I was just given copies of the termination of my dental coverage policy, my health insurance policy, and contributions from the congregation to my pension. I don't even know what to say.
All I can think of is Genesis's 'Get 'Em Out By Friday' from their 1973 album, Foxtrot.
[Deleted the repeated photos... didn't remember having already put them up.]
One more chair and two boxes have left the office. Poco a poco.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
07 November 2011
05 June 2011
On my mind...
My theme song...
Todo pasa y todo queda
Pero lo nuestro es pasar
Pasar haciendo camino
Camino sobre la mar
Nunca perseguí la gloria
Ni dejar la memoria
De los hombres mi canción
Yo amo los mundos sutiles
Ingrávidos y gentiles
Como pompas de jabón
Me gusta verlos pintarse
De Sol y grana volar
Bajo el cielo azul temblar
Subitamente y quebrarse
Nunca perseguí la gloria
Caminante son tus huellas el camino y nada más
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Al andar, se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás
Se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar
Caminante no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar
Hace algun tiempo en ese lugar
Donde hoy los bosques se visten de espinos
Se oyó la voz de un poeta gritar:
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Murió el poeta lejos del hogar
Le cubre el polvo de un país vecino
Al alejarse le vieron llorar
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Cuando el jilguero no puede cantar
Cuando el poeta es un peregrino
Cuando de nada nos sirve rezar
Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso
Serrat Joan Manuel
27 February 2010
Stand by Me
Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies, played this video at Executive Council, dedicating it to Episcopal Relief and Development. It's a small world sometimes.
09 November 2009
Tonight's festivities in Berlin
I never thought this wall would come down in my lifetime as it went up four years after I was born.
Imagine....
Wir sind wir
Sung tonight at the ceremonies marking the fall of the Berlin Wall... here is the original track from 2004.
Twenty years later
Paul van Dyk feat. Johnny McDaid - We Are One
Category: Music
Paul van Dyk feat. Johnny McDaid - We Are One
Official anthem "20 Years Anniversary Fall Of The Berlin Wall"
Available November 10th on iTunes
Lyrics - We Are One
Born out of the dirt
Scattered and thrown into the world
Huddled together
One sun shines on us all
Our skin and bones add up to more
When we cling together.
We can be as one
No more barriers
Build a bridge with love
No more barriers
This time our time has come
No more barriers
We are one
One thought, one glorious thought
We are alive inside of a life
We’re in it together
We can be as one
No more barriers
Build a bridge with love
No more barriers
This time our time has come
No more barriers
We are one
We can overcome together
We can be as one together
We can overcome together
We can be as one together
24 October 2009
Saturday night
I don't have to write a sermon for tomorrow because the Most Rev'd Martín Barahona, Bishop of El Salvador and Archbishop of the Anglican Church of the Region of Central America will be at church, presiding and preaching. So in this life of leisure, here's what iTunes shuffles out for me.
Hildegard O Eccelesia, Emma Kirkby, Christopher Page, Gothic Voices, A Feather on the Breath of God
Mare Imbrium, Karl Jenkins, Imagined Oceans
Bound to Be, The Dream Academy, The Dream Academy
Wherever (Unde Quocumque), Richard Southern, Vision; The Music of Hildegard von Bingen
Pavement Cracks, Annie Lennox, Bare
Lamb of God, John Michael Talbot, The Ultimate Collection
Havana Viega, Willie and Lobo, Siete
La Source, Ira Stein, Twenty Years of Narada Piano
The Finer Things, Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life
Glass: String Quartet #3, Kronos Quartet, Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass
This is a fairly classical-oriented set with the exception of Drean Academy, Annie Lennox, Steve Winwood and Willie and Lobo. Of course yesterday, the shuffle put the Beatles and Vanilla Fudge's version of Eleanor Rigby back-to-back.
Hildegard O Eccelesia, Emma Kirkby, Christopher Page, Gothic Voices, A Feather on the Breath of God
Mare Imbrium, Karl Jenkins, Imagined Oceans
Bound to Be, The Dream Academy, The Dream Academy
Wherever (Unde Quocumque), Richard Southern, Vision; The Music of Hildegard von Bingen
Pavement Cracks, Annie Lennox, Bare
Lamb of God, John Michael Talbot, The Ultimate Collection
Havana Viega, Willie and Lobo, Siete
La Source, Ira Stein, Twenty Years of Narada Piano
The Finer Things, Steve Winwood, Back in the High Life
Glass: String Quartet #3, Kronos Quartet, Kronos Quartet Performs Philip Glass
This is a fairly classical-oriented set with the exception of Drean Academy, Annie Lennox, Steve Winwood and Willie and Lobo. Of course yesterday, the shuffle put the Beatles and Vanilla Fudge's version of Eleanor Rigby back-to-back.
