Gig Day VII: TJC Spring Jam III

26 May 202322 May 2023 The Portly Politico3 Comments

It’s time for another front porch concert! This event—the TJC Spring Jam and Recital—will be the sixth Front Porch concert I’ve hosted (I think), and I’ve learned quite a bit from the others, including the last Spooktacular.

This year marks the third Spring Jam, which has become a popular event with my private music students. These front porch concerts started out as a way for my buddy John and me to play gigs during The Age of The Virus, when nobody was open for live music. I realized that if I wanted to play in front of a live audience, I’d have to circumvent the hysteria and become the venue and talent.

Gradually, the concept morphed from a self-indulgent concert into a recital for my private music students. The Lord has really blessed me—far beyond what I deserve—with a large clientele of private music students (around twenty-two at the time of writing, working out in practice to anywhere from twenty-to-twenty-four lessons a week), so it made sense to offer a couple of recital opportunities a year for them.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Baccalaureate Service 2023

20 May 202319 May 2023 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive. To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more. For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

The following is the written version of the speech/sermon I’ll be giving at my school’s baccalaureate service tomorrow, Sunday, 20 May 2023. It pulls from the Scripture readings that students will make prior to my little sermonette, which are Proverbs 3:1-6, James 1:2-5, Psalm 20:1-5, Jeremiah 29:11, and Psalm 113. I also include Matthew 11:28-30 and Psalm 20:6 (and probably allude to several other verses that I do not reference directly).

Good evening families, faculty, staff, and graduates of the Class of 2023. You have worked hard to be sitting here today, and in six days you will get to sit again for another ceremony, during which your mother will probably cry and you will hear a dozen or so senior videos with the Trace Adkin’s song “You’re Gonna Miss This” (and probably Bill Joel’s “Vienna”).

But to get where you are today took a great deal of effort and struggle. Sometimes it was your parents doing the struggling, or your teachers, but ultimately, you had to get the work done. Your reward for your efforts is to build upon the foundation you have laid, and while I encourage you all to get some much-deserved rest, your work is only beginning.

While you have learned a plethora of facts, and learned how to perform elaborate titrations in Chemistry, and learned how to dissect a work of literature or a piece of poetry, you have also learned how to live. In learning all of these other skills and facts and figures, you have, in the process, learned what matters in life. And here is the big hint: it isn’t how to perform elaborate titrations in a chemistry lab.

Our purpose in this life is to praise and glorify God in all of our endeavors. Psalm 113 is a model for us: “From the rising of the sun to its going down; The Lord’s name is to be praised.”

“From the rising of the sun to its going down.” That’s a lot! Not exactly an easy task, is it? We are to praise and glorify God in all of our endeavors? Well, yes. Fortunately, we have God to Help us.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Grinding Down

13 May 202312 May 2023 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Does anyone else feel as though work has gotten more difficult lately? It seems as though as the academic year grinds towards its inevitable end, everything is getting busier—and harder.

Perhaps it’s the knowledge that soon—always, blessedly, soon—it will be summer, bringing unlimited freedom along with the heat, humidity, and mosquitos. Readers in normal careers—the ones that don’t get two months off every summer—probably don’t get pre-summer blues, because there’s never a break. Paradoxically, I suspect that the knowledge that I’ll have loads of free time soon makes the current slogger seem even sloggier.

Of course, it does get busy this time of year. If third quarter is the doldrums of the school year—the long, dark days of January and February, when everyone is in some form of waking hibernation—fourth quarter is the grand reawakening, full of concerts, plays, and multifarious other special events. Then it’s end-of-the-year banquets, awards ceremonies, baccalaureate services, graduations, and all the rest, blurring together into one glorious slurry of festivities and obligations.

I’ve actually been asked to speak at my school’s baccalaureate service this year, which is a huge honor, but which also necessitated rescheduling a book-signing event my cousin is putting together (new date is TBD). I’ll be posting my little sermon next Saturday, so you’ll actually have the opportunity to read it a day before I deliver it.

Regardless, I can sense burnout creeping in, as the days wear on and seem to get longer and longer (and start earlier and earlier). There’s a reason I’m writing about the toll of overwork this week, rather than continuing with the saga of my Washington, D.C. trip (the next episode is going to be awesome, by the way).

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip Part IV: Driving Miss Lindsey

6 May 202330 April 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

After a beautiful, contemplative morning at Mount Vernon, we scurried onto the bus to head up to Capitol Hill. We had a scheduled meeting with Congressman Russell Fry (the man who unseated Tom Rice in the 2022 election), but due to some parental meddling, we also had a meeting with Senator Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina. These meetings ended up being scheduled for the same time, so I found myself on the phone with Fry’s aid to sort out the particulars.

Our tour guide Denise was on edge because of the overlapping times, and was particularly concerned about us meeting with Fry on the steps on the House of Representatives side of the Capitol Building, then quickly relocating to the Senate steps. The distance is probably two or three football lengths—not a very far walk at all. Apparently, though, senators don’t like crossing over to the House side, because they’re somehow demigods.

Of course, she underestimated the kind of clout (and, likely, political donations) that our parents command, and pretty soon Miss Lindsey would be sashaying our way.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Dorothy Sayers and “The Lost Tools of Learning”

3 May 202330 April 2023 The Portly Politico9 Comments

“For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.” —Dorothy Sayers

What a powerful sentiment, because it is True! I recently had occasion to read Dorothy Sayers’s speech—later adapted into an essay—entitled “The Lost Tools of Learning“; it was akin to my first reading of Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences: a lightning bolt of the True and the Good striking directly upon my mind.

