Paul Gosar was censured on the floor of the US House of Representatives yesterday. He was also stripped of his committee assignments as part of the procedure. My local rep, Huizenga, apparently voted against this censure. Gosar was joined by a group of his Republican congressman and women supporters who stood with him in the House well as the censure was read.

Immediately after the censure, Gosar retweeted the video which had kicked the whole thing off according to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter.

It seems like we are witnessing the gradual demise of the U.S. I wonder if part of the problem is that people who are going into public service as politicians are not of the highest caliber. Since the 80s I have witnessed the failure of nerve in people who would make good leaders due to the extreme conditions leaders must subject them and their families to.

When you stir in the crazy shit online, things are not looking good for my country. I figure we will continue to limp through this period of our history in much the same way we are now for decades. And that’s the hopeful scenario! Just my 2 cents.

I neglected to mention that one of the books I picked up from the library yesterday is entitled Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline by Constant Lambert. Originally published in 1934, this is a second edition published in 1937 with an introduction by Arthur Hutchings from 1966. I had the title in my Amazon cart which I recently cleared. In my notes, I say I’m not sure where I found the title.

Anyway, yesterday as part of my daily morning reading, I had read the quote from Antony and Cleopatra Lambert used both as the title and an inscription.

All: The Music ho!

[Enter Mardian the Eunuch

Cleopatra: Let it alone; let’s to billiards.

Another case of serendipity in my life.

I found out that a high school friend of mine died back in October. I am connected to him on Facebook and his widow recently mentioned it or I just saw it (fuck Facebook and its stupid stupid algorithms). Anyway, I played with Dave when we were both in high school. He was couple of grades ahead of me and sat first chair trumpet in the band and stage band. After he graduated I ended up in those two positions. But we had a great time playing together with his brother, Doug and some other people. I learned a lot by making arrangements for us. This was when I first began playing marimba. I bought the marimba I still have in order to play with Dave and the others. We mostly did original arrangements and, of course, Tijuana Brass and Baja Marimba Band pieces.

I see that someone did announce his death on Facebook in October. I just missed it.

The temperatures have been in the 50s today, but this seems warm for November in Michigan. It’s also drizzling rain. Of course I love rain.

I jumped in the car and went to the library to pick up some interlibrary loans, then I was off on search for turkey both real and faux. My daughter Elizabeth; her husband, Jeremy; and the illustrious Alexandra, their progeny, my own grand daughter will be coming to our house for Thanksgiving next week end. They are all vegetarians like me. I say “like me,” but we do it a little differently. They tend to eat more processed food than I allow myself. But I have to credit Elizabeth with teaching me how to be a vegetarian without being insufferable.

Last time I was at Meijer they had neither a small frozen turkey breast for Eileen nor tofurkey for the rest of us. Today i decided to check a couple of other stores and was successful. I found the turkey for Eileen at Family Fare and the faux stuff at Nature’s Market. I put gas in the car and my mission was complete.

I recently discovered that RISM – Répertoire International des Sources Musicale is online and free. This was an important tool for my graduate study. I’m not sure how much I used it only I knew of it and it was referred to in my reading and learning.

C.P.E. Bach: The Complete Works is an incredible source for C.P.E. info and sheet music I found recently. I’m still plowing through his letters and biography. He was quite the composer. I am also playing his pieces at the piano. Very enjoyable.

That’s enough for today. I’m in the mood for reading and playing piano. Today I’m thinking Fanny Mendelssohn and Bartok, but we will see.

Eileen and I met with a Financial Advisor from Edward Jones Investments yesterday. I didn’t really understand we were meeting with an investment advisor. Eileen had a recommendation from a friend for this particular investor. We chatted for over an hour and left telling her that we would upload a bunch of information about our investments such as they are and go from there.

I’m afraid that the investor lost interest in us when she learned the totality of our assets. Also I thought that she didn’t quite get us as people. This morning we decided to not use an investment advisor but simply go through our bank which is what I did when I was attempting to manage my parents assets.

I wasn’t paying close attention before we went. I didn’t realize we were going to Edward Jones. I thought we were going to get actual money management advise (not investment advice). Eileen is feeling at a loss on how to handle our savings and investments, so I agreed to get a little more hands on with it. I am sure that Eileen’s much more competent than she thinks. But I certainly don’t mind doing my part on this stuff.

I continue to find Western Michigan a bit provincial in most aspects. Thank goodness for the Interwebs.

I finished The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I enjoyed it but don’t think it was that spectacularly good. After listening to Lerner talk about in on an old Politics and Prose video, I now understand what he was trying for more clearly. I found myself more interested in the secondary characters than the main ones. The whole notion of a psychiatric and institute and hospital intrigued me. Lerner apparently has written about some of these characters before in his other two novels. But they were the youngest people in the book and the least interesting to me.

There were some fascinating concepts in the book. I was noting the times that the idea of glossolalia or speaking in tongues came up. This was a pretty elegant strain of connecting times people lapse into nonsensical sounds instead of words. None of it was religious.

It sort of seemed to me like there were two novels in this book. One about all the interesting ideas and people, the other a story about some young people who get older, married, and have kids.

Lerner said that one of the themes he had in mind was there are no grown-ups. I didn’t get that from the book but I like the idea a lot. What I think he meant was that we all try to make our lives the best we can and no one is that good at it.

Having said that, I have been pondering the lack of sophistication in Western Michigan. The advisor yesterday was just one instance. I don’t want to complain too much since I am very content to live here. But it helps me sometimes to realize how limited the situation is. I told Eileen today that if there was no Internet I would probably want to move somewhere else. She said we could move anyway. But I don’t have that urge.

When Eileen told the advisor yesterday that I was a retired choirmaster/organist (her words), the response was to ask me if that meant I led the praise band at my church. Later when I tried to tell the advisor that I wouldn’t bump into one of her colleagues at church because I wasn’t doing church any more I felt like I was speaking another language.

My language and interests seem to me to be more content based and less appearance based than many people in this area. Since I look like a broken down old hippie and we don’t have a zillion dollars people sell us short. Or assume that we are not successful in our lives. Or something. I’m not sure what.

