Just found out that my friend, Gladys Hall Coates, aka Mrs Albert Coates, died, not unexpectedly, on Wednesday. She turned 100 in May of this year.

I met Mrs Coates in late Feb. or early March of 1998, around the same time I was dating Lenise. I was introduced to her by another customer/friend, Rebecca Ballentine, a retired librarian. Mrs. Coates was recovering from hip replacement surgery and needed some help around the house. For those who don't already know, I was in the cleaning/janitorial business at that time. From the very beginning, my relationship with Mrs Coates was different from any with my other customers. Most people were happy to outline what they wanted done and then would stay out of the way, either in a different room, or out of the house altogether. Mrs. Coates though had a definate opinion on how each task in her home was to be done. This caused some friction at first to say the least. Eventually I did resign myself to the fact that I would be under close scrutiny much of the time and got used to it, more or less. The other big difference was that Mrs Coates expected for her money that I would do pretty much anything she would ask rather than a set routine of duties. This also took some getting used to, but was also a bit of fun or a change of pace on occasion. I would often be called on to weed the periwinkle in the front of the house, or to drive Mrs Coates to the grocery store. She had no washing machine, so I found that fairly regularly I was taking her sheets and towels home to wash.

None of this yet gives a true picture of her personality. Other than being something of an exacting taskmaster, she was rather kind and generous. She would always inquire about my well being, my wife after I was married, our search for a house, and our vacations. I was quite honored to have her as a guest at my wedding. She was very well known in the community among those who have been in Chapel Hill for long. She played the piano and had written some songs. She enjoyed botany, history, politics, poetry, Shakespeare, and religion. And of course, she was a great reader.

In the later part of 2000, at 98 years of age, Mrs Coates mind started weakening. She would become confused a bit on what things she had told me and what things I had already done. By this time I had formes a bit of a routine, so I did continue to do pretty much the same things for her as I had been doing. The close scrutiny dropped off quite a bit though, especially as her strength was faltering as well. when I returned from Christmas break in Jan of 2001, she was convinced I had moved away and hadn't told her. Around late summer 2001 her neighbors and friends talked her into hiring a full time assistant. A charming woman named Jackie Gray. Unfortunately for Jackie, Mrs Coates' senility hightened some of her less desirable qualities, so she, Jackie, had to endure some meanness which I hadn't seen. Through no fault of my own, however, Mrs C. kept a fairly positive attitude toward me fot the rest of the time I worked for her. My friendship and work relationship with Mrs. C. ended on January 16th of this year. Those who were looking after her and her finances decided she needed more full time medical help and needed to cut back elsewhere. Of course I had been pretty much out of the cleaning business other than servicing a few existing customers, so I wasn't surprised.

I had always meant to go back to check in on her from time to time, but somehow never got around to it. Death is not something that scares me, but I don't find it attractive either. I do plan on attending the funeral next week. I can't really say she was taken before her time, but I do look forward to renewing our acquaintance in heaven someday.

I am excited and surprised to say that my shepherding group is going to be studying one of Tom Wright's books this fall. Most likely Paul For Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians. I don't remember any group ever taking my suggestion for a study before, which is why I'm surprised. Plus the fact that we'll be reading Wright should, I hope, lead to good and fruitful discussion.

I aproached reading E P Sanders with some trepidation. My opinion of him was formed by N T Wright, who, by my recollection, descibed him as a key figure in restoring New Testament studies to a jewish context, but was mistaken about a, b, c, d, and e, which I don't remember. So far The Historical figure of Jesus has been very reasonable and conservative in the sense that he doesn't make any wild or bizarre claims. The most unorthodox thing so far has been that he has treated the gospels as something like historical fiction, that is, the gospel writers, when trying to make a particular point about Jesus, would make up a plausible story or invent a few of the contextual details to help flesh it out. Kind of a "based on real events" sort of thing. He makes up for this, to me at least, by not even mentioning, even in passing, the dreaded Q. (Sorry for my comma overuse. I'm trying not to use so many parentheses.)

