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

CHAIR AND CHAIR ALIKE. The Oh Happy Day news of the week (of the whole year, and, perhaps, decade) is that as I type this, I am not the Chair of the Music Department. For the next couple of months I play a purely advisory role, letting Mary Ruth in on all the minutiae of Chairmanship that my predecessor failed to clue me in on. There's still stuff I haven't told her -- like the inspired mess that is our graduate composition seminar structure and the disagreements between the Dean and the composition faculty on how they should work (don't get me staaahted...). But you see, I am already thinking too deeply of this stuff, and that is devoutly not to be wished. There is actually one Chair duty left to me, and that is a meeting of the four creative arts chairs (theater, music, fine arts, creative writing) tomorrow to discuss new titles for non-tenure track faculty, and I agreed to participate, since this meeting was supposed to happen in May. As Fred Flinstone was known to say, Ugh. Chairmanship Emeritus status for me also means that from here on I will refer to the Dean by name (which is Adam). You may have noted that on "Home" of this page, where I come from we "don't bear grudges".

DE-PILL-A-TORY I'm going for the Gannett Newspaper all-caps pun headlines at the start of each paragraph, just as an experiment. Almost twelve, I am sure you are nearly as bored with the device as I am. Nonetheless, I shall press forward. Today, I took a fluoxetine hydrochloride, and that will be the last one. The box has been retired. Meanwhile, on Saturday night a CNN report said that doctors have been warned that antidepressants -- rather in opposition to what they are for -- can cause or augment suicidal tendencies. I am here to report, without giving specific examples, that the people warning the doctors are correct. Fluoxetine hydrochloride, get thee away from me. I would make a little cross with my index fingers (I am quite fluent with dramatic but pointless physical gestures), but it would mean I couldn't type.

CLOSE TO YOU That one's a New England expression, I am told: when it's humid, the locals say it's "close". And it's close now, even down in the Glenn. Our wild and wacky weather has continued, with a nice and comfortable dry spell coming just in time for our trip to Vermont. Of which we shall hear soon. Meanwhile, it may be close, but it's been almost bone-dry in terms of precipitation -- despite the drizzle in which we departed on Friday. The level of the Assabet is going down, and little brown spots appear on the back lawns. Coolness is forecast for later in the week -- as soon as tomorrow.

ROWING VS. WADING In the last throes of my Chairmanship, I excused Carolyn from work on Wednesday morning so that she could come out here and all three of us indulge ourselves in rural sports. Beff walked the Assabet rail trail, parallel to the Assabet River, while Carolyn and I canoed it. And the night before, to prepare, Beff and I hauled the canoe into the back yard, got all real medieval with Formula 409 on its ass, and scrubbed it heartily with scrubber sponges -- so it looked much nicer. Beff's side got a little cleaner than my side, something she was only too eager to point out. I did not remind her that it was not a competition, because I wanted her to experience the joy of winning something pointless. Next week: she finishes a beer before I do.

CATS'LL REPORT And the cats have been quite needy since we returned, last night, from Vermont. As Martler will recall, Cammy likes to follow you until you seem to linger a moment, then plop himself down on the floor. He has been doing that in many, many locations today, as has Sunny. Meanwhile, Beff thought their parallel naps near the porch last week was worth a photo. You will see it below. Justin and Melissa, who housesat over the weekend, seem to have gotten along with them just fine (they also ate all the sweet potato potato chips -- in case you ever needed to see an actual sentence with the word "potato" twice consecutively). Beff also cracked open a new Trader Joe's cat scratcher for them and seeded it with catnip -- Sunny, in particular, went crazy for it.

PULLED BY THE ROUTES Our drive to Vermont took us up Route 100, which is a very scenic stretch going through the spine of the Green Mountains -- if, indeed, mountain ranges can be said to have backbones. I like to try to drive the stretch between Route 9 in the south up to Waterbury in the north at least once a year, and last year we didn't get around to it (I was too busy waking up early with panic attacks about what it was going to be like to be Chair). So it was quite a welcome drive; it progressed from drizzly to hazy sun during the drive, and we stopped at the bigass country store, as we always do (free rest rooms). You can still buy slot hockey games there ($105) and Rock 'em Sock 'em robots. If I had bought either, I'd REALLY be having that midlife crisis. We stopped around 1:30 in Waterbury for lunch, and the brew pub we seemed to remember was not yet open: so we proceeded a few doors down to WATERBURY WINGS. Which had just what you would think they would have. I got hot (which were a LEETUL hot for me, but I made it), and Beff didn't get wings at all. We also tried beers by Shedd Mountain and Otter Creek on tap, which were just dandy. Vermont's a good place to find beers -- almost as good a place for that as it is to find New Yorkers.

