I’m doing my page on my daughter’s version of my web site because the old one doesn’t load this morning. Presumably the switch in domain we requested has taken place and Sarah needs to make some pointers or something so that you dear reader arrive here.

In the meantime, I will blindly blog here. I do sometimes journal off line especially if what I have to write is private.

This morning several Bukowski poems struck me. Since my friend Rhonda recently mentioned that she liked some of the poems I put up, I am encouraged to continue sharing poems.

the harder you try

the waste of words
continues with a stunning
persistence
as the waiter runs by carrying the loaded
tray
for all the wise white boys who laugh at
us.
no matter. no matter,
as long as your shoes are tied and
nobody is walking too close
behind.
just being able to scratch yourself and
be nonchalant is victory
enough.
those constipated minds that seek
larger meaning
will be dispatched with the other
garbage.
back off.
if there is light
it will find
you.

Charles Bukowski

“If there is light it will find you” are oddly positive and comforting words to me. Bukowski is a brutal poet. I find him to be an antidote to bland.

I’m putting up these few poems in retrograde order from when I read and noted their beauty so this is the last poem I earmarked this morning.

Here’s the beginning of  a poem that hit me before I read  “the harder you try”:

from Salty Dogs

got to the track early to study the odds and here’s
this man coming by
dusting seats, he keeps at his work, dusting, most
probably glad to have his simple job.
I’m one of those who doesn’t think there is much difference
between an atomic scientist and a man who cleans the seats
except for the luck of the draw—
parents with enough money to point you safely toward a more
generous life.

Again in reverse order, I liked this one.

inverted love song

I could scream down 90 mountains
to less than dust
if only one living human had eyes in the head
and heart in the body,
but there is no chance,
my god,
no chance.
rat with rat dog with dog hog with hog,
play the piano drunk
listen to the drunk piano,
realize the myth of mercy
stand still
as even a child’s voice snarls
and we have not been fooled,
it was only that we wanted to believe.

 -Charles Bukowski

This time it’s the the phrase “If only one living human had eyes in the head and heart in the body…”

Finally a few days ago these little five lines from his poem “people as flowers”:

I decide that the only definition of
Truth (which changes)
is that it is that thing or act or
belief which the crowd
rejects.

Well it’s 8 AM now. I have to slowly prepare my heart and soul to go do church. Last night Sarah asked me if I wanted her to attend. I told only if she wanted to. She said she felt hypocritical going to church. I said fine. I told her that if it was just a matter of hearing the music I do I would want her to go but it’s the stuff in between. I am amused how people who are not religious take it so seriously though. I don’t feel or believe anything regarding Christianity deeply enough to make me feel hypocritical. I feel hypocritical when I do something dishonest or inconsistent with what I think I believe.

At any rate, I have to go over my Bohm prelude. I did tape it yesterday. I would embed it here but I’m not sure it would work with this particular URL (which is temporary and also inaccessible to anybody who doesn’t have the weird URL address Sarah has put this in).

It’s over 6 minutes. It went very well in rehearsal yesterday but I think I need to practice some little tricky parts this morning.

****************************************************************************************

Mo Yan: “Bull” : The New Yorker

Online short story by recent Pulitzer Prize winner.

*****************************************************************************************

So I had fun hosting and cooking yesterday.

This Thanksgiving was the first time my Mom met Eileen’s Mom. Sarah brought “crackers” which didn’t pop very well but did have fun hats.

I made a traditional sweet potato casserole for my Mom.

Green beans for my wife.

A bit of bruschetta for hors d’ouvres.

Mostly kept moving around in the kitchen while cooking.

The kitchen was chaotic.

But the table looked pretty good when laid out.

And even better with the people seated around it (all except Eileen’s sister Nancy who is taking the picture).

Note the four clocks for the four time zones where my nuclear fam live.

A good time was had by all including Edison the cat.

****************************************************************************************

India Police Arrest Student Over Facebook Post – NYTimes.com

Frightening.

***************************************************************************************

Egypt Leader and Obama Forge Link in Gaza Deal – NYTimes.com

Some behind the scenes details about how the recent cease fire went down.

***************************************************************************************

Michigan’s Burdensome Amendment – NYTimes.com

My stupid stupid Google news has decided that my location doesn’t really have coverage. So I turn to other sources even the national papers.

**************************************************************************************

Members of the 112th Congress Depart, Quirks in Tow – NYTimes.com

As the 112th comes to an end here are some nice personal portraits.

**************************************************************************************

Justice Alito, Citizens United and the Press – NYTimes.com

Some pertinent distinctions between general corporations and the media.

***************************************************************************************

Online Course Opens Minds to World Music – NYTimes.com

I just can’t get over  online college courses. I suppose it’s only a matter of time (or retirement) before I do one of these.

***************************************************************************************

So today is Turkey day. I have tons to do before the meal. Eileen’s Mom and her sister are joining us. They are driving down from the Whitehall area where they live. We will go over to the nursing home and get my Mom. My two adult daughters are visiting. They have been very helpful. We will have more of a crowd than usual.

Yesterday after class, Sarah and I went to the farmers market and then the library.

I picked up a book waiting for me and found some other books of poetry.

A. M. Homes new book, May We Be Forgiven, begins with a Thanksgiving day scene. It’s as brutal as she usually is. I was on a wait list and my number came up.

I also pulled a volume of Bukowski I hadn’t read. This kind of reading (Homes and Bukowski) is a mild antidote to living some place so bland.

Then I came home and finished cleaning the kitchen and bathroom floor. After lunch I began working on pre-Turkey day cooking. I cooked up squash and sweet potatoes. Wild rice and balsamic rice. Made Momma Stamberg’s cranberry sauce.

Eileen, Sarah and I went back out to run more errands. Sarah took this cool picture:

By the end of the day I was too tired to treadmill. Sarah recorded my fatigue:

Now I’m trying to build up the energy to begin preparing stuff for today (Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy (meat and veggie), sweet potato casserole, green beans, Brussels sprouts, squash with wild rice, fresh salad all served with sweet rolls). Eileen’s sister and Mom are bringing pumpkin pies.

Finished reading Mary Oliver’s little book of poems A Thousand Mornings.

Here are a few I liked.

The Mockingbird

All summer
the mocking bird
in his pearl-gray coat
and his white-windowed wings

flies
from the hedge to the top of the pine
and begins to sing, but it’s neither
lilting nor lovely,

for he is the thief of other sounds–
whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges
plus all the songs
of other birds in his neighborhood;

mimicking and elaborating,
he sings with humor and bravado
so I have to wait a long time
for the softer voice of his own life

to come through. He begins
by giving up all his usual flutter
and setting down on the pine’s forelock
then looking around

as though to make sure he’s alone;
then he slaps each wing against his breast,
where his heart is,
and, copying nothing, begins

easing into it
as though it was not half so easy
as rollicking,
as though his subject now

was his true self,
which of course was as dark and secret,
as anyone else’s
and it was too hard—
perhaps you understand—
to speak or to sing it
to anything or anyone
but the sky.

