Happy St. Cecilia Day, everyone!

This time of year, fully 4/5 of the visitors to this site are people in search of info on St. Cecilia. I thank all of you for the "hits", and apologize for the lack of info on my favorite saint.

When I started tracking visits last year, I was mortified as my initial 14-16 visitors a day dropped to 6-8 per day. What the heck was I doing wrong? Well, duh - the drop came after November. The count started to rise again gradually around July or so - but it took me until last month before I finally got it.

Watch this space over the coming year - there will be some new St. Cecilia articles, and a St. Cecilia sidebar with links and pics. Thanks again to all of you who love her as I do. Think of her as you sing at mass tomorrow.

Learn to play the piano by ear / organ by ear black gospel style - Learngospelmusic.com

This should help on MY new gig...

Quote of the day

You know the world's gone mad when the best rapper is white, the best golfer is black, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's cup, France is accusing the USA of arrogance and the Germans don't want to go to war. - anon.

An Ethical Spotlight on Unauthorized Copying if Liturgical Music within the Catholic Church. M. Hettinger 2000

Found my pal Maggie's paper on the net while looking for something else. It's a retelling and ethical analysis of the famous FEL vs. Archdiocese of Chicago case, where it was ruled that churches may not photocopy liturgical pieces without authorization.

Great paper, interesting read. Highly recommended.

Here We Go, Here We Go

I have a new church music home - St. Elizabeth's, on Detroit's near east side. More burned out houses than intact ones, and it seems a bit of a seeker parish, if you will - many of the familiar parts of the mass aren't so familiar, and there are a lot of extra spots where we add some gospel music. But it is vibrant, heartfelt worship. And some seriously soulful gospel singing.

I got to sit in this past Sunday. No rehearsals, no charts, only two songs I knew - Burleigh's "Order My Steps", and Malotte's Lord's Prayer. I was on organ, a Hammond A-100 with TWO Leslies. I mostly just followed the pianist. There was a drummer, too, and a bassist/guitarist. When he wasn't playing bass, I kicked bass on the A-100.

Really loose, but some serious worshiping going on. We had satarted out talking about having me come in as the principal accompanist, but the pianist and I jelled real well, so I'm going to ask if I can be her backup - she's better on piano anyhow, and has a voice like an angel. Plus she knows the repertoire. I need some money, due to a big day-job shakeup, but I can get by without the full salary for now. Their biggest (stated) fear was that the current accompanist would up and leave (for stardom - she's THAT good!), and they'd be left with no one. But having me in the wings may actually be better for them than having me take over. Especially cos I got a lot to learn about gospel yet...

Changes in mass are coming for Catholics

Should be interesting! I expect a lot of resistance to the stand-until-everyone-is-served mandate. I expect there will even be priests who never even inform their parishes.

Stay tuned!

Yahoo! News - Bush Signs Anti-Abortion Bill, to Fight in Court

Here we go, here we go...

The Dems need to come off this fast as their defining issue. Future generations will be horrified at the brand of infanticide that passed as a "choice".

Great bumper sticker, I've just seen lately:

A person's a person, no matter how small. - Dr. Seuss

What liberal could argue with that? I couldn't. Maybe I'm just too liberal???

Eisenhower High School Class of 1973 Reunion

They finally found me! My EHS (then a Washington, MI mailing address, now Shelby Twp.) class reunion committee, that is. We were the first class to graduate from EHS - school opened in 1970 (sorta - we used the Malow Jr. High building), but only had 9th and 10th graders the first year. Probably a great formula for creating megalomaniacs - we were the upperclassmen for 4 years straight, counting 9th grade at Shelby Jr. High (from whence a good 95% of us came). For me it was even worse, having finished 8th grade at a 5th-8th grade middle school. Five consecutive years as the senior class at your school robs you of some perspective, I would guess...

So my pal Curt Pollack, the only guy from school I'm still in touch with, gave me the flyer this past weekend, at mine & Kim's 25th anniversary bash (I still need to post THAT story). I probably won't go - it's over Thanksgiving weekend, and most of my best friends from those days are still on the MIA list. But I know **I** did a search a while ago and couldn't find anything. So, since I know the search engines can find this site, even though NOBODY leaves me comments anymore (waaah!!!), here's my public service announcement:

EHS Class of '73 Reunion
11/29/03, Cracklewood Golf Club
18215 E 24 Mile Rd.
Macomb, MI 48044
6:00pm - ???
$25 per person, includes buffet.
Cash bar.
Hosted by: Rod Sapien & Steve Kasprzyk (and Jerry Penzien owns Cracklewood)

RSVP by 11/06/03
email Rod at eisenhowerclassof73@hotmail.com
register at www.classmates.com (I did!)

