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

Spring and winter are currently doing one of those Clash Of the Titans things they traditonally do this time of year. I blithely report that my spring fever is normally more severe than that of those around me, and one symptom of that is the sheer volume of crocus pictures I take. This year, however, I am astonished at how hardy the crocuses (croci?) are. For you see, since on the 17th we got exactly a foot of snow dumped on us, covering the crocuses until Friday the 23rd, and when a small bit of snow around a stand of crocuses melted, the crocuses came right up. In fact, all the croci that were up a week ago Tuesday were back on Friday, and this time there is also a stand of daffodils way in the back making their first appearance. True to form, I have those crocuses in pictures now in both the pre- and post-storm time periods. I can't tell the difference just looking at them. Oh yeah, and the rhubarb is making an appearance, too.

But back to more mundane things. Last Sunday, the day after the storm, the roads were certainly passable, and I took that opportunity to drive to my office and have two and a half office hours for students who were finishing up their songs -- their second project for Mus 103 (the two projects so far have counted as 45% of their grades). I got quite a few customers, and things shaped up rather well. For you see, on Monday we had Slosberg Hall reserved during class time for performances (more like readings in some cases) of the final songs on stage, and accompanied by Seunghee -- who was paid out of the fund we call "Davy's pocket". You may remember that Seunghee was also the housesitter when Beff and I were in England. In any case, I recorded them all with the old Edirol, and had burned CDs to hand out in class on Wednesday. The styles of the songs ranged from Handel and Mozart to Brahms, with some of them mysterious in their sourcing. By far the most popular poet for texts: Wordsworth.

Tuesday's only excitement -- other than the excitement of it not being a teaching day -- was driving all the way to BJ's and Whole Foods for staples and Whole Foods had a whole bunch of new and novel grilling selections, some of which I chose for homewardness. Indeed, the swordfish kebabs became yesterday's lunch, and they were yummy (just like sevenths and ninths!), and some of the pesto stir fry chicken went into sandwiches for today's lunch. I also tried the "People's Pizza" they now sell -- two flat pizza crusts and packets of sauce and cheese. I went for the Romano variety, which meant the sauce was a puttanesca, and it was quite good. I had both of them at various meals, so there was none left for Beff, so there. And it's the only pizza I ever had that specified for the temperature of the oven to be 500 degrees.

Wednesday was a regular teaching day (with extra teaching because Yu-Hui was in Miami and I introduced augmented sixth chords to her class), and was warmer as well, and that meant a little lounging on the porch when I returned home. Thursday was a day I actually dressed up, as I was appearing with my homeys on the Faculty Senate Council before the Board of Trustees, and that meeting was successful. Then was my regular teaching for Thursday, followed by a Senate Faculty meeting, and a GREAT colloquium by Yehudi Wyner. Great because the music was so good, but also great because I finally copped a recording of his piano concerto. Yes. Alas, it was dark-ish by the time I got home, so no spring fever sorts of stuff. Big Mike (ka-ching!) went to the colloquium, and I invited him to see the new bathroom, fridge, etc. on his way home, and he did, Oscar, he did.

By Tuesday, by the way, temperatures were ranging back into the normal area, and that meant lots of wet and spritzy roads. It also meant long periods where the side porch door could be open, and of course melting of the snow in the yards. During the week, our local retriever Molly had popped by several times in search of dog bones -- her tracks were evident, as she always took the same route. By Friday, when the melting had reached a torrent, her tracks became a path, and then eventually they disappeared. Meanwhile, Beff had ordered a new hammock to put on our frame, and it arrived, so I took it out, assembled the frame, and tried to stretch the hammock on it -- sigh, it was short by about two feet. So off I went to the hardware store for some chains to extend it, and that's where I found out about the chain link piece you can get with the gap that has a screwed-in piece (too hard to describe, but if you know what it is, you know what it is). I installed the chains and the hammock, and ... major sag right away. So I tightened it, got on, and more sagging ... so I decided to put the old grody one up, and I laid there a little while (even taking my usual first-hammock-of-the-year with a beer shot) and noticed that the hammock smelled a little like a cat had marked it while it had been laying in the garage. So back went the new stretchy one. Which we are going to have ONLY until another one, a proper one, arrives. I made Beff order a new one online (also some bowls, but that's a horse of a different color).

My Home Improvement accomplishment of the week was replacing the SASH LOCK on the back window in the computer room. That is the name for that piece that latches that allows you to close the window tight. The hardware itself costs $2.29. The act of fixing it without throwing things: priceless.

Meanwhile, Beff was delayed a day by UMaine stuff, so she didn't get back until Friday night. Saturday morning she saw the hammock and realized she'd made a mistake getting the underpriced one. I'd said I'd be surprised if it lasted the summer. She sat on it and said she'd be surprised if it lasted a month. So she steeled herself to order the good one she should have ordered in the first place. Meanwhile, we've got the new springy, saggy one for a while. Beff got her hair cut downtown, we had a nice swordfish kebab lunch, Maynard Door and Window came over to look at the back porch whose floor we think needs replacing, and the attic windows which I also want replaced, and then we took a bike ride -- my third, Beff's first, of the season. Yes, plenty of spritz there, as snow melts onto the road, dontcha know. When all was said and done, it was time to get ready for the graduate composers concert at Brandeis. Beff had made reservations at the Tuscan Grill in advance, so that was where we up and went for dinner. We both did the salmon special ($26!) and had Pinot Grigio.

Meanwhile, winter was extending a last-gasp and sinister tentacle. A batch of energy was supposed to swoop in from the U.P. of Michigan and drop a quick inch or three of snow to our area overnight, and the forecast on the Weather Channel under the "snow advisory" said it would start as rain, mix with snow, and change to all snow at around 10 at night. Assuming it was the usual grad concert over by 9:30, then it looked like a fine drive home. With just a bit of dusting to deal with.

So after dinner when we left the restaurant there was just the slightest spritzing going on. Beff and I waited in my office, and were surprised to be accosted by KEN! Ueno, just in town from Rome. And Hillary, in the audience! Yes, they were at Brandeis to hear the premiere of Lou Bunk's piece, a piano trio that is his dissertation, and for which I was the first "reader". Beff insisted that I show Ken my movie of Adam Marks playing the talking pianist etude, so I played part of it, and obviously from Ken's face he didn't know how to react. So we up and went to the concert, and we sat right in back of Hillary and Ken, and next to Yu-Hui. Nothing seemed amiss, but there WERE seven pieces (not unusual) listed, and I knew Lou's was about 15 or 20 minutes.

So there were four pieces on the first half. And they were all long. Normally Lou's music stands out in these kinds of concerts because when it's surrounded by skitterish music that some of the composers at Brandeis write, it seems much more relaxed and introspective. But nearly everything was quite slow. And quite long. So Lou's piece didn't stand out as it usually does. Just as the second half was about to begin, AT NINE FRIGGIN FORTY, I looked outside and saw that it was already snowing. Coming back inside and noting that there were only three pieces on the second half, two of which I advised as compositon teacher, things looked good for a not-so-bad exiting time. Alas, TEN FRIGGIN FIFTY-FIVE was when the concert ended -- and despite a lot of very lovely stuff that was on that second half -- some of it that was lovely enough to make me NOT think of the long twisty and slippery drive ahead of me -- I thought mostly about -- the long twisty and slippery drive ahead of me. I also did some thinking that I should have found an excuse to leave and promise to catch the tape. So I'll be making my apologies to the composers who wrote some lovely stuff that I didn't care about because it was snowing.... and anyway, we exited directly, got into traffic, and the roads were very good until we crossed the Waltham line, and then they became difficult to see because it seemed like the car was being pelted by albino muffins and lots of them (big puffy snowflakes for those of you who tend to take me literally), and shortly a tailgater in a truck was riding my bumper. Not a good situation for one with TMJ (I tried to unclench when possible, but it took great concentration to do that AND drive AND try to see beyond the albino muffins). But luckily, I didn't feel the wheels slipping under me until we were almost in Maynard.

