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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| This time the carrier of choice was American Airlines, with a flight to O'Hare and a switch to another one to Salt Lake City. The dreary part of producing the credit card to pay fifteen bucks for a suitcase that I could easily have prepaid for online happened, and then of course I waited right next to the kiosk for a long time while someone deigned to find my luggage tag, etc., etc. The flight was fairly eventless, although I noticed both ways that American pilots like to get on the horn to talk to the passengers about the turbulence a lot. On the way to Chicago I heard about the weather front and exactly where (Schenectady) it was supposed to get smooth (and on the way back it was in Missouri, but then it was the long detailed explanation about how the air was choppy everywhere in the country). On the long, long approach to the SLC airport, I got a nice view of what is apparently the largest or second largest open copper mine in the US (fugly). And of course when I disembarked, the temperature was a cool 97.
I do the Utah thing every August for the meetings of the Barlow Foundation board. Last year it happened at a ski resort in the mountains (Snowbird) that was unavailable this time, so we did it at a Springhill Suites at Thanksgiving Point -- Thanksgiving Point consists of a dinosaur museum, movie theaters, a pricy restaurant and a dramatically upscale home furnishings store. No bother. The Board did its three days of meetings to determine the winner of the Barlow Prize (for a trombone concerto for Joe Alessi, and he was there serving on the panel, too) and the Barlow commissions. Lunch and dinner with the Board, staff, and interns happened at various locations from the Texas Roadhouse (ironically to "taste the Utah experience") to the Foundry Grill at Sundance -- which is in the mountains, dontcha know. And after all was done and the (rather reduced) fundage assigned, I flew back, except this time in the opposite direction, to the pleasant chatter of the "sorry about the choppy air, folks" serenade from the captain. At precisely 10:30 pm that Thursday, I got my ($15 extra) bag off the carousel, and Beff called on my cell, and all was well. And I drove -- IN THE DARK! -- home. The next day I had an appointment with the optometrist to look over my new contacts (all is well), and the grass was long enough that I re-mowed quite a bit of it, and then I had appointments in western Massachusetts. Tanglewood. Texas tea. So right around noon off I went, and the drive was shorter than expected. So much shorter that I stopped for lunch at a Friendly's in Lee -- where the waitress I had was so harried, overworked, and mistreated that I left a 65 percent tip. I drove through the very slow Lee traffic and eventually found Lenox, where I had not visited since 1990 (Tony Brandt's wedding), and it was unrecognizable. To me. And very, very upscale. With next to no parking. In any case. I was given lodging at Serenak, the old Koussevitzky mansion (where I stayed when I was a Fellow there in 1982, along with Ross and Martler and Dan and Nami), where I arrived, got settled and took pictures. Then I was able to make it onto the grounds in time for the second half of the first concert of the Contemporary Music Festival -- and all the pieces were very good and very well performed. I sat behind Gusty Thomas in a seat that had been empty before I sat in it but was now full by virtue of the fact that I was sitting in it, and joined a Philadelphia music contingent for the beginning of a conversation with Yehudi Wyner et al. I then had to get back to the venue for the dress rehearsal of my six piano etudes -- Steve Drury was the coach and both pianists were very good -- Greg De Turck was a knockout, and he had more variety in the toods assigned to him (Ming's pieces were all zippity-pow stuff). Soon I was picked up at Serenak by Bernard Rands and taken to a restaurant in Lenox (Zinc something), where we were meeting Yehudi and Gusty for dinner (she paid, and boy do I owe her big time, in more than one way). I got salmon and Bloody Marys and beer and wine, and all was fun. We were joined later by Anthony Cheung and his posse, and then Gusty drove us back -- against the grain, as a Yo-Yo Ma concert was just getting out. Next day I sat in back of the mansion looking at the Tanglewood Bowl for a while, then walked around the grounds (only somewhat recognizable, as much had been added), did lunch with the Philadelphia people (including David Laganella, who introduced himself to me without including his name, but I got it from context), and then went to Concert 2, on which my toods were done. It was another well-programmed concert, and I liked everything. I sat in front of Harriet Eckstein, who sponsors composers at Tanglewood, which will be germane shortly. First Ming played, and then Greg played -- there was spontaneous applause after E-Machines (the fist thing and the Fur Elise quote, dontcha