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

Martler here. As before, I'll keep this brief in view of my host's habitual prolixity. (Hey, look it up.) Davy has been a fine host of course. He cooks. We've had salmon burgers, chicken burgers/sandwiches (a nice distinction) and, er, burger burgers. All nearly fat-free and delicious. MY RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Trader Joe's peppered cashews, Altoids, burgers. And, in deference to the season, THINGS WHICH WOULD MAKE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE ONE YOU HAVE NOW: phosphorescence, an empty Altoids tin, a bed sore.

Today's pictures are a mere five. Two of the cats -- and I think one may be a repeat. And three of the two of us dealing with the leaves in the driveway on Wednesday. After this is posted, I shall shower, and -- alas -- move on to the pine needles in the side yard and in the back yard. Also, I think Martler wants to do the tour of the Orchard House in Concord (the Alcott House) and of course at some point this weekend we will to the Chicken Bone Saloon.

NOVEMBER 6. Breakfast this morning was a meatless breakfast sausage patty with 2% milk cheese and decaf French roast coffee. Dinner was salmon burgers and salad with homemade dressing. Lunch was Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee nonfat ravioli. LARGE EXPENSES this week were none. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Freak Out, by who knows whom. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK: 26.3 and 69.3. RECOMMENDATION/PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 11 -- it's Guggenheim season, people! DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK was that I pack leaves into barrels tight, Beff eases them in. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: why do you think they call them "Deans"? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Martler's Altoid sours, chipotle stuffed olives, real lemonade. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 7. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 1. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a garden rake, a barrel of pine cones, a dead fly, two pieces of stale toast.

After I type this, but likely before I post it, we will be meeting Ken and Hillary at the Wing Bone saloon for wings and the usual stuff. Beff has said that she does NOT want the sexy fries (waffle fries), which she describes as a mere "ketchup delivery system," rather the curly fries, which give you more bang for the buck. We might also ask, finally, what "Roman" wings are. For the driving nerd in all of you, I'll let you know that I plan on a roundabout route, through downtown Natick rather than downtown Framingham, which has oodles of poopy construction.

Things at work are horrid, and we are in crisis mode, morale is extremely low, and everyone is in a bad mood, expecially me. I get cc:'s of everyone's letter to the Dean exhorting he keep the composition program, which I store and will print for some eventual large package. We had a faculty meeting, for which I did the minutes at 8:30 this morning. As Beff noted, "I know of no other department where the Chair does the minutes." And both times there I typed "minuets" instead of "minutes." You can see what I'd MUCH rather be doing. So in my life and in my work I am bummed and depressed. Enough said about work.

Yesterday Beff and I walked into town so I could renew a prescription, etc., and Beff was making movies of the wind -- which was whipping up ferociously yesterday. She made movies of trees blowing, and leaves blowing in whirlwinds, etc., and even made movies of our little dog friends -- including one mounting the other. If any of you almost eleven need such a movie, well, we won't give one up. Where the dogs are, though, Beff started making a movie of me -- ME! I'm a movie star! -- and my cap blew off. We have posted that movie for your viewing pleasure, above.

And last night after the salmon burgers, we went to the Fine Arts cinema in Maynard to see The Incredibles. Which was a silly dumb movie that we both liked a lot. I started thinking that the soundtrack would be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and maybe beat out by some art movie soundtrack that is released only in L.A. next month. But then I got a hold of myself. Not literally, but you get the idea. Anyway, the movie come highly recommended, but alas there are no fake outtakes at the end.

Of course, raking goes on and on. The big wind from yesterday did certainly help loosen some stuff for raking today, and we did nine barrels already this morning. Wow, faculty meeting minutes and nine barrels, all before lunch! If anyone is Mr. Incredible, it's me. There was also raking on other days this week, and the running total is now 93 barrels raked. The yard where the oak tree is the last bit to do, and we are waiting for those leaves to fall, too. Then I think we'll mostly hang up our rakes.

Because, after all, Beff goes to the Copland House on Wednesday. And to Memphis on Thursday. And then back to Copland House. And then to Providence next week. And then to my Chamber Music Society perf on the 18th. I'm still trying to figure out my travel plans for that week, but maybe if I do an update next week I'll let you know.

Martler went to NYC on Monday and we haven't heard his plans for returning yet. Well, other than that it will be by bus. But as to when, we do not know. We let him take us to the Blue Room Grill in Cambridge on Saturday as his sort of rent payment, and the food was very good indeed. And I had espresso, thus setting the clock on the real coffee countup back to 0. We also had (shudder) beer before dinner at the Cambridge Brewing Company next to the restaurant, and it was good brother, it was good brother, it was god-dam good.

We tried cleaning the window fan from the bathroom, but the dust was too internally caked to do much about it, and it was very hard to get open -- dadburn plastic construction -- so I went to K-Mart for a new one. They didn't have any, no surprise. Got one from Ace Hardware in Acton, and now it's in the window. It's MUCH louder than the last one. Oh dear, I'm afraid I might have to look at Tar-zhay for one on one of these drives back from work.

I talked about TEN OF A KIND in Jessie Ann Owens's Symphony class yesterday, and apparently I did fine. We looked at structure, cyclical things, and I got to tell lots of stories about what makes the piece American. Mostly it was funny stories about a Massachusetts Yankee in Col. Foley's court, but you get the idea. Then New Music Box featured Yotam Haber, who had won a band composition prize for a piece he wrote for Cornell and showed me last spring when the players were having trouble. I made a lot of comments, and for that I got "mentoring" credit in the little feature article. Mentor spelled inside out is tnoerm.

Luckily, there were no concerts for me to attend last week. Tonight it's grad composers, tomorrow the Brandeis Wellesley Orchestra, and Thursday the NEC Wind Ensemble -- I do dinner with Gusty, who has a piece on the concert, before the concert. And what it is, too.

Pictures this time include how the cats loved the box the VCCA sent me; territory raked; territory yet to rake; both cats snapped this afternoon; and highlights from lunch with Hillary and Ken at the Chicken Bone Saloon, which just a little earlier in this update was still in the future. Funny how time flies.

NOVEMBER 12. Breakfast this morning was decaf coffee, orange juice and a b'eggel from South Street Market, down the street from the music department on the other side of the commuter rail tracks. Dinner was chicken satay and chicken teriyaki at a restaurant near NEC. Lunch was nothing (I forgot. So sue me). LARGE EXPENSES this week were dinner with ART, $64, parking near NEC, $17. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS I Love The Way You Move by Outkast. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: my junior year in high school singing in the chorus in the Christmas concert, we were singing "Fum, Fum, Fum." Halfway through my voice squeaked, and it struck me as highly amusing -- amusing enough that I sort of laughed while singing the rest of the tune, and it caught on in those near me. Afterwards the others who were also laughing during the performance asked what had been so funny. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK: 17.8 and 64.4. RECOMMENDATION/PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 1. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK was how insidious the Rhapsody in Blue is -- I couldn't get it out of my head for three days, especially (one of) the (many) cadenza(s) with figuration around repeated notes. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: If today is the first day of the rest of your life, then what is tomorrow? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Altoid sours, pepperoncini, Buffalo wings. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 13. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 1. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE the sound of one hand clapping, a tree falling in the forest, the two mountains created without a valley between, yo mama.

I write from a winter wonderland. Early this morning as I got up and went to Brandeis, They That Make had promised rain for today mixing with and changing to snow overnight, dusting to an inch. Right now at 2:30 in the afternoon, there is certainly more than that, and the forecast is upped to 2-4 inches by the end of the storm. They That Make are as accurate on this one as I am at predicting precisely when the chords at the end of the first movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in C will come. Martler was raking leaves just yesterday -- having brought the season total to 99 barrels -- and I don't want to be shoveling in such close proximity (temporally) to raking. It's just not right, it's just not fair, etc.