I was struck in particular this morning by this pasage on miracles:

A lot of Christians, and possibly even more non-Christians, think that central to Christianity is the view that Jesus could perform miracles because he was more than a mere human being. We shall take walking on water as an example. A vast majority of people today think that it is impossible to walk on water. Some Christians, though by no means all, think that they are required to believe that Jesus could do so; this ability was limited to him, since he was more than human. Many non-Christians also think that Christians must believe this. Moreover, a lot of Christians and non-Christians think that the faith of the first century Christians depended on Jesus miracles.

Historically, none of this is accurate [ . . .] we shall see that in the first century Jesus' miracles were not decisive in deciding whether or not to accept his message and also that they did not 'prove' to his contemporaries that he was superhuman. The idea that he was not a real human being arose in the second century, but it was eventually condemned as heresy. [. . .] The definitive statement on this issue is that he is 'of one subtance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin' --not, 'apart from the ability to walk on water.'

Since I don't have comments at the moment, I'll share what my friend Michael Straight sent be about the dave Barry column/cartoon:
But, but...

I don't recall anyone anywhere villifying tobacco growers. They're
always
the innocent victims who have been tragically, unknowingly growing a
deadly crop and must somehow find a new means of supporting themselves
now
that the evil schemes of the tobacco companies have been uncovered and
we
are all shocked (shocked!) to discover that tobacco isn't good for us.

link to relevant site

So giving money to the poor farmers who are innocent civilian
casualties
in the War on Tobacco makes pefect sense by the logic of the whole
anti-tobacco movement. Now if NC had used the money to give tax breaks
to
RJR or something, that might have made a funny cartoon...

I don't know if I've made it clear to everyone exactly how good a writer Robertson Davies is. the only reason I don't say more about him is that he tends to leave me a bit breathless. But I guess the kicker is this--by common acclamation, Murther and Walking Spirits is his worst novel. Having read, as far as I can tell, all of his novels now, I think I would concur. and yet so many passages in the book just astonished me. The premise of the novel is strange, and it's sevelopment is stranger yet. The main character dies in the first sentence. If this isn't strange enough, he spends the vast majority of the book in disembodies form, watching a film festival which has been organized by his murderer. Since the story is only told from his perspective, it isn't certain, but it seems that the films the ghost, Connor Gilmartin, is watching are not the same films which the living in the theater are watching. Mr Gilmartin's films all are about his ancestors, told in a vareity of tales from the early 18th century to the mid 20th. The are not, in my opinion, of even quality in terms of holding the reader's interest, but as I mentioned, there are some priceless moments of prose strewn about. In the end Gilmartin, through circumstances a bit complicated to explain here, attempts, unsuccessfully, to comunicate with his wife and his colleague/murederer, with whom his wife was having an affair. The book ends with the murderer attempting to find forgiveness, or at least some relief from guilt, and I'm pleased to say that the end was indeed the high point of the book, but I won't give it away.

Hmm. Didn't intend to write a whole review. Guess I just wanted to get in a good plug for someone who, though dead himself, has been a bit of a companion to me over the last two years.

Interesting looking review here

In the 20th century, however, Gosse was seen mainly through the dark gaze of his son and only child, the man of letters Sir Edmund Gosse (1849-1928). In the classic Father and Son, Gosse the younger portrayed his father as a stern Puritan fanatic, ever-alert to “popish practices” such as the celebration of Christmas. Learning from his guilt-stricken small son that the servants had made a Christmas pudding, he stormed into the kitchen and threw “the idolatrous confectionery” into the fire.

The cartoon in this column by america's favorite libertarian might be the funniest political cartoon I've ever seen.

I'm of the opinion that if you read enough philosophers, eventually you'll find one who seems to really groove with things you have thought about yourself. For me I just really enjoy Epictetus. How can you resist things like this:

If we had sense we ought to do nothing else, in public and in private, than praise and bless god and pay him due thanks. Ought we not, as we dig and plough and eat, to sing the hymn to god? "Great is god that he has given us these instruments wherewith we shall till the earth. Great is god that he has given us hands, and power to swallow, and a belly, and the power to grow without knowing it, and to draw breath in our sleep." At every moment we ought to sing these praises and above all the greatest and divinest praise, that god gave us the faculty to comprehend these gifts and to use the way of reason.
--from discourses, section On Providence

Just received a nice email from one Sarah Dennis at SPCK about availability of NT Wright's books here in the US. She advised me that they are all availabe from Pilgrim Press (at least the ones SPCK published), and that I should get info from them. Nothing I didn't already know here. But it was nice to get a response. Nothing about amazon in there though.

