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

The afternoon concert was at the memorial library in Newport, and it was very, very good -- pieces by Allen Anderson and Marty Boykan in particular were fantastic. A local Mamlok scholar had unearthed early sketches from Ursula's student days for violin and piano, and these received their premiere: they really belonged securely back in the sketchbook and out of sight. Spencer Schedler, a grad student at NYU I knew, actually popped into town for this concert (he was accepted to Brandeis but chose NYU in order to be closer to his now-former fiancee, who was studying at Peabody at the time). And the performances were fantastic. Before the concert, there was a reception/lunch at a health food store two doors down from the library, and I went in looking for the crew -- I had gotten Max a cheeseburger from Warner's, and didn't know I'd be presenting it to him in the context of a health food store. There I sat for a little while shooting the breeze with festival people. And afterwards, Jay and Marilyn and I went back to try some various things. And then I drove to Shaw's to see what they had, and I got 15 bottles of Inko's White Tea, which was on special. Love that stuff.

The evening concert was at the high school in a very nice hall with a very nice piano, and it was preceded by brief talks by Sara (her big dissertation piece was the second half of the concert), me, and the Mamlok scholar (again, I am bad with names -- Wiener sticks in my memory but I am trying to get it out). The Mamlok talk was a pre-written paper that was read out loud much as seventh grade book reports are read in class -- I was glad to hear a bit of Ursula's history, and her sextet of 1976 was on this concert. It actually is a great piece, and in the talk she was described as being "at the height of her creative powers" when she wrote it. I started lusting after an accolyte to write about whenever it is, was, or will be, that I am at the "height of my creative powers", and hoped that that time was in the future and not in the past. Back on topic, I was thinking that for the student pieces, Ursula was at the depth of her creative powers. Rim shot.

So the concert was actually quite fantastic, Hyperblue was done quite well, and I got to know David Fulmer -- who played violin -- a little. He is in the Rolf Schulte mode of extremely expressive with the body moving in all directions as he plays -- occasionally getting up out of his chair to make dramatic gestures for the benefit of the ensemble. Only two places where the trio got off, but hey, there's a million notes in the piece. As far as I can tell. And Sara's piece was about a half hour setting of 12 Yeats poems, it had expression, a sweep, and a point, and it was quite refreshing. Always nice to hear Brandeis music that doesn't sound like Brandeis music ("like most of my recent pieces, this one is atypical").

Dinner was actually paid for at the East Side Restaurant in Newport afterwards, and there we all were. I bought Max two beers, brought him and Leslie to their car afterwards, and then went home and to sleep. In the morning, back to Maynard where we had to get ready for our next big trip, to the Adirondacks. Mowing the way back lawn in the 89 degree sunny weather is a byotch. But I diddit, I diddit.

Early Monday morning we packed up and drove all the way to Indian Lake: 117 west to 495 south to 290 west to Mass Turnpike to 87 north to 9 north to 28 west to Adirondack Lake Road. We stopped for lunch in Warrensburg, which is where you get off 87 to the two-lane roads. And I had rather good Buffalo wings -- an idea that came to me when a 125-year old woman already in the restaurant was having some. The TV in the restaurant was playing ESPN2 "target games" -- lots of shooting at targets and at skeets. Surreality ruled.

Upon making it to the ranch-type 2-bedroom cottage on Adirondack Lake, we watched Hayes and Susan eat, then drove around just a bit. We took a short hike into the woods nearby, and the deerflies were pretty annoying. Muy annoying. That night Susan and I cooked chicken for lunch on an old, rusty grill on the porch. And we methodically went through some boutique beers that Beff and I had picked up in Groton. And we watched episode 12 of Wonderfalls. Then went to sleep on our crunchy bed.

On Tuesday we began by driving to the Lake Store and getting those bug nets that you wear over your head; we already have four of them, but neglected to bring any along. What we got here were bug nets with a pair of metal hoops on the inside, not unlike wearing hoopskirts on our necks. And when we moved to our first substantial hike, we were all very glad to have them. That night we ate at a restaurant in Indian Lake, where our waiter had an eastern European accent, and then decided that the food was the opposite of delicious. Afterwards, the final episode of Wonderfalls. Several of us, especially Susan, kept referencing various tchotchke lines from Wonderfalls, especially "lick the light switch."