SALLY FOURTH And then was the arrival at Beff's dad's camp on Lake Champlain in the north of Burlington. Up there, summer-only homes are called "camps" (not because of the kind of drama they prefer), and it is just a few hops (no skips -- too many sharp rocks) from the camp down to the actual lake, where there is a beach shared by many of the locals. Twice during the weekend (Saturday and Sunday), Beff and Ann (la soeur de Beff) and Jack (le fils d'Ann) spent substantial time on the beach and in the water. Beff got more color than I did (she brought an extra tint button), but we got equally wet (you don't want to know how we measured -- or why). Meantime, we got to participate in the local area's yearly Fourth rituals, including a 4th of July parade (which was on the morning of the 2nd) and a tennis tournament (of which Jack won the kid's division). A nice weather front came through Friday night producing much wind but no precipitation at a pot luck at a local house, after which the temps actually got into the 40s at night. Beff and I had to deal with a "camp" type bed. At first we did not use any covers, but when it started to cool down, Beff said, "would you like some sheet?" I was transported back to the drug dealers from Argentina during my undergraduate years. Actually, it so amused me that I was actually lacking a comeback.

BIKE'LL ROW THE BOAT Ann has stored her high school-era bicycle at the camp, and their brother Matt has left one of his there, so it was possible to take long bike rides on the nearby rail trail, paved and converted from a railway that once connected Burlington to the north and to the island. On Saturday and Sunday we got even more sun by taking the bikes out first to the left (Saturday) and then to the right (Sunday). On Saturday we went toward the causeway of the section that crossed the bay to the islands, but didn't make it all the way owing to bugs and a guy with a kid ahead of us on a very narrow stretch. All that time, I took pix and movies -- so many that the 512meg card filled up: later I also filled a 256 meg card. My urgent need to document knows no bounds. Since I had Ann's old bike, it had the old style seat apparently made of granite. After an hour and a half on it on Saturday, I had a butt-ache. And I made no secret of it. So before we stepped off on Sunday, Beff asked me, "How's your butt?" This time I had a generic comebacker: "If I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me THAT...."

FIRE IN THE SKY A true highlight of the weekend was the actual Fourth of July fireworks in downtown Burlington, and we actually managed to get an excellent viewing point. I had never had such an unobstructed view of fireworks before, and these went on and on and on and on.... Like the chamber music of Dvorak, there were a lot of short volleys that fizzled, several volleys that promised the climax and didn't deliver, and FINALLY -- when some people were actually starting to leave -- was the climax. I took lots of pictures and even some movies -- hence filling up the 256 meg card. We drove back during the day on Monday after the kid's division of the tennis tournament was over, ate at Applebee's in Keene, and, well, there you have it. I checked my phone messages while driving through Randolph, Vermont, and there was a message from David Russell wondering how to get a part for Hyperblue. I made several calls saying essentially that it's hand copied and only the publisher has those. And then he left a message saying all was well. Awww.

COPYING A PLEA The copy machine made by Sharp and purchased at Staples about which I reported last week was defective. After we got back, I had to make some copies of a score so I could send it back to Michael Lipsey. And every copy was very light on the top fourth or third or so. Surprisingly, on the fourth of July, someone was at Sharp technical support, and after a bunch of experiments that only he knew about (press copy/tint/copy/tint, enter 13, press copy, for instance) he determined it was just a faulty printer. So I called Staples to see if they had any more for an exchange, and they directed me to the Natick store. Where I went this morning to make the exchange, and YES! the new one works fine. Or at least it seems to. While in that area, I got more cat litter, cheese, mocha drinks, and stuff at BJs, some CryBaby tears from a vending machine at Best Buy, and the new Get Fuzzy and Fox Trot collections. Anyway, I am pleased to report that both Sharp and Staples passed the test with flying colors (what would "frying" colors be? brown and white?).

THE SHAW'S SHOP REDEMPTION Persistence and lots of purchase of impulse items or items intended for far in the future paid off today. Over the month of June we spent $500 at Shaws, in various increments of $25, and were entitled to 20 percent off one shopping trip between the 1st and 10th of July. So we got $220 in groceries -- including all the Original flavor Inko's ice tea they had -- and got $44 off. I shudder to think what our hourly wage for all that shopping thus works out to.