18 October 2009
Proper 24B
Thank God for the disciples! Even they on the inner circle manage to come up with some questions that are doozies. Even they, who walked and talked with Jesus, manage to miss the point and ask questions that come out of their limited and all-together too human vantage point. Their questions make me feel a lot better for some of the ones I ask of God.
This section of the gospel of Mark includes Jesus’ trip with the disciples from Cæasarea Philippi in the north to Jerusalem in the south. During this trip, Jesus puts forth a crash course in discipleship and what it means to follow him. This teaching section is introduced by the healing of a blind man who finally sees ‘everything clearly,’ and ends with the second healing of another blind man who ‘regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.’ Two outsiders receive clear vision while repeatedly the core disciples demonstrate their obtuseness. Again and again, the inner group of Jesus fails to understand what Jesus says and does.
This morning’s gospel contains two sections: first, the request of James and John to figure prominently in the movement and Jesus’ reply and, second, the anger of the other disciples at the audaciousness of their request. We need to remember that James and John were up on top of the mountain with Jesus and saw him transfigured as well as seeing Elijah and Moses alongside him. Their audacity is not totally unfounded.
Apparently James and John didn’t get it when Jesus placed a child in their midst. Nor did they seem to understand when Jesus blessed a group of children (who, in that time, were considered non-entities at worst and convenient nuisances, like animals, at best). Nor did they understand Jesus’ stern teaching with the man in which he told him that he needed to let go of everything. And lastly, they clearly did not grasp at all Jesus’ predictions about the cross that laid ahead for all of them.
Despite the density of James and John, Jesus doesn’t rebuke them. Instead, he flips their question around and tells them they don’t know what they’re asking. It’s almost the same sort of questioning that God engages in when God finally starts peppering Job with questions: Were you there when the earth burst forth from its womb? Where you there when the heavens and seas were created? (Sort of: What do you really know about these matters?)
Here, Jesus asks them, Do you know what it means to take the cup that I will receive? Do you know what it means to be baptised with the same waters in which I have been baptised? Do you have a clue what this all means? What it means is that you will need to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, suffer and die to be born anew. If you are bathed in the waters of baptism and drink from the sometimes bitter cup, then you can find the glory of resurrection.
Jesus puts forth hard demands to live up to!
+
What does it mean to take the cup that Jesus takes and share the baptism that he has received? The words to hymn 695 [which the choir sang at the 10.00 HE] offer one glimpse, partial as it is, of what taking the cup from God means.
By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.
Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
give our frightened souls the sure salvation,
for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.
And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.
Yet when again in this same world you give us
the joy we had, the brightness of your Sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be yours alone.
F. Pratt Green adapted to hymnody this poem that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter addressed to his mother for her 70th birthday. The poem reflects on the turning of the years and on the end of one’s life. Bonhoeffer lived with the fear of death and, indeed, within a few months of writing this poem the Nazis executed him. He was hanged at age 39 in the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, one of four members of his immediate family to die at the hands of the Nazi regime for their participation in the small Protestant resistance movement that refused to accept the teachings of Aryanism.
What brought Bonhoeffer to death was his theologically rooted opposition to National Socialism. Along with Martin Niemueller and Karl Barth, in the Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer was a leader and outspoken advocate on behalf of the Jews. His efforts to help a group of Jews escape to Switzerland were what first led to his arrest and imprisonment in the spring 1943. (1)
Bonhoeffer’s willingness to take the cup of suffering—suffering that often didn’t make sense and certainly wasn’t merited or deserved—and to turn it to prayer is exemplary. While I object strongly to the notion that God doles out suffering to test us, I do believe that our choices and actions deeply affect our lives and those of others around us. Sometimes the cup of suffering is wrongly handed to us (as it was in the case of Job), sometimes we bring it upon ourselves, and sometimes it is our lot to figure out what to do with it. Regardless how the cup of suffering ends up in our hands—by our own doing or by the doings of others—we have to trust in God’s mercy and presence.
Somehow Bonhoeffer managed to remember God’s graciousness throughout his imprisonment. He held fast to God’s presence. His words echo those of an unknown Jew found in a Cologne, Germany cellar after the Allied Liberation:
I believe in the sun
even when it’s not shining,
I believe in love
even when feeling it not
I believe in God
even when He is silent.