I like that one in a personal way. Also this one:

I HAVE DECIDED

I have decided to find myself a home

in the mountains, somewhere high up

where one learns to live peacefully in

the cold and the silence. It’s said that

in such a place certain revelations may

be discovered. That what the spirit

reaches for may be eventually felt, if not

exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m

not talking about about a vacation.

Of course at the same time I mean to

stay exactly where I am.

Are you following me?

And one more.

THE MAN WHO HAS MANY ANSWERS

The man who has many answsers

is often found

in the theaters of information

where he offers, graciously,

his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,

to comfort himself, makes music.

Do I have to even say why I relate to that one. Egotistical I know.

****************************************************************************************

Sree.net: Sree Sreenivasan * @sree

Digital media expert at Columbia. Elizabeth pointed him out to. Thank you Elizabeth.

****************************************************************************************

A Real-Life Invisibility Cloak – NYTimes.com

Watch out Harry Potter. First microwaves, then lightwaves.

****************************************************************************************

Inside Syria, a Grandma Faces Down War – NYTimes.com

On the ground in Syria. Thank you Nicholas Kristoff.

*****************************************************************************************

Struggle Over, Philip Roth Reflects on Putting Down His Pen – NYTimes.com

*****************************************************************************************

You Can’t Say That on the Internet – NYTimes.com

How do you teach the idea of “fair use” to an algorithm?

*****************************************************************************************

SongwritingWith – Soldiers Eases Way for Soldiers – NYTimes.com

This reminds me of my own relationship to song writing which has often been one of personal therapy.

*****************************************************************************************

Anybody Notice a Pattern? – NYTimes.com

McCain was so desperate to sound the alarm that he missed a classified briefing on Benghazi to hold a press conference complaining that he had not been given enough information. Which clearly he hadn’t. He knew nothing! Nothing whatsoever! And what was the administration going to do about that?
“It is essential for the Congress to conduct its own independent assessment,” said the senator, demanding that Congress form a special committee to look into Libya. This would be a double benefit, helping to inform all the members who missed their normal committee briefings while also addressing the continuing national crisis over the shortage of congressional committees

Warning. Article by and for damn liberals.

****************************************************************************************

Beware the Big Data Campaign – NYTimes.com

Basically increased efficiency in turning out votes is surprisingly not necessarily good for democracy.

****************************************************************************************

Courting Jim Crow – Opinion – Al Jazeera English

Worth reading even you find it too liberal at first.

*****************************************************************************************

Moshi Monsters – Adopt Your Own Pet Monster!

Social media for little people. Thank you to Sarah for this link.

I have been reading poetry in the morning. My blood pressure spiked at the doctors last week. Then it was high for a couple days in a row. It’s back down this morning. I hate thinking so much about this. It feels like an unhealthy preoccupation with my own stuff. Like the invalid who is constantly taking his own temperature.

On the other hand, I want to be grown up about taking care of my body so that when I die it’s not entirely because of my own long range stupidity about how I lived.

I think I have found a new poet to read. A few posts back I put up a poem by Demetria Martinez. I inter library loaned her book Breathing Between the Lines.

I have read this book and was so impressed I ordered a copy from the Paperback Swap (a web site where you mail other people books you have made available and they will mail you books they have that you want, all free of charge expect senders cover postage).

I also found her novel, Mother Tongue, on the site and ordered it.

She has written several more books and I will probably pursue reading them.

I was amused to read the following passage in her afterword in Breathing Between the Lines:

I made it a habit to go to a restaurant or outdoor cafe and read first thing in the morning. I opened a book of poetry at random, waited for the caffeine to strike and for a stanza to reveal some secret of the universe. It always did, in imagery that was a far cry from the supply and demand which I had tried learning at Princeton.

My kind of writer. And reader.

I woke up this morning thinking strange quiet thoughts. I have often puzzled over how I fit into what family systems people call my “family of origin.” This morning I wondered if I was an “outsider” in an outsider system. Both my father and his father were outsiders of sorts. Both men threw themselves against a church system that was inflexible and largely anti-intellectual. I think of both of them as thinkers in a non-thinker church.

They were not terribly deep thinkers. But still I heard stories of my grand-father in which I could get a whiff of his struggle. He was in the first wave or two of ministers in his denomination (The Church of God) to go to the little church college in Anderson Indiana.

When my grandfather got a pastorate in the south, church members called him “the book-learnin’ preacher” or some such thing.

There are family stories of the way he stood up to bullies and the Ku Klux Klan. I suspect he is idealized in these but there is probably some kernel of truth in his stubborn approach to life from the outside.

My father also became a minister in this denomination. He attended the same college as his Dad in Anderson, Indiana. I was born while he was in undergraduate school there.

His story also involved struggle. He moved from a small Tennessee church ministry to the more urban ministry in Flint Michigan in 1963. The church was about half teachers and half factory workers. Before he was done we had anonymous death threat phone calls about his stands from the pulpit.

He eventually turned away from this denomination. But not before he had suffered some petty little humiliations like being removed from the church state directory of minsters (or something like that… this is all my strange quiet memories this morning… ).

I myself grew up loving poetry, literature, art and music. Neither of my parents loved these things particularly. Mom studied art when she attended the same small denominational church college as my Dad.

Dad’s father and mother gave him a multi-volume collection of poetry on his 24th birthday.

I now have them sitting on my shelves.

They are not particularly well thumbed. The black on the spine reflects a time when my Dad cataloged his books in an obscure system.

You can see the inked-in classification in my Dad’s hand writing: 7-P/A – 23.

P = Poetry?

A = ?

I also have been remembering that when I was in my very early teens I bought little books about artists. People like Degas and Rodin.

I remember looking and admiring paintings of ballet dancers.

I wrote a song once about a music box ballet dancer.

I see the irony as I sit as a 61 year old outsider improvising music for ballet classes. I have fallen into a dream in my youth.

I haven’t blogged much lately. I’m expecting to blog less with my lovely daughters visiting and that is proving to be the case.

Elizabeth arrived safely and in good humor (as usual) on Thursday. We had a nice meal out together. Sarah will be coming in this evening. It will be fun to have them both around.

Elizabeth has recommended I think about purchasing a laptop instead of a new net book. She about has me convinced (not that she’s trying to convince me).

She recently purchased a laptop which is very fast, light and compact.

She paid around $900. My church is buying me a new netbook. I emailed my boss and told her I was thinking of switching from net books to lap tops and maybe the church shouldn’t buy a net book. I ran the idea of them purchasing me a new lap top. Or going in half with me on mine. Or not.

Went to the doctor yesterday for my six month check up. I was actually working on a blog there but somehow didn’t save it. My blood pressure zoomed up but my doctor was convinced that it was just “fear” since my daily readings were much much lower.

Over all she seemed pretty pleased with my health.

Listened to my heart and told me it sounded good (I have some damage in my heart that she found via a sonogram thingo a few years ago).

I have upped my treadmill time goal to 35 minutes of elevated pulse time. This means that I will warm up for 5 minutes, do 35 minutes of elevated pulse and then warm down for 5 minutes.

I changed this because one of my ballet teachers made the comment that 35 minutes were necessary to receive the most cardiovascular benefit. My doctor confirmed it.

