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

I also scheduled my NEC students to exactly the same time and day of the week as last term. Cool. Calls to Mac Peyton and Mike Gandolfi were made to confirm the room. Mac was out. Mike sounded majorly stressed -- and I realized it was because a) he is Chair and b) he has a BSO performance coming up. Oh lawdy.

Tonight -- mere hours after this post -- we are going to the deCordova for the official reception for Kate's opening. The art has been on view for a week now (see last week's post about fog, seafood, Geoff, etc.), but the reception is tonight. Our small part in the whole affair (formerly the "audience") grew by leaps and bounds this morning as Kate called to request a ride from the Lincoln train station at 5:56 to the affair -- which we can do now because we discovered where the outbound part of the train station actually is. So instead of verging on 60 and very foggy, it should be about 5 degrees and clear. The difference? 55. And our dinner plans changed from chicken sandwiches to Domino's delivery. I hope for pepperoni.

Over the weekend I was notified of about 8 more upcoming performances of which I had been unaware, and made sure to post them on "Performances" here. Strangely, I had gotten the standard twice yearly "here are my performances this term" e-mail from Eric Chasalow, which listed something in New York by the "Sinfonietta Moderna," of which I had never heard. On Saturday -- two weeks later than Eric's e-mail -- I got an e-mail requesting bio and program notes for my Feb 13 performance of Sesso e Violenza (face it, a pretty huge piece) by the Sinfonietta Moderna at Merkin Hall (at this point I always remember being told that a "merkin" was a pubic wig in Yiddish, and I've never wanted to know what it was actually used for). And then Rick Moody asked if I knew a NYC area pianist with one of the more "athletic" etudes under his or her fingers to play free for a Yaddo benefit, and I gave him Adam Marks, who is playing Fists of Fury this term -- the day before Sinfonietta Moderna, as it turns out. And then other stuff. So there, smarty pants. I don't even know yet if I can make it to Sinfonietta Moderna -- all bets are on no. Crap.

On Tuesday I got the usual yearly wacky e-mail from Danny K -- actually, I usually get the wacky e-mail as an invitation to a Labor Day bash in some generic location. I met him when he came to my "young composers write for Alea III" slopfest (I speak both of the performance and of the piece) in 1989, and he engraved my Louise Bogan songs for Peters (paid for by me) and some of Beff's songs as well. In 1995 I named a commercial font after him (Kastner Casual). On Tuesday I found out in this wacky e-mail that he was to be one of the contestants on the third season of The Apprentice. Last night I watched about the first half hour of the Apprentice, but it's not the kind of show that sucks me in -- Beff watched to the bitter end and gave me updates afterwards. Danny was the one with the guitar, and who thought of "just say cheese!" as a marketing slogan for a Burger King triple cheeseburger, to a sea of stonefaced Burger King executives. See, Beff explained it very well. Last time I actually saw Danny -- 1992 -- he was 27 years old and clean shaven.

And meanwhile, arctic cold has gripped the area. I know that because that's exactly how all the TV weathercasters say it.

This week's pictures include Sunny in his new bed, and five MLK day shots: Del's coffee (Stacy's mug), Alexandra and Georgia, Laurie Alexandra Georgia and LK, Sam, and Del.

JANUARY 30. Breakfast this morning was grapefruit, Morningside Farms meatless sausages with Kraft 2% cheddar-ish cheese, and coffee. Dinner last night was vegetable tempura and a clam roll (at the Quarterdeck Seafood restaurant). Lunch was a large salad with fat-free balsamic vinaigrette. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE LAST NINE DAYS -7.6 and 36.9. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include a gift for Carolyn Davies in appreciation for all the extra work she's had to do since mid-October with Nancy Redgate's illness. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS The MIDI of "How to Read," since I just played it for Geoffy. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: my senior year of high school I got put into a little six-man group that learned how to sing a barbershop arrangement of "Yes Sir, That's My Baby." My part was the top part (there were two of us on it, two on the bass part, one each on the middle parts), which I memorized. But I never sang that part in performance. At the spring concert, the guy doing the baritone part was summarily thrown out of the chorus for missing rehearsals, so I had to sight-read that part in the concert (I was the only one looking at a score, as photographic evidence suggests). Then we were asked to sing it on some gonzo senior event in the gymnasium, and the guys doing the bass part didn't show up. So I made up a bass part for that performance. And sang it. Good thing the drinking age was 18 at the time, so the seniors didn't notice the creativity of my ad hoc harmonies. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 1. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK flu symptoms don't necessarily come with a big fever; and Theraflu makes your tongue bumpy. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: why does global warming mean we get more snow here? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: Remedy (hot water with honey and lemon), campari tomatoes, jalapeno-stuffed olives, Buffalo wing sauce. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK none. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: feels like about a hundred. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE contingent interdependencies, vertical sonorities, contrapuntal aggregate formations, interval vectores (I went to Princeton).