But I have to keep reminding myself that the world I live in is very different from the world of Holland Michigan.

I continually find that most academic points of view do not interest me. I wonder if that is some of what’s happening between me and Lerner’s work. He is not pretentious, but he is a prof, a published poet and novelist, as well as living in New York City. I am reading his book of poetry Mean Free Path. I was surprised to learn that he thinks of himself as a poet before a novelist. That’s what he teaches I think, poetry. I’m enjoying his poetry but it’s clever like the novel was. Clever is good, but then I started Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness.

I think she writes rings around Lerner. I have been looking forward to reading her book since it came out.

But I’m not done with Lerner. I just don’t quite understand how The Topeka School was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

I am feeling one hundred per cent better and more functional. I am gradually adding more sit-ups and other exercises to my daily routine. Yesterday I spent some time with Bartok’s piano music as well as Chopin. I have been reading C.P.E. Bach’s biography and letters. Today Eileen and I went to the beach for our date day. My life is good and I am a lucky duck.

Roman de Silence

Lewis Raven Wallace mentions this 13th century poem in his The View from Somewhere. I had never heard of it. The main character’s name is Silence. Silence is a cool name for a character. Silence is a woman who was raised as a man in order for her to inherit property and title. A couple of the characters are named Nature and Nurture and they have an ongoing discussion (argument?) about whether Silence should remain a woman (Nature) or live as a man (Nurture). I haven’t look that closely at this long poem and am repeating the impression Wallace gave me of it. I think it’s cool that in the 13th century this was a thing.

It’s a rainy, sleepy Sunday afternoon in Holland, Michigan. The cream/steroid seems to be working. Each day I am feeling a little better.

Eileen is working on one of her looms and has said that she is feeling very lazy today. It’s that kind of day. I have mostly been reading and playing Chopin at the piano.

Earlier today I finished a small book length poem by Hayden Carruth, Journey to a Known Place.

I interlibrary-loaned a copy. I was delighted when it arrived. It is a beautiful book. The paper is thick and the print is elegant.

It is a pleasure to read a book like this.

That’s all for today. Back to reading and playing piano. Life is rough.

I had a good chat with Dr. Birky, my therapist yesterday. Then went to the library and Readers World. I picked up an interlibrary loan of The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. Lerner appeared recently on a New Yorker podcast and I was impressed with him. I was curious to see what his novel was like. I was only planning to read a little bit in for this purpose. It immediately sucked me in.

I know from listening to the podcast that both of Lerner’s parents are shrinks. The novel takes place in a psychiatric institute and hospital in Topeka and there are many shrinks in the cast of characters.

I was only able to get a large print copy. I’m on page 102 of 456 pages. He writes well and the plot is interesting. Cool.

At Readers World I picked up a couple of books that I ordered and purchased some more on sight. I decided to skip blogging to read.

I’m about half way into The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith. Very funny. I’m having to look up lots of Jewish mystical stuff like Serifot and Kabbalah and Zohar. Smith has also tricked me into figuring out a bit of Hebrew. She gives the Hebrew alphabet at one point. As soon I remembered to read from right to left, I was able to make out many of the Hebrew words she adds.

It takes place mostly in London and environs. The characters were childhood friends and for the most part Jewish. One of them is even a very irreverent Rabbi. Irreverent is a key mood in this book. Smith takes advantage of the autograph stuff to do lots of celebrity references. One of the characters is deeply involved in the autograph scene.

There was more than one moment of serendipity. First of all, the very first page inside the cover was a long quote of a Lenny Bruce routine beginning “Dig: I’m Jewish. Count Basie’s Jewish. Ray Charles is Jewish. Eddie Cantor’s goyish. B’nai B’rth is goyish; Hadassah, Jewish.” It goes on from there classify stuff as either Jewish or goyish. This sets the stage for the book that one of the characters (not the Rabbi) is writing which does the same thing, classifying many things either Jewish or goyish.

Of course, Lenny Bruce is a life long patron saint of mine. So that’s fun.

Leonard Cohen makes an appearance in the book as himself. He instantly gets classified as goyish. One of the main characters quotes from Virginia Woolf’s diaries. Her name is Boot (the character) who quotes Woolf and says that she’s been reading the diaries. Like me.

So this book is turning into a guilty pleasure for me.

I am feeling much, much better. I had alcohol last night. A martini, some wine, and one whisky. I’m thinking if my weight and Blood Pressure continue to improve I may have alcohol on Friday nights. But we’ll see.

I am feeling very very grateful and happy to have my comfort restored. Plus I do not miss my church music work one little itty bit.

I am continuing to read C.P.E.. Bach’s letters. I also am working on a translated German biography of him by Hans-Günter Ottenberg. C.P.E.’s personality comes through very clearly and charmingly in the letters. Ottenberg moves quickly to talking about the music itself which I appreciate. I’m trying to read the library copies of these two books so I won’t have to buy them.

Eileen and I had a nice chat with Sarah in England. Tomorrow is Matthew’s birthday and they have big plans.

I baked up two mini pumpkins and an acorn squash I had sitting around. I also baked the seeds which I enjoy.

The big news is that Eileen’s loom arrived yesterday. It is fun to see her so excited.

Looking closely at the steroid my dermatologist prescribed for my eczema I discovered that I was supposed to dilute it in a specific moisturizing cream. Dang. I called the dermatologist and had to leave message. After an hour or so I went out and bought some of the stupid cream. My question was would the remaining steroid solution be too diluted if I mixed it with a pound of the cream.

The dermatologist’s office finally got back to me and said it was okay. She also said that both their office and the pharmacy had dropped the ball on this one. I had already figured that out. When I went to pick up the cream I stopped at the pharmacy at Meijer and told them their error. The woman at the window didn’t seem very interested in their fuck up. I didn’t ask to see a pharmacist which probably would have been the grown up thing to do. I was too discouraged and lazy.

Eileen and I are meeting with a financial advisor this afternoon to help us straighten out finances for retirement. At least we are scheduled to do so. Eileen is also expecting a delivery of her newest loom around the same time. We have to be present for that delivery apparently and we still don’t know exactly when it’s coming. Sheesh. We may have to reschedule the financial consultant.

