’s permission and was scheduled by highly educated intelligent people. It’s just another little incoherent piece that goes floating by.

Recently I linked in an article that pointed out that a good number of people receiving government benefits don’t realize they are government benefits.

Moochers Against Welfare – NYTimes.com

Then my brother Mark put up this link on Facebook:

Cornell Chronicle: Recipients of federal aid say they’re not

Nice ironic quote leads the article:

“Keep your government hands off my Medicare,” said a citizen attending a town hall meeting in Simpsonville, S.C., in 2009. Many Americans like him — who benefit from federal largesse but don’t realize it — favor deep cuts to government programs.

My wife passed the link along and then discovered that we have intelligent educated relatives who seem to fit the category of not realizing (admitting?) they are connected to the government they abhor by receiving benefits they seem to think should stop.

It seems incoherent to me. I’m pretty sure if I could have a face to face conversation with my relatives I would learn more about how it seems to them.

I have dozens of these incidents of incoherence of people who are “educated.”

I am reading a book on denial. It occurs to me that denial may come into play when people seem incoherent.

From my reading notes this morning: In early evolution stress response led to “fight or flight.”

After danger passed, body could relax but in modern situation, neither flight nor flight is called for and the brain is left to stew in stress response juices.

“While stress arousal is a fitting mode to meet emergency as an ongoing state it is a disaster.” p. 43 in Vital Lies, Simple Truths by Goleman

Tuning out threat is one way to short-circuit stress arousal… Goleman sees denial as a psychological equivalent to endorphin response to stress.

I thought about my experiences of educated incoherence when I read these lines from the poem, “HE HAS BEATEN ABOUT THE BUSH LONG ENOUGH”  by William Carlos Williams this morning.

the
slowly hardening

brain
of an academician
The most

that can be said
for it
is

That it has the crystal-
line pattern
of

new ice on
a country
pool

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Physicists Create a Working Transistor From a Single Atom – NYTimes.com

This science amazes me.

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Where the Boys Aren’t – NYTimes.com

I read Maureen Dowd articles, but rarely link them since they seem to be so light. But I liked her portrait of the movie star who became a nun in real life.

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In Sudan, Seeing Echoes of Darfur – NYTimes.com

Kristoff says to stay tuned: there is another terrible situation occurring.

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In 1963 William Carlos Williams won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry with his publication, Pictures from Brueghel. This morning I read the title poem. I picture the elderly, frail WCW pouring over the pictures, remembering seeing some of them in person and making his poems.

I like the quotation that WCW put in his book:

“… the form of a man’s rattle may be in accordance with instructions received in the dream by which he obtained his power.”

Frances Densmore, The Study of Indian Music

Reminds me of the important role dreams have played in my own life.

After reading poetry, I quickly turned to the final editing of the piece I have been working on. I have a full day today (Mom’s doctor appointment, a funeral to play at work and four ballet classes), so I didn’t read as long as I usually do.

I finished the string parts and know what I want to do with the keyboard articulations. You can see the articulations mostly in red above.

The choir nailed the Nigerian anthem yesterday. I really thought it was musical. They are also sounding pretty good on the Brahms and Mozart we are working on. One of the basses asked if we could try it A Capella. I love it when the singers get so involved in the sound.

The high school bongo player complained that we weren’t doing the triplet figure in the postlude together. I also love it when someone makes suggestions that improve performances. Which hers did. I had asked the choir to clap along. I also passed out my maracas and claves. My own part on the organ involved keeping the rhythm going in the manuals and playing a melody (with much different rhythms) in the pedals and other manuals. I asked the bongo player after the postlude if I managed to play the triplets correctly and she said I did. She has the sort of personality that I think she would have told me if I hadn’t.

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The Art of Distraction by HANIF KUREISHI – NYTimes.com

Haven’t finished reading this one yet, but I did read sections of it to Eileen yesterday.

I like the author’s attitude and ability to write prose and tell an interesting story.

“Biological determinism is one of psychology’s ugliest evasions, removing the poetic human from any issue.”

This is definitely my experience, that analysis can often miss the real essence of something.

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The End of American Intervention – NYTimes.com

Knowledgeable and informative article from James Traub.

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» Regret the Error | Poynter.

This is a blog that keeps track of errors in Journalism. Or at least that’s what I think it is. I bookmarked it for future reference.

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How Do We Know That Piracy Isn’t Really A Big Issue? Because Media Companies Still Haven’t Needed To Change As A Result Of It | Techdirt

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AllThingsD

AllThingsD.com is a Web site devoted to news, analysis and opinion on technology, the Internet and media. But it is different from other sites in this space. It is a fusion of different media styles, different topics, different formats and different sources

Another one I’m planning to check.

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E-books Can’t Burn by Tim Parks | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

Thanks to brother Mark for pointing to this one…. Haven’t read yet, but plan to.

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I need to blog a bit and compose before I leave for work this morning. I had strange, disturbing rather wonderful dreams last night. Hard to explain, except that they led my morning musing and thinking in the dark about the fears of others.

I began to wonder if the reason some people keep me at a distance might be their own fear of intimacy. In my second wonderful dream last night I found myself embracing people. They responded guardedly but they did respond.

In my waking, I thought of specific people in my life right now and began to wonder if the vulnerability in intimacy made them uncomfortable.

When I was younger, I realized that I was the kind of person who “wears their heart on their sleeve.” I could move quickly into intimacy with people. I saw this as both an asset and a deficit and sought to control it but not change it in myself.

As I matured, I realized that my passion (and probably knowledge) put people off. The intensity blocked my ability to connect with people and I adjusted my expressions of this even as I grew more and more to value passion in all people.

Also in my second dream last night, I watched a bunch of 20 something people sitting on a couch watching videos on a screen. After each video they applauded. I was struck by how this weird this was. Later I asked them as a group why people clapped at movies.

Of course people don’t clap at movies, but that’s the phrase that came out.

In my first dream, Eileen and I somehow had accepted an invite to a compound where we would be  inundated with attempts to sell us on something. The music was new agey as we lay in our room.  On the wall to the right of the bed was a fantastic colorful intricate multi-level puppet show that was somehow demonstrating the product. Next to it was a large screen where more stories were being told about the product. Once in a while an actual person popped out of nowhere to join the fantastic story. I remember one goofy man clad in a blue suit like the god Mercury. He descended on rope from above and into the ongoing story and then made an exit.

Soon the room was full of people. Some of them were surreal in their get-up. One woman had a name tag which read something like “EVE no. 24.” She was sort of dressed like a nurse or a candy striper.

By this time, Eileen had disappeared. I was getting concerned and began searching for her. As I searched I looked behind walls and in other rooms and everything looked like a set for a movie.

This dream led me to think about how maybe people are not only afraid of intimacy. Maybe they fear reality.

Finally, in my morning reading, I discovered that William Carlos Williams recommended Ginsberg’s poem “Kaddish” to Thomas Merton. This was in a note to one of WCW’s poems. This brings together three people I admire and who have influenced me greatly.

There was a time when I was more concerned with my own spirituality that I read most of everything Thomas Merton wrote including several volumes of his personal journals.

I still admire him, but am grateful and relieved that my preoccupation with liturgical prayer has dampened a bit.

Ah…. the “recovering” church musician who keeps falling off the wagon.

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Santorum’s Gospel of Inequality – NYTimes.com

This article surprised me by saying there are Democrats whose polls say Obama will easily take Michigan this year. I know this little western section of Michigan where I live is a unique area of Calvinism and  conservatism. But I do wonder if this is accurate.

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For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside Marriage – NYTimes.com

My how things change.  I know that my own attitude toward marriage in general is not very strong. On the other hand, I am very very glad that I am living with my wife.

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Venezuelans Criticize Hugo Chávez’s Support of El Sistema – NYTimes.com

Interesting conundrum for people who support the arts but despise their leader.

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Drones With an Eye on the Public Cleared to Fly – NYTimes.com

I find the use of drones, especially to kill people, chilling. It reminds me of the movie, “The End of Violence.”