Even on those days when we hold a bitter cup of suffering and it is hard to find God, we must remember that there is another cup that we hold. And that cup contains the Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. Every time we gather together for eucharist, we offer up to God our suffering and in return, God gives back to us hope, life and reconciliation. Communion enables us to take the bitter cup and not give up.
In addition, we have the laying on of hands. Today is the feast day of Saint Luke the Physician and Evangelist. The church prays today that it might continue in love and the power to heal. In recognition of the importance of Luke and the power of the laying on of hands, this morning you are invited to come forward after the announcements just before the offertory sentence bringing whatever concerns you might have and offering them to God and to receive laying on of hands as the outward sign of God’s grace working within you.
As Bonhoeffer wrote of God’s mercy, ‘We shall remember all the days we lived through, and our whole life shall then be yours alone’ … as it has always been.
END NOTES
(1) The Hymnal Companion, volume Three B, Raymond Glover, ed. (New York, NY: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994), 1299, and from www.dbonhoeffer.org.
About two dozen people came forward at both services for laying on of hands.
This section of the gospel of Mark includes Jesus’ trip with the disciples from Cæasarea Philippi in the north to Jerusalem in the south. During this trip, Jesus puts forth a crash course in discipleship and what it means to follow him. This teaching section is introduced by the healing of a blind man who finally sees ‘everything clearly,’ and ends with the second healing of another blind man who ‘regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.’ Two outsiders receive clear vision while repeatedly the core disciples demonstrate their obtuseness. Again and again, the inner group of Jesus fails to understand what Jesus says and does.
This morning’s gospel contains two sections: first, the request of James and John to figure prominently in the movement and Jesus’ reply and, second, the anger of the other disciples at the audaciousness of their request. We need to remember that James and John were up on top of the mountain with Jesus and saw him transfigured as well as seeing Elijah and Moses alongside him. Their audacity is not totally unfounded.
Apparently James and John didn’t get it when Jesus placed a child in their midst. Nor did they seem to understand when Jesus blessed a group of children (who, in that time, were considered non-entities at worst and convenient nuisances, like animals, at best). Nor did they understand Jesus’ stern teaching with the man in which he told him that he needed to let go of everything. And lastly, they clearly did not grasp at all Jesus’ predictions about the cross that laid ahead for all of them.
Despite the density of James and John, Jesus doesn’t rebuke them. Instead, he flips their question around and tells them they don’t know what they’re asking. It’s almost the same sort of questioning that God engages in when God finally starts peppering Job with questions: Were you there when the earth burst forth from its womb? Where you there when the heavens and seas were created? (Sort of: What do you really know about these matters?)
Here, Jesus asks them, Do you know what it means to take the cup that I will receive? Do you know what it means to be baptised with the same waters in which I have been baptised? Do you have a clue what this all means? What it means is that you will need to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, suffer and die to be born anew. If you are bathed in the waters of baptism and drink from the sometimes bitter cup, then you can find the glory of resurrection.
Jesus puts forth hard demands to live up to!
+
What does it mean to take the cup that Jesus takes and share the baptism that he has received? The words to hymn 695 [which the choir sang at the 10.00 HE] offer one glimpse, partial as it is, of what taking the cup from God means.
By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.
Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
give our frightened souls the sure salvation,
for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.
And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
with bitter suffering, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling,
out of so good and so beloved a hand.
Yet when again in this same world you give us
the joy we had, the brightness of your Sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through,
and our whole life shall then be yours alone.
F. Pratt Green adapted to hymnody this poem that Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter addressed to his mother for her 70th birthday. The poem reflects on the turning of the years and on the end of one’s life. Bonhoeffer lived with the fear of death and, indeed, within a few months of writing this poem the Nazis executed him. He was hanged at age 39 in the concentration camp at Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, one of four members of his immediate family to die at the hands of the Nazi regime for their participation in the small Protestant resistance movement that refused to accept the teachings of Aryanism.
What brought Bonhoeffer to death was his theologically rooted opposition to National Socialism. Along with Martin Niemueller and Karl Barth, in the Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer was a leader and outspoken advocate on behalf of the Jews. His efforts to help a group of Jews escape to Switzerland were what first led to his arrest and imprisonment in the spring 1943. (1)
Bonhoeffer’s willingness to take the cup of suffering—suffering that often didn’t make sense and certainly wasn’t merited or deserved—and to turn it to prayer is exemplary. While I object strongly to the notion that God doles out suffering to test us, I do believe that our choices and actions deeply affect our lives and those of others around us. Sometimes the cup of suffering is wrongly handed to us (as it was in the case of Job), sometimes we bring it upon ourselves, and sometimes it is our lot to figure out what to do with it. Regardless how the cup of suffering ends up in our hands—by our own doing or by the doings of others—we have to trust in God’s mercy and presence.
