Today and yesterday I made two trips to the church to practice the Toccata and Fugue in D minor by Bach, one before lunch and one after. This piece is slowly coming together. I have done lots of slow practice and am continuing to do so.

Today begins my second week of daily 20 minute jogging in place. BP is still high but weight is at least stable.

It is crazy here in Holland due to the ending days of Tulip Time. I like the tulips but the tourists proliferate in an amazing fashion so that even down here on 18th street there is very little parking left on the street. And the drivers make me shudder. it’s a miracle none of the many, many pedestrians do not get hurt.

I finished Leonard Cohen’s Flame. There is a lot of crap in this collection. Not exactly his best work. I like his final album, You Want it Darker.

The lyrics for this album make up a section in this book, but I think that publishing so much of the material from his notebooks is goofy unless done in a scholarly way (which this is not).

I like this stuff but it feels more liberal than bipartisan to me.

The most disturbing thing I learned was this.

The flat line of 30% chance that a law is past remains the same for 0% public support for it and when 100 % of the public support it.

How fucked up is that?

I love these Oxford Union things. We are about forty minutes into this one.

I am also a fan of the Constitutional Center and Jeffrey Rosen. I knew some of this stuff since I have been reading American history. We’re about 40 minutes into this one as well.

I skipped Greek and my  usual morning reading this morning and prepped for my 10:30 rehearsal. I prepared scores for Drek 2019 and other things coming up. The rehearsal lasted almost two hours but it was rewarding. We went over Drek first. I was curious what my crew would think of this primitive, gentle piece. My string players seemed to like it which surprised me a bit. But they are very supportive of me generally anyway.

We went over a Corelli trio sonata we will do with violin, soprano sax, harpsichord, and cello. I didn’t have the harpsichord ready to roll so I did it on the organ (which would work quite as well). Jordan sounded splendid on the soprano sax and I thought it really worked. I think the harpsichord will be the finishing touch to this.

I brought scores to the Handel soprano piece my strings are going to play for the June 9th recital. We went over that. Also, the strings are playing this Sunday and we went over the prelude and postlude. The prelude is “Air for a G string” by Bach. My violinist loves to milk it and plays very romantically. People will love that. The postlude is a little Bourée by Handel. Amy and Dawn (the string players) will play on that as well. It’s easy and that’s the point: to do something easy and that will still be classy.

We went over my Piano Trio I wrote in January of 2017. Jordan hung around and turned pages for me which helped immensely. I went over this earlier in the morning before Eileen got up. I will need to practice it but I think it will come off okay.

Rhonda couldn’t make this rehearsal so I didn’t bother to edit her final piano scores for Drek 2019 and the little arrangement I have done of Rhosymedre for Sax and Piano.

She will be able to come to our rehearsal next Thursday which is turning into basically our Dress Rehearsal for the following Sunday recital.

I am planning for Eileen and Rev Jen to do two readings each. I haven’t picked these out yet, but Jordan and I independently came up with the idea of improvising back music to the readings. I think that will be cool. I’m hoping to nail down some if not all of them tomorrow.

I came home, had lunch and rested a couple of hours but then returned for the mandatory daily practice of the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor.  I’m home now, too tired to concentrate on Greek, but grateful that today went so well.