AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Last fall, Adam posted a quotation from Pseudo-Dionysius’s Letter 6, “To Sosipater, Against Polemics” (did you find that by way of Prof. Rorem?); Maggi Dawn posted the same quotation (here, from the CCEL’s text version; the conversion of Pseudo-Dionysius’s Works seems not to have reached the “Letters” part of the volume):

LETTER VI. To Sopatros, Priest.

Do not imagine this a victory, holy Sopatros, to have denounced a devotion, or an opinion, which apparently is not good. For neither — even if you should have convicted it accurately — are the (teachings) of Sopatros consequently good. For it is possible, both that you and others, whilst occupied in many things that are false and apparent, should overlook the true, which is One and hidden. For neither, if anything is not red, is it therefore white, nor if something is not a horse, is it necessarily a man. But thus will you do, if you follow my advice, you will cease indeed to speak against others, but will so speak on behalf of truth, that every thing said is altogether unquestionable.

Well said, Denys.

This evening I finally handed in my last set of grades for the year, and put exams and papers in people’s mailboxes. It’s been a real burn-out year, and I have a ton of tasks pending for the summer — but this weekend we’ll steal away to Toronto, get recharged, and come back full of vigor to tackle the mandatory accomplishments for the summer.

Back when I taught at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Presbyterians were devoting a lot of energy to sexuality issues, in a way similar to the present tensions in the Episcopal Church. Numerous congregations and presbyteries summoned PTS faculty to address them about the problem, and often enough they had to settle for one “conservative” Presbyterian and one “liberal” Anglican (though there’s another post in me about “why I am not a liberal” — that’ll have to wait).

At these events, I went out of my way to stress a couple of points apart from the merits of the particular arguments we were about to represent. First, I pointed out that we were deliberating not simply about vote-counting in some local or regional or national judicatory; we were seeking God’s will for humanity, for which deliberative discernment we would be judged by the Truth. As such, pettiness and caviling must play no role in our colloquium. After all, Jesus warned that we who indulge in name-calling would be accounted as murderers! If my arguments hold (living) water, then my less receptive colleagues would be found to be setting stumbling-blocks before the little ones who believe in Jesus; and if my arguments miscarry, I (in turn) am found to be releasing one of the commandments that Jesus instructed us to teach and obey.

Second, I invited the congregation to ponder the significance of the unhappy burden of division that beset us. I hoped not to be commended by God at the cost of their condemnation, and I promised always to pray that we not be separated at the last day. I asked that they likewise pray for me, that my error be forgiven me on the basis of their intercession (should I, in fact, be found in error).

I’ve tried to stick with that path as long as I’ve been a small-scale public persona in this turmoil. If I’m wrong, I’m ready to be accounted least in the kingdom; and I pray, and I ask prayers, that the mercy that prevails over judgment will embrace both re-asserters and re-assessors.

A number of times over the past few months, Margaret has pointed out to me the value of blogs as ready-to-assign case studies for psychiatry textbooks. After all, the blogger is writing speaking as though on the couch; the material is out in the open, often covered by Creative Commons or fair-use copyright permission. And the examples you could find: grandiosity, paranoia, narcissism. . . . Sometimes it seems as though a blogger is decompensating right before your eyes.

Why dress up a textbook with “Patient Y” and “Client X” when you can just point readers to a URI?

At Trevor’s invitation (prodding), I signed up for eMusic’s “50-free-download” offer and I began to explore their offerings. Unfortunately, I find that most of the music in which I might be interested, I’ve already bought; and much of the rest doesn’t appear in their repertoire. I’ll probably fill out my Sleater-Kinney collection, and maybe download more Rainer Maria (in honor of Trevor, who gave me one of their disks) — but they don’t offer a complete enough selection to keep me interested once I use up my freebies.

Later: I’ve culled a couple of my favorite Baroque numbers by Henry VIII (not just because he instigated the English Reformation) — but songs for which I’ve been searching high and low in the reputable corners of the online music world (including Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold,” for heavne’s sake, but also Tom Robinson’s “1967 (Seems So Long Ago)” from the Secret Policeman’s Ball album, and various other test case albums and singles) just don’t show up.

Later still: Audioscrobbler thinks I’ll like Yo La Tengo, so I’ll test-drive eMusic with I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One.

Judging from the response I’ve gotten, people are eager that I get on with the early-church-history Lego series; well, so am I. As soon as I mop up my grading work, I’ll get back to it. Right nhow I’m thinking about ignatius, though the problem of building a Lego lion for the martyrdom scene challenges me. Maybe I’ll put a shark in the scene as a substitute, and hope that people will understand; or maybe I’ll just find a toy lion lying around and put that in the scene.

Anyway, this is a high priority for me — after grading and our honeymoonette in Accordion City.

Alex Ross’s article in the New Yorker (via Tom Coates) about the ways that sound reproduction technologies have affected listening, performance, and composition, makes points that support many of my arguments about technology and semiotics. I’m too spaced-out to track all the occasions I shouted “Yes!” while I was reading the article, but the whole essay treats sound not as a given, independent of the means by which it’s (re)produced, but as a contextual phenomenon. That seems just right to me, and I’m pleased that this sort of thinking is getting play in an uptown journal such as the New Yorker.

At the sametime, boing boing reports that David Byrne is surveying the same article. He adds (among other things) that the ubiquity of music now makes more evident that extent to which the meaning of a musical selection has contextual determination.