I started my day listening to BBC 3. They played a piece by Erland Von Koch. I had never heard of this dude but liked the music enough to check out some of his other stuff. This piece is popular on Spotify. I can see why.

Yesterday I spent some time with the Chopin Mazurkas. I was wondering how Chopin wormed his way into my tastes. My father would sometimes play Chopin at the piano. He owned a funny anthology of Chopin which I still have.

I think that playing Chopin might remind me of Dad.

I can remember a high school friend who was an exchange student from South America. Brazil? Anyway, he was a pianist and was hanging out with me at my house. He asked if I had any Chopin and I pulled out some general anthologies that had some Chopin in them. He wasn’t very satisfied with that. Then I pulled out my Dad’s old “Music to Remember” Chopin collection. My friend was ecstatic and sat down and played the shit out of some of these difficult pieces. I remember him saying how out of practice he was and how disappointed his teacher would be in that fact.

It was only later I realized that exchange students like him were probably from the upper class from their home. Both he and I were lucky ducks I guess.

I ordered books from the local Readers World today. I decided to read everything by Hari Kunzru I can get my hands on. I ordered three more of his novels. Also I want to read Ruth Ozeki’s newest novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness. It will probably be my next novel. Yesterday I started The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith. It has been sitting on my shelves waiting for me to pick it up. It will hold me until Ozeki.

“Thin Air,” by Linda Gregerson | The New Yorker

Nice poem in the latest New Yorker.

Akoori (Indian scrambled eggs) recipe | BBC Good Food

Sarah mentioned she heard a recipe for this on the BBC and thought it sounded good. That it does.

A Most American Terrorist: The Making Of Dylann Roof | GQ

For some reason this 2017 article is on my radar. The author won a Pulitzer.

Longform Podcast #260: Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah · Longform

Corresponding podcast to the 2017 article.

Why is the idea of ‘gender’ provoking backlash the world over? | Judith Butler | The Guardian

Bookmarked to read.

The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English – a lexical treasure chest | Reference and languages books | The Guardian

GOP Rep. Fred Upton receives death threats after voting for bipartisan infrastructure deal – The Washington Post

Madness. Michigan makes the Washington Post. Most of the threats were from out of state.

Cranberry Cream Torte | Just A Pinch Recipes

Cranberries are in season. I bought some and this caught my eye.

How To Make Any Fruit Galette | Kitchn

I have a cook friend who posts her meals on Facebook. Recently one of her dishes was a Goat Cheese Galette. I didn’t know what a Galette was. Apparently they can be made sweet or savory. Looks great.

I am hopeful that my groove is returning as they say. I heard a train whistle this morning as I was outside putting garbage in the garbage can. It made me think of “Frickin Trains,” a song I wrote.

When I lived in Greeneville Tennessee, at first we lived next door to the church where Dad was the minister. Across the street was another row of houses and behind them was the railroad tracks. Hearing a train whistle was part of life then. It was this memory that helped kick off my writing “Frickin Trains.”

I always wondered why I came up with the word, “frickin.” I don’t use this word. I’m more likely to say “fuckin.” At the time I ascribed this usage to my youngest daughter, Sarah. (Hi Sarah and Matthew!) But as I think about it it probably also came out of the mouth of my son while he lived with us.

I just listened to my mp3 recording of Frickin Trains. While the recording is pretty bad, the song strikes me as pretty good. I couldn’t understand all of the lyrics but I remember that the first verse is about the memory of Greeneville, the second about meeting a desperate young man (boy really) on a bus. He had just got of prison and was on his way home. The third verse is about the call of the trains in the night and the eyes of the dead and reminds me of a sentiment that Mavis Gallen captured in her short story, “Voices Lost in the Snow.”

The main character who is a bit on the autobiographical side for Gallen is talking about her father and his decision to relocate the family from the city to the country in Canada. “He was, I think, attempting to isolate his wife, but by taking her out of the city [by doing so] he exposed her to a danger that, being English, he had never dreamed of: this was the heart-stopping cry of the steam train at night, sweeping across a frozen river, clattering on the ties of a wooden bridge. From our separate rooms, my mother and I heard the unrivalled summons, the long, urgent, uniquely North American beckoning. She would follow and so would I, but separately, years and desires and destinations apart.”

I wrote Frickin Trains years before I read this short story, but when I did read it, it reminded me of the song.

I have begun musing on my own composing. Virginia Woolf observed in her diary that “writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial.” I’m not the genius she was but I sort of know what she means, or at least I find something about the observation that fits me. Composing is my “profound pleasure.” Promoting my own work has always not been that interesting to me. Of course, I like to see my work performed. But often I want to be one of the performers. The more concrete the notion of how the piece is to be used the better for me. This sets limits to my ideas that include picturing specific people playing the music I make up.

Having retired from the church, living here in Holland a small provincial town where most of the musicians don’t see me as that relevant, if Rhonda doesn’t ask me to write something I’m not sure at this point I need compose unless I decide that’s it something I would rather do than read, practice, cook, or listen to music. This remains to be seen.

I don’t really have an outlet other than Rhonda asking me to write something or coming up with ideas of my own. Thinking about Frickin Trains reminds me that one thing I could do in retirement would be working with the many compositions I have made. I definitely have in mind organizing them. And I have thought that putting my songs into piano/vocal versions might be fun. If I did this they would probably be more accessible and usable.

And there is always the possibility inspiration will strike.

You can see I am begging to mull around how to spend retirement. Eileen insists that it’s too early to land on much or even do that much concrete thinking about it. My piano trio is waiting for me to contact them again and I probably will do so at least once and have Amy and Dawn over to the house for some playing. But honestly piano trio is not very high on my priorities. It’s as much if not more satisfying to sit and play piano/harpsichord literature by myself.

Some of this is colored by the fact that though I love my musicians, I live in a completely different musical/aesthetical world from them. I am sure there are people out there with whom I share a musical/aesthetical understanding. But I don’t know any of them personally.