We arrived home in good shape, if a little harried.

Nota Bene. Had to stop typing to go to Kate Housman's horn recital. It ended with the Brahms trio, which was good.

...if a little harried. Went to bed, got up, had fake eggs etc. (see above) and started the big round walk, which was cut short due to footgear. Then Beff went to Maine for her teaching week, and I started to type this. And eventually, finished.

Upcoming: with the exception of a Friday morning meeting with Rick B., my vacation begins approximately 1 pm on Thursday, and continues until the 10th of April. Bitchin. Tuesday I meet Anna at the Harvard Faculty Club to talk about some sort of MacDowell 100 project. Gotta get the piano tuner over. And my piano homeys gave me a couple of great etude ideas for work during the break (Corey, in Vancouver, suggested an echo etude, and Mike, in Lawrence, Kansas, re-suggested a mirror etude). Meanwhile, Beff goes next weekend to a festival in Kearney, Nebraska (she pronounces it "Carney"), and it turns out my homeys in Kansas are doing "Gli Uccelli" on that festival. Is that cool, or what?

Note all of you that the "Kitchen Walkthrough" movie is still up, in case you want the virtual tour of all our new stuff. This pictures begin with the yard late Wednesday where you can see Molly (the dog)'s accustomed path to look for bones as well as my footprints from when I raked the garage, etc. -- then there's Friday's First Hammock And Beer picture, the hammock this morning (you're supposed to see that it is snow-covered), the crocuses peeking out as soon as the snow over them melts, closeups of crocuses and the rhubarb just starting, and two shots from this morning's walk -- near the river reflection shot, and yet another dam picture.

APRIL 6. Breakfast today was rice link sausages with melted cheese, potato pancakes, orange juice, and coffee. Lunch was a peppery hot and sour soup. Dinner last night was ... hmm, I think I forgot to have dinner. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST TWO WEEKS: 24.1 and 66.2. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS News theme music for Live at 5 (because one of the gestures I used in a piano etude just written remind me of it). LARGE EXPENSES this last two week are the balance of the cost of the bathroom conversion, $10,322, a duplexer for the big printer, $483, high-quality hammock $110 and piano tuning, $90. BIRDS HEARD RECENTLY: grackles, red winged blackbirds, red-eyed vireo. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: My first year living at Berrien Court in Princeton -- my second year of graduate school -- David K and I had a Thanksgiving dinner at the house with all the people we knew not going home for Thanksgiving invited. It was Beff's first year at Princeont, too, and Steve Dewhurst was hanging around trying to finish his Masters degree, and he brought a frozen turkey and tried to thaw it fast. Thus, serving was a little later than planned -- actually, about three hours later than advertised. For some reason, Mona Solomon, a sociology PhD student that lived in the grad dorm with us and who dropped out, was around for the dinner, too. We decided to give out "awards", and the only one I remember was what we gave Beff -- "Nookie of the Year". THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: Narcissitude. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF TMJ, snow in April. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Edy's Lime bars, Sun Tea mixed with real lemonade, frozen Trader Joe's stuff. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK The number of cigarette butts left behind by the bathroom workers, now that the snow is gone. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 1.11111. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Reviews 4, Performances, Bio, Compositions, first page. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. DENTIST VISITS SINCE SEPTEMBER: 12. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: Sunny loves growling at and chasing away a local tiger cat, and now BOTH cats give little pathetic "mews" when I say the word "treats". RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 4. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE: In 1975 after a I had had measles for a month, my weight dropped to 92 pounds -- and I was the same height I am now. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: No matter what it is, atonal composers get in free. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 10,342. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.59. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a downward spiraling trend, a pair of left-footed boots, the maple syrup left over when you throw out the bottle, a frozen rope.

Happy Good Friday! It's not every day that I can use the sequence "happy good" in a sentence without being ungrammatical or silly-sounding, so I am posting TODAY. Happy good! Happy good! Happy good! There has been a lapse in reportage, so there is plenty about which to talk.

First, on Tuesday the 27th I got all happy good dowdied up -- wearing the silverish shirt, the silverish tie, and the nice suit, to have lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club with Anna Schuleit. I actually drove in a little early in order to have some time in Harvard Square for shopping and browsing, and oddly enough, I ran into my colleague Allan Keiler in the classical record section at Newbury Comics. It so happens that I could pretty much grab all the classical records they had in stock (my clumsy way of saying it's a small section), but I did pick up the complete Schumann piano music, played by Ashkenazy ("he bangs! Tell me if you like it", said Allan) and a bunch of Chopin played by Arrau (yes, all dead composers), as well as a Signal to Noise magazine (article on Milton Babbitt by my homey Christian) and a box of bandages made to look like bacon strips (I figured it'd be nice for the downstairs medicine cabinet). I also got a few wind-up toys for the picture window in the bathroom (soon not to be a picture window) that look like characters from a Beatrix Potter novel (how many first names do you know that end in "x"?) -- something cute about an upright Peter Rabbit walking toward you in that inexorable way.

And then was lunch, and the day was the warmest one of this recent time period -- I remember it feeling a little close as I waited at the door. Both Anna and I had the buffet, while she explained to me her project for the MacDowell Centennial around medal day in August (as it turns out, on my eighteenth wedding anniversary). Ten former fellows (since I've been there eight times, then that makes me a fellow fellow fellow fellow fellow fellow fellow fellow -- suddenly I hear "Try to Remember" from the Fantastiks (which could end with an "x", couldn't it?)) to be matched with schoolchildren from Peterborough on 4-minute creative projects (those of you not good at doing math in your heads should know that adds up to forty minutes), along with a whole bunch of working telephones set up everywhere (actually, a hundred -- did I mention Centennial?) that will ring, etcetera. What I liked was in the project's prospectus it was mentioned that the phones reference "The Colony's signature privacy"-- how very Madison Avenue. Anyway, I said I'd do it, and so there and what it is, too. Also it was left open when she and her boyfriend would come to our house for something. Later that week I was asked for a bio for the Medal Day program, and I did my signature humor -- as well as my signature making sure the staff is acknowledged. It ends "When he grows up he wants to be like John Sieswerda or Blake Tewksbury." Which is screamingly funny if you know the MacDowell Colony. And then, I came home, all dowdied up (fellow fellow fellow....).

The rest of the week was spent with my signature teaching, some of it bodaciously good, the rest of it was good when it was very good. My exit from Brandeis at 1 on Thursday was to represent the beginning of my vacation time, and mostly it did. Beff got in late that night, and on Friday we did what exercise we could -- we went to Maynard Door and Window to choose a "composite" wood for the new floor for our back porch -- which we intend to have replaced before the summer -- and in the afternoon we took a bike ride -- one not too long, as it was Beff's first of the year. Otherwise, we did what married couples do (you know, married stuff), and I spent a long time in the afternoon on the hammock -- which I kept moving as the shadows moved. And -- oh yes! The cheap-ass hammock is now in the attic, as a new, crispy one with good, thick rope arrived and I installed it. And I used it as often as I could (which has certainly not been in the last week. Later I will splain). And meanwhile, Beff read the New Yorker magazine in an Adirondack chair. I brought out the remaining lawn furniture, and Beff did a lot of vacuuming (which she always does).