THE GRILL OF A LIFETIME We finally opened the portable Sunbeam grill that Ann got us as a present in order to assemble it and bring it to the Adirondacks next week (where we will be wid' Hayes and Susan, proud owners of a new Red Pearl Corolla), and after doing a bunch of assembling, realized four very major pieces were missing. I called the tech support number and reported same, and they sent out the missing pieces -- I hope they are the right noes -- which arrived while we were away. After this is posted, we try to see if we can finish the assembly. I am skeptical, since last year I got a Sunbeam air conditioner whose temperature knob was broken when I opened it, and the replacement knob sent was the wrong size. Actually -- Sunbeam has not had a good track record here.

WATERSHIP DOWNLOAD After lingering on MTV2 while it played the old video for Steve Winwood's "Valerie" from the 80s, I kind of realized that the chorus had a structure I could use to teach; and I looked for the song at Strawberries in Acton, which had no Steve Winwood CDs at all -- and this dude doesn't appear on any of the 80s compilations, either. So I actually created an iTunes account and downloaded it. Yes, I entered the downloading era with not only a splash but a belly-flop. iTunes is enabling the next stage of my midlife crisis, since I then went back to it and downloaded more stuff -- after which I listened to it on the hammock. Other tunes downloaded include Our House, Owner of a Lonely Heart, You're Still The One, a Bruce Hornsby tune, and Sinister Minister by Bela Fleck. After the two of us happened by the new Gwen Stefani video for Hollaback Girl, Beff couldn't get the tune out of her head ("tune" here is kind of relative) -- we even heard it on the radio as we traversed the most rural portion of Vermont. Upon our return, I downloaded it -- alas the version I got is sanitized. But I intend to use it in class in the fall, someway, somehow. 'Cause you always gotta use something current in order to live up to an e-mail address like "TheCoolOne". Boy, it's been a long time since using "Borderline" made me cool...

IT'S NOT HOW LONG IT IS, IT'S WHAT YOU DO WITH IT As implied last week, I have the mileage statistics for our customary bike rides, which will now be a yearly feature of this spot. And here it goes:
West Concord – 10.5 miles
West Concord back way via Gropius – 10 miles
West Acton with cutoff – 9 miles
West Acton without cutoff – 9.75 miles
Boon Lake circle – 10.3 miles
Boon Lake doubling back – 9.8 miles
Boon Lake via 27 – 11.1 miles
Boon Lake roundabout on 62 – 12.6 miles
West Acton via Minuteman Airport – 11.5 miles
Nature viewing area -- 11 miles
Arboretum via back way – 12.6 miles
Baby ride by Shaws – 5.6 miles
We haven't done the Arboretum ride in some while because we both hate all the traffic on Route 27 between K-Mart and the arboretum. But some day....

THE WAR OF BLOG Lou Bunk -- a Brandeis ABD -- is now one of the composer bloggers on the Sequenza 21 web page, and he is doing his best to be wacky. It's actually refreshing to read, instead of "Carter IS TOO one of the great living composers, you nimrod!", things like "Chocolate. Mmmm." In his initial post, Lou said he'd told Derek Hurst of his upcoming blog, and he reported Derek's response imprecisely. Lou left open the question "why do we blog?" to which many responded, including Derek appearing to clear his name by pointing out how severely unnuanced was Lou's report. It was very entertaining, and I kept wondering if everyone participating was trying to win something. For I do not know how these things actually work.

THE FUTURE'S SO BRIGHT I GOTTA WAREBROOK. Upcoming events include dinner in Brookline with the Ceelys tonight (always an entertaining proposition -- as Bob Ceely makes me look shy and reserved), a trip to the Warebrook Festival in northern Vermont over the weekend (where a big swath of the history of Brandeis will also be), and several days in the Adirondacks next week with Hayes and Susan. We will be on Adirondack Lake. What an original name.

CONCERTO DE CAMERA So we have two QuickTime movies this week, with links to the left of this text block: Sunny cat scratcher shows Sunny a little high on catnip, and Malletts Bay Causeway shows a little bit of the bike ride along the bike path north of Burlington. Remember how much my butt was hurting at the time, and you will be ever glad. We have eight pictures below. Lazing kitties followed by one of the fireworks from Sunday night in Burlington. Then we have Friday's and then Saturday's sunset from the lake near the camp. We follow that with the parade we saw (it was over in a few minutes), and Beff at WATERBURY WINGS. Finally, Angel Falls on Route 100 and me at WATERBURY WINGS (I knew the camera was pointed at me).

