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

Today I will likely finish my piece for two marimbas, which sucks rocks. That is, the piece sucks rocks, not the finishing of it. Shun the passive voice! In the meantime, I videoed myself playing "jingle bells" in E major on my Jaymar toy piano (I have not been paid a promotional fee by Jay Eckardt and Marilyn Nonken) to e-mail to friends as my Holiday card. A select few (you know who you are) got an additional card of me playing it in C with my nose on a real piano. Also I made trips to BJs and Trader Joe's (neither of whom have paid a promotional fee) yesterday for staples.

On Tuesday I brought the Corolla in to the Acton Toyota dealership (no promotional fee) for its routine 15,000 mile service, using a discount coupon from, of all places, CVS (no promotional fee). At which time I found out that Staples and Trader Joes are soon to be in my own neighborhood, and various other stores such as Lane Bryant (no promotional fee) are to follow.

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

Today's picture is our Christmas tree seen in the room with no lights on. Thus the only light sources are the streetlight, the full moon (no promotional fee) and the strings of lights on the tree. The box under the tree is the holiday gift package from my brother in Vermont, which is likely, predictably, to have coffee, maple syrup, pickled fiddleheads, and Country Cow Cocoa in it.

2003
FEBRUARY 10. Today's guest breakfast is me, last Saturday: orange juice, a grapefruit, 2 eggs over easy, and toast. And coffee. This morning's breakfast was only coffee, after a very early-morning run to Brandeis to pick up stuff. Last night's dinner was a can of A Taste of Thai hot and sour soup. A Taste of Thai has not paid a promotional fee for mention on this web page. Lunch was California rolls from Trader Joe's.

This is the first News posting since I got back from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), which should delight the almost five regular readers of this page. My return was yesterday, a drive of 645.7 miles that took about ten and a half hours, including three stops. The first task upon my return was to feed cats; the second task was to take out the snowblower to widen the passable part of the driveway. I am like that. The third task was, of course, unpacking. There was no fourth task. The fifth task was to deal with a pile of e-mail. Cardinality and ordinality progress in very conventional ways in this household, which is the FIRST time I have said that.

The 18 days I had at VCCA (shoulda been 21, but was cut short on either end by weather, etc.) were productive and very, very fun. It was a grandly fun group of people that got along very well. At the end of my second week, two of the writers produced a faux-Survivor film that utilized many of the Resident Fellows. I was involved as The Guy Who Lent Out His Camcorder and The Guy Who Did the Editing on his iMac. And later as The Guy With the DVD Burner On His Mac. I also took a lot of very pretty pictures there, from spectacular sunsets and sunrises to photos of the unique red dirt of that area.

Stupidly, I forgot to pack the power cord of my computer when I went there. Getting another one from Apple proved fruitless, as they shipped to wrong cord, and to my home address. A week later, a bad apple at Apple used my credit card number to charge some stuff fraudulently, causing me some extra time to cancel my credit card and fill out an affidavit denying the bogus charges. So Big Mike very nicely FedExed me the power cord from home, and all was well with Davy's world.

While at VCCA, I wrote a 15-minute set of songs for voice and violin, on texts that Susan Narucki chose, and a pair of piano etudes. Obviously, I didn't feel like starting a piece for string orchestra yet. Etude #52 is a Jerry Lee Lewis style rock and roll etude on repeated chords, and when you have that premise you just have to go for it. Right now, it is time to be making scores of what I wrote when I was gone. The busy work just piles up.

I am going to have chicken sandwiches for dinner on multi-grain bread that I got at Trader Joe's this morning. There is a new Trader Joe's nearby in Acton, flanked by a Pier One and a Staples, and I went there this morning after coffee. Which lets me tell you that a five-pack of DVD-Rs can currently be had for $14.99, with a $5 rebate coupon. Cost to you: $9.99.

I was pleased to find out that I could use my card reader that I use to read pix from my Nikon Coolpix 4500 like an external floppy drive -- the memory card, 256 megabytes, looks like an external disc to the computer, so I could use the same card that the camera writes the pictures to to bring files to an e-mailing computer. What won't they think of next! I could use the disc to store PDF files of the pieces I wrote, for instance, though the camera was powerless to display them.

Drip is an increasingly needy cat. Now she goes into the kitchen for handouts even when I am not there. I'm sure she's expecting to find some cat treats that just sort of fell off a truck.

And now for some pictures I brought back from Virginia. The first two are the sunset from my first day there and the sunrise the following day. The third (remember what I said about cardinality and ordinality) is a picture of the tall silo in the barn studio complex reflecting the sunset light my last day there. The last is a closeup of the red dirt on my boot.