Somehow Bonhoeffer managed to remember God’s graciousness throughout his imprisonment. He held fast to God’s presence. His words echo those of an unknown Jew found in a Cologne, Germany cellar after the Allied Liberation:
I believe in the sun
even when it’s not shining,
I believe in love
even when feeling it not
I believe in God
even when He is silent.
Even on those days when we hold a bitter cup of suffering and it is hard to find God, we must remember that there is another cup that we hold. And that cup contains the Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. Every time we gather together for eucharist, we offer up to God our suffering and in return, God gives back to us hope, life and reconciliation. Communion enables us to take the bitter cup and not give up.
In addition, we have the laying on of hands. Today is the feast day of Saint Luke the Physician and Evangelist. The church prays today that it might continue in love and the power to heal. In recognition of the importance of Luke and the power of the laying on of hands, this morning you are invited to come forward after the announcements just before the offertory sentence bringing whatever concerns you might have and offering them to God and to receive laying on of hands as the outward sign of God’s grace working within you.
As Bonhoeffer wrote of God’s mercy, ‘We shall remember all the days we lived through, and our whole life shall then be yours alone’ … as it has always been.
END NOTES
(1) The Hymnal Companion, volume Three B, Raymond Glover, ed. (New York, NY: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994), 1299, and from www.dbonhoeffer.org.
About two dozen people came forward at both services for laying on of hands.
10 October 2009
Watch out
A woman armed with a thurible can be dangerous.
In fact, I am censing the newly blessed antiphonal division in the gallery at Evensong last night at which we rededicated the rebuilt organ (Vermont's largest Skinner) and dedicated the new division.
The travel gods cooperated and I got back from Memphis (despite warnings of thunderstorms and tornadoes) in time to officiate at evensong.
The organ project took at least five years and, at that, it still will require constant monitoring since the larger the instrument, the more delicate it can be.
Nonetheless, it is worth all the trouble. Tomorrow we will have an inaugural recital.
22 August 2009
29 July 2009
Who are these like stars appearing?
Who are these like stars appearing, these, before God's throne who stand?
Each a golden crown is wearing: who are all this glorious band?
Alleluia! hark, they sing, praising loud their heavenly King.
Who are these of dazzling brightness, these in God's own truth arrayed,
clad in robes of purest whiteness, robes whose luster ne'er shall fade,
ne'er be touched by time's rude hand? Whence comes all this glorious band?
These are they who have contended for their Savior's honor long,
wrestling on till life was ended, following not the sinful throng;
these, who well the fight sustained, triumph by the Lamb have gained.
These are they whose hearts were riven, sore with woe and anguish tried,
who in prayer full oft have striven with the God they glorified;
now, their painful conflict o'er, God has bid them weep no more.
These, like priests, have watched and waited, offering up to Christ their will,
soul and body consecrated, day and night they serve him still.
Now in God's most holy place, blest they stand before his face.
Words: Theobald Heinrich Schenck (1656-1727), trans. Frances Elizabeth Cox (1812-1897)
Music: Zeuch mich, zeuch mich
+
Soon, soon, there will be another star in heaven. Esther is not dead yet but her time is coming soon. I said goodbye to her tonight. Next time I see her will be when I am dead and gone.
May God receive her even as they work out the timing of her crossing over. Soon, soon, she will be one of those stars in the Milky Way, a bright light in death and resurrection as much as in life.
Go with God, dear Esther, be at peace.
20 January 2009
Freebie Song for Inauguration Day
Go here (Opra's site) to get this free download of 'America's Song' with Faith Hill, Mary Blige, Bono and Seal. The offer is good until 5.00 EST tonight.
18 January 2009
I never thought I'd hear...
The Rolling Stones, Brucie Springstein, Aretha Franklin, Bono, U2, and so forth on National Public Radio. But there they are as NPR broadcasts the 'We are ONE' concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
This concert takes me back to the other big concerts of the 1980s — the benefit concert for Africa in 1985, the concert later on for farmers... this is the same large-scale concert.
They skipped Gene Robinson's invocation. Well, c'mon. Why didn't they broadcast it? Fie. But this photo says he was there and here is his prayer:
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009
Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.