know), and then an amazingly subtle performance of Les Arbres Embues. This Greg dude is going places. Lenox, for instance. Both pianists then took their curtain calls,and failed to acknowledge the me-ness that is me, and also the composer of those toods. I saw Gusty run to the stage to get them to point to me, and they did, and when I did, I rushed the stage, jumping onto the lip of the stage to get onto the stage itself. What I didn't know was that the lip of the stage wasn't part of the stage -- it was a flimsy boundary covering up the open part under the stage -- which, of course, toppled (another intrinsically funny word). When I got back to my seat, Harriet said, "that's bringing down the house!" The toods were on the first half, so I could sit more distant for the second half. Which I spent next to my homeboy Nico Muhly, who was there because he was there. He indulged in some typical Nicolity, including pointing to the crazy eyebrow in the Rzewski picture in the program and telling me I had to grow one such eyebrow. I'm working on it, but the squinting is driving me crazy. So -- after the concert, it was get into the Corolla time, and I zipped up, via Route 7, to Burlington. Oddly, I got home before Beff got home from her VYO concert thing. And then the summer was set to "Continue" mode. And "Continue" I did, all the while setting it in ironic quotes. Sorry, in "ironic" quotes. I had to get to work on my piece for HaeGeum and string trio, especially since I found myself on line described as an "established" composer writing for the Pacific Rim 2010 festival, etc. I sweated to write the piece -- because it was finally hot and humid -- and kept with the idea of giving pentatonic collections to the Korean instrument and chromatic ones to the string trio, and I went for some noisy effects that I normally eschew (another intrinsically funny word), and used up my glissando quotient at least to 2018, but finish it I did (Yoda-speak, for them of you what are in the know). Then, using my special status as Former Teacher of Two Korean Students, I asked them how to say "Morning Fog" in Korean. Since they both gave the same answer, I know I probably got it right -- see "AhChim AnGae" link up and to the left. I also got the Korean for "my head hurts", "I stepped on a snail", and "my pants are on fire", should I need them in the future. Seung-Ah seemed nonplussed by the whole exercise, and I wonder if minused means the same thing as nonplussed. MEANWHILE, our marriage turned twenty while we were in Vermont. Yes, we are 8/11 people, from 1989, and for some reason we decided Italian food in Burlington would be the correct celebratory context. We went to Trattoria Dellia, where the food was good and the table way too small. Then we came back. And one night we spent doing dinner for Rob and Victoria Paterson -- Rob is doing a composer residency with the VYO, Victoria is a violinist currently doing West Side Story on Broadway, and Rob also runs the American Modern Ensemble. It was good to get to know them, and to know something about vegetarian and vegan cooking, which I did, so there. So I finished my summer work with about a week left in our time in Burlington, so it was either goof off (or goof on, which is not actually the opposite) or find something else to write. I had read something about trying to write a modernist polka in Jim Ricci's blog (deconstructing-jim at blogspot), and that set off an alarm in my head (an imaginary one, actually). So I sifted through YouTube for polkas, and of course remembered polkas by Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and then took four days writing etude 93, a "polka etude". How do you write a polka etude? Practice, practice. Or you can turn the page. Or see "Polkritude" links up and to the left. Our last several days in Vermont were spent not panicking. We also spent a considerable amount of time not nailing our heads to the floor, and about the same amount of time not thinking about eating insects for breakfast. We took the obligatory yearly trip to Warner's Snack Bar in St. Albans, mostly because I worked there the summer of 1976 and the same people run it and recognize me, etc., but also because the burgers are great. We also tried out a new local pub near the Burlington-Winooski line called the Bluebird Cafe, which has a weird appetizer menu with beer in the afternoon, and we tried their "pickle pot" (weird) and marinated vegetables (fantastico) and fries (came with aioli and homemade ketchup dipping sauces and the aioli was per mortere), and the Hennepin "Farmhouse Ale" was on tap. I knew it was made by Ommegang, in Cooperstown, but had never seen this variety on tap. I declared it good. And, indeed, to the amusement of Beff, I declared it "clean". So the next day, after the Warner's trip we stopped by again and decided to check out other menu items -- and especially have some more Hennepin on tap. Beff got the deviled eggs with pork -- which looked like deviled eggs with bacon and a rich yellow sauce -- and I forget what I got. But