MAY 30. I returned from Yaddo two days early after having finished more than I expected, and having nothing else I wanted to write right away. So I returned with one more symphony, six more piano etudes, and one more tick bite. Work done at Yaddo is:

Last 60 measures of the second movement of symphony.
Adagio final movement of symphony
Six piano etudes (see list of compositions)

I took about 400 pictures of the place, including the lush wooded grounds as the leaves were coming on the trees -- excuse, me, were coming onTO the trees -- and the people there, the statues, and the late nineteenth century STUFF with which the mansion is filled. Most of the month of May was dreary, cold and rainy, and that meant that the ticks found Yaddo guests (three this week went to the hospital ER for tick bites, and I was the first of those three) scrumptious indeed. Bernardo, a playwright, got a bite on his arm and has to take antibiotics for three weeks; Reiner, a photographer, got a tick bite, and I got one on my chest near my left armpit. I was given two blue pills for it.

The composers there while I was in residence included Andrew McKenna Lee, Anthony Gatto, Brian Bevelander, and Gabriel Gould. And I was very glad to see old friends I knew from earlier Yaddo residencies, including Gardner McFall, Greg Djanikian, Tamara Jenkins, Susan Crile, and Tom Piazza. Personal relationships became intense, as usual, and it was hard saying goodbye to just about anyone. As for me, I would be giving a big dance party in my studio tonight if I had not decided to leave two days early.

Amy D's "Conversations at the Piano" in Chicago on the 22nd went splendidly. I did my usual schtick before the sets of pieces, there was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed audience for it, and Stacy, Joe and David Smooke came along for the ride, too. Amy played excellently on a less-than-perfect instrument, despite one of her former teachers being in the audience. We had Thai in Stacy and Joe's neighborhood afterwards. My only regret was that logistics made it impossible for me to catch the premiere of Mindy Wagner's piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony. Well, my other regret was flying out of Albany Airport, which has about as much in it to do as River City.

Meanwhile, there is much to be done here in Massachusetts and later in Maine. Beff followed through on my birthday present request by getting me a hammock -- where I will be lying as soon as this page is posted -- and the lawns had to be mowed before yet another dreary and rainy weekend kicks in. The propane tank on the grill needed refilling, as well, and Beff -- all by herself -- replaced the shower head in the bathroom. We needed a new shower head because the heat sensing thing on the old one no longer allowed full-length showers.

An exterminator came yesterday to help rid us of mice. Not sure how we got them, but for a while Bly was into opening the cabinets under the sink, and now we know why -- to investigate the scratching sounds. Once we determined that the sounds were NOT being made by a violist, we sent for the exterminator.

Many recording sessions coming up in the next three weeks, as well as two house closings, a move from one house to the other, and a move of a small truckload of stuff from Maynard to Bangor. Life is full, or at least full of STUFF. Which is why I'm glad I have a hammock now. I repeat that all able-boded who are willing and able are invited to Bangor on June 10 to carry stuff.

Several more reviews of Amy's etude disc came out, including Classics Today and Gramophone. See reviews.

And here are today's pictures, which include the new hammock (Beff put it together when I wasn't watching), a Yaddo guest "pointing" to a silly painting in the mansion, a statue in the public part of Yaddo, and a droplet on a flower on the Yaddo mansion's back veranda.

DECEMBER 3. Moments ago, Beff called and began the conversation in a dry voice: "You haven't updated your website." So now the secret is out. I do this NEWS thing weekly partly for my own ego, partly for the entertainment of you, dear reader, but mostly so that calls from Beff begin, "Hi, it's me." Which is actually inaccurate: even being on the Do Not Call list, all the charities with their hands out and EVERY company with whom we've done business feel free to call at all hours, and whenever I calculate that THIS call must be Beff, I always guess wrong. No panacea, this Do Not Call list. Note to exterminator who got rid of mouse last spring: try your best not to leave scripted messages about the dangers of ladybug infestations this time of year on my valuable answering machine tape. But, oh dear, I seem to have gone rather far afield. Usually what Beff says when she calls (radiated around the house from a tinny speaker) is "Oh, Davy ..... Davy ..... DAYYYY-VEEEEE. ..... Are you there?" If I'm gone, I get to hear that all later, followed by, "...... hmmph. I guess you're not there. Well anyway."

Breakfast this morning was a big coffee from South Street Mahkit and a blueberry muffin. Lunch was a tossed salad and Buffalo wings at the brick oven pizza place in town. Dinner will be something using mesquite grilled chicken -- sandwiches, for instance. Last night's dinner was a large bowl of Trader Joe's miso soup and a bunch of pepponcinis and jalapeno-stuffed olives, as I was improvising before going into Brandeis for a concert. More on that later, if I remember. LARGE PURCHASES for the week included lunch for four at the Korean restaurant in town, MFA tickets, Norton Antivirus for Mac, and a bunch of stuff at Filene's Basement, as will be detailed below.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I was waffling as to whether I would take a Logan Express bus in to meet Stacy and Joe at the airport, or drive in. News reports in the late afternoon spoke of amazing travel crushes going north and west from early in the day. But by 5:00, the Massport website reported smooth sailing into and through the airport, and I decided to drive -- thus spending $17 in parking and tolls instead of $44 in parking and bus tickets. The hour and a half drive I expected took 40 minutes, and the airport was virtually deserted -- leaving me plenty of time to walk from terminal to terminal and try to ignore the incredibly bad muzak coming from the speakers everywhere (oboe is the wrong instrument to play the melody in California Dreaming. I mean, really). Stacy and Joe took ATA, an airline which barely registers a blip on the Logan Airport website, and which, as it turns out, has its very own ONE gate at Logan Aiport terminal B. It was easy to find them, and the drive home was a breeze. And we had beer.