Wednesday was the most active of the days: a substantial hike with a steep incline at the end; a visit to the Adirondack museum (an old rustic summer hotel converted to house large exhibits on canoeing, horses, birds, furniture, etc.); and the purchase of a book by a local artist about a chipmunk. We spent some time giving chopped walnuts to a local tame chipmunk that Susan named "Chippy". And then there was sitting around the dock, where the flies liked me and nobody else but me.

Thursday began with a huge and windy thunderstorm: our planned even bigger hike had to be scrapped. After the storm was over, we drove to North Creek, where we got some various tourist things, and then Beff and I rowboated on the lake a little -- this is where we saw loons in a pair. Upon our return, I made the shishkebabs, and what it is, too. Friday morning we left at 8, got back here at 12:30, and had a LOT to do to get ready for the next phase: Beff's two week stint at the U Maine summer music camp. She leaves probably before I post this today. Last night we drove to Alewife and parked, walked from Porter Square to Harvard Square, went into various stores, and had dinner with Lee Hyla and his wife Kate. Much was discussed, including Lee's upcoming stint, October 2006, as Master Artist at the Atlantic Center. Pictures were shown, people were used. And then we drove home.

The Cuisinart citrus juicer that I had purchased at Crate & Barrel on June 24 was being used again to make lemonade and limeade -- as it's what we do. And halfway through the third lemon it simply stopped working, as if the motor burned out. When we first got it, I made orange juice and the lemonade and limeade, etc., and Beff burned the box -- in order not to clutter the attic even more. Which meant that I couldn't return it (while veins on my forehead were bulging, I hastily made a new house rule that we don't burn appliance boxes any more before their warranties expire). Which was fine, I guess -- it kind of sucked, anyway. If you pressed on it enough to get juice from your average lime, it just tended to stop rotating. Who needs that? Beff looked online for juicers and found a whole bunch, and bookmarked them. It was amusing that the first one she bookmarked was a professional juicer for only $7200. We still haven't decided what our next choice will be, but it sure was hell on my right wrist pulperizing limes after the Cuisinart broke.

And the not exactly covered in glory stuff? Well, they've been fun. The Inko's White Tea we had at Cho Cho's restaurant in Porter Square was so good we found it online and their webpage directed me to asiafoods.com. When no progress was made on this simple order, I contacted customer service to ask if there was a projected ship date: there was no response. So I cancelled the order, which you have to do via e-mail. Also no response. Meanwhile, the Sharp photocopy saga with Staples has been entertaining, as well. On July 5 I tried to make copies and the top third of each page was very light. A call to Sharp got me a very nice tech guy, who led me through many steps to see what might be wrong, and the conclusion was: bad. Take in for refund or exchange. So I called the Acton Staples, who had no more in stock; but they nicely directed me to the Staples in Framingham, which had one for me. So I drove there and exchanged it, and upon returning had an e-mail from StaplesEasyRebates: you returned your rebate item, so we CANCELLED your rebate. A long call to Staples assured me that the exchange was incorrectly entered into their computer and the rebate was reinstated. This Thursday another e-mail: your rebate was CANCELLED because there was no UPC enclosed. Uh ... um ... so yet another call to Staples got the rebate reinstated, and I got a confirming e-mail telling me to expect it within 10 to 15 days. I'll believe it when I see it.

We checked e-mail a couple of times in Indian Lake, but since there is no local dialup access number, I had to look up Earthlink's 800 access number. A bunch of recursive pages on the Earthlink website failed to point out even one toll-free access number: they simply said there were no local access numbers in Indian Lake, and I could find a toll-free access number ... somewheres ... So I called Customer Service. Who said "I can't give you that number. But here's the number of the office that can. They won't open for 45 minutes." Uh, boys and girls, can you say Earthlink get your act together? Meanwhile, I got boilerplated not once, not twice, but three times by Earthlink for having dared look for an 800 access number online. With lots of helpful text about how to keep Earthlink if you move and how to configure your modem, etc.