Nonetheless, I did go into Brandeis briefly this morning to pick up some financial statements (joy of joys), and on the way home went to visit Nancy Redgate, our dept. administrator who has been out sick for more than three weeks. She is in a facility in Sudbury, and was getting the royal treatment. It was good to see her, I stayed an hour and a half, and she obviously likes company -- if you would like to visit, drop me a line and I'll tell you where to go. From her window I spied the light sleet becoming very light snow, becoming heavier snow. Which was not accumulating when I got home, but which has done so since then. Since getting home, I've been interviewed by the Brandeis Justice (student newspaper) about the proposed cuts in composition, arranged lunch tomorrow in Hudson with Geoffy, and dealt with the newest 50 (exactly) e-mails.

As to the proposed cut in composition: things move forward. More work for me. Morale is low. Musicologists are in Seattle.

On the other hand, Wednesday and Thursday nights I had, for the first time in more than a month and a half, full night's sleep. There is no rational basis for this fact other than accumulation of the need, or maybe somebody hit me very hard on the head with a hammer when I wasn't looking. To be fair, people with "Dean" in their title have been doing that to me FIGURATIVELY on a regular basis, but it doesn't happen to me LITERALLY that often.

Also as I type, Martin is a-bed with a fever. I don't even know if "a-bed" is an actual expression, but it seems limeyish to me. Martin got back from New York on Wednesday, and I picked him up in Framingham at 5ish, after a pointful meeting -- where, because it was rush hour, we went across the way to eat at John Harvard's restaurant in Shopper's World. We shared buffalo wings, Martler got a cheddarburger, I got the Veronica Salmon with the garlic mash. You could probably tell which of us paid. Meanwhile, Martin has gone back to working on the dining room table, and I made SURE he raked yesterday in the last bastion of unraked leaves -- just in back of the garage. Yesterday I had nervous energy at 6:45 am, so I went out and did three barrels worth myself, and Martler did three barrels later in the day (we're now up to 99, as stated above). I had planned on finishing the job when I got back this morning -- there's maybe one or two barrels left to rake and then we're THROUGH, THROUGH, THROUGH! -- but they that make made that which was made into a joke. Am I making sense to you?

On Saturday after this update, Beff and I drove to Framingham for another episode of the Wing Bone Saloon saga, sharing a table with Ken and Hillary. Unfortunately, Hillary loves it at Harvard (she doesn't know yet that it's inferior to Brandeis), and also unfortunately, Ken discovered the consummate joy of people that invite you to meetings. Ken, welcome to the junior tenure track position hell we know as "the junior tenure track position hell." Nonetheless, there were many wings, fries and Bloody Maries to go around, and we stopped at a Dairy Queen after our meal. Ken used the rest room there, and they looked very put out when he asked.

Beff is in Memphis doing a clarinet master class as I type this. She has already started her residency at the Copland House, which was one day old when she had to drive to LaGuardia, circle the airport for 40 minutes to find the parking she prepaid online, couldn't locate, and ended up parking in the long term lot. Tonight she returns, to the rainy version of this storm. Yesterday after my Chair's meeting (these are always fun because the most mundane mere announcements become subjects of great controversy with this group), Beff called my office to look on the web and find out the contact number for the U Memphis music department. Turns out her plane was late, and she wanted them to know that. This was like the time that Stacy and Joe were driving to Minneapolis and called me to go online and find out where they would encounter IHOPs on their trip. But I digress, and horribly so.

So speaking of Beff, we had our last day of fun before she left for Copland House on Tuesday afternoon, where we conspired to locate places to get movie footage for her next video and instruments project, about making a concordance of the wind. With our digital cameras, she got a little footage of the books in the Harvard (the town, not the University) public library, she got some footage of the view near Fruitlands, and then she had an idea: we put an unabridged Shakespeare volume on one of the window seats, opened the window, and I aimed her hair dryer at the book, thus turning the pages slowly. She got some rather good (and retro, frankly) shots, including a few where Cammy jumped into the picture. Cammy may be afraid of leaf blowers, but a hair dryer doesn't bother him at all. At night, I suppose we had salmon burgers or something.

On Sunday, I went into Brandeis for the seventh consecutive day (that string is now at twelve) for the orchestra concert, and it was really good. The orchestra is far, far better than the version that played the Beethoven 4 a number of years ago, and the number of ringers was fairly low -- one of them was a trombonist I went to college with, who I was surprised to see. (guilt did NOT set in for me to volunteer my trombone skills for this group) Adam Marks -- one of two undergraduates at Brandeis in the late 90s whose name is a complete sentence (Gordon Withers was the other one) was the soloist for Rhapsody in Blue, and he was very, very good. Neal Hampton did a great job cuing the orchestra, and I discovered and orchestrational nicety that I hadn't been aware of previously -- the little accented clarinet trills in the first big phrase are doubled in a harmon-muted trumpet. (too bad that was Grofe's idea and not Gershwin's) In all, I was impressed by the orchestra of the department I chair. From on high, I approve. Adam Marks is doing grad school in New York, premiered one of my etudes (#42, Madam I'm Adam) and plays Fists of Fury like nobody's bidness.

I got the prototype of the ad for Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society thing that will be in the NY Times this weekend -- almost eleven of you, save it for me? -- and it's big, has a lot of information, and I am -- get this -- saluted. They must have heard that I wrote for a military band or something like that. It also has a list of all previous Stoeger Prize winners. Whoa, me and Kaija, down by the schoolyard. I dig it. I go there on Wednesday, meet with Soozie and Curt at Juilliard in the afternoon (I plan on taking a 2:00 train from Cortlandt Manor, or however you spell that -- near the Copland House), possibly meet a Brandeis funder, and then go back. Thursday, the day of the performance, who knows how I will spend the day? I did speak with and exchange e-mails with a very nice woman at the Brandeis House in NYC about meeting people important to the music department, but schedules haven't worked out yet. Plus, they can't exactly be invited to the Lincoln Center performance because it is SOLD OUT! This is why the weather here today is a cold day in hell -- a concert of Dusapin, Froom, and Rakowski managed to sell out. Or was a sellout. Or whatever.

Last news to report is that I actually went into Boston for a band concert last night. The NEC wind ensemble was doing a new band piece called GALAXY DANCE by Gusty Thomas, and she invited me to dinner and the concert. I paid for dinner (she likes her sake incredibly hot), and liked her piece a lot. It's different from the other pieces of hers I know, but that's not why I like it. It didn't sound like a band piece, and that's only part of why I liked it. Whoa, there were some great low register tunes in the beginning and end. She got to use three double basses, though, and that will limit future performances. She was modest, predicting that no one would ever perform the piece again. We sat behind a very old woman who loved the piece and couldn't stop talking about it.

And that's my week. Rather more than I thought I would be able to talk about.

Today's pictures begin with two of the Winter Wonderland here at about 2:30. There is more now. Followed is the sunset from a few nights ago. Then there is an extreme closeup of a scratch on my hand I got from Cammy when we were bringing him in and he was spooked by the sound of a leaf blower in the next yard and he bit. We finish with two cat pictures from the "awwww...." category.
NOVEMBER 20. Breakfast this morning is Morningside Farms vegetarian breakfast patties with nonfat cheese slices. Dinner was sauteed chicken with onions and garlic a la Martler. Lunch had been snacks on the road. LARGE EXPENSES this week were train tickets to New York, $17.50 round trip off peak, $22 peak, and dinner after the Double Exposure concert, $80. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Hyperblue, recording from the premiere. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: in a grad seminar at Princeton, we were doing the obligatory exercise of analyzing each other's pieces. I did a little piece by Jody Rockmaker that turned out to be ABABA form, which I prounounced by twiddling my finger on my lips. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK: 16.0 and 61.3. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 0. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK the hiking area near the Copland House. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: What do we do with all the nitrogen in the air when we breathe it? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: SMAK pickles -- just opened the last jar. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 1. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 1. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: 3. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a piece of stained glass, yesterday's newspaper, a tree that fell in the forest, a cup of tepid coffee.

