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

Our house in Bangor (which you can view through the Our House links) is a bungalow from the 1920s or 30s, and it's well built and designed -- not to mention nicely decorated. I delight in going into the basement and seeing both the old furnace -- a tin man construction with octopus arms going into all the rooms -- and the new one -- forced air heat. Though it's a small house, there are actually three heating zones and thus three thermostats -- great if you like that European thing of sleeping where it's cold and dressing where it's warm (in my case that would be sleeping in Montreal and dressing in Florida --- rim shot). The water table is high, as it's just up the street from the Penobscot River (say that five times fast), so when it rains, plenty of water gets into the basement. Since Saturday was Ophelia's day to have her way with the area, I finally got to experience Beff's story about the house -- every 45 minutes or so you heard the sump pump kick on and start a-flushin'.

So in the midst of the substantial rain, and after Beff's sound check at noon, we drove to the Sea Dog for lunch. It was really quite good, and Beff got her old standby the Teri Tuna sandwich. I actually have forgotten what I got, so I'll have to get back to you. The original plan had been to follow lunch with a walk around downtown Bangor, but the rain and wind were a little strong for that, so there was just a brief trip to the library (largest number of books per capita in America), the Grasshopper Shop, and a used book store. Followed by a muggy afternoon reading and sleeping. With sump pump interruptions.

The concert was well-attended, and Beff carried out her customary multiple functions. During her leave, the hall had been wired for recordings, apparently by doofi (plural of doofus) -- the permanent microphones are against the walls on the side, at an angle to capture plenty of ambient sound, but not much of the original sound. So Beff set up her DATman, and used -- ka-zing! -- the batteries I had bought at Mardens. One of the features of the concert was the newly rebuilt Steinway, which was not yet ready for prime time -- the Bflat below middle C was for all intents and purposes dead, and even full-stick it sounded like it was full of cotton balls. Several pianists struggled valiantly with it, and one actually managed to get some music out of it. Just about every possible faculty member played something on the concert, and the Debussy Sonate for flute, viola, and harp was simply called "Trio" on the program. Beff's new piece for flute, blass clarinet and marimba was performed but with some major problems (marimba player skipping three lines in the part, for instance), so I didn't get the full effect of the piece. I am hoping to hear a tape of an actual performance if they can get a recording session together.

Meanwhile, during these times when Beff is away from Maynard for long bits, she has expressed an interest in having cat pictures up here. I have done her one better -- on Sunday after my return, I used my little camera to make action movies of the cats to the extent that was possible. I then imported them all into iMovie (or iMovie HD as it now calls itself), and burned an autoplay DVD so that Beff can just stick it in and watch it while she grades. Two subsets of that movie have been put here, greatly sped up, in the yellow text on the left. Meanwhile, out of sequence I can report that I drove back Sunday morning through drizzle to greatly changeable weather in Maynard, finished the grading for Fundamentals (most common score: perfetto), and dove headfirst into recommendation writing season.

While in Bangor, I discovered that the Windows computer there has the data files for this page as of April, 2003. Since Idon't archive these updates (our correspondent in Iceland once asked why not), I will give you the text of that one, for the sake of nostalga, and especially for the sake of taking up space.
APRIL 1. Happy April Fool's Day. Today's breakfast was Pepperidge Farm Potato Wheat toast with marmalade, coffee, and orange juice, at the MacDowell Colony. Later in the day (today) I drove home for kitty doody duty and to deal with a large pile of e-mail that's hard to do at MacDowell, where the line for the e-mail computer stretches around the block. Even though technically there are no blocks at MacDowell. Guest breakfast is Laura Hendrie (from Brooklin, Maine currently), who had two sunnyside up eggs, a poached egg, toast, orange juice, and tea. Laura is a novelist.

During my time at MacDowell I have taken a week off for Amy's events, including an outreach event at the MacDowell Colony for students of the Well School, colonists, and Board members, and two concerts. And a snowstorm, naturally, during that week. I have started and finished a fairly dense 9-minute first movement for string orchestra (213 bars at a fast tempo and one section that repeats), written 60 bars of a scherzi movement that I tossed out, written another 18 bars that I also threw out, and 40 bars of a scherzi movement that I am apparently going to keep -- even though it is screamingly fast music. I probably won't finish the scherzi movement before I leave MacDowell (April 11), but there will be at least one more update of NEWS before I go to Yaddo (April 17). Amy's concerts were all fantastic.