In the speech, Sayers lays out the medieval method of learning, the Trivium, consisting of Grammar, Dialectic (or Logic), and Rhetoric, we she argues should be divided into age-appropriate stages (the “Poll-Parrot,” the “Pert,” and the “Poetic”). Each stage corresponds with one aspect of the Trivium (the Poll-Parrot studies Grammar, the Pert studies Logic, and the Poetic studies Rhetoric), and while the ages aren’t precise, they basically include when children are knowledge sponges and can learn anything (the parrot, roughly elementary school and earlier); the stage when children start questioning everything and love trapping adults in logical contradictions (the pert, roughly middle school); and the age in which children are on the cusp of adulthood (around fourteen- or fifteen-years old).

This essay is an absolute must-read. It is long, however, so I’m offering up some of my thoughts on the essay, which has already taken root in my soul, forcing me to re-examine and reconsider how I approach teaching.

Open Mic Adventures XXX: “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday”

2 May 202330 April 2023 The Portly Politico13 Comments

Yes, it’s Tuesday—the traditional day of the week for Open Mic Adventures. No need to check your calendars—or to question my sanity.

I wrote this piece, “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday,” last Wednesday, 26 April 2023, during one of my planning periods. I thought it would make a fun sightreading exercise for my Middle School Music Ensemble, and we spent class that afternoon sightreading this piece and “Song of the Bigfoot.”

When I write chorales (as I’ll explain in the video), I tend to do it as a music theory exercise. I used to write them with the idea of sustaining one or even two notes for as long as possible, and always keeping notes within stepwise motion of one another. That stepwise motion is largely maintained, with a few exceptions, in the manuscript below.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip Part III: Mount Vernon

29 April 202328 April 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

After the debacle of children sliding down the Lincoln Memorial came much-needed rest. The long day of traveling was, in many ways, the easiest of our days in D.C. Thursday promised to be full of walking, but all those steps would be worth it.

Following our food service hotel breakfast—I’m a sucker for those hyper-yellow egg product scrambled “eggs” they serve at hotel continental breakfasts—we loaded the bus and headed for Mount Vernon, the home of our first President, George Washington.

The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association maintains and preserves Mount Vernon. The Association is the nation’s first national historic preservation organization, and the oldest active patriotic society. Founded in 1853 after the founder’s mother witnessed the poor state of the home, the Association had raised $200,000 by 1858, with which it purchased the home and two hundred acres surrounding it. Following the ructions of the American Civil War, restoration work began, and continues to this day.

It is a gift to the American people to walk the grounds where George and Martha Washington resided. There’s something appealing, too, about the home and grounds being under the auspices of a private non-profit organization, rather than the National Park Service. It’s proof that private individuals sharing a common goal can often achieve more, and do it better and more efficiently, than the government can.

It was a crisp, sunny morning when we visited Mount Vernon, and it was easily the highlight of the trip, at least for me.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip Part II: Showdown at the Lincoln Memorial

22 April 202321 April 2023 The Portly Politico2 Comments

After a long bus ride and a whirlwind tour of two Smithsonians and the Spy Museum—and a hearty feast at Buca di Beppo—our merry band of wastrels and wine moms headed out on an evening tour of three memorials: the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial.

I first visited the Korean War Memorial on a high school band trip, and found it to be particularly arresting. The fuzzy images of soldiers crossing a battlefield have stuck with me ever since. It’s a testament to the power of a good memorial not only to honor the dead, but to highlight the hardships and tribulations they endured. The Korean War is the “forgotten war” of twentieth-century America, sandwiched as it was between the glory of the Second World War and the ignominy of the Vietnam War.

Apparently, I failed to capture any pictures of the Korean War Memorial (the image above is an addition to the Vietnam War Memorial), likely because I was a.) in quite, reverent awe while passing through the memorial and b.) calling down knuckleheads who ought to know to treat these memorials as quasi-sacred places, memorials worthy of silent dignity and respect.

That apparent lack of understanding of and respect for those who gave their lives was a recurring theme of the evening, and one that would result in some frustration and consternation on the part of yours portly.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Washington, D.C. Trip, Part I: The Smithsonians

15 April 202314 April 2023 The Portly Politico2 Comments

In the waning days of March 2023, I had the opportunity to chaperone a group of ninth- and tenth-grade students to Washington, D.C. The trip was a jam-packed, whirlwind tour—a “taste,” as our neurotic tour guide put it—of our nation’s capital, cramming in as many “must-see” historic sites and museums as possible in three days.

Indeed, it was technically less than three days. We spent the morning of the first day of the trip driving there, and the afternoon and evening of the third day driving back. That gave us one full day in D.C. and the surrounding environs.

Notwithstanding that tight itinerary, the days were full. Even our abbreviated travel days managed to squeeze in loads of activities. If anything, it was too much, but despite some adolescent shenanigans, I made it through, exhausted and weary.

The trip was a source of both inspiration and disillusionment with the field of education, and public civility generally, and brought up a number of issues that I am still contemplating weeks later.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: education

Gig Day VII: TJC Spring Jam III

Dorothy Sayers and “The Lost Tools of Learning”

Open Mic Adventures XXX: “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday”