I am enjoying having daughter Elizabeth around to chat with. She, Eileen and I all went out for lunch together yesterday at the local Mexican restaurant, Margarita’s. After that, Eileen and Elizabeth took over my chore for the day and added grocery shopping to their list of things to do. Eileen has been wanting to buy stuff for Elizabeth so they went off and did that. Elizabeth wanted to frame a print she gave Eileen, so that was one of their tasks as well.

This worked out good for me. I stayed home and goofed off. I am feeling less tired. My arm is less sore. I’m thinking that it might not have been Chopin that made it sore so much as some Clementi études. The ones that I did last Tuesday were long and fast. I worked on them hands separately and then together. Yesterday when I began playing through one of them again I could feel the soreness in my arms once again. Aha!

Needless to day, I ceased working on that  étude.

Yesterday I spent time on the phone with my Mom’s lawyer and brother Mark who is visiting his kids on the east side of the state. They are planning a quick visit tomorrow. I’m consulting the lawyer about Mom’s recent influx of funds from sale of the home in Fenton.

Today I am going to take Mom to the shrink. Eileen has been helping me with some of these Mom tasks like taking her to appointments. I figure turn about is fair play today since I’m pretty sure Eileen is eating up all this time with Elizabeth.

I’m also going to reinstall Finale on my laptop today and do some church work. I will probably settle in to a rhythm of doing this on Wednesday mornings soon. But this Wednesday I want to spend time with the visiting Jenkinses. So I’ll get a jump on my tasks  today.

I am working on my Greek daily now. Also daily reading of the Cranmer biography and Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age. I’m on page 703 of 776 in the Taylor. When I have invested that much into reading a book, I am increasingly motivated to finish it.

I am deepening the way I read as well. I watched my grandson, Nicholas, pick up books that I knew he had read to take along to read when we were doing things as a family in California. When I asked him about reading books that he has already read, he said that he likes to read them over and over again, picking them up wherever he happens to open the book.

This repetition impresses me. I use repetition routinely in my daily practice. I have extended this to repetition in working on Greek. I also read deeper into my books. Where before I would disdain repeating passages in books and articles I read. Now I am more likely to read a passage over twice or to begin again in a book where I know I have already read. I think this is helping my brain.

I now have today and tomorrow off. Excellent. I have very few plans for these days besides spending time with Eileen and Elizabeth, practicing, exercising and getting my Mom to her shrink appointment tomorrow.

Considering my lack of prep I was very pleased with the way I played Dandrieu’s Offertory on O Filii et Filia.

It is an elegant set of variations. The more I played it, the more I admired it. I love the way the French composers combine simple beautiful gestures with underlying clear compositional coherence that rarely presents itself on the surface.

Groves says that after Rameau and Couperin, Dandrieu was “the most celebrated harpsichord composer of the 18th century.” Surely the author of the article means in France. What about Bach and Handel?

But as I always say, do I have to choose? Can’t I play them all with delight?

Well, enough blogging on my day off. I have some serious goofing off to do.

1. The Media Has a Woman Problem – NYTimes.com

Telling quote in this article: “the closer you get to money and power, the more the writers look like the people they are covering.”

2.A Master’s in Chick Lit – NYTimes.com

This tells the story of a successfully published writer returning to school to get a Masters degree in writing.

3. Snapping Good Photos With Your Phone – NYTimes.com

Bookmarked this to check out the phone apps the writer mentions.

The Geed Squad dude looked like he was giving me a big present. He had booted up my laptop. All my programs were gone.

“It’s just like you have new computer.”

Oh no, I thought. “You uninstalled my Finale?”

He nodded, smiling, expectantly.

I said, “This is not entirely convenient or helpful, you know?”

He continued to smile as he rang me out.

“Will I have to redo all the Wireless connections?” I asked.

He started to lose patience with the old guy. “It’s just like you have a new computer.”

My heart sinks. I’m sure the guy who took my computer told me this is what would happen. It didn’t actually use the word, “wipe.” But I should have been alert when he said my computer would be good as new. In other words, totally not adapted to my needs. Rather adapted to Windows needs.

The only good thing that has come out of this is that the log on screen no longer needs a password. This means I can’t avail myself of Windows many wonderful quirks and cloud options. I avoid those anyway.

So I am up and running right now thanks to Chrome remembering my bookmarks. Of course I had to use Explorer to get to Chrome to download.

This proprietary stuff sort of makes me crazy.

I wish I had been alert enough to say to the grinning Geek guy, “So you fixed my audio plug that was broken?” But I didn’t have the presence of mind.

I’m blogging after church today because my daughter, Elizabeth, got up this morning and kept me company. I admit that I would much rather chat with her than blog.

I’m feeling a ton of relief right now. I don’t have anything on my work schedule until Wednesday. Cool beans.

BTW my arm is doing pretty good.  I do have some arthritic aches and pains anyway. But I think it’s getting back to where it was. Still slightly sore. No problems this morning. Pretty much nailed the Dandrieu.

1. Nigerian Movie Appears to Hit Nerve Over War – NYTimes.com

Elizabeth and I were just chatting about our mutual admiration for writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She wrote the book this new movie is based on.

2. An Unwanted Reprise Riles a Soviet Rocker – NYTimes.com

I found this Soviet era rock and roll musician and his band on YouTube. I like it. Here’s a link to a video of a concert they gave last year. Old guys playing rock and roll in Russia. What’s not to like?

3. A Rancher’s Romantic Revisionism – NYTimes.com

Charles Blow does a good job of correcting the record about slavery. If you’re going to read one Bundy related article, this is a pretty good one.