A very favorable review of Amy's etude disc appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, and it is now quoted on page 2 of Reviews. Meanwhile, the fellow artists at the MacDowell Colony have given nights of presentations in spurts -- a week without a presentation followed by ten consecutive nights of them, etc. It is always amazing to see how many fabulously gifted people there are in the world that you haven't heard of. Last night, it was a playwright with some great monologues; the night before, two very different and fascinating poets. And the night before that, a very young and gifted visual artist. The fun never stops. For the record, I'm presenting Ten of a Kind on the night of April 7. I plan to serve Scotch.

Beff has been away from Maynard for the last several weekends, gracing this house on Thursday night for the first time in a very long time. In the mean time, she played host in Maine to Hayes Biggs, who was the distinguished visiting composer, and went to Eddie's festival at ECU in North Carolina, where Soooooooozie and Chris Oldfather did a whole mess of her songs. Beff's travel agent booked her to Greenvile, South Carolina instead of Greenville, North Carolina, and she claimed not to be fazed by the extra six hours of driving that caused her.

It is cold here again, and I have built a fire. Even snow is predicted for this afternoon. This winter and spring suck. Though the warmest temperatures here in Maynard this season have been 68.9 degrees, twice. It was 62.3 in Peterborough.

NEWS FLASH; I have discovered and extracted more Buttstix. Picture to appear when they are identified, cleaned, and labeled.

Pictures today are from my backyard (the crocuses, from last Saturday), from a practice room at Brandeis (that's Amy and a piano reflecting the ugly-ass admin buildings across the way from the music building) and from the MacDowell Colony. The snow picture represents how much was there the day I got there, and the sunset shots were taken last night.
I find it kind of funny ("It is interesting to note...") that I referred to the movement I was writing as a "scherzi" movement.

On Thursday there was a party in the music building for the department with a motley assortment of people and a wide variety of foodstuffs that were Carolyn-chosen and -procured. I took my little camera to record the event, and found out that it sucks for this kind of event -- lighting from above that is not usual room darkness or outdoor darkness. Just about every one was out of focus, and I was able to salvage maybe three from about 30 taken. Thankfully, food -- which doesn't move very much until you eat it -- did not go all out of focus on me.

Oh yes, while I am reporting out of sequence -- before the concert on Saturday, we went to an art opening on the U Maine campus, at Carnegie Hall (the "practice, practice" jokes flew in abundance). Beff said that she usually saw conceptual art there, but this exhibit was a more straightforward one of portraits of "truth tellers" as protest to the current political climate. Basically, plenty of really big postage stamps with writing on them. There was, of course, reception-type food, and when I poured myself a little plastic of wine, I heard "that'll be $3.50" from an arty type who was several miles from any sign that said "Wine: $3.50". So as not to embarrass myself (note to self: wine at music receptions is free; wine at art receptions is not; wine at theater receptions is yet to be determined), I ante'd up and calculated the 63 cents per gulp that I was spending so that the putrid taste would seem less putrid. I get the feeling, based on my quick quality control investigation, that I paid for the whole bottle and everybody else got free wine. And for the first time in some time, Beff and I had a substantial discussion about the intent and quality of the art. We Gingriched.

This afternoon the School of Creative Arts hosts a barbecue, and I am a celebrity chef. Indeed, color posters with a cheesamundo picture of me have been up in the music building for some time ("Slosberg? Schoenberg? Give me a hamburg!") and yesterday I wore my chef's hat to teach. This may be the first time in history that the minor scale was introduced by someone wearing a chef's hat. And tomorrow I get to play Happy Birthday in minor for the sake of effect. I rule.

This week there are the two little cat movies in yellow text, and pictures all from Maine, including: the old octopus furnace in the basement, Carnegie Hall, a rain splatter from outside the Sea Dog, the Hose Museum, the remains of our salad at the Chocolate Grill, and Liz and Denny at the reception after the concert.