It is Saturday as I type this. Last week's winter wonderland crested at four inches, which I shoveled; now it is gone. Yesterday's weather was back into the 60s, which the weather guy on TV called "springlike." Martler finished raking the yard behind the garage, carrying the season total to 101 barrels, and that's where the total will stay. Last year's total was 99-1/2, so this would be more.

Even though I continue to hate my job, I continue to do it. As soon as I finish here, I'll be in my office working on a report. What fun! Then I will deal with the e-mail that accumulated while I was in New York.

Speaking of which. I went to the Copland House and stayed with Beff there for two nights while doing the Chamber Music Society stuff and a few things for Brandeis. The house is a nicely designed place with a great working space for a composer (good thing, since one bought it), and plenty of leafy, hilly yard. When I arrived, people with leaf blowers told me to park elsewhere, which I did. And I learned the lay of the land, so to speak. I had a rehearsal in the City at 4 with Soozie and Curt, so I learned about the 1:17 train from Cortlandt, arriving about an hour later, and the stunning views of the Hudson on the trip. I talked a bit with my old buddy from Orpheus, Valerie, who now works for the Chamber Music Society, before the rehearsal, and we relived old times a bit. She happens to be a fun one. Our rehearsal was next door, at Juilliard, and I heard my Violin Songs for the very first time. At first the first two songs sounded generic to me, and the last three pretty good. With rehearsal, things got better, which is good because they were already fantastic. Soozie has about a million vocal shadings, which she used to good effect -- I've hardly ever heard so much variety even within single songs.

I got the 6:03 train back from Grand Central, and Beff and I had a Freschetta frozen pizza (heated up) for dinner. Which we ate in Aaron Copland's house. At the dining room table donated by Lou Karchin. In Aaron Copland's house. For lunch that day, we had done a new Italian restaurant in Cortlandt near the A&P that had no sign on it -- nonetheless, the chicken I had was quite good, and we were the only customers for the entire time we were there. Meanwhile, after checking some e-mail (dial-up!) after dinner we retired to bed, to meet Thursday head-on by hiking a bit in the Washington Preserve or something like that. After which we got dressed up, had an Indian buffet lunch with Michael Boriskin, and took the 2:17 to New York. I had promised to meet a friend of Brandeis at Brandeis house, and I got pretty fretted and wired when I couldn't catch a cab outside of Grand Central for about 10 minutes. Finally we got a gypsy cab to Brandeis house, on time, where we were told we were going to the house of the friend of Brandeis -- another cab ride! -- but we got a cab in one second. Understandably, I was wired as I tried to describe what the music department does, and I was excused to go to my 5:00 sound check. Got another cab, oh joy.

The event itself was pretty spectacular. David Froom was there (we had only met once before, but exchange e-mails once in a while), and Curt played his solo violin sonata quite spectacularly. Soozie and Fred Sherry and Alex Fiterstein did a Dusapin piece. The concert ended with my violin songs, which in both performances came off marvelously -- in particular, the fourth song was just amazing. One person said that song was a "masterpiece." My head got really, really big. And for the first time, I liked all five songs. We sat at a table on the side with Judy Sherman and Hayes Biggs (one of these things is not like the other) and had a grand old time. Judy doesn't know I voted for her for the Classical Producer of the Year Grammy. Because, you see, I am a Grammy voter.

The Double Exposure series always has Bruce Adolphe, their composer in residence, giving patter and introducing the composers and asking them questions, and he and I turned into a fairly effective comedy team (he complimented my tie, I said "enjoy the show," he talked about "21st Century playback" in Finale, etc.). After the first show, there was the official Stoeger Prize presentation, and the exec director Norma and co-artistic director Wu Han presented me with a giant replica of the Stoeger check I had already cashed last January. My one-sentence speech mentioned "big bucks" (tee hee), and then there was the talking to people in between shows, while also posing for several official photographs. Then in the second show, Soozie actually had to answer some questions from the audience, since she had chosen the poems. Nonetheless, the second performance was even better.

So I drove back yesterday, did some chores, and let the cats outside while the Maids came to clean. Cammy stayed hidden for quite some time, not coming back in until dusk. Meanwhile, Sunny was in a neighbor's yard investigating a local cat, but I retrieved him from an ignominious fate. Whatever that would mean. So I grilled some eggplant on the grill outside, and it was good, brother. Martler improvised a sauteed chicken stir fry recipe that he says he got from Jeff Perry (who used the phrase, "use a lot more garlic than you think" or some variation thereof). It was good. And, eventually, farty.

There was not much to do on the weekend, since Martler was somewhat ill and there was snow everywhere. I didn't take any pictures. But I took plenty of them at the Copland House. This coming week will be Thanksgiving there with Hayes and Susan, and we got some of the food -- including the turkey (breast only, no legs, etc.) -- in advance. So I will be leaving on Wednesday morning for yet another stint there. Meanwhile, Martler goes back to England on Monday morning. It will be desolate here. But the leaves will still be all raked. And Generalissimo Franco will still be dead.

I had walked from Times Square to the Chamber Music Society on Wednesday, stopping several times along the way to see if anyone had the Time Out NY issue with Danny's review of the second etude disc; most newsstands no longer had that issue, but one did. So I got it. Read it on Reviews, Page 3. The "masterpiece" comment at Double Exposure gave me a big head. Danny's review gave me a "bulging brain." So the two of them kind of work together.

This week's pictures are all from the Copland house and nearby area. We have Thursday's sunrise, pictures of the house, a picture of the big picture window (see me in the reflection), a pillow that there is a picture of Copland posing with, a sign with a tree grown around it in the preserve, me on the phone in the preserve (talking to Brandeis House), and me on the porch holding my oversized check. The number of "will it fit through the ATM?" comments I got was legion.
NOVEMBER 26. Lunch this afternoon was Morningside Farms meatless breakfast sausages with Shaws nonfat cheese slices. Breakfast was actual coffee, but not much of (I left some of it, after it had been processed by my body, in a rest area between Waterbury, CT and Hartford). Dinner was turkey white meat, summer squash that had been converted (by me) into an I Can't Believe It's Not Butter delivery system, garlic mash potatoes, Stove Top stuffing, Franco American canned turkey gravy, beer, wine, apple pie, and vanilla ice cream. LARGE EXPENSES this week were none. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Hyperblue, recording from the premiere (same as last week). POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: only once in my entire time in elementary school or high school did I have to stay after school for bad behaviour; after a film strip in fifth grade, for some reason I felt it was hilarious to throw my pencil repeatedly on the desk of the girl in front of me. I stayed after school and filled a page with "I will be a good boy in school." I think it worked. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK: 26.1 and 64.8. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 1. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK more of the hiking area near the Copland House and a view to the Hudson through a clearing made for gas lines going through and over the mountains. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: Does time pass in one continuous stream (analog), or an infinite number of infinitessimals (digital)? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: SMAK pickles -- the last ones I had are finito -- olives stuffed with exotic things, and of course, turkey. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 1. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: 1. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a plastic deli sandwich holder, the lead of a pencil, the pile of hair on the floor of the barber at the end of the day, a drop of hot oil.