My news that trumps the much snow of the week is my flu/virus/illness that kept me in bed pretty much from Thursday morning to this morning (Sunday). There wasn't much to miss at Brandeis (just a Chairs meeting), so it didn't make me a bad person to stay at home, particularly as it was hard to turn my head at any speed without wooziness. I had a fever of 99.9 on Friday afternoon, but it was back down to 97.1 on Saturday morning (the Circadian rhythm, I guess). Still, I spent much time on all three days in the comfort of my bed, though frankly I don't remember much about being asleep. On Friday Seungah HAD to come over so I could look at and approve her piano concerto as her dissertation piece, and I hadn't showered in two days and my hair was rat's nesty, so I wore my pink winter hat -- which is either a creampuffy gangsta rapper hat, or as Martin calls it, the "Mommy, will you buy me this?" hat. This will be but a small part of the stories that Seungah tells her grandchildren about getting the Brandeis doctorate. I hope she doesn't include the smell.

Besides all of that, there was the story that still dominates Boston TV and newspapers (or more generically, the media), that was the snow showers of which I spoke here in the last update. A week of Arctic chill (we were "in its grip") followed by the fifth largest snowstorm in 110 years of weather records in Boston, followed by more Arctic chill, followed by another day of snow showers that accumulated seven inches here, followed by yet more Arctic chill. Thanks to all the snow, urban areas are a real mess, and even Maynard -- not too urban by any means -- is having big problems. Pathways from the street onto the sidewalk are bounded by five-foot high piles of snow. In past years after big snowstorms, within a week all the big piles got transported into the Assabet -- or wherever they take them. Not so this snow.

So on Monday, everybody cancelled everything. I even got a free pass not to teach my NEC students for the first time this term. Plus, it doesn't have to be made up -- but I will offer to anyway. Tuesday Beff and I went into Brandeis on treacherous icy roads as far as Weston, and came back on roads that were still treacherous and icy. Wednesday everybody decided to follow through with classes and stuff despite the snowstorm. Big Mike said that getting to school took an hour and a half instead of a half hour for him, and I took the 7:58 am train into work, which turned into the 8:30 train, which ended up being free. All my students were late because of the storm. And my train going back was on time. Midst my noon student, Brandeis decided to close at 2. The snow kept coming down for another five hours, and everybody was talking about it again in the Boston media. Boston school superintendent got into hot water for calling classes into session on Wednesday, so he closed them again Thursday and Friday.

And when my NEC students e-mailed about our meeting, I got to bore them, and terribly so, with my lame stories about the Blizzard of '78 -- which happened when I was a sophomore at NEC. How boring? I mentioned that Star Pizza had the only hot food, but no napkins, so we wiped our hands on the snow. Now that's boring.

Meanwhile. I didn't go to the BMOP concert on Saturday, but it happened anyway. By the time it was over, we had had about eight inches here, so I was glad (in terms of still being alive) that we didn't go. They get to keep my fifty-six bucks anyway. When we got up on Saturday morning, much snow was there for the shoveling, and we did most of it by hand, in three forty-five minute shifts. The snowblower was used only in the last shift, as the snow was actually too high for it. It can handle about 15-18 inches on the ground, and I measured 21. Surprisingly, it was not my back that stiffened up later, but the front part of my legs. Huh. Nonetheless, I get to note that I was in Boston for four of its five biggest storms ever, which was true before this storm -- this one nudged out another one I was here for in the top five. Meanwhile, Boston's biggest snow ever, the President's Day Storm from February 2003, was not that big out here. Another storm not even on Boston's radar was even bigger out here than the one we just had. And that one was our first year here, when Beff decreed, "oh, let's not get a snowblower. Let's just see what the first year is like." She was safely ensconced in Maine for that storm, by the way, while I fumed at home about my lack of snowblower and no lack of shoveling to do.

