Beff's semester finishes today, and she is due home after dark tonight. Tomorrow night we take Big Mike out for Chinese buffet

We took our first giant step into being old this week. Beff had been to the eye doctor for a new prescription because her eyes don't match -- one being nearsighted and one being farsighted (there is a joke there, but I'm too tired to go and find it) -- and her new glasses were delivered this week. She looks positively bookish wearing them (what really does "bookish" mean, anyway?), which she does to only to read in bed and, occasionally, to drive. Meanwhile -- we are saving up our grocery shopping in $25 increments because Shaw's is doing another one of those "spend $400 before June 30 and save 30 percent on a shopping trip in July" promotional things (again), and whenever I have to go to get items for dinner, we naturally pad in order to get another "$25" stamp on our envelope. So the padding items are normally things for which Beff has clipped coupons. On Thursday while Beff was collecting coupons for me, she actually had me come downstairs to read the expiration date for a coupon because "I can't read it without my glasses." That I can do so without reading glasses, yet, just means I must be some sort of freak.

But even though we're old, we still dig Fiona Apple. About 20 million people, as far as I can tell, have downloaded tracks from her upcoming, or is it?, album, and a friend sent us what he or she had managed to find on the internet. Which makes us the twenty million first to have it. When the album comes out, we will certainly buy it -- it's some of the finest, freshest pop music I've heard in quite a while (not that I'm setting the bar ("I've heard in a while") very high), and it certainly tends toward compound meters a lot. Lemme tell ya, when I dislike music, I really hate it, and when I like music, I like it a lot. So pardon my effusiveness. Or bite me -- your choice.

It was too hot for bike rides, then too cold, then on Saturday it was just right. So we did the Boon Lake ride, which includes me carrying dog bones for Max and other various and sundry dogs we encounter. This time I brought the Sony camera and took a little movie of the two of us doing the Assabet rail bed part of the ride, with Beff in front. Click on "Biking movie" at the top of this page to see that (it's a QuickTime movie). It's not really all that interesting. I will work on getting a good movie of Sunny jumping, soccer goalie style, to make up for that.

Most of the weekend was spent painting -- well, actually just a few hours both days. We scraped -- actually BEFF scraped -- and I painted a bunch of windowsills and trim around the house, including the columns on the front and back porches, and a bunch of the trim on the side porch, which REALLY needs a lot of attention. Beff also repainted the top edges of two drawers in the kitchen where the cats like to scratch while waiting to be fed. Both of us got plenty of latex paint on various parts of our hands and clothes (including my baseball cap), and apparently I got some on my lower lip and two of my front teeth. Sorry, I didn't take a picture. I guess I thought the Crest whitening strips would be just too slow. Rim shot. Okay, no rim shot.

But hey -- there was mondo civic duty this week, as I had jury duty on Thursday. I had to drive to Framingham, go through a security screening TWICE, wait around reading a book for three and a half hours (after watching a seventeen minute video on being a juror in Massachusetts -- Margaret Marshall, who spoke at Brandeis commencement, even though she is from South Africa, speaks with an accent that makes you think South Boston a lot more than it makes you think South Africa -- learn your R's, Margaret), and then being summoned with about 20 other prospective jurors into Courtroom 2. We were introduced to the plaintiff, counsel and witnesses, the clerk drew seven names randomly, and mine was one of them. The "PhD" on my juror information card didn't disqualify me (dammit), but one juror from the original seven was challenged. And then there was a 3-hour trial (4 hours when lunch was included) with an assistant DA as the litigator -- who, given the case the Commonwealth presented, could have passed for an intern. The lawyer for the defendant could have passed for the guy who lulls you into buying too much insurance. And the chief witness for the Commonwealth was a former music major from Clark. As the jokes about that flew in the jury room, I kept my mouth shut (mostly). Suddenly, with none of the glamour of LA Law, the trial was over, and the judge appointed me jury foreman. Wow, Chairman and Foreman at the same time. Where was my hard hat? Intense discussions in the jury room -- slightly larger than a room needed to hold a seminar table for exactly six people -- revealed that none of us thought the Commonwealth had proved its case. So I got to be the one who responded "Not Guilty" to the clerk on both counts (see "I was Foreman"), witnessed an emotional outburst by the plaintiff who didn't understand that the jury was just doing the facts, ma'am, and I was home in time to make dinner.

