The Oberlin Summer Organ Academy is underway this week.
With that in mind, I present
Don't worry, the pesky tremulant goes away
Need more from the organs at Oberlin? Don't miss "The Organ at Oberlin" on Pipedreams
The logo for Gawker's "Celebrity Theory 101" bears an uncanny resemblance to the Oberlin College seal.
William Crotch has a funny name. I know this because choristers laugh when you say it. Also, on a few copies of the choristers' music, his last name is circled.
So, ha ha. Very funny. But who is this William Crotch exactly? Well, turns out his name may be funny, but Crotch was a serious musician.
The son of a carpenter (like Jesus?), Crotch was a musical child prodigy. At 18 months, he was already picking out tunes on the family house organ (also like Jesus?)
Now, back in the time of Crotch (is that a good name for a band, or what?), the circus was a popular form of entertainment. Unlike today, however, circuses (pronounced: SIR-cuh-sees) consisted not of animal entertainment, but mostly child entertainment. It is for this reason that persons with Dwarfism were often employed by later circuses: they were the new "children" in an era of oppressive child-labor laws.
HIDDEN (a Crotch size clarification): There's nothing small about our Crotch. He eventually reaches full size.
In the circus, William Crotch resided in a tent that contained an organ, whereupon he would bedazzle his listeners with his improvisations. These were probably not great musical feats, but for a two year old to improvise chords to a melody learned by ear is certainly something. Also, he got free cotton candy.
HIDDEN (inappropriate remark): One wonders if this tent had a fly, and whether it was open or closed.
Today's "soccer moms" descend from a league of overbearing "circus moms" who enlisted their young children in these precocious presentations of prodigy. Crotch's mother, Isabella, accompanied Crotch and the circus on a grand world tour.
HIDDEN (another one): It was in this way that her young Crotch gained much exposure.
Anyway, long story short. Crotch the freak-show boy-wonder grew up to be Crotch the mildly adequate composer. Though he did play the organ at Kings College, Cambridge, which is pretty cool.
Incidentally, when I program my own concerts, I want to end up with a poster that looks like this:
Crotch
selections from Palestine
also, music by Bach, including his
Air on the G String
Crotch also may have provided the basis for Louis Vierne's Carillon de Westminster if he did indeed design the Westminster Chime.
Crotch the painter: Crotch's talent didn't limit itself to music. He was also a painter.
Alma mater tangent: It is with not a small amount of pride and a tinge of nostalgia that I note that an image search for crotch brings up a number of unflattering pictures of Paris Hilton and photo taken in an Oberlin music theory classroom.
Labels: Advertising, funny names, King's College (Cambridge), Oberlin, organ, William Crotch
The year is 1833.
In England, the Oxford Movement begins.
In Ohio, Oberlin College is founded.
Coincidence? Not for this Obie Anglican.
Labels: Oberlin
Voluntaries for Sunday 21 August 2005:
Prelude
Pastorale on Psalm 23:1
Percy Whitlock
Offertory
Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ, S. 623
J.S. Bach
Postlude
Prelude XXIII
Carl Neilsen
I just happen to be turning 23 the day before (August 20), so I thought I'd have some fun this week.
Tangents: Did you know that Shakespeare was born and died on April 23?
President James Buchanan (pictured above) was also born on April 23. When he was 23, the metronome had not yet been invented by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, but former Vice President Elbridge Gerry died. Years later, David Sinden would visit Gerry's mansion in New York.
My son's middle name will probably be Nepomuk.
Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President, was born on my birthday, August 20, in 1833. That same year, Oberlin College, my alma mater, was founded. Twenty-three years later, some Madiera wine was brewed in a bathtub. David Sinden drank this 1856 wine in Elbridge Gerry's mansion in 2005.
Labels: Oberlin
Look over there! It's an 
First United Methodist Church of Germantown, Pennsylvania has a difficult website to find, but don't worry, I tracked it down. This congregation of Fumcog (FOOM-cog) has the singular distinction of being known as The Congregation, the title of a PBS documentary that aired earlier tonight.
The documentary is notable for recording two very different kinds of church strife: the mundane stress caused by pastoral transition and the sexier conflict caused by ordained homosexuals in the Methodist church.
During the course of the film, Associate Pastor Beth Stroud decides come out as a lesbian to her congregation in a sermon in Eastertide. The lectionary texts for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C, include the story from John's gospel about Jesus appearing in the midst of a locked room where the disciples are hiding. In her sermon, she relates this text to her own faith and her own experiences with Jesus.
The filmmakers wisely include Beth Stroud's preparation for this sermon, and her delivery of it from the pulpit. This makes for a wonderful record of a dramatic turning point both in the life of the congregation and Beth Stroud's professional/spiritual life.
Being a church snob, the film left me wanting more; I wanted to read the entire sermon.
The Fumcog website is difficult to track down since the Google search results are flooded with sites about the documentary, Beth's trial, or both. Once I found the site, however, I was disappointed by a very glaring error on the sermons page: the sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter, Year C (April 18, 2004) isn't there.
The documentary also makes a critical omission. The Assistant Director of Music and Organist at Fumcog is Dr. Kim Beamon. He seems to do good work, which is no surprise given that he went to Oberlin.
Update, 30 December 2004: I have found the sermon in an annotated version (and the original in PDF format). It was given April 27, 2003 not in 2004. The Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter is the same in all three lectionary years. For me, this still doesn't resolve why the April 18, 2004 sermon (not to mention the sermon of several other Sundays) is absent from the Fumcog sermons page.