4. A Beating in Detroit – NYTimes.com

Recent beating of a white dude who hit a young black kid discussed by someone from Detroit. Nice take on it.

5. Three Things Conservatives Wrote This Week That Everyone Should Read | ThinkPro

I did this. This dang liberal is trying to keep track of people I probably disagree with who think differently but actually think.

Daughter Elizabeth arrives on a plane today. It will very nice to have her around for a while. The picture above is taken in Italy, near Rome, in February of this year. I pulled it off her Facebooger page.

As I was finishing up my blog yesterday, my laptop went crazy. It began inserting unwanted links in my finished blog. I looked through the code for my blog and couldn’t find how the computer was inserting them. I checked with my phone and these links were not actually published. Uh oh. Sounds like malware/adware.

I was at a loss. I texted my daughter in the UK because I had managed to remove a cookie on WordPress that allows me to preview my blog (this seems to be working today). First I told her what was going on. She was at work of course and wasn’t able to respond.

I decided I would take it up the Geek Squad which is what I did.

They charged me $200 for a year maintenance subscription. I really had no choice. Plus I think I’m lazy. I knew that I could do a computer restore. But I wasn’t sure how to remove the viruses.

I did tell the geek dude that last time I used them they charged me a ton and had omitted a very simple work around solution and did NOT fix the computer. He said they do things differently now. Right.

My daughter Sarah (the UK one) did text me. She advised purchasing a Mac. Heh. I’ve never been fond of Apple so that’s probably not going to happen. Plus they’re expensive and one pays for sleek design that doesn’t attract me. Her significant other advised getting Spyware Terminator.

Oops.  It’s free.

I like this pic because the guy  looks like a young me.

Right now I’m working from the desktop.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing. Eileen spent the day with her Mom. She decided that she will do this on Fridays. I think this is pretty cool since one of the reasons we ended up in conservative insular buy cheap valium 10mg West Michigan is so she could be close to family.

I have been babying my arm. I miss sitting down and playing piano but I think this is probably wise.

Thinking about my scheduled prelude and postlude for Sunday I remembered there was some tricky pedal parts in one section of the postlude (“Triumphant Gladness” based on “Come, Ye Faithful Raise the Strain” St. Kevin by Alice Jordan).

One doesn’t use one’s arm when pedaling on the organ, right?

Then I remembered that organ technique is much more still and less muscular than piano technique in general.

So I decided to experiment and rehearse only the music for this weekend. That went pretty well. I am experience much less pain and gaining some facility with the arm. It feels fine right now.

I used the Kindle Chrome plug in that will export pages to one’s Kindle to read the paper while I exercised yesterday. That worked.

So life continues to be good.  Added bonus I get to see one of my daughters today.

Three Things Conservatives Wrote This Week That Everyone Should Read | ThinkPro

I love it that ThinkProgress (a liberal web site I follow) is publishing links to pertinent articles by people they disagree with. As it says in this article, they are not seeking out conservatives to tell them how right they (the dang liberals) are.  Instead they are trying to understand where their ideological foes are coming from. This sounds healthy to me and so necessary in this day age of echo chamber information sources.

I think I’ll close this blog with a quote that struck me this morning in Robinson Jeffers’ poem which is a tribute to Woodrow Wilson Jeffers wrote right after he died.

Jeffers imagines a dialog between Wilson and “It,” sort of a death ferryman kind of figure.

When Wilson in the poem protests that death must not ask him to endure failure in life, he points out that “Visionless men, blind hearts, blind mouths, live still.” This reminded me of many if not most of the current crop of politicians and judges.

Happy Saturday.

Boy I love the interwebs. Got up this morning and read Jeffers startling lengthy poem, “The Roan Stallion.”

I thought I got it, but was interested to compare my reading with someone else’s. It was pretty simple to pull up a scholarly article via Hope’s inteface: “California, Yankees, and the Death of God: The Allegory in Jeffers’ Roan Stallion” by KARL KELLER  Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 1970), pp. 111-120, Published by: University of Texas Press).

I find it ironic that I have been returning to reading Jeffers after Charles Taylor cites him as a proponent of the philosophies behind a coherent secular humanism (atheism). Taylor of course finds Jeffers wrong in his take on life, the universe, and everything. Nevertheless Taylor did quote a bunch of Jeffers’ poems and gave me a taste for reading him.

I’m a bit worried that I have some kind of virus infection on my computer. My security software has blocked 14 attempts in the last few days. And I keep getting weird pop ups that warn me I have too many tabs open or tell me I’ve won something. Also when I google search I now get twice as many ads at the top of the search results and a pop up at the bottom. This can’t be right. If it persists maybe I’ll drop the computer off at Best Buy and ask them to go over it.

I canceled my Piano trio yesterday due to my sore arm. I also decided not to practice organ or piano to give it a rest. This was sad for me. I missed sitting down and playing which I regular do many times a day.

I came to the conclusion I should do this because I went through the prelude I scheduled for a week from Sunday on the piano and discovered that my arm began hurting. Damn.

I did manage my other scheduled activities yesterday: grocery shopping at Aldis and Miejers and listening to my friend Rhonda’s upcoming recital of Northern German Baroque Organ music for her.

I also continued to deal with the Grace organ project via Facebooger posts and emails to my boss and our consultant my friend and former teacher, Craig Cramer.

I’m feeling a bit less burned out and exhausted this morning. Daughter Elizabeth flies into Grand Rapids tomorrow. I look forward to seeing her.