Ten days to Chair Emeritus status, even though that rank doesn't officially exist. The new Chair is to be Mary Ruth Ray, and I meet her this afternoon to give her the lowdown on being Chair. She insisted on the 3-year term, even though the Fred C. Hecht Professor of Economics only asked for one, so we are good to go. Eleven months from now, she will be advising the Dean of her recommendation for my new salary. Meanwhile -- soon I will be collecting paperwork to start the search for Yehudi's replacement. Believe me when I say -- we have no idea who is going to get this job. One of my colleagues (a second violinist type, we shall say for the sake of the example) asked if it was conceivable we might hire Osvaldo Golijov. To which I responded why would he leave a situation with tenure where he doesn't have to teach for a position without tenure where he actually has to teach -- and indeed has to be prepared to do all the sexy new courses that brings the department into the present that nearly all my colleagues are too fat, lazy, old, or some combination of two or three of those, to do? And why are my sentences so long?

Fluoxetine hydrochloride dosage is goin' DOWN! I'm down to 10 mg every other day, to cease in the fourth or fifth day of my Chairmanship Emeritus status. I will have about two months' worth left over, for anyone who wants them.

Thanks to double-five Jimmy Ricci, I have two new gmail accounts. I originally wanted them in order to receive e-mail attachments larger than 10 megabytes. I have been burned in the past by Earthlink's limitations. Each gmail account (ziodavino at and uncledavy at gmail) has a 2 gigabyte mailbox, and my e-mail program looks there automatically. But now I see Earthlink has upgraded my mailbox to 100 megabytes. So I can get the big ones in any of those locations.

I did not report on my semi-yearly physical exam a week and a half ago. You should know that I didn't gain weight in Florida even though I should have, that all vital signs are normal, and that the blood tests show normal levels for everything. The prostate exam -- okay, the part where the doctor goes gerbil fishing -- was characteristically embarrassing AND painful. So when I told some of my administrative colleagues that the notion that "the academy does not appreciate that which it is that I do"was not pulled "out of my ass" (yes, I said that) -- the doctor couldn't do that, either. Um, uh, rim shot. Uh, all he got was the glove that he was already wearing.

After eleven months -- okay, ten and a half -- the Marines finally got it together to send me a rehearsal tape (from last July 21) of the many-clarinetted arrangement of "Martian Counterpoint" that I did for them (it was originally the fourth movement of "Ten of a Kind"). There were caveats from Jason, its conductor, about it being a rehearsal, tempi, players, etc., but it is hot, hot, HOT. Not only have I written the hardest band piece ever, I also have written the hardest 22-clarinet piece ever. I rule.

And Signal to Noise magazine's summer issue is about to come out. Indeed, it may already be out, I just haven't seen it in stores yet (see Barnes and Noble, Tower Records, or Newbury Comics to find it). For you see, there is a feature article about me written by Christian Carey in it. And I now have seen the opening graphic for it online -- you, dear almost eleven (twelve?) may, too, by clicking on "S to N" above and to the left of this text. Hard to believe that all 76 pictures of me taken for this came out so bad that just half of me is showing on this one. I know what is in the text of the article already, so there won't be any surprise there. Guess what -- somebody else thinks I have a sense of humor. Finally.

All of today's pictures were taken on Saturday -- now that I think of it, the only stretch longer than ten minutes when the sun was out this week -- with the Sony T-1 camera (as was the Biking movie). We have the new flamingi from Ken and Hillary followed by an EXTREME closeup of a carpenter ant on the canoe (note all the pollen, and very old mold, in the cracks -- the stick in the picture is actually a pine needle). Next we have Cammy preaching to the choir, and looking on the inside while Beff paints (feeling left out, obviously). Then we have Sunny in the dining room window, and both cats chilling out on the back porch. Next two more extreme closeups -- caked pollen on a leaf, and a really, really tiny flower hidden in the grass. Then is the causeway on Boon Lake, from our bike ride, and Beff about to coast down that causeway. Finally, we have a garbage/trash receptacle from Maynard (apparently they don't mean exactly the same thing, hence the slashed terminology for those them what may be confused) and a closeup of Beff's thumb after painting the drawers in the kitchen.