SEPTEMBER 27. Breakfast this morning is veggie microwave sausages, coffee and a wee bit o' orange juice. Dinner was Hebrew National 97 percent fat free hot dogs with a fireful bunch o' condiments, and limeade. Lunch was a lot of tomatoes and a little lettuce in a salad with Good Seasonings salad dressing. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 39.7 and 82.0. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "ABC" by the Jackson 5. LARGE EXPENSES this last week are materials for some house rewiring, $177; house lighting and fireplace hardware, $78. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: When we were grad students, we lived in half a house on Wiggins Street with a small back yard. At the back of that yard was a tree that formed a canopy. In warm weather, I got into the habit of taking a chair and music paper and a pencil into the little canopy and writing (it was my violin concerto at the time). I'm not sure if Martler and Beff ever used it, but it did come to be known as the Composer Canopy. COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY THIS WEEK are gas stations. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY is, again, Inko's Healthy White Tea, who are sending specimens of their new flavors. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Where do flies go in the winter? THIS WEEK'S MADE-UP WORD: alunt. RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: olive antipasto salad, various kinds of pickles. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK the Wachusett Reservoir Dam, and my free web space at Brandeis. THIS WEEK'S NUMBER BETWEEN 1 AND 10: 8. REVISIONS TO THIS SITE: A few new recordings referenced, new links on Home, a basket of fries. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK is a little fraying of computer room bags. RECOMMENDATION AND PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK: 6. DAVY'S BAROMETER FOR THE FUTURE OF MUSIC this week is 3 out of 47. WHAT THE NEXT BIG TREND WOULD BE IF I WERE IN CHARGE: Napoleon Dynamite lunchboxes for everybody. THIS WEEK'S FEATURED FAKE SENDER NAME IN A SPAM: Doctor. SUBJECT OF THAT SPAM: The Ultimate Online Pharmaceutical. FEATURED FIONA APPLE LYRIC: I can't help it, the road just rose up behind me. OTHER INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a bag of alunt, sixteen clothespins, a Red Sox reliever, a hummingbird feeder.

Dear readers, crunch time has arrived and still I spend time for your pleasure, or whatever the opposite of pleasure is, writing these here updates. It is less than a week to the application deadline for the composer position, and then there is not much time for the committee to examine the materials. But dagnabbit, we will, and it will be good. I spent a large portion of Sunday reading applications and listening to submitted materials, and I got through fewer than I had anticipated, but that was fine. I found out a lot about quite a few composers who had been unknown to me, some of whom are worthy of our consideration. The only drawback to spending that time was the backache from picking out the materials, reading the files, bringing the recordings to the CD player, etc. Since what goes on internally is confidential, I can't bring up specific numbers, but I am impressed that I could imagine some people unknown to me as future colleagues. What my colleagues will think I do not know. I have read about half of the applications that have arrived, but I imagine that will be a much smaller proportion by week's end. Currently Carolyn (ka-ching!) is fielding e-mails asking the name of the Chair of the search committee. I'm not sure how she is responding.

I do wish to say that, despite the great amount of time it takes to correct and grade homeworks now, this is still rather an enjoyable teaching time, and fundamentals remains fun (to be almost alliterative). Yesterday I apportioned triads among various portable keyboards and the classroom piano, taught students how to play them and play them at my signal, and when we were fully rehearsed, we played along with "She Drives Me Crazy" and "You're Still the One." Then I started in on intervals. Meanwhile, in first year theory I introduced species counterpoint, and I still have a little ways to go before I will have crammed those heads to bursting with information. I didn't get to the no consecutive semitones in the same direction or no outlining tritones rules, but I will, Oscar, I will. Last week I ended up by doing a figured bass realization in C# minor (the class's choice) that was killa. Totally killa. I still got it, yo.

Meanwhile, I also did a few font characters for Uncle Max for engraving flute fingerings onto scores, and it was way easier for me to do them than explain font structure, hinting, path directions, and font formats -- not to mention the editing interface. Yo, I rule, I still got it, yo.

