Beff's semester finishes today, and she is due home after dark tonight. Tomorrow night we take Big Mike out for Chinese buffet
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Into the brim went my flashlight, but I was able to retrieve some cat hair by asking it a rude question. So, rhetorically speaking, why didn't I wait until the barn had some games for me to play when I could have been the mushroom that makes the world tick? It's all well and blue, but without it I doubt that my stop sign would have cared for a truffle. So I guess we'll have to eat out. Dear reader, much has transpired since the Oct 4/5 update, not much of it terribly interesting, but occasionally strangely mesmerizing, or not. Brandeis has continued to have vacation days, but this time on days I don't teach, and thankfully it gave me slightly more time for various busy work, including grading of the usual voluminous pile of homework. There was also some uncharacteristic warmth at times that made outdoor activities not only possible, but exceedingly fun. But maybe I am getting ahead of myself, which in five dimensions can be proved possible. First, during the sunny and warm that preceded the last few days here, time was spent in the hammock, and time was spent actually doing work, or not, in the gazebo. And yes, it is much nicer grading a pile of 50 Fundamentals homeworks in the gazebo than not. Other time not spent with egregious BrandX paperwork was spent doing the sort of obsessive yard work I like to do -- uproot ailanthuses, trim bits of shrubs, remove viny plants. And I prepared ye the way of the Leaves. For you see, we have a nice place in the far corner of our far back yard to dump the leaves we rake; that involved a lot of uprooting, reconfiguring of various large dead branches we've stuck there, and generally widening the two entrances into said space. And of course, the furnace issue was solved, though as usual, the guy who did it said the furnace's connection to the chimney has to be redone, and the office would call soon to set up an appointment for someone there to come and do it. He said that last February, too, when he installed the faulty nozzle that was causing the smokiness anyway. So it looks like it's up to me to take some initiative and walk over to Dunn Oil and all that stuff. For the record, heating season is under way, but last night was only the second time the heat has been on -- two weeks ago being the first time. And it hasn't gotten below freezing yet, so that warmth of the last coupla weeks can NOT be called Indian summer. I'm a purist when it comes to such things. Or something that rhymes with purist. It's still warm enough that the heat goes off before it reaches the upstairs radiators. Besides doing my regular teaching, coming in for a department meeting and a faculty senate meeting (in whichI talked more than in my entire two previous years on the faculty senate -- in the discussion about whether to have a regular teaching day on Labor Day in exchange for the day before Thanksgiving being an off day, I said I'm willing to teach as long as the senate equates having a barbecue with teaching, big pause, rim shot). Meanwhile, the economy is kinda in the toilet, which means that the situation at my place of employment will follow suit. But that's not a situation for right here. But for now, no searches, no adjunct hiring, 20% cuts across the board, etc. Brandeis gets a bazillion days off in the fall, but NOT Columbus Day. Which of course means Beff was at home last Monday while I was at Brandeis. And it being a holiday for everywhere else in the world (though I gotta admit I liked the very light traffic going to and from Brandeis), it was an Open House day at the 'Deis. Both my classes had spectators -- the holidays meaning a third of my Fundamentals class was missing, thus opening enough desks for parents and prospective students to sit. And in Theory 2 we looked at a Chopin Nocturne chosen by a class member, and guests outnumbered students by a not insignificant margin. I alas showed that the high point was at the Fibonacci point, which either excited, bored, or confused onlookers. We then tried to harmonize tunes from Mozart's clarinet concerto, which as usual ends up showing that what Mozart did was way better, and a good reason he is now dead. And for the record -- after tormenting Fundamentals with intervals and transposing instruments, I have moved on to triads, which given that I'm teaching lead sheet AND figured bass notation is more complicated than you might imagine. So Beff and I got to have nice cooked dinners for more days than is usual, and I didn't have to spend as much attention with the cat litter. Cool. Meanwhile, the toilet in the place in Bangor had become something of a rocking chair, according to Beff, which led to much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and advice from others about how toilets that sweat in the summer eventually soften floorboards, and remedies