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

On Wednesday night, Beff and I dove headfirst into Boston restaurant week, choosing to do the Blue Room in Cambridge. We had to get an early reservation time -- though the numbers in the restaurant didn't seem to support that -- and we got there, as usual, an hour early so as to spend some time at the Cambridge Brewery, right next door. I had some hefeweizen and Beff had an altbier (making a comeback, it would seem), and we got some spring rolls, and we saw some post-work web designers having a large contraption of the hefeweizen. I think they call it the "tower", and it looks like a science project. Except you can get a buzz from it. At the Blue Room, we had really excellent appetizer and main meal (the hangar steak, which was amazing), and fairly mundane dessert. We also did the recommended wines to go with the dinner because hey, we're worth it.

And then it was the drive home, eventless until almost all the way home, where there were flashing lights and a cop directing traffic -- always a surreal thing when it's dark. Near as we can figure, a telephone pole across the street broke and it had to be fixed right away (what with exposed wires in the street and all). Thursday morning when Beff left for Bangor, they were still a-fixin' it. I took pictures.

Yesterday in addition to extracting parts, I went into Brandeis finally to organize my office -- get the stuff out of the boxes, arrange the computer, etc. I am good to go. And I put Lily's little "recontextualization" thing from last fall on my door. You had to be there.

And finally, on Monday, Maynard Door and Window sent some guys over to begin the process of replacing our bulkhead doors. This apparently involved just step one, pouring some cement and waiting for it to dry. This got us to thinking -- we are finally going to go ahead with converting the pantry into a half-bathroom, which will apparently add double the cost to the value of the house (who knows if I just made that up?). Beff asked the guys at Door and Window who a good contractor would be, and they said they could do it. Hot diggity. We decided to keep the storage there, if possible, but then decided to knock it down and put new cabinets or shelves in, if possible. And at the very end of our West Acton bike ride we stopped at a tile store and started shopping. Wow.

Today's pictures begin with two from Yaddo that were finally retrieved from my phone: Beena, and Judah and Ruth. Next is Beff's altbier from Cambridge Brewing, Beff herself, Beff's gazpacho, and a nice picture of Cammy caught mid-meow. Then there is Jeremy's dissertation defense committee, and a night shot of the street while the telephone pole was being repaired.

SEPTEMBER 4. Breakfast this morning was Trader Joe's potato pancakes and rice sausage links, orange juice, and coffee; Beff eschewed the potato pancakes in favor of actual pancakes. Dinner last night was grilled sliced portabello, grilled eggplant, and grilled shishkebab with marinated meat from Whole Foods. Lunch was post-colloquium type stuff, also with mozzarella balls and spicy olives. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 48.4 and 78.4. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Oddly enough, "Slow Drag" from Scott Joplin's "Treemonisha". LARGE EXPENSES this last six week include various staples at BJ's, $78. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: I used to have hair. COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY THIS WEEK is PSB Speakers, who have yet to send a replacement woofer for my blown speaker. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY is Whole Foods for their wide variety of stuff to put on the grill. Bitchin. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Why do we mow the many lawns we do not use here? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: flinglepuss. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF is breathless e-mails from Brandeis about new people in offices I never go to. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are Bubbie's Pickles, Whole Foods spicy olives and marinated chicken. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK The location of the Whole Foods in Wayland. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 1.01. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Bio, Compositions. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT TODAY: 0. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is one branchful of seedless red grapes. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 2. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 37 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: A "baby" version of tenure called ninure. THIS WEEK'S FEATURED FAKE SENDER NAME IN A SPAM: Socorro Brandt. SUBJECT OF THAT SPAM: anytime talk PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,688. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.77. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a used book, the way we were, some tweezers I forgot I still had, the dead crane fly that got stuck in a spider web that's still hanging off the kitchen window.

Actually, it's ten days since the last post, not a week, but I'm working back into a Tuesday groove, if I can. Today is Labor Day (in Europe it's in May, just barely), and there's a nice combination of light traffic and heavy conversation all around us -- not to mention, some heavy machinery -- I believe I hear a power mower (I shonuff smell cut grass) and a power wedger, if that's what that's called -- a big loud machine that takes logs and splits them gradually into fireplace size. I also hear an inordinate amount of birds for the middle of the day (the white-breasted nuthatch and the chipping sparrow are going whole ... hog). And while the sun goes in and out at random (though the clouds have something to do with that), Beff is currently driving to Maine to begin her tenth teaching year there.

I'm trying to remember specifically what we did the weekend before this one, but it seems that all we did was bike rides when we could, and various bits of academic work. As I mentioned last time, I have been (virtually) gluing myself to my G5 to do parts for my piano concerto, and I can now safely announce that as of an hour ago, I had finished all the parts that don't go divisi into multiple staves: that would be 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, 3 percussion, and double bass. For those not acquainted with extracting parts for 33-minute piano concertos, it involves getting the notes from Finale, inserting cues when an instrument sits out for a certain period, and prettifying it all so that the parts themselves do not cost rehearsal time, and my own inadequacies as a composer are the only thing to blame. And I do get obsessive about making the parts look good -- I think I was spoiled by Eric Bartlett of Orpheus telling me the parts I sent them were the best they ever got. Crap. This would be a lot easier if I had no standards.

Beff was in Maine for both pre-weekends getting whatever it is that she has to get together, as well as talking with various siblings about various estate stuff. We have both been going through the second season of Veronica Mars voraciously -- it's at least as addictive as nicotine, caffeine, and voluminous praise -- and as of now we have but four episodes left for this season. The amount of side stories is pretty amazing, and every once in a while I've channeled various populist music critics to comment: "well, as long as it's not just complexity for its own sake." Also, since the guy who plays Veronica's father also played an alien in "Galaxy Quest", Beff often asks me to repeat his lines in the alien character's voice. Often it comes out like the minister in "The Princess Bride".....

And so that takes care of our evenings. Last week we had saved Tuesday for a tourist-type trip to Plum Island on the north coast, but the voluminous rain saw to it that we wouldn't do that. So instead we did a grand tour -- BJ's for various staples (toilet paper, paper towels, Claritin, a weirdass soda collection, kitty litter), Trader Joe's (beer, wine, chips, fish, and they DON'T SELL INKO'S ANY MORE), and then the long route up 495 to Littleton for a tile store. Yes, we are still looking at tile for the convert the pantry to a half bath project, and I'm at the point where all the tiles look almost the same, and Beff is not. This is why Beff is Beff. We of course navigated with the Garmin, and Beff had set it to instruct us in Danish -- though the prompts on the screen were still in English -- and then Italian -- but for such an important trip as this, she set it back to American English. In all these trips to tile stores, I have appreciated that they always made it clear that they REALLY REALLY wanted our business, but they were not as desperate as mattress stores. When they tell us "I'll be right here if you have any questions," I usually wonder where they'll be if we don't. Thankfully, not aloud.

And then I had to go into ... WORK ... on Wednesday. There were prospective students to meet and a Major Fair to staff. Bob and Jim also came to the major fair, and we had plenty of time to jawbone about various stuff, since we didn't have as many customers as in previous years -- I guess this year's crop of freshmen is not as high maintenance as the last few. In the earlier part of the day (I got there way before my first appointment) I actually re-outfitted my office. Which is to say, I took stuff that had been put in boxes last December, and splayed it about more or less as randomly as it had been in my previous office. But now my office is carpeted, AND it has a new number (220) because .. it is in a different place. I also brought in my artist colony printer so I could have an instantaneous place for printouts. I am SO cool.

And on Thursday ... back to Brandeis again. This time I got there early to make some copies of (public domain) music reduced so I could hand them out next week and ... the new copier seems to BE UNABLE TO DO IT WITHOUT CUTTING THE EDGES OFF. My suggestion that we trash the new copier and get the old copier back went unheeded. My second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth suggestions that we trash the new copier and get the old copier back also went unheeded. This battle of the titans is going to go on. So I wasted a half hour, luckily interrupted by the meeting I had to go to -- Faculty Senate. As old-time readers know, I was elected while in Bogliasco, and now I have to live with the consequences. As to the reductions -- I was able to do them on my little Xerox machine at home, which cost, oh, maybe one-fifteenth what the new music department copier cost. Which gives me a little bit more to deduct at tax time.

A little bit later in the week (actually, Friday), I got talked into yet another level of university service: the Faculty Senate Council. I don't know what that means yet, but from what I have gathered, the council is 4 people that meet both with the senate and the administration, in person, to do what it is faculty senate council does. And what I know about that so far is ... it has meetings.