JUNE 27, mid afternoon. Lunch was two lowfat Hebrew National hot dogs. Breakfast this morning was fresh-squeezed orange juice, coffee, and a bagel with lowfat cream cheese. Dinner/lunch yesterday was corn on the cob with I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray, and a few lean burgers off of the grill. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 50.4 and 96.8. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include a duplexing copy machine, $300 after rebate; lots of Inko's ice tea and some spices from an Asian foods online seller, $167; a citrus juicer and some silverware at Crate and Barrel, $42; four new place settings, $129; books and CDs at amazon, $72. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine". (I am trying to determine if the second chord over flat-2 is a French sixth or simply the Neapolitan with a flatted fifth) POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: My third year in graduate school, Joe Dubiel taught the composition pro-seminar, and to be different he tried to do something that never, ever works: have students analyze each others' music. I remember John Gibson writing a chord on the board for someone's piece and saying he thought the whole piece was based on that chord. I did something similar with a piece by Jody Rockmaker, and graphed the piece in an A-B-A-B-A form. Then I said, "and that makes it..." and I twiddled my lips with my finger to say ababa.... Years later, Jody remembered this moment, but for some reason I didn't. On a separate occasion, Beff came home after a grad seminar looking pooped and frustrated, saying "I can't get any empathy for my point of view." I said, "I know exactly how you feel." THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Why didn't I know about Inko's tea before this? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Grant's Mandarin Hefeweizen, Porino's olive antipasto, hamburger dill pickles, Bubbie's pickles, Inko's White Tea. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK are none, but Cammy obligingly knocked my glasses off of the nightstand this morning. SOME BIRDS NOTED THIS WEEK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE: mockingbirds, veerys, Downy woodpeckers, Carolina wrens. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a pooper scooper, that which the pooper scooper scoops, a fire hydrant painted green (or orange), the plastic wrap on an individually wrapped slice of cheese.

HEAT WAVE! Actually, last week's temperatures overstated the low temperature for the week, which had been 45.7 degrees last Monday morning, a full two degrees lower than what I reported. I apologize if any lives were ruined because of it. But today is the third straight day where in Maynard the temps are above 90 degrees. The forecast for today is 82, and it is 90 as I type this: yesterday's forecast was 86, and it reached 97 (almost). Saturday (94) was predicted to be by far the hotter of the two weekend days. Them what make had their usual level of accuracy. So because of the extreme temperatures in the afternoon, Beff and I have been taking our bike rides in the morning, and I'm pleased to report that yesterday we embarked on our longest programmed ride: the one that goes by the Minuteman Airport and through West Acton -- and has two pretty considerable hills. Beff doesn't like hills. I like them in moderation. I am hoping soon to do the nature preserve ride again, our second longest one, and with the biggest hill of all the programmed rides. If there is a call for it, I will reprint the list of programmed rides and how long they are -- yesterday's ride was about 14 miles.

Last Monday night, Dewek came over and took us to Korean in exchange for a meeting about the piece he is about to write for BMOP. I'm pretty good at reducing compositional problems to the simplest description, so after the long description of the quintet embedded within the orchestra as a soloist, banding of sound around a cantus firmus, and heterophony in the orchestra, I said, "you mean you want it to suck." Actually, I didn't say that. I said something more like something this ambitious will be great if it works, and still it won't be appreciated by the culture at large. I am doing everything I can to precipitate that existential crisis. Nonetheless, it seems to be a strikingly original idea, and in exchange for saying that I got the chicken ginger dinner. I also didn't bring up that Derek never compensated me for covering for his Walnut Hill classes in December, 2002 -- now I guess we're finally even.