Gene wrote on his blog: I have received a lot of critical email since announcing that my prayer would not be overtly or aggressively Christian, as most of the inaugural prayers of the last 30 years have been. My plan is to address this prayer to the "God of our many understandings," acknowledging that no one Christian denomination nor no one faith tradition knows all there is to know about God. Each of us is privy to a piece of God, as experienced in our faith tradition. My hope is to pray a prayer that ALL people of faith can join me in.
And let the people say AMEN.
+
Isn't this the US's big block party? We are finally coming out from under the cloud of the past eight years and I am ready to party (and then keep on working)!
28 October 2008
Post exit interview shuffle
I am back from my exit interview with a canon for ministry development, senior and junior wardens, and another parishioner who has a lot of history to offer. I am too spent to enter anything of interest or depth so a shuffle will have to suffice.
Dougie Maclean • Eternally You
Kostia • Sunrise
Willie y Lobo • Plight of the Whale
Eddie Money • I want to go back
Holberg • Suite, Prelude
The Doors • Hello, I love you
Rod Stewart • I know I am losing you
Uakti • Purus River
Genesis • The Knife
The Jets • Crush on you
The set starts out mellow enough — I cannot figure out the Maclean lyrics but it's a nice song. Kostia is a piano/new age piece. Willie and Lobo is always kind of funky mellow. But then Eddie Money pops in, interrupting things before going to the Holberg Suite, a chamber piece I love — my father and I heard it performed at Wigmore Hall, London way back in 1978. Rod Stewart and the Doors need no words. The Uakti is a John Cage-y Amazonian piece with flute, drums and piano. Then back to the 1970s with a Genesis classic from Trespass... then the set finishes off in 1986. It's eclectic enough for the end of the day, on a night when we are expecting 1-3 inches of snow!
11 September 2008
Seven years later
In lieu of participating in what undoubtedly will be a jingoistic, rah-rah USA memorial service down on the town commons, I prefer to sit quietly, watch the setting sun (something I will no longer be able to do once I move), and think.
I grabbed this photo off the New York Times website. It's of the 'Towers of Light' as engineers tested the beams last week (night? — I need to go back to the article). In March 2002, the blue light beams shone every night for a month. It's a gentle memorial, epherial and simple... sort of along the lines of John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, composed in 2002 and finally recorded in 2004. [Saint Paul's Chapel is located at the bottom left of the photo; the World Financial Center is to the right, and beyond it, the Hudson.]
The twenty-five minute piece, described by Adams as a 'memory space,' 'superimposed pre-recorded street sounds and the reading of victims' names by friends and family, also pre-recorded, on live performances by a children's chorus, an adult chorus, and a large orchestra.'
'Although the opening of the piece sounds like a sound collage, Adams does not mingle noises, words, and tones randomly. He sets them in a careful, therapeutic course from the secular to the sacred, leading to a vision of redemption when the sonic chaos converges to form a vast carillon. First we hear only street sounds, as if the walls of the concert hall had been blown away. In place of Adams's usual percussive groove a taped boy's voice repeats the word, "missing," a verbal heartbeat that gives the unformed sound of cars and footsteps a rhythmic undertow. The chorus (at first wordless), strings and harps enter, playing slowly rocking lines that sound like a medieval chant. Are we in the street, a concert hall, or a cathedral? The choral syllables slowly become stammered words and phrases: "re-mem... re-mem... re-member," "you will... you will... you never...." Noises, words, prayers for ten minutes the music seems to drift uncertainly and in fragments on memories of Ives's The Unanswered Question, in which a distant trumpet poses the enternal question of existence. Over undulating ripples in the woodwinds the children's chorus picks up the gentle rocking lines of the opening with new words that are at once journalism and incantation: "I see water and buildings." Without warning the orchestra blasts a sustained chord of anguish, announcing a move to the next level of contemplation. The music becomes simpler. The two choruses repeat the words, now in full sentences of fathers, mothers, sisters ('The daughter says, "He was the apple of my father's eye'"), intensifying at the lines "I wanted to dig him out. I know just where he is."
'The orchestra again erupts, this time in mounting waves that lead to the long-awaited answer to the question posed by Ives: their voices transformed, transmigration, into human chimes, the choruses sing out the words "Love" and "Light" over and over, fortissimo. Very gradually the music subsides to the sound-on-sound texture of the opening, but with a new feeling of calm. Orchestra and choruses fade out; a recorded woman's voice, in an unidentified accent, repeats the words "I see water and buildings." The street sounds return us to our everyday lives.'
[from the liner notes by David Schiff and first published in the April 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.]