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Ji Chaozhu, Man on Mao’s Right, at Center of History – NYTimes.com

A fly on the wall of history.

I was glad the writer used Zelig as a metaphor and not Forrest Gump.

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I have been thinking a bit about Ray’s comment to the previous post about not allowing his students to use Wikipedia as a reference for research papers or as a source for himself for anything other than quick checks.

Ray was responding to an article I linked in which tells a disturbing story about how Wikipedia values proliferation of inaccurate information if it exists in enough secondary sources. Also, disturbing that it doesn’t accept primary sources as references.

Another excellent online source that I routinely use is IMSLP. This stands for International Music Score Library Project. It has many many music scores online for use for free. Mostly legal. I have followed this web site since first learning of it years ago. I’ve noticed a recent trend. They are putting up more and more original early source scores. So that one can see Bach’s handwriting of a piece one is working on.

This trends against Wikipedia in that these scores are often the primary source of the music.

Besides this development (original music scores online) it occurs to me that much good research is getting more and more difficult. I finished my Masters in ’87. The Internet was around then but the “World Wide Web” was still developing I think. I took a class in music bibliography. I learned what the basic tools for current music research were and how to use many of them. These of course were all books and articles.

But now I think we in a different time. As David Weinberger says in this week’s On the Media show radio program, it is an “awesome time to be a knowledge seeker and also a good time to be a complete idiot…” Or at least something to that effect. His point was that knowledge is no longer limited by controls or filters.

He was speaking as the author of Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room.

So what to do. I think that Howard Rheingold has some interesting ideas around this. (see his “Participatory Pedagogy for a Literacy of Literacies” for example). In other places he talks about new kinds of literacies. He raised his daughter in the late 90s and walked her through using the internet to learn and do research. He developed the idea of “crap detector” which is just another word for knowing the credibility of your research tools or sources of information. This is not an easy task these days.

I was chatting to Eileen about this and toying with the idea of “provenance.”

The Oxford English Dictionary (online edition) gives these definitions of “provenance.”

2. The fact of coming from some particular source or quarter; origin, derivation.

1999 Independent on Sunday 6 June i. 13/2 Consumers who are weary of?scrutinising labels for production methods and provenance, are latching on to organic food as a safe haven.

I like to read the quotes that follow each definition. Since this is the online edition they keep it up with newer usage quotes. Very cool.

3. The history of the ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality; a documented record of this.

A distinction is sometimes drawn between the ‘origin’ and the ‘provenance’ of an article, as in quot. 1960.

1960 E. A. Lowe Eng. Uncial 21 A Canterbury origin is probable, Canterbury provenance is certain.

1967 J. N. Barron Lang. of Painting 156 Provenance, a history or pedigree of a painting: the establishment of the identity of successive owners since its execution. Also included would be all published documents, catalogues, and journals that contain references to the painting, along with reproductions, exhibitions, and sales records, as well as correspondence, especially of the artist, in which mention of it may be made.

1989 L. Deighton Spy Line xv. 208, I know what he’s after: a written statement about the clock’s condition and history. That sort of provenance affects the price in auction.

2003 Wired July 43/3 A panel of experts?declined to authenticate the canvas. Without knowing its provenance?they can’t be sure Horton’s find is legit.

So I’m wondering if scholarly citations will begin to include a provenance which would include ideas like who made the website, what are their credentials, what is the bigger conversation around this idea,  how accurate is the information….

Just a thought.

Seconds after I mentioned this to Eileen, I read this sentence in article I was reading in an online article:

So who cares about the provenance and the so-called errors?

Kind of creepy coincidence. The author of the sentence, Martin Stannard, was referring to dilemmas posed by translations of Chinese poetry. (link to the whole article).

Earlier I had been reading William Carlos Williams’ translations of Chinese poetry. I recognized one by Li Po/Rihaku/Li Bao (all the same dude). I had read Ezra Pound’s translation of this poem many years ago and it made a profound impression on me. I went and pulled my copy from the library and read it again.