Thanksgiving went as planned, and over time the thrice chocolate cake was inhaled by our guests. We dispensed with the turkey leftovers by Saturday morning, thankfully (which means we threw them away). Stacy took a bunch of arty shots of the stove and the bushes in the backyard with the digital camera (some of which might show up below) while I was cooking. And hey, frozen Trader Joe's asparagus turns out to be pretty good. Friday we commuter railed into Boston to do Filene's basement, the MFA, and Legal Seafoods. Filene's was having a special scratch ticket promotion wherein you were given one when you entered the basement which would give you a random discount at the register if you purchased by noon. Beff and I chose a black dress shirt, a gray dress shirt, a hooded sweatshirt type of thing, and a new bathrobe for me, and our scratch ticket yielded a 25% discount. Meanwhile, Stacy bought socks. At the MFA we saw furniture, Egyptian and Asian art, and musical instruments. And at Legal Seafood I got the wood grilled tuna meal. Saturday we took a tourist type visit to the big graveyard in Concord, and then shopped a bit in West Concord, after which we dined on Korean, and I took them to the airport.

The teaching week was short and barely head hurty at all -- last day of classes was yesterday, though I went in today to teach makeup lessons. In theory, we decided on Monday as bowling and pizza day, I played some Mozart as sonata form archetypes, and then made them listen to modern music -- mine. In orchestration we watched some Looney Tunes shorts to identify the orchestration. And in case any reader thought they sensed the sky falling, yes, Maxwell came to his lesson at his scheduled time for the SECOND week in a row! Yesterday I got in early to make a full-size copy of my Dream Symphony onto good paper in order finally to send it to Mario Davidovsky, whose 70th birthday it celebrates. If "celebrates" is the appropriate word here. After three good lessons, I drove to Staples on the corner of Routes 9 and 27 in Natick to get a large size binding for the symphony, and waited rather a long time, as a very nice guy was very meticulous about lining things up. And then I mailed the score to Mario from the Stow post office, after checking with the bowling alley that they would be open next Monday afternoon. (they will be: in fact, in a composition booklet that they seem to use for scheduling, they wrote in "Rakowski. 3:30. 8-10 students" in the middle of a sea of white space)

And last night I went to the student chamber music concert, music by Poulenc, Schubert, Wolf, Schumann, and Debussy. Yes, every one of them dead, but some of them for longer than others (for instance, did you know that Schubert has been dead 1,225 dog years?). Incredibly, every performance was very good, some moreso than others. It's nice to find out that our undergraduates can actually play, and sing. I told someone that the Poulenc songs sounded like "Faure with a headache," and I had to explain what I meant by that. Whatever happened to self-congratulatory, witty repartee?

They that make weather an inexact science are making the forecast for this weekend extremely inexact. The forecast has ranged from light rain to light wintry mix to Snow/Rain to Snow/Wind to (the current) Snow Showers for Saturday and Snow/Wind for Sunday. Problem is, that's the time of the Women Composers Festival at Brandeis, and I am obligated by duty to hear the graduate student concert on Saturday afternoon, and also the "gala" concert on Saturday evening, on which the composition contest winners' pieces are played -- and I know them both. In fact winner Ellen Harrison -- whom I know from the MacDowell Colony in 1995 -- plans to stay with us Saturday night. If there is a big storm, all bets are off. Plus, there is the issue -- rather soon in the season -- of Beff being able to drive back to Maine on Sunday. So the high temp went from upper 50s on Friday to 23 yesterday. I SO desperately want to teach in Florida until I remember there's no culture there and a Republican governor. Or in California, until I remember the government is broke, energy prices are skyrocketing, and a cartoon character who is also a Republican is governor. Or in Arizona until I remember that our house was built before it was a state.

Bly continues to act strange, weird, and pathetic. How does a cat who craves no attention deal with being the center of it? Oh my goodness, I just wrote a poem. He comes in early now, and meows pathetically about who knows what. And he is so often in SCRATCH MY CHIN OOH I LOVE THAT AAGH GET AWAY FROM ME mode. But then again, that's always been normal for him.

Beff's electric shovel arrived. We shall see if it is useful for her. I have my doubts.

Friday I take the Corolla in for the 30,000 mile service, and in the morning I see Seungah for a dissertation consultation. Then Beff gets home around lunch time. Meanwhile, I shall take the opportunity tomorrow to get the pizza ingredients. More and more, students seem to marvel that someone can make pizza from scratch -- ten years ago, I always made pizza for my undergraduate classes at Columbia, where the response was, "made from scratch? Cool!" instead of "made from scratch? You can still do that?"

REALITY CHECK my theory students were, mostly, born the year I started doing crappy work for Educational Testing Service after graduate school, and also the year I wrote the first movement of SLANGE. Oy.

Today's pictures begin with Stacy and Joe at breakfast on Saturday morning -- that is a flexitone that appears to be growing from Joe's head. Next, a stove picture and an asparagus picture, both taken by Stacy, on Thanksgiving day. Next, Bly sleeping on the couch as a prism shines on him, and a detail from a gravestone in Concord. Finally, a 360 degree pan of the Concord graveyard, flattened.

2004
FEBRUARY 5. I did not have breakfast this morning, not even coffee. Lunch was not until 3:35, a lovely tomato, pepperoncini and nonfat cheese sandwich on Milton's Healthy Multigrain Bread, with Hellman's Fat Free Mayonnaise. I had been looking forward all day to this sandwich, and I was right to do so. Dinner last night was Trader Joes miso soup and various snacky things (including THREE Smak sour pickles, leaving me with but one from my New Years Day stash from Kate and Lee); lunch was a small turkey sub from Cappy's down the hill from the music department. LARGE PURCHASES an HP laser printer at Staples for Beff's office, $200 (the Epson printer that came free with the iMac is no longer any good), and $200 worth of scores at Yesterday Music (Schumann, Ravel, Brahms, and Ligeti) -- this includes a nice 10 percent discount on one of the Ravel scores because there was a crease on the cover. Way to go, Yesterday Music. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Frank Sinatra singing "Love and Marriage."

Easily the event of major size during the week was gearing up for the Dream Symphony performances. This incuded driving to Merrimack College in North Andover on Thursday for a rehearsal, training in for a Jordan Hall rehearsal on Friday afternoon, Driving to Merrimack College again on Saturday, and actually driving in and paying $17 (the "event" rate) to park next door to the Conservatory. Yes, my Dream Symphony is half an hour long and has lots of notes, and Susan Davenny Wyner did a fantastic job with it. As did the orchestra. Sunday in Jordan Hall was, at times, thrilling. I still haven't decided to like this piece yet -- too much slow stuff, a few things that should take off compositionally that don't seem to. Though I do think that most of the last movement is gorgeous, and was gorgeously played. For both events, Susan and I had to talk to a pre-concert audience -- about 30 in North Andover, and about 20 in Jordan Hall, and we both delighted at the circular logic we were able to bring forth concerning the music. At the Jordan Hall dress rehearsal, Beff noted "sure would be nice to hear a trumpet now, wouldn't it?" Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the big motive of the whole piece is an all-interval tetrachord. And MOST surprisingly, there were two Theory 2 students at the Merrimack concert. And less surprisingly, there were graduate students (Ken, Hillary, John, Maxwell, Jeremy) at the Jordan Hall concert who bit their lips and said they liked the piece (not necessarily both on the same day).

And one of the second violinists of the group is someone with whom I used to work in the NEC library in our student days. Not to mention, Josh Gordon plays cello in the band, too.

Before the Saturday night pre-concert talk, Beff and I did a leisurely dinner at Bertucci's, right next to the Merrimack College campus. We both had fish! For the dress rehearsal, I had been given directions to the college's campus, but no indication which of the 50 or so buildings was the Rogers Arts Center. Keeping in mind that it was 10 degrees with 30 mph winds, I frantically called the NESE office for directions to the building, which would have been more helpful if I could have heard them over the chattering of teeth. After the Jordan Hall rehearsal, Beff went to P.F. Chang's restaurant near the Boston Common, sort of to relive our original experience of having discovered it, after going to a Beer Fest, at which time we were totally plastered. We remembered that they make you a spicy sauce at your table, which is an inducement to get you to order dumplings or other food that is spicy sauce friendly. This time, without the haze of beer samples, the sauce was less amazing, and it reminded me of the Sun Bird Kung Pao sauce you can buy in packets -- hey, we can make it at home! Nonetheless, the food itself was excellent. It was disappointing to discover that the restaurant is a chain, though. You can get all the same stuff in Seattle, for instance.

Another event in the week was the Ceely BYE! concert, also in Jordan Hall (24 years since my graduation from NEC and nothing of mine is performed in that building -- until TWO performance three days apart ... grumble, grumble), on which Mac Peyton also performed my "Beezle Nose." An ice storm made driving treacherous enough that I opted to stay home instead of die, die, DIE on a slippery twisty road. I heard from both Yehudi Wyner and Lee Hyla that the concert was a tremendous success. Lee also said that he though the quote from the Carter Second Quartet in Beezle Nose was obvious. He got the Schoenberg Opus 19 quote, too. I know of few music students now that would get both of those quotes. Which means that we have been remiss in passing down the torch and the ritual giving out of buttstix. Memo me on that, and we'll have a meeting.