include quick fix locally and possibly the floor of the entire bathroom for enough money to buy a horse. So Beff got her usual guy in to look at it, and he had a novel solution: he tightened the bolts. Charge to us $50. The long weekend was also our weekend to upgrade our cell phones. Last time we got different phones, ordered online, and shipped here. This time Beff did lots of research, had wanted an iPhone but saw that there's not much of a G3 AT&T network in Maine yet, so she settled on the Verizon Voyager, which we liked because it opens up to a full keyboard, has both cursor and touch screen functions on both the outside and inside screens, AND can retrieve our e-mail without the benefit of wi-fi. After looking up Verizon outlets online, we first went to Best Buy, where they didn't have any of them in stock, so off we went to BJ's, right across the street, and we did all the paperwork, including upgrading to unlimited internet, etc., including GPS software that is included in the plans we got. So we played and played, I bought some ringtones (Beff's characteristic tone when she calls is Funky Cow), we got data cards, took pictures, etc. And on Columbus Day when I brought my phone back out to use it it misbehaved -- no matter what I did it defaulted to Voice Command mode, and then timed out. And though I could make a call, I could not be heard on the other end. So another trip to BJ's was in order, and I've now got a working Voyager. And it's cool. Though not iPhone cool. On the other hand, the Voyager works full speed in Maine. So there. So then this week Beff got in on Friday, and Ecce was doing my Hyperblue in Worcester at Clark College that night and Seunghee asked for a ride to the concert. So after Beff pulled in, we up and got Seunghee at South Acton and drove into Worcester. Where we encountered big time traffic in a few places and, of course, got lost following the Google Maps maps. Luckily, our Garmin got us where we wanted to go, though it still doesn't stay affixed to the windowshield. So after some dramatic moves, we parked on the Clark campus and went to the music building -- which turned out to be locked. I had to call John Aylward -- thankfully programmed into my Voyager -- to find out where in the 30 or so buildings of Clark the concert might be (since our e-vite only said the concert was at Clark University (not College?)). And then a piano trio put on a very diverse concert with every possible combination except solo cello. James Wiznerowicz, whom I know from the Atlantic Center 2005, was there, since they were doing a piece of his, and he's now ensconced in academic weirdness like the rest of us are, and his piece had a pretty strong profile (though it could have lapsed into the Mickey Mouse Club theme at any time, and I would have if it were my piece). The Garmin got us back out of there, and then we were home. I was to go to NYC yesterday for the repeat of the concert, but decided against it, since I didn't have a place to stay in Manhattan (and didn't want to burden Hayes and Susan) and thus would have had to drive back the same night. So instead, we succumbed to the beginning of raking season. The trees are far from bare, but still at only half-undressed there were plenty of leaves, and starting yesterday morning and going sporadically until noon today, we raked, barreled, and carted away 35 barrels of leaves. That's about a third of a typical year's haul, but of course we can't do much more until the trees yield the rest of their leaves. So it was a very refreshing and exhilarating time gathering up all the leaves, and it gave us much aerobic exercise. The kind of aerobic exercise that doesn't come in packages or bags. This week in academics is more on triads, and more weird chromatic harmony stuff in theory 2. And of course, much going into the gazebo with thick piles of grading. On Thursday I do a colloquium at Yale, the materials for which I am getting together this weekend. And then this coming weekend will be more raking, one must presume. I yearn for another fall like fall 2000, which had a windstorm severe enough to blow all the leaves away and leave me with virtually no raking. What else upcoming? Amy B should be marking up the first edits of Etudes Vol. 3, finally, and soon I expect some first edits of my BMOP CD. How soon one doesn't know, but I'm told that one is scheduled to drop on January 2. So lots of foliage and stuff to share this week. Below, in order: two foliage pictures from the nearby Delaney Nature Preserve, a bit of the back yard, the outside viewed from the bedroom, foliage along the Assabet River, Beff barreling in the driveway, the porch door with foliage reflections, and Dirty Sunny having treats. Bye. NOVEMBER 2. Breakfast was rice link sausages with 2% cheese, orange juice, and coffee. Dinner last night was reception food. Lunch was a large Boca burger. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES SINCE LAST UPDATE 26.4 and 66.0. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Sweet and Lovely" from the Let It Be album by the Beatles. LARGE EXPENSES THIS LAST TWO WEEKS Lunch at the Blue Coyote while the house was being cleaned, lunch at the Cast Iron Kitchen with Beff, $25 cab from the hospital. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: During the height of my fontmaking period -- the academic year 1991-2 -- I put a whole bunch of crap-me-up fonts on Compuserve as shareware with silly Readme files and a suggestion to make a donation to Columbia Composers. I made the mistake in one of them of promising to send a disc with MORE fonts if you gave ten bucks and included a postcard that said "Tell Davy about me! Foop!" All these years later that looks even dumber than it did then. In any case, for a year I accumulated 4 or 5 of those a month; and I would make the floppies and send them out. Beff and I got to calling the people who actually responded "Foopers." NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: Not so cute really, the THIRD chipmunk of the year got carried into the house by Sunny yesterday, and I found out it's a lot more strenuous trying to get a chipmunk out of the house than it is to rake leaves. Story below. UPDATED ON THIS SITE THIS WEEK: This page, Bio, Home, Performances, Recordings. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: gordle -- an antiquated accessory for pants that was popular for about a decade in the seventeenth century. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST TWO WEEKS: at least 25. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE I am current with the complete Peanuts series (up to 1970). I plan on stopping around 1974, when Peppermint Patty lurched the strip into profound unfunniness. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Free garlic for everybody. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 12,593. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE THIS WEEK: $2.39 in Maynard. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a vintage poster from the Monterey Pop Festival, a painting of a mushroom, conceptual disdain, a pair of tweezers that's been stuck under the radiator, memories of times that never existed, a 1960s elementary school science textbook, a rock that you got for Halloween, the sound of your lips when they glow. The widgets found themselves without representation. This precipated a crisis of spoonliness, soon to be called "the big thing", and after it all came to naught, three of them had to go to the bathroom. Perhaps we can learn from this, but without blue pencils in the other room, I can't see where the insects got hidden. So I celebrate my scream, I callibrate my dream, and I cerebrate my stream. Would you have thought I was trying to make an apple with my bare teeth if I had memorized something else? A casual reader called the first paragraph of these humble little essays "Dada". I had to look it up. Today being Daylight Savings day, I seem to have an extra hour to do things, which seems like a good idea. Though waking up and starting my day at 6:15 certainly is a startling thing to tell myself. I've done the breakfast thing, let Sunny out and back in, and am still wearing glasses, as last night was contact night. That reminds me. Perhsps it's time on to put the contacts lenses. 'scuse me. I'm back, thus once again illustrating, in a most tragic way, the distinction between real time and virtual time. You can tell I'm stalling, can't you? Well, this being October and now late November, it's foliage season followed by too much raking season, and indeed, I've been stiff the last day or day and a half. We do have those three big maples by the driveway and three maples in the front yard that bless us with their offcastings early, followed by a large oak tree in the neighbor's yard that lags by 2 or 3 weeks. That tree is still mainly foliage-intact, but the maples are pretty much bare by now. So for a significant portion of the last three weekends, Beff and I have been a-rakin' and a-barrelin' away. Truly, the act of raking makes one more folksy, by default. After the 25 barrels along the front yard and driveway of a coupla weeks ago, there was more issue at issue last weekend, and this weekend we moved to the back yard and the side yard, and a little of the way back. There is no longer a big apple tree to trouble us with 8 barrels of rotten apples, but for some reason the quince bush gave us about 75 quinces this year, in contrast to the usual 2 or 3. Fascinating. So with the 12 barrels I raked by the side of the house and in the far back yesterday, the total barrelage so far is 85. Looks like a fecund year, since I expect at least another 20 or 25 once the rest of the trees have yielded their issue. And it's been a fairly bright year for foliage, as witnessed by the last update's shots from the Delaney Preserve, but even moreso, the oak tree -- which usually just goes brown -- is a fairly bright