I'm gonna leave Rod's phone and snail mail addy off the web for now. I'll put 'em up if he asks.

classmates.com is interesting - found out tidbits about my old girlfriend, and found a webpage for my favorite teacher, the guy who turned me on to jazz all those years ago:
Thank you, Mr. Teachworth!!!

Yahoo! News - U.S. Not Ready for Total Abortion Ban, Bush Says

Well, I'm ready, but he may have a better sense of the pulse of America than I do. Meantime, he's signing the bill outlawing partial-birth abortion, that's good enough for me. For now.

Quote of the Day

"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Thanks to Ange for turning me on to it.

Cool. Who's pourin'?

You're Ireland!

Mystical and rain-soaked, you remain mysterious to many people, and this
makes you intriguing.  You also like a good night at the pub, though many are just as
worried that you will blow up the pub as drink your beverage of choice.  You're good
with words, remarkably lucky, and know and enjoy at least fifteen ways of eating a potato.
 You really don't like snakes.
Take the Country Quiz at
the Blue Pyramid

Take a look at Helen's travel pics:
~~~Travelblogue~~~

Helen's quite a musician too! Check her and my other home recording pals out on:

Now only $17.99 - 3 CD set.

Warning - there SHOULD be a parental advisory on this one - not Helen's (aka Shaky's) piece, though. But approach the piece by "Brad" very carefully...

This Is Promising

Yahoo! News - House OKs 'Partial Abortion' Ban

The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) and the National Abortion Federation (news - web sites) have already announced plans to file a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Courts have struck down several similar state statutes.

To quote our fearless leader - BRING IT ON! I want to see this debated everywhere - too many people with their heads in the sand on this one! There is SO MUCH new evidence of the humanity and vitality of these children, and so much shift in social mores and policy (the "ruined reputation / ruined life" story doesn't play anymore), that the more public this debate comes, the more the tide will turn in the favor of Life.

NPM Detroit Calendar Page

October 5th, St. Gerald's Farmington, 7pm. Be there!!!

Sadly, I won't - I'm off to Hamilton, Ontario for a weekend of musical hijinx, with the Mrs. & the granddaughter.

Okay, I'm not THAT sad, but I wish I could do both...

First Church Music exam coming up. I don't have a strong sense of the emphasis yet - we'll review Wednesday, maybe it'll be clearer then.

The text, "The Story of Christian Music," by Andrew Wilson-Dickson, is a pleasant read, but not really designed as a text. The author's biases show - he refers to Ecclesiasticus as "apocryphal", accurate in some faith traditions, but accepted by Rome as part of the canon. And later on, he seems to have gotten Thomas Dorsey, the "father of gospel music", confused with jazz trombonist / bandleader Tommy Dorsey. Though his biographical info about Dorsey seems accurate enough, simply referring to him as "Tommy" (repeatedly) really helps blow his credibility. He's a Brit, so I guess we should give him a break...

Some things are worth cross-posting

Just got a call - I'm a grandpa again!!! My son and his wife were expecting a baby girl at the end of October, but she's here already!!! Lauren is 7lbs., 4 oz., so best guess is the docs were 6-7 weeks off in their calculations. Mom and daughter are resting comfortably.

I'll try to get pics...

It's September 11th

This song (hi-fi/broadband --- lo-fi/dialup) was written in part as a response to the 9/11 massacre. Recording is not yet in final form - bass is too heavy, guitar sound is weak, drums are, um, weaker - but you get the idea.

Music copyright Jay Ricketts, 2001. All rights reserved.
Performance copyright Jay Ricketts and Caroline Muylaert, 2003. All rights reserved.

Back

Blogger's user DB got messed up, couldn't log in for nearly a week.

Didja miss me? ;)

And speaking of back to school:

Grandson Wesley's first day today! Here's a pic from this morning right before he left.



Mom & Dad report that he went enthusiastically, Dad had to actually hold him back so he could take him in. Unlike him, when he had his first day at KinderCare... Boy, do I remember THAT day! Hee hee.

This Semester

Chorale, Organ, Church Music.

For chorale, we're singing a Respighi piece - very challenging. Sounds like the rest will be Christmas Carols, but all the music's not in yet.

Organ pieces this term: I'll finish the Couperin Mass of the Parishes pieces, then on to Bach's P&F in Dm, A Peeters partita on a Lutheran chorale (forget title), and Proulx's Fantasia on O'Carroll & Walker's Celtic Alleluia. This last piece is from Concordia's Jubilate series - very nicely done.

Church Music text was a shocker - $25. I thought it was a rule that all college texts had to be at least $75!!! ;)