But even more fun was in evidence mid-day! Ross was in town, and he happened by for lunch (he is now a vegetarian, and we'll see how long that lasts), and he pulled up just as we were putting a new tarp over the storage thing in the back yard ("Aaa-ooOOOh", I was saying as I was trying to get it over the top). I made some CD copies for him, gave him some CDs, we walked to a Thai restaurant in town (he was with us when we stopped at Door and Window), we came back, and we talked about stuff. And as you may have read in this space last November as a prediction -- he reported that they hired Kurt Rohde at UC Davis. Big duh there, by far the best composer on the market this year. Meanwhile, I had told him that on several evenings, we had gotten calls from the 752 area code with a number I didn't recognize, and I asked him if that was his, and he said yes, it's a Davis area code and it may have been Sam or Laurie calling. So later that night I picked up when that number called, and ... it was a fund-raising call. Note to college new music ensembles: DON'T give the numbers of your donors to the fundraising office, because they may just stop giving. We won't, of course -- I was speaking hypothetically, and that makes me think -- is there such a thing as hyperthetically? Anyway, Ross had to get on the road to hear a BMOP dress rehearsal in, of all places, Amherst. So he did, Oscar, he did.

Meanwhile, Beff had a very early plane to catch on Saturday morning, and she was a little worried about getting the right driving route to the airport -- SO, I said I'd get up and get her onto 128 in my car, while she continued to Logan, parked, and took her flight. We left at 4:10 am, and I was beginning to work by 5. FIVE!!! Beff, meanwhile, flew to Denver, changed planes, and then took Turbulence Air to Kearney, Nebraska, where she was to have a piece played in their new music festival. She spent Sunday in Hastings, where her college roommate now lives (and she's also the minister who married us those -- guess how many? Answer is earlier in this rambling narrative -- years ago. And meanwhile, my homeys from the U of Kansas were also doing a concert in the same festival. Including not one, but TWO pieces of mine: Heavy Hitter (etude 73) AND Gli Uccelli di Bogliasco. So they got to meet Beff, and they remarked that she had very good English. Another sign of what happens with married couples through time was evident -- I had told Mary Fukushima (one of the homeys) that I'd write her a key-slap etude for flute, just because I wanted to use the title "Slap Happy". When Mary told Beff I was writing her a key-slap piece, Beff said, "Why? So he can call it 'Slap Happy?'" In any case -- things happened, and Beff got back VERY late Tuesday night, after which she drove to Maine. Arriving (as I called it) at 3 am. Just before THE STORM. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Since I didn't do diddly during the February vacation, I was bound and determined (happens just before bound and gagged, and just after gagged with a spoon) to get some compositional work done. So I asked several of my etude-playing people for etude ideas, and I followed through on two of them. Corey Hamm suggested an echo etude, and Mike Kirkendoll (also of the U of Kansas posse) suggested a mirror etude. So since I had had a mirror idea floating around since the first time Mike suggested that (around the time of my seventeenth wedding anniversary), and since I also needed to write the ONE etude in Book 8 that I can play, I chose to write a slow mirror etude and a fast one. Meaning I wrote THREE since last Thursday after I got home from school. In fact, dear reader, you can look at all three by following the fatigue-green numbers 77, 78 and 79 on the left, and even chuckle at the MIDI of the two fast ones. And -- lo and behold -- I am just an etude short of finishing another book. Anybody with good etude ideas? Serious enquiries only. And writing those etudes has been the main activity during my vacation -- especially as on Sunday it started to get unseasonably cold, and the sun stayed behind the clouds from Sunday afternoon until late Thursday afternoon (yesterday).

INDEED -- it turned out that Beff got back to Maine just in time. Because a forecast of light showers of snow and rain mixed turned into a full-blown snow event here -- Wednesday afternoon here through the early morning witnessed about two inches of snow -- which melted VERY fast from the roads and driveway, but still leaves a few traces in the yard. But in Bangor, the snow started later on Wednesday (Beff had driven at that ungodly hour for a concert that night), kept going, and cancelled school on Thursday morning. Indeed, Bangor got nearly a foot, and lots of stuff was cancelled, and lots of people lost power due to the heavy snow breaking trees and power lines, etc. So we got off a little on the easy side.

So what else happened in between bouts of composing? Well, I did as many walks for exercise as possible, since it's far too cold to ride a bicycle, and that included one of the paths on Summer Hill. For once I tried a fork of a path I hadn't encountered before, and I took that all the way to the other side, bringing me by the school-converted-into-artist-studios, and around. On another walk to the post office, I stopped at Door and Window to feed the dog, but also to hand-deliver the check for the balance of the bathroom conversion, and they got me sitting down and talking, and gave me two maroon baseball caps with their logo (MDW, they say). And stuff. And that's about the sum total of outdoor activity for me, since it's been too cold for most of it.

Meanwhile, I had started thinking about the process of doing the parts for my piano concerto, on top of the many times on weekends Beff has come into the computer room and asked, "now how do I do double-sided again?" It's been so complicated that we simply use the copying machine in the guest room to do double-sided copying -- which is going to be a real bear when it comes time to produce fifty parts for an orchestra. So I drooled and I drooled, and I finally decided to drop the money on the automatic duplexer that I could have gotten if I had gotten the super-deluxe version of our printer. I ordered it directly from HP, and for shipping options, here were my choices: UPS ground, $10. UPS Second Day $17. UPS Next Day, free. Hmm, somebody not paying attention over there ... in any case, it arrived on Tuesday and I installed it -- it tucks in in the back between the two paper trays, as it turns out, and it was extremely easy to install. The next step was to update all the printer drivers on the computers so that they know the duplexer is available (not too hard), but then finding where in the Print dialog box you tell it to do automatic double-sided printing was not so easy. The manual had said it's in the "Finishing" tab at print time, but it turns out that was the case for Windows, not Mac OS X -- finally after poring through about a dozen technical docs on the HP site, I found the answer -- it's under Layout, and hey -- you can even choose between long-side binding and short-side binding. Success. It looks really bizarre when it's doing double-sided printing, because half of each page starts to get ejected, but then it gets sucked back in to be printed on the other side. As if it changed its mind a lot. See the sky blue "Duplexer movie" up and to the left.

So then the issue became working the parts so they could be directly printed double sided -- the piece is in four movements, which means four files, thus four files per part. I experimented with batch printing to see if the jobs could be sent as a stream of pages, but that didn't work -- if, say, the first movement took 3 pages, it printed on both sides for pp. 1 and 2, then printed 3, and then ejected the page. Then the second movement would start on a fresh page, as would the third and fourth. So since not all the parts are even numbers of pages in every movement, I was in a quandary. I did discover the batch print (or batch anything) feature in Finale, which allowed me quickly to create whole lot of PDF files without doing much work. But I was in a tizzy (not a Tin Lizzie, which is something else entirely, but thanks for playing our game) about how to accomplish this, when on a lark I opened Adobe Acrobat -- we have the full version because when I got the new computer I got Adobe Creative Suite 2 -- for Illustrator, an html program, and especially for Photoshop -- and it comes with CS 2. So there on the task bar was "create document from multiple files". BINGO. So I did all the parts using Acrobat, putting the four separate files for each part into single files and then tried doing a double-side bass part. BINGO! again. Though I then noticed my own stupid mistake in extracting the parts, where page 4 was followed by page 6, meaning I had to figure out the page turns again. So soon, my pretties, soon I will print and bind all the parts. Because it is what I do. It put me in a happy good mood.

And this morning Steve Chrzan came to do the yearly piano tuning -- which he hadn't done in two years -- and the usual banter about how crappy the piano is, etc., ruled the day. Indeed, as he was leaving he said, "so make sure and call me if you ever get a piano." In any case -- he fixed a few sticky keys, got it sounding good and in tune, and off he went. He had to enter on crutches due to a foot operation he'd had -- removing a nasty sliver -- but he did just fine. And while he was tuning, I finished the 79th etude, upstairs on the Klavinova. I rule. Happy good.