And on Tuesday I did my stint as Celebrity Chef a-flippin' burgers for the School of Creative Arts barbecue, which was just a little frustrating because nobody got enough of anything -- not enough starter fluid, so the cooking started late while a bunch of strangers, plates held high, looked at me accusatorily for not heaving burgers onto those plates, and not enough buns or burgers. Indeed, there was about half as much as last year's, and it ran out by the time chorus was dismissed. So I left the area, plate held high, eating the last, bunless burger. I smelled like smoke for the next two days (I told people it was honeysuckle).

Meanwhile, in the sacred time with Beff, we got to do Quarterdeck seafood for her birthday dinner (as Thursday had been her birthday) on Friday, and some circumnavigations of bodies of water on Saturday. We took some pictures of the Quarterdeck wine list so as to show Lee Hyla what great wines he said they had (he responded that the wines he liked are no longer on the menu), and did an all-appetizer dinner. I kept asking the waitress what sort of free stuff we got for people with birthdays (she should have responded that everybody has a birthday, but, you see, she does not know me), but all we got was beer, chowda, salad, Buffalo tenders, and scallops wrapped in bacon. During down time, Beff captured some audio to her computer -- she couldn't get the 828 to work in OS X, so we had to start from flippin' System 9, and this all happened while I was at Brandeis for Jeremy's orals (he passed). For some reason, we went to Papa Gino's for lunch on Friday (actually the reason was that the electricians were working on the kitche), and then moseyed to Ace Hardware for a fireplace brush and Shaw's for some food and firewood and whatever else appropriate began with "f". Later we rented Napoleon Dynamite at the video store, which we watched Friday night.

Mindy Wagner had told me I simply HAD to see this movie -- and I accidentally caught the last 20 minutes on HBO, used a catchphrase on Beff ("I caught you a delicious bass"), and she grudgingly agreed to watch it. Some students in my composition class knew the movie, and they seemed either to love it or hate it, though everyone certainly knew the tag lines ("are you drinking 1% because you think you're fat?"). So we hunkered down, watched it, found out it was an MTV films release, and I rather liked it. Beff, not so much (she later said that one line from "Weeds" was funnier than all of Napoleon Dynamite). Truly, it was a bunch of silly skits loosely put together, but the characters were so -- cringe-inducing -- that I found it mostly irresistible. On the other hand, there is definitely something wrong with me. And it's not just the earlobes.

So to celebrate the gorgeosity of Saturday's weather, we decided on a little hike around the pond at the nature viewing area in Stow/Harvard, which turned out to be rather a long hike, and then thought we'd take a little drive around the Wachusett Reservoir to see if there were any scenic areas. After the hike, of which at least a mile was on the road, we popped into the grocery cum orchard stand on the corner of 117 and 110 in Bolton, and delighted at the great variety of fresh-picked produce and exotic condiments, not to mention the ready availability of rest rooms. I got a bag of really big tomatoes and a bag of really small plums, as well as various experiments -- such as "Bone Sucking Sauce" -- and we packed up and drove through Clinton, etc., as we made our way around the reservoir. After a full revolution, we found the public parking area right where the dam is, walked down to mortal level, took pictures, and walked back up. On our way back up, a woman asked us if the Red Sox were playing that day, and I made something up ("yes", I think I said).

After all that impromptu hiking, we thought we'd cruise into Hudson and find someplace not called the Horseshoe Pub for lunch, and to that end I called Big Mike (ka-ching!) for advice. But alas, he not there. So we drove up Route 85 to see what was there, and we ended up at Applebees, where I got the Asian chicken wrap and Beff didn't. After a brief trip to TJ Maxx, we came home and did really, really important things. For instance, following Carolyn's (ka-ching!) example, I figured out that not only was I entitled to free web space as Brandeis faculty, I could actually use it. By navigating deep, dark crevasses within the Brandeis site, I was able to find how much I get (a gig), how to get to it, what it is called, and how to send files to it -- to that end, I downloaded Fugu (as Carolyn (ka-ching!) told me, it was the fish Homer Simpson almost died eating), which is just an FTP program. And I used it to transfer some files, most of them sound files, so that in the future when people ask for perusal CDs I can just direct them to URLs instead. Meanwhile, I invited Beff to put some video samples in that space to reference from her web page, and we stuck one small example there. You can find that on Beff's page.

