Gig, Gigere, Gigi, Gigatum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nYa1jc5u_s

It's gig season! I'm out the door in a few minutes to an RPO Phils rehearsal, followed by wrap-ups of our run-out shows later this week, and then a week of Holiday Pops, shows for two different brass quintets, Christmas Eve services, school concerts, and did I mention I played a Messiah in Buffalo? It's great, but I miss J and the baby, not to mention the other people (mostly brothers and sisters) who I'm not seeing as much as I'd like.

...continued after gigging...

There was finally a break! Yesterday we took James out to meet Uncle Lux for the first time (also meeting his Great-Grandparents Dudley) and had dinner with the Blessed Mother and Father. Here are some of the scatteratti going on in the Smith household:

-M Laine is becoming a more and more polished artist. I watched her yesterday add watercolor to exquisitely drawn greeting cards (done freehand, no less!) and marveled at her skill.

-I'm in the mood, at a very unlikely time, for a Great Clean. I want to clean my desk at school, my choir room, our whole house (except maybe the bathroom) and both of our cars. Whence comes this impulse? I ought to act on it before it passes, but I don't know when I'll have the time.

-This  is the most interesting political idea I've heard in quite some time. Perhaps some credit to Neil Postman is order, for pointing out the discrepancy?

-I'm under constant temptation to provoke my coworkers at LCS by using the term X-Mas instead of Christmas, just to see what they'll do. It really is convenient shorthand.

-I read Hofstadter's The American Political Tradition, which is probably the first American political book I've read since the Education of Henry Adams. It was excellent, especially the essays on the Founding Fathers, William Jennings Bryan, and Herbert Hoover.

-This site and this site have become daily pleasures.

-Many thanks to Pax, who filled in for me at CPC so I could play a Rutter Gloria with the RPO brass at a church in Greece.

-I gave a short devotional at LCS last Wednesday, to be published shortly...

Iliad IV

οἳ δ᾽ ὅτε δή ῥ᾽ ἐς χῶρον ἕνα ξυνιόντες ἵκοντο, σύν ῥ᾽ ἔβαλον ῥινούς, σὺν δ᾽ ἔγχεα καὶ μένε᾽ ἀνδρῶν
χαλκεοθωρήκων: ἀτὰρ ἀσπίδες ὀμφαλόεσσαι
ἔπληντ᾽ ἀλλήλῃσι, πολὺς δ᾽ ὀρυμαγδὸς ὀρώρει.
ἔνθα δ᾽ ἅμ᾽ οἰμωγή τε καὶ εὐχωλὴ πέλεν ἀνδρῶν
ὀλλύντων τε καὶ ὀλλυμένων, ῥέε δ᾽ αἵματι γαῖα. ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε χείμαρροι ποταμοὶ κατ᾽ ὄρεσφι ῥέοντες
ἐς μισγάγκειαν συμβάλλετον ὄβριμον ὕδωρ
κρουνῶν ἐκ μεγάλων κοίλης ἔντοσθε χαράδρης,
τῶν δέ τε τηλόσε δοῦπον ἐν οὔρεσιν ἔκλυε ποιμήν: ὣς τῶν μισγομένων γένετο ἰαχή τε πόνος τε.

 
And when then indeed they arrived coming together to the place, then they cast with hide-shields, and with lances and fury of the brass-cuirassed men. Yet the studded shields filled one another, and aroused much din. And thither at the same time lamentation and prayer moved the men destroying and being destroyed, and blood flowed upon the earth. And as when winter-swollen rivers flowing down the mountains to the glen basin where the heavy waters unite from their great sources within the torrent of a gorge, and their thunder in the heaven instructs the shepherd afar, thus came both the cry and toil of their meeting.

I subbed a half-day today for high school choir, a class M&Lux both take. Lux came down during the empty first block and we took turns reading aloud sections of Paradise Lost IX, coming through the part where Satan "like a black mist low creeping" inhabits the serpent. Currently reading more Iliad IV, Matt 25, Joshua 15, Livy, and Rabelais. J&I , who have done well in our resolutions to cleanliness and order, rewarded ourselves with Monopoly Streets, which we stayed up playing far too late into the night. J is officially in her second trimester, and I've begun to experience some paternal anxiety. Not on behalf of myself, of course, (though I am frightened I'll become the sort of single-minded person whose social interactions consist entirely of talking about his children...my parents did an exemplary job of protecting themselves and their children from this embarrassment) but for the tumbles and scrapes of the baby. Two nights ago Baby H fell in the bathtub, and chipped a tooth badly; her smile is awfully crooked now. It's a hard enough thing to hear about secondhand to your niece; how could I watch something like that happen to a son or daughter?

Home Sick

I am home today with M, who came first as a guest but is now acting as my nurse. I am laid low by a vicious cold, and plan to spend the rest of the day reading. I’m currently working through more of Paradise Lost, Matt 17, Joshua 6, Iliad 4, and Barnaby Rudge. (A book I’m tempted to call Barnaby Fudge, probably from Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter.) I am off teaching this week (hence M’s visit) but in the midst of Holy Week preparations at CPC. The Palm Sunday sermon passage was from Matthew 21,

“ Εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών
Ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεύς σου ἔρχεταί σοι
     πραῢς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὄνον
     καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου.

"Say to the daughter of Zion,'Behold, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
   and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'"

from which were elucidated the following points: That 1) Matthew was convinced Jesus was in fact riding two donkeys, and that 2) the donkey being a nursing mother, this was surely a sign of nonviolence. I often get the impression that liberal Christianity considers itself too well educated to get on with the Evangelicals. This sort of sermon would seem to show it is too illiterate. First, there is the whole muddle of failing to realize this is a quoted prophesy from Zechariah. Second, there is an utter ignorance of the poetic device of parallelism. Suggesting that this passage means two asses is like suggesting that Isaiah’s prophecy “for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” indicates two infants. The Old Testament poets are full of parallelism; they use it as the English poets use rhyme. It is, as C.S. Lewis remarked, a very happy chance that the Hebrew poets used a technique that would translate to all languages. Or at least, we might now remark, to all people who read language. The remaining absurdities, being mistakes in Greek, are a little easier to excuse; that kai translates as either “and” or “even,” thus easing the semantic burden of translating two donkeys; or at least two riding donkeys.

Other highlights from this week include B’s second bridal shower, wherein many boys and the Haydenbaby attended the cleanup. (Primarily eating)

-Officially agreeing to move to Washington Street. We will need a name for our new home once we leave St. Vivian’s…perhaps Washington Square?

-Attending a Westside Brass Quintet Recital and the RWC Wind Ensemble concert (in which J played.

From M. Laine

From the marriage of Darryl and Tom many children were born. Some of the children were very beautiful; others were terrifying monsters. They were called Smiths. They were six in number and of great size and strength; like men, only much grander. There was R. Dudlius, who ruled the library, Samuel Magus, master of carpentry, Pax, otherwise known as the guitarsmith; Calvus, the breadmaker, Lux, author and poet, and M. Laine, youngest and most powerful of them all.