More and more although there is historical music I dearly love, I find a lot of classical musical uninteresting. I could say the same about any “genre.” So much contemporary pop music seems dull to me.

I am feeling better. I didn’t realize how much of a struggle it was to maintain myself in the face of not knowing why I was covered with a rash. The diagnosis and subsequent shot and lotion is having an effect not only physically but relieving me enough to get some of my old fervor back.

As I begin writing today’s blog Eileen is at the doctor, either getting her ears fixed or a referral to do so. Hopefully her recent hearing problems are just something they can clean away.

The shot and topical steroid seems to be helping my eczema. It’s possible that my diet has affected my rash adversely. After a little checking online, I wonder if my predilection for tomatoes and citrus fruit is not helping. I am just finishing up the last tomato of tomato season. I am thinking of laying off tomatoes and citrus and see what happens. Of course, that introduces more than one variable but it’s easy enough to do.

I made bread this morning. It makes the house smell great! I finished Kunzru’s White Tears. I almost finished it last night but ended up reading the last twenty pages today before breakfast. Kunzru seems to have a pattern of starting his stories in a plausible attractive prose and then by the end of the book the world has basically gone crazy. I like that.

I read some more in Lewis Raven Wallace’s The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity. As far as I can tell Wallace’s podcast has fallen off the radar. The last episode seems to be done sometime in 2020. I will keep my eye out for them in the future.

In the meantime, I am loving the book. Wallace asks if the antidote to misinformation and disinformation might be curiosity. This makes sense to me. It is probably the incurious who ignore URLs of websites or do not inquire where information comes from. I am increasingly convinced that many people are just not paying close attention to the things that are being screamed online.

I am not saying there is no danger now, because there definitely is danger in the woefully uninformed and educated. My understanding was that Thomas Jefferson proposed that if we educate the public, we will be able to govern ourselves. I guess we are witnessing the inverse of this proposition at this time in the US.

Wallace quotes one of my favorite authors and poets, Kevin Young. “Calling bullshit is easy but it is urgent” Wallace quotes Young as saying. I was very happy to see that Wallace has read Young’s Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News . I had Young sign my copy of this book when we went to hear him read his poetry in GR. Young’s most salient observation which Wallace quotes more than once is in regard to just how hoaxes work. “Unlike a novel, the hoax feigns certainty yet depends on doubt, so much so that it might be said to colonize it.”

Colonize it. Colonialism of thought makes a metaphor of the terrible history of humans taking advantage of each other in the name of superiority of one thing or the other (race, country, gender, and on). Wallace observes, “Doubt is necessary…” but when it causes people to give up, rather than open a new line of inquiry, doubt has become colonized, indeed.”

Earlier in this chapter, Wallace quoted from an article by scholar, Ann Scales in the 1992 UCLA Woman’s Law Review. “Neutrality is dangerous: if one group can take a decidedly non-neutral point of view and get people to buy it on the grounds that it is neutral, the game is over… we depend on subjective interpretation to decide what is neutral, and those subjective decisions about neutrality tend to uphold the perspectives of those defining the terms of the debate. In other words, ‘objectivity’ always protects the status quo, interpreting the powerful as ‘neutral’ because it is those who create the frame.”

Objectivity is a myth used by the powers that be to go after people who have radical ideas that challenge the status quo.

I’m supposed to call Eileen in about twenty minutes. I’m going to try to get a quick blog in now because we have a full day planned. First to Grand Rapids to the dermatologist, then this afternoon to the eye guy to check on my recent surgical placement of new lenses in my eyes.

I started White Tears by Hari Kunzru. I have been saving it for a good time. Yesterday was definitely that time. My legs and arms bothered me all day. They are a bit better today. I have been having more alcohol and less fake gin lately. I suspect alcoholic content aggravates my condition since it seems the day after drinks is not a pleasant one, rash-wise. This was the case yesterday.

But today is better. As I suspected I would, I am loving White Tears. It is about two people I would describe as recordists. One of these men is poor but skilled, Seth, the other is rich and also skilled but not to the extent of Seth. His name is Carter.

Seth loves to walk around and record ambient sounds. The crux of the story is a recording he made in Washington Square of a chess player. This man is African American and beats the local yokel who plays chess for 10 dollars a game. As he wins he sings a snippet of what sounds like an old blues tune.

The next time Seth listens the moment on the recording is different. Though he is walking around the sound is centralized in the stereo recording and doesn’t reflect his movement. Later he and Carter listen to it and this time there is more than a snippet. There is an entire old blues song sung unaccompanied.

They are early recording freaks and like their recordings rough and analog. So I’m enjoying it despite having personally chosen not to pursue recording as an interest.

The only other thing on my mind is The History of Tomorrow episdoe of the On The Media podcast and The Evening Rocket Dimension X episode of The Last Archive Podcast.

On On The Media they talk about science fiction’s influence on cyber moguls like Elon Musk. I haven’t listened all the way through but they do mention writers I don’t know as examples of what would be better influences on people like Musk. This morning I noticed that Jill Lepore had two new The Last Archive podcasts out.

Then I remembered Lepore had made a brief appearance on the new On The Media. The new The Last Archive episodes are a series that she did for the BBC on the topic of science fiction and Elon Musk. Cool.

After seeing the dermatologist

I have now been back and forth to the GR skin guy. I was incorrect to assume that I had no diagnosis. I have atopic ezcema which typically can flare up and can cause swelling. It’s a relief that they know why I am in such discomfort. The assistant gave me a cortisone shot and the doctor prescribed a combined cortisone/moisturizer ointment. I am already feeling some relief from the shot. I go back in two weeks.

Eileen is relieved. She is going to see Dr. Fuentes tomorrow to get a referral to see someone about her ears. Her hearing has been not working so well. She thinks she probably has wax build up and was trying to get Fuentes to refer her to someone.

postscript

I published this blog then began reading some links. Lo and behold, it turns out that I already had linked in to an article by Jill Lepore which seems to cover some of the ground in her podcast. Here again is the link.