Now #77 and #79 qualify as two of the hardest etudes of the whole set. Sorry about that, guys. But when I think "echo" etude I think of the lame-ass musicians that play in subways with their delay boxes, and the way they get a chord sounding by arpeggiating, and adding to the structure by playing some more as it fades, etc. MY etude has multiple simultaneous delay boxes (yes, the delay ranges from two eighth notes to four eighth notes with lots of odd numbers of sixteenths in between) and multiple simultaneous echo sonorities, all decaying independently. So some bars have a different dynamic on every note (I rule). Meanwhile, the slow mirror etude came out nice and pretty (I rule), and the fast mirror etude is definitely pipistrello in uscita dal inferno territory. It actually sounds pretty hip, even though I know it's damn hard, and usually the left hand is playing the inversion of the right hand, a sixteenth later (I rule). Zounds.

Speaking of etudes -- I found a review online of Adam Marks's Paris performance of three of them, and you can find them in Reviews 4 (click on Reviews, then on 4) -- finally after a string of pretty good reviews, a fairly wretched one. And I like reading it. And I love the notion that it's not possible to write a piece using only major triads because Satie did that already. And I remember -- it is only Europeans who make pronouncements about art that begin "It is no longer possible to ...." to .. to write a requiem after Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles (yes, a European said that). But I seem to have gotten off the beaten path here.

Beff is on her way back for the weekend as I type this -- the snowstorm necessitated some rescheduling of lessons, so she is leaving mid-afternoon -- and then it is Easter weekend. Tuesday I drive to MacDowell again, this time to see an artist, Bradley Wester, that I know from VCCA 2003. Wednesday school starts again and (gratefully) I note there are only 3 weeks of it left, and on that very day I get to see Bob Moody of the Theater department do that same "bullshit that makes you sweat" that I did in September -- a public lecture honoring his elevation to an endowed chair. Meanwhile, further off into the future is a reschedule April 20 and 21 of a mini-residency at the U of Southern Maine that was cancelled due to a snowstorm, Justin Rust's dissertation defense May 9, and in late August, school starts up again. Agh!

In any case. Still four days left to this vacation and I don't know what I will do yet. Don't want to write another etude, and don't have enough time to start the Barlow Prize piece. So I will be going to the bathroom, playing with the cats, and eating. Good way to spend a vacation when you've already written three new etudes.

It's been a crappy week for taking pictures -- the ones I include below were done specifically for this update, and for no other reason. The first two are from my walk in the woods -- the path, and an ancient stone wall. Next is Cammy just as I started typing this, the printer with the duplexer installed (it is just behind where the cord plugs in), the beginning of Wednesday's snowstorm, and the frozen version of some penne Arabbiata I got at Trader Joe's -- the things that look like pepperoni are actual dollops of the sauce, frozen. Kuhl.

APRIL 15. Breakfast today was rice link sausages with melted cheese, potato pancakes, orange juice, and coffee. Lunch/dinner (eaten at 4) was an all-natural pizza from Whole Foods. Dinner last night was grilled chicken sandwiches and salad. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST TWO WEEKS: 25.0 and 54.0. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Mahler's Mitternacht, from the Ruckert Lieder. LARGE EXPENSES is heating oil, a little over 500 bucks. BIRDS HEARD RECENTLY: Eastern wood peewee, and finally the robins, now back for more than a month, have started singing. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: I played both Midget League (ages 9, 10) and Little League (11, 12) baseball, and in Midget League was shortstop for the Pirates. Who knows why, but the coach tabulated our batting averages, and mine was .358. There was one game in which I hit a grounder and clearly beat the throw to first base (there was at least half a second between my foot hitting the bag and the ball hitting the first baseman's glove), but I did not argue. But a little later in the game, the first base umpire heard us little kids making jokes about what a dumbass he was and he left in a huff, on his motorcycle. I do not recall who took his place. I also was embarrassed at times in Little League when my father would be the plate umpire, who would be so flamboyant in his pitch-calling that immediate family couldn't help hoping nobody noticed we were ralted -- I mean, it seemed like he started making the call before the ball was even halfway to the plate. Well, strikes, anyway. The "Steeeeeeeeeeee-rike!" thing, dontcha know. Luckily, he didn't umpire any of my games. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: Gristoon. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF the stationary low over northeastern Canada. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Edy's Lime bars, Sun Tea mixed with real lemonade, piccante olives, Real Pickles. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK How deep postholes can be. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 9. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Performances, first page. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. DENTIST VISITS SINCE SEPTEMBER: 12. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: I made a second catnip-sock, and both cats go crazy over both of them. One for each floor! RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 1. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE: I and Mike White were the first two in seventh grade French to demonstrate that we could count to a hundred in French. For that, we each received a "bon point". WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Every word beginning in "s" now begins in "th" -- but just for one day. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 10,400. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.66. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE the way we were, a stiff jab to the midsection, all the words that rhyme with "traitorous", something with wheels that go sideways.

The week and some change that was, was. That gfornafratz stationery low over northeastern Canada parked its little ol' butt there just as my Passover vacation began, and it's been cold and poopy ever since, causing snow and sleet, here in friggin April, three times now. Last Thursday, even, it started to rain and snow in the morning, changed to all rain, and then soon after I got home, snow and sleet mixed in, and there was enough to accumulate on the ground and still be there the next morning. Today, even -- it is a Sunday -- in the morning there was rain and sleet mixed, and enough to cause a very minor accumulation. It is now gone. In Maine, Beff says there were about 3 or 4 slushy inches in the Thursday storm, dunno about the current one. Which is being called a Nor'easter, despite the fact that it is currently in North Carolina, and which is forecast to give us about 3 or 4 inches of rain. Well, winter didn't arrive until the second half of January, so I guess it's only fair that spring proper is a month late, too. But those poor crocuses.

Since the happy Good Friday update, there has been plenty of going to the bathroom, eating, and sleeping, as well as a resumption of teaching, and a little ebb and flow of the TMJ thing (I felt very little on Wednesday and Thursday but have this weekend) and all that. The weekend after the update was fairly dull, since I decided actually to do vacation stuff -- but it was too cold for a trip to the hammock, so it was mostly indoor going to the bathroom, eating and sleeping.

By Monday, it was marginally fine to go outdoors -- it was like late February weather -- and I began the day -- 8:30 am -- by hiking over Summer Hill and taking the long way to Maynard Door and Window. Why there? Why, it's because they sent us estimates to replace the attic windows and to replace the back porch floor, and I took the occasion to bring the down payment checks with me, as well as some dog bones for their dog Zoey. Who was so looped and excited that I started calling her Gonzoey. I'm clever and spontaneous that way. I also got to cash the checks for our Massachusetts and Maine refunds, adding up to not a whole heck of a lot. Later in the day I hit K-Mart, Staples and Trader Joes, and by the time I got back there were several 20-foot long lengths of the composite material that's going to be used for the porch floor in the garage, sticking out of it by a foot or so. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And later in the day after another walk for the sake of exercise -- too cold to bike -- I started thinking about the fence in the back yard. People who visited were always surprised that our yard went WAY out beyond the fence. Indeed, the fence enclosed maybe an eighth of our land, and truly we are really the master of all that we survey. And then last October the big ailanthus tree fell through the fence, making it less of a fence, and more of a not-fence, totally wiping out one section, and seriously injuring another one. That blight has been there for a while, and it always reminded me of crooked teeth. Perhaps that is so because it has also been the Year of the Dentist. Beff and I have been talking since the beginning of (calendar) spring about getting someone to take most of it down and just leave a portion between the Adirondack chairs and the stand of pine trees.