1. Moldova, the Next Ukraine – NYTimes.com

2. Upsetting the Gentility That the South Lays Claim To – NYTimes.com

3. Racial Equality Loses at the Court – NYTimes.com

Colorblindness wins.  We as a country continue to repress ourselves.

4. Taming the Digital Wild West – NYTimes.com

5. Obamacare: The Hate Can’t Be Cured by Garry Wills | NYRblog | The New York Revie

Tuesday evening before turning in, I noticed that my right arm was sore especially at the elbow. Movement was restricted. I woke up the next day and it was still pretty sore. I do have the normal aches and pains of a sixty-two year old plus a morbid sense of my own mortality and aging. But I came to the conclusion that my recent marathon of practicing Chopin polonaises had left me with a sore elbow.

This is probably combination of imperfect technique, age and over use.

Anyway, it seems a bit better this morning. That’s a relief.

Yesterday my boss gave me permission to go a bit more public with information about where we are in the process of purchasing a new organ.  I don’t think I have mentioned here that I am in contact with four builders: Taylor and Boody, Paul Fritts,Martin Pasi and Richard and Fowkes. I have Facebook contact with all four firms and instantly linked them up for so that members of our parish who are on Facebook could further research them. In addition, I put up a link to my little Introduction to the Organ for anyone interested in learning a bit more about Pipe Organ from scratch.

I also emailed John Boody and Paul Fritts asking for permission to share some of their private email observations on our project and also permission to make posters of instruments they have built which would be comparable to the size and style of the instrument they might build for us. So far (I don’t check my email first thing in the morning usually) I have heard back from John Boody only.

At any rate there’s no reason for me not to put up pics here and on Facebook of these instruments.

Here’s a comparable instrument built by Taylor and Boody (click on the pic for more info).

I would have put up a picture from Fritts organs but they have a silly interface that made it a bit more cumbersome. I gave up. I figure if builders aren’t hip to exposing their work it’s not really my problem. Anyway, here’s the link for the comparable instrument by them that I put up on Facebook.

Still waiting to hear back from builders from Martin Pasi and Fowkes and Richards.

Eileen and I attended a banquet in Grand Rapids last night for the GR Chapter of the National Pastoral Musicians.

It was odd to be asked but I didn’t mind seeing a bunch of church musicians and having a meal with them. Saw a few more people to add to my Facebook colleague collection.

Working for the Catholics was that time in my life when I had some exciting and interesting collegial exchanges around people who were enthusiastic for liturgical church music in a way I related to at the time. Now I share the renegade values of many of my friends and colleagues in the Catholic church. Bob Batastini expressed hope to me last night that the new Pope will help thaw the church back into some sort of coherent stand. I’m not particularly hopeful but I wish them well.

Turning to Greek and Chopin for some non-churchy/non-ballet distraction. I hesitate to put the idea that I am studying Greek in my blog, since sometimes talking about projects in an initial stage tend to sabotage them for me. But I have been looking at Greek for the past couple of mornings trying to reorient myself to my studies.

I have been looking at Chopin polonaises for a week or so. Chopin has always hovered over my piano playing. I have memories of my Dad popping off Chopin pieces (such at the Polonaise in A major and other pieces). I’ve been thinking that my truncated formal piano study may contribute to my lack of confidence in my Chopin. I’ve always been a bit confused at how to approach those tiny notes he sometimes writes that are supposed to fit into a steady rhythm in sort of a free wheeling way.

Yesterday, I googled this idea and came across a video by Dr. Cory Hall on YouTube. He posts many teaching videos there.

I was looking at one on the Fantasie Impromptu by Chopin and he said before viewing it he recommended working through his video on playing fours against threes.

Sounded like a good idea for a day off. So I did. I have played pieces with this kind of cross rhythm but I admired the thoroughness of Hall’s approach. I am beginning to adapt and rehearse it. I will probably Paypal this dude some money after some use of his videos.

All of this was to make an attempt to take an entire day away from my usual stuff. Eileen helped by taking my Mom to the Miracle Ear appointment. I kept resisting tasks other than reading and studying. It seemed to work. I am feeling a bit more refreshed this morning.

I am planning to use the time I would have had to play my 8:30 class to do some church work. Then final classes for the semester at 11 AM and Noon. I meet with my boss then I have no more tasks for the day (assuming I get everything done before my 11 AM class that I would like to. This is not a given.

This evening Eileen and I are jumping in the car and drive to the Grand Hotel in downtown Grand Rapids. I have weirdly been invited to a dinner for former National Pastoral Musicians Chapter directors. This should also be pretty distracting.

1. 7 things pundits got wrong about health care | PunditFact

I use fact checkers whenever possible. I do scrutinize their conclusion with a jaded eye. But it can be helpful.

2. Cameron’s Description of Britain as ‘Christian Country’ Draws an Angry Response – 

Oops.

3. Tomorrow’s America, in Queens – NYTimes.com

I have memories of attending the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York. Maybe I’ll blog about them sometime.

4. An Evolutionary Family Drama – NYTimes.com

This is the story of alewives some of whom become stranded in fresh water and evolve differently from the others who are adapted to moving between fresh and salt water. All within the last 400 years.

5. [INFOGRAPHIC]: The 10 Commandments of Typography

Thanks to daughter Elizabeth for putting this up on Facebook.

6. Army’s Ban on Some Popular Hairstyles Raises Ire of Black Female Soldiers – NYTim

It is so easy to be blind to our own cultural preferences. Seems to me there are some pretty obvious compromises available to this quandry.