It was a long weekend with plenty of stuff to do -- on both Saturday and Sunday mornings I went in to Brandeis to work on some documents and to cajole those responsible for parts of one document to do their writing. On Saturday, Alison Carver came down to see Martler and I saw them before they went out to the Horseshoe Pub in Hudson. They then went on to the Orchard House in Concord, where Louisa May Alcott had grown up, and took the tour. At night, we went to the Neighborhood Pizzeria for the first time since it moved onto Main Street across from The Barber Who Talks Too Much So I Don't Go There Any More. We got buffalo wings and salad, and the wings were so peppery hot (meaning: really great) that Martler couldn't finish his.

And then on Sunday, Martler promised to take me out for seafood at the Quarterdeck Restaurant, so we walked there, and it was close. So instead we went to the Blue Tiger Grill in Maynard, but I may have gotten the name of that wrong -- Beff always corrects me when I bring it up. It used to be called Amory's, which was way easier to remember. I got the grilled salmon, and Martler got the half-rack of ribs and steak tips special. I don't remember what we talked about, except that there was too much food on Martler's plate to eat. There was plenty of football to watch, and we watched Miami not do too well.

Monday and Tuesday were crammed with teaching, as I had moved all the Wednesday teaching to earlier in the week. On Monday morning, Martler and I left in the car at 5:55 am to get him to the airport, and he disembarked from the Corolla in front of Terminal B, Logan, at 6:40; I then arrived at Brandeis at about 7:05. Martler is probably back in limeyville now, unless he was making something up. After all, I left him off at a domestic terminal, not the internation one (which would be E). Then at 9 on Monday I saw my Wednesday at noon student (had nothing new), sat in on Jeff Roberts's PhD oral exam (he passed), and drove to NEC to see my two students there (they both had nothing new). On Tuesday, I had my two Tuesday students, followed by my Wednesday at 9 student (forgot to show up) and my Wednesday at 11 student (DID have music!), peeked in on Gil and commented on his G minor invention (which he had just written on his own because it interested him), and took to 2:06 train into North Station.

From North Station, I took the Orange Line to Forest Hills and back. In between those trips, I met with Gil Rose at and near the BMOP offices -- in the same building as a Masonic Hall converted into a recording studio -- and we came up with a schedule and a strategy for the Davy orchestral CD. Piece for BMOP on the way. "Winged Contraption" for the "has some relationship to NEC" concert a year from January. Now I just have to find the right timing to resign as Chair. Fat chance, huh?

It took a mere three hours to drive to the Copland House on Wednesday, and I got there while Beff was out shopping and the weekly maid service was in the house. And boy did I have to go to the bathroom. So the maid let me in, and I used the rest room, and encountered Beff returning with Thanksgiving food right afterwards. "Been here long?" she said. What a pickup line, I thought. It was quite mild outside on Wednesday; nonetheless, we drove south to whatever is just south of Cortlandt to use a post office and eat Japanese -- a Japanese restaurant was listed on the Copland House literature -- but the restaurant was gone. So we got some nice stuff at a gourmet store, and then drove into town for a second-rate Chinese buffet. When we got back, Beff did some video work and I read the paper. Then Hayes and Susan arrived around 3, and we came on home and spread ourselves out.

At about 3:45, Hayes served us all beers. I figured if we started with beer this early we would run out quickly, so Susan and I drove down to a beer store and got some very good beer -- including a Blue Something winter ale that was very good. We also got Spanish Peaks ale, which is now made in Saratoga Springs -- so our bragging about eating in the Spanish Peaks brewery in Montana was deflated by the new circumstances. But they did have big smoking chairs for cigar smokers. That will always be true. Then we bopped over to the A&P in Cortlandt for Cool Whip and vanilla ice cream for the pies that Susan had brought. For dinner, I whipped up a bunch of soup from mixes purchased at the Porter Exchange in Cambridge -- all of them Thai hot and sour soups -- and salad. Cool. After dinner, we watched "Dead Again," much of it to the derision and scorn of all of us.

On Thanksgiving Day (yesterday), Beff and I exceeded the waking up time of Hayes and Susan by about two hours, so we were already wired with caffeine as they emerged. Since it was quite mild out and there were peeks of sun, we went to the hiking area nearby and took a rather long hike -- photographic evidence below. On the road in the preserve were many piles of discarded things, including a big pile of mattresses and a whole office. Hmmph. At about 1 I put the incomplete turkey breast we had bought into the oven, basted it every fifteen minutes, and then worked on all the other accoutrements. Dinner was at about 4:15, and seemed to be pretty good, even if I did put too much I Can't Believe It's Not Butter in the squash. We were filled to the brim! Then we watched the movie of The Ice Storm to fill the time until The Apprentice (a show for which I don't care at all), and it was fun to see a movie with Tuesday Addams, the chick from Pieces of April, the head elf from The Santa Clause, Spiderman AND Frodo. Alas, Frodo is the one who dies in this movie. I thought it was a pretty good movie, though I know the author has reservations both about it and about the original novel. Sigourney Weaver played against type the way Mary Tyler Moore did in Ordinary People. And the child actor to whom Christina Ricci said "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours" (the part I'd seen surfing through cable about eight times) seemed familiar. One of these days I'll figure out where I saw him before.

I went to bed before The Apprentice came on -- had to get home to feed the cats. I left this morning at 7:30, was in Hartford by the time Hayes and Susan woke up, arrived at home at 10:30, took the garbage to the street (probably not soon enough -- there were NO other garbage cans out nearby), changed the cat litter, mailed the bills to Beff, got more cat litter and cat food at Shaws, and came back to type this stuff out. I had left a big bowl of dry food for the cats in addition to their regular dry food, and it was ALL GONE when I got back. These cats can eat. They can poop, too.

So the next big thing coming up not related to the job I hate, hate, HATE is Midwest Conference in about two and a half weeks. Whoa, five days in Chicago with nary a Chair thing to do. Woo hoo. Meanwhile, I have to try and find some old scores because of inquiries made at Peters. Don't hate me for being beautiful.

Today's pics from the Copland House: the dining room, Beff at work, the Hirshfeld portrait, outdoors, the hiking picture, the town viewed through the clearing, and pans of the studio and dining room.
DECEMBER 4.. Breakfast this morning is Trader Joe's French Roast decaf coffee, orange juice, and eventually Morningside Farms meatless sausage patties with nonfat cheese. Dinner was a Healthy Choice microwave meal of a lasagna and chicken patty or something like that, and salad. Lunch had been a big, big salad with Campari tomatoes and homemade salad dressing. LARGE EXPENSES this week were $89 for various sundries at BJ's, and I started to fill my shopping cart at amazon. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS The MIDI of "Scatter", one of the Three Encores I just entered into Finale. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: I used to be able to do a standing broad jump pretty far -- 8' 5-1/2" when I was in eighth grade, which they told me was the record. In ninth grade I could only do 6' 9" because of the slippery sneakers I had and my parents didn't buy me new ones too often. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK: 23.2 and 56.5. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 13(!). DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK a place in the Prudential Center that sells CryBaby Tears (at outrageous prices). THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: Are "atonal" and "amoral" parallel concepts? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: A few CryBaby Tears, deli pickles, stuffed olives. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK 1. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 8. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 4. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: 2. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a coffee bean, a pair of tweezers, a pile of dog doo, a map showing the addresses of the stars.

So since returning from the Copland House, life has been altogether boring. I went into Brandeis on Sunday mornings to do chairman stuff that was due December 1, and I finally finished the big document constituting our response to our Dean's proposal to phase out the graduate program in composition. While I'm on Brandeis stuff, I'll mention that I did a lot of it. And I led a faculty meeting on Thursday, which was mercifully short. I even went in yesterday morning for the simple purpose of delivering a two-days-late document to the registrar.