Now we had asked friends to our west about getting together for lunches, etc. this weekend, but none of them could do it at the appointed times ... David Sanford in Northampton, Julie K in Worcester ... so it was more of the usual work this weekend, and on Sunday it was The Return of the Ka-Chings. Yes, ka-ching Carolyn may have moved to much, much, much, much, much, much greener pastures, but she's still a ka-ching twin, and as such she and Big Mike came over for what was originally planned to be another canoeing jaunt (see "ka-ching canoeing" movie to the left). Tropical Fizzle Ernesto made that less than possible, so instead we concerned ourselves with exotic eating stuff from Whole Foods and '80s videos and called it The Day After Carolyn's Birthday. As it turned out, we were right. I saw Madonna videos I hadn't seen in years (like Take a Bow, Vogue) and Janet Jackson videos I hadn't seen ever (Control), and it was very successful. For a capper, we watched, on on-demand, the first episode of this season of Weeds. And had some frozen mocha bars that Big Mike had brought.

Today Beff and I did the West Concord ride, including the big hill on Summer Hill Road (hence the name), which was a big exercise, and then had cheeseburgers -- the leftover lowfat hamburger we defrosted for Sunday but didn't eat. And shortly after finishing the double bass part, I came to this Windows computer to update. So there, so there.

I also spent a VERY long time this week evaluating an external file for academic purposes. I would be more specific, but I don't think I am supposed to. I wrote the letter, sealed the envelope, and jumped up and down. A lot.

Six days from today (Sunday the 10th), we have volunteered to host a department pot luck again, from 2 to 6. All music department people past and present are welcome, as are the regular readers of this space, including those with initials that are the same as a New England state. The music office has been slow to spread the news, so I've tried to get them up to speed a little. And if you would like directions and a map, check out the "Where da pot luck?" link on the left.

Three weeks ago, briefly, I put up on this space that I had won the Barlow Prize -- a commission from the Barlow Foundation to write for a consortium of five wind ensembles. I removed it soon thereafter, thinking that it should be private until the Barlow Foundation announced it ("after September 15", according to the web page). Then I looked at my e-mail, which did not warn me to keep it secret. So, I Know What I Did Next Summer. All that's different is that I'm applying to colonies sooner than usual, since I'm usually on the three-year plan. Now all I have to do is get through this academic year. And then (sigh) I have to write for band. I don't know how to write for band.

I didn't have occasion to take many pictures this week, so we have a paucity here. Beff took a bunch of Starbucks coolers and funny colored sodas with her to Maine last weekend, and I photographed the arrangement. Then I got Carolyn by our lunch setup yesterday. Later, while I was e-mailing, Beff called up and said, "Take pictures of Sunny!" So I did. If you look really closely way back in the second one, you'll see Cammy looking on with those cat glow-eyes that happen when flashes go off. I also like the details on the hydrangia on the very last shot.

SEPTEMBER 15. Breakfast this morning was ... uh, nothing now that I think of it. Dinner was Campbells Select Soup of some sort, plus some chips with salsa. Lunch was the two slice special at Cappy's. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 41.4 and 81.9. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Some tune from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, don't know what it's called. LARGE EXPENSES this last week or so are a toy piano ordered over the phone, but not yet paid for, repaired PSB speaker $116, new watch at K-Mart $19. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: My third grade teacher was pretty strict, and sometimes in ways that made no sense. On a vocabulary test, she once gave me an "F" because all the sentences I used began with "the". COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY THIS WEEK are the US Postal Service. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY is Chau Dental. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: What's the big idea? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: struples. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF include mouth pain, and diminished seventh chords. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are Bubbie's Pickles, chips with some salsa, Santa Barbara Olives pepperoncini. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Modern dentistry. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 1.01011011001101. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, bio, compositions. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT TODAY: 0. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is another vitamin pill type thing. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 4.. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 44 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: a video iPod with a watchable screen. THIS WEEK'S FEATURED FAKE SENDER NAME IN A SPAM: Burris E. Fizzle. SUBJECT OF THAT SPAM: Re: PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,732. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.55. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a placard that says "POOP", the mixing bowl that's too big for most stuff, 27 winter hats, a piece of ice.

It's actually eleven days since the last post, so deal with it. I have just returned from my first actual dental visit in about ten years. Don't look at me that way. I seem to have found a full-service practice (Dr. Chau, in Sudbury, on Boston Post Road) with exactly what I needed: people who don't look at me that way. In any case, for those of you that need to know, I'm minus four old fillings, have one tooth that needs a crown, and a couple of impacted wisdom teeth. And plenty of tartar -- or I did. Modern dental amenities amaze: each of the work rooms has a large computer monitor hanging from the wall, and it's used for two purposes: for kids to watch cartoons while their teeth are being cleaned, and for you to see digital pictures of your own teeth (the cool thing -- maybe -- was that the pictures revealed the original glue (resin) for the missing fillings. Eeew). A little Water-Pik shaped thing took pictures of my teeth, which I got to see, and then I got to see my X-Rays (I had forgotten that they set you up with the welder's bib to take the X-Rays). The initial tartar removal was done not with a drill but with water and ultrasound. And just a little of the pick. I have been having pain in my mouth, upper right, for a little while (I don't know if my students have noticed or not), and it feels as if the teeth have shifted perhaps. The X-Rays reveal nothing wrong except probably some nighttime teeth grinding. Ugh, how do I teach myself not to do that? Anyway, I have two more DEEPER cleanings scheduled in early October -- actual novocaine events. Then, new fillings, the crown, take out the bad wisdom teeth, etc.

I also am in the throes of preparing a speech for the 26th, at which time I accept the Naumburg Chair (I hope it fits in my back seat). It will be a semi-multimedia extravaganza -- since the audience won't know much about what I do -- and I have been trying to write out -- actually write out -- my speech. So far the results are disastrous. Beff suggests I come in with an outline and wing it (or Buffalo wing it, nyuk nyuk), which is what it may come down to. It's hard for me to be serious without being pompous as well -- why didn't I know that before now? Hey, I have to acknowledge all the other composers who have passed through Brandeis, and acknowledge the composers whose work influenced me, etc. ... oh well, maybe I'll come up with a version that doesn't make me out to be so serious. I am counting on that Shakespeare tie that Beff got me to keep the overall spirit light.

And in the meantime, the teaching season is under way. Due to the mouth thing, I've felt a little constricted from my usual teaching style, but when I get into it, I've gone right past the pain. No problemo. I now have to make up a 15-minute quiz for my orchestration class (it was the only way to get them to do the assigned listening, thought I), prepare the Neapolitan lecture, and remember that I see seven private students per week.

The meeting phase of being on the Faculty Senate Council has begun, and it is not painful -- though it did cause me to wake up early on a Tuesday, on which I would normally not come into Brandeis. There has also been a large gathering of faculty and grad students from the music department so that all can get acquainted and talk about what they are doing. That was not bad. And what are my students writing? Here goes: etude for whistler, string quartet, Pierrot piece, orchestra with two voices as well as parallel version with Pierrot, solo piano piece, solo piano piece, string nonet.

The season of sleepovers has begun as well, which was inaugurated by Harold Meltzer on Wednesday night, after his Dinosaur Annex concert. We now have a new acquaintance in common -- Gina Ruggeri, who is his colleague at Vassar, and in whose studio at Yaddo my PSB speaker blew. Harold brought wine, as good houseguests are supposed to, I guess, and we had some wine that was already cold. Not much of a wine guy.

On Sunday we had our occasional -- perhaps two times every three years -- Sunday pot luck for the beginning of the school year, which was fun and well attended. As usual, I made pizza, and for once it didn't all get snarfed; I also grilled some marinated eggplant. Eric Chafe brought the most amazing salmon curry, and others brought pretty much the right combination of things to make it a complete meal. There was a record attendance in children for this one -- two babies, a toddler, a six-year-old, and a seven-year-old. Our department is blessed with issue. Not to mention beer, as it turns out. And both of our New England states showed up as well -- nice to see Newek out and about. To Newek -- I updated your file letter again, since I noticed that I said you had taught Mus 106 with me in 1992. While I was at Columbia, and you weren't.