Also on Friday was Electricians Rewire The House And Make Many New Holes day #2. At one point, as many as (as in,exactly) three electricians were a-workin', installing new lighting in the basement, fixing most of the ceiling lights and outlets in the first floor, and snipping out ALL of the old knob and tube wiring. Of course, by doing that, they cut off electricity to the ceiling fans on the second floor, as well as to the guest room, the bathroom, and to one outlet each in the computer room and master bedroom. Two of the outdoor lights are also now still not connected. They made a quick exit, very slightly apologizing for the inconvenience of leaving us in the dark for ten days, and leaving with such ferocious haste as to create a Doppler shift (the lead guy, a tenor, became a baritone on the way out). So in order for us to get by with some normalcy until October 3 -- and to have a bunch of superflous electricity stuff cluttering up the place after that date -- I went to K-Mart for extension cords and camping-type reading lamps (you know, the ones that are supposed to look like upright lamps with shades but are a one-piece plastic construction that look more like green and white mushrooms), but they had only the extension cords -- I got two 15-footers (and a bunch of Temptations cat treats, way cheaper there than at Shaws). Acton Ace Hardware, on the other hand, had bigass camping flashlights and TWO of those kinds of mushroomy reading lamps. While I was there, carrying an armful of stuff, I noticed that the fireplace stuff was out, so I got an andiron, too. So one extension cord goes from the one working outlet in the bedroom to the side that has our clocks and reading lamps. The other connects from the free outlet in thecomputer room to another 9-foot extension cord to power the fan that keeps our bathroom fresh-smelling. The mushroom lamps were installed in the guest room and hallway. The bigass flashlight now faces up on the toilet for nighttime convenience. And the other extra flashlight is a general one for the sake of navigation in the hallway. First and only visitor to avail himself of this major D-battery regaliafest: Geoffy (ka-ching!). I am now used to highstepping upstairs so as not to trip on the extra wires (indeed, give me a baton and a hat that makes me look like a Q-tip and I'd be a dead ringer for a drum major), and Geoffy will have to do the same.

I also got the first edit of Beff's and my tangos from Amy D's tango project, and we are very happy. You can hear mine from somewhere secret on this website, or by already knowing where to go to hear it. Expensive microphones and an in-tune piano go a long way towards making Davy not a dull boy.

And so as I said -- on Sunday I drove into Brand-x to look over applications, and while there met with a grad student, for whom I am not the reader, to look at his paper before he sends it to his first reader -- thus making me both his pre-reader and his second reader (once again, dear readers, Davy explodes conventions of cardinality and ordinality). And then instead of making do in my office with the applications, I took them home, and gave myself several degrees of backache reading them and listening to them. All this while watching the Red Sox (won) and Patriots (won) and tripping over at least one cat whenever I went into the kitchen for a drink. Cammy found the box holding the applications quite interesting, and when it became half empty, he delighted at making it half cat.

My piano trio "Inside Story" was to be premiered this week. It was to be at Rice University, in Houston, on Thursday. We all know what happened instead. Incredibly, Curt, the violinist, e-mailed to apologize for it not happening, as if he could control the weather (if he could, he's getting paid WAY too little).

All the little movies that have appeared in this space since June are now archived in my Brandeis web space. Ask me where, and I'll tell you. Meanwhile, I was hard pressed to come up with a good one for this week -- every time the cats were being cute, I went for the camera and by the time I returned they were lying down and sleeping (I'm pretty slow these days). But I did get a piece of one frantic playing episode, which is short enough that I did not have to speed it up -- see yellow text up there on the left. The pictures are of the pond we walked around, and a bit of the trail, a big ceramic apple outside the market in Bolton that has the downtown of Bolton, such as it is, painted onto it, a fountain at the bottom of the Wachusett dam (the rainbows made by the water are much more evident in person), and a panorama cobbled from 5 shots of the dam looking south, west, and north (into Clinton). The figures in the picture are, in real life, still frozen in that position.