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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| Call me Martler
Work on RIGHT WING ECHO CHAMBER or TALKING POINTS or whatever I'm going tocall it has gone on, though it's been in a thick and chewy climax for a while now, and writing it hurts my head, hands, back, mouse hand, body, and brain. So I took a brief break from it and started kickin' it oldstyle. Being that I've sworn off etudes, and nocturkas didn't seem all that refreshing a genre, I migrated right over to a piano prelude, whose aspects governed my idea for the aspects to be shared by future preludes. And by the way, one down, ninety-nine to go. We'll see. There must be at least 25, of course, because it would be appropriate to kick Chopin's butt TWICE in the same lifetime. Uh, because, and, you see, Chopin wrote twenty-four preludes. Twenty-five preludes would be more. Chopin also wrote twenty-seven etudes. One hundred would be more. So the first prelude takes off on the "little" C minor prelude of Bach that I'm sure I played parts of for all my piano-playing years. There isn't an intermediate-level "Music of the Masters!" piano book that doesn't have that one in it, after all. The title is a palindrome (Moody, My Doom), so all the titles of book one (they'll be in BOOKS?) will also be palindromes. Hot diggity. There is also a palimpsest within that I'm not yet ready to reveal. But I DO have an annotated PDF of it showing the palimpsest. Of all the palimpses in the world, it's definitely the palimpsest! The 'lude took six days, as did Etude #1. Spooooky. But six days is not a limit for 'ludes, and since I crossed out whole measures and revised while writing it, the non-revision clause of etude-writing has been voided. Now you know. As to the other big piece, I have been slogging away, and as I type this, Fred and his cohort in the low string section are getting more and more lyrical, after a section of outbursts that just get parroted by the other strings. Those other strings, meanwhile, are in boxes -- as in, improvise rhythmically, col legno battuto, on these two or three notes. With any luck, it'll sound like a bag of safety pins being emptied onto the floor. A really big bag. Soon -- soon in the piece, but more like two or three compositional days away -- there will be a big spacy chord accumulating. Because it's what I do. Like in the finale of the piano concerto, except without chatter stones. It's a good thing that eight violins and violas col legno battuto sounds a lot like eleven violins and violas col legno battuto, since that allows me to build in page turns three players at a time. Being practical is a heavy burden. Meanwhile in the outdoors, there has been little need for lawnmowing, but there has been some, anyway. The quince of unusual quantity are bending the limbs of the quince bush, and yet another cavalcade of pine cones fell and necessitated twenty minutes of raking. Bike rides have continued as they do, and we've done the nature preserve several times, as well as West Acton and the nature viewing area (a different ride). I did my doctor's appointment, whose double bar is always the doctor's hand up my butt (prostate exam, eww), and had an extra blood test. Yes, they took four vials instead of three because my brother had an ankle operation followed by a blood clot migrating to his lungs and a six-day stop in IC. What I never knew was that the Type 5 Lutein something or other is genetic on my maternal grandfather's side, and various family members -- including my sister -- have regularly taken a blood thinning prescription that also functions as rat poison. I had that test, and don't have the gene. Meanwhile, as a way of taking up space, I report my other numbers: Cholesterol 171, HDL 74, LDL 78, Triglycerides 97, Cholest ratio 2.31. All are good. I meanwhile rescued some stuff from the attic when I wanted a particular old picture for a blog entry. That included scanning some other old pictures, too, which I have generously shared below. Hee hee hee. And school started. Not for me, of course, because I have decided on the life of sloth and unkemptitude, for now. But a new feature is that Mindy Wagner stays in the guest room on Sunday nights and goes in early to teach at the 'Deis on Mondays. So that first time happened, and she arrived while it was still light, we had fun, a bit of Dubonnet (everything tastes better with Dubonnet on it), and on her first Monday there was breakfast and getting her to Brandeis as the second vehicle in a 2-vehicle convoy. I wanted to go in and get some files off my computer anyway, and when I got there I found out there was a department barbecue later that day. Thus, I returned for that. Meanwhile, I made some introductions and got out of the way. At the barbecue I had only tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers -- my cholesterol test was the next morning, and look how swimmingly it turned out -- and got to meet some of the new graduate composers. Who may have seen me for the only time of the whole semester. Except they may see me Sunday at Jared's piano recital. Meanwhile, news of various performances that I haven't gotten around to putting in. And Amy's tango project CD -- recorded in June, 2005 -- finally gets released on Ravello Records on October 26. Coming up -- the completion of TALKING POINTS, me hopes. Beff's birthday and a dinner before that at the Nashoba Winery. Bike rides. Sloth and unkemptitude. This week's pictures are old. Bye. SEPTEMBER 29 Breakfast was orange juice and coffee. Dinner was a Trader Joe's microwave shephard's pie and a tomato from the farmer's market. Lunch was a pesto chicken sandwich and fries at the Blue Coyote Grill. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES SINCE LAST UPDATE 39.8 and 87.1. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Finale of Stolen Moments. LARGE EXPENSES SINCE LAST UPDATE Toy instruments from amazon.com, $67; Amtrak tickets $99; chimney cleaning $169; Ricks Picks $47; any time I do Whole Foods. COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY Acton Ace Hardware (again again), holding on to the broken lawnmower more than four weeks, charging 35 bucks for "debris removal" and then presenting it to me with a layer of sawdust on it. COMPANIES THAT HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY amazon.com for the plethora of different stuff I got from them, one-stop. PET PEEVE Another year of fecundity in the pine cone falling department. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: We got a new gym teacher when the new elementary school opened up, and we called him Mr. P -- since Pequignot was apparently too hard to say. In my eighth grade year he started a soccer team, for which I did not try out, but was guilted into joining. I played left wing, which was a good predicter of my future. I don't remember who our first game was against -- there were 10 in the season -- but it was at the newly-defunct Barlow Street School. Our team got the ball to begin with, the center passed it to someone else, who passed it to me, and as one of their guys came barreling in at me, I kicked the ball wildly in the direction of the distant goal. Then I was decked. I got up to see the ball sailing in the goal, over the hands of their goalie. We won the game 1-0. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 1. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: Back to making the circuit of windows to look out. UPDATED ON THIS SITE THIS WEEK: This page, Compositions, Performances, Piano Music (new page). THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: gradintal, a mysterious substance that collects on insects' legs when they crawl up trees. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST TWOWEEKS: 7. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE I like spoonerisms and palindromes. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Everybody thinks "elbow" is a very funny word. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 15,248. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE RECENTLY $2.58 in Maynard. GIFTS YOU DON'T GIVE THE GREAT PUMPKIN sticky gold stars, the corner of the bedroom, some wainscotting I forgot about, a head of steam. I type to you, dear reader, on a warm and sticky summer's day. One that just happens to lie in the end of September, and what's up with that? Drought-ending rain is on and off, and it's become tropical here with oppressive dew points. Oppressive enough that three of the smoke detectors have had the batteries removed because they are going off. As you know, smoke detectors going off is pretty loud. Also as I type this, Beff is on her way to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for some sort of convocation of music administrators: Bangor to New York to Dallas to Jackson Hole. I hate it when that happens. Because of my impending Yaddodom, the need for the cats to get to Maine, and Beff's administrator retreat, I will be in charge of boxing them up (they love that) and taking them to the house in Maine. Then, I must be back in time for the Dinosaur Annex concert with pieces by Mindy and lots of other people I know. And then, and then, packing and lawn things -- especially the storing of the lawn and gazebo furniture, since who else is going to do it? Plus, since there's no lawn mowing left to do for the season, there's the running of the lawnmowers (plural!) so that they run out of gas and can be stored. The last weekend that Beff was here was our annual hostafest -- hostas that frame the front walk -- in which Beff stabs at them with a rake and I mow them. It's a ritual not without its benefits, but which is of course hard on the lawnmower. The storing of the Adirondack chairs and the cushions, etc. still has to take place. Because it is so juicy this week, I have to wait for the weekend, when it finally dries out. Much bicycle riding has been done, enough to once again break another rear inner tube. Sigh, the ritual walking of the bicycle to the bike shop happened, the tires were mondo-inflated, and the ride through the nature preserve thus got much harder. We also rediscovered the nearby hiking trails on Summer Hill, and I've taken that recreational/exercisical walk quite a few times