This is the visitor's pass I received when participants in the ninth class of the Clergy Leadership Project went to NYC and visited Trinity Wall Street's senior warden who was CEO of Fiduciary Trust, located on the 94th and 95th floors of WTC 2. The view from up there was amazing. I didn't take my camera to the city that day so have no record other than this pass. Many people from that office died seven years ago today.
But there are other 11 Septembers out there and we shouldn't forget them. Consider Chile's 11 September 1973, when the Allende government was overthrown by the Chilean military, a coup that our government helped. Charles Horman and another US citizen were rounded up after the coup because they knew too much. So as we remember our own, let us not forget the others.
PRI's The World had a good interview with a woman who was hidden just after the overthrow in September 1973. It's worth listening to.
I grabbed this photo off the New York Times website. It's of the 'Towers of Light' as engineers tested the beams last week (night? — I need to go back to the article). In March 2002, the blue light beams shone every night for a month. It's a gentle memorial, epherial and simple... sort of along the lines of John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, composed in 2002 and finally recorded in 2004. [Saint Paul's Chapel is located at the bottom left of the photo; the World Financial Center is to the right, and beyond it, the Hudson.]
The twenty-five minute piece, described by Adams as a 'memory space,' 'superimposed pre-recorded street sounds and the reading of victims' names by friends and family, also pre-recorded, on live performances by a children's chorus, an adult chorus, and a large orchestra.'
'Although the opening of the piece sounds like a sound collage, Adams does not mingle noises, words, and tones randomly. He sets them in a careful, therapeutic course from the secular to the sacred, leading to a vision of redemption when the sonic chaos converges to form a vast carillon. First we hear only street sounds, as if the walls of the concert hall had been blown away. In place of Adams's usual percussive groove a taped boy's voice repeats the word, "missing," a verbal heartbeat that gives the unformed sound of cars and footsteps a rhythmic undertow. The chorus (at first wordless), strings and harps enter, playing slowly rocking lines that sound like a medieval chant. Are we in the street, a concert hall, or a cathedral? The choral syllables slowly become stammered words and phrases: "re-mem... re-mem... re-member," "you will... you will... you never...." Noises, words, prayers for ten minutes the music seems to drift uncertainly and in fragments on memories of Ives's The Unanswered Question, in which a distant trumpet poses the enternal question of existence. Over undulating ripples in the woodwinds the children's chorus picks up the gentle rocking lines of the opening with new words that are at once journalism and incantation: "I see water and buildings." Without warning the orchestra blasts a sustained chord of anguish, announcing a move to the next level of contemplation. The music becomes simpler. The two choruses repeat the words, now in full sentences of fathers, mothers, sisters ('The daughter says, "He was the apple of my father's eye'"), intensifying at the lines "I wanted to dig him out. I know just where he is."
'The orchestra again erupts, this time in mounting waves that lead to the long-awaited answer to the question posed by Ives: their voices transformed, transmigration, into human chimes, the choruses sing out the words "Love" and "Light" over and over, fortissimo. Very gradually the music subsides to the sound-on-sound texture of the opening, but with a new feeling of calm. Orchestra and choruses fade out; a recorded woman's voice, in an unidentified accent, repeats the words "I see water and buildings." The street sounds return us to our everyday lives.'
[from the liner notes by David Schiff and first published in the April 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.]
This is the visitor's pass I received when participants in the ninth class of the Clergy Leadership Project went to NYC and visited Trinity Wall Street's senior warden who was CEO of Fiduciary Trust, located on the 94th and 95th floors of WTC 2. The view from up there was amazing. I didn't take my camera to the city that day so have no record other than this pass. Many people from that office died seven years ago today.
But there are other 11 Septembers out there and we shouldn't forget them. Consider Chile's 11 September 1973, when the Allende government was overthrown by the Chilean military, a coup that our government helped. Charles Horman and another US citizen were rounded up after the coup because they knew too much. So as we remember our own, let us not forget the others.
PRI's The World had a good interview with a woman who was hidden just after the overthrow in September 1973. It's worth listening to.
30 August 2008
African Children's Choir
Last night at our cathedral in Burlington, the African Children's Choir performed. It's pretty amazing to see a bunch of 7-10 year olds from Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa all together. They are incredibly energetic, dancing while they sing. The four young drummers did a fabulous job and the children uniformly smiled and smiled.
Compa took these photos with a super-duper lens (I can't remember what it is other than it is so big that one attaches the lens, not the camera, to the tripod and swivels the camera to get vertical or horizontal shots). She took this from a good distance.