What then becomes valuable in many cases is what music means to people — beyond the actual recording. Part of this meaning is in the song (or whatever) — and not necessarily in the specific recording of it. What it expresses, how it moves people, the worldview and ethos it embodies. Many of these qualities can be in the composition and exist apart from the recording and interpretation of that composition. People like “The Rite Of Spring” but are not everyone is super fussy about which recording they are hearing. Well, some are, but you get my point.

The other part of what music means is embodied in the singer, the band or the composer. It’s not even in the music and can’t be recorded, at some of it can’t. For some of this music the actual musical and lyrical content is almost irrelevant. For some pieces of music what it’s about is the relationship, the connection to, the singer, with their style, attitude, behavior, beliefs and looks more so than with the music, which is more or less relegated in this case to being the soundtrack to the lifestyle and philosophy. At best the music and everything else surrounding it — the videos, the gossip, the reputation, present a common front, a gesamtkunstwerk type piece that embodies what matters to a person.

Most listeners — energetically encouraged by the recorded music industry — haven’t moved their expectations and assumptions from the world of music objects (records, tapes, CDs) to a world in which music constitutes one part o the information flux that surrounds us. Overall, though, I think that inertia, lobbying, and lawsuits can’t hold off this transition more than a very short interval. The sooner musicians and the rest of us move into our new habitat, the sooner we can figure out just how to reward creative expression without restricting access to (increasingly irrelevant) physical media for it. And the last on in’s stuck with a failed business model.

I ought to have figured this out by now — Margaret always shakes her head knowingly this time of year — but at the end of a school year, my whole life shakes to bits for a few days. I often come down with a bad cold; this year, as several other years, I’ve had back problems; my concentration span dwindles from “marginal” to “non-existent”; I get sleepy at about 8 PM; and in short, my body and spirit foreclose on the credit accounts by which I’ve been managing energy and accomplishment. And every year, I’m surprised.

I did grade a few papers today, and I took part in a meeting about church history instruction, but plenty of other tasks just fell by the wayside as I stared blankly into space.

Today was a wearying all-day faculty meeting, and I’m not inclined to comment even on the DRM implications of Apple-on-Intel computers. The positive news is that I finished uploading the Polycarp images, and Pippa wants to know what we’ll do next. Me, I’ll grade papers for a while — but then Ignatius and Justin Martyr and Irenaeus beckon, and then Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Margaret points out that we’ll have to order a whole passel of miters to depict the Council of Nicaea — but it would be worth it!

Today was a catch-up day for responding to email, and when I caught up with enough email for one day it was “make some headway on the Polycarp project” day, which is a lot more fun. If I still owe you an email, (a) your message may have gotten caught in one or another spam filter, or (b) I’ll get to you soon.

The Lego (R) Early Church History project is a blast; Pippa and I composed and shot our whole life-of-Polycarp sequence. The edited photos are online at Flickr; I’ll add captions and dialogue later. The arrest and martyrdom photos will go up soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow, though I have to buckle down and finish off some grading before Margaret and I head out on our anniversary trip.

Yes, we’re taking a honeymoon to celebrate our twenty-third anniversary, and Margaret’s first year of doctoral work. The twenty-third anniversary (this is a little-known fact) is the “Accordion Anniversary,” so we’re heading to Accordion City for a long weekend of hotel room, wifi, and. . . well, what else would we need? I guess we’ll go out for coffee and tea, but really? Anyway, I have to break the back of my spring-term grading before we leave, and I have another of Seabury’s trademark all-day faculty meetings tomorrow, so grading will probably edge out the arrest and death of St. Polycarp. That’ll come soon, though, I promise; this is too much fun to put off indefinitely.

Graduation happened; all my dear senior students successfully received their hoods and degrees, and although we faculty members had to stand up all the way through the honorary degree citations, Doctor of Ministry in Preaching degrees, Doctor of Ministry in Congregational Development, Masters of Divinity degrees, Masters of Theological Studies degrees, the Certificates of Advanced Theological Studies, Certificates of Studies, and probably a few miscellaneous special degrees — we survived, no one fell asleep on her or his feet. I didn’t get weepy till near the end.

Then I spent the afternoon yesterday scrambling to polish up a sermon for the Evensong (I’ll post it in the “extended” section). I’d had no more time to rehearse than you’d guess from my week, so I was a bit concerned that I’d drift off-key, lose my pitch, and generally ruin the annual big-deal service before the Choir Banquet. Luckily, none of those things happened, although early on I gave a false cue that confused choir and organ. Sadly, the service and sermon seem not to have been recorded (sorry, Jeneane); the choir was terrific!

Josiah gave a Senior Speech at the banquet, and he did admirably (if I do say so myself). The food was excellent, the wine was delicious, and we were utterly exhausted when we got home.
Continue reading “Summer”

Since I’ve evidently not had enough to do with my time, today has assigned me two whopping big events: Seabury’s graduation, and St. Luke’s Evensong and Choir Banquet. At the former, I merely stand around and get weepy as dear students graduate, but at the latter I’ll be leading the (sung) service and preaching. I’ll see if the sermon gets recorded as Sunday sermons usually do so that we can offer Jeneane a down payment on her wish.

Of course, before then I have to prepare to sing the service, and write the sermon. After graduation, before rehearsal at 4:30.

Oh, and Trevor’s here for graduation (yes that’s a hyperlink associated with Trevor’s name; he has blogged on each of the last two days).

I’ll post the sermon text, even if it’s not recorded; and if someone records it, I’ll link to that, too (it would be cool if you could hear the whole service, but I don’t think St. Luke’s will splurge for that much bandwidth).