And on Monday, Beff, alas, lost her wallet from her pocketbook -- probably it fell out as she was walking from the parking lot at U Maine to her office. And it was my job, having the credit cards that she also had, to cancel those cards and request new ones. Now I have a basis for comparing Chase, Citibank and Bank of America (whatever happened to smaller banks?), and it goes like this. Remember, of course, that someone trying to cancel a credit card is agitated, trying to get to a customer service rep before someone uses the card illegally. Number of steps from Customer Service number to speaking to a rep: all of them fail. Time spent on hold AFTER negotiating a morass of numeric choices: Chase, 2 minutes, Citibank 1 minute, Bank of America 4 minutes. Ease of use in cancelling: all of them get high marks. Kept me on the line trying to sell me more services I didn't want: Chase. Of course this meant that Beff was without her credit cards, but also without her license, Pier One card, U of Maine card, AAA card, etc., and without any usable ID or any way of getting cash (other than writing checks to her colleagues -- how 70s). So I express mailed her passport to her to use as picture ID and -- get this -- the US Postal Service could not guarantee a next day delivery to Orono, just 255 miles away. For those of you playing along at home, this pretty much confirms that the USPS sucks big ones. So she's got ID, got just enough cash to buy gas to get back to Maynard, and is slowly building back up her card retinue. Which began with the purchase of a five dollar wallet.

The Barlow Prize has been announced via e-mail to all the applicants, so I can simply say, without being outta line, that in April I'll be able to prove once again that I don't know how to write for band. Apparently that's not a bad thing.

I am also thinking ahead to a 74th piano etude: a "talking pianist" etude requested by Adam Marks, and I'm going to use a text piece by Rick Moody for it. He gave the go-ahead for an abbreviated version of his text. It uses "not" a lot.

We have just started a little warm spell, so I like the weather right now, and the cats are actually now lounging on the roof outside of the computer room. Actually, Cammy has liked doing that quite a bit lately -- one night I closed the screen to go to bed, came back in ten minutes later to see Cammy looking plaintively through the screen at me. Oops.

Upcoming include lunch at MacDowell with Tarik on Tuesday, going to U Southern Maine for a Beff spectacular next Friday -- which is Beff's birthday, giving the stupid, stupid, stupid speech, and going to inner Maine with Beff for a wedding of one of her students. Then more teeth cleaning will happen. Joy of joys.

This week's pictures include a glow-eye shot from the flash of Cammy on the roof outside the computer room, followed by seven candid shots taken at the pot luck. You regular readers are probably wondering why you bothered this week....

SEPTEMBER 22. Breakfast this morning was rice link sausages, orange juice and coffee. Dinner was Campbells Select Soup of some sort, and later chips with Santa Barbara Olive salsa. Lunch was the two slice special at Cappy's. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 40.5 and 80.1. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys. LARGE EXPENSES this last week or so are a Schoenhut toy piano, $239, video iPod $366 with tax, 2 Oral-B electric toothbrushes, $33 each. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: The counterpoint class I taught at Columbia met in a classroom on the fifth floor of Barnard Hall. Sometimes we would go out the window onto the roof right next to the building and view the river and Riverside Church. One day as I was messing around with examples and flinging the eraser behind my back, it happened to land perfectly on the chalk tray. Sweeeeet. COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY THIS WEEK is Schoenhut Pianos via Un4gettable Toys, and the programmers at Apple who wrote iTunes 7. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY is Apple Computer. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: How many Neapolitan sixths does it take to change a key? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: klunkfarbenmelodie. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF include Republicans and incorrect resolutions of the Neapolitan sixth. People, flat 2 does not resolve to natural 2! RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are just the usual breakfast staples. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK video iPodness. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 9. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT TODAY: 0. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is a chipmunk, brought into the master bedroom to be offed. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 1.. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 49 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Mandatory fugues in every sitcom theme song. THIS WEEK'S FEATURED FAKE SENDER NAME IN A SPAM: Bohuslav Renard. SUBJECT OF THAT SPAM: PHmuARdMA PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,779. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.47. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a drafting table, the Sports section of the New York Times, the head of a pin minus the angels, and seventeen pieces of peanut brittle.

Today is Beff's birfday. Later in the day we will be hooking up at the University Maine in Gorham (or University of Southern Maine, Gorham campus), where she is doing a music technology clinic, and is the star of an 8:00 concert. Our friend Dan Sonenberg set the whole thing up -- he's also bringing me and Amy D there in March -- and we plan on dinner with Dan and his lovely wife Alex. We know both of them from overlapping at the VCCA, where wackiness tends to ensue. Then late at night we'll get back, and likely Geoffy will already be here, sound asleep. Or silent asleep.

Then this weekend I will try to stop obsessing about my stupid speech I give Tuesday -- it kinda kept going through my head overnight whenever I woke up. Nope, don't want to make a fool of myself.

The weather got gorgeous for last weekend -- it had rained overnight Friday night, and predictions were for a gloomy and muggy Saturday, but instead it got sunny and gorgeous. So Beff and I dropped everything, so to speak, and finally made the drive to the wildlife refuge on Plum Island,on the north shore of Massachusetts. It was a fairly straightforward drive, bringing us through historic-looking Newburyport, and stuff, and there was an actual entry fee. It reminded us a little of the wildlife refuge near the Atlantic Center, minus the crocodiles, and plus actual long strands of sandy beach. It's basically a big barrier island with lots of grass and boardwalks, and we saw what scenery we could -- even doing one of the "hikes" along a boardwalk that reminded me a bit of the old ballplayers that came in and out of Field of Dreams. When we saw what we had done, we left, and trolled around for a nice place for lunch. None was to be found, so we drove to Essex and ate at Woodmans -- which was a lot of fun until we actually had to eat all that fried stuff. We got two fried clam platters and Sam Adams on draft, and should have gotten one for the two of us to share.

Sunday was also a perfectly nice day, and we celebrated the continued warmth by doing a bike ride to Boon Lake. Sweet. We also got a bunch of stuff at Shaw's where we are collecting "points" for a future heavily discounted shopping trip. One point per $20 spent, and 20 points gets you the shopping spree. We now have 19. And we are so pathetic to care about this. Also at K-Mart we got Beff some CD-Rs for use at the office, and I followed the dentist's advice to get an electric toothbrush. So Beff got one, too. When the first price tag I saw at K-Mart said $140 I started worrying -- till we saw a really good Oral-B model for $33. I had always thought of electric toothbrushes as useless but cute little toys -- we had one when I was 8, and it just kind of vibrated. This new, modern model both vibrates and has a spinning part that is supposed to penetrate your gums. Cool. Gum penetration is a new thing for me. Hee hee. I said "penetration".

Otherwise -- besides the usual teaching this week, there was a Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday which was NOT a waste of time (at least not of mine). Last week on Wednesday I had brought my 2-1/2 year old second generation iPod to my theory class and had planned to play an excerpt. And when I pressed PLAY, up came the blinking battery icon. It had been fully charged on Monday, and I played 5 minutes of Daphnis in the orchestration class that day. So it occurred to me finally -- time to make the plunge and get that new iPod.

So on Saturday online, I ordered a black 80 gig iPod on the Apple site, with my name engraved on it. It arrived at Brandeis while I was teaching orchestration on Wednesday, and it had been shipped from Shanghai on Sunday. Excellent work, Apple China people. When it arrived, I showed it to Max, who was in Yu-Hui's office, and he said, "cool, man (he starts every conversation this way). Like you just connect it, say yes to Sync, and go out and have a beer". Which was the case. I had been collecting mp4s and stuck them in my iTunes library, and they made it onto the iPod and ... they play! And I added photos and stuff -- though I had to download the manual from a well-hidden corner of the Apple webpage to figure out how to do that. Using it at school Thursday, it became evident that fingerprints are more prominent on a black iPod than on a white one.

And when I arrived home on Wednesday, there were not one, but TWO Schoenhut toy pianos in the garage. I had ordered one online from Un4gettable Toys, and when Beff lost her wallet and credit cards, I called them up to let them know the credit card I had given them would not work. Got the answering machine, asked them to call me back. When after two days they didn't, I called, told them to cancel the order, and also e-mailed them. Meanwhile, I called another company to order a toy piano. And both of them arrived at once. The first one was beautiful, had a lovely sound. The second one only made plink noises, nearly no pitch. I unscrewed the top piece of wood and saw that a screw was missing a bolt and that the metal plate that makes the pitches was misaligned. Easy thing to fix, but it sure was shoddy work of some sort on Schoenhut's part. I decided to keep both -- one for the concerto (going to Marilyn some time this fall), and one for my office. I brought it in yesterday, and had to take down one of my shelves in order for it to fit on the piano. Both pianos came with a very cute bench, by the way, small enough so that the cats can peer over it, if they were so inclined.