But cancelling all that out was Inko's Teas. The stuff is great (we have about 40 of them in the house right now, and I told Justin when he was housesitting he could eat anything in the house except the Inko's), and the company is new and very small. I had written in this space about how great they were, and one of the co-owners, Googling Inko's, came upon my page, e-mailed me, asked where I was buying the stuff, and offered to send some free tea AND A T-SHIRT my way. Now that's classy. So let me evangelize for Inko's: it's great, the company is great and small (like all things), and now I really have to go to the bathroom.

This week's movies are up there to the left in yellow text, as before. The little movie of Marilyn Nonken posing for a picture was so popular that I left it up there for another week. The "Rain" movie is of the thunderstorm we experienced Thursday morning, and the "Deer" movie is a singing deer at the outside place we went for lunch on Wednesday (I have mercifully excised the sound). As to pictures, they are legion, so bear with me. The first three are of people at the Warebrook festival, including Jay Eckardt (who did not take the redeye), Leslie and Max and Tim and Jay at the health food store, and Jay licking Marilyn Nonken. The covered bridge shot is on the way to Greg Djanikian's summer place in Coventry. Next, Adirondack shots: forest mushrooms, the other of our cohort on a hike, Beff reading on the dock, and a cumulus cloud at sunset. Next, two displays from the Adirondack museum. Next, my parents' grave markers. Finally, a lake view from the Adirondack museum followed by a panorama from the peak of what we climbed on Wednesday.

JULY 25. Breakfast this morning was Morningside Farms meatless breakfast sausage patties with melted 2% cheese, fresh squeezed orange juic, and coffee. Dinner was a Smart Ones shrimp marinara microwave dinner. Lunch was two Hebrew National lowfat hot dogs. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 57.4 and 93.7. LARGE EXPENSES this last week includes a new high-end iMac with extra memory, Apple Care, and iPod speakers, $2324.83 from J&R including shipping; and the third volume of complete Peanuts together with the new Pat Metheny album from amazon, $29. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "My Airplane" by that 60s English group that had the one hit about Snoopy and the Red Baron -- the tune is a total ripoff of "Octopus's Garden". POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: in 1988 as director of Alea II at Stanford, I hired Lyn Reyna to premiere E-Machines. Since I wrote it outdoors and stayed slavishly close to my sequence of all-combinatorial hexachords, I had presumed it was crap, if funny crap. At the dress rehearsal when I heard it for the first time, I marveled that it sounded REALLY COOL, that Lyn played the doody out of it, and that people would probably want to hang out with me after having heard that piece. When the piece got to the last gestures -- competing type A hexachords, the first high and the last low -- I realized that I forgot to change the clef to bass clef for the last gesture -- strange and odd especially considering the last attack is marked "with fist" on notes with 5 and 6 leger lines. Lyn played exactly what was on the page, and it sounded SO WRONG. I quickly put in the missing clef, and sat there as Lyn relearned the ending. And I became really cool again. COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY RECENTLY include Sunbeam/Blue Rhino. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY AND THEN SOME this week include Inko's White Tea, again, and Arthur Marc's hot sauces. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: What relationship does pruning have to actual prunes? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: olive antipasto (still), Inko's White Tea with key lime juice, wickles (spicy pickles), spicy olives. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK The "notch" that gave Franconia Notch its name. MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN THIS WEEK: a nickel in a Maynard parking meter and no meter maid came by. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK are none. SOME BIRDS NOTED THIS WEEK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE: dark-eyed juncos. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a Mad Lib filled in for the third time, a fancy schmancy appliance for turning crappy stuff into neat stuff, a gentle breeze, a pair of tweezers with a tick impaled on them.

