Eileen went with me to my appointment with Dr. Birky, my shrink. Dr. Birky lives in Glen, Michigan. Eileen wanted to go to Allegan to look at a loom she was interested in purchasing. Glen wasn’t exactly on the way, but it was closer than if I went to my appoint alone and returned to Holland and then going to Allegan together.
Believe it or not, Allegan has an old section of town which is designated as the Mill District. It has several cool old buildings one of which houses Baker Allegan Studios and Gallery. The nice people who run it were expecting Eileen. They all chattered happily about looms for a while and Eileen tried out the one she’s interested in.
She decided to purchase it. Looms are such beautiful contraptions. Eileen’s new loom is no exception.
Pipe organs area beautiful, too, of course. I received some pictures in an email updating progress on Grace’s organ.
I’ll just put a couple up here. I put all five of them on Facebooger on Grace’s Music Ministry page.
While Eileen talked with the loom people, I read Peter Williams The Organ Music of J.S. Bach. I was gratified to read that Williams concurred in print with my suspicions (voiced here yesterday) that at least one of Bach’s organ chorale settings in his Orgelbüchlein is heavily influenced by French harpsichord music. Williams even referred directly to a free prelude by Louie Couperin as an obvious precursor to Bach’s treatment of the melody, Nunn Komm der Heiden Heiland.
How cool is that? It just so happens that I recently played this particular G mnor unmeasured prelude by Louis Couperin. Although I did not register the correlation consciously I probably was influenced by playing though both of the pieces in Williams illustrations recently.
This morning I turned to Williams to see what he had to say about another setting in the Orgelbüchlein I went through in my organ practice yesterday.
This setting has always interested me because of its cross rhythms (they begin at the red arrow above). Sometimes players will play them like this:
This represent an application of French notes inégales procedure (“notes unequal” or “swung”). However, I think they are probably meant to be played not swung. When you look at Bach’s manuscript, he has positioned the quarter notes very evenly:
Peter Williams points out that the repeated even notes that result can be heard as a drone. I hadn’t thought of that.
7 takeaways from the GOP health care plan to replace Obamacare | PolitiFact
I found this helpful in the whirlwind of information and misinformation floating around.
Paul Ryan Rejects Major Changes to Health-care Bill – The Atlantic
It could be that what will save Obamacare are the more right wingers in the Republican party who reject the new law as insufficiently free of government oversight.
Are You Middle Class Enough to Deserve a Health Care Tax Break? – The New York Times
I heard an interesting analysis on the radio recently. The speaker analyzed the history of Democrats, Republicans and their policy attitudes. Democrats believe as a matter of policy that everyone should have health care. Republicans, however, have never had that as a policy objective. Instead, their idea of free market is very important to them. So that health care becomes more an exercise in free market than actually providing care. It’s still sad, but it makes sense.
Chinese Mistake Satire on Trump for Real News – The New York Times
Fake news?
A Lesson Trump and the E.P.A. Should Heed – The New York Times
Written by the Republican who originally organized the E.P.A.
Trump’s Environmental ‘Wrecking Ball’ – The New York Times
Letters to the editor regarding the Ruckelshaus article.
Today’s “On The Media” Podcast about the Muslim Ban and the EPA
If you missed it, this is an important contribution to discussion of the topics.