Last word about the weather: for Boston, this was the snowiest January ever, and the snowiest month ever. Everywhere you go that people like to deal in superlatives, you will hear this mentioned. Thirteen straight days with the temps not exceeding freezing. Oh yeah, and after our shoveling, we were treated to a little butt-kicking by the Patriots on the Steelers. For that, we needed a TV.

This afternoon is Brandeis's yearly Irving Fine concert, which in this case is a piano recital by Jerry Kuderna. I have met Jerry in California, and he seemed like a nice guy. He has been talking for exactly twelve years about playing etudes of mine, and for all I know, it finally happens this afternoon. He is doing Nocturnal. As well as plenty of other stuff by Americans (which is what I am).

Tuesday, besides being a harrowing drive, was the Beff show in my orchestration class. She demonstrated the clarinets, answered many questions, and basically took away an hour and a half I would otherwise have had to fill with my talking. Thanks, Beff. Then the students showed their Looney Tunes transcriptions, which were surprisingly accurate. And I assigned clarinet choir arrangements.

Monday, being a snow day, became tax day for us. Yes, dear almost eleven, we collected and categorized all of 2004's receipts, and wrote them down but did not add them up. I can report without fear of contradiction that we spent $111 for seafood when Soozie and Chris were in town (deductible!), gave about $3000 to charity, and the Triplets of Belleville soundtrack, which was 28 bucks, is deductible because I used it in class as an example of a piece that begins with augmented triads. Do I rock, or what?

I got several e-mails from people this week mentioning the Atlantic Center thing coming up, and I guess it's because they (le Centre Atlantique) sent out an e-mail to some mailing list about it. It seems they don't send out big posters any more, like they used to, so this is the new way to get the word out. I spoke to Harold Meltzer, who said there were only two fellows that went there for Lew Spratlan's session -- at a time I was originally offered, by the way.

Dyna Mike (Marine Mike) e-mailed, too, who finally had some time with the inauguration being over. He mentioned that he was taking "Sibling Revelry" off the April 10 MB concert (it disappeared from my Performances page, too) because he needed the "real estate." Oh, to go from Pulitzer finalist to "real estate" all within the same organization within a few years. Oh, the humanity! Well, at least that gives me an extra three days in April that I don't have to travel. And they were real nice to do it in the first place, though they're probably not aware of the elaborate excuse I gave to the publisher not to charge the band for the performance materials. But we will, of course, do our yearly get together on Lake Carmi in which we have too much beer before 11 am. This has now achieved the status of ritual.

Geoff Burleson stayed here overnight for a Musica Viva rehearsal, and just went out this morning. I gave him the score of etude #66, the title part of which goes

LESS IS
to Rick Moody

...and he quipped "...as more is... to...William Faulkner"? Now that comparison questions are being removed from the SATs, maybe we can celebrate that here with one more question. Almost eleven, you may make up your own answers.

Less Is:Rick Moody

a) More is:William Faulkner
b) One is:The Loneliest number
c) Two is:Company, Three's a Crowd
d) Pennies:From Heaven
e) Some Is:Some Ain't

Now for the first time in an update, I actually said somebody "quipped" something. Is there something wrong with me?

Beff was in Vermont attending to family biz on Friday, by the way. Just wanted to report that. She said there was MUCH LESS snow in Vermont. Huh. When she got back last night, I was well enough to want to go out for dinner, but certainly didn't feel like cooking. Tonight, by the way, it's pasta in a nice tomato sauce, etc.

Amy D reported that she played a trio of etudes TWICE, including once at a noon concert at Palomar College. Schnozzage was one of them, and it's become obvious that whenever Schozzage is played by anyone, it becomes the story of the whole concert, especially in the media. From "Rakowski nose music" a few years ago to "Dissanayake uses her nose and hands to play" this time. There is a story online (I'm sure Amy wouldn't want me giving the almost eleven the URL, but if you Google "Schnozzage" it is currently the first hit), and of course the picture is of "Give me a pianist and make it lean" (the epigraph on the score).