So later Monday afternoon, when the sun peeked out for a bit, I looked at the small section by the gate by the driveway and idly wondered how hard it would be to take out a section of fence between the sidewalk and the side porch. With a bit of push on the two posts, I actually loosened it enough to take it clean out without damaging it -- as I was thinking I wanted to keep the option of reinstalling it. I deposited the section of the fence in the back where we toss our used Christmas trees, and returned, idly wondering if the post right next to the porch could be uprooted. After a lot of pushing back and forth and rotating, I started pulling it up, and managed to move it. About two inches. After more pulling, another two inches. And so forth. But eventually I actually got it all out. And again, I brought it to the discard place.

So there was now a blank part of fence there, and the swinging door just looked silly. So with a lot of effort, I also pulled out the post on which the door was hinged. And brought it to the discard place. Then I took out the broken section of fence near the back, took out the section between it and the back hinged door, and took out the post between them. This was a lot of work, and I felt a strain in my right groin. Which went away after an hour of rest. So then I took away the section of fence near the lights by the driveway, and a post, and then the very small section by the garage, and then one section right next to that one, and another post. A good day's work. At this point, I still thought the fence might go back in. Meanwhile, there was enough sun that I left the window seat window open for the cats to go in and out freely, and Sunny immediately went for one of the post holes -- about two and a half feet deep -- trying to see what was down there. When I mentioned to Beff, she brought up that Sunny's cuterebra from a few summers ago must have come from a similar hole. So I had to strategize on how to fill the post hole.

On Tuesday I was appointed to drive to MacDowell to have lunch with Bradley Wester, a really cool artist whom I met at VCCA in 2003,a and I was feeling all outdoorsy. By 8:30 I was back at 'em, finishing the removal of the entire span along the driveway. This was no small task, mind you. For fill, I drove to Ace Hardware for topsoil, where I found that one 45-pound bag filled two and a half post holes. Good thing I had bought four bags. I then removed the back door piece and the pieces all the way to the shed, and by that time it was time to drive to the MacDowell Colony.

Bradley had the Star studio there, and he showed me what he's been working on the past four years, and it seemed marvelous. He talked about a job prospect -- a first teaching job, at age 52 -- and we dined at Harlow's, both getting the "Smoked Turkey Thang". After getting back, I removed yet more fence, including all of the back -- which meant I had to re-tie the tarp, since two of the corners were tied to the fence -- and two sections along the Adirondack chair side. I didn't do anything with the one section right by the house and bulkhead that seemed to be anchored to a metal pole in the ground with a cement plug. Because I had no idea what to do with that. All the holes got plugged after I made another run for topsoil, and I had a five-minute rest on the hammock before it became too cold. I then thought I heard peepers in the distance, so I got out the bike to ride to the local frog pond (near Erikson's Ice Cream), but none were in evidence. Bummage. So there was a little preparing for teaching, and off to bed, young man.

Wednesday and Thursday were signature teaching days, and then I got back.

On Friday morning Rick B came by for his usual lesson, and we had decided we'd tackle some Belgian brew I got for him in Maine after he finished his teaching at Brandeis for the day -- 1:30ish. In that time, I sawed off that one remaining section of fence, and then took the brace pieces off the metal pole that was still there, and then tried in vain to pull the pole out of the ground. Nuthin' doin. A bunch of concrete broke off at ground level, but the post wasn't goin' anywhere. So out came the shovel. I dug and dug, and finally 2 feet down hit some cement that was attached to the post. I dug a bit around that, tugged on the post, and nothing doing. Afte another 15 or so minutes of digging, finally, the post moved a bit. More digging, and finally with all my might I got the post out, and had to use my own weight to get it up to ground level, by falling sideways. No way I could carry that post and the enormous heavy plug anywhere, so I wheelbarrowed it to some scrub ground in the far back. Whoo, finally. And nowhere near enough topsoil at hand to fill that hole. So back to Ace I went. Total number of bags of topsoil utilized plugging postholes: 9.

Then I got a deluxe supreme pizza from Neighborhood Pizzeria, Rick and I demolished the pizza and beer, and he left.

And meanwhile, I have promised to speak in Eric Chafe's mod music history class about my piano quintet "Disparate Measures", so I took quite a while making a nice handout detailing the progression of things in the piece -- see the green "Disp. Measures lecture notes" link on the left. I also made a whole MESS o' copies of the score, and of "Gli Uccelli" in case I have to fill up some time in the class. At the start of the break, I had put together 24 CD cues to illustrate stuff in the piece, and put together 24 more, and burned some CDs of those tracks. I rule. And meantime, I started looking at some pieces I'm going to analyze in Theory 2 that I either haven't talked about in a while, or that I have never talked about -- including the Mahler Mitternacht I mention way at the top of this update.

Also the generals papers came in and I got through maybe 8 or 9 of 14. And the recording of Adam Marks's concert in Paris with Not, Absofunkinlutely, and Rick's Mood arrived, I made an mp3 of NOT for the benefit of Rick Moody, who l-o-o-oves it (so do I, it turns out), and listened to all three tracks a few times. It turns out the microphone for Adam made a big difference -- indeed all three etudes were excellently done, no thanks to the snotty French reviewer (see Reviews 4). See the magenta links up and to the left if you are interested. Remember, now, that "Not" is a talking pianist etude -- a pianist is a pianist, of course, of course.

And ALSO, Amy D sent images from the next iteration of her webpage which looked pretty hip -- especially as she got such good pictures this time. And she knew that WGBH had put the pictures they took of us at the radio station last February into a presentation, accompanied by, of all things, a guitar performance of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (it is, after all, public domain music, and my music is not), and it pretty much proves that ... both of us were there. Click on the gray link above left if you don't believe me. Or if you do. No matter what you do, you have to click on that link, since "belief" is binary. Don't tell Chomsky I said that.

Yesterday, I went into Brandeis for Arum Chum's piano recital (Schoenberg, Chopin, Bach, Brahms, all very good). And today -- after some more score production, I went into Brandeis for 3 office hours to help students with the sonatas they are composing and there were NO customers -- ironic considering how long we negotiated in class over whether I would have office hours on Saturday or Sunday. On the way back, in the rain (did I mention we got sleet and rain this morning, enough for a brief light covering, before it changed to all rain, sometimes heavy?) I stopped at Whole Foods and got some good stuff, including raspberries -- hey, when do we start getting cherries again?

More teaching this week -- Ravel in Theory 2 on Monday and Mahler on Wednesday -- as well as Open House for students accepted to Brandeis who are making their selections, and I am involved there. And that's on Thursday. Friday I meet Beff in Gorham, Maine for lunch, we go to a composer concert at U of Southern Maine, then we stay overnight at Dan Sonenberg and Alex Sax's apartment, and I do a public talk and some composition lessons on Saturday -- AFTER which, that same night, I go to a Brandeis New Music concert. And after all of that is the Festival of the Arts, and there's no stoppin' me.

Two and a half weeks left of classes. And of course, right after that is when everybody wants to have committee meetings. Blah.

The pix for this week are pretty fence-centric, as you might have expected, but before all of that -- first, a sapsicle (frozen maple sugar on a tree) from in front of our house just before Beff and I took a walk -- and then line patterns on a frozen puddle that looked better if you were there. Then there is the first PURPLE crocus of spring from last Tuesday, and a stand of daffodils ready to flower. Next is Bradley's studio (Star) at MacDowell on Tuesday -- note snow and woods. The next five shots are our fence at various stages of no longer being fence, and the last two are the two piles of posts and fence sections in the discard area. I rule.