On Tuesday, I used my day off to drive up to the MacDowell Colony -- a mere 70 minute drive -- to do lunch with Tarik O'Regan, whom I met at Yaddo and is -- duh -- in residence at MacDowell. He is in Chapman studio, a mere, oh, 20 or so miles from Colony Hall, which I got to see, and we went downtown and he showed me Nonie's -- which I liked. We did cheeseburger platters, and afterwards we went to the bar next door, and since it was so nice outside, we sat on the patio and had two beers each -- Long Trail IPA and Harpoon Octoberfest. That kind of kept us there for quite some time, so it was kind of late by the time I got out of Peterborough. Tarik gave me a CD of his, which turned out to be a great car CD -- lots of beautiful English choral singing and stuff, dontcha know. And organ.

Last night, another week of teaching behind me, I decided to capture a few music videos for my iPod. I also got a couple of scenes from Big Man on Campus while I was at it. I decided to try out the "save for iPod" feature of iMovie, which saves movies as mp4s and sticks them in the iTunes library. Fine, that seemed to have worked. All in all, I saved 5 movies, the last of them a Janet Jackson video. When I connected the iPod and asked it to sync, the first message I saw was "copying 2 of 4789"... stupid program obliterated the old library from the iPod and copied largely the same damn thing back onto the iPod. What a time waster. Then when it was done I saw that instead of five new movies in iTunes, I had FIVE COPIES OF THE SAME JANET JACKSON VIDEO. And there was no trace anywhere of the other four I had just added. So, Apple iTunes programmers -- get your heads out of your buttcheeks. Cleaning up after iTunes's mess was not difficult, but I should not have had to. And two of the videos are lost forever.

There was one misspeaking in a class this week and I forget the context, except that I said "destiny" when I meant "density". I covered my tracks by mentioning Benoyce and Density's Child.

This week's pictures include the new iPod (showing picture of me and Berio), new toy piano as Sunny looks on, and eight shots in the Plum Island refuge.

OCTOBER 2. Breakfast this morning was rice link sausages, orange juice and coffee. Dinner was lowfat cheeseburgers and salad. Lunch was a bunch of noshing on chips, salsa, olives, etc. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 37.6 and 80.4. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "The Look of Love" in the Diana Krall version. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include clothes, cat food, food, and iPod accessories at Target, $122, the Munich Bach Orchestra CD of the Brandenburgs, $52, more iPod accessories from a drug store in Norway, Maine, $58, oil change from Mr. Quick's in Bangor, $31. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: My sister and her boyfriend at the time must have had disposable income, as they got me a cassette player/recorder, along with the Sly & the Family Stone cassette "Stand" for Christmas when I was a freshman in high school. Which is part of how I know those tunes so well. It was my first battery-powered tape recorded, and every spring on the first warm weekend day I would record stuff happening outside -- from hitting wiffle balls to making the dog bark to simply running by. I think the old box of cassettes contains several simply marked "a warm April day". SURREALITY OF THE WEEK: Bossa nova playing in a Japanese restaurant in Bangor. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: How many jokes on Oedipus are there, really? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: sterk. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF include driving 2-lane roads in the dark, waiting around at receptions, and feeding CDs into iTunes. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are olives and rice link breakfast sausages. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Bangor cell phone service is now digital, and is mandated to be so by the end of 2007. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 5. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page and Performances. "Companies who have/have not covered themselves in glory" is now gone, replaced by "Surreality of the Week". NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 1. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is nothing. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 6. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 25 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Endowed Chairs without speeches attached. THIS WEEK'S FEATURED FAKE SENDER NAME IN A SPAM: spelled Try. SUBJECT OF THAT SPAM: try Answers for. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,779. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.33 and $2.35, though I see it in Maynard now for $2.22. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a delayed reaction, two pairs of poopified underwear, a sentimental journey, as much snot as you can shake a stick at.

All right, all right. The single biggest cause of stress in my life -- the Naumburg Chair speech -- has happened, and moving on is being done by me. Much of the previous weekend was spent stressing about it (I pretended I knocked of the speech and started writing it Saturday, but that was not the case), finalizing its structure, followed by three days of returning to it obsessively and adjusting it a word at a time. It started with my silly Oedipus joke, padded by a story of "test-marketing" it at Yaddo and in Music 103. Then it got personal, and ended with a bit of video, first introducing, then playing Amy D's amazing performance of "Martler". Literati and glitterati were therem including several of my colleagues, Eric Hill from theater and several principals from The Bacchae, including highly talented Sound Design guy who goes by an initial. Also looking on were two from the faculty senate, others from theater, the Dean, the Provost, and the former Provost who hired me at a 15 percent discount from what I would have made at Columbia.

I also got a huge bouquet of flowers that I was instructed to give to Beff -- and I did so, having to take them to Maine, much more on that later. There was a big spread of pretty expensive food -- including stuffed grape leaves (personal story: Symphony Restaurant used to be where Pizzeria Uno is around the corner from NEC, and it was a Greek specialty place. For years the menu included "stuffed crap leaves", which I think should have been more popular than they must have been). The Provost introduced me with a fairly lengthy speech, including quotes from my student evaluations ("Davy is the Man", for instance -- the level of discourse at Brandeis is frequently a little higher than that), revealing a few things I didn't know -- including the fact that my academic rank my first year (when I was in Rome) was Instructor (a bit of a fall from Associate Professor, which I was at Columbia). I blame Claudio and the tendency at Princeton for dissertation reading to be laissez faire. Then there was the obligatory list of stuff. I had thought a history of the Chair would also be presented (Fine, Berger, Shapero, Wyner), but it was not, so I had to fill a little in in order to get to one of my points.

The speech in the middle revealed some personal and tragic things from my life that I'd never made public before, and when I got to that part, my voice unexpectedly broke a little. There was at least one moment when I was reading and I briefly started thinking only "I'm reading a speech" as the words continued to come out. I guess this happens frequently. As to said personal and tragic things -- you who read this (you know who you are, because, in a relative sense "you" are "me", and I speak outside of myself when I say that) may read my speech, which you may find by clicking the red link down below and to the left. Afterwards I got some nice feedback (I thought it sucked, but then again, I am me, and here I do not speak outside of myself), including plenty of comments about how gracious I was to my hosts. Yes, I really did.

Afterwards it was just a few colleagues hanging out by the food table, and I had to carry the enormous bouquet to my Office to ready it for taking to Maine. Thursday I did so, first emptying the water from the vase, with Yu-Hui's help.

As to last last weekend, Beff was here, it was warm enough for bike rides at various times, and those we did, in between my stressing about my speech. Maynard Door and Window had left the bulkhead doors kind of open -- they laid the cement in August, and it has been dry for some time -- and I noticed water getting into the basement where bulkhead doors should be. So I covered that with our extra tarp and held it down with the Adirondack, um, ottomans (ottomen?). Meanwhile, much cutting of vines and extra branches in the backyard -- very relaxing stuff when you are stressing about a speech.

The week's teaching went fine, though for some reason I scheduled two hour and a half classes on the augmented sixth, which really takes only one class, and I shot my wad. For the second class, I brought in my siren song (including playing a movie of a Bogliasco ambulance, with sound) and O Rhode Island, which we sang en masse. Meanwhile, this was a Musica Viva weekend, meaning Geoffy was around. We actually got to see each other for about ten minutes Thursday morning before I had to go to work, and he very nicely took in the mail and fed the cats while I was in Maine -- even down to the point of washing the cat food cans so they could be recycled (we usually don't bother). Geoff tried out the action on the toy piano, and we confirmed that it's pretty good. And after my Thursday teaching it was the drive to Bangor.

I brought the new iPod with me for the drive, and found it with some dismay that the FM broadcast portion of my car trip hardware was still in Maynard -- that part can be detached and attached to your computer such that the sound from your computer can be broadcast, and I had showed it to Beff and not reattached it -- so it was W-BACH radio and Lite Oldies for me. In Orono, Beff and I met for dinner at Woodmans, where there was very nice beer and pretty good Buffalo tenders for me. Friday was our free day, which alas was a rainy one, and I rediscovered the joy of retrieving e-mail at dial-up speeds (including a flurry of Faculty Senate stuff that was as important as it was boring). In the morning, I got an oil change (that mileage number from the last one crept up unexpectedly) and we went to Target, Borders, and the Bangor Mall to look for various stuff, much of it iPod-related. Before that, I was briefly at UMaine, where Beff's makeup lesson didn't show up, and I scarfed a pile of CDs to put on my iPod -- so THAT'S where the complete Beethoven and Mozart sonatas have been all this time. Finally the rain let up a bit, we took a little walk,and that was it. Lunch was at the Sea Dog (Teriyaki Tuna sandwich, now $10 and the first time we had it there it was $6) and the Ichiban Japanese restaurant (where they played bossa nova on the sound system).