The most important event of the week (nine days, actually) is related to an impending calamity: the Windows computer that I use to do e-mail, noise-reduce performance recordings, and maintain this website is slowly melting down. Since Thursday, during startup it has gone to a blue screen to say one of my disks has to be checked, and when I let it run CHKDSK everything checks out, and then on restart I get a black screen saying "Bad boot disk, please insert a system disk." I have managed to get the computer to start up by skipping over the CHKDSK that it wants to do each time, but occasionally at random times the blue screen comes back, suddenly, with a message "Windows has terminated to avoid damage being done to your computer" or something like that. The most comical thing that has happened (and enervating, since I hardly ever get to use that word) was that on Thursday night I retrieved 7 e-mails -- none of them spam (maybe for the first time ever), and the blue screen shut down came up as I tried to read them. On restarting, my Earthlink mailbox no longer had an Inbox. I experimented by sending myself an email, retrieving, and seeing where it would go: it went ... um, nowhere. As if one of those Jetsons sucking sounds had happened. While continuing to experiment, I accidentally retrieved a new e-mail to ... limbo ... and have no idea who it was from. So a few people I was going to respond to now are getting no response, since I have no record of the original e-mail, and therefore no e-mail addresses. As I recall, two of the disappeared emails were from Rick Moody, one from Jan Krzywicki, one from one of the almost twelve (with the same initials as Rhode Island) re:Total Eclipse, one labeled "conversation with admissions", and two others I don't remember. So somebody is going to be really mad at me or Brandeis or both for me not getting back to him/her.

So in conclusion: Ross Perot's Giant Sucking Sound (GSS for short) was not because of NAFTA. It was the current version of my Earthlink mailbox.

So I have been a firsthand witness to how much a computer can take over your life when something goes wrong with it. I did try all the utilities I've got on hand, but of course they seem to need to access system code that's on a bad block. So Norton Utilities bombs, and the "unbootable startup disk" fixing utility that HP sent me didn't do the job, either (it did 3 years ago when I had my first problems). The Norton I own is able to make fixit discs on floppies, as long as you bring it to another computer. So I actually went to 3 locations in Maynard to find floppy discs -- which I haven't bought in about 4 years -- and only The Paper Store has them. Beff has made the emergency discs on our computer in Bangor, and in a week when she is back, I will get to try an emergency fix. Ah, but today I am spelling it "ficks."

So obviously the most intense time I spent this week had to do with Windows. And -- thanks a lot, HP -- my computer didn't even come with any Windows installation discs. How odd to purchase an operating system and not actually have one. But I digress. I look forward to a ficks.

In the meantime. Beff has been in Maine for the two-week summer music camp at the University. So she has moved back into our second house, and secured help from some of her colleagues to repair stuff that went askew in the year leave.

In the meantime, I had planned to drive to Vermont on Sunday (yesterday) to do my yearly biergetrinken with the Director of the US Marine Band (formerly Assistant Director), because that was to be combined with a trip to the Yellow Barn Festival where Soozie and Curt were doing Violin Songs. I checked the Yellow Barn webpage to see whether the concert was in Putney or Amherst, and found out two things: it was in Putney at 11:30 am(!) and the program included Schoenberg and Brahms. I think Soozie had left me a message on my cell phone that went something like "........rk....... ..... ... d ......... .. . . .......... p .... . . ........ sk ............ . .. .. a .........." and I thought it was one of my grad students doing the juvenile phone thing, until I realized Soozie had e-mailed Beff that she couldn't get a cell phone signal. In Amherst! I emailed Soozie and she emailed back that the pianist wanted to do Brahms on that concert, he teaches at Yale, so I got shoved off the concert. And the festival director was sposta tell me. It didn't happen. So to Seth Knopp: bite me, it's fun. This gave me the weekend free.

Meanwhile, Beff had her weekend freed up, too, because the people she'd planned to see -- because of my trip -- also cancelled. So as a real treat, Beff drove here for Saturday lunch through Sunday morning. So on Saturday, after the weather had suddenly cleared (in terms of humidity, that is), we wanted to go to a place to sit outdoors. We tried the pub next to the Quarterdeck, but the only available table had no umbrella -- and Beff and I are the whitest people on our block (or sunblock -- but I digress). So we walked further, to the Blue Coyote Grill, where we sat in the only shady part of their deck. And the table was very high compared to the chairs -- the table was at chest level and it was just like eating out of a high chair. So of course we had to milk the irony by having beers on tap (Long Trail Ale, Sam Adams Summer, Sierra Nevada). And we also did calamari (surprisingly good -- better than the Quarterdeck's), I had the veggie wrap (portabello mushrooms bleed gray) and Beff the lettuce wrap. We did TWO bike rides (Boon Lake, and the Cemetary loop), Beff made the place look less like a bachelor pad, we had breakfast, and she went back to Maine. And dinner was chicken sandwiches, which is normal.