There was a slow warmup through the week. And I went into the office twice (including this morning) to help arrange the academic administrator's office, along with Shawna, Carolyn, and Big Mike. Beer was had by all. Index cards dating to the early 60s and general exams dating to 1975 were among the many things we discovered still taking up space. We filled 4 barrels with trash last week and 2 this morning, and sort of gave up on what else to discard: that will be up to the new Academic Administrator. Oh yes, and I went in on Thursday as well to do interviews for the academic administrator job. And also on the oh yes front, I went in yet a separate time to give Mary Ruth her first lesson in what to expect as Chair. I did my duty to defend our low-enrollment courses for the fall, did my usual lefty railing how calling a class with an enrollment of less than 8 "low enrollment" violates the educational mission and turns Brandeis more into a corporation, but it seems there was a subtext to that statement. Hmm, I wonder what it could have been.

And now, dear almost TWELVE (welcome, Carolyn), I am pleased to report that I become, officially, Chairman Emeritus (actually, unofficially, since there is no such title) in 560 dog-hours from the time this page is posted. And remember that a dog-hour passes in less than nine minutes (this must be why they like bones so much).

I had been to Barnes and Noble in Shoppers World a few times to check if they had the summer issue of Signal to Noise -- as there is a substantial article about me written by Christian Carey in it. On Friday Beff and I decided to take a little trip to Harvard Square, incidentally looking for the magazine in Newbury Comics and Tower Records, and, as it turned out, the Coop. I purchased multiple copies in Newbury Comics and the Coop (as I have to give some out to various administrative and media people at Brandeis), and Beff and I did the other stores and shops in the area, as well. At Crate & Barrel I saw a citrus juicer that I knew I had to have (the stainless steel exterior must be what did it), along with an olive fork and some porcelain spoons for hot and sour soup. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that I liked the three-tine forks we have, and we probably needed some more. So we looked in the store and didn't find anything to our liking. Then Beff got a red dress at a nice place near Crate and Barrel, and we walked slowly up Mass. Ave. towards Porter Square (we had driven to Alewife and parked). Meanwhile, Beff took some movies of urban/traffic in Harvard Square and on Mass. Ave. to use in her next video project. I thought they looked nice. Up Mass. Ave. we stopped in the Vintage store and didn't find anything to buy. Then we stopped in Porter Exchange, I got a few powdered soups and some dim sum at the Japanese grocery store, and saw Yoko (Nakatani!) there. She is moving to Attleboro for the summer. And Beff and I ate at a Japanese restaurant in the little restaurant cluster, where I ordered ice tea on a whim. We got "Inko's" white tea, and both thought it was marvelous. So marvelous that when we got back, I ordered about 80 of them online -- after which I discovered that Shaw's sells them, too (so I got all 8 that they had). Anyway, we made it back. Beff found flatware that we both liked online, and we ordered it.

On Wednesday we drove into Northampton to see David Sanford at the Northampton Brewery -- we do this at least once a year. Because we like him, and we like hearing stories about marching bands and the Pittsburgh Collective, etc. We always like to do the shops in Northampton (because it is such a small shopping area), and I even happened to see Fred Lerdahl and Louise Litterick in one of them, from a distance. They are a very domestic couple. And I bought a chef's hat. Because I will be a celebrity chef, once again (Chair Emeritus, dontcha know) at the September 20 School of the Arts barbecue. Then there was the beer and (of course) some wings at the brewery, ice cream at Harrell's, as usual, and back we went, on the northern route (Route 2).

Saturday I got another one of those insatiable cravings for wings, so I called Big Mike to see if he wanted to do lunch -- as I kind of have to take him out to a meal for doing our cats on short notice every once in a while. I got Sweaty Betty wheat beer (dunno who makes it), and Beff got Old Speckled Hen, and Big Mike got a tuna melt (what he always gets) and a triple chocolate cake (he must have known I was paying). By the way, we always do lunch at the Horseshoe Pub in Hudson. In case you were playing along at home.

Yesterday (HOTTEST DAY IN TWO YEARS! PROTECT YOUR SKIN! PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN! FOR GODS SAKE DON'T PANIC!) Sam and Laurie came over for what was to be a bagel brunch with us and them and Ken and Hillary. I had thought it was to be Monday, and so did Ken and Hillary, so it was just the four of us. We didn't start until 2, so I got stuff for an outdoor barbecue, and that's what we had, dagnabbit. That, and beer. And Inko's Tea.