I am desperate to take at least one day this week and do very little. I’m hoping it’s today. I am avoiding doing church work and practicing organ at church. I need to submit the bulletin information for a week from this Sunday (psalm, anthem, prelude, postlude, hymns). I try to keep the office informed a week ahead. But I’m going to do that tomorrow morning in the time I usually have a dance class since my 8:30 class doesn’t require my presence.

In fact I only have two afternoon classes left tomorrow and then I am completely done with ballet. It’s weird because I am craving time off, but at the same time the way I fill my time is satisfying. I enjoy improvising and playing for ballet. I like preparing singers at church and learning and performing organ music. But I’m pretty sure I’m not far from burn out right now and would like to continue these activities with a more refreshed and relaxed mind.

I continue to receive surprising comments about my performing. The way my colleagues connect with me varies wildly. This last week has shown this. Sunday one colleague after church allowed me to shake his hand (he seems to prefer a wimpy non American hand shake and I comply). We wished each other “Happy Easter” and that was that. Other colleagues were more forthcoming, complimenting me on my work at church and making a real effort to see me (invisible jupe, remember?).

Strikingly two less academic feeling colleagues reached out to me yesterday.  The art teacher at the high school also plays bass. He regularly performed with the man we buried last Wednesday. Yesterday out of the blue he “messaged” me on Facebooger telling me I did a “great job” at the funeral.  Wow.

The dance department staff drummer stopped me in the halls yesterday and complimented me on my playing at the funeral. Wow #2!

What struck me about this was how easily and graciously these men connected to me. Refreshing.

Since I’m kind of bragging here this morning,  here’s another cool thing. Yesterday at the 8:30 class, the teacher taped the final exam combinations. The dancers have been learning these combinations since last week. I try to use the same music for these tests so that dancers know exactly what to expect.

There were three parts to the taping  yesterday, a slow combination (adag) and two more quick ones (petite and grand allegro). For the adag I used the “Orientale” by Cui transcribed for piano. After four or five consecutive tapings, the teacher told me that my tempos must have been pretty consistent since she had glanced at the time and noted that I was coming in at 2 minutes, sometimes exactly, sometimes within a second.

Surprised me. I don’t think of myself as that precise especially in tempos though I do think a lot about tempos and spend time with mister metronome in my usual music prep.

This morning is like a last sprint of a marathon. Except I’m not as tired as that. I think periodic resting throughout the last week has helped me.

Yesterday’s morning service went well. The anthem, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen” by William Mathias, was written for the organist, Fred Swann. The organ part is flashy if not difficult. I am trained to conduct from the console (as organists say when them mean covering both the organ accompaniment and conducting a choral piece). But it requires a lot of prep. Saturday found  me making photocopies and doing final score prep which involves some careful consideration of when I turn pages, lift my hand to conduct, and other things.

This and the weeks of rehearsal paid off yesterday. We pretty much nailed the Mathias. The psalm and the postlude also went well. These three things were probably the remaining challenges for me for Hell week. I managed to fluff different measures in the Widor (the postlude). And the fluffing was not severe. I don’t know why I aim for a perfect performance of this piece. Some of it is its perpetual mobile nature which is best served by a note perfect performance. Anyway, I pulled of the measures I messed up Saturday night on Sunday morning. Always a good sign.

After that we jumped in the car and drove to Eileen’s Mom’s house for the annual Hatch egg hunt.

Eileen’s Mom has some new contraptions that have restored her quality of life. Her failing eyesight had prohibited many of her previously satisfying activities like knitting, crocheting, reading, and watching TV.

Using one machine she can do most on that list now with some ease. She has been declared legally blind and somehow this helped facilitate purchasing this machine and her TV glasses.

1. Night – Robinson Jeffers

I have added Robinson Jeffers poems to my morning reading lately. I liked this one.

2. Breaking Proud Tradition, Captains Flee and Let Others Go Down With Ship – NYTim

Following this story a bit.

3. A 12-Year-Old’s Trek of Despair Ends in a Noose at the Border – NYTimes.com

This is heartbreaking to me. 12 year old suicide. I have known some teens who killed themselves but never this young.

4. Does Traditional College Debate Reinforce White Privilege? – Jessica Carew Kraft –

This controversy is fascinating to me. I identify with both sides of the argument.

5. Jesus had a sex life: Gay and straight | Gay Star News

Bookmarked to read. Seems inevitably a bit sketchy but still fun Easter Week reading.

Snapped this pic at the beginning of last night’s service. I resisted further pics telling myself better to be in the moment than taking pictures of it.

Earlier in the afternoon, despite a valiant attempt to rest  up, I began to feel sleepy and a bit depressed. Nice.

Interestingly, the most arduous task for the Easter Vigil turned out to be staying alert and playing the psalms. We used one double chant for the psalms and canticles. Playing organ for this means for each verse I have to carefully play the rhythm pointed or chosen for that particular line. I went through all the psalms earlier in the day. Fucked them up a bit in the pregame but nailed them in the service.

The other challenging moment was the postlude. I pretty much nailed it as people stood and listened. It was a small crowd last night but definitely connected to the liturgy. Playing the postlude intensified the feeling that the evening had been a bit of a marathon. I manged to keep my concentration for all of the piece but a couple measures near the end. Hope I do a little better when I repeat it for this morning’s postlude.

i love church

1. Plain vs mysterious music – Susan Tomes: Pianist & writer

I read Susan Tomes blog. In this entry she talks about failing to find church music (other than congregational singing of simple tunes) in Italy.

2. Hungry Planet: How The World Eats, or Doesn’t | Brain Pickings

Some pictures of what some families purchase for a week to eat all over the world.