Thankfully, we are at the end of the variations unit in Theory, and move on to writing a song next week. The best thing about next week, by the way, is that it is followed consecutively by a week of vacation. In class on Monday, I amused myself to no end, enough so that I still crack up thinking about it. Beginning by admitting you had to be there, I will tell the story. Of which I have yet to tire. As I was reading through one student's variations, I remarked that a certain passage reminded me of Bruce Hornsby. He said it was a barely competent banjo transcription. So I said, "then, it's Bela Fleck?" The student nodded. Another student said, "well, for banjo players, who is there besides Bela Fleck?" Then, in one of my patented surreal responses in which something comes out of my mouth before it has registered with the synapses in my brain, I said, "well, there's Popeye." Stunned silence. "Not Popeye the cartoon chracter. See, it's this other Popeye..." Having had to be there is what you are.

The Stoeger check arrived, and I had it in my pocket all day Monday before depositing it. Nobody noticed that I was carrying a lot of money, and apparently I didn't look any different. The Brandeis web page announced it, and sent a press release to the local media. Today there is a note about it in the Boston Herald.

So Yehudi delivered me CD-Rs of the Dream Symphony performances and, alas, they were all staticky. We don't know whether the CD-Rs were bad, Susan's duplicating machine is bad, or the driness of the air is a factor. So I went to Susan's house today, captured the originals onto my Powerbook G4 (thanks, Dinosaur Annex), made her a duplicate copy of all of both concerts, and went merrily on my way. The sound quality is quite good when there is no static, and listening to the adagio movement occasionally gives me the idea that I am, indeed, a composer. That is, unless you ask the Boston Herald critic, whose review is now on Reviews 3.

As is almost always the case when I type these things, the Weather Bug icon is flashing at me, yet again. We have another Winter Weather Advisory for Friday and Saturday, this time for 3-5 inches of snow to be followed by sleet, ice, and rain. Another slopfest! It will be a nice day to be stuck inside, and so I will be. Tuesday night's storm was a big slopfest, too, though briefer. Early on Wednesday morning, I got up, the moon was out, and I was going to shovel the slop. Which turned out to be snow with sleet on top of it, with ice and rain on top of it all. And the shovel could penetrate none of it -- though the sound of me trying was louder than any orchestral tutti I've ever heard. So the front walk is an icy disaster right now, and I can't do anything to fix it -- anal as I am about having a bare walk and a bare driveway. Luckily we don't have the kind of mailman that threatens nondelivery when walks get slippery.

The reason I had no breakfast and an extremely late lunch today is the extreme busy-ness of the morning portion of our program. I woke up early, but not as early as usual, and drove to Brandeis (I covet the parking spot). In my stupor, I forgot to take out the garbage (I usually leave it out overnight, but wind was forecast). I read the paper at Brandeis and took the 8:24 train to Porter Square, hopped on the Red Line, and hoofed it to 125 High Street. There, I went to the 19th floor and made our Tax Year 2003 Roth IRA contributions (doesn't qualify as a large purchase, since we actually keep the money). From there I hoofed it to South Station, rode the Red Line to Andrew Square, and found, for the first time in my life, the Boston Deli and Market on Boston Street in South Boston -- a small, unassuming place cozied up next to a Polish-American Club (or something like that) that has a few generic market items, a cooler with some Coke, makes sandwiches, but importantly, HAS A BUTTLOAD OF SMAK PICKLES for sale. Lee Hyla gave me directions on how to get there (easy!), and I got five jars (picture below). After that, I took the Red Line to Porter, and hung out a little while at Yesterday Music in the Cambridge Music Center, where I picked up a score I had ordered, and needed to pass some time, so I bought some standards -- including the first book of Ligeti etudes. (I fully expect Gyorgy to go out and buy my first book now -- it's much cheaper, and considerably thicker). Picked up some exotic foods at White Hen Pantry in Porter Square. Got some miso soup at the Japanese supermarket near Porter Square (three varieties!). Had a conversation with Palle Yourgrau (Brandeis philosophy professor I know from the Consilience seminar) about music (he's getting into Prokofiev and Shostakovich -- one outta two ain't bad), and then went to Susan Davenny Wyner's house to get unstaticky recordings of the Dream Symphony. And drove back home, gave Beff her phone message, etc. The rest is history.

Beff has secured us a summer rental on Moose Pond in Maine for two weeks at the end of June. After said rental, it is likely that we will stop being cat-free.

Beff is now considering sliding sideways in her career to a job much like the one she has now, except that it's much, much closer, at the U of Rhode Island. They are interviewing her soon, possibly as soon as next week. Which is the only thing that would have gotten her down here next weekend -- she has to stay this weekend for various reasons, not the least of them a production of Much Ado About Nothing, for which she wrote incidental music. The only advantage to the job is at least five hours of driving per week chopped off her schedule. Disadvantage: higher cost of living. Advantage: closer to actual culture. Advantage: closer to actual husband.

