Boldly venturing forth

This morning, a Sunday morning, a church choir morning, was also a bad weather morning - freezing rain. But we went to church anyway. We were pretty sure our driveway would be no problem because there was a couple of inches of snow on the road before it started to rain, and we know from past experience that that only makes it crunchy, not slick. We were right. And we figured that the main roads woud be treated. We were right again. We had no trouble with travel, going or coming back. However, the parking lot at the church was treacherous - but Ellen dropped me off right at the door. Peter Amidon was surprised to see us - some other choir members had opted not to come. So we were glad we came. There were eight of us all together. One of our anthems was I Am Sending You Light, as sung by Melanie DeMore. It is beautiful - go to YouTube and search "Sending You light with Melanie DeMore and Julie Wolf. It is quite touching. It was the Epiphany service, and quite lovely. I took with me to church this morning 10 sets of CDs about The Magnificat of J.S. Bach. Our contemplative prayer group which meets on Zoom Wednesday afternoon had spent a Wednesday in December talking about Mary's song when she greets her cousin Elizabeth - that song is the text of The Magnificat. I told them about a lecture I had given with Blanche Moyse on The Magnificat 32 years ago at the Brattleboro Music Center, and that I had a recording of it, and also recordings of rehearsals and performances of Bach's Magnificat in D Maj. They were interested and I promised them a packet of CDs, which I delivered today. There are 3 CDs in the packet - the lecture/presentation; a rehearsal led by Blanche in which she meticulously works with the Chorale on the opening chorus - especially the word "magnificat." And thirdly, a complete performance of Bach's Magnificat in D by the Chorale with the Orchestra of St. Luke's (based in NYC) recorded on October 8, 1989 at Marlboro, VT. It's a nice set, which I packaged using card stock. It took me most of the day yesterday to make the CDs - 30 in all - and the packaging for 10 sets. But I had spent time earlier setting it all up and printing stuff out. So that was satisfying! This afternoon we have just enjoyed being home by the fire! It was Ellen's turn to do the Spelling Bee on the phone, but I did it on paper. I read aloud from LeFevre's book on Kierkegaard. Ellen has fixed a delicious brunch and supper. She is also making acorn ornaments by felting wool and attaching the balls to acorn caps we have picked up from the acorn harvest of our many red oak trees. The felting involves wetting the wool, so they are drying by the fire. Later, we will watch Around the World in 80 Days and All Things Bright and Beautiful on PBS. A nice day!******************************************* But boy, the Omicron Variant is causing havoc. I have had a runny nose, so I did a self-test this morning - negative. The test kit was different from what we are used to; not as easy to use, in my estimation. The ones we had earlier were from CVS, bought online. The ones we are using now we got free from the Vt Dept of Health - BinaxNOW, made by Abbott Labs. I guess it will get easier as I get used to it, but the way they have designed putting the swab into the test fluid is badly done, I think. It's unnecessarily complicated. However, John tells me that this brand is particularly effective in testing for Omicron. So maybe it's worth the extra effort.

Binax COVID Test kits

Ellen's acorns drying by the fire

The front and back panels of the CD set

Singing in the choir this morning (taken from the video of the service on YouTube).

At the Ragle's

Last night was our monthly movie night with Tom and Nancy Ragle. It proved to be really interesting. We had suggested Zorba the Greek as a film, but it was unavailable. Tom and Nancy suggested Resurrection, which we were unacquainted with but said, "sure," but they could not find it - it wasn't in the case where it should have been. They gave us a stack of possibles to choose from, and I chose a 1942 film, Random Harvest, starring Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson. I knew nothing about it, but it proved to be really very gripping and unusual. The plot centered on a man who became an amnesiac in the war, and his origins could not be traced, so he starts a new life, and eventually falls in love and gets married. He exists in this life for three years, has a child, and then he is in an auto accident which involves a blow to the head and he becomes his former self, with no memory whatever of the three years. In his "new" former life, he becomes a titan of industry and his picture in the newspaper comes to the attention of his wife from the three-year period as an amnesiac. She tracks him down and becomes his secretary - hoping to restore his memory of her. I won't reveal the ultimate ending. It strained credulity a bit, but it was well acted - Greer Garson was especially good as the wife. I learned later that the Resurrection storyline is about a woman named Edna Mae Macaulay "who experiences the afterlife for a brief time after a car accident that kills her husband. Then as she begins her long process of physical healing, she discovers that she has the ability to heal physical infirmities. While most people simply accept her gift, her lover (Sam Shepard) becomes mentally unbalanced and dangerous because she does not place the healings within a religious context." That sounds intriguing too - though perhaps controversial. Maybe we'll see that next time (if the Ragles can find it!). Random Harvest had an unexpected side-story. One of the minor actors was Bramwell Fletcher. When I saw his name in the credits, it brought back memories. In the 1970's, Bramwell Fletcher came to Windham College with his portrayal of George Bernard Shaw (like Hal Holbrook used to "do" Mark Twain). Through him I became aware of his wife, Lael Wertenbaker, author of Death of a Man, in which she talks intimately about what was then a very controversial subject - assisting the death of her husband, Charles Wertenbaker, who was dying of cancer. Not long after reading her book, I taught a course at Windham titled Death and Dying. Lael Wertenbaker lived in Nelson, NH, and I contacted her and asked if I could bring my class to her home to meet her and discuss her book. (Sort of a gutsy thing to do!). She said "Yes," and we did. It was a very moving experience for all of us, I think. While we were at the Ragle's, we enjoyed some Christmas artifacts they hed found in Germany - a Nativity Tower that rotates from the heat of candles that rises and turns a fan, and a wonderful little skating pond where the skaters are moved by magnets from underneath. Delightful!

Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman

Poster for Resurrection

Lael Wertenbaker

Bramwell Fletcher

The skating pond

The Nativity tower

Staying low

I'm having a quiet day. Yesterday I went to the pool and was experiencing some lower back pain spasms. I hoped getting into the hot tub would help, and while it felt good in the hot tub, I still had the pain when I got out. Ibuprofen is helping today. I'll do some stretching exercises also - I've been down this road before. Today is very cold. It was just 47 degrees in the living room when we got up this morning, and probably about the same in the bedroom - it was cozy under the three blankets, but my nose was cold. Ellen had four blankets and was still cold! I've been reading about Søren Kierkegaard to Ellen aloud, from Perry LeFevre's The Prayers of Kierkegaard, which has a section of K's life and thought - I think I mentioned that in an earlier post titled Rediscovering Kierkegaard. It has been interesting, but I also realize that I am in a very different place than I was in 1954 when I first encountered him. One little example - Kierkegaard puts great emphasis on the individual self. "Standing alone before God," is a crucial concept for him. Every person, to have an authentic existence and authentic faith, must have a highly subjective relationship to God forged out of suffering, a profound sense of sin and guilt, despair and paradox. That hit me powerfully 76 years ago. Today, I am more aware of the reality of our interrelatedness with all creation, and the need to honor and embody that in our actual living. Emphasizing the individual self is part of the problem, insofar as it distracts us from that profound interrelatedness and causes us to put the human species ahead of all other species in importance. Kierkegaard had no awareness of that. His passion, his seriousness about how we live our lives, is still relevant, but it needs some re-interpretation and adaptation to new urgencies. What would it mean to be Kierkegaard today? If Perry Lefevre were still alive, he would be a good person to tackle that question.

Perry LeFevre's book

Perry D. Lefevre as a young man. This studio portrait was made 10 years before I had him as a teacher. He still looked very much like this when I first met him - just a bit more mature. He died in 2006. I last saw him in 1999 when I was at CTS as Pastor-in-Residence and I organized a little group to go to his home (and other retired profs nearby) to sing Christmas carols.

Fun at the Coffee Hour

This morning, the Guilford church service was again live-streamed, with worship leaders and a small choir at the church and the congregation at home. The preacher was "one of our own," Rev. Breismeister, whose family attends our church, while he has been serving a church in New Hampshire. He really "fills the pulpit," at 6' 8" and a voice to match! I had not heard him preach before; his was a stirring interpretation of the opening of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word," a fitting text for the New Year. We also had a return of the coffee hour - via Zoom of course - where we get to schmooze with our friends. Robin said I looked like Santa Claus and needed a red suit, and Ellen obliged by dressing me in red (a handy red plush blanket and a red scarf) - much to everyone's merriment!

Rev. Breismeister

The Phantom Carriage

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog post, we spent yesterday evening with John and Cynthia. It was actually a gift they gave us for Christmas - dinner at an Indian restaurant and a special movie experience at Episilon Spires - a 1921 silent movie, The Phantom Carriage, accompanied by a live sound track - someone playing the classic Estey Pipe Organ which is there - a holdover from the church. Episilon Spires is the name of the venue that was formerly First Baptist Church. The congregation dwindled to the point that it could not maintain the massive building it inhabited on Main Street, so they sold the building to an arts organization, Episilon Spires, and ES has done some extensive remodeling, though the sanctuary still looks very much the same. A very large screen now hangs in front of the organ pipes for the showing of a film. For a concert, I presume the screen is rolled up out of the way. The acoustics in that venue are very good - I have sung there many times both as a member of the Blanche Moyse Chorale and as a soloist. I believe that the First Baptist Church congregation still exists and now uses the Methodist Church as their place of worship. That church building also contains an Estey Pipe Organ, though a smaller one. Our dinner at the Masala Indian Resaurant was very nice. Ellen and I had eaten a late lunch with Max, Tamar and Mais, so we weren't very hungry, but we got Dal Mulligatawny Soup, and shared Naan bread and Vegetable Pakora, which came with chutney and mint sauce. They were delicious and not too much to eat. There were very few patrons and very spread out; both the hostess and the waitress were wearing masks - it felt very safe.