3. Christian Leaders Call For Ending Drug War, Mass Incarceration

Would that this would have some sort of effect.

4. Salvation Gets Cheap – NYTimes.com

Clean energy is getting cheaper.

5. Neil DeGrasse Tyson Said What He Thinks About Race Now That He’s Made It

Famous black scientist talks about being black. Video.

6. Is IRS Obama’s Watergate? | PunditFact

The answer is no so far.

Two down, two to go. Services, that is. The choir sounded very well last night on our motet. I’m not quite as tired this morning as I was yesterday morning, so it looks like I’m going to somehow manage to muster enough energy for the next two days. Unfortunately I have classes to play for on Monday and Wednesday of next week. But that should go okay. They are my last two days of classes for the semester.

One of the instructors I work with is given to purple passages of description of the music she would like me to play (improvise). Last week she wanted something like the “Arabian Nights” with some kind of mode. She kept making up mode names after first suggesting Mixolydian. I suspected that she didn’t have a clear idea of what it sounded like, just liked the sound of the word.

I improvised in phrygian mode.

She also went on and on about including rushing winds and night breezes or something like that (I said it was purple didn’t I?).

Neither she nor I was satisfied with my improvisation. This music was one of three pieces the class will be doing as their final in the class. When the teacher is prepping final combinations to be tested, I like to come up with something consistent for the students. I get nervous about facilitating testing. I want to make sure I’m helping and not distracting or godforbid hindering.

I came home and cast around for a composed piece for this combination. I landed on “Orientale” by Cui.

I have to play it slower than the performance below and I only play the first two pages. This is necessary because of the nature of the combination which called an “Adag” from Adagio.

The teacher was pleased with this choice. Due to its slow and restrained nature, an “Adag” is quite a workout for dancers.

I’m also playing two other prepared pieces for this test. They are both Schubert Waltzes. I am adapting one of them to sound more like a 6/8 dance.

In my other two classes (I play three classes which meet two or three times a week), I am also playing prepared pieces. In the pointe class, this is the theme from the Brandenberg 4, first movement. In the modern class, it is most of a piano piece by Gwyneth Walker called “Remembrance.”

Playing prepared pieces for class is a different experience than improvising. It makes a nice change.

I am hoping that after these classes are done I will be able to get some rest and find my groove once again.

I have accepted an invitation to perform for an ice cream social at the end of next month for my Mom’s nursing home. I invited my violinist friend to come and play with me. She was talking about seeking out some more performance experiences and I offered it to her.

We have been playing some very interesting early Mozart sonatas  which would be good choices for this gig. Also a more mature Mozart we have been working on would be nice. I’ll also have her play melodies of the dance tunes and whatever else I come up with for this gig. It should be fun.

Tonight’s postlude and tomorrow’s postlude will both be the dreaded Widor Toccata (from Symphony 5).

I continue to refine my playing of this piece. When I learned it as an undergrad, my teacher, Ray Ferguson, had me play it legato and fast. Since then I have changed to play it staccato (as it is marked) and a bit slower. The closing pages have always been a bit more challenging to me. The left hand crosses the right and moves to a different keyboard. Preparing for these two performances I have concentrated on the last pages and I think I’m going to play them a bit better this year.

It’s always challenging at the end of Holy Week liturgy when I’m pretty exhausted to perform this kind of piece.

But it should go well this year at both of the next two liturgies.

Despite attempting to rest most of yesterday, an hour before I had to go play the Maundy Thursday service I was still exhausted. Fortunately I did get a small second wind which enabled me to survive the evening. This is getting ridiculous. Wednesday’s schedule did me in. I think it was the addition of a long intense funeral. Nevertheless one feels that one is just getting too old for this shit.

Ahem. I have always had to scroll.
You know.
Since scrolling was invented along with the interwebs.

This morning I realized that I have had the gift of five more years of life than my uncle Richard who died at 57. Midkiff men seem to have a tendency toward  short lives of confusion. At least my life has been a good one so far. I feel grateful for meeting my wife,  knowing my children and having music and ideas in my life.

this pic is sarcastic.

Here’s hoping I can continue to come up with strategies to husband the resources of my aging energy.

unfortunately, this pic is not sarcastic. 

At least I don’t have the usual classes this morning.

Am receiving an unusual number of compliments on the Wednesday funeral.

I was underpaid monetarily ($50) but am being lavishly remunerated with praise.  Thought I would mention it since I bitch so much in this space about being invisible to so many.

1. Steven Pinker’s Mind Games – NYTimes.com

Used to take the annual quiz in the education supplement of the NYT. I like little tests like this. Got 6/10.

2. Revised SAT Won’t Include Obscure Vocabulary Words – NYTimes.com

This report include three sample questions. Got 2/3.

3. When ‘Liking’ a Brand Online Voids the Right to Sue – NYTimes.com

Sooprise sooprise. Download a coupon, forfeit your rights.

4. The Quick and Dirty on Data Visualization – Nancy Duarte – Harvard Business Review

Some interesting insights on visulations. Helpful both to creators and viewers.

5. Princeton Concludes What Kind of Government America Really Has, and It’s Not a Democracy

economic elite domination or biased pluralism.

I had quite the day yesterday.

In between classes I managed to point the psalm and prepare the rest of the info for Easter II and email that off. I skipped out early from my noon class (with permission of the teacher) for a funeral. When I arrived about twenty minutes before the service there was no place to park and the place was already standing room only.

The man who died was a musician. I quickly sat down at the piano which was near the door I had come in and began improvising including versions of gospel hymns as requested. Later the widow told me the family was sitting in the back chapel listening and found my playing comforting. I had already decided I would do the entire service at the piano. This was partly because the man who died was a pianist. Also, the choices for the service were a little better served on the piano and the family had requested piano.

I barely knew the man. He did not attend the later service at the church. We had maybe one or two conversations. I was vaguely aware that he was a musician.

It was a good thing that I had chosen not to use the organ as the choir area was already full of mourners when I arrived and it was impossible to move easily between the piano and the organ.

The funeral lasted till a bit after two. I went home for a bite to eat pretty exhausted but satisfied I had done a good job. I went back for a brief meeting with my boss about the upcoming liturgies and prepared for the even choir rehearsal. Came home with little time to spare before going back for the rehearsal so no treadmilling for Steve.  Eileen and I ordered a pizza.

Back to church for choir rehearsal. Now for four days with a service each day.

1. Iraq Shuts Down the Abu Ghraib Prison, Citing Security Concerns – NYTimes.com

2. A Question for Seder: What Role for Screens? – NYTimes.com

These kinds of questions always interest me. How do we adapt to tech? Yesterday at the funeral when they played  a CD in which the singer invited everyone to sing along (Just a closer walk with thee) most of the people present sang.  Fascinating and a bit surreal for this old musician.

3. Louisiana: Anti-Sodomy Law Stands – NYTimes.com

Posted this link on Facebooger with the comment: “What year is it?”

Up this morning, reading and thinking about The Allegory of the Cave by Plato (from the Republic, book VII).

Reading Plato over my lifetime, has, I guess, had a lasting effect on my little brain.

And not only on my pea brain, the Allegory has had a huge impact on how people in the West thinking.

The reason I am thinking about it this morning is George E. Connor’s essay, “Spelunking with Ray Bradbury: the Allegory of the Cave in Fahrenheit 451. ” (found in Harold Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations  Series.

Connor describes a six part division of the Allegory which confused me so much that I looked once again at Plato.

Thanks to the miracle of the modern interwebs, I had downloaded a free clean version of Plato’s Republic to my Kindle within minutes. My Plato is upstairs near the bed and I didn’t want to disturb Eileen.

Reading through the beginning of Book VII and then re-reading Connor’s section on a six part division of the story led me to conclude that Connor’s presentation was not that clear.

He is working towards finding characters in Plato’s allegory that he can relate to Bradbury’s story. Unfortunately Plato’s exposition in my reading has more to do with how Socrates is continuing to drive home a point by telling the cave story.

For what it’s worth, here are Connor’s six divisions (if I have them correct).

1.  The allegory begins with those bound in the cave who can only see shadows on the wall

2. Behind them are the “puppeteers” who are casting the shadows as they move

3. Then he weirdly leaps ahead in Plato to mention the “madmen” who would kill the returning enlightened person who would free them and take them into the light

4. THEN he talks about the initial escape made by a person who is drawn into the light

5. He cites another author who says that their must have been a “guide” to draw this person out of the cave

6. The final division is the return to the cave of the enlightened

I’m still reading the essay. The dang book is due in a few days, but it’s not that hard to begin to see how Connor is going to spelunk Bradbury.

Montag has got to be the enlightened dude, Clarisse is probably the guide, the firemen, Montag’s wife and her friends have to be the madmen, Beatty and the unseen hand of the government might be the puppeteers, and so on.

I especially like the the idea of relating the burning fire in the cave and the burning in the book. Probably not his point.

Sunday we began our Palm Sunday procession in what we call the Commons Area which is where we have the coffee hour after church. This meant that I needed to have a pitch pipe to give the pitches for the opening sung sentences and the singing during the procession. No problem, I thought. I’m sure there’s an app for that on my phone. And sure enough there was.

Just prior to the pregame rehearsal with the choir, I checked the app again to make sure I could work it easily.  Then during rehearsal I opened my phone to give the pitch with it so that the choir could see what that was like. There on the face of my phone was a fucking advert for Nokia (the maker of the phone) instead of the app I wanted to open. Despite having pull down menus that indicated I could close the advert it would not close. It wanted to play a little video for me.  I could not get to the pitch pipe app.

I gave the pitch from the organ and sat down to try and figure out how to get the advert off my phone while the choir sang through our processional piece.

Finally it just went away.

It managed to work properly when I needed it in the next room, but I think it’s an example of how we approach tech these days. We all know that our phones, computers, and other “labor saving devices”  will waste our time by not starting properly, pausing, presenting new and unanticipated problems just at the point we are counting on them to perform a task.

How in the world did we get from the good old “on/off” switch to problem solving some dam techie’s glitch?

My theory is two fold.

First, having sort of grown up with the tech by looking over my smarter younger brother’s shoulder as he moved from the early home computers to better and faster machines, I think it was pretty logical to spend a lot of time tinkering with glitches.

When one is writing basic code or a data base, it is a process of getting it to work, kind of a puzzle.

This sort of unreliability seems more forgivable and understandable than what I find myself dealing with now on a daily basis (as well as waiting with people either in person or on the phone for some dam slow computer to load so they could help me).

The second part of my theory is the people who design all the tools we are using are designing them for each other and for people who can constantly upgrade to the latest little doodad.

I suspect they see beauty and get satisfaction in the tools themselves, unlike me who just wants the fucking thing to accomplish the task I have set for myself.

So in this world of logging on to my own dam computer at home countless times a day and having web sites decide that I want to instantly watch their videos or hear their sound tracks, I often quietly curse people who design things that don’t work consistently for me.