Opinion | Elon Musk Is Building a Sci-Fi World, and the Rest of Us Are Trapped in It – The New York Times

I finished The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell last night. It is a searingly bitter dark comedy. Based on the Indian Mutiny, it follows a pathetic group of English people who are defending themselves against attack after attack in a few buildings. Guardian writer Sam Jordisan describes sitting in a cafe and being approached by a stranger who tells him that it’s the best book he ever read. It is a good one that’s for sure.

By the end of the book, the English group has cannibalized several heads of busts for use as make shift cannon balls so that they are literally firing Shakespeare, Keats, and Voltaire at the sepoys.

A few pages later one of the main characters proclaims that “culture is a sham… a cosmetic painted on life by rich people to conceal its ugliness.”

Tomorrow I go to see the dermatologist in Grand Rapids. My spirits are a bit low about all of this rash stuff. I am not expecting much resolution tomorrow, only that Eileen and I will move on to the Ann Arbor dermatology group after seeing this guy tomorrow.

I overdid it this morning by getting up and doing more standing than usual. By the time Eileen got up my legs were already swollen and painful. I knew I was doing it to myself so I skipped all “old man running in place” exercises this morning and even took a shower. All to no avail. My rash is threatening my ability to concentrate and function, but I am persisting as best as I can.

I even went to the Farmers Market yesterday and purchased too many mushrooms. I cooked two of the three bags I bought yesterday.

In the afternoon tomorrow I am scheduled for my final follow up with my eye surgeon after my recent surgery. Eileen is still helping me put in daily eye drops. This regimen is done in a few days.

Tomorrow promises to be a full day.

It’s sixty degrees outside right now. Wow.

14 Phenomenal Photos Reveal There Were Indeed Black Chinese People

Why Museums Are Primed to Address Racism, Inequality in the U.S. | At the Smithsonian | Smithsonian Magazine

“[Smithsonian undersecretary for museums and culture] Kevin Gover points out that there are more museums in the United States than there are McDonalds and Starbucks put together. A recent report by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, supported by Reinvestment Fund, found “the presence and usage of public libraries and museums to be positively associated with multiple dimensions of social well-being—in particular community health, school effectiveness, institutional connection, and cultural opportunity.””

Opinion | Do Gun Rights Depend on Abortion Rights? That’s Now Up to the Supreme Court. – The New York Times

by Linda Greenhouse. She is excellent.

Opinion | Elon Musk Is Building a Sci-Fi World, and the Rest of Us Are Trapped in It – The New York Times

by Jill Lepore. Bookmarked to read.

I had a burst of energy yesterday. I decided to go grocery shopping in the afternoon, then came home and had a real martini knowing I might pay for it today. My rash does seem more painful today but I don’t feel too bad otherwise so I guess that’s good.

I began reading the actual letters that C.P.E. Bach wrote today. I definitely get a sense of his personality from reading them. Later when I was reading Virginia Woolf’s diaries I realized how lucky I am to spend time with these people.

If I’m reading the footnotes correctly C.P.E. thought that his father’s Orgelbuchlein could be played without pedals. I tried a couple today on the piano. I didn’t find it very easy.

He also thought that the four part chorales were good teachers of counterpoint. This holds a bit more water for me. Yesterday and today I spent some time with them playing through them slowly and thinking about the voice leading and the shape of the lines.

I finished Natlie Diaz’s book of poetry, When My Brother Was An Aztec yesterday. When the Beloved Asks, “What Would You Do If You Woke Up and I Was a Shark? is an example of the great poems in this book.

How To Fight for the Freedom To Read

A librarian friend of mine put this up on Facelessbook. Good read.

Yes world, there were horses in Native culture before the settlers came – Indian Country Today

I shared this on my niece’s Facebook feed but she didn’t respond. I did not know that there were horses here before the Spanish brought them.

So I mentioned here that Meijer was out of pumpkins the day before Halloween. So I bought little ones. I didn’t help much on the trick or treating. Eileen used these little pumpkins as a bit of a decoration garnish I suppose in lieu of our usual Jack O Lanterns.

This morning I was wondering if they were edible. The Interwebs tells me they are. So I am going to cook them up.

Recipes I looked up online suggested stuffing them. I am cooking up a batch of mushrooms, onions, and garlic to stuff them with.

Plus the seeds are edible like usual pumpkins. I am planning on roasting them up as well.

I am feeling a tad better this morning. I slept hard. I also suspect that getting back to exercising is helping my over physical well being. Hey. It can’t hurt to move around.

C. P. E. Bach suffered from gout for forty years. I figure I can suffer with a rash until Monday (if not longer). I started reading C. P. E.’s letters this morning. He hated the portrait above. He said that it was “anything but a good likeness and more resembles someone sleeping than awake.”

What Can Liberals on the Supreme Court can do now by Linda Greenhouse

When dissent is all there is, Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows the way.

A Quietly Big Idea on How We Think About Homeless People by Jay Kaspian Kang

ACLU has an idea “Rather than think of homelessness as a condition, the authors argue, lawmakers should protect those who live on the street in the same way that the Constitution and California law protect groups based on race, gender or religion. The report calls for “state legislation prohibiting discrimination based on housing status.”

Time to stop and go have lunch.

I am trying to stay off my feet as much as possible due to the swelling in my legs. The swelling goes down at night but as the day proceeds comes back. It’s disconcerting but the nurse practitioner was not unduly alarmed by it. I am reasonably sure that this dang rash is not affecting my overall health in a detrimental way. My BP and weight this morning were unchanged from the day ‘s before (a rare occurrence but reassuring at this point). I feel okay. But my rash itches and burns on various parts of my body almost constantly. I can temporarily alleviate some of the discomfort by rinsing with a wet wash cloth and/or applying skin moisturizer.

Also a bit like chronic pain I can distract myself and then it’s easier to endure. Good distractions seem to be having meals with Eileen, reading, practicing, and blogging.

I still did some exercising this morning since today marks the day that I no longer have to worry about injuring my eye after surgery with strenuous activity. I did a no thank you helping of each exercise, plus stretches. I am minimizing the “old man running in place” exercise since it seems like that would aggravate the swelling in legs.