*******************************************************************************************

Michigan’s Affirmative Action Ban Is Ruled Unconstitutional – NYTimes.com

Getting my Michigan news from New York Times.

**************************************************************************************

Xi Jinping Offers Few Hints of a Shift in Direction in China – NYTimes.com

Li Keqiang Named China’s Prime Minister – NYTimes.com

Two informative reports about the recent political meeting in China.

**************************************************************************************

Israeli Attacks Are Test of Loyalty for Egypt’s Morsi – NYTimes.com

I didn’t realize that Egypt had refused Hamas requests to allow them to cross border.

***************************************************************************************

Killing of Student Further Sullies Kenyan Police – NYTimes.com

Wow. Kenyan police sound corrupt.

**************************************************************************************

BP Will Plead Guilty and Pay Over $4 Billion – NYTimes.com

Will be interesting to see if this actually plays out.

**************************************************************************************

Adultery, an Ancient Crime Still on Many Books – NYTimes.com

I learned the etymology of “adultery” from this interesting article.

**************************************************************************************

I’m feeling extraordinarily lucky this morning.

My daughter, Elizabeth, just phoned a while ago. Her plane had landed in Detroit. She sounded chipper after a 12 hour flight from Beijing. I will be picking her up in just over an hour when her second flight arrives in Grand Rapids.

It will be nice to have another person around whom I love and chat with.

Also my boss and her partner gave me a fantabulous gift.

Chris Ware’s new graphic novel. It comes in a beautiful illustrated sturdy box.

Inside are treasures.

This is an amazing generous gift. And I am so flattered that my boss, Jen Adams, and her partner, Beth Trembley, know me well enough to know how much I like stuff like this.

I’m also feeling lucky because yesterday I had a very long satisfying day. It was all stuff I enjoy doing: ballet class, meeting with boss, getting gift from her, practicing organ, preparing for rehearsals, then doing kids choir rehearsal and chamber choir rehearsal.

The kids were lots of fun. I did a ton of prep. I had adapted a song from the St. James curriculum that uses colors to teach the church year. So we started learning that.

We started a new composer: Handel. I made a take home sheet which we read and then we listened to the beginning of “Comfort ye” from Messiah.

I also made a “Cracking the Code” note name worksheet.

Notice I accidentally left out an “n” in (B)(A)njo. Ahem.

Anyway, the other daughter, Sarah, arrives Saturday. Blog posts will probably be sporadic for the next few weeks as I spend time with these two. So that’s what’s going on.

Not sure how much blogging I can get in this morning before it’s time for my morning ballet class, but here goes.

I spent a lot of time yesterday preparing upcoming bulletin information for the church secretary to have in her hands before she leaves for a vacation. This now involves preparing a psalm to be sung each Sunday. There were also a couple other inserts I had to do. One for a choral setting of Psalm 93 by David Hurd. This will be our anthem for Christ the King (Nov 25 this year). It has a congregational refrain which I had to put into a Finale file and then insert into a doc.

The composer would probably object to this since though we own multiple copies of his anthem, he didn’t provide a bulletin insert so this is technically a copyright violation.

My opinion of Hurd was lowered after an email exchange in which I politely asked him if I could adapt one of his chorale preludes to my instrument’s limited range. He declined and suggested I do a different piece.

I did so but with a bad taste in my mouth. Fuck these guys.

Yesterday I was choosing music for this Sunday. I thought it might be cool to do some Hurd organ music. I had purchased some before the email exchange.

I looked at all the stuff I owned but decided I had already performed the good stuff. The remaining works seem pretentious to me now, but that might be a subjective reaction.

Probably not.

Instead I chose to schedule a postlude by another now deceased Episcopalian Alec Wyton based on “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and a rousing Capriccio by George Böhm which I have never performed.

I especially like the closing section which begins like this.

And goes to an exciting (IMO) fugal like climax.

I came home in the afternoon and put on several recordings of it to treadmill to.

Most of them were on harpsichord but I did find one on organ.

I have changed about listening to recordings of pieces I am working on. I now do almost all of my listening for pleasure.This includes when I am studying. So I put on the recordings because I like the pieces and enjoy hearing them as much as observing other people’s interp.

The idea that I would ape recordings (which used to be my objection to listening to pieces I was learning) is diluted also by the fact that I usually listen to several different recordings. Thus I don’t consciously or unconsciously begin to think of one of them as a definitive interp I should emulate.

Or so I tell myself.

*************************************************************************************

Valerie Eliot, Wife and Editor of T.S. Eliot, Dies at 86 – NYTimes.com

I have been reading Eliot’s work in the morning. So when his second wife died last Friday and her obit appeared in the NYT I was very interested in learning about him and her.

A lot of the obit was drawn from this linked interview of her.

I have just arrived at The Waste Land in my reading.

I have been slightly annoyed at how many allusions literary and otherwise he puts into his poetry. At this stage of my life, I feel a strong impulse to run them down on the internet.

Fortunately where The Waste Land is concerned I found two sites with hyperlinked notes.

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot with Annotations

and

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/

very cool.

****************************************************************************************

Kafka in Beijing – By John Garnaut and Sanghee Liu | Foreign Policy

Kafka indeed. A young privileged woman claims to have been raped and runs into the same brick walls all Chinese do.

****************************************************************************************

Pressing the Pentagon – NYTimes.com

Very few Americans are held publicly responsible these days. Except of course they get caught fucking the wrong person. This editorial quotes Paul Yingling, a recently retired Army colonel, who “noted during some of the darkest days of the Iraq war, a private who loses his rifle is punished more than a general who loses his part of a war.” What a country.

**************************************************************************************

Mr. Hamilton’s Growth Strategy – NYTimes.com

Another history lesson.

***************************************************************************************

America’s Addled Puritanism | Via Meadia

America is simultaneously a licentious society as well as an uptight one. If you doubt this just think about the transmission of STDs which I believe remain at record numbers. Someone has to be fucking around, right?

****************************************************************************************

Waiting with my mother in the Pain clinic, I was reading through Issue 20 of The Baffler which I purchased on Amazon in a Kindle format.

I have been linking some of the online articles in it. I am excited to find a publication that is so interesting to me.

It seems to be a literary journal critical and anti-market. Just up my alley.

Here are some fun quotes.

Bill Hicks on the military.

“You never see my attitude in the press,” Hicks once observed. “For instance, gays in the military. . . . Gays who want to be in the military. Here’s how I feel about it, alright? Anyone dumb enough to want to be in the military should be allowed in. End of fucking story. That should be the only requirement. I don’t care how many pushups you can do. Put on a helmet, go wait in that foxhole, we’ll tell you when we need you to kill somebody. . . . I watched these fucking congressional hearings and all these military guys and the pundits, ‘Seriously, aww, the esprit de corps will be affected, and we are such a moral’—excuse me! Aren’t y’all fucking hired killers? Shut up! You are thugs and when we need you to go blow the fuck out of a nation of little brown people, we’ll let you know. . . . I don’t want any gay people hanging around me while I’m killing kids! ”

Hicks’ quote and the following passage were the quotes that I decided were too inflammatory for some of my “friends” on Facebook on Veteran’s day.