Pound and WCW knew each other. They were colleagues but WCW embraced the American experience and language (He said something like “I don’t write English, I write American”). This is opposed to Pound’s odd version of embracing classicism.

Stannard’s cavalier attitude stems from his goal of thinking about poetry and its beauty not its scholarship.

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This is cool.

Here’s a review of a performance.

Leif Ove Andsnes Playing Haydn, Bartok, Debussy and Chopin – NYTimes.com

And here’s the recording of it online to stream.

Carnegie Hall Live: Leif Ove Andsnes Performs Haydn, Chopin and More – WQXR

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Moochers Against Welfare – NYTimes.com

This article carries this startling fact: “44 percent of Social Security recipients, 43 percent of those receiving unemployment benefits, and 40 percent of those on Medicare say that they “have not used a government program.” There is an attribution in the article…. heh

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I have kind of a weird relationship with the idea of community and social networks. I think they are important. But I also feel like I’m pretty isolated from other professionals.

A lot of my work in church is to attempt to create community. I believe that musical performances in general create communities. This is also the theory for a lot of church: people who participate in singing are more unified and connected.

So it’s kind of ironic that I think of myself as so isolated.

Eileen has today off work. She gets every other Friday off and works every other Saturday. This morning she and I walked to the library, then to the coffee shop, then to the bookstore.

We passed a man on a ladder in front of the marquis for the Park Theater. We greeted each other.

I recognized him as Bob a local business owner who was instrumental in promoting the street musician program. He also sponsors concerts at the Park Theater.

His shop is Globe Design and Vision. I would patronize it but he sells designer eye frames that are a bit upscale and not of interest to me.

Then a block or so later we saw a woman who works at the Holland Downtown Development office.  I remember when she first arrived in Holland. She was a member of the Catholic parish where I worked and sang in the choir under my direction. She greeted us.

I started musing on the fact that I actually am sort of part of a local community. I’m definitely connected more and more to the people at the church where I work.

Maybe I am part of a community.

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The New Haven Experiment – NYTimes.com

A teacher’s union that is actually supporting standards of excellence for teachers.

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This War Is Not Over Yet – NYTimes.com

This article made me think about the indefinite detention policy of the USA and it’s relationship to declaring recent wars at an end.

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Sony Apologizes for Whitney Houston Price Hike in U.K. | Music News | Rolling Stone

Sony says it was an unfortunate mistake they raised the price on Whitney Houston albums to cash in on her death. Honest.

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The Death of the Cyberflâneur – NYTimes.com

I missed this article when it came out.  I had not heard of the concept of flâneur before. I like the way this guys thinks about the internet.

The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, “loafer”—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means “to stroll”. Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of “a person who walks the city in order to experience it. [link to wikipedia article source]

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The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia – The Chronicle Review – The Chronicle of Higher Education

I had reservations about Wikipedia when it first began. But then I became more comfortable when I realized how flawed most reference books are anyway. This story made me more skeptical of Wikipedia’s general accuracy and worth.

“Wikipedia is not ‘truth,’ Wikipedia is ‘verifiability’ of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that.”

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I woke early and alternated between dozing in the dark and feeling pressed about stuff. One thing on my mind was my unfinished piano trio composition. On Monday morning I had in mind to try and have a version of it ready for today’s rehearsal. Then Tuesday morning when I was struggling with a section in it I received a phone call from the cellist saying she would have to leave early on the day I had scheduled to perform this piece. It was to have been a postlude. I immediately dropped working on it and turned my limited time and energy to other pressing tasks.

Then yesterday in the midst of a pretty busy day I received an email from the cellist saying she was wrong. She would not have to leave early. Unfortunately I had very few minutes to spare in my schedule yesterday so I put it out of my mind.

Sometimes when I’m working on a piece I actually begin work laying in the morning darkness before I get up.

This morning one of the pressing things in my mind was wondering if I could get together some kind of version for today’s rehearsal before leaving for my morning ballet class.

When I got up I decided not to work on the piece. Instead I followed my usual morning pattern of weighing myself, taking my blood pressure, making coffee and then sitting and reading poetry.