orange this year. Apparently the wet summer weather has something to do with that, but you'd have to ask a weather person why. Teaching has gone as it should, which means rockin'. Triad stuff in Fundamentals gets toward its heavy side, and the planned textbook program of chromatic harmony in Theory 2 has run its course. People either love or hate the common-tone diminished seventh chord, but I love it. And it was a nice upbeat to "piece of the class's choosing" this week, which was the Quintet in C of Schubert. Yes, that was a pretty complex day in Theory 2, since it was, indeed, a complex piece with a lot to look at, and dagnabbit, I wish the dude could have gotten over his chromatic mediant relationship fetish, 'cause repeated listenings on the same day kinda made me seasick. Insert C-sick pun here, but E-flat is where it takes you. This being Schubert, and chromatic mediant, and all that. Though the quintet made a nice sort of upbeat into the Op. 94 A-flat Moment Musical of Wednesday's lecture, that being a piece with aa rogue E-natural that resolves oddly and infects (and inflects -- I know my advanced theory lingo) the rest of the piece. So for whatever reason -- raking being added to the mix, probably -- the perceived rate of time passing has shifted considerably the last two weeks. The first five or six weeks of the term veritably flew right by. The last two weeks went at a crawl. At a crawl, I tell you. So right now I've got signposts (virtual ones, or metaphorical ones, if you will) to get me to the end of the term: first, it's a relaxing Thanksgiving with Hayes and Susan (three and a half weeks), then the last day of classes for me (December 8), and then ... oh crap, I have a ton of incidental music to write for Hecuba then. But they are signposts. But wait, there's more. There actually was some excitement around here last week that involved me, and it involved me (by definition). Last Wednesday night I felt feverish, so I went bedwards quite early. I shivered for the first minute or so, but settled in. Eventually I got abdominal cramps on my left side (right side if you are facing me), and I took my temperature -- 103. I took aspirin and took the temperature again -- 102.3. So with abdominal pain and a high fever, I figured it was emergency room time! I up and called 911 (I hardly ever get to do that without people looking at me funny, or thinking about arresting me), got some local Maynard fire and police people here (who smelled the gas oven in a way that we don't because we're used to it) and they ferried me to Emerson Hospital emergency room in Concord. Whee! I was in a stretcher (called that because it ... stretches?) and got to do the cool thing where they lift me and slide me onto a little bed in the hospital. Whee! Anyway, I was asked all kinds of questions, the silliest of which was "on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being hardly any and 10 being a lot, how much pain do you have?" I said 5. So a nurse took about six gallons of blood, an IV was set up, and I was told to drink this weird-tasting stuff mixed with cranberry juice over the course of an hour and a half, in fifteen-minute increments. If you've ever drunk a 32-ounce thing of cranberry juice in that amount of time, you can probably imagine how, um, pressing, the need for a rest room becomes. Anyway. After that hour and a half, and by now it was 12:45 am, I got wheeled into the CT scan room, where a recorded voice told me how and when to breathe, and I got positioned mechanically while other people stayed away. Then I was wheeled back and ignored for a while, and finally around 1:40 in came a doctor straight out of a Marcus Welby episode to say, "you have diverticulitis. And now give it up for my assistant!", a nurse who gave me some antibiotics, a prescription, and a folksy chat about what foods cause diverticulitis. Apparently, broccoli florets -- which Beff and I have a LOT on weekends -- is one of them. I also got a color printout with pictures, and, of course, two blank pages, because carriage returns do that, and hospital personnel don't understand a lot about desktop publishing. The "carrots have fiber" paragraph had a helpful cartoon of a carrot. Then came the realization -- I got ambulanced here, not to mention, I created a verb where none had previously existed. So they called the ONE cab company in the area that will do a pickup at 2 in the morning, and I waited around. And waited. Saw a whole Simpsons episode in the waiting room. And I got picked up at 2:30 and delivered at 2:40. The problem with the driver was that -- well, that he's the kind of guy who drives a cab at 2:30 at night. The next morning, during the traditional Cammy-nuzzle, I had to choose whether or not to follow through on the Yale colloquium for which I was booked that day. So, getting out of bed, OW with the groin, but after walking around just a bit, it felt fine, if a bit awkward. I fed the cats, tried walking some more, and