I’m finding myself very tired today. Eileen has spent most of the day getting ready for visitors. We are expecting at least four of the Ann Arbor Jenkins clan tomorrow. For my part, I just went and did the grocery shopping. We still haven’t decorated our Christmas tree. Eileen and I agree, it’s quite nice without decorations, but we’ll probably throw a few ornaments on this evening.

I wanted to exercise and go to church and practice, but I’m actually so tired I’m a bit weak. So that’s not happening. Old guy stuff. I spoke to my daughter-in-law, Cynthia, on the phone yesterday. Also spoke briefly with my grand son, Nicholas.

I seem to have left my organ music at church. The pieces I am playing this weekend by Dandrieu mostly don’t have pedal parts, so I could practice them at home.

I just found the piece, “Chanson de Saint Jacques,” on IMSLP. Oops.

There it’s attributed to Pierre Dandrieu. That’s Petrus above. Dang priest. So was Vivaldi.  I have this same piece in a volume attributed to Jean-François Dandrieu.

This is Jean-François. He doesn’t seem to be a priest but he looks a little grumpy to me.

A little checking reveals that Pierre is the uncle of Jean-François.  There is a whole family of Dandrieus mentioned in Groves. Who knew?

It’s more fun music for Jupe. After blogging I will pull down the piece from the cloud and practice it on my fifty dollar synth harpsichord.

I started reading Edward Hirsch’s Poet’s Choice. I like the introduction he wrote very much. It helped me realize how important poetry has been to me in my life and how helpful i find it to spend time in the presences of good poems or at least ones I like. The chapters are articles he wrote when he worked for the Washington Post. They don’t always quote the full poem although  he promises at least one complete poem in every chapter.

This morning online, i found two of the poems that he mentions but doesn’t quote in full.

Here are links if you’re interested.

Our Bread by Cesar Vallejo

 The Black Heralds by Cesar Vallejo

A choir member gave me the Fall 2017 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly for Christmas.

I have been a fan of Lapham’s. He used to edit Harper’s magazine. This is a wonderful gift. Thank you, Nancy!