My blood pressure was low as it has been so I had not raised it with my thoughts in the dark. As I read poetry I could literally feel my mind and body relax. What I think of as Alpha waves washed over me.

Sometimes this feeling of well being comes to me unbidden as it did this morning.

I realized that I had done the right thing.  I easily have the discipline to get right to work first thing in the morning. But practically my reason for wanting to have a version of the composition done for today was courtesy to the other players.

The first section has the cello and violin playing the melody in long slow accent notes notes. Very very easy for them. The piano is madly playing an elaborate version of the melody in canon to them. In the second section I planned to reverse the roles of importance and give the melody to the piano and the interesting stuff to the strings.

The first draft was pretty elaborate and I wondered if they would have time to learn it. Hell, I wonder if I will have time to learn my part which is not all that easy. But I was dissatisfied with this draft. In the subsequent very different versions I came up with each one was a bit simpler for the strings than the one before.

Finally the way my thinking is at this point in the composing process this second section will probably be pretty easy for the strings. So I decided that not forcing the issue and making something for today is probably a wise thing. I need time to think creatively, to let my ideas gestate. This will give me some.

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All together now: Montaigne and the art of co-operation | Books | The Guardian

“My premise about co-operation is that we frequently don’t understand what’s passing in the hearts and minds of people with whom we have to work. Yet just as Montaigne kept playing with his enigmatic cat, so too a lack of mutual understanding shouldn’t keep us from engaging with others; we want to get something done together”

I am quite fond of Montaigne’s essays.

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AnDa Union

This group of young Mongolians musicians living in Hohhot, China continue to blow me away. They are on Spotify FWIW.

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Dull Tool Dim Bulb

old time religion by Jim Linderman

Vintage Sleaze

Recently ran across these three collector blogs all made by a guy in Grand Haven (a city just north of here).

Jim Linderman Collects It All, Vintage Sleaze to Baptism Photos – NYTimes.com

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The money has gone, so make love our alternative currency | Life and style | The Guardian

I do admire Jeanette Winterson poet and author of this article.

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Thus ends my winter break with Hope College. I’m not exactly refreshed, but at least I approach my relentless schedule with a sort of calm.

I am scheduled to take my Mom to her new psychologist this morning. I asked the In Home Care people who have been helping Mom to assist her with being up and bathed and ready to roll at 7:45 AM.

Yesterday was sort of a “Mom” day for me. I was on the phone with her health care providers for much of the day. I went to speak with her banker to clear up some misunderstandings around my Power of Attorney. At this point I suspect I inadvertently gave them an old version which confused the matter. It was easy to give them the new one.

After I spoke to the psychologist office yesterday, I downloaded and printed up the entry questionnaire. Before my meeting with the pastoral staff at work, I stopped by and helped Mom fill out this questionnaire.

The staff meeting went better than I expected. We are developing new models of inter-dependent schedules.

I am reconsidering completing the piece I spent so much time working on Monday and Tuesday. At least I could complete it and my piano trio could run through it in rehearsal and I could hear what it sounds like with real players.

I am stuck on the middle section, so I will have to come up with something that satisfies me before I’ll print up a working version to read through.

I don’t see a performance for it in the future, however. It’s based on a Lenten hymn tune (Erhalt uns). So that limits when it would be appropriate to perform at church. At least in my mind it does.

Eileen was ill with a cold all day yesterday. I didn’t bother with Valentine stuff because she was so miserable. She outfoxed me and handed me a little chocolate heart. Usually she doesn’t give me anything for Valentine’s day and usually I manage to get her a flower or something. Yesterday we reversed this.

I did my usual morning reading of poetry and non-fiction this morning. Finished off the section in William Carlos Williams’ collect poems which represents Journey to Love, a little book he published in 1955. It has some beautiful love poetry to his wife and to life in general. He was in seventies.

I was surprised that he quoted a line from Spenser in it. “Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song.”

I didn’t recognize this particularly. I learned it from the notes. The surprise is that it ends up also being a reference to a use of this line by T. S. Eliot in Section III of “The Wasteland.”