drove to CVS to fill the prescription. Note to self: even though CVS lists its hours on its website as opening at 7, the pharmacy waits until 8 to open. I filled the prescription, had one last chance to cancel, and didn't. So around 9 I drove to New Haven, presuming I'd get in around 11:30. I was to meet Kathy Alexander at 11:45 for lunch. And of course, I got in about 11 and parked, and walked around New Haven a bit, and it was COLD. So I went back to the car, started the heater, and sat for 20 minutes. Then I called Kathy, we rendezvoused, had a nice conversation, and went to the nearby faculty club for lunch. Others were there, including Chris Theofanidis -- a REALLY nice guy I hadn't seen since New Years 1999 in Rome -- and Ingram Marshall (last encounter St. Luke's Second Helpings in 2005, on which day I met Michael Lipsey to see his hand drums), Michael Klingbeil (totally cool), Ed Altri. I got the blandest meal possible (remember: diverticulitis), and took a nap until my 2:30 show. At the show I did my piano concerto spiel -- seven etudes that went into the piece and then the piece itself, along with stories and various jokes, and then there was a bunch of good questions (hard ones, too, alas), especially from Chris. Ingram was totally cool (he also admired my shirt, made by Moose Pond, and he couldn't believe I got it at TJ Maxx). I was delighted that the students were so nice, and receptive -- at my last Yale colloquium 5 years ago they just kind of stared -- and of course, the faculty was cool, too. Michael and Kathy got me to my car and on the road, and I got back in the dark, took my antibiotics, and went to bed. Friday was finally my stay-in-bed day. I still had the abdominal pain, but the leg cramp was less so, and it was good to be in bed. Beff got back late that night, and of course on Saturday we raked. Mostly, driveway stuff, which was quite a few barrels. By the way, THIS weekend, during which Beff had to go back Mainewards early in order to see the pep band at a football game (I hated being Chair), we finished up the driveway -- again -- and did the back yard, which was actually quite a few barrels of leaves. On Friday we walked to the Cast Iron Kitchen -- which occupies the former Quarterdeck restaurant space -- and had a nice lunch. Last night was a nice Brandeis composer concert, after which I took the LAST of my antibiotics. And today is my first non-antibiotics day in ten days. Perhaps this is why the last two weeks have progressed at a crawl. Yesterday Beff had to go to Maine early (as detailed), but since it was mild out, we left the downstairs bathroom window open for the cats to go in and out at will. It's a big jump in or out. Just before Beff left, I heard Sunny in the master bedroom and a squeaking sound -- he had brought in a chipmunk, and why he always brings it to the bedroom is beyond me. So, sigh. I opened windows in the room, and propped open the front door so the chipmunk could escape by running downstairs, seeing daylight, and going for it. After 10 minutes of chasing the chipmunk around the various cubbies in the bedroom, I could not see it any more, and neither could Sunny. So the windows got closed again, front door closed, 'cause it must have escaped. Beff left for Maine. Hour and a half later, I was on the computer and heard the squeaking in the bedroom again. Crap. Little chipmunk turds were on a windowsill, and it must have climbed a curtain and hid behind it. So, I closed the door, opened all four windows, and for 25 minutes Sunny and I chased it around the room, in my case, trying to get it to find a window and jump. No deal. Sigh. So I opened the front door again and the bedroom door, and the chipmunk escaped! But ignored the front door and went behind the pump organ. Sigh. So I opened the nearby window and tried to get it to notice, and Sunny chased it into the living room. Big sigh again. After much more chasing, it finally found the door, and out it went. No more open window privileges, Mr. Sunny. Um, especially since it's cold. This week, the "Americans in Rome" CD on Bridge (9271) dropped. It's a 4-CD extravaganza with my "For Wittgenstein" on it. I got a copy to send to Joe Duemer (the poet), one for the music department, one for the Provost (who is supposed to get copies of faculty research), one for me, and one for the little boy who lives in the lane. I also rediscovered that there are currently 113 downloadable tracks on iTunes if you search for me as composer (112 for Bernstein --ha!), but there is one more track of E-Machines that does not have a composer listed -- it's Steve Gosling's recording on the AME label. Since I never got a copy of the AME CD (and indeed, my name was left off of the cover), I downloaded that track. Rocking is done by it. As to other CDs -- well, the BMOP CD hopefully before the snow melts, and similar with Etudes Vol. 3. Download 2.79 Mb. Share with your friends:
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