I finally got off my butt and went and did some Christmas shopping yesterday. I like to buy local when I can. So I spent time in the local shops. Then came home and did some research, checking on stuff via the internet. Then back to the shops to purchase or order.
Along with doing bills (ours and my Mom’s — this also means balancing both check books), this quickly ate up the day. My brother telephoned from New Hampshire. Conversations are interesting because he sometimes reads this blog. But he said he appreciate hearing me say some of the same stuff because of the tone of voice which is absent from a page of words.
Today I will probably make a video of Sunday’s prelude. I do this primarily as a way to time it. I didn’t get a chance to practice organ yesterday but I’m fairly confident that I will pull off my little Buxtehude prelude (Praeludium, Fuge und Ciacona BuxWV 137).
I did find time to play a bit of Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus on piano. Lovely stuff.
Picked up a couple of bios of T. S. Eliot at the library yesterday. The one by Peter Ackroyd especially intrigues me. I have read other works by Ackroyd and admire the way his mind works and his wide ranging erudition. Read the first chapter this morning.
Eliot’s second wife recently died. This and daily reading from his poetry has me thinking about his life and my conception of it. I have lots ignorance about his life even though I have read (and even set to music) his poetry for decades.
The poem I read by him this morning struck pretty close to home:
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Lines for an Old Man
by TS Eliot
The tiger in the tiger-pit
Is not more irritable than I.
The whipping tail is not more still
Than when I smell the enemy
Writhing in the essential blood
Or dangling from the friendly tree.
When I lay bare the tooth of wit
The hissing over the arched tongue
Is more affectionate than hate,
More bitter than the love of youth,
And inaccessible by the young.
Reflected from my golden eye.
The dullard knows that he is mad.
Tell me if I am not glad!
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Some extra last minute reporting on On the Media’s podcast this morning regarding the misreporting in the Connecticut shooting. (Click on the pic to go their website)
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History, Who Needs It? – NYTimes.com
We do.
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Bill Boyarsky: Obamacare Begins – Bill Boyarsky’s Columns – Truthdig
Autism and Obamacare in Los Angeles.
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Bill Boyarsky: Obamacare Begins – Bill Boyarsky’s Columns – Truthdig
This injustice marches on unreported.
for too many in the mainstream media, led by the example of the editors of The New York Times, the recent military courtroom proceedings where Manning’s lawyer finally got to document the government’s attempt to destroy his client were largely a nonevent