I had a productive day yesterday. Jen, my boss, and I had a lengthy conversation ranging from a post mortem on Monday’s funeral to discussing music chairs and new choir robes for Grace. We decided to not purchase new choir chairs for the church. Instead we will wait until after the organ is in place to evaluate. We are planning for risers at this time. Just exactly how they will be constructed remains to be seen after we see the space that is available for them. It would be silly to buy chairs and then find they didn’t fit well on risers.

We did decide however to purchase 25 musician chairs.

They will be like the one pictured above. The idea is that we will put these in the choir room. Since I have about 15 members, that means I have 5 extra chairs for additional instrumentalists both in the choir room and simultaneously be able to use 5 chairs in the church.

Plus we are going to get new more Episcopalian choir robes. Jen came to our rehearsal last night and gave the choir a pep talk, updated them, then told them about the impending robe purchase.

Speaking of that rehearsal, it went really well. I took pains with planning it, arranging the material in ways that would help the choir. We started a new anthem: Exultate justi by Viadana. I had a pronunciation guide and translation ready for them. One soprano led us through some vocal exercises she has learned from her private teacher using a straw.

It’s not often I come out of rehearsals feeling as good as I did last night. As usual with music it’s probably directly related to preparation.

This morning after breakfast, I’m hopping into a car and driving to Grand Haven to meet with my long time colleagues, Nick Palmer and Peter Kurdziel. We don’t have much of an agenda. Just getting together to shoot the shit for a couple hours. I plan to pick their brains a little about harpsichord music, French classical music and some other topics. I will play Nick’s harpsichord while there since he has asked me to play on Messiah sing along in a few weeks. I get the idea it might not be the best harpsichord. It’s a Sabathil. Nick says it has an odd touch. I was hoping it was a good one, since the possibility that I could some quality time on it is much stronger than ever playing Hope College’s fine instrument. But I’ll know more after this morning.

While Gorsuch was testifying, the Supreme Court unanimously said he was wrong

I have been losing patience with my fellow liberals around the analysis of Gorsuch’s nomination. I find myself turning them off when they exhibit such ignorance of law and its parameters. Sure, Gorsuch’s “aw shucks” performance was well coached and intentional. Remember Bork? We shoot down people who lower the mask too far. However, he has a long paper trail that it seems that both sides are cherry picking. I think he’s going to be nominated and confirmed. I hope he has as much integrity as he seems to. Unfortunately, the proof is in the pudding.

BBC – Culture – Born in the USA: Misunderstood songs

The questions is misunderstood by whom? The fact that George Will misunderstood “Born in the USA” is singularly unsurprising. I didn’t recognize every song. This is kind of a goofy article.