Potion, Emotion, Devotion: Wagner‘s Tristan und Isolde

Started my day listening to this. Alex Ross joins the panel. I found the aria in my score and followed it.

I love this piece and this player is amazing. I listened to it last night with Eileen for a bit and then again this morning while exercising and making coffee and tea.

Ben Lerner Reads Julio Cortázar | The New Yorker Fiction Podcast

Sometimes these discussions with authors about authors with Deborah Treisman the New Yorker Fiction editor are like a class in writing and thinking. I found this one to be like that. I lay in bed before getting up and listened to the entire podcast, then dug out my own copy of Cortázar’s Unreasonable Hours out of the my library before coming downstairs.

Later I interlibrary loaned a couple of books by Ben Lerner. I like the way his mind works.

Rash update

My rash is still bad. I had a bad night last night. Eileen and I were considering going to a walk in clinic because we were both concerned that I am having swelling in my legs and arms along with the rash. After breakfast and boggle I decided to call an online “Ask a Nurse” help to find out if we should go to a clinic.

I went on to Spectrum Health’s MyChart to copy down my meds in case I needed to know them and discovered there was a way to talk to someone online through Spectrum. So that’s what I did.

It was pretty cool. I was able to show the nurse practitioner my rash and swelling on the camera. She felt that as long as I wasn’t exhibiting symptoms like shortness of breath that I was probably okay until next Monday. That was reassuring.

However I am not functioning as well as I have been. Since my legs are swollen I feel like it’s smarter to keep them elevated. I’m planning to spend time in my easy chair to help that.

Ironically today is the last day that I can’t lift due to the healing of my eye operation. So I can lift but I itch like crazy and have swollen legs and arms.

The reason Eileen was concerned about the swelling is that it’s not very pretty. My right leg is much more swollen than my left. My right arm is more swollen than my left arm.

I continue to monitor my blood pressure and weight daily. The blood pressure has not elevated alarmingly. My weight has gone up but that might be due in part to the swelling.

So now all I have to do is survive until next Monday despite the fact that I’m not sure my dermatologist will have any answers since they couldn’t diagnose it before. I am hopeful he can give me something to ease the symptoms which are kind of a pain.

I am still able to read and practice piano.

I have been trying to finish library’s copy of Hayden Carruth’s The Crow and the Heart: 1846-1959 since it is due soon. I have been impressed with this poetry. Carruth makes beautiful and exquisitely crafted poems. His language often puts me in mind of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. Dickinson herself often uses a Shakespearian language. This is Carruth’s first collection. I have about 15 pages left in it.

Speaking of Shakespeare, I was reading Burgess’s This Man and Music this morning. In the sixth chapter entitled “Under the Bam,” Burgess talks about relationships between literature and music. Early on he points out a sonnet by Shakespeare which I always think of as his harpsichord sonnet (Sonnet 128). Burgess says “That Shakespeare worked among musicians and knew what musical instruments look like we do not doubt. He presents, in one of his sonnets, a very closely observed picture of a lady playing the virginal, though he errs in his use of the term, ‘jacks.'”

When I looked it up I remembered thinking the line was weird: “Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand.” I use A L. Rowse’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Problems Solved.

I always thought it was a bit of an arrogant title, but I did learn a ton from it. He gives a “prose version” of each sonnet. I notice that he corrected “jacks” to “keys” in his prose version: “I envy those keys that leap up nimbly to kiss your hand’s tender palm.”

I have more I could write about but I think I’m going to knock off and convalesce. More tomorrow.

I called my dermatologist this morning. The person who answered the phone said there were no cancelations before my Nov 12 appointment but encouraged me to call back later today to check. This I will do. I hope that I have reached the peak of this rash. I did drink last night. But I changed my pattern and drank more slowly as Eileen and I stayed up watching Downtown Abbey. I slept in accordingly. My weight and BP are creeping up but I attribute that to my own behavior patterns of increased caloric intake combined with a possible change in my metabolism due to not exercising. The latter will change this Wednesday when I will free to gradually reintroduce exercises to my old body.

I made bread this morning despite rising late. Eileen noticed my last batch was more moist. This was probably because I made a batch simply using up all the flour in the house which was mostly white bread flour. I tried to do something like that today and only used 1 C of whole wheat flour and 6 C of bread flour. This seems to have worked.

Again I benefited from having an extensive collection of unread books yesterday. I read Jacque Barzun’s essay, “”As Uncomfortable as a Modern Self: On Virginia Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary” in , the collection of essays I mentioned yesterday, A Company of Readers. I went upstairs and found a copy of the book and started reading it yesterday.

I have been reading Woolf since I was a young man. She has had a huge influence on me. This book is a posthumous selection by her widower, Leonard Woolf, from her 26 diaries. He went through them and culled any mention of her writings, any practicing she did in her diary for her other work, and passages where she comments on the works of others. I have read many of her books and essays and have been able to follow her diary entries with pleasure. They beginning in 1918 and I up to 1921.

Apparently this is about the time that the TV series Downtown Abbey takes place.

Another thing I noticed about the series is that the beauty of old houses and the scenery they use in it. I have noticed this in other BBC series. The setting is practically one of the characters of story. This is fitting when I think of the popularity of public access to buildings the English call National Trusts.

We have visited one or two of these when we see Sarah in England. I know that she regularly goes to these and enjoys the grounds when she visits. They are usually beautiful mansions with gardens and shops for visitors.

Another correlation is in my reading. I am finishing the final volume of J. G. Farrell’s Empire Trilogy, The Siege of Krishnapur. Farrell wrote these books as bitter indictments of England’s colonialism. The Siege of Krishnapur takes place in India around 1857. Troubles is also in this series and takes place in 1919 which is very near the time of Downtown Abbey. These two volumes provide background for the story being told by Downtown Abbey and Virginia Woolf’s diaries. We’re at the point in the TV series when a character (Shrimpie) is being re-assigned to an Indian outpost. Knowing what a dire situation England was in at this point with the Empire crumbling casts light on the both Shrimpie’s future and the bigoted statements of the Anglican clergy about empire as he tries to dissuade a Irish character from raising his child in the Catholic church.

Fun stuff.

