Eileen’s boss gave her some tomatillos. I’ve been meaning to make some salsa with them. So I built a little meal around salsa verde. Picked up some chicken breast, Spanish rice mix, fajita seasoning, local flour tacos, tortilla chips, fresh local salsa, limes, avocados and a couple of Jarritos.

Came home and peeled the tomatillos. I put them and a lot of garlic in the oven. Cooked up some mushrooms and onions. Fixed the chicken fajitas. Warmed the flour tortillas in the oven. Prepared the spanish rice according to the directions on the box.

My salsa verde turned out to be kind of runny and dominated by lime. I went easy on the suggested cilantro since Eileen doesn’t go too much for that taste. Next time less lime. I sliced the avocados and served them on the side (for me, Eileen doesn’t really like them).

I have to decide what anthem to begin teaching my Kids’ Choir this evening to sing on All Saints. I only have two rehearsals with them since Halloween is the Wednesday before we celebrate All Saints.

I have long admired Ned Rorem’s simple setting of the text, “Come pure hearts.” It would be a great choice for them for All Saints. It’s from “Four Hymns” by him and is out of print (this makes me crazy, that the good stuff is not accessible legally).  It’s also found in the Episcopalian Hymnal Supplement, Hymns III (pictured above). I think it would sit nicely in a cello/viola/keyboard transcription to accompany unison singers. But I think it might be too hard for my kids to learn quickly.

Instead I’m thinking seriously of using a composition that sets the text, “We are the Lord’s” by Karl J. P. Spitta to the melody called Londonderry Aire.

I have seen many anthems over the years that use the tune Londonderry Aire.  I have never been able to bring myself to use one because I hear the sappy  song, “O Danny Boy,” so strongly in the melody. And there’s the inevitable pun.

But I’m leaning strongly towards this for the kids. It’s a very singable melody even if they have never heard it. I can use it to continue to develop their range and vocal sound. I only had two children Sunday but I swear both of them sang the high E in the anthem nicely when it occurred. This anthem dips into the lower range of the child’s voice which is something I try to treat gingerly or avoid entirely. It covers a range from low A (!) below middle C to that high E.

I also considered a setting of the Te Deum.

The church owns multiple copies of a Healey Willan collection.

In it there’s a lovely simple shortened setting of the Te Deum it which would make a great Kids’ Choir anthem for All Saints.

Despite my own predilection for using Willan in an Episcopalian setting,  I think the time constraint points to the derriere song.

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Rothko Vandalized at Tate Modern – NYTimes.com

Rothko is a favorite of mine. Interesting article about why the dude did what he did.

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On Display, a Spiegelman Mural – NYTimes.com

And then there’s Art Spiegelman, another artist/writer I admire.

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‘Who I Am – A Memoir,’ by Pete Townshend – NYTimes.com

Townshend was on the Daily Show Monday evening. Eileen and I watched the recording last night. I had read this review during the day and am attracted to reading this book.

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And Now for Something Completely Literate: A Memoir From John Cleese – NYTimes.com

Another book review. Haven’t read it yet.

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At Long Last, Dignity? – NYTimes.com

Moving story about some elderly gay men looking back in sorrow but not anger.

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Social Security Death Record Limits Hamper Researchers – NYTimes.com

A friend of mine on Facebook put up a status asking what people thought about allow researchers access to death statistics. I didn’t respond, but I lean towards as much transparency as possible. One of the commentators on this article suggested simply omitting the social security numbers from the information available.

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I asked Woodward who made up the “instructions” in the poem: “Lines notated like the previous two/Are repeated (as a pair)/As many times as the reader desires from zero to 255…”. I had just purchased the book and had overlooked them with a cursory glance. He said that he did and I verified by checking it in my new copy of his book. Sure enough.

However, in the program at the  concert there were 16 titles which were not in the poem in the book. If I had my wits about (a rare occasion admittedly), I would have asked who wrote the titles. I read the entire poem this morning and noticed that it is exactly 16 pages long. Each page has 12-15 lines on it. I have begun matching the titles in the program to the pages of the poem in the book.

I suspect (wonder if) Gibson the composer added titles. At the very least Gibson and Woodward must have talked about adding titles.