Which gives me TWO unique things on the internet. If you google "Schozzage" or "Martian Counterpoint" (in quotes), all the hits refer to me. "Sibling Revelry" on the other hand, gives hundreds of hits that are not me -- so Beff and I were less clever than we thought when we came up with that title. And I can't even prounounce it without scrupulous preparation! Uh, Sib... wing... wevelwy.... Just as a silly footnote, when I taught at Stanford and Sean invited himself over for beer, he referred to it as "dwunken wevelwy."

Yesterday afternoon I e-mailed Amy D about www.infinitecat.com, a sort of conceptual piece wherein a computer picture of a cat looking at a picture of a cat on a computer is then layered with a cat looking at that picture, etc., ad infinitum, has reached almost 700. The sequence is pretty funny. So Amy sent me a picture of her cat Ranjith, and said he wanted to be on my web page. I sent back a picture of Sunny looking at the pic on the iMac, she got Reena looking at that pic, and I spent a LONG time getting Cammy to sit still and look at that picture (my portfolio has Cammy in at least five locations NOT looking at the picture). You will see the whole sequence below -- oh, the wonders of the internet. Meanwhile, there are also four pictures of the aftermath of the Blizzard of '05 out here -- before the extra seven inches got piled on on Wednesday.

FEBRUARY 4. Breakfast this morning was half a grapefruit, toast with lowfat peanut butter, orange juice, and coffee. Dinner last night was Thai Ginger grilled chicken with mushrooms and salad (marinade by Emeril). Lunch was tomato, pepperoncini, cheese, and olive sandwiches. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE LAST FIVE DAYS 2.5 and 39.4. LARGE EXPENSES this last week are a new burr coffee grinder purchased on amazon, free shipping, $139; Boston Symphony tickets, $158. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Laura Nyro's "Marry Me Bill." POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: as graduate students, we (we roommates me, Beff and Martler) were invited to a party in an undergrad's dorm room. This was at Princeton, the only place we were all graduate students. It was Halloween, so we presumed we should come in some sort of costume. So I put on my old security guard uniform, down to the MSI badge (#2653) and winter coat. When we got there, undergraduates were wearing heavy lipstick and ballgowns (well, the women were, anyway), and we felt, um, at least a little underdressed. Especially me. We didn't stay long. RECOMMENDATION/ PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 4. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK the defunct TV series WONDERFALLS, just released on DVD. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: how many trees are killed by pointless forms? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: real lemonade, real limeade, cherry tomatoes, Cains hamberger dill crinkle-cut slices. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK none. FULL NIGHTS OF SLEEP THE LAST WEEK: 3. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE the hypothetical other, riotous behavior, a Twix bar, seven barrels of half-sour pickles. I'm now mixing abstract and concrete nouns. Pour Davy.

This is a short week due to my getting back on schedule after having the flu (or a virus) last week. Thus I would hope there would be a lot fewer words below here before you get to the pictures than for last week's nine-day report. They That Make screwed up pretty bad with the overnight weather leading right up to this morning. As recently as 30 hours ago, Maynard was forecast to get no precipitation from an ocean storm ominously backing in to New England -- only coastal sections were to get rain and snow showers. For a while before that, a light wintry mix was forecast. As of yesterday afternoon, while it was raining in Maynard, the forecast switched to snow showers without accumulation to mixed precipitation with no accumulation, to an inch overnight. We woke up to three inches of heavy, heavy, heavy wet snow that was even more difficult to shovel than the aftermath of the blizzard. So you see, gentle almost eleven, I may still pay close attention to the They That Make channel, but I have learned to disregard much of what is said. And of course I won't patronize their advertisers. Or be patronizing to them.

We did, however, snap out of the Arctic cold in whose grip we were. It has been above freezing every day since the last update, and temps up in the 40s are forecast for the weekend and Monday. This pleases me -- despite that I may have to shovel off the flat roof just off the bedroom window.