Saturday was the reason I came to Maine. Beff and Chip (U Maine band director who has made plenty of appearances in this space) had been guilted into going to the wedding of a music graduate, way in the innards of the state of Maine. We shoved off at 10 am for Norway, Maine, passing through the traffic pattern hell that is Auburn/Lewiston on the way, and sat through a perfectly nice wedding, with a humorous homily (say that five times fast) by a priest with an Australian accent. The reception was north by about a half hour drive, at a mountain resort in Bethel, Maine, and here's where much, much, much of our time got wasted. There was a half hour wait for the (not open!) bar to open -- and there was post-concert reception type stuff available, too), after which there was an hour(!) wait for the grand room to open, where we were seated for a meal (tables were assigned -- and the list was by table, not alphabetical, which made finding your assigned table much longer than it should have been). Things were SO-o-o-o slow that Beff and I started creating deadlines. The first was "if there is no champagne in my glass by 4:30 we leave". Thankfully (so to speak), mine was full at 4:28:40. Then there was the 4:50 deadline for salad (we got it with a minute to spare). The meal itself was actually quite good -- we had pork tenderloin and not the haddock. We also sat with a music former student who now decorates cakes at a Shaws, and he made all the cakes for the reception AND he made the mix tape of golden oldies (I mean, Lawrence Welk, people) that played during the reception.

Meanwhile, another oldies band wearing red plaid shirts was setting up as we eat, and TWO -- TWO! -- of them looked like fat versions of Jim Ricci (Beff was the first to notice). We couldn't get close enough for a good picture to document that fact, hence the Sasquatchesque picture to appear below. But now we know what Jim's future holds. I hope he knows how to blow bubbles.

We stayed long enough for the bride to make her appearance at our table, and got outta there -- for it was a long, long drive back to Bangor, through towns, cities, curvy passages, etc. Drives like that, stuck behind slowish cars, seem much longer in the dark than they do in the light. My conclusion as we drove the home stretch was that this was fun and the food was nice, but in the future when Beff gets guilted into going to weddings in the middle of f***ing nowhere, that it would be okay with me for her to go alone.

Yesterday I drove back, beating the predicted big rainstorm by about a half hour -- a new iPod charger and FM broadcaster worked fine, but the signal was too weak for good playback on my cheap-ass radio. I spent most of the day after returning feeding CDs into the iMac G5 with the intent of iPodding the data. And STILL I have 33 gigs free. I also got some more videos off of iTunes, and the Diana Krall version of "The Look of Love" is totally terrif. I mean totally. Must to get her new CD.

Today is Yom Kippur, which makes it a vacation day from Brandeis -- tomorrow is a Monday schedule, though, which gives me three straight days at Brandeis. Today I must write a pile of letters, correct theory homework, and feed yet more CDs for the ol' iPod -- complete string quartets of Beethoven going in right now. And this morning the workers from Maynard Door and Window finally showed up to continue their work on the new bulkhead doors. Coming up: two novocaine events, for tartar cleaning UNDER the gums, on Friday and next Tuesday. Beff is back Thursday night but goes to Vermont to do dad-estate type stuff, and returns Sunday or Monday. She actually gets a little break for Columbus Day (it's an old help-with-the-harvest kind of break that is not pertinent for most nowadays), so she'll get to be around for my second novocaine event. What fascinating conversation we will have. We also decided that we have to own a ladder, and we have no way to transport one from a hardware store except to carry it -- so on Friday, novocained up, I plan on going with Beff to Aubuchon and carrying one home. First thing to do with ladder: Re-join faux railings on top of front porch. Second thing: get onto garage roof and cut branch that is rubbing against it. Third thing: take down a few fragile branches from the "pathetic" maple tree that could fall into traffic. Fourth thing: figure out where to store it.

This week's pictures: Sunny reflected in the toy piano, Geoffy playing it (using the bench). Four scenery pictures from the wedding reception area, our cake, the bride laughing with Chip and Beff, and the Sasquatch-type picture of the overstuffed Jim Ricci wannabe.

OCTOBER 10. Breakfast this morning was absolutely nothing. Lunch was sour pickles from Whole Foods, olives from whole foods, and old olive oil french fries. Dinner last night was salmon burgers and salad made with arugula purchased at the Maynard Farmers Market. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 35.3 and 76.8. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS transition music from an unidentified TV commercial. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include maintenance on Beff's Camry, $572. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: I have no memory of this, but I was told that the first time I went to a dentist (Dr. Sussman in St. Albans) I cried and screamed the whole time, and when it was over, Dr. Sussman is reputed to have told my parents that for all he cared my teeth could rot. Perhaps this is why my earliest dental memories are in Swanton. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: If it moves, does that mean we don't have to paint it? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: kickle. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF are breathing through my nose and waiting for the damn leaves to fall so they can be raked. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are real lemonade and limeade, Bubbies, and Freschetta thin pizzas. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Uses of words like "calculus" and "deep pockets" to describe stuff in my mouth that I can't see. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 6. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is a little bit of plastic from a wrapper. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 4. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 29 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Self-raking leaves. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,841. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.25, though I see it in Maynard now for $2.15. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a sectional conclusion, a Times Italic lowe case "r", the way you smile, nine more of whatever the last one was.

So a second biggest cause of stress, or something, is under way -- why didn't I got to a dentist in ten years? I apparently require more novocaine than your average bear, especially up top. But actually, my TWO two-hour long dental experiences in the last week (Friday and today) were fairly painless affairs, if you factor out the horrid classic light rock they play in the office. Friday -- left side. Today -- right side. Novocaine, hypersonic water-pik, raise my hand because there is still pain, novocaine, hypersonic water-pik, and then several grades of scraper, it would seem. Between scraperies I actually heard what sounded like sharpening of the scraper, which must be really cool in person. At today's appointment, I was told that the gums on the left are "healing nicely". In a month, back for a diagnostic and more scraping once the gums are back on track. And a week from Friday, an appointment for reconstruction -- put fillings in where fillings once were, etc.

At the Friday appointment, Beff came along, signed up as a new patient (why didn't she go t a dentist in ten years? Probably following my example) and predicted her needs wouldn't be as severe -- "I brush more often than you" -- and tooled around Sudbury and Wayland while I was being gouged. Left side of my jaw is still sore, and the mouth pain of which I earlier complained is, at least, less. Though in long days like yesterday there is still strange feelings therein. Hey, when talking or lecturing on Monday, I occasionally was made aware that with the plaque gouged out there is more air between some teeth, making "f'"s and "th"s feel a little tickly. Friday afternoon we brought Maynard Door and Window their lawn sign that they had left behind, then walked downtown to buy a ladder -- which we then walked home. And, as predicted, I got rid of the branch that's been scraping against the garage roof, and bungee corded two parts of the faux railing atop the front porch roof. Then we stored it. Dinner was ... tremendous.

Earlier in the week were the usual things, and teaching was fine. Students in orchestration got the lower brass info, and when I wrote down the instruments in band yesterday, I had to be corrected (I forgot CLARINETS! and SAXES!). And in Theory 2, the important of spelling is being laid out -- hence G-B-D-F wanting to resolve to C or C minor, and G-B-D-E# wanting to resolve to the cadential 6-4 in B minor -- and B-D-F-Ab wanting to go to C minor but B-D-F#-G# wanting to go to F# minor. Trickiness ensued, and several students feigned hyperventilating sounds as I went through all the diminished 7th chord stuff. Wait till they get to -- THE COMMON TONE DIMINISHED SEVENTH. Mwa ha ha. Composition lessons all are progressing rapidly, and prospective students get the tour when they ask.

For the weekend, Beff went to Vermont to help her sister with getting rid of some stuff from the condo, moving some to the summer place (in Vermont they call that the "camp", but the use is not sufficiently widespread that I say it here), and cataloguing books that are to be donated to Norwich University. It WAS noted that no siblings with Y chromosomes came along to help. Her drive up was delayed by leaf peepers in New Hampshire (named after Newek) and her drive back delayed by Lowell rush hour. Meanwhile, on Saturday Christy came to retrieve her trailor -- which has been under our pines since April -- and she took me out to breakfast at Babico's in Maynard. This was a particularly weird trip, since we walked there and Maynardfest was going on -- the downtown triangle closed off to traffic, booths selling cheap trashy stuff or high cholesterol entrees, and a little kiddie car train thing.