” It’s this quality of avoiding danger, of seeking the safety of consensus, that characterizes the aesthetic of Stewart and Colbert. They’re adept at savaging the safe targets—vacuous talking heads and craven senators. But you will never hear them referring to our soldiers as “uniformed assassins,” as Twain did in describing an American attack on a tribal group in the Philippines.

George Carlin on education.

“There’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever, be fixed,” Carlin once said, though not on The Daily Show. “The owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now. The real owners, the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t.”

These all come from Steve Almond’s savaging of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert: The Joke’s on You

I like how the writers in this magazine elucidate the hypocrisies of contemporary life. I also find it instructive when they critique intelligently.

Although I do enjoy listening to This American Life, I found myself agreeing with Eugenia Williamson’s analysis in “O the pathos.”

Most of the time, in fact, the stories on This American Life fall under Milan Kundera’s definition of kitsch: “the translation of the stupidity of received ideas into the language of beauty and feeling [that] moves us to tears of compassion for ourselves, for the banality of what we think and feel.”

In “Cash and Carry Aesthetics,” Jed Peel blew me away with his description of his response to the contemporary art scene. (Unfortunately this article is not online)

[L]aissez-faire aesthetics mimics the reach of popular culture, although without the democratic idealism that gives the best of pop culture its essential power. It is the very essence of popular culture that the intense feelings a song or a movie kicks off in one person are also experienced by many other people, almost simultaneously. When somebody refers to “the summer we fell in love and everybody was playing our song,” they are describing one of the essential pop experiences—the sense that the individual is connected with the group.

When people find something lacking in even the best contemporary painting and sculpture, they may actually be saddling this work with an unwarranted assumption, widespread today, that all major works of art are going to have the pervasive effect that we know from some of our great experiences with popular art—with movies and rock music. The result is a flattening of all artistic experience.

Jed Peel also shed some light on Matthew Barney’s weird series of movies that I was curious about and managed to see.

The nurse at the pain clinic asked me what I was reading when I started laughing after reading this:

the Cremaster cycle, a series of five phony-baloney mythopoetic movies, accompanied by dumpster loads of junk from some godforsaken gymnasium of the imagination.

Eileen and I watched a dark little flick written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait last night.

It’s a violent little flick in which the main characters kill annoying people.

They end up on the set of Amercan Superstar (American Idol). Joel Murray who plays the main character occasionally spouts some odd monologues that seem to be explicitly what the movie is trying to say. Example:

‘America has become a cruel and vicious place. We reward the shallowest, the dumbest, the meanest and the loudest. We no longer have any common sense or decency. No sense of shame. There is no right and wrong. The worst qualities in people are looked up to and celebrated. Lying and spreading fear are fine. As long as you make money doin’ it. We’ve become a nation of slogan-saying, bile-spewing hate-mongers. We’ve lost our kindness. We’ve lost our soul.

If what he was saying wasn’t so satisfying to me, this might have been cloying. I notice that it was released on September 11, 2011. Fitting.

I wore myself out yesterday.

I gave it my all at work as usual for the service. We sang a crowd pleaser arrangement of “This Little Light of Mine.” I worked out an interp that involved me adding some gospel piano to the intro and the ending. The choir did a pretty good job. The congregation applauded afterwards which is simultaneously encouraging and discouraging.

They had just shown a clever little fund raising video of parish kids talking to the camera about what they liked about Grace.

The crowd was in a very informal mood after that. I think that might have had something to do with the applause. Plus the ending I did was very pop/gospel and probably called for applause.

I was surprised.

After church I had arranged to rehearse with instrumentalists and invited choir members (most of which skipped) to come and sing their part along with them. Unfortunately one of the instrumentalists had not looked at her part and had difficulty reading it. This requires me to stay supportive to the person unprepared but sensitive to the fact that giving her too much time is not fair to the rest of the group. This takes energy.

After we had rehearsed as a group I worked with the person who was unprepared for another half hour, helping her (I hope).

Came home and made recordings for one of my dance teachers.

She devised a combination that needed alternate measures of 5 and 6 beats. 5/4 and 6/4 was how I thought of it. While we were doing this she asked me if I could somehow record what I was improvising so she could work on it on the days she didn’t have a pianist. I consented.

Unfortunately this turned into another time and energy consuming project even though I tried to make it easy for myself. I took a Ron Carter jazz waltz and dropped a beat in every fourth measure which created the needed rhythm pattern. This was supposed to be an advanced (not as obvious) version.

This came off in one or two takes.

But I found that when I improvised something simple as I had in class I had problems. I sped up. I dropped beats.

By the time I was done I was exhausted.

I have another full day today which ends with me giving a mini recital at church to the St. Martha’s Guild.

Whew.

***************************************************************************************

America’s Addled Puritanism | Via Meadia

We are simultaneously the most licentious and sexually open society since Nero was fiddling around in Rome, and the most uptight and rigid country this side of Saudi Arabia.

***************************************************************************************

The Joke’s on You | Steve Almond | The Baffler

I know I have put this link up before. If you believe as I do that military’s main purpose is to kill people and that this very rarely if ever is justified there are some fine quotes from Bill Hicks and Mark Twain in this article. I almost put one up on Facebook yesterday then I remembered it was Veteran’s Day and some of my reactionary friends who not appreciate it.

On Saturday I was standing in line at the Farmers Market. The person in front of me was asking the old man who was selling vegetables about his heater. It was a warm day. The old man said that ever since he had served in the army his hands were always cold. The customer asked him if he had served someplace cold. No, he said, two years in Vietnam. It was the Agent Orange that left him debilitated.

Ay yi yi.

Both the customer and I wished him a Happy Veteran’s Day.

***************************************************************************************

Today after church I have a rehearsal with instrumentalists who are going to play the next Sunday. I was experiencing some uneasiness about the accuracy of their parts on the anthem by Byrd which I copied by hand into a Finale file. So, this morning I carefully went over my finale score comparing it to the one I had worked from. No mistakes. It’s so easy for a little inaccuracy to slip in, so this kind of proof reading is important.

I then made a score for me with missing instrument part (I called it cello 1) and the vocal part. That way I can reinforce the singers in the performance as well as provide the missing part. The original was scored for five viols.

I will have violin, flute, viola and cello to cover 4 of these parts.

I read another essay in the Hymnal 1982 Companion Volume One. This one was about the techniques Winifred Douglas used in his Gregorian chant adaptations.

I didn’t know that he consciously imitated the way anonymous medieval chant composers put together new chants. Very informative.

I also read a bit in David Byrne’s How Music Works.

I find his book delightful. Byrne has a wonderful blend of goofiness and elegance. As I read I hear the prose in his dry twangy voice that he uses in his movie “True Stories.”

**************************************************************************************

A record 20 women will serve in U.S. Senate | Texas on the Potomac | a Chron.com blog

***************************************************************************************

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success – Anu Partanen – The Atlantic

Thanks to the DAVEPAUL for recommending this link. Like several I’m linking today I haven’t read it entirely yet.