So without an event to go to on Sunday, I called the Lieutenant Colonel at all his possible numbers to reschedule -- even a voice mail where he identifies himself as "Major." That one was so stale it actually smelled. And he got one of them, so we rescheduled for Thursday. That was my Fun Day.

The cats got me up at 5 on Thursday, I fed them, dealt with the Windows meltdown, and got sulla via at about 5:50. I decided to try the Route 93 route through Franconia Notch to St. Johnsbury to Newport and then through the gorgeous mountain passes in Jay to get there. I stopped for gas and breakfast, and later, to bring Inkos tea from Shaws Newport. From 10:50 to 1:00 we had our four beers each along with lunch (makeyerown sammiches), and I brought my entire percussion collection: train whistle, siren whistle, two vibraslaps, flexitone, four finger cymbals, two maracas, ratchet. And I brought the Dyna Mike. Usually both of the kids make voluminous noise with the instruments, but it was only Jack, going solo, and mostly heterophonic. I successfully predicted the exact moment at which Jack would start playing the instruments through the Dyna Mike. And I gave a copy of the Signal to Noise magazine to the family, who showed me a one page feature on the Lieutenant Colonel in the Washingtonian Magazine. He actually had to respond to questions like "Favorite Composer" (Sousa and John Williams -- he insists the original question was "favorite march composer" and I said I always thought of John Williams as an April composer -- rim shot) and "Favorite Patriotic Holiday" (July 4, duh -- are there any others? Nancy suggested he should have said Bastille Day). Then for 2 hours it was just shooting the breeze in deck chairs, looking out at the lake, and noting the peals of childish laughter coming from Jack and Claire, who were now in the lake.

Winifred -- the Corgi -- was of course glad to see me (he forgot to put a gun in his pocket), but seemed quite reserved most of the rest of the time. He must be getting old, with those little sticks of legs, etc. And at 3 I embarked on my way back home, this time trying my usual route -- to 89 in St. Albans, catching 93 in Concord, etc. -- and I made sure to stop at Food Town (or whatever it is called) in the old railroad yards in St. Albans because they had Wickles that caught my fancy, and a very good olive antipasto. As I entered the Route 89 ramp, I called Ross. And we talked until Waterbury. The route via St. Albans is a half hour faster, so it will continue to be my route. Though DAMN, Franconia Notch is gorgeous.

Work-related stuff happened, as I met with the Dean on Wednesday morning to get the ball rolling on our search to replace Yehudi. The committee is more or less formed, there are forms I have to fill out, but meanwhile I got authorization to advertise it. Deadline is October 1. And I started e-mailing my contacts at various doctoral programs to spread the word. We still need an outside person for the committee and a Diversity Rep (whose main task it is to certify that the applicant pool is diverse), but thankfully we have the authorization to go ahead. And then my favorite part -- talk with an Associate Dean about the money we can spend on the search. By the way, the search is for an Assistant Professor, tenure track, doctorate required. Spread the woid.

And on top of that, I started AND finished a piece, which turned out pretty hot, hot, HOT. I had casually told Mick Rudy (my name for Rick Moody this week -- I don't know why, either) in e-mail that I would soon be on the hunt for new etude ideas, and he said all he had was do something with Tower of Power licks. I said there were copyright issues on that, but that there were enough licks that were part of the basic language of funk (I hate myself when I talk this way) that I could probably set up a funk etude with them. And so I did. I beat the six-day requirement by one day, and sent the piece to my Hot Pianist Spam List, along with the MIDI. And of course the piece is dedicated to Mick Rudy AND it is listed on this website. Two more and I've got another whole book, and that will make Peters glad. This etude was #68, meaning that, owing to the laws of cardinality and ordinality, the next one will be #69. I have an e-mail from Ken Ueno offering to commission #69 with various requirements, including it be a crab canon, be retrogradeable and loopable, and include a quote from "I Touch Myself." I've always dreaded what would happen when I did number 69, and now I know. Oh yeah -- and the title of #68 references both the first and last episodes of Sex and the City: Absofunkinlutely. Though I must say, this piece had the most working titles of any etude, almost all of them already used by funk groups in the 1970s. My current laugh line is that you have to grow sideburns to play the piece. Except that it's not actually funny. So to call it a laugh line is an exaggeration.