I then corrected and graded theory homework (which is phenomenally boring). I then remembered that the folks at Door and Window told us beer was starting at Maynardfest at 3:30 -- so at the appointed time, I walked to the Clock Tower parking lot, and encountered a popcorn machine and people holding styrofoam cups at Door and Window. They offered me some beer in a styrofoam cup, and had to ask only once. Meanwhile the owner said he could have gotten us a ladder at a wholesale price and we could go to him in the future. And more beer came out. Eventually I went to Maynardfest, procured two spicy pumpkin ales on draft, and brought them back -- whereupon I was asked how I got them out ("Walking," I said) -- they hoped I wouldn't get arrested. Busted for having beer in a plastic glass! In any case, more beer was drunk, and tipsiness caused me to return home. At which point I called Domino's for pizza and wings.

Sunday was more serious. It was a day of glorious weather, and occasionally I spent time on the hammock -- but when I did that, the neighbor's dog Molly came up for some lovin', or some bones, or whatever, and it was hard to get peace. So for most of the day I wrote music, interrupting myself only for hammock time or the raking of fallen pine needles (2 whole barrels worth, woo hoo, ka-ching). When I saw what I had done, I decided to do more of it -- eventually.

And then yesterday, even though it was Columbus Day, we did not have off, and I had been drafted to be on a public panel for a Brandeis Open House about the Brandeis academic experience -- so when asked, I said positive and true things about Brandeis. After which I did my usual teaching, followed by a dead hour and a half (and it was 80 out), followed by a small meeting that was as important as it was deadly boring. If I ever don't find these meetings deadly boring, somebody who reads this please come to my house and kick me until you stop.

I was finally contacted about performance dates for my piano quintet at Stony Brook -- which, given how long they've known about them, is pretty irresponsibly late. The dates are at the worst possible time -- just before I go to Kansas -- meaning the possibility of missing three straight theory classes and three straight orchestration classes -- not to mention the number of makeup composition lessons I'll have to give in December. Anyway, see on my Performances page. A prospect of a commission for another piece also showed up -- as in, performers and an amount were given -- and that certainly complicates the future. Will Davy really be able to goof off in Vermont next August?

Oh yeah, a little feature on me 'n' the Barlow has been written for the next Brandeis Reporter. I had to vet the information in it. And I still haven't thought at all about the Barlow piece. I will, Oscar, I will.

Meanwhile, no Sasquatch sightings this week. On the plus side, the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs.

When I wrote last week, our bulkhead doors were finally being installed. When they were done, they went to the side porch roof to seal some cracks a little so the rain wouldn't leak through some wood, and they advised that that roof should be replaced with a rubber roof -- and that they could install it. We believed them, since Beff's dad told us years ago that we would need a rubber roof soon. I hope it's spongy. Anyway, we get the estimate any day now. Meanwhile, we tested the bulkhead doors on Friday, and couldn't open them. Yes, there is a latch underneath that needs to be released from the basement! Cool. And meanwhile, we also did the yearly thing of raking down the hostas in the front yard and shaving them down with the lawnmower. It was very outdoorsy.

Coming up this week -- Beff's dental appointment, and that's all I know about.

Today's pictures start with Christy's trailor as viewed from the computer room -- before and after. Then there is Molly, as viewed from the hammock, the new bulkhead doors, the current state of the Ben Smith dam, and our driveway maples as viewed from Taft Avenue.

OCTOBER 17. Breakfast this morning was the usual rice link sausages, orange juice and coffee. Dinner was chunky chicken noodle soup. Lunch was the garden salad from Shapiro coffee shop. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 30.2 and 70.2. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS the slow movement of the Mozart clarinet concerto. LARGE EXPENSES this last week new cell phones for both of us, $49 for mine plus accessories, free for Beff plus accessories; and a rubber roof, $1621. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE:During the summer after my freshman year at college, I worked as a security guard for MSI, doing the graveyard shift at Jordan Marsh in Boston (now Macy's). At the time it occupied an old 1900-era building and a new one tacked on, and we had to do several nightly tours, turning keys in various key things around the building. I used to make free phone calls from the executive offices, toss light bulbs down staircases, and generally do stupid things during some of those tours. My colleagues would occasionally adjust clothing on mannequins pornographically. How we stayed hired is a mystery to me. One colleague always changed into a new shirt at the end of his shift, and later we found out they were all stolen. Years later, I ran into two of my bosses on the street, invited them over, and they stayed until 2 in the morning. My pay at the time was $2.45 an hour, and when the minimum wage went up to $2.60, the company actually advertised "15-cent per hour raise guaranteed after two weeks". THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Are there enough rhetorical questions in the world? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: pimlo. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF is the stiffness of my jaw. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are real lemonade and limeade, and pouch pickles. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Root systems for the old crappola forsythias in back. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 4. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Compositions, Recordings (fixed links). NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is none. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 2. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 34 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Everybody can play "Martler". PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,880. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.17. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a way of describing the rain, the places we didn't look after we found it, the non-sticky beginning of a roll of scotch tape, the pickle nobody wanted.

Last week Martler had said something poetic about the speech thing, and silly stupid me, I forgot to mention it here. The speech was, as those of you who are rolling your eyes now know, a source of great stress -- even though it turns out I got a free glass vase out of it (it currently holds a stuffed bird). Martler also had to give a speech when he got his professorship, and he had similar stress issues. The quote goes something like: you put yourself on the line for your students week in and week out, and it's the bullshit occasions that make you sweat. I think I'll have that embroidered onto a pillow.

Beside the usual teaching, many things have happened this week, and, dear reader, you came to right place to find out about them. Say, on Wednesday night it rained so hard that water got into the basement, and that's just for starters. After the rain ended, it was slightly drizzly and pleasant in the morning, and whoomp! there it was -- sounds of people just outside the bedroom window. It turned out that the tar roof we had over the side porch was, if you will, in its last throes -- and some wood was getting stained by rain water because the gutter didn't handle it, etc., and years ago Beff's dad looked at it and recommended we put a rubber roof over it. So there they were -- a bunch of whitish panels that I assume were the foundation of the rubber roof (the estimate said "felt" was going underneath). The usual gang from MD&W were working, and I had to aim around the truck when I left for work -- thus backing into traffic for the first time in years. When I got back, there was a new edging and a black roof, all better. I haven't walked on it yet -- would you?

And then that night Beff got in late, as she left late, and the next morning she went to the dentist for her first appointment in 12 years. While she was under the lights, I went to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and Sudbury Farms, and came back and had to wait another 45 minutes -- during which time I read in Forbes magazine that cheap oil is coming back -- and we came home at around noon. Beff had to make appointments for future work, and December was the first time both she and the dentist could get it together. As to me, I go in this Friday for a few fillings. Meantime, my jaw is still rather stiff, either from my appointments, or from some version of the cold or flu that has been making the rounds at Brandeis. Somehow when I get into the classroom, I do fine and don't notice.

I spent most of the weekend finishing a piece, and in the interim times that I always need in order not to become Wild Guy, I started taking out fairly substantial trunk systems from the overgrown area in the back yard -- and for that I used a shovel. I also raked pine needles in the back yard, as it seems that most of them that are going to fall have fallen -- at least there aren't many brown ones left on the pine trees. I decided to create a bit of yard-art, raking a checkerboard area. Why? If I have to explain it, I won't be eligible for the grant. This morning I raked more but have not yet disposed of the piles of needles -- but 4 barrels are so far outta there.

During my copying time on Saturday, Beff nosed around the Verizon wireless site, noting that Bangor seems to have passable digital service now (and all analog is going away by the end of next year anyway), so she found that the phone I craved -- the VG Chocolate ('cause it has mp3 ring tones, etc.) is but 49 bucks online with a service contract, and the Razor -- which Beff's sister has -- is free. So we established our online accounts (the passwords came as text messages to our existing phones -- cute) and ordered new phones. According to e-mails we received, they will be delivered tomorrow evening. And then we'll never hear the end of it. My greatest desire, of course, is to play examples for my classes on my phone. Because then I can write about it here.

We also finally downgraded our cable package. We had kept HBO and Showtime for the various shows we watched, but as to Showtime, Weeds jumped the shark -- we had taken dinner to the living room and started watching, and 5 minutes in had to stop. So I called and downgraded, and we now pay half as much and still get to watch the Daily Show and Project Runway -- the only two shows we watch with any frequency anyway.

Scheduling for my two pieces from Yaddo being premiered next month got really hard, then much easier. Apparently the Kansas gig is being moved up because a makeup basketball game was scheduled the same night as the concert, and that guaranteed zero attendance, so it's going a little later. And the Stony Brook performances -- little did I know -- are not Wednesday and Friday, but Thursday and Saturday. Which makes it much easier not to miss too much teaching, and certainly means I don't need to get substitutes for theory (big relief there). In any case, it's the midwest, and that means that one week it was 100 degrees, and the next week there was snow.