I am hoping that my body rash has somewhat abated. My legs were not as swollen this morning as they were last evening. I decided to skip the last vestige of my daily exercise and not do my “old-man-running-in-place” this morning in the hopes that my legs will not swell again. Eileen has since observed they are still swollen, but if that is so they are not near as uncomfortable as they were last night. I am hoping to resume my exercising gradually beginning sometime this week. My doctor advised no strenuous lifting for two weeks after my last eye surgery. This precluded most of my daily exercising.

As usual, Eileen asked me if I would stay up for the Halloween Trick or Treaters so she would not have to face them alone. I had planned to make a jack-o-lantern, but there were no pumpkins at Meijer and my physical discomfort increased enough in the afternoon so that I skipped what is usually my annual pleasure at carving up a pumpkin.

I knew that Eileen had been watching Downtown Abbey so I suggested we continue with that while she waited for the doorbell to ring. I generally am not that interested in TV and movies but I had some curiosity about the music for this series. My hopes that the music might be interesting were quickly dashed. I found the music as insipid as the plotting was cynical and emotionally manipulative. But it served the purpose to keep me awake. In fact I sat up later than usual. TV and movies are usually no better than this, at least for me. But this doesn’t mean I won’t continue to watch with Eileen and enjoy.

One of the benefits of surrounding myself with books is the fun of picking up something that interested me enough to purchase and put on the shelf a while back. This morning I spent time with two books that I have had my eye on for a while.

I know that the title of Lionel Trilling’s posthumous collection of essays, The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: selected essays made it an irresistible purchase at some point. I filed in my downstairs books under T for Trilling where I would not forget it. This morning I read Leon Wieseltier’s witty and excellent introduction.

In it he writes, “[I]n a withering commentary on Dreiser …. Trilling wrote in 1946: ‘But with us it is always too late for mind, yet never too late for honest stupidity; always a little late for understanding, never too late for righteousness, bewildered wrath; always too late for thought, never too late for naïve moralizing.” Trilling is almost certainly referring to America in general if not specifically of its intellectuals. If you’ve ever waded through Dreiser you can see how he would inspire these observations.

Writing about New York intellectuals in the mid-Century, again Wieseltier quotes Trilling: “[I]n their worship of ‘ideas’ they often failed to observe the difference between an idea and an opinion.'”

Also filed under “T” in my downstairs not to be forgotten collection was A Company of Readers: Uncollected writings of W. H. Auden, Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling From the Readers’ Subscription and Mid-Century Book Clubs.

Amazingly these three men got together every two weeks and examined books and each other’s review of them. I read the introduction by Barzun this morning.

The art of Aphantasia: how ‘mind blind’ artists create without being able to visualise

Bookmarked to read. Mary Dora Russell shared this link on Facemetabook mentioned that she herself has this condition.

In The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity, Lewis Raven Wallace mentions a helpful analogy referring to a “news media habit… described as ‘Hitler’s Opinion.'” By this he means that “[R]eporters would call in a bigot from the Moral Majority or the psychiatric profession for a ‘balanced’ take in any article that mentioned being gay, while presenting gay voices exclusively as subjective and non-expert.”

Wallace is quoting from a 1982 publication called Talk Back! The Gay Person’s Guide to Media Action. While this publication may have coined the phrase, “Hitler’s opinion,” to better understand the insane approach of most of the media in the 80s during the AIDS crisis, I also find it helpful to understand my frustration about the PBS News Hour’s propensity to bring on camera people with extreme positions often on the right to establish some kind of weird balance to the perception that public TV is liberal.

Wallace quotes Sandy Nelson, an early advocate of honest advocacy journalism, “Objectivity is a myth, and it’s usually used as a way to go after people who have unpopular or radical ideas that threaten the status quo.”

I am very interested in learning about Wallace’s ideas about the “myth of journalistic objectivity.” In his book I think he a good job of walking through some recent history of American journalism. It’s not pretty. It was relatively recently before outsiders like LTBGQs received anything like fair and accurate coverage. It was surprisingly late before the New York Times even used the word “gay” instead of homosexual or even (!) deviant.

He quotes historian David Mindich’s five components of objectivity: “detachment, nonpartisanship, the use of the inverted pyramid model for news, facticity, and balance.” [from Mindich’s Just the Facts]

Of these five, Wallace argues in favor of retaining only two and discarding the rest: “My argument against ‘objectivity’ doesn’t abandon facts, truth, or the hope that we will pursue them without undue influence from political parties or corporations. Broadly, I argue in favor of facticity and nonpartisanship.”

He credits radio producer Ramona Martinez with this pithy observation: “Objectivity is the ideology of the status quo.”

I’m not doing a very good job of organizing my thinking this morning. This is due to the fact that my rash is even worse. My legs are swollen and puffy. Last night was the first night that the rash significantly disturbed my sleep. Today I tried to use piano practice as a distraction. Distraction is one of my techniques for dealing with the constant itching and burning. That didn’t work as well as it has.

Eileen was kind enough to agree to skipping the concert last night. I didn’t feel well enough to go out.

I have to survive this for thirteen more days if I can’t get an earlier appointment with my dermatologist. I will be calling them on Monday to see if I can get an earlier appointment. At any rate, I’m probably just going to have to live through this bout of rash. I don’t expect much from the dermatologist. If they couldn’t figure it out before, I don’t necessarily think they will figure it out now. My hope is that he can recommend something that will alleviate the itching, burning, and swelling.

When a Witness Recants | The New Yorker

I recommended this longer article to Eileen because it has a sort of mystery/true crime feeling.

Is Amazon Changing the Novel? | The New Yorker

An inside look at self publishing Kindle books on Amazon. I don’t think Amazon is changing the novel but it is making an impact on a lot of genre fiction according to this article.

My rash seems to be getting even worse. Last night I used a martini and some wine to self medicate. I’ve got to stop doing that. This morning I took a oatmeal bath. We had an envelope of this stuff specifically for easing skin irritation. It helped a tiny bit. Then I called my dermatologist’s office but they still can’t see me before Nov 12. The person answering the phone encouraged me to call again next week and check for cancelations. This is a bit weird because I thought they would call me with this information, but you can bet your bippy I will call again next week.