the next day Beff showed signs of mild food poisoning, and insisted on bland food and drink. Then yesterday was the day to come back -- in the half-day window without big thunderstorms out and about. The cats usually sense when they're going to have to spend 3-4 hours in confinement in the back of a car, so they find hiding places. This time we packed the cars Sunday morning so as to relax them more -- it didn't work. I had to rassle a hissing Cammy from under a bed, and Sunny from on top of a shower ... and even though the traffic on 495 was unbearable (a lane blocked off for what turned out to be NO work crews), I made it back in less than four hours. And unpacked, and shopped. And made pasta with butter for Beff, because it is bland. And now, thanks to a letter from Allstate, I know the name of the guy who totalled our 2002 Corolla. It looks like a lot of work to get the $279 we spent on a rental because of this guy, and I may not bother. But I may. Meanwhile, the lawns are in desperate need of mowing. But with two rainstorms here yesterday, etc., they are as yet far too wet to yield to the blade of our cheap (but functional) lawnmower. And classes start Thursday, though not for me until Monday. There is a department meeting (memo: please stop having dept. meetings on first days of classes. Thank you for listening) followed by a department barbecue, and I think it's actually food and not people that are being barbecued (although with death panels coming up, who knows what they'll allow nowadays?), so the school year beckons. And that's another intrinsically funny word. And this morning Beff left for Maine, where her beginning of school year duties will keep her for ten days, all of them consecutive. Other things coming up. Toods 3 will be released by Bridge in October, and it's already set up on amazon. Cleaning at dentist. Colonoscopy. Pot luck for department at our house the day before Labor Day. And, teaching. I have to use the Aldwell-Schachter text for theory, which I loathe (it says on the syllabus that I loathe it), so the whole semester will be one long upbeat to the day we take it outside and swing at it with an axe (I have done exactly this before with it, so it will be vaguely structural). There are lots of YASPs in my retinue, some of which I've shared below. But first it's Cammy at Beff's workspace-cum-dining room table. Then three YASPs, me 'n' Beff 'n' Rob Paterson, the local hill and stop sign where we stayed in Utah, the restaurant at Sundance, Serenak, my room at Serenak, the duo pianos at Serenak for conducting classes, the view from Serenak, and Yehudi and Gusty at dinner. Bye. SEPTEMBER 8 Breakfast this morning is nothing. Dinner last was an Annie's veggie burger and fried onions (leftover from pizzamachen). Lunch was heirloom tomato sandwiches. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES SINCE LAST UPDATE 45.1 and 86.2. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Davy's setting of A.E. Housman's "With Rue My Heart is Laden" LARGE EXPENSES SINCE LAST UPDATE some more pickles from The Pickle Guys, buncha stuff from Staples including a 500GB drive, $129. COMPANIES THAT HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY Shaw's, for finally getting me a gasoline discount, and the Pickle Guys, for fixing an order they screwed up. COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY The Pickle Guys, who screwed up an order. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: My birthday in 1989 (age 31, peoples) was also the last day of classes at Stanford, and I held a party at my cabin nestled in the redwoods. Beff had already finished her year at Reed, and we had driven all of her stuff in a van from Portland to Woodside (she took driving lessons to bone up, and emerged with a mantra: "Okay to the left. Okay to the right. I am proceeding."). There were 144 rickety stone steps leading down from Big Tree Way to the cabin, and we sat on some of them in the party. While holding a wine glass, I swatted a mosquito, thus breaking the wine glass. And when we ran out of beer, Sean Varah offered to "go get some Steamage" (or, Anchor Steam). I think this is when I started adding -age to words, dunno. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: Sunny hangs out where we once planted catnip, though there is hardly any left there; and when I opened the computer room window this morning for them to have a view, Sunny growled at something. UPDATED ON THIS SITE THIS WEEK: This page. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: sladdin, a particular pattern of tread found on the bottom of leather sandals. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST TWO WEEKS: 1. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE my right thumb bends back at nearly a right angle. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: trucks backing up play a half-diminished seventh arpeggio instead of a repeated note. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 13,920. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE RECENTLY $2.58 in Maynard, $2.40 (with Shaw's discount) in Maynard. THINGS THAT ARE NO FUNNIER IN SANSKRIT my head, ladybugs, a tree trunk, manhole covers, 'Round Midnight. For the first time in many a fortnight (hey -- I guess these updates are fortnightly, which is not so different from biweekly, being that it's identical), there is no new music to report. No new Davy music, that is. I'm sure plenty of composers writed stuff, but I'm not among their ilk. You see, I'm not famous enough to have a posse, so I have an ilk. Speaking of which, I DID at least decide to write for Rhonda Rider (she asked many a fortnight ago -- at least 26 of them) and HER ilk -- that is, cello, cello, cello and cello. I think on the cover, instead of saying "for cello, cello, cello, and cello", or even worse, "cello, another cello, yet another cello, and yet another another cello" I could probably abbreviate to "for 4 'cellos", or in pretentious mode, "for 4 'celli", or more pretentious still, "for 4 violoncelli". That's a project that I'll probably try to cram into the eentsy weentsy crawl spaces I now have in my schedule. Or was it (Diana) Krall space? Enquiring minds don't want to know. But in this intervening time since the last time I interrupted an intervening time, there was a speech, of sorts, and it was by me. And the food was free (pollo, poulet, chicken). But let me back up a bit. Not so far as not to be able to reach the keyboard, silly, but back up in time and not in space. Though there's nothing wrong with either. You can tell I'm padding, can't you? Okay. So. We got back from Vermont and I filed an update. That was a Tuesday. On Thursday, classes started, though none were taught by me. But there was a music department meeting to be had (note to department, second warning: please stop having meetings on the first day of classes. Thank you for listening. Again) followed by a department barbecue. Now, the department was not literally barbecued, you see (that would be silly), but a bunch of barbecued stuff was procured from Redbones (who always advertises on Dinosaur Annex programs), who gave it freely in exchange for fundage. The proliferation of chicken and pork made vegetarians not care, but there was the rice and macaroni salad, et al. During the course of said barbecue, which was outside and on the west side of the music building, several people, especially from Theater, encroached and asked "what is this?" and invariably the answer was "food". And of course, I brought hot sauce. When it was done, I and my blue Toyota joined rush hour, which is devoutly not to be wished. Meanwhile, Beff was in Maine for a ten-day stint, doing chair stuff and putting her foot through one of the steps on the back porch, and preparing for roof replacement, and, now, step replacement. And I spent the weekend doing just a bit of bike riding (for the weather was dry and nice) and getting ready for ... classes! I have eight composition students (Count with me: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now in Italian! uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto; now the NAMES of the students: Adam, Christian, Jared, Hiroki, Travis, Michele, Bradley, Dan; now the names with -age: Adamage, Christianage, Jaredage, Hirokage, Travisage, Michelage, Bradlage, Dannage) that all got scheduled for Mondays and Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Theory 2 to teach -- with a textbook I don't like (I think I said "loathe" in the last update -- loathage, if you will). And running was what I hit the ground. And I spent three hours with the slow movement of K. 488 in Theory 2 doing what education pretentio's call "making it palpable". When we were done, we could definitely palp it. But wait, there's more -- we come back to the piece later, after poring through the inscrutable textbook (I tried scruting it, but it was resistible). And that Thursday of the first full week of classes, was chalk full (most people write that "chock full", and either works, or neither). I was done with Dannage at 1, and was then due back at 5 for activities surrounding the teaching award winners, and being that I was among them, I had to put on something black. Which turns out to be slimming. But I did serious hammock time in the interim. Nonetheless, back I came, there was a reception and the usual proliferation of people holding drinks and plates (thus being unable to scratch their noses), and a dinner. The featured speakers: the award winners. I hadn't been told, except maybe in passing last April, that I would be speechifying (or, in educational parlance, gracing the assembled with speechage), and it's probably a good thing that I was third of three. For the chemistry guy showed stuff from online lessons, and the art history guy talked about art history stuff, and I improvised. I recapped the week's teaching of K. 488 and tried to talk too fast for anyone to follow. And in the brief Q&A that followed, Robin Miller noted that all three speeches were "inherently weird". Finally, recognition! And inherent