Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. You haven't told me about the findings on
your recent medical examinations, and I mustn't ask, but you should 
be aware of my sympathy and you should feel free to write to me about
anything you would like me to know. As for depressive states, I'm 
not unfamiliar with them, but in recent years, they've been mild for
me, and I haven't been afflicted with my share of sorrows. I wish that 
it were possible for me somehow to transfer to you some portion of my 
undeserved equanimity, but I admit, even that thought is frivolous. 
I know from experience that spirits not only fall, they also rise 
spontaneously, and I very much wish for you that spring will dispel 
the winter of your sadness long before the snow melts and the crocuses, 
daffodils and hyacinths are in bloom.

With the Appeals Court hearing in my case only 9 days from now, I seem
to have completed my mental preparations. I no longer awaken at 5 a.m.
arguing before the Court. I've memorized the Judge Hopkins' words
which support my innocuous observation that the hearing before her
was ex parte. Instead of asking me to make my argument, she said:

    "Mr. Meyer, If you don't mind me just asking counsel questions.
     You can add to it, but I am deferring to counsel since he is
     familiar with proceedings. Can you hear me?

     Yes.

     Okay, I just wanted to be sure you can hear me. 
     Have a seat. Alright?"

"ex parte" of course means "from only one side"; and to defer is
defined by Merriam-Webster: to submit to the wishes, opinions or
governance of another. Exactly that is what Judge Hopkins said
she would do, and exactly that is what Judge Hopkins did.
In this context, or so I will tell the Appeals Court, Mr. Pucci's 
assertion that I should be punished for making "false and defamatory 
accusations against Superior Court judges and defense counsel", 
points not to evidence of my wrong-doing but to the brazenness of 
Nantucket's persecution of me in real time even before the Appeals 
Court. I appoint you an alternate Appeals Court judge, and ask: 
what is your decision?

Oerlinghausen, for centuries in Herzogtum Lippe, now a district
in Nordrhein-Westfalen, is the town where my father was born on
June 7, 1900, where my paternal grandparents lived, where my parents 
were married on October 22, 1927, and of which my latter-day 
correspondent Jürgen Hartmann has appointed himself a semi-official 
historian.  A popular song which my father taught me alleged that
this little town was never even so much as licked by culture,
"nie von der Kultur beleckt", an allegation now disputed by Jürgen
who demonstrates that Oerlinghausen was in fact the intellectual
nursery which nourished both Max Weber, the iconic sociologist,
and his second cousin wife Marianne Schnitker, Dr. phil. honoris causa
(Heidelberg), the editor of her husband's posthumus publications 
and an illustrious champion of women's causes in her own right. 
Jürgen has just sent me a recently published booklet "Max und Marianne 
Weber und ihre Beziehung zu Oerlinghausen" (Max and Marianne Weber and
their relationship to Oerlinghausen), from which I learn among other 
tidbits of gossip that Marianne's father Eduard was a general
practitioner in Oerlinghausen contemporary with my great uncle
Dr. med. Max Meyer, and that Eduard quit Oerlinghausen and moved
to nearby Lemgo, presumably because he was unable to compete with
the Jew, proving as Nathaniel famously retorted to some of his
classmates who called him a Christ-killer: You're just jealous
because we do everything better than you.

The book that Jürgen sent me, especially in the context of a recent
discussion with Benjamin who is "majoring" in sociology, reminded
me that I should learn more about Max Weber. It took some searching
through my embarrassingly disorganized library before I put my hands
on the four volumes of Weber which I bought to comfort me during
my years in Damascus, when I was determined to learn absolutely 
everything, but which I've never spent enough time reading. Now I
find available to me on the Internet not only the books in my library
but also a more recent annotated edition of Weber's essay: Die 
rationalen und soziologischen Grundlagen der Musik, everything much
easier to read and to annotate on the computer screen than in the
dusty volumes.

The first part of Weber's essay on music comprises a detailed 
description, in an historical context, of the mathematical 
incongruities of the chromatic scale which dominates our conception 
of music, all this never previously considered by me, and therefore
very valuable and revealing. Nonetheless, it's a topic for which
I need laboratory experience. I need to be able, as best I can,
given my deafness, to hear for myself the permutations of notes, 
the chords and the intervals. To this end, I need to rehabilitate
my harpsichord, which I haven't touched for many years, and in order
to be able to tune it, to recompile the computer program which I used 
19 years ago to generate the chromatic scale, a program which the 
computers I presently use have outgrown. In this way, one challenge 
leads to another, and at the end of the day, it's too late, I'm too 
tired, and there's nothing to do but turn on the electric blanket 
and go to bed.

The second part of Weber's essay on music comprises a detailed 
account of the development of musical instruments and musical
practice in Ancient Greece and Rome, in the Ottoman empire,
in Medieval, Renaissance and Modern Europe, in Egypt, Persia,
India, China, - it's all very apodictic and dogmatic about
rhythms, harmonies and melodies which Weber never heard, about
instruments which he never played, about experience (Erleben)
which was never his own. As I read it, I feel as if I was being
bullied to prostrate myself before Weber's extraordinary
scholarship and awesome omniscience. I read and interpret Weber's
writing about music as a species of literary art which is surely
useful in contributing to my understanding of music and of my own
musical experience, but which might also hypothetically confuse or
distract, an art whose primary function should be deemed not to 
answer questions but to pose them. If I have time, I would like 
to examine Weber's other writings in the same perspective. Meanwhile, 
I consider Weber's writing analogous to that of Kant, a formidable 
literary fortress which dominates the intellectual landscape, but 
which is impregnable in the sense that its construction precludes 
examination of what is inside.
 
That's enough for tonight. I hope you are feeling better, or will
be feeling better soon, and that Ned is well.

Good night.

Jochen