I know that part of the answer is to use tools on their own terms. I am willing to do that. But when design changes capriciously and I suspect the changes of being part of the problem, I have to convince myself to learn little new techniques.

One I have just proudly achieved (please do not laugh at the old man) is how to get my touch pad on my lap top to scroll easily (lightly touch  with two fingers and drag after making sure the curser is floating on the part of the page you want to move).

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‘The Dismal Science,’ by Peter Mountford – NYTimes.com

Book review of a book that looks interesting to me.

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‘The Bright Continent,’ by Dayo Olopade – NYTimes.com

Another book review, this time chock full of interesting corrections to misconceptions about Africa.

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The Irony of Cliven Bundy’s Unconstitutional Stand – Matt Ford – The Atlantic

Some calm insights into a crazy situation.

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It looks like it will be a wet and windy walk to work this morning. The rain is crackling against the windows as I sit and type.  I have two remaining weeks of ballet classes. It’s probably only four days for me since this Friday and the following Friday I will not be needed. I have to ask the teacher of my noon class if I can but out early on Wednesday since I have a funeral at 1 PM.

It seems to have taken the entire semester for me to grow somewhat accommodated to this schedule. Yesterday and this morning I am not as exhausted as I have been. Still tired, but not exhausted.

Eileen and I had a nice chat with daughter Sarah yesterday afternoon. The the gods for the interwebs.

My Mother’s Keepers – NYTimes.com

I pay more attention to these kinds of stories now that I’m keeping an eye on an aging parent.

Parental Involvement Is Overrated – NYTimes.com – NYTimes.com

Some counter intuitive findings that most of what conventional wisdom says works doesn’t in fact work.

Reclaiming the Words That Smear – NYTimes.com

This article quotes two thinkers/writers I admire: Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Deborah Tannen.

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Mark My Words. Maybe. – NYTimes.com

Woman tattoos her arm on the break up of a bad marriage.

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A Loyal Soldier Doesn’t Deserve This – NYTimes.com

How long before people understand that mental illness is actually a disease?

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Fred Ho, Saxophonist, Composer and Radical Activist, Dies at 56 – NYTimes.com

Another dude to spotify.

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I finished preparing the last psalm for Holy Week and Easter Sunday yesterday afternoon. I think it helped to discipline myself to producing one pointed psalm a day until they were done.

Continuing to update important passwords. The local state wide library network went down during the night on Friday. But they had it up and running by midday.

I am looking forward to having Ballet class and Holy Week over. Even though everything looks pretty prepared and doable Holy Week is sort of a hum in the background until it’s over.

Last night Eileen and I finished watching the TV drama, “True Detective.”

The two stars, Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, were both “executive producers” of which there seem be a bunch. Eileen and I do not tend to binge watch which seems to be the behavioral pattern of many viewers these days. We will do one or two at a time and are always looking for something that is not terrible.

“True Detective” is almost not terrible.

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Tatyana Fazlalizadeh Takes Her Public Art Project to Georgia – NYTimes.com

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The Trouble With Too Much T – NYTimes.com

Too much “T” is too much naturally occurring testosterone in women athletes. The startling things in this report include the invasive testing and subsequent altering of women who have more than normal testosterone. I wonder if this is a comment on how out of control some aspects of our society are?

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Heartbleed bug: Check which sites have been patched – CNET

Cnet keeps updating this link if you’re curious. I didn’t limit my password changes to the web sites on their list.

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Three Things Conservatives Wrote This Week That Everyone Should Read

Put out by Think Progress, self identified as non-partisan progressives. But I’m sure the right thinks it’s a leftist communist front (as we used to say)

Thirty Amazing Poetry Titles for Spring 2014

I love lists like this.

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Something happened in class yesterday that has been rattling around in my brain. The students were having difficulty connecting and maintaining poised relaxed energy. No doubt due to the impending finals and end of semester. Julie, the teacher, noticed this. She responded in several ways. One of them was to ask the students to think of one aspect of their technique and concentrate on it for the hour and half of dancing. She then asked each student what they had thought of. This is one of her techniques in which she will quiz every student in the room. Questions she has asked in the past of including “What did you have for breakfast?” and “What performance of an upcoming dance recital are you planning to attend?”  So the questions are not always that abstract.

After listening to the first student respond with “Risk taking” (!) I zoned out a bit. What would I answer if she included me? This was pretty easy for me. I was happily surprised by the section I had arrived at in David Byrne’s How Music Works. He describes his (and his bands) compositional process for their album, “Remain in Light.”

This includes one of my favorite Talking Heads tunes: “Once in a Lifetime.”

The way they did this album was to have members of the band lay down tracks of loops of music, a “repetitive groove that would last about four minutes presumably the length of a song.” One person would lay a track, others would listen and record one that fit with it. Byrne observes in a somewhat confused manner typical of the whole book that “Often in these songs there was no real key change.” By this I think he means chord changes. If you think about the song, “Once in a Lifetime” as a result of this process one can understand how it can be successful.

This looping interests me. It reminds me of the minimalist compositions that I admire (which is not necessarily a long list). So when Julie said to me, “So, Steven (she calls me that), what are you thinking about this class?” I responded I was thinking about how Talking Heads used a loop technique and wondering how to incorporate that idea into my improvisations for the day.

Julie looked around the class and asked them if they had heard of Talking Heads. Blank looks. I babbled about the movie, “Stop Making Sense.” Mentioned the goofy guy in an over size suit. More blank looks.

Julie looked at me and sweetly said, “You might as well be speaking Chinese.”