Haven't felt like bloging much lately. A bit on the busy side, plus the material I was going to write about intimidated me a bit. Last Sunday was quite interesting. There was humor, celebration and tragedy all in a three hour period, and if I was a great writer I would be able to tel it all in a poignant way. If you've read Louis de Berniers you would know what I mean. In any event there's a funeral service tomorrow for the stillborn child of one of the elders of our church. The boy was delivered early Sunday morning.

Other than that things are good. Bruce Malina's book is amazingly insiteful, though some of it is a bit questionable. I would recommend it to anyone wisheing to know a bit more about NT background and some random and surpring insites about various NT passages.

About a Boy has one of the funniest characters I've ever come accross in fiction. Haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't know if Hugh Grant did Will freeman justice. If you get a chance, you should read it before you see the movie. That goes triple (or more) for Corelli's Mandolin. From what I've heard, you shouldn't see that one under any circumstances.

Got this link from jdominator. In case you want so do an elgoog no hcraes. This is one way that "Paul Baxter" won't get to my site first. I didn't try "luapnocaed" though.

A list of my fun for the day.

1. I got to hold a ball python (belonged to one of my customers). Snake (of the non-venomous variety) are fun to hold.

2 Same customer told me a joke:

A couple has a child. Thoughout childhood, the kid never say anything. They have him tested for deafness and psychological disorders, but all the tests come back negative. Still never says a word. Finally, at six years old, during the dinner hour, the child says "these mashed potatoes are cold." The parents are beside themselves. "Why didn't you ever say anything before? We knew you were able to talk. Why didn't you say anything!!" Child: "Up until now, everything was fine."

3. Watched a favorite movie that I saw without my wife when she was on a trip a couple years back, Love Serenade. "I have reason to believe he might be a fish." In a quiet, understated, australian kind of way this os one of the funniest movies about love, sex, siblings, and fish. Go check it out.

I hope y'all like the new format. it's quite a bit cleaner, for now. The only trouble I had was that the links on the left wre too long, and for some reason they pushed down where the posts started. Kinda weird.

Anyhoo, Monday night we went to a birthday party, the high point of which was the opening of a particular gift: The Complete Schoolhouse Rock DVD Set. We watched that for about an hour before we started getting sleepy. Those dudes wrote some GREAT songs. My personal favorites were the number seven (with the lucky rabbit), and the "verb" song. I've had that verb song stuck in my head since then. Something finally to push the Larry Boy theme out.

Testing new format.

I had ordered a copy of N T Wright's Mark For Everyone from Amazon for my birthday.That was back in May. A couple months later I got an email saying the status of the book had been changed to "not yet published". They would send it to me as soon as it was available. Yetserday I get a note saying that despite superhuman efforts on their behalf, despite all the trials and tribulations, the blood, sweat and tears, the toils and travails, the weeping and gnashing of virtual teeth, they simply would not be able to get the book to me. Perhaps someone should tell Mr Wright (or SPCK) that his books aren't being made available here. I could have oredered it from the UK site and had it back in May I imagine.


In other news, I'm finding much help on NT background from Bruce Malina's book. The only annoying thing is that it appears to be written for college freshmen. He spends a bit too long defing all his terms (like "culture" and "anthropology"). But his insights so far are good. I now know what the term "religion" means in a first century context.

More NPR silliness, for your enjoyment. There's a local show called The State of Things, devoted to local people and issues here in NC. The quality varies tremendously, depending on how interesting the guest is on his or her own. The host (bless her heart) doesn't add much. I won't give her name so as not to embarass her too much (and so she can't find this post), but here's what she said on a show promo yesterday: "How well do you know your grammar? We all know i before e except after c, but do we really know the other rules of grammar? Our guest today is the 'grammar lady' . . ."

As only Dave Barry can adequately put it, I'm not making this up.

In sibling rivalry news, last I checked (two days ago) I was the top Paul Baxter on google. However, my brother is WAY down at number three. Not a bad site for an academic though.