***************************************************************************************

Direct Democracy: Results of Ballot Propositions Across the Country

***************************************************************************************

Too Smart to Fail: Notes on an Age of Folly | Thomas Frank | The Baffler

The Baffler is a new online source for me. It’s a mag but does put some articles online.

“We have become a society that can’t self-correct, that can’t address its obvious problems, that can’t pull out of its nosedive. And so to our list of disasters let us add this fourth entry: we have entered an age of folly that—for all our Facebooking and the twittling tweedle-dee-tweets of the twitterati—we can’t wake up from.”

**************************************************************************************

China: Worse Than You Ever Imagined by Ian Johnson | The New York Review of Books

***************************************************************************************

The Politics of Fear by Mark Danner | The New York Review of Books

Silence in the election about the Middle East Peace process.

****************************************************************************************

On to the next one | Marc Lynch

Foreign policy observations post election.

****************************************************************************************

The digital challenge, I: Loss & gain, or the fate of the book by Anthony Daniels – The New Criterion

This goofy articles keep sucking me in.

***************************************************************************************

Book review of Jack Zipes’ The Irresistible Fairy Tale | Open Letters Monthly – an Arts and Literature Review

The filter site that pointed me to this (Arts and Letters Daily: http://www.aldaily.com/) said this article talks about how Disney has ruined the Fairy Tale.

**************************************************************************************

Three I plan to read on the Baffler site.

Omniscient Gentlemen of The Atlantic | Maureen Tkacik | The Baffler

The Joke’s on You | Steve Almond | The Baffler

This critiques our tv best comics: Steward and Colbert.

Oh, the Pathos! | Eugenia Williamson | The Baffler

Chronicles the “This American Life” screw up of featuring a false report.

How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away – NYTimes.com

Ever since reading this article about how experts approach passwords I have been thinking about my passwords.

Several of them are highly unsatisfactory. Their nature reflects my own lack of patience with the number of them needed to function online.

This morning I was laying in bed listening to “On the Media” online and a good solution occurred to me. Use a book code. I understand that one of the hardest codes to decipher are codes that use two copies of the same book. This was part of the plot of a book I read recently.

It would be simple to devise a method to keep track of multiple passwords using one book.

Cool.

One could incorporate a pattern or patterns using pages in the book. Lengthy passwords would be easy to generate. Length is important I think.

Anyway, that’s my insight for this morning.

Last night Eileen and I attended an appreciation dinner for staff and volunteers at Herrick library.

I was struck by the fact that both the pianist for the evening and the caterer were acquaintances of mine.

I know few people at the library.

The ones I did know were sitting far away from me.

Finished reading What Animal a book of poetry by Oni Buchanan. I also read part of a review of this her first published book of poetry.

I think that I’m pretty eccentric in my tastes in poetry and literature. I have now read two books of poetry by Oni Buchanan and two books of poetry by her husband Jon Woodward. In both cases I found myself losing interest in the work. I keep suspect Buchanan of consulting a thesaurus.

Whether or not this is fact the actual case, the way she uses words and ideas sometimes seem clunky to me. I was not always able to understand just what she was getting at, who was speaking and the context of the images. Probably this reflects my own orientation more than anything.

The reviewer thought she was great.

On the other hand I ran across a lovely poem yesterday on Three Quarks Daily that inspired me so much I looked up the author and inter-library loaned a book of her poems.

I’ve also started reading Louis Glück’s A Village Life. I own several books of her poetry and think of her as a poet my brother admires. I am finding her more understandable than Buchanan or Woodward.

*****************************************************************************************

Why Math is Like the Honey Badger: Nate Silver Ascendant | Cocktail Party Physics, Scientific American Blog Network

I continue to be fascinated by people’s superstitious belief in how science and math works. Facts are facts. You don’t really get to make up your own facts. If you choose to disbelieve a fact. It reflects on you not the fact. I heard Republican pundits contesting Silver’s computations before the election. I head Silver talk about how he arrived at his numbers and he was clear and coherent.

**************************************************************************************

‘The Fractalist,’ Benoit B. Mandelbrot’s Math Memoir – NYTimes.com

Speaking of math and science, this memoir looks interesting to me. Too new to inter-library loan. But I have it in mind to look at sometime, if not read.

****************************************************************************************

When Is a Mandate Not a Mandate?

286 electoral votes = a mandate.

Interesting take on use of this language about the election. I especially found Krauthammer’s inconsistency satisfying since the few times I have listened to him speak he seems rabidly polemic and relatively content free.

303 to 332 electoral votes = not a mandate.

***************************************************************************************

In Syria, Missteps by Rebels Erode Their Support – NYTimes.com

Some interesting on the ground reporting in this article.

****************************************************************************************

New York Subways Find Magic in Speedy Hurricane Recovery – NYTimes.com

Also an example of top notch coverage of a fascinating set of events.

****************************************************************************************

Wixom, Mich., Shooting Suspect Is Arrested – NYTimes.com

Looks like they got the guy who was shooting up I-96 in northwest Detroit. Good police work!

*****************************************************************************************

Californians Say Yes to Raising Their Taxes – NYTimes.com

Once again Californians lead the way for the nation. I support taxes because I support governmental services. Like FEMA. Like building roads and bridges. And especially education.

****************************************************************************************

Let’s Not Make a Deal – NYTimes.com

Krugman is definitely my kind of thinker. Us soft headed liberals stick together.

****************************************************************************************

Can the Federal Reserve Help Prevent a Second Recession? | The Nation

William Grieder is another dude I have read who has helped me understand stuff. Notice this article sounds many but not all of the same notes as the conservative business community. Who’dah thunk it? Right there in the communist rag, the Nation (the digital version of which I subscribe to)

***************************************************************************************

A middle aged woman with the body of an aging athlete leans toward me.

“I’m grumpy on the inside,” she says, “I’m always grumpy on the inside.”

I have to laugh.

* * *

Two women are talking to each other. One has asked the other for help. I could help but I hold back. They are sitting and talking. One leans toward the other and smiles reassuringly. I can remember watching them literally fight each other. It’s satisfying to see this moment.

* * *

The child is out of control. Like so many children when the parents look on helpless and embarrassed. He is of course brilliant in his own way. Winning smile. As he dashes from one corner of the room to the other happily yelling, I wonder how he will grow up. Will he continue to try to manipulate those around him with his aggressive charm? Will it work?

* * *

The man behind the desk has stopped smiling. His skin is leathery and red. Earlier he had turned on the charm. But now he puts his hands on the surface in front of him and looks down, disinterested.

* * *

I am supposed to give a presentation for a meeting of a ladies group at church on Monday evening. No one has specified what they expect. Yesterday I decided it would be easier to play a little piano recital for them.

I am thinking of it as “My favorites and yours.”

I read through pieces yesterday and came up with these.