These kids are seasoned performers: even though there was a false fire alarm*, they kept on singing and dancing as the raucous and rather obnoxious fire alarm bleated, even as the fire trucks arrived. And even though they had to stop mid number so we could all evacuate the building until the firefighters were sure all was OK, when we all streamed back in, they picked up right where they left off. That was worth a standing ovation right there.
*We tend to be a bit sensitive about our cathedral and fire since someone torched the first one in 1973 (along with the Roman Catholic cathedral up the street). A lovely Gothic building burned to the ground and in its place (not in the same location) a concrete building in the style of architectural brutalism was built. It would be harder for this one to go up in smoke but we're not tempting fate.
Compa took these photos with a super-duper lens (I can't remember what it is other than it is so big that one attaches the lens, not the camera, to the tripod and swivels the camera to get vertical or horizontal shots). She took this from a good distance.
These kids are seasoned performers: even though there was a false fire alarm*, they kept on singing and dancing as the raucous and rather obnoxious fire alarm bleated, even as the fire trucks arrived. And even though they had to stop mid number so we could all evacuate the building until the firefighters were sure all was OK, when we all streamed back in, they picked up right where they left off. That was worth a standing ovation right there.
*We tend to be a bit sensitive about our cathedral and fire since someone torched the first one in 1973 (along with the Roman Catholic cathedral up the street). A lovely Gothic building burned to the ground and in its place (not in the same location) a concrete building in the style of architectural brutalism was built. It would be harder for this one to go up in smoke but we're not tempting fate.
10 August 2008
Sunday night shuffle
... because I am so brain dead (and that has nothing to do with Fran's visit!)
Hasta siempre Che • Corrido de Che
Krishna Das • Kalabinashini Kali
The Beatles • Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
George Michael • Flawless
Pet Shop Boys • Email
Mr Mister • Broken Wings
Simon and Garfunkle • Mrs Robinson
Diego Torres • Deja de pedir perdón
Alain Souchon • On avance
Mox • Twirl
What an odd lot tonight. There's a fair amount of foreign language in this mix.
The Corrido de Che is from a FMLN disk I bought during sabbatical in El Salvador. To go from that to Krishna Das is a bit odd but this particular piece moves along.
And Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band... oh, is tha† ancient!
George Michael and the Pet Shop Boys are sort of the pop contingent, the dance stuff that borders on techno.
Then we wind back the years to Simon and Garfunkle, ano†her classic.
Then lest we get too complacent, we whip to Diego Torres and Alain Souchon (the latter is a funny French singer from the early 80s).
Finally, a piece by Mox. As far as I know they only did one album, Mox. Great music. Right now I can't remember which luminaries from other bands are in the group. ¿Padre?
01 August 2008
Friday afternoon shuffle
I have been a total slug today with a hand that looks more and more like the boa constrictor in Le Petit Prince. So here is what's up on the play list.
Barber: Agnus Dei (Based On Adagio For Strings) • Robert Shaw Singers
Dorothy Masuka • Ngotsotsi
Jiggle the Handle • Walking Backwards
Michael Jones • Wind and Whispers
Giordano Morel • Cuanto Daria
Jon Mark • The Greenwood, The Briar And The Rose
Uakti • Xingu River
Simple Minds • Sanctify Yourself
Bobby McFerron • Discipline
Backstreet Boys • All I have to give
What a bizarre collection. The Barber is amazing simply for the soprano descant that takes a lone voice into the stratosphere (must be a 'B' or 'C'). Masuka is off one of the Simply World disks and not something I have really gotten to know yet. Jiggle the Handle came off a collection my nephew made for me and I have never been able to find it; I think it's a local Denver band. Michael Jones is one of those New Age pianists who has been plinking the keys for over 20 years. Throw in a bachata song to break up one New Age from the next, Jon Mark. The Mark songs are disks that came out in the late 1980s and I can remember listening to them as I worked for interlibrary loans at Firestone library at Princeton. We weren't supposed to listen to Walkmen as we worked but I had to spend all afternoon trundling a bookcart around the library collecting books and figured I was far away from my boss to do so. The Jakti is a combo classical guitar with South American instrumentation. Simple Minds — speaks for itself, some mid 1980s music. Wind things down with some Bobby McFerron and then finally liven things up with Backstreet Boys (Naomi was floored when she learned that I listened to them).
25 July 2008
Friday cat blogging
This set features Young Guy who has been the goof this week.
I heard some wild scrabbling and looked into the sitting room and YG had once again climbed up the heating pipe to get on top of the six foot bookcase there.