APRIL 28. Breakfast today was rice link sausages with melted cheese, orange juice, and coffee. Dinner last night was Trader Joes Cioppino, no salad. Lunch was a small frozen pizza (heated up). TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST TWO WEEKS: 36.7 and 86.5. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head. LARGE EXPENSES any time I go to whole foods, $120 or more, books and CDs from Amazon $72, traveling 19" inch monitor $229, tabloid size card stock, $13, music $92. BIRDS HEARD RECENTLY: They're all back and red winged blackbirds were very prominent as I biked along the Assabet, but I did not yet hear the veery. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: In the early days of the Griffin Music Ensemble, we tended to have meetings at Beff's apartment in Cambridge. Since Ross was consistently a half hour late, we got in the habit of telling him the meeting time was a half hour earlier than it actually was. Our first season -- 1985-86 -- finished out at $10,999, including the champagne reception after our first concert. Eventually Richard Buell was to use the phrase "tricksome and witless" in a review, later in the season. What a nice guy. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: Toople. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF Republican scandals RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Sun Tea mixed with real lemonade, piccante olives, Real Pickles, hamburger dills from a giant jar. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK The true cost of garden sheds. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: a feisty little number larger than 5 but smaller than 6 that goes by the name of "gristoon". REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page, Performances. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. DENTIST VISITS SINCE SEPTEMBER: 13. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: I open the window seat window for them often, and after running around for five minutes, they park themselves in the window. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 1. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE: I have two pairs of excellent, full-price flip flops I haven't worn yet. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Dow 14,000. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 10,416. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.73, $2.77 and $2.83 (could it be only last November that I read that gas was going below $2.00 soon?). OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a mispronounced word that seemed to have begun with "snickle", a deck of cards missing the ten of hearts, an earplug made out of cement, the two little pieces of paper you throw away after you put on a new bandage.

Thirteen days separate the last update from this one, and I like that. I had been complaining about the cold weather that persisted for the first half of the month, and a stubborn Nor'easter was about to arrive. That it did, and dropped a ton of rain and wind here, and persisted for four days -- in fact, the state of New Hampshire just got declared a disaster area because of it. In one of my constitutionals, I saw that the level of the Assabet by the bridge on the Maynard-Stow line was higher than I'd seen before, or at least that I'd taken a picture of. There was some water in the basement that got taken care of by the sump pump, but otherwise nothing here was catastrophic. Then the warm exploded and Monday set a new high temperature record -- 86 in Boston, 87 here, and 88 officially according to the Weather Channel page. Yesterday's high? 50. Ah, spring.

So with all that funny weather stuff happening, there was a decided transformation of my teaching manner and attire. Especially the attire. I went from the traditional black jeans and sweater to black jeans and Woolrich comfy shirt (which Yehudi always, always, always remarked on because he got one for his brother). And on Tuesday, a day on which I went in (details shortly), it was shorts and the Davy t-shirt and flip flops. Monday was an interesting day because it *was* so suddenly hot, and the campus sprang to summer-type activities. Including a barbecue in front of the Shapiro student center with free hot dogs, etc., and I had one. Indeed, I took several walks around campus (since exercising at home wasn't much of an option -- I had a meeting at 5) and frisbees could be found everywhere.

And on Monday I had class outside. In the shade of the dorm next to the music building, utilizing a boombox and a keyboard, both operated with D batteries. Which made them heavy to carry. As to classroom teaching, in Theory 2 we moved past compositional exercises to what I call "close listening" (because I can be pretentious, too) -- basically analysis of various pieces beyond 1850, with students asked to suggest some pieces. I made it through Mahler's Mitternacht and Urlicht (the "ends in 'cht'" pieces), the slow movement of the Ravel Piano Concerto in G, Debussy's Voiles -- paired with Vanessa Lann's "DD", because of the whole-tone material -- and other pieces I've already forgotten. Up on deck is more Debussy, a Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel song, a Kalmer and Ruby song, a Beatles song, and, by class demand, a Sondheim song from Into the Woods. We sure get inclusive. Also related to class, I held 12 extra office hours for compositional help on Sundays and Tuesdays, and the six hours of Sunday hours produced exactly one customer. Tuesdays brought most of the class in, and that was fine since I had flip-flops on this last Tuesday.

Speaking of which -- it was still nice weather on Tuesday, but I had agreed to talk about my piano quintet in Eric Chafe's Modernism in Music history course, and that I did. I had a CD with 48 examples prepared, and talked and talked and talked. The class had precious few questions, and then when I saw what I had done I left. Turns out my piece is about a Great Blue Heron, and a closed-to-open gesture that's repeated several times in the piece. Well, that and C sharp. My talk was followed by 3 office hours.

On those warmer days I did get a chance to get out on the bicycle -- on Sunday the West Acton ride and on Tuesday afternoon my first Boon Lake ride. First time there in six months, and the same shaggy dog recognized me and approached me for a dog bone. Luckily, I had two, so he got one in each direction. Boon Lake is still pretty, and the path is as bumpy as, or bumpier than, ever. It was nice to do it during the bugless time of the year.

Meanwhile, Beff gets here late this afternoon, which will be her first time here in three weeks. Indeed, she has yet to see my handiwork -- the dismantling of the picket fence. We plan to celebrate by roaming freely. I also got some nice chicken satay skewers, and healthy vegetable stuff, at Whole Foods for this weekend. Alas, she's here for just a little while and goes back tomorrow. With the cats. For reasons that will be splained soonly enough.

So yesterday was another big and rainy day -- thunderstorms were predicted, but didn't happen -- and I celebrated that by driving into Cambridge. Because the scores I had ordered at Cambridge Music Center (fka Yesterday Service) were in -- Music for Strings Percussion and Celesta, the left hand concerto of Ravel, and the Symphony in Three Movements of Stravinsky -- and I had to pick them up. On the way back was that trip to Whole Foods, and dagnabbit, they were out of Real Pickles. I *did* get an interesting raspberry beer concoction, made by Dogfish, for the staff at the MacDowell Colony, though. It may be the only $18 bottle of beer they ever get from me, or anyone else. And of course I got piccante olives, yummy yum yum.

This weekend is the Bernstein Festival of the Arts at Brandeis, with lots of performances going on everywhere. Last night was one of them, and I went -- an electronic music half-marathon, featuring music by Brandeis, Harvard, and Dartmouth composers, with 14 pieces programmed. I made it through the first 11, and had to leave, and I must say that the Brandeis composers kinda looked good. Hillary had a piece, too, which I liked -- I had fun from my vantage point where I could see that she was triggering MAX patches by going up chromatically on a tiny two-octave keyboard. It was like a real-l-l-y slow chromatic scale etude. It was also really easy to know when the piece ended, therefore.

(speaking of which -- I spent some time analyzing the "Fireworks" prelude of Debussy for class -- #12 from Livre 2 -- and decided to use it kind of as a premise for my 80th etude, should I ever get around to writing it)

And tomorrow is Peter Bayne's cop car piece that everyone's been talking about (except Jim Ricci, who is old and cynical enough to say, "somebody did that in the 70s, didn't they?" Yeah, and Satie already wrote a piece using only major triads) and I have to introduce it. Two bass-baritones, singing through the PA of police cars and using the other sound-making accoutrements. My introduction has been written for me, and it's pretty basic. I had it memorized before I even read it. And then tomorrow night, the Dinosaur Annex concert is an extremely ambitious recital by Don Berman, including Eric Chasalow's piano and tape piece, and the two etudes he *commissioned* from me -- yes, I got paid for them, though I wasn't expecting to. In fact, it looks like due to clerical error, I got paid twice. I didn't cash the second check.