We also took our accustomed weekend walks, noting the foliage in the sunniness, and it was good. I even used a camera to (shudder) document what we saw.

I was approached by a rock band (The Electric Kompany, has a page on My Space) with oodles of technique to write for them, and when I said I was interested though I couldn't figure out when I would get the time, they responded that they hoped for a piece for rock band and orchestra. Hmm. Very interesting idea, the kind of challenge that I like -- even though any critic will presume the piece is "making a statement about the intersection of high art and low art". The only intersection I care about is Sunset and Camden, because you can name your cats by it. Meanwhile, a group in New Brunswick -- the one in Canada -- is doing Beff's cat piece three times in January.

And we still love Inko's tea. Just in case Alex (of Inko's) is googling it. Though we can't get it at Trader Joe's or BJ's any more.

Beff had brought back a little table from her dad's condo, and it has been installed right by the front door. I predicted not long before it gets covered with clutter, but so far all that's there is the glass vase with the stuffed bird, and, in the drawer, our stamps and T passes. You will, Oscar, you will.

With the new addition (you might find it on Compositions), my output for 2006 is very likely complete -- unless I feel unusually good in December. To recap, 2006 witnessed the birth or completion of:

6 piano etudes (22 min)
3 hand drum pieces (10 min)
solo bass clarinet piece (6 min)
piano concerto (33 min)
piano quintet (14 min)
piece for fl/picc and two pianos (10 min)
TOTAL 95 minutes (I rule)

I did that to take up space. I always prefer the text to go on longer than the links on the left.

Upcoming: large rainstorm approaching for later today, dentist appointment, rakage, Faculty Senate meeting, Curriculum meeting, Collage concert with Judy Bettina doing "The Head of the Bed" (Judy's description of the voice part: a quarter rest is a siesta; a half rest is a whole vacation; a whole bar rest is a summer vacation -- those are metaphors, for those of you taking notes). Don't know if we will go, but since Collage wants me to write for her and them together, there may be a requirement.

This week's pictures begin with costumed folks at the door of St. Bridget's Catholic Church as we passed it on our walk. Followed by the only available photographic evidence of my raking art in the back yard (Pawn to Queen's four). The other six shots are various foliage shots from our walks.

OCTOBER 24. Breakfast this morning was the usual rice link sausages, orange juice and coffee. Dinner was pizza slices from the music major meeting. Lunch was a garden salad. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 31.6 and 68.9. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS the "birds" movement, with children's chorus, of Mahler's 3rd. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include a new rug from Pier One for the computer room, $80, new small rug and various others for downstairs at Target, $60. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE:The house on Messenger Street in St. Albans had a pretty long back yard, going downhill, and west, for quite a ways. The lot to our north was considered too small to build on, so it was a long, somewhat narrow grassy field we played in a lot, and occasionally sledded in (but only when there was snow). We had a regular back yard with a sandbox and swingset, interrupted by a large garden area with raspberries and blueberry bushes, and a "way back" yard, where we as kids often played little games of baseball or softball or football. There was also a small area of foresty stuff with poison ivy -- which I found out does not affect me. When we grew too old (and/or large) for the way back yard to be a baseball diamond (it wasn't that big), my father started keeping bees and making "organic" honey. So we owned a hot knife. This of course made it less desirable to be the one mowing the way back yard. I found out years later that the raspberry bushes were pilfered from a vacant lot nearby and planted in lovely rows -- and one of my more egregious chores in the summer was picking a pint of them for dinner. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Is Iran between Iraq and Ihardplace? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: arnce. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF is the stiffness of my jaw, still. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are garlic mash and pouch pickles. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK The real source of all this dental stuff. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 7. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Performances. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. DENTIST VISITS THIS SEMESTER SO FAR: 4. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is none. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 5 (Rome Prize season). DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 31 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Katie Couric who? PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,882. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.13. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE insouicance, misdirected animosity, multisyllabism, a found object with a hole in it..

First, a silly report from the field from weeks ago. After a brief conversation in the car with Beff about sound manipulation software, there was a slight pause, and Beff asked, "Have you tried Audacity?" Another brief pause as we considered how the question would sound out of context. Then gales of laughter as I said, "No, I thought righteous indignation would be enough".Actually, that's esprit d'escalier -- what I really said was, "No, all I had was refrigeration". But that's not as funny.

Two of this week's larger topics will be mind-numbingly and eye-rollingly familiar to those of you in the low two figures: raking, and dentistry. So I'll start with something else: cell phones. Our new cell phones arrived, we charged and activated them, and started using them. Beff has the Motorola RAZR and I have the VG Chocolate. Beff seems to have gotten the better end of the deal, even though on the surface hers is less deluxe. Let me contextualize (because it is what I do so well).

Beff got to Maynard a day late, since she left a day late, and that meant having to make the weekend orgy of togetherness and couple-osity even more intense than usual. A brief inspection revealed that the 6-year-old rug in the computer room had been rattinessed to its limit by years of cat scratching and playing with the edges (a favorite game is taking the cap of a milk carton and placing it under something and batting it around). So it was resolved that after breakfast would be a trip into the bowel area of South Acton, Great Road, for the especiale beer store, Pier One, Trader Joes, and Staples. During breakfast, Beff activated her new phone, which I had charged for her, and started discovering features -- though now having cursor keys in addition to everything else steepened the learning curve. I actually challenged Beff to find a weather report with her phone, but it took until later and a disquisition on cursor keys for that to happen -- by that time we were IN the weather, so a report had redundancy written all over it written.

Beff started transferring her phone book (manually) while we were in the car, while I was amused at the learning curve. We got some of Beff's weird French style beer that she likes and I don't, and some experimental beers, then hopped over to Staples, where we got packing tape (more on that later) and I got another flash drive for the office (so students would stop e-mailing me their Finale files from the grad office down the hall). At Trader Joes we got what we needed, including a whole mess of microwave non-frozen oriental noodles (alas, no salmon burger patties!), and then went to Pier One to find a new rug for the computer room. The guy who waited on us seemed SO much like Actor Guy (or My Sales Job Is Only Temporary So I Can Take Auditions Guy (except this is Acton)), who very, very, very enthusiastically got us the rug we craved. From there we went over to O'Naturals for lunch, where Beff had the Alaska and I had the Buffalo. At lunch we finally got a chance to compare cell phone features. Beff recorded me saying "Hello, it's me!", and among her options was "Save As Ringtone". So now when I call her cell phone, she gets my voice saying that over and over. Very cute (even when we're 80 we'll think that's cute -- and I'm only the opus number of Dichterliebe now).

So I recorded Beff saying "Davy? Davy? Davy?" and can report that "Save As Ringtone" was NOT among my phone's options. I did have the mysterious "Save to MyPix" command, though, which mysteriously activated the browsing portion of my phone. I cancelled the upload. So Beff exuded superiority as she had a new Ringtone of her own making and I had ... a sound in "My Sounds" on my phone. Back to this mundanity later.

On the way back we stopped at the hardware store for rug tape and outdoor latex paint -- as with the new rubber roof, the stained portion of the wood by the roof is no longer getting water on it, and needed cover before it decayed. So there. I also got sandpaper to scrape off the old paint. Which, when we got home, I did, after getting out the new ladder. So I sanded and painted the edging near the roof, and also scraped and painted the large board under the porch door, which is already showing signs of rot (imagine brushing your teeth and they simply fall out -- it was that sensation). And then I washed up. Also that morning and afternoon we raked the front yard clean of leaves, as both front yard maples have emptied,and Beff did Round One of raking the voluminous leaves out of the driveway. And we also replaced the computer room rug, discovering no fewer than six cat toys underneath the old one.

Later that afternoon Beff looked at the little rug near the alcove -- 2 feet by 5 feet -- which no longer was staying clamped down, and was getting messed up every day by the cats playing, and she decided to make a trip to K-Mart for a new one. While she was gone, I revisited My Sounds on my phone to see what uploading to "My Pix" would do. It brought my "Davy? Davy? Davy?" file to an area of Verizon Web that required me to register and make up a password, which I did. It text-messaged me a password (thankfully giving me the option for my phone to remember me), and that password was so complicated I had to switch back and forth from letter entery to number entry mode several times. And finally, I found out that I had a free space there with 75 slots, and "Davy? Davy? Davy?" was in one of them (It had a name something like "109388749"). For the halibut, I chose the "send to my phone" option, and a screen came up telling me I had a new message. Among the options for the new message was "Save as Ringtone". Yes! So now I can do in five steps (record/upload/log in/send message/retrieve and save as ringtone) with my phone what Beff can do in one. And of course we know why it is so hard on the Chocolate: Verizon prefers that you buy ringtones, not make your own. I mean, duh. But despite Verizon's machinations to make me buy their stuff, now when Beff calls my cell phone, it goes, "Davy? Davy? Davy?" I SO want to be in a faculty senate meeting when she calls my cell....