The Mysterious Barricades by Francois Couperin

Essercizi in G minor by Domenico Scarlatti

Prelude and Fugue in G minor (from WTC II) by Bach

Three Mazurkas by Chopin

Intermezzo in A major by Brahms

Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy

“It don’t mean a thing if it aint got that swing” and

“In a sentimental mood” by Duke Ellington

These are mostly pieces I have performed before. I have been practicing the Bach because I’m in love with the fugue. And I am still reading my way through of all of Scarlatti’s essercizi (I’m on volume V) so I just chose one from that volume that I had marked as an especially charming one (they are all good in my opinion).

In addition I am playing for a Veteran’s ceremony at my Mom’s nursing home this morning.

I played for this last year so I have the theme songs for all the branches of the service together in one place where I can just grab them and go.

Yesterday I finally found some music for my instrumentalists to perform for the prelude and postlude a week from Sunday. I was sure I had some music somewhere that we could just use instead of me preparing scores (which is fun but time consuming).

I ran across a two volume set of Purcell: “Spielmusik zum Sommernats-traum” fur vier streich-oder blasinstrumente und basso continuo.

Which I take to mean something like “Music for a Summer Night’s Dream for four strings or other instruments and basso continuo.”

Anyway my yellowing aged copy has separate parts for instruments including one in alto clef for viola. I took it to the piano trio rehearsal yesterday. The oboist showed up that I had invited to join us and we read through several. I chose four for the prelude and one for the postlude.

Nice stuff. Picked it up used at Encore Records in Ann Arbor.

**************************************************************************************

Netanyahu Rushes to Repair Damage With Obama – NYTimes.com

Netanyahu backed the wrong side in the election.

***************************************************************************************

Argentina – Chevron’s Assets Are Frozen – NYTimes.com

This case of seeking damages for raping the environment keeps plodding through world courts.

***************************************************************************************

Michigan Voters Kill ‘Emergency Managers’ for City Finances – NYTimes.com

Local coverage is pretty spotty. I found this article helpful.

***************************************************************************************

Happy Days, Even With the Cliff – NYTimes.com

This is an Op ed, but I was most impressed with this comment in the comment section.

I’m a retired, white baby boomer who is also a Vietnam vet. I was exposed to Agent Orange while serving as a medical corpsman in Vietnam. After more than four decades of indifference, the government that sent me to Vietnam has finally recognized through clinical tests I had a legitimate claim for disability compensation. President Obama and retired general Eric Shinseki, his Secretary of Veteran Affairs, got the VA bureaucracy to approve my heart condition as a valid claim. But over 100,000 Vietnam vets like me were also approved for compensation, of which 68,000 are still alive.
I guess you could interpret my being awarded in September, 2010, a disability claim from the VA as just another American voter “wanting stuff.” I see it as the government finally honoring its commitment to me when I served my country as a young man. So it meant a great deal to me more than just getting some stuff.
This personal issue was just one of the reasons I voted for President Obama. He talks the talk, but he also walks the walk.

George Hoffman,
Stow, Ohio

I have been noticing that when reactionaries use the word, “entitlement,” they can mean different things. When stoking the mob, they can be evoking the mythical Reagan “welfare queen.” When talking a bit more calmly they seem to mean Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare.

I find this confusing since even though these programs are in trouble, most of the recipients paid into the government all their lives. The “entitlement” must come in because of the huge increase in the number of people these programs need to serve and the increase in medical costs. And of course since the money they paid was used to fund the program then, there are fewer people paying in than it would take to keep these programs solvent.

Try putting that on a bumper sticker. Not so easy.

***************************************************************************************

Can Republicans Adapt? – NYTimes.com

This is partisan leftist, but I think it’s eloquent.

Examples:

Republicans became obstructionist on immigration and then veered into offensive demagogy in opposing the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The Hispanic vote tumbled by increasing numbers into the Democrats’ laps.

The paternalistic comments about rape by a few male Republican candidates resonated so broadly because they reflected the perception of the G.O.P. as a conclave of out-of-touch men. As Representative Todd Akin of Missouri might put it, when a candidate emerges with offensive views about rape, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Namely, they vote Democratic.

***************************************************************************************

How to Devise Passwords That Drive Hackers Away – NYTimes.com

This article is a little crazy but still it’s interesting to hear what the experts do.

***************************************************************************************

This morning after reading some poetry I found myself checking out the reaction to yesterday’s election.

I tend to use filter sites to do stuff like this.

I favor Google News, Real Clear Politics and many individual sites.

I have been very interested in how conservative (reactionary) thinkers are responding.

Last night on C-Span I watched some thoughtful commentary from people from the National Review. I only watched one panel, but was impressed with their analysis and comments.

I have admired C-Span since its inception. I love the unadulterated taping of lectures and other events they do.

Here are some more articles that I have been looking at.

**************************************************************************************

Juan Williams: Obama’s Daunting Demographic Message for the GOP – WSJ.com

Demographics seems to be a big deal in most analyses I have been reading.

***************************************************************************************

BBC News – US election: A vote for the status quo

Some good analysis from the BBC.

“The negativity and lying that marked this campaign was not a new low for American politics. It was a very old-style low, but with new volume, thanks to new technology – and billions of dollars.”

***************************************************************************************

George Will: The winner is the status quo – The Washington Post

Though I rarely agree with him, I do think George Will is brilliant.

**************************************************************************************

The Daily Caller » What Happened »

Tucker Carlson and his co-author Neil Patel surprise me with their analysis. This is a link to the print version to avoid page jumps.

****************************************************************************************

GOP House leaders begin outlining parameters to avoid ‘fiscal cliff’ day after election | Fox News

I was surprised by the election results. Maybe congressional Republicans will surprise me and start to govern.

***************************************************************************************

How Obama Won – NationalJournal.com

Interesting that I thought National Journal was a conservative site. Maybe not. Anyway, this is clear analysis.

****************************************************************************

Dow drops 313 points after election, anticipating the Fiscal Cliff | Washington Times Communities

I think this is more evidence that looking at our lives solely through the economic lens is part of the problem. Yesterday I heard a businessman blame the fall in the Dow on MISTER Obama. I didn’t confront him but was very surprised that he blamed the President for winning. Sigh. I also am discouraged that so many people no longer respect this office for its own sake.

***************************************************************************

If there’s anyone angrier than a liberal who has just lost, it’s a liberal who has just won | The Daily Caller

I link this as an example of the noise that fills up the Internet. Jim Treacher has to reach deep to find his angry liberal (that’s why I clicked on it…. I am more aware of reactionary anger than liberal anger, but there is high emotion on both sides). He is fortunate that the actor he quotes gives him more fodder in his own comment section. This strikes me as stirring up something out of nothing. Certainly I didn’t learn anything at this link, except to add the Daily Caller to my list of conservative sites to keep an eye on. Oops. Just checked. It’s already there.

****************************************************************************

In China, Unwelcome at the Party – NYTimes.com

Lastly a link unrelated to the election. The writer of this article is putting himself in danger as he goads the authorities with his actions and this article. I only hope his high national visibility might protect. As usual I find myself hoping, but not optimistic.

I admit it. I skipped my morning reading and tried to find out results from yesterday’s election. I made a cheat sheet to take with me so I remember my choices. I used it to record who won and who lost. I have changed my voting patterns. In 2000 I voted for Nader. I felt that the GW Bush presidency was a disaster for the country.  I don’t really blame him particularly because I don’t think that one person has all that much control. But our country’s actions during his administration were very different (I like to think) than they would have been under a Gore administration. I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for the highly reactionary Joe Liebermann who was second on that ticket.