As to the coming week, it's the day we've all been waiting for. Wednesday is THE LAST DAY OF CLASSES WOO HOO ICE MAKER WOO HOO and Thursday is a music department meeting, and then I'm mostly done except for some grading. On Friday, I am going to the MacDowell Colony, where I will be until June 5. This is a last minute thing, and I have to come back several times, specifically: May 5 for Eric Chasalow's multimedia opera at Brandeis, May 9 for Justin Rust's diss defense and a teaching award ceremony for Rick Beaudoin, May 14 for a dentist appointment (#14, but it's just a routine cleaning) and May 15 for the department degree meeting. Then I'm home free. Which is good, because I am charged with writing a towering masterpiece of staggering genius, for wind ensemble. With opening suggested by Chip Farnham (you read that here first -- D in the horns). So because Beff has to be in Maine a lot for two more weeks until her academic obligations are finished, she's taking the cats with her for that time, and then back here. Woo hoo for the cats, I am sure. And of course once the grass starts growing in earnest, there will be hiatuses to come back and mow.

Meanwhile, other things related to the weather warming up include taking out the lawnmower and gassing it up -- I actually could mow some, but just the long grass that used to be next to the fence that's now nonexistent. And Mindy Wagner sent me a bag with eight baby asparagus sprouts for me to plant -- when she was here for her colloquium I had casually mentioned that the neighbor has nice asparagus that he doesn't even know about and that the previous owner used to give fresh asparagus to us, and that I might have to sneak in to do that this spring, etc. -- and I followed the instructions on the bag. I dug a six-inch deep trench (I got me a little shovel from Ace Hardware for that), planted them, and covered them with three inches of dirt. Then about a week later I covered them up again with the other three inches.

I also got grass seed, and fertilizer, and more topsoil, since one of tomorrow's task for me 'n' Beff is to plant grass seed where the fallen tree is, and also in the mini-trench that its carcass left behind. To that end, I also got a hoe and a rake -- not a leaf rake, but, as I described it over the phone to Beff, the kind of rake that is used for sight gags in cartoons and comedy movies. She knew immediately of what I spoke. Now I am glad to have spent so much obsessive time last fall uprooting all the vines and stuff in that area. Currently I am spending obsessive time weeding the area of those funny chutes that are all over this area that produce quasi-grapes. And meanwhile, the rhubarb is growing incredibly fast. It passed through the nascent stage and through the scrotal stage to near-picking stage in just a few weeks.

And so since I have to get my act together a little more quickly than I had anticipated -- that is, going away this Friday -- I did stuff that required organizational skills. Including sending programs to CF Peters and BMI, making and binding a full size Disparate Measures score for a fall performance, Xeroxing all the piano concerto sketches and making a nice printout of it to send to the Koussevitzky Foundation, and doing all that stuff at the post office, etc. And I searched through the Staples flyer for a bigger monitor that I can attach to my Power Book for the sake of doing a wind ensemble piece, and I got a 19-incher flat screen that was on special. It arrived, I attached it, and it works, and ... it also has an iPod dock, AND built-in speakers, AND a USB hub integrated. Wow. The penalty is that it comes with no fewer than two power supplies.

Last weekend was a different kind of thing, as my mini-residency from March that had been cancelled by a snowstorm actually happened. On Friday I drove from here to Gorham Maine, where the U of Southern Maine is, and Beff drove from Bangor. I met Dan Sonenberg on the campus, and all three of us went to the brew pub nearby for lunch. Beff and I then walked around a bit, and hooked up with Dan's wife Alex (we know both of them from overlapping VCCA residencies), went to an art opening on campus, and then out for barbecue. I was there ostensibly to go to the concert of U Maine composers, which is done quite interestingly there -- it's an ensemble that's a class that people in the class write for and play in. So stylistically it was all over the map, from heavy metal (a song with a form of ABCDEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) to quasi-experimental. That night we stayed at Dan and Alex's excellent apartment (big!), had pancakes, and I did two composition lessons, did a public talk about ME, and did two more composition lessons. Dan's got a good program going, and some good composers. So I left in time to get back for a grad composer concert at Brandeis -- lots of really good music, though not without a few performance issues.

And somehow within all that space, I managed to spend nearly twenty-four minutes of my life monkeying with my piano concerto Finale files and assigning QuickTime MIDI instruments, just to see what it would sound like. The answer: funny. You, dear reader, can laugh along with Davy by clicking on the "funny MIDI" links up there to the left -- though I have found that the flute patch on the Mac comes out as a string patch in Windows. And other funny things like when one string part has a pizzicato, all of them get played pizzicato. Not that there's anything wrong with that, except that in the third movement, a lot of pizzicato is really sposta be bowed. And thrown bows I had no idea what to do about. So I went to the bathroom.

And what is on the docket IMMEDIATELY? Why, it's looking at and grading the sonata expositions and recaps that came in on Wednesday. The best part of my job is when that is ... over. As to when the next update is ... dunno, probably the 14th, since I have all that time later in the day after my dentist appointment.

Today's pictures include a few from the cell phone. First is a nice early morning picture of the back yard with the shadows of two of the big maple trees. Then we have some of the rhubarb passing through the scrotal stage, the trench for the asparagus, two daffodils by the back porch steps, a cute as a button picture of Sunny in Beff's storage area next to the bed, the level of the Assabet by the bridge, higher than I have seen, the cats enjoying the outdoors, and a funny cube gravestone Beff and I encountered in Gorham. As to the backyard -- since these pictures were taken, it rained, and it has gotten suddenly MUCH greener. So there.

MAY 24. Breakfast today was nothing! Except a brief swig of orange juice right out of the container. Dinner last night was rare and marinated beef, sweet potatoes and salad. Lunch today was Trader Joes tempura shrimp. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST FOUR WEEKS: 32.4 and 90.1. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS The MIDI of the Finale of the band piece I am writing (you, too, can listen, kimosabe). LARGE EXPENSES THIS LAST MONTH are very few -- two Flip Video camcorders at $123 each from amazon, and that's about it. BIRDS HEARD RECENTLY: First veery of the year heard today; tons and tons of wood thrushes at the MacDowell Colony. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: When I was in eighth grade we got a new phys ed instructor, Mr. Pequignot, who instigated a soccer team. I declined to go out for soccer, but Mr. P thought I was athletic and he turned the screws on me to get me to try out. And I was made the starting left winger. Our first game was played in the back of the Barlow Street School against St. Albans town, and I scored about five seconds into the game with a wild kick -- I was subsequently decked by someone on the other team, but I got up in time to see the ball sailing in the net. So if I could score at that rate -- a goal every five seconds -- imagine my average. It turns out we won that game 1-0. I was also the leading goal scorer, with four in 10 games. When the class did a yearbook, soccer was covered, and all the facts were apparently made up. My copy has the actual goal tallies pencilled in. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: Cramper. THINGS I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF being cooped up in a studio, biking on a bike without a derailleur, my good old TMJ. RECENT GASTRONOMIC various olives and pickle things that I munch on in my studio at MacDowell. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK My groove. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 2.45. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: This page. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. DENTIST VISITS SINCE SEPTEMBER: 14. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT:When I visit from MacDowell, they park themselves in the kitchen as if I am supposed to give them cat treats. I usually do. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST WEEK: 14 (lots of Fromm commission letters before I started saying no). FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE: I can re-enact the entire Jesus Christ Superstar album. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Permanent Republican minority. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 10,453. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.85, $2.87, $2.90, $2.95. I see $3.02 is the next price I pay when I gas up tomorrow. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a poorly executed Sudoku game, a poem written without any consonants, the first time ever I saw your face, an aluminum softball bat that's just not right.

Now almost a month since the last update. Did you miss me? Hey, I've been out of town, doing the academic thing, and trying really hard to be silly as much as possible. Okay, I admit I don't have to try too hard to be silly. Watch this: GAZOOMBA!