More on this (probably) when I finish my analysis. This morning I’m thinking seriously of checking out the archival Hope College recording made that evening so I can learn a bit more about how the piece works.

I have returned to reading The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. I have been reading in it on and off since the summer. I thoroughly enjoy it, but it is sitting on my netbook in an ebook and I sometimes forget I’m reading it. This happens because I usually am reading four or more books at any given time.

This review of a bio of David Foster Wallace was in the Sunday NYT Book Review last weekend:

D. T. Max’s Biography of David Foster Wallace – NYTimes.com

The reviewer suggests that The Pale King is perhaps his best work. He also debunks Wallace’s obtuseness: “Wallace’s writing is not as difficult to read as it is famed to be, nor as pandering to entertain as he worried it was. Wallace writes in grammatically correct sentences; he tells jokes; and his work, if you are wired a certain way, will affect you emotionally.”

I relate to this take on Wallace. I confess that I tend to read footnotes in every book I read so his footnotes which annoy some readers are part of the fun for me.

Wallace himself has this to say about concentrating and reading:

“[S]itting still and concentrating on just one task for an extended length of time is, as a practical matter, impossible. If you said, ‘I spent the whole night in the library, working on some client’s sociology paper,’ you really meant that you’d spent between two and three hours working on it and the rest of the time fidgeting and sharpening and organizing pencils and doing skin-checks in the men’s room mirror and wandering around the stacks opening volumes at random

I’d always felt frustrated and embarrassed about how much reading and writing time I actually wasted, about how much I sort of blinked in and out while trying to absorb or convey large amounts of information. To put it bluntly, I had felt ashamed about how easily I got bored when trying to concentrate.

It took … entering a highly selective college to understand that the problem with stillness and concentration was more or less universal and not some unique shortcoming that was going to prevent me from ever really rising above my preterite [jupe note: preterite means Expressing a past action or state] background and achieving something. Seeing the enormous lengths that those elite, well-educated undergrads from all over the nation went to to avoid, delay, or mitigate concentrated work was an eye-opening experience for me. In fact, the school’s social structure was set up to prize and esteem students who could pass their classes and assemble a good transcript without ever working hard.

People who skated by, doing the absolute minimum required for institutional/parental approval, were regarded as cool, while people who actually applied themselves to their assignments and to the work of their own education and achievement were relegated to the status of ‘grinds’ or ‘tools,’ the lowest caste in the college’s merciless social hierarchy.”

I love this man.

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How to Die – NYTimes.com

Some good ideas used in the U.K. Impossible there to discuss how allow people to not be treated when they are dying is an economic factor, impossible here in the USA not to.

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‘Skagboys,’ Irvine Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’ Prequel – NYTimes.com

I made it through Trainspotting (both the book and the movie). Brutal stuff. Bogged down in Filth by Welsh. This one sounds brutal as well.

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‘500 Days,’ by Kurt Eichenwald – NYTimes.com

review of Eichenwald book which documents panic by Bush and Cheney after 9/11.

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Philip Glass and Beck Discuss Collaborating on ‘Rework’ – NYTimes.com

Glass’s influence on pop music? What about pop/rock’s influence on him and all minimalists?

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The Pain of Reading – NYTimes.com

Heart rending little vignette about living on the outside in Puerto Rico.

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Intelligence and the Stereotype Threat – NYTimes.com

If people think you are weird or something it increases the chances you will behave that way. Ahem. I think I have a bit of that. No, honestly, I do.

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Court Cases That Drag On Forever – NYTimes.com

Writer actually mentions the Bleak House case by Dickens. See. People do read.

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The Cancer Lobby – NYTimes.com

Did you know formaldehyde is a carcinogenic substance? Not likely to if chemical company lobbies continue to slow down public welfare legistlation.

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Emory Confronts Legacy of Bias Against Jews in Dental School – NYTimes.com

What? Antisemitism in the US around WWII?  Go on!

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Bo Xilai’s Former Wife Reveals Paranoid Side of a Once-Powerful Chinese Family – NYTimes.com

I think this continuing story is like an opera plot.

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Israeli Jets Down Drone – NYTimes.com

And they don’t know where it came from. Right.

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