This is surprising because WCW seems to have situated himself in opposition to Eliot’s academic aesthetic. As usual, there’s more to it than the simple reactive stance of disdain.

Moved from poetry to the online version of Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self Deception by Daniel Goleman. This books does fascinate me. Finished the introduction this morning.

In it, he compares denial to the physical blind spot at the back of the eye. He even has the little cross and square that you can use to see your own blind spot printed in the book.

He also compares denial to photo cropping and physical framing of pictures.

He states clearly the thesis of his  book:

“The mind can protect itself against anxiety by dimming awareness. This mechanism creates a blind spot: a zone of blocked attention and self-deception. Such blind spots occur at each major level of behavior from the psychological to the social.”  Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self Deception

He ends the introduction with this clear and helpful idea:

“our collective predicament: if we so easily lull ourselves into subtle sleep, how can we awaken? The first step, it seems to me, is to notice how it is that we are asleep.” Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self Deception

I spent most of yesterday composing. Got up early this morning and got right back to it. I have been working on a piece for my piano trio to perform as a postlude on Feb 26.About twenty minutes ago I received a phone call from the cellist  saying she would have to leave early that day. This means no cello on the postlude. As I picked up the phone, I was struggling with the middle section of the piece as she called.

Now I don’t have to struggle, I guess. I could adapt it to just piano and violin. I’ve already done a little messing with this. I don’t think that’s going to work. Mostly I just feel like I got the breath knocked out of me. Ah well.  We’ll still do a movement from a Mozart piano trio as the prelude.

Eileen is home sick with a cold. I took her up some tea, juice and toast a little bit ago. I now have a bad case of the blahs. I have to meet with the pastoral staff at church this afternoon. We’re supposed to brain storm ways to work together better. I suppose I’ll muster some brain power for that.

I guess now I can concentrate on tasks that need to be done today, since there’s no need to finish this composition. I’m pretty funny about writing music. I like to write it for specific players to be played on a specific occasion.  I’ve actually been this way most of my life. Now this helps, because my work is so non-marketable.

Of course it would help if I would submit some of it for possible publication. But you can guess I’m not feeling too up for that right now.

On the up side, I had a lovely chat with my oldest daughter last night. She’s rockin in New York.

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Mart’s Art is Not Just Smart | Standpoint

With a PR smoothichops leading the country and a circus barker as Mayor of London, must we go in for unseemly puffery in the arts as well.

I liked this quote. The link is to a review of a new bio of Martin Amis.

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A Peaceful, But Very Interesting Pursuit – The Rumpus.net

Interesting article on how T.S. Eliot actually enjoyed his day job.

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Reading John Leonard: A Tribute | The Nation

boomarked to read.

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Daddy Issues – Magazine – The Atlantic

Also bookmarked to read. This is about wanting your elderly father to just get over with and die.

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On my google calendar, I have set aside Mondays with the label “Steve composes himself.” It has been a long time since I have had time and energy to do this (relax, drink a cup of coffee, stare out the window and compose music). But today Hope College is on break and I have promised myself that I will basically compose and read today and put off all the little tasks hanging over my head (call my Mom’s doctors, call my Mom’s banker and other stuff).

So far this is working great. I woke up with an idea for a composition. Got up and started sketching it. Read some poetry and non-fiction. Had breakfast with beautiful wife. Put out the garbage (can’t delay that task plus it’s not really onerous to me). Played some Grieg on the piano (don’t ask me why… I associate this composers with the deceased mother of an old friend of mine whom I seem to remember loved Grieg… I could be confused about that.) Composed some more.

Now it’s time to blog a bit.

I ran across a very interesting title in the footnotes of In Search of the Missing Elephant this morning.

When I googled this book one of the auto fills in the google search ended in PDF. When I searched that way, sure enough, there is the whole dang book apparently online in a PDF (link to the pdf). It’s not available in a ebook, but I interlibrary-loaned a hard copy this morning as well.

In the PDF I read that Goleman’s thinking began with a fascinating discussion with Gregory Bateson. Bateson has been on my radar for a while. He was married to Margaret Mead for a while.