JULY 10. Breakfast this morning was coffee in Coventry, Vermont, at Greg Djanikian's summer home. Dinner last night was pepperoni pizza and UFO on tap, followed four and a half hours later by salad with Italian dressing. Lunch was two cheeseburges with fried onions at Warner's Snack Bar in St. Albans, Vermont. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 53.6 and 87.6. LARGE EXPENSES this last week include lots of Inkos teas and other various foods, about fifty bucks, and every time I filled my gas tank. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Hollaback Girl," Gwen Stefani. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: when I was about 8 and the family was camping, I was trout fishing with my father near Island Pond, Vermont. Three times he hooked a big fish, and then handed me the pole nonchalantly, saying, "I'm not having any luck. You try it." And of course I immediately pulled in a fish. For many years I thought I had done the good fishing that day. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: Does the melody still linger on? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: olive antipasto (still), jalapeno-stuffed olives, fried onions, small tomatoes. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK are none. SOME BIRDS NOTED THIS WEEK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE: pileated woodpeckers in Vermont, white throated sparrow, Eastern wood peewee. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE an early version of Wordstar software, three junk bonds, a piece of toilet paper recently unstuck from someone's heel, the number "5".

I have just driven back from the Warebrook Music Festival in northern Vermont, where my Hyperblue was performed, where I made a side trip to Warner's (where I worked in high school), and where it was Brandeis Old Home Week. I have just now finished mowing the way back lawn, wearing a black t-shirt while it's 89 degrees out, and Beff and I visit Hayes and Susan on Adirondack Lake in the vicinity of the village of Indian Lake in upstate New York starting tomorrow. There is no time for a proper update today, but I will be back in another week for a full two-week report.

Meanwhile, be sated with two pictures I took at Warebrook: Jay Eckardt and Marilyn Nonken, and me with Greg Djanikian (a poet who teaches at Penn whom I have overlapped with at Yaddo all four of my times there). THERE ARE ALSO LITTLE MOVIES this week, including a brief view of Franconia Notch in New Hampshire as I drove through it, a car accident I passed on Route 93, and Marilyn Nonken nevously posing for a picture, not knowing I was just making a movie (see titles in yellow text on left, below).

JULY 16. Breakfast this morning was Boca meatless breakfast sausages, lemonade, orange juice, and coffee. Dinner was chicken kebabs and appetizers, etc. at Bombay Club in Harvard Square. Lunch was olive antipasto. TEMPERATURE EXTREMES THIS LAST WEEK 61.2 and 90.0 (in Maynard). LARGE EXPENSES this last week are some books at the Harvard Coop, $80 or so; bug masks, $16; chart of mushroom species, $6; dinner at the Bombay Club $75 for two; drinks afterwards $20 for two; West Wing seasons 1 and 4, $90. MUSIC GOING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I TYPE THIS "Do It To Me One More Time", which I presume was The Captain and Tenille. POINTLESS NOSTALGIC REMINISCENCE: in graduate school, Jody Rockmaker and I made up a song making fun of Walter Piston's Harmony textbook (not yet updated by Mark DeVoto) by changing the words of Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week." And it kinda went like this: "Oh the 3 chord/Goes to the 6 chord/And the 6 chord/goes to the 4 chord/And the 4 chord goes to the 5 chord/And it all goes back to 1/We're doin'/Piston's Harmony/Piston's Harmony/It only takes a chord or 2 to find another key, so/Come on and modulate/Don't you think that it's just great/Anyone can do it/Any time." COMPANIES WHO HAVE NOT COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY RECENTLY include Staples, Cuisinart, asiafoods.com, Earthlink, Sharp Electronics. COMPANIES WHO HAVE COVERED THEMSELVES IN GLORY AND THEN SOME this week include Inko's White Tea. THIS WEEK'S COSMIC QUANDARY: What do salamanders do in the forest? RECENT GASTRONOMIC OBSESSIONS: olive antipasto (still), marinated shish kebabs, hamburger dill pickles, and, as always, Inko's White Tea. DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK Various stuff deep within the Adirondacks. MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN THIS WEEK: $30 for a Cuisinart citrus juicer. FRAGILE THINGS DESTROYED BY THE CATS THIS LAST WEEK are none. SOME BIRDS NOTED THIS WEEK FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A WHILE: include a pair of common loons, ducks, a seagull, and hawks. INANIMATE OBJECTS THAT WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE CURRENT ONE a blank CD-R, a raging case of adolescent acne, two pieces of moldy bread, a sewer grate.