If anything momentous happened during the week, it was the discovery of the defunct series "Wonderfalls", just released on DVD, which Beff somehow had the good sense to buy. We have watched the first seven episodes of the existing thirteen, only four of which actually ever aired in America. It is a much better show than the critics' current darling "Arrested Development", especially if you're into talking animal figurines. Good old Fox aired "Married With Children" for nine seasons, and Wonderfalls only four weeks, not even consecutive weeks. Well, then. I'm hoping greatly that, unlike Freaks and Geeks, it doesn't jump the shark.

Other momentous things that occurred included the resumption of my teaching duties at NEC, and the opportunity to walk around the heavily commercial neighborhood and stock up on CryBaby Tears -- more about those later. I also picked up tickets to the February 18 BSO concert on which Yehudi Wyner's new piano concerto is to be premiered (Chiave in Mano -- Keys in the Hand, must be a punchline to some pornographic Italian joke, knowing Yehudi), and had one of the quick lunches at Pizzeria Uno. For those looking for cuisine in that area, the chicken thumbs at Pizzeria Uno are to be steadfastly avoided. Oh, why couldn't that neighborhood have a Bertucci's instead? As to the teaching, it was like the old times we never had, but will soon. I checked out NEC's vacation schedule, and with the vacation days and the Monday snow day we had because of the blizzard, I'm making much more per hour of actual teaching than I did in the fall. And for that I am a) truly sorry b) very lucky c) fair of face.

Dyna Mike has been my source for CryBaby Tears for the last four years (there's a candy store in the mall near him with those big clear plastic things and scoops and plastic bags that you pay for by the pound, and one of the plastic things has CryBaby Tears), but I have sort of lost my cravings for them. So this time I sent two boxes of CryBaby Tears that I bought in Boston back to him, one each to each of his kids (one is named Jack, and the one that isn't named Jack is named Claire. The one not named Claire is named Jack). So in a way I retaliated for the reclassication of SIBLING REVELRY as "real estate" by increasing his dental bills. While at the same time being cute. That part I just can't help.

I was interviewed by the Brandeis Justice (student newspaper) after one of my colleagues was interviewed and said a few things that maybe he/she shouldn't have. I tiptoed mightily around the questions slung at me, yet I may still be quoted in the paper saying something I shouldn't have. It was my own fault for having a glass of wine with dinner, I guess. Maybe this is the creative incompetence I have been looking for all this time.

Oh yes; according the The President's Own page, Mindy Wagner's piece 57/7 Dash in the new band arrangement filled part of the void left by the real estate departure -- it had been advertised in the glossy spring brochure along with my piece, but had never been put onto the web page. This pleases me to no end. Some while ago the two of us had planned to go to the gig together and do silly, giddy things as we did at the MacDowell Colony in '01 (i.e., have fun-fun), but now that's put off to another day. The nice arrangement of La Valse is also on that show, so now it's a pretty fabulous concert. And I helped.

I am trying to have firm resolve to go to the February 13 concert in NYC featuring SESSO E VIOLENZA -- actually rather a major piece, now that I think of it -- but it's at 8 and I have an appointment at Brandeis -- an EXTREMELY important one -- at 10:30 the next morning. So, weather will be a factor in whether or not I actually go. Alas, the night before there is a Brandeis composers concert, and I already know Eric Chasalow isn't going (if "I'm going to NYC on a train on Friday and returning the following Monday" is interpreted literally) to that concert. If I choose, for weather's sake, to go to NYC on Saturday, that leaves only Marty as the faculty rep at this concert, and that would look bad. Almost eleven, I'm pleased to share my not-so-complicated thought processes about this with you.

Also on April 15 there will be some sort of Arts Buffet or Barbecue at Brandeis, and luckily I'm booked to be in that gonzo creativity thing at UMass Dartmouth that day, so I'm excused from service. But Shane from the Office of the Arts was talking about thematic things to call the buffet items. Context: we recently received permission to use the Bernstein name, as in, Bernstein taught at Brandeis a few years in the 1950s, and they were thinking of Bernstein-themed foods. Bernstein burgers? I suggested West Side Story-themed foods: sushi for the Sharks, and airline food for the Jets. From here it only got sillier. How could it not?