I had planned on going in on Saturday, but Eric Chafe and his wife came over for lunch instead. We went to the Blue Tiger -- where I had been with Martler a week earlier -- and had lunchy things and beers. I think I got the Buffalo chicken wrap. We talked (or more precisely he talked) about his forthcoming LULU book, and we had much fun talking about days of Brandeis past. Of course I couldn't work after the lunch and beer, so I solved world hunger instead, and then lost the spreadsheet.

The only fun Brandeis thing was talking about my "Dream Symphony" for the Music Since 1900 class taught by Eric Chafe. So I did. And one student said what I already know -- all three movements end slow.

Meanwhile, the students I taught at NEC were fun-having. Mary had nothing new (she made, and ate, pies instead of writing), so we took a brisk walk down Gainsborough Street, Hemenway Street, and Boylston Street and marched through the Pru, landing in a candy store that had CryBaby Tears by the box for $1.50. Highway robbery, but I got eight boxes anyway, in order to spend enough to use a credit card. Then we marched back along the Christian Science headquarters and finished the lesson on a sugar high. Nathan, meanwhile, alas had new music so we couldn't go on a march. And later in the week a check arrived from NEC, which happens every month, and every time I forget that it's coming. Fulfillment.

The first thing Beff said yesterday when she called was "you haven't updated your website." So what I am doing right now (updating my website) will serve as the antidote to that problem. Believe it or not, I have blocked off the weekend for composing -- we'll see how far THAT gets.

So during the cheap time last weekend I spoke with Stacy and Joe -- according to the phone, it was an hour and 17 minute conversation. Stacy sent me a sex poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that I am considering using in my sex poems collection for Soozie. (for the uninitiated, Soozie asked for movements to be added to "The Gardener," which is a sex poem set for voice and five instruments) I also e-mailed Rick Moody about it, and he said he's game to write one. I will soon be asking others for advice. And if you, dear reader, know a good singable sex poem that contrasts with what I already have, let me know.

The Chamber Music Society sent the CD of both performances of the Violin Songs, and they are spantacular. Soozie really makes me look good. And Curt already looks good ("Curt IS jazz!"). And I haven't yet decided which performance is better. Though the audience laughter in the second song is more evident in the first performance.

Meanwhile, Peters had gotten some inquiries about various pieces that were obviously listed on this site, and they revealed that they were unable to find masters of Three Encores. Ironically so, since Judy and Jim just recorded them, and last night they even did one of the encores on their program in Princeton. They said they had pristine scores to offer, but they had images of the coil binding on them, as well as a few of their own markings. I sent that to Peters, but decided, on my own, to enter them into Finale. This took up Thursday night and most of yesterday, and I can announce -- finished! Purty copies of Vocal Ease, Scatter, and Vocal Angst now available both on paper and as PDFs. So that has been eating up my time, especially figuring out how to do all that damn over-the-barline beaming I must have thought was really cool in Scatter.

Beside all that, it rained really hard here on Sunday and Wednesday. And I did two loads of laundry yesterday, including the blanket that Martler slept with. Today I must send the Encores to the publisher. Oh yes, and I got a big thing of dry cat food, two big things of canned cat food, some campari tomatoes, and various other sundries at BJ's on Tuesday on my way back from work. Yesterday I got various foodstuffs at VICTORY supermarket in Waltham at 10 in the morning after delivering my document -- and saw a student there. Who was dumbfounded that I was shopping there "on my way home." Which I was.

By the way, I think I may have managed a good night's sleep last night. Though I was awake at 1, I must have slept later. And for the first time in months, I had dreams that I could remember -- which means I woke up during them. And as I learned in my big, big research paper on SLEEP that I did in 7th grade, dreams happen during the deepest part of sleep. There were even layers in the later dream -- in which I was sitting on stage in a performance of some sort of comedy of manners, and nodded off, in the dream, waking up, in the dream, to a scene where those assembled had to exit. There was also something about getting a moving truck up a curvy driveway, but that seems to be unrelated, somehow. Maybe that was the first dream.

Beff asked for cat pictures -- "are they getting big?" she always asks. I had taken no new shots this week, so I followed them around the house and tried to get good shots. Below is the evidence. I also had a fire because a cat litter bag was emptied and various other stuff had to be burned.

DECEMBER 10. Breakfast this morning was big. I had a Better 'n' Eggs omelette with nonfat cheese, a bagel with nonfat cream cheese, and decaf Trader Joe's French Roast coffee. I still feel fat. Last night's dinner was a Healthy Choice Fire Roasted Chicken microwave meal (finally emptying out the freezer). Lunch was Udon noodles. As much fun to say as it is to eat! LARGE EXPENSES this week were more things put into my cart at amazon (like Danny Felsenfeld's new book). I went to Staples twice with a $20 off when you spend $100 card and got nothing both times. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Trillium" from Violin Songs because I listened to it in the car this morning, and Soozie sings it so gorgioso. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: I took the Chicago song "Harry Truman" off the radio my senior year in high school and got together a band to play it in the Spring Frolics using the original instrumentation -- even had two clarinets and a Chicago-like brass section (including me on trombone). The fast chromatic licks for the clarinets were entirely too formidable for them, but I remember watching fork fingering going wild. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 4. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Sunset's heart murmur is no better, no worse. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: Why is "hair" singular and "pants" plural? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Half-sour pickles from Victory Supermarket, a few CryBaby Tears. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK none. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 15. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 11. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: 2. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE an all-nighter, refrigeration, growth, intransigence (I felt like doing abstract nouns today).

I have returned from two early morning trips before typing this (10:19 am, but that could change). I went in very early to craft a memo to the Dean appointing a first year theory teacher for the spring and put it in campus mail; I then returned, breakfasted (if it can be thought of as a verb) and drove to Trader Joe's/Staples to get wood and vitamins. We're nearly out, even though I know Beff has a bunch with her at the Copland House. As the clock turns over onto 10:21, I mention that it was cool and drizzly this morning, followed by a steady rain, and, right now, just cloudy and a little breezy. It's a crapfest of a weather day, which suits me fine.

Much, much got done this week, including reasons to keep taking my blood pressure pills (I take Lisinopril and hydrochlorothiazide). Last night was a student forum with the Dean and Provost wherin students got to ask questions about the Dean's hatchet man proposals, and much emotion was shown, not to mention, lots of poorly formed questions. But there were certainly more questions (about thirty) than there were answers (approximately zero, but there may have been twice that). I walked up to the Forum with Eric Chafe and back down with him, all the while finding out new funny things about old, dead people. (I already know they smell and can't hold down food) Meanwhile, on Monday I put the finishing touches on the department's response to the Dean's proposals, made copies, and sent them out to the relevant faculty and administration. On Wednesday I met with the Chair of the committee that was formed to evaluate the proposals to explicate the composition program. And when I saw what I had done, I .. wait, that's something else.

As I had predicted, I blocked out the weekend for composing, and that's just what I did. I tried to start one piece, but discarded the sketches, then started a sex poem setting -- a Millay sonnet that Stacy had sent me. By the end of Sunday (during which I watched parts of the laugher of a Patriots game on TV) I had done 55 bars of the setting, making it about halfway through the text of the poem. I have also worked on the piece in the evenings this week and during yesterday morning, and am close to finishing it. It will be finished today, clocking in at about four minutes. So, so far, the sex poem set is nine minutes. Two or three more will be added to it.

In the meantime, Soozie sent me some more sex poems to consider, including one by Ida Thoenkkitupp. There is one poem I liked because it looks like a comedy thing, and I liked Ida's poem, too -- the moment I read it I heard its accompaniment. Soozie and I had three long phone conversations, the third of which was to call and acknowledge that she was Ida. As in, she wrote the poem, and Ida is the pen name. So we fantasized about an elaborate bio of a reclusive poet, with umlauts on the u's and slashes through the o's. But I spoiled the secret there, didn't I?