Meanwhile, I am happy to report that the Chocolate phone is also an mp3/wma music player, and by following directions scrupulously and having to use Windows Media Player, I was able to get ripped tracks to play on my phone with a ten percent success rate. No long exegesis here, just a little note that most of the tracks I ripped either did not copy to the phone, or when they were played they hung the phone, causing it to reboot after a minute and a half. Meanwhile, I did get all my contacts updated to the new phone, and there was a delightful and delicious little triage of old numbers no longer needed.

Another aspect of Saturday was sending the second toy piano -- which turned out to be defective, I had toyed with keeping in my office, but it kept not working properly -- back to the manufacturer, and that included a mandatory note as to what was wrong with the piano. In addition to "1) I cancelled the order and was sent the piano anyway" I had five more numbered items. I am, if anything, thorough. Beff packed it up, and I had been sent a label with prepaid UPS shipping. Hence the need to go to Staples to drop it off. And we had no packing tape -- hence the packing tape thing.

Sunday featured yet more raking -- getting halfway up the driveway, part one, and the third go through the back yard, as the pine needles just keep on coming -- and painting of windowsills around the house. Beff called me Productive Guy that day, but I don't know why. Beff's trip to K-Mart had yielded nothing, so we went to Target, down in Framingham, Sunday morning for the new rug, and of course we got other stuff, including kitty treats, cold medicine, and Kleenex. Beff came down with considerable cold symptoms on Sunday morning, so our planned outing for Collage didn't happen. Instead, of course, we stayed at home, and I made pesto pasta for dinner. We took the scenic way home around Boon Lake from Target, by the way, where I took this week's only picture of a "Tree On Fire". At least the camera takes nice pictures. And oh -- I took a little video of me playing the toy piano and e-mailed it to Martler. While I was at it, I recorded a lick from "Purple Haze" on the toy piano and made it my ringtone for when Amy D or Marilyn Nonken call my cellphone. Which so far in my life has been never.

So to sum up: two new rugs. I haven't been counting, but about thirty or so barrels of leaves raked and discarded. New painted wood. And colds. I also had flu symptoms on Wednesday, which caused me to stay home, and move my Wednesday students to Thursday. As to music theory, that moved the syllabus to the right by one, and also meaning that the unit on chorale writing will be shortened by one. I should get more flus.

Friday morning was dental day, yet again (I have at least two more before the end of the term). I came in with complaints of continuing stiff jaw and teeth that seemed to move a bit, etc., and the dentist finally had a firm diagnosis: unbeknownst to me for the opus number of Dichterliebe years, I grind my teeth in my sleep. Evidence: moving teeth especially in the morning, and an extremely even bite line. Meaning what you think it means. So as a solution, the dentist said that after the upper reconstruction was done, she would get me a "Nygar". I presumed it was a brand name for something, and I didn't mention yet that the dentist is Chinese with a lingering accent. A few minutes of context revealed that she was talking about a "Night Guard" designed to stop the grinding. Since I never had a retainer when I was a kid, I relish the idea of playing catchup at the age of opus number of Dichterliebe years. Friday's job was three new fillings, upper left, and observe as feeling comes back to the mouth over the course of the afternoon. For about half an hour if you had asked me to say "President", I would have said "Pwesident". The new fillings made my bite less even and -- get this -- harder for me to grind my teeth. I have, since Friday, started noticing how tense the muscles in mouth are, and -- why didn't I think of this before? -- relaxing them. Alas, when the default setting is tense, I have to actually remember to switch to manual to relax them. And to blatantly split infinitives.

Monday's teaching was as it ever was, and I had a few zingers that are going into one student's Funny Things the Faculty Say book. Common tone diminished seventh and the scwewy way the textbook has them notate that ("cto7") was among the day's offerings, as was writing for violins in orchestration. And it was one of those kinds of days I hate to have: a Drive To Work In The Dark And Drive Home In the Dark day. Much more common in the cold months, of course. While at school I discovered that the new Brandeis Reporter (a monthly publication) has the Barlow story and my picture on the front page. The picture is the crapful one on my Brandeis web page, so I spent some time adding moustaches and diabolical eyebrows to my picture on however many copies I had time for. I gave a signed copy of one of them to the Provost's secretary.

A raking party with the Ka-Ching Twins looks like it won't happen, due to schedule difficulties, but a raking party with at least one of them looks pretty certain. Alas, I am a Guest Sneaker on a Composers in Red Sneakers concert on the 4th, so the likelihood of much wevelwy after waking seems remote. But the raking is a sure thing.

Judah Adashi from Yaddo (say that five times fast) e-mailed a little while ago to remind me that I have put words to Mel Torme's Christmas Song that teach intervals (this started when I was a grad student, as I remember Kathy Dupuy singing it back to me), and he wanted them because he teaches ear training in Baltimore (the detail about the location was gratuitous, but, well, there you have it). So here they are, you lucky low two figures:

(VERSE) Octaves roasting on an open fire.

I have also made my plans for the upcoming November traveling to performances -- including Stony Brook and NYC for the 8th through 11th, and Kansas City for the 14th through the 18th. Turns out Geoffy will be a housesitter while I'm in Kansas, and the kitties will be in Bangor. Life is like that. I stay with Jay and Marilyn the 10th and 11th, and deliver the toy piano. Airfare -- about $220, and I have one-stop no-plane-change flights the pass through Milwaukee. Meanwhile, my next dentistry is November 2 -- upper right, and Night Guard fitting.

Oh yeah, and Geoffy weighed in with a variant of the Oedipus joke from my speech. Turns out -- there's no "I" in "Homer". No points for adding, "well, no USEABLE 'I'".

Today's menu: a boatload of grading. This week's activities: raking, and the Irving Fine concert Sunday afternoon. This week's only picture is a maple tree we passed while returning from Target on Sunday morning.

HALLOWEEN. Breakfast this morning was the usual rice link sausages, orange juice and coffee. Dinner was Buffalo wings from Neighborhood Pizzeria. Lunch was a garden salad. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK: 28.8 and 62.6. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Chaka Khan's "Be-Bop Medley" LARGE EXPENSES this last week include Symphony tickets, $30, a pair of Edirol R-09 digital recorders from Parsons Audio, $733 including tax, data cards for digital recording, $210, and pending tree removal costs later today, $490. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: I was singing in the concert of the chorus my senior year of high school, and the song was "Fum, fum, fum." Somehow Christmas tends to bring out the nonsense syllables in all of us, fa la la. At one particularly emphasized passage, my voice broke kind of dramatically, and I smiled real broadly, almost laughing, and this seems to have caught fire around the whole chorus. By the end of the song, everyone was on the verge of riotous laughter, though most admitted they didn't know why. On the previous year's chorus concert, Todd Leadbeater -- not a musician, but recently discovered he had a nice voice -- was given the solo for "The Holly and the Ivy" (no nonsense syllables in that one), and at the concert itself, instead of singing the melody for his solo, he sang one of the inner parts from earlier in the tune. That made me smile, too. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Why can't I see wind? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: ploof. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF are straw men on New Music Box. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: are Bubbie's pickles, chili olives from Whole Foods, and celery sticks with Buffalo wing sauce. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Lots of rot in the innards of our former big ailanthus tree. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 8. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Performances, Recordings. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. DENTIST VISITS THIS SEMESTER SO FAR: 4. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is none, but their "catnip pillow" is taking a beating. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 4 (Rome Prize season continues). DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 39 out of 100. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Republicans stop using Abe Lincoln as an example of their compassion. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 9,915. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.13. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE Ted's baseball cap, that one no the one behind it, fly fishing bait, a reduced flow due to drought.

This week originally had "skip the update for a week, nothing happened" written all over it -- unless stories of raking are your cup of tea (they are most certainly my cup of tea), but then this silly storm cranked up over New England, brought pounding rain (on another day I would have said "driving" rain, but that's just me) for a day, and big winds for three days. That by itself is not news, but the result of the big winds is -- especially as it interfered somewhat with my Monday teaching day.

With the clocks turned back an hour, it is now light again when I leave for work (6:15 am), so I was able to see this when I stepped out my door on Monday morning (this pic was taken with the cell phone):