Mary Catherine Bateson was their daughter.

I have read books and learned stuff from all three of these people.

Bateson is described on wikipedia as ” an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. In the 1940s he helped extend systems theory/cybernetics to the social/behavioral sciences, and spent the last decade of his life developing a “meta-science” of epistemology to bring together the various early forms of systems theory developing in various fields of science.”

It’s those meta systems that caught Goleman’s imagination.

Goleman quotes Bateson from a conversation they had:

The pattern which connects….

is a ‘metapattern,’ a pattern of patterns. More often than not, we fail to see it. With the exception of music, we have been trained to think of patterns as fixed affairs. The truth is that the right way to begin to think about the pattern which connects is as a dance of interacting parts, secondarily pegged down by various sorts of physical limits and by habits, and by the naming of states and component entities.’ Bateson

Goleman continues in his preface:

“A dance of interacting parts. The pattern that connects. The ideas stuck with me. Over the next few years they gave shape to a search of my own… A seminar with Erving Goffman, the sociologist of ordinary encounters, led me to see how the ground rules of face-to-face interaction keep us comfortable by ruling some zones of awareness out-of-bounds. Research on the psychobiology of consciouness showed me how cognition—and so out experience itself—is the product of a delicate balance between vigilance and inattention.

These disparate bits of evidence struck me as clues to a pattern, one that repeated in complementary ways at each major level of behavior–biological, psychological , social.”

Anyway this shit fascinates me. It combines my interests in system thinking (Friedman), awareness (why do so many people seem unaware) and deception (we are surrounded by lies… we tell lies).

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Charles Murray, Author of ‘The Bell Curve,’ Steps Back Into the Ring – Faculty – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Tried to read The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Murray when it came out.

His bias was so evident to me I couldn’t make it through the book. Now the thinking of Donald N. Michael helps me see how objectivity and reason fail to cover the entire spectrum of understanding needed in our contemporary situation. And that all of us are inside a time that is chaotic and that we trust our objectivity at our own peril. Jes sayin’

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A High-Tech War on Leaks – NYTimes.com

Ironic that Obama’s administration is the worse one yet as far creating and maintaining transparency.

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Amazon.com: Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves Administrative Files Selected Records Bearing on the History of the Slave Narratives eBook: Work Projects Administration: Kindle Store

If you click on this link and look at the “Customers who bought this item also bought” selections you will find a ton of free Slave narratives. Very cool. Thanks to brother Mark for pointing to this.

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Activist: Syrian army uses human shields on tanks – CNN.com

The use of human shields makes me physically ill. Man’s inhumanity to man indeed.

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I knew a stripper once. Her name was Sassy. I remember her two ways. First, she had this corny act where she danced around with a fake man who was actually attached to her body. Her audience at the time was a hundred national guard reserve soldiers drinking in a large rock-n-roll bar where I was playing. They were loud and lewd. One of them tried to put a bottle up her privates as she stooped. She turned and looked furious as she cursed at the entire group.

The other way I remember her was having breakfast with the band. I was in the band. She was gentle, calm, tired and old. She was like a mother. She was a mother and talked about her kid in Chicago (Was it Chicago?).

She came to mind this morning as I read William Carlos Williams’ twelve page poem entitled, “Desert Music.” It’s the last poem in a collection he published in 1954 by the same name. Williams was 71 in 1954 (I was three). I gather that at  this point he had already spent time in a mental hospital being treated for depression. He wrote a striking poem about it called “The Mental Hospital Garden” which is also in Desert Music (the collection, not the poem).

Reading the poem this morning affected me in some striking ways. I remembered Sassy. But I also struggled to reconcile WCW’s stark poem which describes a visit to Mexico with his wife with Steve Reich’s composition, “Desert Music.” I seem to have read somewhere about Reich’s connection with the desert (I think it was Reich). It seems that he was driving across the desert and he began to hear music. I at least  can imagine this sound in his compositions and especially in “Desert Music.”