We have tickets to hear Paquito D’Rivera Quintet at the Great Performance series this evening. Right now, the plan is to order our Friday evening pizza and then go to the concert. The idea of sitting in an auditorium for an hour or so doesn’t sound like a comfortable time for me with this damn rash, but we missed the first one. I have some little tubes of hypo allergenic moisturizer I am planning to bring along. At this point I use a ton of this stuff each day in order to discourage my scratching. This is not working very well.

Last time my rash flared up, they were unable to diagnose it. It simply got a little better on its own. I’m hoping the dermatologist will have some creative ideas about how to deal with this other than just suffer through it.

I finished playing my way through my first volume of Haydn piano sonatas yesterday. I have played all the way through these before but I’m trying pay more attention to how Haydn evolves his ideas about the formal aspects of these pieces. So far they basically work close to a stereotypical understanding of sonata allegro form when he uses this form. I know that he evolved from studying his symphonies.

I also finished Flight to Canada by Ishmael Reed and the third Foundation novel, Second Foundation by Asimov. The copyrights on Asimov’s books are consecutive: 1951, 1952, and 1953. I checked because I think his prose style improves from clunky in the first book to not so clunky in the last. A little poking around on the interwebs reveals that at least the first book began its life as a series of short stories. I found criticism of the ideas in the book but no one pointed out an improvement in making sentences.

Maybe I just got used to his style, eh?

I have a Dr. Birky appointment today. Those usually help my mood. We’ll see.

My friend, Peter, canceled our meeting for today. A couple of his handbell players came down with Covid. Too bad. I was looking forward to chatting with him.

I dreamed about Larry Curran last night. I have not seen him in person since he left Peter and me in anger. We three had been sitting in my kitchen and I offended Larry so deeply that he got in his car and left and never spoke to me again. You may wonder what in the world I did that so upset him. From my point of view, he had been behaving in a weird passive aggressive manner and I called him on it. Even if I was wrong about this, renouncing our friendship for ever because of that seems excessive. Peter’s possible visit probably stirred up my thinking enough to see Larry in a dream. I do still miss him a little bit.

My sister-in-law’s brother has died of Covid and respiratory related disease. This is the same sister- and brother-in-law who previously chose not to get vaccinated against Covid because of a misconception of how fetal stem cells played into the research. I can only hope that the dead brother was not exposed through them. Eileen says this is not probable.

My rash continues to rage. I told Eileen that I think it’s aged me considerably. I am scheduled to see the dermatologist two weeks from tomorrow. I was hoping superstitiously that by getting that appointment the stupid rash would abate somewhat but that is not the case.

But my eyes are working very well. I can read without glasses and use them for TV and driving. Only one more week to worry about lifting restrictions then I can get back to exercising and stretching. My weight has been slowly going up, but the BP is staying low so that’s good.

I listened to most of a recent interview of Fiona Hill this morning on YouTube. You may remember her from her testimony in the Trump impeachment proceedings. She was impressive then and continues to be so. I haven’t listened to the whole interview. Hill sees the existential crisis we are in now in America. She thinks it will only be addressed by more activism on the ground and more courage in national leadership.

Good luck with that last one.

Hill has insight regarding how polarized we are now in the U.S. She pointed out how the basic identification with either the Republican or the Democratic party has permeated our society. I hope she is not right about this but it seems she is. As she points out there is so much more to people’s personality and point of view beyond a simply Red State or Blue State orientation.

Far From a Panopticon, Social Credit Focuses on Legal Violations – Jamestown

Another article by Jeremy Daum. It’s three weeks old but still pertinent. If you have questions this would be a good read. For me, it helps that he defines the social credit system in the first sentence: “China’s social credit system: directories of data inputs and punitive outputs from the General Office of the State Council.” That’s clear enough.

I try to keep a Shakespeare play going for my daily reading regimen. Recently I finished a re-read of Julius Caesar and went on to Antony and Cleopatra which I don’t think I have read before. This occurs in the first few lines:

CLEOPATRA If it be love indeed, tell me how much,

ANTONY There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

CLEOPATRA I’ll set a bourn now far to be beloved.

ANTONY Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

“New heaven, new earth!” Antony’s Biblical quotation reminded me of my interest in Shakespeare’s use of Bible. I pulled out my Shaheen Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays.

Sitting next to it on my Shakespeare shelf was Steven Marx’s Shakespeare and the Bible.

I had forgotten about this neat little book. I had read some pages into but decided I would start from the beginning which is what I did as Eileen and I sat next Lake Michigan yesterday for date day.

While Shaheen has a chapter for every Shakespeare play, Marx uses five of them. He chooses them carefully and cleverly. He then pairs a book of the Geneva Bible with each one. The first play is The Tempest which he pairs with Genesis.

Apparently The Tempest comes first in the First Folio collection done of Shakespeare shortly after his death.

Marx finds some startling and beautiful parallels between the play and Genesis. What fun!

His last choice is also The Tempest which is thought by many scholars to be Shakespeare’s last play. He pairs this with the Apocalypse. In other words, the last book of the Bible, Revelations. The two chapter titles are 2. Posterity and Prosperity: Genesis in The Tempest and 6. A Masque of Revelation: The Tempest as Apocalypse. The first chapter is 1. Introduction: “Kiss the book”.

It’s a short little book and I look forward to not only reading it but other books and poems he has mentioned such as The Pleasures of Reading by my favorite Hebrew Bible translator, Robert Alter; Words with Power, a book I had not heard of by Northrup Frye who wrote The Great Code which is a very cool book; and Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres which is based on King Lear.

The poem he has mentioned is “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens.” I recognize this poem and have read it but I’m not sure I understood that Quince was a character out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I will have to revisit the poem in light of that. I seem to remember thinking that Quince was some fancy harpsichordist I didn’t recognize.

My rash was raging yesterday. I forgot to take moisturizing cream with me to the beach and the sun seemed to irritate the rash. I used my misery as an excuse to have a real martini last night followed by the usual wine and whisky.