Once upon a time I had put aluminum foil on the pipe thinking it would discourage him but he just pulled it all down. If I could find sisal, I would wrap the pipe in it. One way or the other, I am going to have to recover that pipe and the one in the back hall that he has destroyed. I hate to think that it is all asbestos.
The next night I thought surely he was going to jump from the study bookcase on top of the door but he didn't.
Wednesday night I made the mistake of putting my clean laundry basket on the kitchen chair and he discovered it was a great place to settle in.
Last night we were having dinner (in the dining room with shut doors) and we heard this definite clack, clack. I knew it didn't sound like the kitchen cabinet doors that Young Guy and Orange Guy work at so they can tip over the garbage can. Then I knew! They were trying to lift the lid to the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine. Sure enough, I went into the kitchen and saw how it had been moved along the counter (why it didn't fall on the floor...!). So I put it down so they could all go at it. What had them so interested? Chicken.
+
Isn't this more restorative than reading about how rumblings of an Anglican Faith and Order Commission? If those bishops create such a creature, I'm otta here.
Meanwhile, I listen to some good Salvadoran cumbia music to wind down the day.
I heard some wild scrabbling and looked into the sitting room and YG had once again climbed up the heating pipe to get on top of the six foot bookcase there.
Once upon a time I had put aluminum foil on the pipe thinking it would discourage him but he just pulled it all down. If I could find sisal, I would wrap the pipe in it. One way or the other, I am going to have to recover that pipe and the one in the back hall that he has destroyed. I hate to think that it is all asbestos.
The next night I thought surely he was going to jump from the study bookcase on top of the door but he didn't.
Wednesday night I made the mistake of putting my clean laundry basket on the kitchen chair and he discovered it was a great place to settle in.
Last night we were having dinner (in the dining room with shut doors) and we heard this definite clack, clack. I knew it didn't sound like the kitchen cabinet doors that Young Guy and Orange Guy work at so they can tip over the garbage can. Then I knew! They were trying to lift the lid to the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine. Sure enough, I went into the kitchen and saw how it had been moved along the counter (why it didn't fall on the floor...!). So I put it down so they could all go at it. What had them so interested? Chicken.
+
Isn't this more restorative than reading about how rumblings of an Anglican Faith and Order Commission? If those bishops create such a creature, I'm otta here.
Meanwhile, I listen to some good Salvadoran cumbia music to wind down the day.
19 July 2008
Saturday night shuffle....
Otherwise known as sermon procrastination...
Paul Winter • Whole Earth Chant
Annie Lennox • O God
Holberg • Suite, No. 1
Santana • Black Magic Woman/ Gypsy Queen
Rey Ruiz • Mega Ruiz Mix (Extended Version)
Limahl • Never Ending Story
Tinawiren • Eh Massina Sintadoben
Kostia • Sunrise
Brahms • Tragic Overture III: Adagio non troppo
Carlos Nuñez • El Viaje (Mar Adentro)
Actually, this is a pretty good set.
That's an old Paul Winter song but his soprano sax always soars over everything.
Annie Lennox's O God is one of the most heart-breaking and honest expressions of a totally messed-up life.
I first heard the Holberg Suite at Wigmore Hall in London in 1979 at a Sunday morning concert with my father. At the interval (intermission), we had sherry. Oh so, proper, but given that the concert began at 11.00, one would have had to go to church at 8.00, which in those days I was not into doing.
I laugh about the Santana song because it has to be one of my mother's favourites. I am never really sure if she knows what the lyrics are about.
The Rey Ruiz is a bachata mix, off one of my bootlegs.
The Never Ending Story always takes me back to a hot, steamy, muggy summer in Princeton, NJ during my doctoral days when I would live in the library during the day, go swim at the community pool around 5.00 and then go back to the library before returning to my hot, hot room late at night.
Tinariwen's music is a wonderful mix of guitar, blues, exotic and rhythmic songs that really defies categorisation.
Kostia's Sunrise comes off a Narada label collection of piano music, new age-y but still decent.
Brahms is Brahms, no? But the first version of this overture I bought in Hong Kong 25 years ago so I could try out my brand new Walkman (remember those?).
Finally, Carlos Nuñez plays the Spanish version of Celtic bagpipes. When you get to Santiago de Compostela, you see all sorts of Celtic designs and can buy DVDs of Celtic music. It's fascinating. Nuñez combines traditional and modern music; this piece comes off his collection of movie music that he transforms with his bagpipes.
Isn't this much more fun that writing a sermon?!
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