Indian artiacts at the restaurant

Some art work on the wall of the restaurant

This is where we sat for dinner - John is finishing up some paperwork on the bill.************************ After supper we went to Epsilon Spires, and again, very few people and very spread out. The organist, Jeff Rapsis, who goes all over the country doing these silent movie gigs, gave an introductory talk. This was his first time playing the Estey Organ here, and he loved it. He wants to come back. He did a magnificent job accompanying the film - which is an amazing art in itself. It entails improvising music and sound effects on the organ which appropriately express the actions, moods and emotions being depicted on the screen. Not easy to do! But he clearly is very experienced in doing it and is a master at it. The film itself was also very interesting. It is 100 years old exactly, having been released in Sweden on New Years Day, 1921. It had Swedish subtitles, with an English translation. It is highly regarded in the history of film, not only in Sweden, and Europe but world-wide. It is thought to have influenced many directors, including Ingmar Bergmann. Here is a Wiki article on it: "The Phantom Carriage (Swedish: Körkarlen, literally "The Wagoner") is a 1921 Swedish silent film directed by and starring Victor Sjöström, based on the 1912 novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! (Körkarlen) by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf. In the film, Sjöström plays a drunkard named David Holm who, on the night of New Year's Eve, is compelled by the ghostly driver of Death's carriage to reflect on his past mistakes. Alongside Sjöström, the film's cast includes Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg, and Astrid Holm. The Phantom Carriage was released in Scandinavia on New Year's Day 1921. The following year, Metro Pictures Corporation re-edited and released the film in the United States under the title The Stroke of Midnight; it was known as Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! in the United Kingdom. The Phantom Carriage is notable for its special effects, its innovative narrative structure with flashbacks within flashbacks, and for having been a major influence on the works of Ingmar Bergman. It has been characterized as belonging to several genres—it has been called a morality tale, a melodrama, a fantasy film, and a horror film. It is sometimes considered one of the first horror films due to its atmosphere and its impact on later entries in the genre. The film is generally considered to be one of the central works in the history of Swedish cinema." The character, David Holm, took on an unexpected contemporary relevance. One of the ways he shows contempt for society is by coughing on other people - he has consumption, and he says- "Why should I be the only one sick? Why shouldn't everyone be sick? I'm just as good as they are." This attitude ends up giving consumption to the young Salvation Army "sister" who is trying to help him and his family and save him. That fact drives the plot of the movie. The Salvation Army girl, however, has (inexplicably) fallen in love with him and on her death bed, she calls out for him determined to save him. David Holm, in today's terms, is an anti-vaccer and an anti-masker. But ultimately, the SA girl is successful and he repents. I think this film should be shown extensively in red states! It is a very dramatic film, and Jeff's organ-playing added a lot. It was a great experience. Thank you John and Cynthia!

Jeff Rapsis giving his introductory talk. We were sitting in the balcony, so we were looking down at him.

Jeff at the organ console

The set-up for showing the film, with organ console at lower right.

A scene from the film: David Holm, a drunkard, has died, and his "spirit" is seen rising up out of his body while "Death" looks on.

A publicity shot of Jeff, the organist, taken in Sioux City, Iowa.

New Year's Day with Max and Mais

We are in Northampton at the Feinlands. We have met Max's friend, Maison, (Mason) who is called "Mais" for short. We just went out for a late lunch - at a burger place downtown, and then a sweet at the Maymarket Cafe (Herrell's was closed). I feel too stuffed and we are meeting John and Cynthia for supper in less than two hours! Now we are back at the house filling in a bit of time before we go. back to Brattleboro.

Scenes at Haymarket Cafe. Mais is in the orange jacket.

Decorated tree

Katie and Savanna and Brendon came up yesterday for New Year's Eve afternoon tea, which turned into a light supper. We had a nice visit and Brendon drew with pastel crayons much of the time - very nice! Sorry not to get photos. We finally got some decorations on the tree - got a picture of that!

Our tree************************* After KS & B left for home, we watched the Amidon family (with Keith Murphy and Becky Tracy) annual New Years Eve concert on Zoom - they were live at the BMC with a small audience, but many more at home due to Omicron.

Amidons, Keith and Becky, Zara and Stephan. *************************
Happy New Year Everybody!!!