Today's pictures: the new Smak five-pak (one of the jars seems to be sliced-up pickles, presumably for a salatka (salad?)), of which I am very proud. Under that, the other stuff on the kitchen table, including a make-your-own-hot sauce kit that the beer night denizens gave us a week ago Friday and a bouquet given me by Bronika and Larissa Kushkuley at the Dream Symphony performance (Bronika is 16 and a full-time NEC student; when she was 13 I gave her two years of composition lessons). Then, an ice crust closeup from the front steps, and the unperfect can't-clear-it-off front walk.

Click on the link below the pictures to hear the last four minutes of Dream Symphony.

SEPTEMBER 17. Breakfast today was Morningside Farms meatless tofu breakfast sausages, orange juice, decaf coffee, and Shaws hash brown potatoes. Dinner last night was lasagna, garlic bread, homemade chocolate ice cream (I ate too much of it) and a little Chianti at Big Mike's. Lunch was Buffalo wings, curly fries and salad at the Chicken Bone Saloon in Framingham, with Beff, as we watched CNN's Hurricane Ivan coverage without the benefit of sound. LARGE EXPENSES for the last week were new Michelin tires for the Corolla, $514 installed and balanced, repaired blower for the Camry plus an oil change, $97, HP inkjet printer plus cartridges for Beff to take to artist colonies, $189. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Red's White and Blue March" by Red Skelton. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE after "Persistent Memory" was performed by Orpheus in Carnegie Hall and I ran up on stage to acknowledge the thunderous applause, I walked to backstage, rather than to my seat, to see if I could get a curtain call. Orpheus would have none of that, and they got up and started walking off before the applause stopped. Thus, stranding me backstage while the next piece was set up. I tried to sneak back to my seat via the edge of the stage, but when the audience saw me, they applauded again. I felt sheepish and tried to ignore them -- which was rude. Apparently I should have gratefully acknowledged the applause. Boy, was my face red that day! TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK 48.4 and 76.6. RECOMMENDATION/PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 4 (countless more promised: it's Guggenheim and Rome Prize season, people). DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Big cans of tuna for cats at Trader Joes for 35 cents. MUSIC NEWLY TRANSFERRED TO MY IPOD is none. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: Why do people turning left feel they have to veer right first, thus making it impossible for other drivers to get by? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS include homemade salad dressing, Polish Farms pickles, Buffalo wings, and sugar free popsicles. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK: none. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 40. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 19. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a festering piece of fecal matter, the Vice President -- but I repeat myself.

Dear reader, I type to you on the second day of Rosh Hashana, which is a Brandeis holiday for students and faculty but not for staff. This affords me a well-timed four-day weekend, thankfully while Beff is actually in residence in Maynard. We recently realized that Beff has the potential to tie my colony-hopping record this year, but will probably not. She is going to Yaddo for October, the Copland House for November, to Ragdale in the spring, and also to a colony in Costa Rice in April. Those of you with pocket protectors have counted four residencies. The MacDowell Colony called her and offered her a monthlong residency spanning December to January, which she declined. If she had said yes, it would have matched my five from my second year at Columbia: VCCA (six weeks), MacDowell (seven weeks), Djerassi Foundation (six weeks), Yaddo (five weeks) and Bellagio (three and a half weeks). I think I win on the amount of time spent away from home. The difference was that in 1990-91 we actually lived together year round. Well, and owned only one car, and my salary was a lot lower, and I composed slavishly using motives. And we had yet to buy our first new car, or house. Uh oh, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Being as I've got the four-day splidge (a new word I hope soon to enter the language), we are doing consecutive "non-Chair" days. Beff recently credited me with the non-Chair day concept, but it is wholly her own. The non-Chair day being a chance to be not responsible for everything, and to do fun things, and to go places where there are no people I've never heard of to make demands on my time and my department's budget. So yesterday -- a predicted nice day which turned rainy -- we hopped over to the Toyota dealership for 7:00 appointments for BOTH our cars and I got new Michelin tires (thus making it far less likely that I will squeal when taking corners, will spin out when I start up after paying a toll or that I will fail my December inspection). Beff, meanwhile, had to get an oil change and get the blower on her Camry fixed, as it would only blow at the highest setting. While waiting for our service, we hopped over to BAGELS PLUS just down Great Road in Acton, where I had the egg on bagel (bland) and Beff had a bagel with lox spread. Our cars were ready by 7:50, so we then hopped over to Staples -- next door -- to shop for a compact printer for Beff to take on her colony hop. We chose a small HP inkjet and also got extra cartridges. On the way home we stopped at Donelans to get wine for dinner at Big Mike's and to get other staples, including a new discovery: we got seven Snapple Green Tea With Limes. We were home and at work (or at least setting up Beff's printer to see if it worked) by 8:30. Luckily, today we were just about getting out of bed around then. Thank you Rosh Hashana.

