This morning feels like a typical Thursday in that I am exhausted. Yesterday was a typical Wednesday except that my boss is still out of town so we didn’t meet. I practiced organ, walked to church and prepared for the evening rehearsal. I also began filing a ton of organ music laying around the choir room. I don’t know why I’m so tired.
I had an odd dream last night. I seemed to be visiting a state legislature convention. Somehow i ended up with a box of promo material for Rep. Huizenga. It was about 20 matchbooks and many promo photos of him. I’m bring it up here because when I woke I up I realized that the promos were oddly of the back of his head and that pose seemed to be his photograph wherever I saw it in the dream, on posters or whatever.
In the dream I was trying to find him to give him his silly promo stuff. I never did.
Today I have my trio rehearsal. Eileen pointed out to me the other day that I seem to her to be working harder to prepare our Sunday morning services in the basement. This may be true. I don’t find the work onerous. But I do seem to have lots to do. For example this morning I have to put a couple voices of a Scheidt sinfonia we will play Sunday into Finale so that I can easily read them at the synth. Also, since we are singing a Bach chorale I thought it would be a good idea to do a version of the “Air on a G string.” I know. I know. I’m a whore. But anyway, I have to make sure everyone in my trio, myself included, have a score to this that matches. Sine my trio string players are long time local wedding string quartet members, this should be another easy piece. We just have to make sure we all have the same number of measures and that the music matches up.
book report
I have been thinking about Nabokov’s Pale Fire since I bought a small paperback of it when I was in high school. In it, Nabokov constructs a book that purports to be an edition of the long poem, “Pale Fire.” In the book he also invents a commentator who is really the subject of the book. His story is told mostly in the introduction and the footnotes which make up most of the book.
I have an ebook version of this. But like so many ebooks the footnotes do not work well. I was reading it in my old tablet (before I shattered it). I downloaded it to my new tablet. Yesterday when I was resting up for the evening rehearsal I reread the introduction more carefully and discovered that Nabokov has his commentator advise readers to skip to the footnotes first and read them straight through. Previously I had been laboriously moving back and forth between the poem and footnotes via my own little system of bookmarks.
Reading them straight through yesterday I could tell that they are designed to be read that way. The commentator says that you should then read the poem and it will make more sense after reading the notes first. We’ll see what I do, but for now I’m planning to read the footnote section of the book.
Dubai Plans a Taxi That Skips the Driver, and the Roads – The New York Times
The browser version of this article has an annoying gif. Sorry about that. But I think this idea is wild.
Human Gene Editing Receives Science Panel’s Support – The New York Times
I heard this on the radio as well. I have never understood how they can change all of the DNA at once. Cool stuff, though.
On the Road to Another Watergate? – The New York Times
We can only hope. May it come faster.