Having been so immersed in my own reading and thinking lately, this was a bit disorienting to me. To think that these students didn’t know about Talking Heads didn’t upset me, it just made me wonder what that was like.

It ironically reminded me of Byrne’s own lack of larger context for his thinking and music. He doesn’t seem to count much music that interests me (like Bach, Mozart and Schubert mentioned in yesterday’s blog).

When I was in my early teens, I remember looking around at church one Sunday morning in West Court Street Church of God, Flint, Michigan, where my father was the pastor. What were we doing when we came to church? I wondered innocently. How did it come about? Who first started doing it? Why did it start?

This was an intense breakout of curiosity that I remember distinctly.

It is this curiosity that continues to impel me. It’s basically why I am reading Diarmaid MacCulloch’s bio of Thomas Cranmer, the famous framer of the first Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

We all have limited vision and understanding, no matter who we are. But for me, one of the fun things of life is learning. Whether that’s how Talking Heads made a song I admire or how the young Sebastian Bach might possibly have been educated or how in the world Western Civilization moved from being essentially united by one faith to a place where faith is optional and the choices are many.

Incidentally I failed in my adapting loop technique to my improvs yesterday. Other musical ideas came out instead.

Laying in bed this morning and listening to the radio I wondered if I should change all my passwords. What a pain.

My days of having to be at an 8:30 AM ballet class are dwindling as the semester is coming to an end. Unfortunately, this morning is one of the remaining days.

I had some serious fun yesterday playing music. I spent an hour or so with my violinist friend. We played through Bach’s B minor Violin sonata and a Mozart sonata we have been playing. This music is incredible. It leaves me feeling whole and grateful. Amazing stuff.

Came home and played Schubert piano sonatas. Once again amazing and fulfilling. I am a lucky dude.

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1. Buddhadharma – Web Archive – Confessions of a Zen Novelist

I was reading this article yesterday. It reminded me of my boss who was sitting at the moment at a three day writing workshop dealy. When she told me she was going to attend this conference, I asked her if she had thoughts of writing as well as priesting. She said she did. So I emailed her this link. Written by Ruth Ozeki, it talks about her own writer’s block and becoming a zen priest. Here are some quotes I noted.

We are all the stories we tell ourselves. As the heroes of our own I-novels, we never stop conceiving and reconceiving ourselves and those around us. Ever since I learned to hold a pen­cil, I’ve written myself into being over and over again:

We can no more remove our­selves from language than we can stop breathing.

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2.Heard Around the World: An Open Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury

The writer of the letter is the Reverend Marcus Halley. He is speaking truth. As I was talking about this article to my wife I mentioned how when the Brits are “tepid” it can make me a little crazy even though I generally admire them

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3. A Problem With the Common Core – NYTimes.com

I love it that the writer of this article, an experienced teacher, recommends that people involved with deciding and implementing testing like commissioners of education and members of the Boards of Regents actually sit down and take the tests the students have to take. Then they will see how lame they are. Cool.

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4. Chiding an F.E.C. Colleague – NYTimes.com

Three FEC commissioners chide a fourth who recently wrote a stinging indictment of their partisan behavior. A blustering letter like this doesn’t convince me.

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5. Experts Find a Door Ajar in an Internet Security Method Thought Safe – NYTimes.com

What I’m talking about. Yuk.

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6. Poachers Attack Beloved Elders of California, Its Redwoods – NYTimes.com

They don’t take the whole tree. Just a knot referred to as a “burl.”

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7. Rounding Up Suspects, Pakistan Charges a Baby – NYTimes.com

What can I say?

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Eileen was disturbed yesterday (as was I) to discover that the dental insurance we purchased did not include our dentist in its covered network.

She spent several hours on the phone correcting this.

It involved talking to the insurance company, then convincing the Affordable Care Act network that we deserved an exception to allow us to switch to one that does.

By the end of this marathon she was exhausted but satisfied.

I am beginning to think that my burn out is ebbing a bit. This might be the result of both impending endings of ballet class and Holy Week and pacing myself with the work I have to do for Holy Week and the Organ project. I told the church secretary and my boss that I was pointing a psalm a day. This seemed to work for them. The secretary is responsible for assembling (reassembling) the programs for Holy Week. My boss is still making decisions about which readings will be included in the vigil. This will determine which psalms will be included. My pace is allowing her some extra time to make these decisions.

The people in my choir who are managing to keep their commitment during this time put in a good rehearsal last night. I told them that the church appreciates the long hours and work.  I have a small choir and several people have bailed on me for this the most important season of the church year. But those who remain will do a respectable job. I hope they feel appreciated.

I need to get moving on the Organ project. My boss gave me permission to post her newsletter article on Facebooger. She and I differ in our perception of how social media and web sites can function to help the church. She has offered to include me in this work for the church but I have consistently left it to others.  This means my criticisms must be a bit muted. Nevertheless I continue to try to tinker a bit with connecting people online.

Today I’m planning to email all four of the builders the organ committee has chosen to contact. I am planning to ask them for permission to make posters of instruments they have built and installed to display to the congregation. This will mean a bit of leg work for me, but it is easily done I think.

After my boss gives me dates she is available, another task I have is to attempt to arrange for an organ crawl for the committee. The purpose will be to hear small tracker organs similar to what we are thinking of putting in.

In the best of all possible worlds, these would be made by the four builders. Unfortunately their small instruments are not necessarily located in the mid west where we could drive to hear them. So we have decided to hear some small comparable instruments. Then seek out instruments made either by builders we want to pursue this with or maybe all four. We will see. That’s a later step.

In the meantime life goes on and I continue to spend many hours reading and practicing. Life is good.