Last weekend Beff was in Vermont tending to her father, as it was sort of her turn in the cycle. She got back at dinner time on Sunday (we had chicken sandwiches). But I took advantage of THESE non-Chair days to see if I could write something simple, or at least short. So I started another piano etude, this one on a pedal B. Over Saturday and Sunday I cranked out 60 bars of music, about double my usual artist colony rate (I must have been desperate), and am thinking the piece will end up with around 85 to 95 bars. I plan on finishing it today (which, yesterday, was predicted as a washout and today is predicted as mostly fair) or tomorrow, depending on how non-Chair things stack up. Possible titles in the mix include On Time and B (please tell me you know of Heidegger), All That You Can B, B (My Little Baby), and Let It B. Dear reader, you may vote or provide yet a different title (after all, Rick Moody came up with Menage a Droit two weeks after I finished my right hand piece and I used it), but I may have already settled on a title by the time you vote.

It is five days to Beff's birfday. It is next Wednesday, and she will be returning from New York on that day. The day before she goes to a reception for Copland House Fellae, of which she is a jolly good one.

The next thing that happened with yesterday's non-Chair day was a return engagement to the Chicken Bone saloon in Framingham, which we caught this time at the lunch rush, at which time it was packed. We got exactly what we got before -- wings, salad, fries, ice tea, a bloody Mary -- and like before watched CNN hurricane coverage without sound. Yes, we watched both Ivan and Charley in the same gastronomic context. We are, if nothing else, consistent. Several blues tunes played on the jukebox while we were there, and I made a controversial comment: Blues to me is what modern music must be like for most people. All the tunes sound the same to me. Then I made the logical leap to committed scotch drinkers: they know the nuances of single and double malts, whereas to me it's just firewater that makes me gag. So maybe Boston Musica Viva can use my new slogan for their next season brochure: MUSICA VIVA PRESENTS FIREWATER THAT WILL MAKE YOU GAG. IN ALL ITS EXCITING SINGLE- AND DOUBLE-MALT GLORY. By the way, it's no secret that I consider Musica Viva's programming pretty appalling. And not just because they never do my music. Okay, because they never do my music.

The weather actually looks pretty nice this morning, so we are thinking of strapping the bikes on the back of the Camry and doing the part of the Minuteman path that was earlier closed off to us (because of a major road cutting it off and a tunnel not yet built). So if you hear me raving about the Paul Revere Capture Site, we managed to get there.

Big Mike has a nice condo in Hudson, and we went there for dinner last night. His lasagna was exemplary, and of course laden with cholesterol, and was served with Italian sausage and garlic bread, and just a few spoonfuls filled me up. This did NOT keep me from having three helpings of his homemade chocolate ice cream. I was happy to have Lipitor to come home to. Admirably we listened to his stories of how he, and he alone, did some work on the floors in his place (I'm not a tile guy). We also marveled how the speed bumps at his condo complex are concave rather than convex, as if mirror images. Or weird performance art pieces.

Tonight the being entertained continues, as we see Lee and Kate for dinner, and Kate will cook. We are bringing beer as our gift and my string of beerless days may be on the ropes. Unless I see the wisdom of a nice subtle red wine. We will be getting in quite late tonight, and what it is, too.

Perhaps the highlight of the week was something of a Supplementale on Monday night. Beer night looks like it has disappeared into the ether, or at least the version we used to have where Jeff Nichols would say he was coming but fail to show up, where David Horne would drink far too much and hang his mouth on a glass at the end of the evening, where Josh Skaller would break ketchup bottles, and where Bernard Rands would steadfastly order Shiraz instead of beer. President Jeffy is ensconced in Queens, President Horne has been in England for three years now, and President Ken has full-time teaching at UMass Dartmouth (not an Ivy League competitor, mind you), which is so far away from Boston as to make the old regular meetings very inconvenient. Perhaps some new generation of frolicsome lads will take the gauntlet and continue the tradition of Noche Cerveze if not that actual thing. But our supplementale was right here in Maynard, wherein Hillary and Ken came out with food. They arrived seven thirtyish in Ken's new car, and apparently they came straight from the dealer (an oboist with his own gouging machine sold them their car). Ken brought a spicy oxtail sort of stew and also a spicy sort of salad, and we let the wine flow. Hillary was especially impressed by the cat tricks: tear a piece of newspaper and the cats come bounding into the room awaiting a toy; crinkle plastic in the pantry and they come bounding in expecting a treat; throw a crumple toy at Sunny and he defends it like a soccer goalie; and Camden watches TV from really close. Even with all the excitement and the lateness of the evening, I managed to do my Tuesday teaching without much incident. Well, how about that!

We have secured a locksmith to look at, and possibly rebuild, the lock mechanism on our front door. It is very old and broken in a few pieces, and we have never been able to use the front door as our regular door -- because it is a key stuck in the lock on the inside that is the only way to lock it right now. The door has been all but unopenable when it is humid, so we need it fixed, or something. Not to mention. We are broaching the subject of having a half bath put in downstairs where the pantry and refrigerator currently reside. Anyone with the name of a good contractor to do such a thing in this area, yield it now. We figure the mud room will also have to be reconfigured in some way, so we won't be able to use the back door while this rebuilding happens. Hence the concern of using the front door.