I learned my lesson. I held my nose and voted for Obama. I guess I’m glad he won but I still believe that Tom Wolfe has it partly right when he describes the government as being like a train on tracks with the parties on either side screaming at it to change its direction, but it just keeps on pretty much in the same way.

He says presidents are pretty inconsequential except for their war powers.

Not sure if I totally agree with that. It is complex, that is for for sure.

I’m relieved that the “take no prisoners” approach the Republicans seem to have been pursuing at least failed at the Presidential level.

I think intransigence leads to worse government. Not that I think people should surrender their values.  I just think that governing is important and to declare that the most important thing about government is to immediately began working against a second term for the elected president seems to me to be wrong-headed if not cynical. Glad it didn’t work.

Also glad to see Pete Hoekstra not get elected. I believe that he did damage in the house. I think he is an old style Republican unlike Huizenga (who also got relected as our local Congressional Rep) and Dykstra (the current mayor of Holland). Old style Republicans seem very reductive. They play on the Tea Party. I have tweeted back and forth with Huizenga. He seems very convinced about his ideas. But I don’t get the “take no prisoners” thing from him or Dykstra.

Anyway, glad this is all over.

FWIW here are two bulletin articles I submitted yesterday. They relate to some of my musings on my blog. Haven’t heard from the boss whether she will publish them as is or wants changes. One is for this week and one for next.

Possible Music note for Sunday:

Why sing psalms? A psalm is a song. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “psalm” this way: “ Any of the sacred songs contained in the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament and Hebrew Scriptures.”

The Performance Notes section in the Hymnal 1982: Service Music volume says

“Biblical song has been part of the Christian liturgy from very early times. Continuing a tradition familiar from Jewish worship, the sing of psalms and biblical canticles became a regular feature both of the Eucharist and of the daily office.”

Today we begin singing psalms in our worship using one of nine Simplified Anglican Chants found in the Hymnal 1982 at S 408- S 416.  Concerning how to sing chant setting the Performance Notes mentioned above says:

“When singing Anglican chant settings of canticles and psalms, particular care should be taken to make sure that the rhythm, sense, and mood of the words govern the tempo dynamics, and style of the singing.”

“Good chanting is good singing. Chant is a musical medium for the clear and expressive singing of liturgical texts. Word accents create the rhythm in chant … if singers read the text in an expressive but not exaggerated manner, and then sing the words to the chant with the same rhythmic flow, they will discover how chant can unify the Christian community’s singing of liturgical texts.”

This means we sing the psalms very much the way we have been reading them together, unhurried and carefully, realizing the meaning of what we are saying together.  Chanting has been described has heightened prayer. By singing, we take our words one step further away from their ordinary use and deepen their meaning  as we pray them.

Steve Jenkins, Music Director

I have been yelling at my answering machine a bit more lately.

Last night I yelled at the Mayor of Holland. Twice.

I was yelling that despite his support for the local airport millage, I planned to vote for it. Tomorrow I guess I will return to yelling at banks and credit cards who call to tell me of my last chance to change my account to a better interest rate.

I do like being able to order used books through the Internet.

I recently ordered T. S. Eliot’s play, The Elder Statesman. It was mentioned in an essay on his Four Quartets and I didn’t recognize it.

It arrived in the mail yesterday. I sat down and read it straight through. I have read many plays in my life. When I was a young man in Flint Michigan I would visit the new book sections of poetry, music and theater areas when I first entered the library.

My browsing habits have changed somewhat. For the most part this is for the better because I can zero in on what I am looking to learn much easier with the new search engines. But I still check out new book shelves at the library.

I found the play by Eliot to have some fun stuff in it. It’s basically about an elderly (60ish!) British politician who is retiring. His daughter has talked him in to moving in to a nursing home. This nursing home is vaguely reminiscent of Thomas Mann’s TB clinic in The Magic Mountain. Obviously ill people are not accepted here. Even people who look ill.

Just before leaving Lord Claverton (that’s the statesman’s name) is confronted by someone he knew as a young man. This person is now going by the name of Federico Gomez. He and Claverton (who is also using a different can you buy diazepam online in the uk name — his wife’s, since she is the source of his title) attended Oxford together. Gomez remembers an indiscretion of Claverton’s during this period of their friendship. He also sort of blames Claverton for his own fall from grace due to Claverton giving him a taste of the good life. Gomez goes to jail for forgery and then flees to South America where he changes his name and becomes successful.

He has returned with enough information to blackmail Claverton, but is only interesting in reestablishing their friendship.

At the Magic Mountain like nursing home, Claverton runs across another “ghost’ (Eliot’s word) from his past. A woman whom he jilted and then who threatened to take him to court for breach of promise. They settled but she still has his indiscreet letters.

Claverton faces himself in the mirror of these past ghosts and reveals his true nature to his beloved daughter, Monica.

For me it is an unsatisfactory denouement, but one that movie producers everywhere would probably approve.

*************************************************************************************

I Didn’t Write That – NYTimes.com

Case of purloined expert identity.

***************************************************************************************

Outside the Amtrak Window, a Picture of the U.S. Economy – NYTimes.com

Check out the photos. The Eloi peer at the Morlocks through the train window.

**************************************************************************************

Chicago Project Follows What Happens to Juveniles – NYTimes.com

Chicago research they said couldn’t be done. Now that it’s done no one is paying attention.

“It’s a segment of the population that many Americans don’t think about, don’t care about,” Dr. Teplin said. “What rivets Americans is the unexpected — the Colorado massacre, mass school shootings. The everyday violence is something that doesn’t concern most people.”

****************************************************************************************

Outrage in Texas After Airborne Police Sharpshooter Kills 2 Immigrants – NYTimes.com

Texas is a state where government agents can fire on moving vehicles….. from a plane…

**************************************************************************************

Desperate for Civility on Capitol Hill – NYTimes.com

Interesting editorial the day before elections.

**************************************************************************************

All Saints Sunday is kind of a high holiday in the Episcopal Church. The noise level was higher than usual as people were buzzing about and preparing for church. I have discussed this with my boss and neither of us quite knows what to do about this part of the service (the prelude). My liturgical training tells me that the beginning of worship is a time of gathering. This entails greetings. On the other hand as the musician I am often performing some fine music that frames the prayer that will ensue.

I ascribe some of the loud chatter and obliviousness to the moment to the way our entire society treats the arts and music in particular. Music has largely become a commodity.

It’s also the soundtrack of living.

Rarely is it the prism into meaning that much of it attempts to be.

Anyway, I kicked up the registration slightly to the prelude. Still some parishioners complained to me that they couldn’t hear it.

Of course they sit at the other side of the room.

Whippy skippy.

My failing strategy is to do excellent music well. I find that my fallback reaction to leading with content and not perception pretty much fails in all situations these days.