Today, back into Brandeis. Took some Signal to Noises to Brandeis. Did some more cleaning out. Looked at how much paperwork I'll have to do for the junior search coming up. And when we tired, I went home. Big Mike actually brought a microwave meal with him. And I brought the bagels that Sam and Laurie had brought but we didn't eat because we were doing a cookout.

And this morning it occurred to me that we needed to finish dealing with our technology needs before I go on half salary (that starts Friday -- a perk of being on unpaid leave in the spring). So I looked on the Staples page for a copyer that could do double-sided copying, AND which had auto-feed. And there was one at $200 off. So we ran for it. Tomorrow it is supposed to arrive, or I'll be a matey with which you can swab the deck.

Tomorrow Beff takes the Camry in to have the brakes checked. I had driven the Camry to Northampton, and was dissatisfied with the way the car shimmied and the car made noise when I braked at high speed. Wednesday, weather permitting, Carolyn comes over for a very early morning canoe ride on the Assabet. And Friday we drive to Burlington, Vermont, taking the scenic route -- Route 100, which I try to do every year, and which we never got a chance to do last year. We get back Monday, the 4th (I hope nobody else with a car has the same idea).

There is also a feature in Signal to Noise about a funky improv group called "Erroneous Funk". Which wouldn't have interested me so much except that the woman in the group, Renee Coulombe, studied composition with me at Columbia in 1989-90. She is now a brunette instead of a blonde, has had her doctorate only two fewer years than I have, and teaches in Riverside. I put a link to her web page on Home of this page. Meanwhile, I also added a link to Rick Carrick's page. And I opened my eighth allotted Earthlink account and got 10 megs more of web space to put a few more tunes up there. You have to hunt around for a link to that page, which is not on this page. I have made and compressed two cat movies: Sunny jumping after stuff, and Cammy batting at some dripping water in the bathtub. And I made a movie of the bike ride downhill on the Boon Lake causeway (twice I tried to give a sense of the view). Click on the links to the left to see those movies.

Meanwhile, a mere eight pictures this week. A picture of the Signal to Noise article (buy it yourself, don't ask for a free copy) and this morning's fresh squeezed orange juice, fresh out of the new appliance. Next, Beff and David Sanford, and something I don't even know how to describe, in Cambridge. Then Sam with beer and Laurie with hammock and Georgia. Then there's me in new chef's hat, with spatula, and a better picture of the lawn flamingi that Ken and Hillary gave us -- the Sony camera made them too light, and the Coolpix 4500 gave color that was truer. Also, it was sunnier.

JULY 5. Breakfast this morning was Morningside Farms meatless breakfast patties with nonfat cheese, orange juice, and coffee. Dinner last night was salad and mozzarella balls that were marinated in oil and basil. Lunch was, for me, the Zesty Chicken sandwich at Applebee's in Keene, New Hampshire. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 52.5 and 90.3. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include stuff at amazon for Beff, amount unknown, and some songs purchased from iTunes, $7.92. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Valerie" by Steve Winwood. In fact, it's been going through my head a lot since I happened by it on MTV2, and I'm going to use the chorus in my soon-to-be-legendary "teach-in" next month -- it emphasizes scale degree 6 in the verse, returns to it in the chorus, then eases to scale degree 7 as an ornamentation of scale degree 6, and wails, finally, on the tonic three times at agogic accents: and each time, the harmonization is vi, meaning non-completion. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: when she was in high school and getting an allowance, my sister routinely sent me to Lester's to pick up candy for her. My fee was always a nickel, and at the time, a nickel bought a candy bar or a popsicle, or five tootsie rolls. My quandary was what to do with my nickel. I was enough of a regular there that eventually they let me buy cigarettes for my mother (always Pall Malls). Who quit in 1967, by the way. The other quandary was whether to stay on the streets (Lakeview Ave. and Messenger Street) or take the shortcuts through peoples's yards. This quandary no longer happened after the time I was bitten by a dog while I was doing the shortcut. The dog's owner blamed me. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Is there a post-chairmanship depression? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Bubbies pickles, hamburger dill pickles, sugar free popsicles, olive antipasto. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK are none. SOME BIRDS NOTED THIS WEEK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE: pileated woodpeckers, blue jays(!). INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a popsicle stick, next year's fashion, a headless body in a topless bar, some snot.