Whoa, it really IS lovely out right now. Bike ride time.

This week the pictures are 400 pixels wide rather than 320, because you're worth it. There may be a sly reference to a four-day weekend there, but I doubt it. The first four pictures were taken this week, and the next four were taken by Corinne Pearlman when she and Martler were here last March around St. Patrick's Day. I didn't get them until months later. The first three are from our trip to the Chicken Bone Saloon yesterday, including a picture of our actual food. Then we see Camden, who is newly fascinated with the television whenever it is on. Next we find Martler and me looking at our Buffalo wings at the Village Pizzeria last March, not realizing that we would be in the shot. This is followed by Martler's lunch on St. Patrick's day, consisting of corned beef and cabbage and much, much beer. Then it's me with an icicle posing in the living room, and Martler posing with the bulk of his St. Patrick's Day lunch.

SEPTEMBER 24. Breakfast this morning was Morningside Farms veggie sausage patties with 2% melted cheese, orange juice and decaf coffee. Dinner was Rosemary chicken sandwiches, grilled tofu with Trader Joe's Sesame Orange marinade, and salad with the homemade Good Seasons salad dressing. Lunch yesterday was a large salad with sun-dried tomato salad dressing. Today's lunch is at the faculty club, on Scott. LARGE EXPENSES for the last week were round trip plane tickets to Chicago for December, $195.96 each on United. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS Hyperblue, by me. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE Certain songs from the 70s bring back very specific and wistful memories: "Ricky Don't Lose That Number" is overnights spent with friends in our tent trailer; "Horse With No Name" is seventh grade music classes; "Saturday in the Park" is the piano lab in the band room; Chicago's "Harry Truman" is our pickup band massacring the tune in Spring Frolics (I played trombone); and "We need him crucified" from Jesus Christ Superstar is the cheap stereo cassette player in my bedroom and friends visiting. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THE PAST WEEK 42.3 and 81.7. RECOMMENDATION/PROFESSIONAL LETTERS WRITTEN THIS WEEK 3. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK More places to buy the Snapple Green Tea and Lime variety. MUSIC NEWLY TRANSFERRED TO MY IPOD is none. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDRY: I watched a segment on a business channel recently in which an analyst mentioned that the automobile tire industry is practically putting itself out of business because it is making a product that is so good that the market for replacement tires is shrinking drastically; so why did my Toyota tires wear out after just 35,000 miles? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS include jalapeno-stuffed olives, grilled tofu, and Snapple green tea with lime. NUMBER OF FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS IN THE PREVIOUS WEEK: none. DAYS SINCE MY LAST REAL COFFEE: 47. DAYS SINCE MY LAST BEER: 2. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a bag of pine needles, fingernail shavings, cat hair not yet brushed off the couch, a piece of laminated paper.

Just before this morning's update, I took my first QuickTime movies on my Nikon Coolpix. I tried to capture Sunset jumping up, soccer goalie-like, for a crumpled paper toy. The only semi-spectacular one I got has him jumping out of the frame, but it's good enough for me. Click on "Sunny Movie" above to see a brief video. Alast, it is also 1.3 megabytes and will take some time to load.

Beff is, as I type this, on the road. Technically, her Camry is on the road and she is in it, but you get the idea; and before she left, she made sure to remind me of the things we did this week that I should be sure to include in this space. Her brother Bob is with her, too, and will be fed a strict diet, while in transit, of a book on tape. They are doing Dad Duty this weekend, the last in a while for Beff, since she's soon to begin her colony hop. Beff also went to a Tuesday evening reception in New York City (where the salsa is made) for Copland House fellae. And there she met several people that it was good to see, including two of my double-fivers from the Home of this site: Hayes and Daron. She stayed at Marilyn Nonken's apartment, thus giving us one more shared experience about which to talk (especially the sofa bed and the light in the alley). And there were plenty of other cool people there, like Sebastian Currier and Judy Sherman, and the whole Music from Copland House gang. Four of the eight fellae for this year were at the reception, two of which stayed at the MacDowell Colony (Chasalow and Festinger) rather than lose two days' work. People after my own heart.

Last week's update brought some lurkers -- I don't recall whether I count them within the almost eleven, or think of them as adjunct -- into my e-mail box. Dr. Uechi had brought the update to Josh Skaller's attention, speculating that I had accused him of "petty larceny" with a widemouth bottle of ketchup. In any case, it was good to hear from Josh, even though the pictures on his web page -- skaller.com, no leading "www." -- haven't been updated in some time. You gotta love a guy who calls his firstborn Wolf instead of Hugo. Last sighting of Josh: November '02. Last sightin of Dr. Uechi: ohmigod I have no idea. 1995? Dr. Uechi, I still have the "Keep On Pumpkin" cutout doll you sent me in Rome. In fact, it hangs on the new bookshelf in the computer room. Don't believe me? Well, looky here.