now. We never run into anyone else there, so it is quite serene. I'll be doing that walk later today, because worth it is what I am, so there. "Talking Points" was finally finished, and I spent a day and a half extracting and producing the parts and mailing them off. Apparently it is unusual for anyone to finish pieces on time for this group, so they were grateful. It's a hell of a hard piece, which I would suppose wouldn't have a lot of prospects for a second performance. So this one better be realllllly good. And I recaptured the ability to make 11x17 bound scores, which is a pain. Also, two more preludes were written, both with palindromic titles: Never Odd or Even, and Too Hot to Hoot. I ordered several palindrome books from amazon, by the way, and was quite impressed by how much time anyone would ever spend compiling such very long collections of them. I will still need seven more palindromic titles eventually, and I guess this is a good place to start. Ah yes, there were two sojourns into my place of employment: one for a routine meeting to do with a reappointment, and one to meet Steve Dewhurst and his son David, who is college shopping, to give them a tour of the place. That part was fun, and when we started trying to figure out schedules for the whole family to get together with us for dinner, I realized the next possible time was the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. Amaze. The last time I had seen Steve and his wife Sarah (both five letters), was when Sarah was pregnant with David, the college-shopper. So it's been a while. But it's definitely their turn to come and see us. I also had to meet, for the first time in my life, with a yard care guy. Since we won't be around to do the leaves this year, we are paying someone $550 to come twice and suck up all the leaves, of which there are many -- last year, 104 barrels. Plus, it's a second consecutive fecund year for acorns and pine cones to drop. What's up with that? Oh yes, and the quince bush, barren last year, is very fecund this year. They are now yellow and dropping. Nobody knows what to do with quicne except make jelly. I have continued to write blog entries, which are soon to be few and far between. I like it when that happens. I also made an appointment to hear Tony de Mare play my Sondheim arrangement in Manhattan next month -- I mostly agreed to do it because the view from the Amtrak train Saratoga to New York is spandalicious. While in Manhattan, I'll make an afternoon of it with Rick Moody and do an early dinner with Amy and Hazel (average four letters). Oh yes, and Beff will come to visit me at Yaddo during Columbus Day weekend -- my first weekend there. That will mean she'll bring the cats back to Maynard, Mindy will feed them,and then she'll take them right back to Bangor. Poor kitties. And Geoffy is here this week for Musica Viva gyrations. It's always good to see Geoffy. Coming up: stuff. All of this week's pictures are of nature stuff. Mushrooms from the back yard plus a day of driving rain makes for fungus plus mold and interesting and weird visuals. Plus, there's a sneakerprint. Bye. NOVEMBER 21 MISSING DECEMBER 4 Breakfast was Trader Joes french toast, orange juice and coffee. Dinner was teriyaki salmon from Whole Foods, potatoes, salad, and beer. Lunch was basil tomato soup and a Buffalo chicken wrap at the River Rock restaurant. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES SINCE LAST UPDATE 21.93 and 63.0. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS MIDI of a sax quartet movement. LARGE EXPENSES SINCE LAST UPDATE Two Zoom H1s with accessory paks, $250. COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY the local CVS for not having enough cashiers on hand. COMPANIES THAT HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY Museum of Fine Arts for the stuff in the new wing; Bolton Farms store for having exotic potato chips. PET PEEVE an unusual proliferation of drivers who tailgate. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: When the NEC Chorus did their summer 1978 tour of Israel, I was with them (because, you see, I was in the chorus), and we performed about five times, I think. We also got a few bus tours, including the Dead Sea and Jericho (where I had a conversation with a goat), and the Rubin Academy. I didn't get to see the Rubin Academy, though, because Cheryl Welsh, who had been sitting with me, fainted, and the PEOPLE IN CHARGE had left the bus already; it didn't seem right to leave her by herself, even though THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE seemed not to have any problems with that. She woke up just about as the tour ended and everyone was getting back on the bus. So I haven't see the Rubin Academy. NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: Both cats taking turns sleeping near my head, between about 4:30 and 6. UPDATED ON THIS SITE THIS WEEK: This page, Performances. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: areelano, a hybrid lettuce of which only one survived. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST TWO WEEKS: 17. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE I haven't worn new winter boots yet that I got last December -- what with the old ones still hanging on. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: a whole lot less use of the term "smart phones". PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 15,457. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE RECENTLY $2.87 in Maynard, twice, with Shaws 5-cent discount. THINGS THAT WOULD MAKE A BETTER CONGRESS THAN THE CURRENT ONE sticky gold stars, the corner of the bedroom, some wainscotting I forgot about, a head of steam. I am still not at Yaddo. But in a manner of speaking, and speaking timelyly, I am *almost* at MacDowell. Put that in your pipe and lubricate it. Because, you know, otherwise who will? So, and, of, after all that that was accomplished at Yaddo, much less has been accomplished at not-Yaddo. To be sure, I have begun a piece for instrument, instrument, instrument, instrument, instrument, and instrument, and it bears a few unusual things for me -- to wit, a substantial change of tempo, and molto revisions (that's mixed languages there). Soon I'm going to have to start the Finale input just so I can see just what it is I hath wrought. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to conceive. Otherwise, stuff happens. Grocery shopping, calling the slate roof specialist about our roof (a little bit of drippy-stains on the computer room ceiling), saying "tra la la" hardly at all, more grocery shopping, and settling into the normal routine, if only for two weeks. Most mundane task: ordering a new ATM card, as the old one was to expire while I am in France. See? I told you it was mundane. I did have a few even more mundane score/parts things to accomplish, and such things always suck souls, and in this case it was mine. Then there was a bit of getting ready for Thanksgiving, and then ... gasp ... actually doing Thanksgiving, which was much fun, and moreso than usual. For you see, Hayes and Susan came for the Thanksgiving thing, arriving in time for a very informal dinner (jeans allowed) the night before Thanksgiving (and all through the house). For that dinner, it was mahi mahi burgers, chicken burgers, and chicken burgers (thin chicken, thick chicken, that is), plus a nearly endless supply of Malbec (thank you Yaddo fellae). They turned out all to be tasty, and we pronounced it good. We did not pronounce "it good", except during the Caveman sketch we didn't get around to presenting. Thanksgiving itself was as could be expected. I had gotten a fresh, not frozen, turkey, so there was no defrosting to do, and I had done the Beff's sister Ann thing of having too much food around. The four of us did a brief walk through the Acton Arboretum, which is not very scenic when all the leaves are brown and the sky is gray (but they were missing, and the sky was bright blue). Then we came back. Snacks of cheese and crackers and celery and olives were prepared the lunch time, then there was the cooking of the multiple nefarious ingredients -- turkey, stuffing (Beff did that), squash, mashed potates, cranberry sauce (whole berry, in a can), gravy (Trader Joe's, in paper soup boxes). And Susan brought an amazing chocolaty goodness pie with Cool Whip and other nefarious stuff. There was a nearly endless supply of Malbec. We set up in the dining room (duh) by adding a leaf to the table (not for modesty's sake, like they did in the Victorian age, but you know), and ate. And drinked. After the meal there was a Festa fest -- we watched both of the films that Paul Festa, a multi-hyphenated artist, had given me on DVD: The Glitter Emergency and Apparition of the Eternal Church. The latter films people listening to a Messiaen organ piece and gets their reactions -- guess what the organ piece is called. Then there was various other watching, and for one of the very few times each year, the dishwasher was put to use. How 'BOUT that! For the day after Thanksgiving, we set out to Boston and parked near NEC -- one of the few places I know about in Boston for dependable parking, since it's where I parked when I taught there -- and walked to the Museum of Fine Arts (four blocks, as the crow barfs), where for $20 we got the run of the place. Along with thousands of other people paying $20. The idea was to spend up to 3 hours looking at the new ART OF THE AMERICAS wing that opened recently, which was on three levels and densely packed (both with people and with art). An hour and a half was just about enough time to get through it all and to make all of us seriously pooped. So we found a barfing crow to get us back to the car, hung out a bit at home (after driving home), and did dinner at the Cast Iron Kitchen. Where the food exuded its customary fabulosity. We walked to and from the CIK because, you know. Hayes and Susan left on Saturday morning, and Beff and I got down to brass tacks. Then we discovered that we don't have any brass tacks, so we just got down. Some of which was emanating from a rip in the down duvet we have on the bed. So I adjusted the duvet so that the down wouldn't go up, and then started to wonder about what the point of this paragraph