recognition, at that! Interruption: for some strange reason, it occurred to me, right now, right here, that Pat Bonner-Turner, my boss at the Boston YWCA 1985-88, pronounced the word "adhere" as "adair". Talk about adairing to strange standards. So my arrival home after the shindiggage was ten minutes in advance of Beff's from Maine. And the next day we did our usual Friday stuff, which includes lunch at the Cast Iron Kitchen, and a bit of walking around, etc. Beforehand was a trip to Trader Joe's and Staples and Ace Hardware (the last for plywood for the Maine step). And dinner was pesto pasta, so there. Saturday was a big shopping day, for on Sunday we were to host the beginning of year pot luck, and I was making pizza (as I always dew), and of course there was much lawn mowage. And dinner was swordfish puttanesca, and what it is, too. And, oh yeah, we did a bike rider through the nature preserve, so there. On Sunday, I began the pizzamakage at about 8:30 and finished the first draft at about 10:45 -- the second draft being the reheating later. At 12:30 I did the ice trip (the trip for ice), and we set up -- including bringing card tables and folding chairs from the attic. Seems the last time we used the folding chairs and card tables was the last time we had a pot luck, three years ago. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And at 2:05 guests started arriving -- including a double shot of Jared (Field and Redmond), whoa! The festivities went till six, then there was cleanup. And besides reheating the already-constructed pizzas, I made the pizza primavera, at Beff's behest, for the first time in seven or eight years -- a crust with no sauce or cheese, but with olive oila dn artichokes and (heirloom) tomatoes and green peppers and arugula and Italian lettuce. Basically, focaccia (which means -- what, fo' hunting?). Yesterday was Labor Day, and was kind of coooool out. Beff and I took the West Acton bike ride, I made (heirloom) tomato sandwiches for lunch, and back to Maine for another ten-day stint went Beff. THIS time, though, I will join her for part of it. We decided I'd drive up after I was done at the 'deis (people at the 'deis sometimes call it "The 'deis", and I'm not one of them), see and eat with friends in Bangor, and I'd come back Saturday morning, thus leaving the cats in the lurch (it's a special room in our house, or maybe not) for about 52 hours. So trippage is coming, and it will be the first time in the great state of Maine for this new car. Which reminds me. We got our insurance settlement check for the old, totalled Toyota, and I had to drive to Webster to get it, while exchanging it for the old car's title. There was a $500 deductible taken out, which is not assessed when the accident isn't my fault, and the insurance agent said they still hadn't gotten the Yonkers Police report, so they couldn't assess fault. And they said they might never get it. Quickly thinking, I told them we'd heard from the offending driver's insurance company, and d'oh! of course they'd be interested in knowing that sort of detail. Including, presumably, hitting up the offending driver's insurance company for the settlement cost. Two days later, a check for $500 arrived with the terse memo "deductible release". So, that book is closed. IN THE MEANTIME, and taking up much of the previous reporting period, the physical CDs of Toods Volume 3 arrived at Bridge, and I got a buttload of them (I compared them to my butt, and there was enough similarity to use the word "load"). Perhaps you could say there are enough of them to shake a stick at, and I tried shaking a stick at them, and not much happened. Plenty of time was spent sending out free copies to people that got free copies, and that happened on several days. Meanwhile, the album was available for download from iTunes as of Friday, August 28, and amazon.com at one point said "Only 1 copy left ... order now to receive by tomorrow". Currently amazon says "available for pre-order, will be released October 13". So one's got to say -- "huh?" Or with today's theme, "Huhage?" In any case, you can download it, you can pre-order it. Just don't call it late for dinner. The CD is really nice, the performances great, and Hayes's notes spandiferous, in case you were wondering. Because I would like to eat food of my choice when I'm in Maine (I always go for the longest possible sentence-beginning dependent clauses), I decided, somewhat last minutely, to take my scheduled blood test TODAY instead of in a week. Hence I've fasted (I sure haven't slowed, at all, but you know, I see some wrinkles here and there...) since 6 last night, and will see skin-piercing sharpness in my arm around noon today. Followed by driving on Route 9, always a huge treat. Then tomorrow, it's leading tone seventh chords (yawn) in theory, and, and ... Geoffy gets here before the next update, so at that time I'll probably write, in this space, "Geoffy is here". Download 2.79 Mb. Share with your friends:
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