This is a choral/orchestra piece and uses words from WCW’s book, “Desert Music.” But it doesn’t draw any text from the poem I read this morning.

I wondered about that. The feeling in the poem and the composition are completely different. After reading the poem, “Desert Music,” I began to feel differently about Reich’s work. I still like it. But it doesn’t seem to be at all about what WCW captures in his poem.

WCW is writing about the underside of life in general and American life in specific. He is captive of the details of life however sordid and makes music from them. Reich says something different to me. His beautiful music speaks the language of vision and open spaces. WCW writes about strippers, child beggars, and revels in experience.

I haven’t read the notes about the poem yet. It’s very specific in its description of a visit to Juarez. I went to Juarez as a child with my family. I found Mexico fascinating and frightening. I remember Juarez and Tijuana and the border crossings (The guard stepped into the trailer we were towing. “Special rate,” he grinned in a sterotypic Mexican accent I would later associate with Cheech and Chong, “Ten dollars for the whole trailer.” He was telling my Dad how much his bribe would be. My Dad paid him.).

There is an enigmatic figure in the poem that begins and ends it. It might be a huddled refugee-like figure sleeping under a bridge between Juarez and El Paso. (“Is it alive?—neither a head, legs nor arms!… an inhuman shapelessness, knees hugged right up into the belly Egg-shaped! What a place to sleep!”)

For my money, WCW gets America. He understands us, his “Desert Music” sprawls and is rough like an old blues tune.

In the last lines, he jogged another association for me. His poetic narrator hears something. It is music. “… as when Casals struck and held a deep cello tone and I am speechless    .” (The space after the last word is something WCW does occasionally. I notice when he is quoted this is rarely duplicated)

Pablo Casals has been a pretty huge figure in my life. He led me to the Bach cellos suites. I read his autobiography. I have stood in his Catalan home ground.

Breathing is good. In the middle of the night last night, I sat up wheezing unable to draw a good breath. I frightened Eileen to death (who probably expects me to pop off from a heart attack some night since I talk about death a lot). After several long minutes, I began to be able to breathe. It was a frightening experience. Another reason to be glad to be alive.

I got up this morning and did some more composing. I am doing SATB settings of melodies with the name St. Nicholas. I have had the idea for a while that it would be fun to write three organ pieces based on tunes whose names are the names of my three grandchildren.

I keep finding tunes named St. Nicholas. I even sketched a little organ beginning a few years ago. I thought maybe I could jump start myself by starting over completely, since I wasn’t satisfied with the previous approach.

I began with the melody in the Lutheran Book of Worship (#167) which is  usually called HERR ICH HABE MISGEHANDELT and was composed by Johann Cruger (1598-1662). I did two completely different harmonizations. Here are the midi recordings of these two harmonizations.

I then did a little organ setting.

In the organ setting I used the technique of dividing the piece up into sections based on each line. Each line of the melody is preceded by a short counterpuntal introduction which uses motives from the line it is introducing.

Interestingly I was pleased with all the settings I wrote yesterday.

This morning I turned to the tune named St. Nicholas in the new version of the hymnal, Hymns, Ancient and Modern: Revised. I quite like this little hymnal. I purchased it and The New English Hymnal when I visited England for the first time in 2000. I bought them at the gift shop at Westminster Abbey.

The tune in HA&M (as Lord Peter Wimsey refers to it) was composed by one W. Ellis who lived from 1868 to 1947. It’s a solid example of beautiful English romantic melodies and harmonization.

I found it an interesting challenge to reharmonize it because Ellis made the  melody more harmonic dependent than the sturdy Cruger tune in the LBW.

I’m not as pleased with this reharmonization as I am with yesterday’s, but still I think I learned something doing it.

There is a tune in The Hymnal 1940 also called St. Nicholas. I put it in Finale, but am not considering using except as maybe the subject of another little compositional exercise. What interested me about this one is that it was paired with a translation of the Phos Hilaron which is a very early Christian hymn that was sung as the lights in the home were lit. I admire the text and have seen some very cool musical settings of it.

I know this is a lot of shop talk today, but it’s what’s on my mind.

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