Tangent: The Oberlin connections to The Congregation don't end with Dr. Beamon. Beth Stroud's partner Chris runs Ready Set Go! consulting which has crafted a webpage for Ellen Stroud an Assistant Professor of History at Oberlin.
Labels: Oberlin
I am coming to terms with losing a member of my (undergraduate) email family. Luckily I found this in the Book of Uncommon Prayer (BUP):
For none of us has email in himself,
and none becomes his own password when he dies.
For if we have life, we are alive in the internet,
and if we die, we die in the internet.
So, then, whether we live or die,
we are the internet's possession.
The Celebrant then says: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
Celebrant: Let us pray.
O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our brother David.Sinden@oberlin.edu. We thank you for giving him to us, his replies and forwards, to know and to read as a companion on our electronic pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console us who mourn. Give us faith to see in death the gate of eternal information, so that in quiet confidence we may continue our course on computers, until, by your call, we are reunited with those addresses who have gone before, and those whose quotas are full. Amen.
Labels: Oberlin
Perennially jealous of the amount of attention other schools receive on film I was pleased to finally find a supporting role for Oberlin College. Divulging this information, however, means admitting that I just watched Eurotrip (2004), or at least the last five minutes.
At the close of the film, it is a ResLife mistake that allows Mieke (German female) to room with Scott (American male). Scott seemed to have a rudimentary understanding of German, so might he and Mieke have roomed together in German House under the new Co-ed rooming policy?
And in four years at Oberlin, I never saw the river that runs through campus.
Ack! First it was just "reisling," but now my personal computer is relentlessly being probed these machines:
- reisling.cc.oberlin.edu
- pinot.cc.oberlin.edu
- shiraz.cc.oberlin.edu
It's as if this is some sort of bizarre episode of The Matrix, where the agents are after Episcopalians.
Quick! Hide the Corbières!
Labels: Oberlin
My letter to the editors of the Oberlin Review. Reprinted here with pictures and hyperlinks!
As a Texan, I am able to bring a Lone Star State perspective to the parking shortage currently experienced by the college and the town. The solution to this crisis seems so obvious that Lily Schatz should be embarrassed for not raising it in her article: we must pave over Tappan Square.
When constructed, Parking in Oberlin at Tappan (POT) will provide ample parking for all of the surrounding academic buildings and dorms. Oberlin residents and visitors will all enjoy convenient, centralized parking for the Conservatory, Finney Chapel, the Allen Art Museum, as well as for downtown merchants and restaurants.
"Simply paving over Tappan Square . . . is not enough"
Simply paving over Tappan Square and painting lines, however, is not enough. I hope that the committee will have the foresight to recognize the academic and economic growth that centralized parking will bring to Oberlin. The only way to prepare for this growth is to invest in a multi-level parking facility. This facility would also provide space for scenarios that the campus parking policy does not address (i.e., students that have multiple vehicles on campus). I propose twelve levels, each of which could be named after a president of the College.
For those worried that a parking structure would inhibit pedestrian traffic, the multi-level facility is the perfect solution. In this plan, parking spaces would begin on the second level of the facility (Finney) leaving the street-level (Mahan) as a climate-controlled pedestrian thoroughfare with options for retail expansion or classroom space.
Current structures should be incorporated into the design of the multi-level parking facility to preserve the area's integrity. The Memorial Arch, when widened, could serve as a vehicle entryway. The Clark Bandstand and flagpole could be relocated to the highest level of the facility (Dye). The three painted rocks that have littered the square for years are eyesores and should be crushed, recycled and reused as paving material, thus carrying on Oberlin's longstanding tradition of environmental consciousness.
As recently as 1885, a dormitory existed on Tappan Square. More than a century later, a new structure is needed to reflect the changing interests of a diverse population. Students' interests have shifted from sleeping to parking. In short, students need POT.
-David Sinden
Conservatory senior
Labels: Oberlin
OBERLIN - Before ever really getting of the ground, Sinden.org is calling it quits.
Frank Griswold, The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church filed suit in federal court Wednesday saying that "Sinden.org makes a mockery of all that is holy."
Late Wednesday the 46th Circus Court of Ohio issued a Cease and Desist order against the makers of Sinden.org. Federal Agents stormed the groups hideout, known as the "Dascomb Complex," to issue the order and seize necessary materials. Reports from Oberlin suggest that upon entering, agents found the staff consuming a box of communion wafers. Also seized was a makeshift cardboard altar.
"First it was the irregular confirmations and now this!" said Griswold in a telephone interview. "Ohio is going to the dogs I tell you!"
"That's a crock of hooey" said the director of Sinden.org. "You aren't writing this down, are you? What sort of journalism is this? Yellow? That's not a liturgical color, is it? Everyone knows that Frank [Griswold] is a primate, and from what I know, primates are monkeys."
Sinden.org's director then suggested that Griswold has been seen inappropriately touching Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams. To the untrained eye, it may not seem that Griswold ever inappropriately touched the "ABC," as he is affectionately known in the Anglican communion.
Did the primate touch the ABC? Or did the primate just get in touch with the alphabet?
Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire was able to confirm that, yes, the ABC was inappropriately touched.
"It's an Episcopal thing," Robinson said.
"This is ridiculous," said an Episcopal Church spokesperson. Do people actually think this is funny? We are going after those guys with everything we've got,"
Sinden.org is hosted by Kastenbalg.
Labels: Oberlin
©MMVII sinden.org: a site for fun and prophet