This is an update covering nearly two weeks of events, so be patient with me, almost twelve. As y'all know, I went to the Warebrook Music Festival last weekend because HYPERBLUE was performed on the third of the four concerts. From Monday to Friday Beff and I were visiting Hayes 'n' Susan at their summer cottage rental on Adirondack Lake in the town of Indian Lake, New York. And besides all of that, there was even a meeting at Brandeis to report in this last twelve-day period. So let's get down to brass tacks (or with them).

After the return from Vermont, there were lawns to mow, cats to feed, laundry to do, etc., and do that we did. On Wednesday I sat in on a meeting with the Dean, a member of the creative writing department, and, by phone, the Chairs of Fine Arts and of Theater. The subject was something to do with contract faculty (non-tenure track), and it was that rare meeting where something actually got done. Later, I encountered our new Chair, and met with her 45 minutes to go over more stuff about being Chair, and other various and extremely tedious Brandeis details that somebody has to think about and I'm glad it is no longer I who has to think about them.

Meanwhile, Beff and I went our separate ways a week ago Friday. Beff went to Bangor in order to start moving back into our house there and to meet with some faculty and students. I went to Newport, Vermont in order to go to 3 of the 4 concerts of the Warebrook Music Festival. I took the only route I knew: up 93 through New Hampshire to 89 to 91 in Vermont. I stayed in a hotel on Route 5 to the east of Newport with "Pearl" in the name (I'm terrible with names, as some of you almost 12 may have found out), which was also where Yehudi Wyner, Susan Davenny Wyner, Marty Boykan, Susan Schwalb, and Allen Anderson were staying. And, lo and behold, there we all were at dinner on Friday night at the hotel. Dinner was delicious, but I had to leave a little early. David Cleary was also in town for the festival, was staying at the Super 8, had no car, and found me in my hotel room to ask for a ride to the first event.

So we rode together to the first concert, in the town hall of Irasburg, Vermont. It was a typical meetin' hall type building, with a stage and fairly large room on the second level, and a large room attached to kitchen-type stuff on street level -- this is where the reception was held. There was an upright piano available for the concert -- one on which you could actually hear each note going out of tune as it was played -- and it did wonders for, for instance, Curtis Hughes's piece "Avoidance Tactics No. 1". As far as I could tell, the performance of that piece was pretty good, even though the lack of harmonic change in the second half of the piece kind of annoyed me. All in all, of the three concerts I attended this was the least interesting musically, though the performances were obviously very good. There was an existing string quartet who played a piece of unmitigated vomitous crap by a local composer that was notable because the cellist looked a lot like my brother. I imagined what it would be like if he also talked like my brother and had the same vomitous crap taste in music, but I didn't get a chance to test my theory. For you see, he was very good.

As anyone from Brandeis knows, Sara Doncaster runs the Warebrook Festival, which is a buttload of work all year round, and she came up to me about fourteen times per minute to ask, "are you enjoying it so far?" After a while I wanted to change my answer just for the sake of variety -- or say something that was a non sequitur (like "why not ask a moose?") but I knew that would precipitate further discussion. So I said yes every time. Most certainly the music was very well-performed.

On Saturday the remnants of tropical storm what's-her-name passed through New England quite slowly, so downpours were the rule in the morning. And this is the time I had pre-chosen to visit my hometown of St. Albans -- only about 55 miles to the west of Newport, but on twisty roads that go through at least two mountain passes, so the drive time was an hour and 25 minutes each way. First I visited Greenwood Cemetary for the first time in about 20 years, where I got some pictures of my parents' gravestones -- in the pouring rain. This was followed by a trip downtown, where I got a portable blacklight (I can actually use it to verify that new $20 bills are genuine!) and four more prisms for the kitchen window. Then to the local supermarket to see if any new gastronomic obsessions were pending, and I did get a few things to try out (including a jar of jalapeno-stuffed olives for Justin Rust). Then I had lunch at Warner's Snack Bar, where I had worked in the summer of 1976. Of course the proprietors, Paul and Jackie are still doin' it (running the snack bar, that is), and they gave me another free t-shirt. Then I drove back in yet more driving rain (so to speak).