36 Farrell: I purchased more music, and I’ve been trying to rebuild my music library. In all of my moves over the years, I lost plenty of my organ music. I retained most of the volumes of the old Widor, Schweitzer, Bach edition. I’ve purchased the Barenreiter, which is the critical text of the scores. I’ve replenished some Widor scores and the critical text, and a fellow who I called my ‘secret weapon’. He was the last student of J.S. Bach, and is a very interesting composer to listen to if you haven’t heard him before. Fitts: Right, and you redecorated your living room, which is prepared to receive the organ. Farrell: I don’t know about all of the boxes, but the living room is at least set up with a space that I cleared for it. Fitts: It’s artwork and you have the picture of the Haarlem Cathedral there. Farrell: Yes, I have a picture of one of my favorite instruments, which is in Haarlem, Holland. It’s the Miller organ and most organists will be familiar with that instru- ment. It’s a lovely baroque era instrument. I also have some pictures of some of my favorite organ grinders. Fitts: I don’t know if you remember this, but our wonderful ally, Jeroen Van Straat- en, lives in Haarlem and I’ve had lunch with him in there. He insists that he is going to get permission for you to play the Haarlem organ. I’ve agreed that when he does and when you’re ready, I will sail you to Europe because we know that you don’t fly. Farrell: I told Jeroen this: “That instrument is a tracker and tracker instruments require a great deal of physical stamina to play. The key depressions are about a full inch on that instrument, and you’re overcoming the pressure of the mechanical action in the instrument, so your hands have to be very strong. I haven’t played a tracker in years. Fitts: I’ve been on an organ tour of Europe,because we went to Verona this summer to see Beethoven in the Arena, and I discovered that the cathedrals were having free concerts, and everyone had organs. It was quite remarkable. Then, of course, I went to Iceland, and was in the cathedral there, which was magnifi- cent; it was a magnificent organ and a much newer organ. Farrell: The Dutch are good about keeping their instruments up and in good repair and introducing young people. Many of the world’s organists now are very young; they come from Germany and Holland. I’m glad that the instrument is having a bit of a revival. And believe it or not, they are building pipe organs fervently in China. Fitts: Really? Farrell: Yes and you see these organs with Chinese decorations on them. Fitts: I’m not sure that the folks who have funded the organ realize this, but because the pipes for your organ are digital, you’ve bought all types of components allowing you to switch between different organs of Europe. So you can switch from Haarlem to Notre Dame or whatever? Farrell: Yes, we have three organ sound samples and a harpsichord sound sample. So this will actually double as a pedal harpsi- chord, which is another one of my favorite instruments. You can buy sound samples of many famous organs now for your virtual pipe organs, and I’ve occasionally put up links on my website for people to listen to them. I’ve put some Widor on the forum and so on. You can actually hear these virtual pipe organs using a sound sample from some famous organ somewhere. It’s a very interesting technology. I think that ultimately it will revive the instrument. It’s very, very difficult in this country to get on a decent, large instrument to practice because they guard them more than they do the sacraments, unfortunately. Fitts: I, for one, am looking forward to the arrival of this organ. Farrell: So am I! Fitts: We will have an update on the Annu- al Wrap Up and, hopefully, it will be there by then. Let’s dive in! You and I sat last night and, normally, we have a great web presenta- tion for the Wrap Up and have listed and organized it under seven categories of the top stories. In Part I we are discussing the Economy and Financial Markets and Geopolitics. Usually you and I review the different trends and stories, but we’re not going to do that this time. Last night we had a very deep, productive conversation, and realized that there are some things that are so important that we just have to focus on what is very, very important. To a certain extent and I’ve said this many times, in travelling and talking to subscrib- ers, what I’m seeing is that it’s not getting into their spirit. So I don’t care how redun- dant it is; we’re going to repeat ourselves, and we’re going to go deeper. There are certain things about this environ- ment that we really need to understand. Farrell: Yes, we need to look at certain things from several different perspectives, and I think that is what we are going to try to do. Fitts: The first thing that I wanted to talk about is, when I came in you said, “We have to really hammer on the Constitution.” I was thrilled because that’s what I’ve been doing all quarter long. I don’t think that it has been absorbed yet. Farrell: What I do think that people sense is the confusion. Since the election, we’ve seen, what I think, is a revival of Weimar, Germany. By that I mean that everybody is creating their private armies for Antifa and Black Lives Matter and all of these different groups, basically, to go out and cause vio- lence and reap chaos and push a particular political agenda. However, this has reached a head for me – as I think it probably did for most people – during the Charlottesville mess. What became evident to me, is in the aftermath of Charlottesville, where you had this sudden attack on American history and culture in the form of, “Let’s tear down all of these Confederate Generals,” and so on. Now, this has even reached where I live – and probably where you live. Now they are going after names of schools, and are not limiting this anymore to leaders of the Confederacy. We’re seeing people like Washington and Madison coming un- VI. News Trends & Stories with Dr. Joseph Farrell