is. Self-awareness, probably, or self-referentiality. Also during this period, I went into Brandeis no fewer than TWO times -- the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the Monday after it -- to sit in on PhD orals. Since composition is shorthanded this year, both Yu-Hui and I -- on leave essentially without pay -- are pitching in. At least I got to learn a new weird Schubert piece this time. And for the first time in many weeks I got to see Mindy Wagner, who stays here on Sunday nights after driving from New Jersey, in order to teach at Brandeis on Mondays. As expected, we stayed up giggling until midnight. And went into Brandeis at the same time. Mundane things include the Tire Pressure light coming on on my car on the way into Brandeis, prompting me to take the car to the dealer on Tuesday morning. They couldn't find anything wrong, really, and there was no charge. Good thing: free breakfast when you take you car in in the morning. So I kinda made out. Otherwise -- just a cleaning appointment at the dentist on Thursday, and a bit of old, old filling broken off that has to be fixed next month before I go Franceward. So ist die welt. And there were two days of work on this instrument, instrument, instrument, instrument, instrument and instrument piece, which with the original tempo came out to 45 seconds of music, and 35 seconds with the revised tempo, though the obsessive revisions brought it back up to 45 seconds -- I'm on a "make my music breathe more" kick -- and I'll come back to it when I'm set up at MacDowell, with my own fireplace and 31 new names to learn. Actually, they are old names, just new to me. Other than that. Beff is back for her customary weekend stay, and we take our walks. We even capped yesterday's walk by treating ourselves to a lunch at the River Rock Grill. The Rapscallion Honey beer I had was closer to Budweiser than I would have liked. My wrap was big enough to wrap and have for lunch again today (Davy, that's the least clear writing ever and I know you don't care). Shortly, after this report is filed, Beff will update her own page, and we will do our customary Saturday walk (because, hee hee, it's Saturday). This morning, after breakfast, by the way, we took a scenic drive, thus explaining the scenic pictures below, and stopped at Bolton Orchards for some macoun apples, bread for garlic bread for tonight's pasta, and decidedly unexotic Christmas gifts. So MacDowell here I come. I will immediately seek out the softest plaster in whatever studio I have for head banging as I work on this silly instrument, instrument, instrument, instrument, instrument and instrument piece. And take long walks in the cold and snow, and learn 31 or more locally new names. And then, and then ... well, Christmas is coming, and the caboose is getting fat. I just made that joke up. Please pay me ten dollars or more. Pictures include a lake view from Yaddo, our Thanksgiving setup, a great blue heron encountered at the arboretum, our house photographed at night, and two views from this morning's drive with me pointing to one of them. Bye. 2011 JANUARY 12 2011 Breakfast was orange juice and coffee. Dinner was Trader Joes chicken patty sandwiches and salad. Lunch was a Trader Joes flatbread pizza. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES SINCE LAST UPDATE 7.9 and 59.5. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS MIDI of a sax quartet movement. LARGE EXPENSES SINCE LAST UPDATE Purchase of Euros, $687. COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY none. COMPANIES THAT HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY Acton Toyota for the quick service and free breakfast. PET PEEVE large snowstorms. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: Our eighth grade basketball team's #1 nemesis was Milton, 'cause like they had a Tall Guy. I always had to guard tall guy, and vice versa; it was the same tall guy I had to guard when we played them in soccer, it turns out. In a Christmas tournament, I recall being behind Milton 20 to 18, and I had two free throws. The gym was stone silent as I made them both, and we won the game eventually. It was probably the only time all year the cheerleaders knew my name. Wait -- we had cheerleaders? NUMBER OF HAIRCUTS I GOT LAST WEEK: 0. CUTE CAT THINGS TO REPORT: Now it's Sunny who sleeps by my elbow. UPDATED ON THIS SITE THIS WEEK: This page, Performances, List of Compositions. THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: tulanosis, a rare condition suffered by left-handed bass trombonists. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS LAST SEVERAL WEEKS: 22. FUN DAVY FACT YOU WON'T READ ANYWHERE ELSE I routinely crack my fingers, big toes, and elbows. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: complete lollipop makeovers. PHOTOS IN MY IPHOTO LIBRARY: 15,561. WHAT I PAID FOR GASOLINE RECENTLY $2.95 in Maynard, $3.04 in Maynard, $3.05 in Maynard. THE LIST THAT NEVER CHANGES sticky gold stars, the corner of the bedroom, some wainscotting I forgot about, a head of steam. Download 2.79 Mb. Share with your friends:
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