This is an excerpt of a poem that caught my attention. When I read it, I didn’t realize “Palais de Mari” was a composition by Morton Feldman.

It follows that I didn’t know he himself was inspired by a photograph he saw at the Louvre by the same name. (Found this all out this morning by googling. Couldn’t find the photo online.)

But still I was drawn into Buchanan’s imagery. An earlier book of her work I ordered happened to arrive in the mail yesterday.

I also finished J. G. Ballard bizzare little novel, Kingdom Come, yesterday.

Still processing it, but have to say it has more to recommend it than not. Ballard is dealing with the consumerism that has engulfed the US and UK society. The plot climaxes when a thousand plus hostages are trapped in the mall by the mall staff and a bunch of insane people.

Before it is over the survivors are kneeling at make shift altars of video players and big screen tvs and wearing bar codes on themselves.

Pretty bizzare show.

Finally a little interesting etymology thing.

I ran across two words I didn’t know in Peter Burt’s The Music of Takemitsu.

“Emic” and “Etic” are anthropological terms. Burt was talking about an observation Toynbee had made about Japan as it responded and adapted to the incursion of Western countries into its isolation.

This latter diagram shows the meaning pretty clearly. “Etic” is supposedly a neutral perspective and “emic” either consciously or unconsciously reflects the perspective of the context.

If you can read it, the above entry from wikipedia says that the two terms are derived from the linguistic terms phonemic and phonetic which are “in turn derived from Greek roots.”

I find this kind of thing informative and fascinating and immediately looked up the etymologies of the two linguistic terms.

I found that there is no real Greek meaning to “etic” and “emic” in “phonetic” and “phonemic.” In both cases “ic” is a pretty broad Greek suffix.

The “e’ is derived from the roots, “phone” and “phoneme.” So the anthropological terms split one letter from the linguistic root term and add it to the suffix to come up with “etic” and “emic.” (citations from the OED)

I can’t help it. I think that’s interesting.

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Why Partisans Can’t Explain Their Views – NYTimes.com

So if we try to “justify” our views, we tend not to actually think about them. But if we are asked to explain the basic policy ideas we are talking about, simply describing them, we tend to be more likely to modify our views and our behavior.

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The Foreign Policy Debate – NYTimes.com

Written before the presidential debate last night about its topic. If on the off chance you are interested in this substance, it provides a bit of insight.

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Connecting the Dots in Libya – NYTimes.com

Margaret Sullivan, public editor at the New York Times, writes about this controversy, its coverage, and reader response.

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I was playing a large fancy cathedral type event with multiple music groups (choirs and groups of instruments). The bulletin was an elaborate affair of many pages. I did not have one. I kept looking for my bulletin. At one point I borrowed one from someone in the pew. Then I couldn’t make any sense of it. I found one hymn number and jotted it down. But it was not the next hymn. Meanwhile the service was going on. I even remember saying in the dream, “This is a musician’s worst nightmare: not knowing what music to play.”

I found the celebrant who is the same guy who will really be doing the service at Grace this morning while the boss is away. I told him I didn’t have a bulletin. He said there was one waiting for me to pick it up in the other room at the “lectern.” I asked him why in the world I would check there.

In the late 90s and early 00s (aughts) I had a series of these dreams which I still remember. At one point a person in the dream asked me, “What’s at stake?” I awoke and thought, “What’s at stake?”

This ended up helping me not only handle simple anxiety but also probably was a factor in me quitting my full time church gig and doing some other things like practice more, compose more and play in local coffee houses on the streets of Holland Michigan.

The other recurrent nightmare theme I have is that I am back in school (usually college but sometimes high school) and am at a loss as to where I am supposed to be and what my schedule is.

Anxiety. Lovely.

Yesterday Eileen remained in bed ill all day.

I had a full day of tasks. Began with the Farmers Market. Then checked in with my Mom and picked up her library books she had finished reading. Off to the library where I followed my usual routing of making a note of which books she was returning and searching for new books for her to read. These days I wander around using my net book as a direct interface to the library catalog web site. This works pretty good until the web site automatically resets every few minutes.

Came home and had lunch (took up soup and tea to Eileen). Then dropped by and gave Mom her books (and Hershey bars). Then I was off to the grocery store. Came home put away groceries. Check on Eileen. Went to the church and practiced. Came home and treadmilled.

Kind of a full day off.

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Letter from Iceland: Surviving the Little Ice Age – Archaeology Magazine

Interesting article on archaeological site in Iceland.

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Berkeley, Targeting Homeless, Proposes Ban on Sidewalk Sitting – NYTimes.com

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