I also put some materials together and sent them to Rick Moody, who is writing a sex poem for the set (we are both very excited, so to speak, about it). The package has some scores and Soozie singing stuff of mine, so he'd know the voice he was writing for. He previewed it by saying it wasn't "a theoretical treatise on Wittgenstein." All the better, my pretty, all the better.

I got an e-mail from Dyna Mike of the Marines with some typos in "Sibling Revelry," soon to get its premiere under his baton, so I have the idea that the Marines have probably rehearsed it. This Wednesday, in fact. He promised it would be "what was on the page" by the performance, but I know he's hoping for more -- like "what's all the rage" and "what tastes like sage" and "what's in the cage", too. Mmmm, doughnuts. So I go to Chicago on Tuesday, Beff goes to Chicago on Wednesday, and we both come back on Sunday -- meaning no regular update of this page, or at least a very late one. AAA limo has been secured to take me to the airport at 9, for those of you playing along at home. We are staying at the Hilton Towers in Chicago, will see plenty of Chip (Beff's colleague), and spend a day or two with the Stacies. Chairmanship and the Dean have weighed heavily enough that the trip doesn't make it into my consciousness yet -- an awkward way of explaining that I been bizzy.

Rebecca writes that this readership is now up to almost twelve. But since number almost-twelve is my weekly student and he never brings anything up, I need further proof before changing the counter on page one. Rebecca also writes that she has contacted all the music alumni in the Brandeis database, and therefore has a feeling of accomplishment.

"Sibling Revelry" will be recorded and video'ed for web streaming on the Midwest Clinic web page. Ask for it by name. Pretty soon my web presence will expand so much I will exude hugeness. And you all know how hard it is to exude. (I used to have an ude, but it broke, so it's an exude. Rim shot)

Last Thursday night and all day Friday were spent entering the Three Encores for voice and piano into Finale, and I'm pleased to report that they are finished and proofread and ready to go. The midi of "Scatter" is hilarious, since it doesn't swing. And I realized that Scatter, from 1991, which is a quasi-atonal scat piece with a bitchin hard piano part, was probably my first "jazzy" piece. You mean I've got this jazzy reputation and I've only been doing it only 13 years? Get on out!

Oh yeah. And I talked to some Brandeis alums on the weekend who were incensed about the plan, etc.

And yesterday I had to bring Sunset into the vet for his twice-yearly electrocardiogram ($205). I had to leave him there at 7:45, he meowed loudly in the car once, and I picked him up at 1:45. He also meowed loudly once in the car on the way back. $220 later (also $15 for "hospitalization"), we found that he is no better, no worse, still has a teeny hole, no fluid discharge. Recommendation: bring him to Tufts for an operation or keep taking these pictures every six months. Financially, the equivalent of paying all at once or doing the installment plan. We chose the installment plan.

I took no pictures this week, and it's too dreary a day for new ones, so I raided the archive. Bly and Drip, when they were alive; Beff a-makin' a face in Maine in 2003 wearing her Judy Sherman t-shirt; Dyna Mike last July soon after becoming a Lieutenant Colonel; and those pesky little dogs between here and downtown a-barkin' away again.

DECEMBER 22. Breakfast this morning was an egg and cheese bagel at the bagel place near Acton Toyota on Great Road (Route 2A). Dinner was chicken with mushrooms and asparagus with leftover Thanksgiving potatoes, and salad. Lunch was tomato sandwiches. Today's lunch was California rolls from Donelan's, on Great Road in Acton. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE LAST 12 DAYS 2.7 and 45.7. LARGE EXPENSES this last 12 days include limo to the airport, $99; taxi to the Hilton from O'Hare, $45; various items from amazon, I forget how much; meals in Chicago, ranging from $15 for breakfast to $96 for dinner; Camry maintenance, $54; parking at the airport, $72. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Zipper Tango" from "Sibling Revelry" as performed by the Marines last week. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: The art teachers at the Elementary School when I was in 7th grade were Mr. Walentosky and Ms. Rinderknecht. They eventually married. I sure hope she didn't hyphenate her name. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 1. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, in the dead of winter. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: why is "Band in Boston" always the first pun on "band" that everyone thinks of? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Pepperoncinis, olives, Good Seasonings salad dressings. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK none, but they have batted a few videocassettes around and come close to destroying some of their own toys. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 1. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: unknown, but probably 2 or 3 in 12 days. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE ability, triumph, inertia, confidence. I continue to dig those abstract nouns.

I have returned from five days in Chicago, four of them spent with Beff, and some of it at taxpayer expense (the Marines paid for our hotel). A lot of stuff happened, so I will try to put it all in order. First, two weekends ago I finished the Millay sex song and started on Ida Thoenkkittupp's. That one I finished today, and it is very pretty. Last Monday I had to go to a Chairs' meeting, and it was every bit as eventful and interesting as advertised (the obnoxious quote that comes to mind was when Judy Bettina had to sing an awful, awful Dick Swift piece for voice and harp many years ago, I said to Jim, "all dressed up and nothing to sing"). Later in the day I had to do e-mail, etc., and get ready for Midwest. So I did.

On Tuesday I took AAA Limo to the airport and got my flight on United, which was smooth and on time. A taxi got me to the Hilton Hotel, where I encountered the officer types from the Marines. They were going to play my piece SIBLING REVELRY the next day, and they were waiting for a military plane to arrive with most of the band. A rehearsal was scheduled that night for 10:30 -- hey, in the military you can make people do stuff at just about any time of day. I checked in, and the front desk had had no record of me being on the taxpayer tab, so Captain Barclay eventually fixed it (thus changing my mailing address on the hotel bill to Washington, DC). So I got into my room and arranged to meet Dyna Mike and Jason (no cool secret nickname yet) for dinner. Meanwhile, they found out that the plane they'd arranged to take to Chicago hadn't shown up.

Tuesday night the three of us (see above) walked to the Berghoff, a German restaurant with nice beer, for dinner. They teetotalled, because a rehearsal was tentative -- at this point, very tentative -- for that evening. No-nickname and I got chicken schnitzel, which turned out to be a giant chicken parm without the cheese, and Dyna Mike got a sausage thing. I got an amber beer on draft. Shortly, Dyna Mike's cell phone rang, he listened for 30 seconds without saying a word, and flagged down the waiter -- "a pitcher of the amber, please". The plane, which had been coopted by admirals and the like (which is why it didn't show up) was ready to take the band to Chicago. Except for computer malfunction. No rehearsal. Beer flowed freely both at the restaurant and, later, back at the hotel, where we sat at a bar and had more, and observed how royally Marine Band types get treated in the band world.

Okay, the band world. I was not quite as prepared as I should have been for the Midwest Clinic, which is a giant conference of, they told me, about 15,000 band directors from all over the country, of all levels. Who becomes band directors? Band geeks. Like I was. There were 15,000 band geeks in or around middle age everywhere the eye could see. There were lots of those moustaches that used to cover up acne but now just look dweeby. I had to look long and hard to find a suit that cost more than $60 (mine was $100 at an outlet in Worcester in 1998, but then again, I only wore mine once). And various military types were there from all the services. Beff and I had name tags and ribbons that said "PARTICIPANT" and the name tags said "Guest of US Marine Band" -- we got treated like royalty. We even got asked when we'd be touring the west coast. Downstairs in the hotel there were four large rooms filled with exhibitors selling everything from marching band choreography software to fund raising items (fresh fruits, wreaths, etc.) to touring facilitators to music distributors to instrument makers to college music programs to service bands. And more! We took plenty of trips through the exhibits, especially since Shattinger Music (St. Louis) was there with three scores of SIBLING REVELRY, a full set of parts for same, and two scores of TEN OF A KIND for sale. I returned often enough to know that all the Siblings sold, and one of the Tens sold. I calculate my royalties at a little less than thirty bucks for that.