Had a first in my work yesterday, though I imagine it won't be the last. I was working at the piano store in the morning. I typically spend two to four days a month over there helping them keep their pianos repaired and in tune. They've been just an incredible source of business for me, so I'm willing to put up with the low money they pay me and the occasional irritation. Doug, the store manager, had two pianos for me to work on yesterday. The first wasn't much of a piano, but it tuned up without too many problems. The second had a sign on it saying, "under repairs". I couldn't remember if I had worked on it before, but I was shortly to receive confirmation that I had certainly not. I opened up the case and found a couple of pick-up sticks jutting out of the action at odd angles (You remember pick-up sticks, don't you?). I began looking for other foreign objects. I noticed a number of springs that had gotten dislodged, which is not too unusual. I also noticed a sizable ball of fuzz, maybe four inches long. I got out my long tweezers to remove the fuzz and noticed that it was pretty hard in the middle. It also had a tail. Within moments I was holding the remains of a mouse (in the tweezers, not in my hands if you're wondering). I brought it over to Doug for closer inspection and his profesional opinion. "That mouse looks like he's seen better days. I wonder why the family didn't notice a smell?"

That will just have to remain a mystery. The piano was about three quarters of a step flat, whih is to say that if you played a C you got a note somewhere between B-flat and B. This would suggest to me that the piano had been seriously neglected for quite some time. More than that I cannot say.

I'm posting this in case you didn't see it at Chris O'Donnell's site. I do really hope that this gets challenged soon. I also don't understand how it would help the state finances to send kids to cshool who aren't there right now. Wouldn't that necessitate more expenses, larger class sizes and more teachers?

Believe me when I say that I'm as sorry as you are that my pathetic somment system is down once again. But as they say, the internet is always a little bit broken.

At one point in my blog description I said it would contain my thoughts about music. This pretty much hasn't happened, as you tiny group of long term readers know. I don't listen to much contemporary music, so I generally don't join into discussions in that area. I do, though, have lots of opinions about "classical" music, and had a recent thought which I considered blogworthy. If you are not interested in classical music or or fairly ignorant in that area, just stop reading now or you'll just be bored (like you aren't already).

Here goes. There are some things in the history of music which have generally been considered, for lack of a better term, wrong turns. As an example, quite a lot of the music students I have talked too over the years have condisidered the work of the second Viennese school (Shoenberg, Webern etc.) to be such a wrong turn. This is not to say that a wrong turn doesn't lead to some good pieces here or there, or that it doesn't contribute to the development of future music. It's just an idea in music that for some reason or other just doesn't work. I and a very few others condiser the entire classical period to be an example of this, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. What I want to talk about is the piano concerto. I become convinced on Sunday evening that the piano concerto, especially as it came to be developed in the romantic era by folks like Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Brahms, and many others, was an idea that didn't work well. This realization hit me due entirely to the fact that WCPE, the local classical station, chose to play one of Bach's keyboard concertos, I believe it was number seven. This concerto was performed by a pianist and a small string group. The piano part ran pretty much without break through the piece, much of it soft (I'm keeping from the term piano to avoid confusion), and none of it very loud. Thus there was constant interaction between the piano and the other instruments. The effect was quite pleasant.

As I was listening, I thought of the Tchaikovsky concerto with its blastissimo portions and said to myself, something went wrong. I suppose what happened was simply that the modern symphony orchestra came about somewhere in the 19th century, thus the piano concerto evolved to fit the larger orchestra. As a consequence, the concerti became less "concerted" and more competitive. The piano in these concerti often played solo, or very loudly with the whole orchestra, or muddled along with sections of the orchestra. The parts are just not capable of being balanced due to the numbers involved.

Don't misunderstand me. I do enjoy many of these concerti. I also think the piano can make a good orchestral instrument. I've heard many syphonnic pieces where a piano added significantly to the overall color. But I think the piano concerto is a dead end, and I think this is borne out by the fact that very few piano concerti have found success since 1914. I would love to see more chamber music for piano though. Brahms and Dvorak, just to name two of my favorites, wrote absolutely wonderful music for pianos with small groups. I hope that more follow in their footsteps.