When we have visiting musicians, people are a bit more aware that music is happening before and after the service. I feel that this is partly politeness but also I feel like perception that something is happening has risen with the present of visual instruments. The organ pipes are presently not visible. I am guessing that if there is ever a more obvious organ installation at my church where you can see the pipes perception will rise that someone is actually doing something with it before and after the service.

Part of my whining about the educated and trained musicians is that I have a strong conviction that what I and my music ministers offer musically is a cut above the average church music that can be experienced in most churches. But still most of the educated musicians seem to act as oblivious as any of the other people in the room.

Fuck the duck.

The best I can do these days is to turn away from this obtuseness and center myself as much as I can on what I am doing.

My boss (who was a semi pro athlete) understands how distracting this can be. An athlete or a musician must be prepared for distraction. I use sports analogies with her quite a bit. When I brought this up recently,  the distraction part of the analogy made sense, but I pointed out that what I am trying to do with music is communication. I guess this inevitably fails more than it succeeds in the kind of environment I am working.

Nonetheless I persist. The music went well yesterday.  We make a big deal out of the Episcopalian hymn, “For All the Saints.” The choir sings two of the 8 verses in a choral arrangement. Yesterday I had high voices (women and children) on verse 6 and low voices (men) on verse 7. I change the accompaniment to fit these variations. And we had descants on a couple of other verses. All in all, it’s a pretty cool way to start All Saints Sunday.

The kids choir sang a few measures by themselves in the anthem I had tried to teach them. Then I had the chamber choir gently join in. This worked okay. As usual all three kids in the choir were also altar servers. I’m not sure if this is a drawback or not. It might help assure their attendance since all three are enthusiastic new altar servers.

The choir ably sang C. V. Stanford’s “Justorum Animae” at the beginning of communion. It’s hard for me not to think that music at my church is pretty good.

I should add that I know that many people at my church do appreciate the music and perceive much of what is happening (if they can hear it, heh).

**************************************************************************************

The Dead Weight of Past Dictatorships – NYTimes.com

Historically informed view of contemporary struggling societies.

***************************************************************************************

Making Babies, Just to Make Ends Meet – NYTimes.com

The new normal: making money how you can including making babies for other people.

***************************************************************************************

The Far Side of Acrimony – NYTimes.com

An eloquent essay by Frank Bruni pleading for a lull in the madness with the new president whoever he is.

***************************************************************************************

Chess – Falko Bindrich Accused of Cheating – NYTimes.com

Chessmaster goes to the john during the tournament, has cell phone,  did he cheat?

***************************************************************************************

Remembering the Berlin Wall | The Nation

I had no idea that bits (huge bits in cases) of the Berlin wall were housed all over.

**************************************************************************************

The photographer let the mask drop

when he realized Eileen and I were not going to buy pictures.

He went quickly from hearty

to sullen,

from quipping

to soft grunts of assent.

I suppose it’s natural for sales people to want to charm, to engender a light almost trusting moment.

I am chagrined how I fall for people’s masks over and over.

But I think it’s better (for me at least) to try not to let my own ever present cynicism take over and keep trying to trust people.

***************************************************************************************

How Do You Raise a Prodigy? – NYTimes.com

Have bookmarked this to read. Thanks to Peter Kurdziel for pointing this article out on Facebook.

***************************************************************************************

Russian Band in Trademark Dispute – NYTimes.com

***************************************************************************************

Iran Sanctions Take Toll on Medical Imports – NYTimes.com

The law of unintended consequences.

***************************************************************************************

Cloisters (Dennis Aubrey) « Via Lucis Photography

This web site is amazing. The people behind it travel, take pictures and tell history. Very cool.

***************************************************************************************

I sometimes remember how a friend of mine for whom I had the greatest respect and admiration inadvertently remarked about my poetry that my persistence would inevitably lead to good poetry. I of course I heard that my poetry wasn’t good.

At this point I am pretty much at peace with my own abilities as a poet and musician and see myself as someone who seeks to improve what meager skills he has.

I only bring it up because I think my reactions to and readings of poetry and music reflect my own bias however misguided.

This morning I found myself dissatisfied with the poetry of Oni Buchanan in her volume The Dry Animal which I am finishing reading. This is the second volume of her poetry I have read. A few of her poems jumped out at me as full of insights and meaning as poems and music sometimes do. But this morning I found myself wondering if her approach to poetry in some of  the poems in The Dry Animal had a sort of thesaurus feel. By that I meant that her choice of words seem to almost feel like pastiches of soft meaning where the words were largely emptied of resonances and chosen almost naively.

This probably says more about the way I think and read than Buchanan’s abilities or way of writing.

Hence my memory of my friends assessment of me as a young bad poet.

Later I finished reading the essay I have been reading, “T. S. Eliot’s ‘Quartets’ : a new reading (1967).” I found Denis Donoghue’s analysis very unsatisfactory. I suppose the year it was written is pretty significant. Donoghue was writing only twenty or so years since the publication of the “Four Quartets” by Eliot as a whole. Donoghue (who when googled seems to be still teaching, writing and hopefully thinking) would probably complete rework his analysis now. Critics at the time and even now read “Four Quartets” with a Christian background in mind. This is discomforting to me. Also initially critics felt that the third section or quartet, “The Dry Salvages,” had failed as a work of poetry.

As I read this section now it seems to me to be as attractive and intriguing to me as the other sections.

Reading in critiques from the sixties, there seem to be almost a consensus that Eliot had over reached poetically in “Four Quartets” in “The Dry Salvages.”

I cast about for another point of view and found an excellent article by Tahita Fulkerson, “Eliot’s Sestina in ‘The Dry Salvages'” (College Literature, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Fall 1985) pp. 277-281).

Fulkerson is writing after another twenty years has passed. A google of her name reveals she is now president of a college in Texas. I love google.

I found her analysis enlightening. Unfortunately, it’s one of those privileged access only articles which can only had by normal people for 16 buckeroos. Right!

I won’t recount the insights Fulkerson afforded me as I see your eyes are beginning to lid over. The reason I mention it is that I found a startling misprint in it that got passed proofreading.

What is actually quoted above are lines 25-30 twice.

In order to make sense of Fulkerson’s comment, one has to read the actual lines 19-24.

Just another instance where the world of print is as unreliable as the cyber world of information. It was just this sort of error that I constantly run across that caused me to begin to use WikiPedia. One must be critical no matter what source one consults, eh?

**************************************************************************************

World War II Pigeon’s Message a Mystery – NYTimes.com

***************************************************************************************

China – Cafe Owner Sentenced Over Online Messages – NYTimes.com

Kunming in the news! This is where my daughter and her partner lived for a few years and Eileen and I visited them there.

**************************************************************************************

Greek Editor Not Guilty in Publishing Names With Swiss Accounts – NYTimes.com

How about that?

**************************************************************************************

The Blackmail Caucus – NYTimes.com

Vote for Mitt because the Republicans refuse to cooperate with Obama?

“.. arguing for Mr. Romney on the grounds that he could get things done veers dangerously close to accepting protection-racket politics, which have no place in American life.”

Please note that crazy liberal Krugman does say “By all means, vote for Mr. Romney if you think he offers the better policies.”