Beff was getting in Wednesday afternoon, and it was possible that she would make the first of the two Marine Band concerts, but it was also likely that she would not (she did not). The Band finally got a plane to get them to Chicago at noon, and all I got to hear of my piece was various brief portions in a sound check at 5:30 (the trombones were too loud in Zipper Tango -- otherwise, nothing for me to say). Meanwhile, I was wearing those slip-on blue winter boots that are a bit loose, and I slipped and fell on some stairs going to the exhibits and twisted my ankle fairly seriously on Wednesday morning. I am still limping. In any case -- I went to both Marine Band concerts, which were held in the International Ballroom. The loudest sounds there were the air system, followed by whatever ensembles played there. There were 2500 to 3000 chairs set up, and the Marines played to Standing Room for both concerts -- which means this was the largest audience I've ever had for a piece, surpassing Persistent Memory at Carnegie and Ten of a Kind at the KKL in Lucerne. For both shows, I had to make opening remarks about my piece, and I did my best to charm and not appear too geeky (I partially failed). In the first show, the downbeat happened before I got to my seat. And hey, at the first show I met Donald Hunsberger (yes, a legend in the band world) who knew everything about Ten of a Kind and others, and signed a bunch of programs (people discovered I had scores of the piece being premiered so, even being band geeks, they put two and three together). The band, by the way, was fantastic.

Beff made it to the 9:00 show, and we sat with Chip, her colleague, and Dean, a local band director in Maine. In my opening remarks I took a page out of Carson's book and complimented the audience for being better than the previous one. And after the show, I thanked the musicians, and the four of us did dinner in the hotel (pizza and beer) for too much money. For Thursday, Chip wanted me to meet all these people, so I did, and for the life of me I don't remember the names of any of them. Except maybe Dyna Mike's conducting teacher, Tony Maiello. The most amusing bit may have been meeting Jack Stamp on the floor (I know the name from browsing band sites). You could see him read our nametags, go through a Terminator-like process of determining we weren't worth his while, and quickly extricating himself from the conversation. Chip even remarked, "did you see how quickly he determined we weren't worth his time?" I briefly brushed by Paul Whear, who was the composer of the first atonal music I ever played in band (Stonehenge Symphony, All New England 1974). Beff got some free reeds to try and bought some clarinet CDs. I got a combo metronome-tuner for the fun of it, and a free copy of the Vaughn Williams 6th -- and lots of free stuff from the Marine Band booth. Oh yeah, and I ordered a CD and DVD of the Marine Band performance. I already have a CD-R of the first concert, but it staticky. Those bastids!

Meanwhile, Beff went to the Art Institute while I stayed in the room because walking was too uncomfortable. On Thursday we saw the Marines do the Gran Partita, which is a really, really big blow, and they just about made it through. The oboist, which I had not seen before, was really, really good, and I'm glad she's in my piece. And finally by Saturday morning we were ready to get out of there. Luckily Stacy and Joe had a car, and a house to stay at. So they picked us up, we did dim sum and shopping in Chinatown, walked around Millenium Park, went to a piano recital of Nothing But Dead Composers, did Japanese in Evanston, watched half of Galaxy Quest, and went to bed. Then on Sunday it was the plane for us, finding where Beff had parked the Camry in the economy lot, and driving home in advance of a little snowstorm that eventually dropped 2 or 3 inches here. And then it got cold.

So I've listened to my CD quite a few times, and finished the third Sex Song. Rick Moody revised his poem by adding a chorus, and we are cooking with gas. Monday I went into Brandeis to do various Brandeis stuff. It took rather a long time to catch up to the e-mails that had accrued -- not to mention, the committee evaluating the Dean's strategic proposal asked if music might have a response by the end of the week -- LAST week. Which, luckily, Eric Chasalow had pretty much done.

And now I'm in Davy mode, if only for a short time. My hope is to start the Rick Moody poem shortly (maybe tomorrow) and have it finished by the first week of January, at which time I'll decide if I want to write another one for the set.

So there.

Today's pictures are all from Chicago, including: skyline from Grant Park, skyline from Michigan Ave, Beff at Carson's Ribs, a historic building near the Zoo, the Shattinger booth at Midwest, some stairs in the Hilton, bookend lions at the zoo, and giraffes.

DECEMBER 31. Breakfast this morning was toasted Italian bread with lowfat peanut butter on it, and Morningside Farms meatless sausage links, with fresh squeezed grapefruit juice from Trader Joe's, and coffee sent us from Raj. Lunch today was little pizzas purchased at Trader Joe's. Last night's dinner was grilled chicken sandwiches, chicken having been marinated in Emeril's something, and salad with Annie Chun's Cilantro and Sesame dressing. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE LAST 9 DAYS 7.2 and 59.0. LARGE EXPENSES this last 9 days include hotel in Burlington, $89 for two nights, and Calvados in New Hampshire, $32. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Kiss and Tell," a somewhat pointless '80s tune by who knows whom. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: when I was in sixth grade, I actually got to go to, and play in, the band for the (high school) District Music Festival. I played second trombone, and there exists a picture somewhere (probably at Jane's house) of me in this band, about a foot shorter than everyone else. I kept my second trombone parts, got a reel-to-reel recording of the concert, and continued to relive the festival by playing the tape and playing along on the trombone. I think after a while my parents asked me to do that only when they were not at home. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 0! DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK You can, and should, use a Borders gift card on amazon.com. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: why can't I grow a real beard? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: deli olives, deli pickles, lowfat peanut butter, sugar-free popsicles, leftover turkey (which now goes mostly to the cats). NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK lots of leftover turkey -- not destroyed so much as inhaled. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 0. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 1. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: probably 9 of 12 days. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE chutzpah, individuality, misappropriation, transparency. I continue to dig those abstract nouns.

The Midwest clinic is now fading into dim memory, and I have been composing feverishly (it's an expression) since the last update. Three days of the last nine were spent with the holiday traveling, as follows. First, on Friday morning I picked up Big Mike at his condo at 6:30 am. He had totalled his car on the way to a dental surgery (if it ain't one thing, it's anudda) on the day of the sloppy snowstorm, and he needed a ride to Alewife so he could catch a train to a ferry for his own holiday travel. I was back at home by 7:40, at which time I did my own packing for holiday traveling. We were to pick up Beff's brother Bob at 9:30 at South Acton on our way to Burlington, Vermont, for Christmas. Bob called at 8:50 to say he was running late, so we got him at 10:30 instead, and were on our way. For those playing along at home, that involved turning left outside the train station, taking an immediate right, getting onto 27 north near the Ace Hardware, taking it to 2 West just past the Quill and Pen, hanging onto 495 North to 93 North, taking that into New Hampshire, paying a 75 cent toll, and getting 89 North into Vermont. Soon after arriving in our home state, we went into White River Junction, looked for a nice restaurant Bob know about that happened to be closed for the holidays, and did a seventeenth rate Chinese buffet instead. The hot and sour soup had no taste, and notable available items in the buffet included pepperoni pizza slices (I had one), onion rings (I had two), and crinkle cut fried potatoes (I had three). I didn't have any of the green jell-o. We then got back on Route 5 South, immediately to 91 south for about 100 feet, to 89 North all the way into Burlington, at which point we took the exit for US Route 2 East (Williston Road), turned left, and made it to the Overlake condos, where Beff's dad lives. I'm not sure about that name. It had rained furiously the day before (also in Maynard, where it hit 59 -- see above), and then quick-cooled to the teens by the time we got there. The rain runoff had not had time to run off, so there was plenty of thin sheets of glare ice in the condo's driveway area. Every time we thought we wouldn't slip, we did.