Classes ended on the day they were supposed to end (if they didn't there would be hell toupee), plenty of lessons and classes got taught by me, and a mere two days later I was off to the MacDowell Colony. I know the best route there, getting me there in 70 minutes instead of the 90 that it used to take, and on May 4 I was in my studio and working by about 1 in the afternoon. I had told them to expect me at 11:37 (in the morning was a lesson with Rick Beaudoin, and his name will come up again, before I could leave), but it didn't occur to them that maybe then they could make me a nice MacDowell lunch. So I had delivery pizza with the staff, which is good, 'cause I know a bunch of them -- this being my ninth time there and all that.

Getting an early start was kind of interesting, since I was still on the hook for Brandeis stuff -- indeed, I arrived at MacDowell on Friday, and on Saturday night was at Brandeis, with Beff, for the performance of Eric Chasalow's "Puzzle Master" (Beff said that must have been the name of his band in high school). The piece was alternately entertaining and full of note-spinning, but in the end it was a success. Really big slow videos that involved goopy stuff, and it ended with a shrouded (presumably dead) body rolling down a staircase (idea taken from Duchamp? "Death rolling down a staircase"...). I went back to MacDowell on that Sunday, but then had to come back on Wednesday for Justin Rust's dissertation defense (it succeeded) and a lameass (as it turned out) reception to recognize superior graduate teaching fellows -- I went as Rick Beaudoin's, um, what did I go as? Mentor? Example? Because I wrote the letter nominating him for the award? In any case, I hightailed it outta there after he got his certificate, and got back to MacDowell in time for delivery pizza.

Then the following Tuesday I had to lead the end-of-year meeting wherein I certify that all the majors and minors finished their requirements and the department votes on honors. But I came in late on Monday for a dentist appointment (there is a "root cavity" next to the tooth that was pulled that no one would have known about if the tooth hadn't been pulled, and I get it "fixed" on July 10), and in the free time in the afternoon the Ka-Ching Twins came over for fun and to do work (Beff was orchestrating her opera using an external monitor, woo hoo), followed by dinner at the Horseshoe Pub in Hudson. And it was fun, and cool to see Carolyn again. And again. And again. So the Tuesday meeting happened, and swimmingly it went. Followed by a meeting about graduate students. Which went on. And on. And on. Then I was more or less back at MacDowell for good. Until today. TODAY I chose a while ago because excellent weather was forecast (can you say 86 degrees and not humid, boys and girls?) and coming back to mow the lawn, etc., was part of my bargain to do TWO colony residencies this summer. I cheerfully report that I left MacDowell at 7:30 this morning, got groceries and stuff, got bug netting for colonists who expressed interest in it, mowed half of the lawns, took a bike ride with Beff around Boon Lake, made two double-sided and bound volumes of Davytudes for Bridge Records (yes, the Amy & Davy Show Part 3 takes off a year from now -- or that's when we project the recordings will happen), and whoa! Here I am at the old Windows computer typing stuff about myself as if anybody actually cared. Well, I care. I really do. (I didn't say either of those last two sentences with a straight face)

So my studio at MacDowell is the MacDowell Studio. This is not the Identity Operation, nor is it commutative. It's just that this one, of the 32 in toto, is called MacDowell. Easy to remember. And now there are four studios I've been in there TWICE (Omicron, New Jersey, Watson, MacDowell) leaving only Kirby as the one-time event. I was in this studio in the summer of 2001 when I was writing Locking Horns, Luceole, and Purple (Rick Beaudoin was there in 1999 is well, and that is when he grew his beard). And now I'm in it while writing what I will refer to henceforth as The Barlow Piece. It's the piece commissioned by the Barlow Foundation with a consortium of five bands promising to premiere it. And they are going to have their work cut out for them. Just to get the beezness aspect out of the way -- even with all the trips away from the colony, I have managed so far to crank out a little less than thirteen minutes of band music, as follows: the third movement called "Fanfares" and maybe two-thirds to three-fourths of the finale (fourth movement), tentatively called "Toucan Play". YOU, dear reader, may look at the PDF scores of both of these movements and listen to the MIDI files -- see the links on the left down there: the PDFs are gray and the MIDIs are green. BEGINNING the piece was like passing a gallstone (which I've never done, but I've read all the crime novels about it), especially as I was using Chip Farnham's beginning ("horns on concert D"). I did finish that movement, though, and thankfully started on a scherzo for the Finale -- in which I extracted at least one very long buttstik. You will have to listen to the MIDI to figure out which one. And by the way, I have found out that the MIDI SUCKS on a Windows machine -- I think one of the flutes comes out as a police whistle, etc.

The other composers I've overlapped with at MacD are Mark Kilstofte, Caroline Mallonee, Lior Navok, and Paul Moravec -- none of them first-timers. No composers have given presentations (but lots of others shonuff have), but while he was there, Mark was the MC for a nightly enactment of a Mary Worth comic strip as dinner was coming to an end. Judy and Starlee played Vera and Mary Worth, and when Mark left, Andrew Solomon took over the MC duties. He left today, alas. You may click on the three MW links to the left to see some of the Mary Worths from a week ago or more.

Meanwhile -- in preparation for medal day and the celebration of the MacDowell Centennial (yes -- MacDowell began operation in 1907 and they celebrate their centennial in 2007, as opposed to Yaddo, which began operating in something like 1926 and celebrated their centennial in 2000), the kitchen in the main building has been totally knocked out and is being rebuilt from scratch. While that happens, there is no real breakfast -- they call it "continental" and they bring it in from elsewhere -- there are no lunch baskets, just paper bags, and dinner is served at Hillcrest, which is the former Director's residence. So things are scattered about, and nobody will be going home with cute pictures of their lunch baskets (I have plenty from previous stays -- how could I not?). And we eat off of paper plates, which is weird when we get something that needs to be cut with a knife.

The usual motley assortment is in evidence, from writers and visual artists and interdisciplinary artists, and as usual it is extremely fun to get to know the people and then see or hear their work. I never would have guessed, say, Sabrina was sewing thread onto slides, or that Rodrigo made up a famous poet and wrote in his voice, that Kay was a novelist, and so on. Which is why I like going to the presentations. Even though I rarely say something. Meantime, as the departure date for colonists approaches, lots more wine and beer is suddenly available for all than is usual. Truly. And a monloguist (a new classification for me) named Mike arrived a little while ago, and he does evening-long monologues. A week ago he extemporized one about the MacDowell experience, and he had us rolling in the aisles. Indeed, he is posting videos of himself on YouTube -- which you can find if you search for "Secrets of the MacDowell Colony".

And in my first brief time back home from MacDowell I was idly looking for news on the internet and somehow got a page that raved about a brand new product called "Flip Video" -- a deck of cards-sized camcorder that record full-quality video onto flash memory, and connects to your computer via USB -- a little thing that flips out of the camcorder, hence the name. I got the one-hour version for not much money, and started taking MacDowell movies, including our Mary Worth performances (the ones referenced on the left were all taken with it), and when I came back my second time, I yielded it to Beff. Who is using it to make movies for a video project about bicycle riding. To wit, last week we went to the Assabet trail and she videoed me riding my bike toward her and away from her, in various states of being. Today she recorded bike wheels turning, and I recorded the view of the road from the bicycle on our Boon Lake ride. I liked it so much -- I got another one. So we have matching Flip videos. Uh oh.

Meantime -- Amy D's website is finally online (see yellow link on the left), and we decided to go ahead with making the third etude CD. Which will be recorded in about a year, and Bridge has signed on to it. Lotsa work for Amy, I'matella you. She uses a bunch of etude videos from my webspace in her Gallery -- and I decided to take the YouTube plunge and post a bunch of those videos up there -- as well as a nightly upload of that night's Mary Worth performance. So look at "YouTube etudes" and "YouTube Mary Worths" to the left for the You Tube links therein. Hey, some of them have been RATED. I wish I knew what that meant. Someone invited me to be a friend on YouTube, which I declined, but I realized why I shouldn't have done that. On the page with all my videos, I am informed of the following: