Last night was the choir party. I took the mixings for my martini with me and discovered to my delight that there were choir members who also wanted a martini. Who knew? I made a martini for an alto, a soprano, a Methodist Minister (Bass), and a retired English prof (Tenor).
If you’ve been reading my blog you know this has been a rough spring for Jupe the choir director. It’s embarrassing how relieved I am this morning that all that is over for a while. I had a nice chat with my boss. We have a tricky memorial service coming up Saturday and she has intervened to calm things down. That’s nice.
This morning, Eileen walked downtown to have breakfast with the rest of the alto section from the choir. I am listening to Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony and sipping coffee.
Life is good.
I have decided to perform a Sweelinck toccata as a postlude on May 29th. The prelude is Passacaglia, Fughetta and Finale on Abbott’s Leigh by Austin C. Lovelace.
This will be the tune to the opening hymn that Sunday. Lovelace’s piece is well written and will take a bit of study to learn. All good.
For some reason I have been drawn in to playing piano variations by Beethoven. So far I’m on page 40 of Ruthardt’s edition, volume 2. I’m on my sixth set of variations. I can remember learning one of these when I was studying with Mrs. Newhardt, my first piano teacher. Our lessons were pretty much a failure, mostly due to my own immaturity. I nagged her into letting me study the Bach inventions too soon. They (the inventions) took a while to recover. She did give me Hanon, but I didn’t practice it correctly. Now in my sixties, I do. Progress for sure, but it seems kind of slow.
Just joshing.
You can probably tell my brains are jelly this morning. I have cleaned the kitchen, packaged up store bought white rolls for the freezer, did several loads of laundry and other little tasks this morning. It may be that kind of a day.
I just had a call from my cellist. She is not feeling well and is begging off trio today. I had her tell the violinist that I would not be there unless she called me. It IS that kind of day.
Rodrigo Duterte’s Talk of Killing Criminals Raises Fears in Philippines – The New York Times
Wholesale killing of people and children suspected of being criminals is a plank in this dude’s platform for President of the Philippines. He get’s installed next month. Surreal.
A Supreme Court Not So Much Deadlocked as Diminished – The New York Times
Like so much in law, it’s counter intuitive to me that the lack of a 9th justice will have as many positive outcomes as this article outlines.
Indigo Girl on Reforming Religion, Why Trump Must Be Stopped | Rolling Stone
A misleading headline. It’s more like Father of Indigo Girl talks about church. Still kind of interesting. I am a bit appalled at the lack of language skills in the comments of both Dad and Daughter.