After the obligatory catching up with relatives (Ann, Dad, Matt), there was the ritual playing of hokey Christmas music recordings and guessing the artists (I was the only one to get Eartha Kitt), and getting albums onto Ann's computer to throw onto to her new MP3 player (which has enough built-in memory for about 2 hours of music -- we scoffed at that puniness -- and can read from SD memory cards as well), not to mention, distributing gifts under the Christmas tree. As usual, football was on TV, and we pretended to be interested. We also checked in at the Clarion Hotel on Williston Road, where we got the friends and family discount -- Ann works for a Clarion -- and at night we ate at the Windjammer, right across the road from the Clarion, and where Ann apparently worked for about eight years. The food there was, mostly, large. I had the chicken teriyaki, and against my best interests, ate all of it.

For those of you almost eleven (almost twelve?) thinking about staying at the Burlington Clarion in the future, be advised that the bed was very uncomfortable, and there were not enough pillows (why THREE for two people? -- I see a future cosmic question). Nonetheless, I slept through the night both nights, awakening both days with back pains and leg cramps. Oh yeah, and then on Christmas we went to the condo, opened presents (I got such useful things as a mini-sewing kit (which I traded with Beff for a set of micro-pliers), a shirt that reads "Life is too short to cook for you people", and gift cards at Barnes and Noble and Borders), and started cooking. Basketball was on and I pretended to be interested. And I had small portions at dinner -- I was full from the beer that was made available to us. And Jim was there for the day, too, leaving after dinner to drive back.

On the day after Christmas, the Weather Channel in our hotel let us know that a Winter Storm Warning had been posted for the Boston area, and our part of the state was painted white in the "expected precipitation" forecast for the day. This was disconcerting, given that when we left on Friday the forecast was for partly cloudy with a chance of a flurry on Sunday. Oh, those they that make! So we had been assigned to pick up bagels for the morning, and we rushed through breakfast, at which time I assigned the driving to Beff "when the snow starts to pick up." Actually, there were snow squalls in both sets of mountains we drove through, and the driving was just fine -- just one white-out -- and Bob kept saying "it'll let up once we get over the mountains." Thus reminding me of me. And he was right. But once we got close to Massachusetts, the snow picked up, the traffic slowed on 93 just before the 495 intersection, and in Maynard, the car slid twice in advance of stoplights -- gfornafratz anti-lock brakes! It took a long time to unpack, but it kept snowing, and by Monday morning there were eight inches of snow on the ground. I was going to shovel, but the snow felt so heavy on the back sidewalk that I got out the trusty snowblower, and blew much snow into the backyard and a healthy portion of it directly into my face -- gfornafratz wind! One of these days I have to figure out how to change the oil on the snowblower.

Once all the weather-related stuff was taken care of, it was back to the Sex Songs for me. I finished Ida Thoenkkittupp and bore down on the Rick Moody poem "How to Read." It's in a very fast tempo with some rock and roll gestures, and an actual chorus, and the number of bars I wrote per day is as follows: Monday, 35; Tuesday, 65; Wednesday, 35, Thursday, 50; today, so far, 16, which means I am at bar 201, five minutes into the piece, and about halfway through the poem. Big trouble in little China. It's a fun piece to write, but there is so much really, really impressive stuff in it that it's getting hard to top myself. I took a page out of Joss Whedon's book (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, musical episode) and stressed "come" in the line "the book was complete", and bowed to Soozie's request for a high C on the word "consummate." I also wrote an ossia going only as high as A (that was the first thing I did this morning) for "consummate". Beff was impressed, by the way, that I set the word "unexpurgated," which is what follows COMplete. So work is ongoing. And there is a chorus that happens three times, during which the vocal part is actually diatonic. Well, it only uses three notes, but you get the idea. And since I'm me there is occasional fragmentation and layering of the 3-note motive of the chorus. But now this is just too much information.

I discovered on Monday that the Midwest Clinic web page now has streaming video of the greatest hits from the performances there, including the only Marine Band selection, yours truly's own "Sibling Revelry." Like I said, the performance is great, and the streaming video shows just how easy a time the band had of it, despite its Grade 6 designation. Click on the "Sibling Revelry" link at the top of this page, and click on the name of the piece -- you need Real Player to see and hear it, and it can be downloaded for free. Naturally, I e-mailed a bunch of people about the streaming video. The vast majority of responses has been no response, though I did get one "Windows XP doesn't know what to do with a .ram file" from someone without Real Player (one of the almost eleven).

On tax day, I will be part of a large celebration of creativity at U Mass Dartmouth. Damned if I know right now what I'm supposed to do (and damned if I don't), but it's yet another thing going on in April. Geoff Burleson wrote from New Mexico that Zeccatella is among the etudes he's doing in Pittsburgh on February 2, which makes it a premiere; which is a shame, since I already told Augustus Arnone, who is doing it in a set in New York on April 20 that it would be a premiere. All right, they can both be premieres.

Meanwhile, I've watched Sibling Revelry streaming several times. Beff will vouch for that. It's fun watching the video director trying to figure out what to shoot during my piece -- there's lots of shots of people turning pages, and lots of shots of people sitting there not playing. Hey, since I don't write so many tuttis for band, it's nice seeing what's going on -- for most people, nothing. There's one good shot of a glissando on the marimba in which the player simply moves off the screen. Cool.

The last two days have been full of problem solving: the one problem being how to fix the "toggle buttons" on Beff's good winter coat. No place in Maynard had any buttons that were the right shape (think miniature cat poopies, except not grody) and size, and the 5&10 in West Concord was no help. Yesterday while the furnace was getting its yearly maintenance, Beff tried K-Mart, to no avail, and then we drove all the way to Shopper's World to look in the AC Moore store, which had something like what she needed (she got all six in the store, $14.18 with tax), but which turned out to be a little big to go through the holes in the coat. We considered going to the hardware store for sandpaper to sand them down a bit, but then she tried something with the existing old buttons (she has three of four) and stronger shoelaces. It worked. Today we walked downtown and got a bolt at Aubuchon Hardware to substitute as the fourth button. And the button saga comes to a temporary end. So much effort.

With Beff's help, I also cast my votes for the Grammies. This thing is largely done online, though the final ballot is a paper ballot. The available selections are slightly crappier than last year's selections, so I cast suitably crappier votes. Other mundane news includes the fact that we've gotten a ton of large coffee mugs this half-year -- four DOG theme mugs we had to get for our cabin in Maine, two handmade ones from Stacy, and two in the yearly package from Raj. The winner is -- Stacy's mugs, which are now our regular coffee mugs. We also made our year-end donations to new music groups, and made an online donation to Doctors Without Borders. I read with glee that finally the US has pledged more in aid to the tsunami victims than the cost of the inauguration.

Tomorrow is New Year's Day, which means Lee and Kate's party, and Lee making pierogis in a white bathrobe (actually, in the oven, but you can stop being literal now). We are bringing beer -- the 2004 Anchor Christmas ale, for instance. And we will listen to our iPods on the way. New music on mine, by the way: Brecker Bros. Back to Back (whole album), Nelly Tilt Ya Head Back (with Christina Aguilera),and Pink If God is a DJ. Both of the last two tunes have hooks -- as does "How to Read," by the way. But neither of those tunes quotes literally from "The Gardener," so I am unique in that regard, and what it is, too.

Pictures this week are a year-end wrap-up. There are 12, representing the months of the year, and are presented sequentially. The only one that may need explaining is June, in which Rick Moody emcees an event in New York wearing a DAVY--THE NAME MEANS QUALITY t-shirt. Oh, those cats were so CUTE when we first got them....