Up early, didn't check time, but fell asleep again on the family room couch. Watched a bit of The Great Ziegfeld, read another 50 p. of Scoundrel Time:
"I can't remember when [Harry Cohn] died, but there was a nice story at the time, attributed to George Jessel. Jessel and a friend were standing outside the funeral parlor. The line of mourners was very long. The friend said, "I never saw such a mob at a funeral." Jessel said, "Same old story; you give 'em what they want and they'll fill the theater."
More to the point:
"There was nothing strange about my problem, it is native to our time; but it is painful for a nature that can no longer accept liberalism not to be able to accept radicalism. One sits uncomfortably on a too comfortable cushion. Many of us now endlessly jul from one side to another and endlessly fall in space."
Went out to Coffee Klatch, learned via facebook that I missed a Slow Children gig at Hi-Fi! Took some good notes on the (very clear and worthwhile) "Song" chapter in Charles O. Hartman, Verse: An Introduction, which I had put aside for a while. Came home, read the (also useful) notes to the salsa comp. Bree official has a cold, so I drove out to Pasadena myself and finished Scoundrel Time over lunch at the Hat. I hadn't made the connection that Blitzstein turned The Little Foxes into his opera Regina partly as a result of their left associations. Did our X-mas shopping; picked up a few things for myself at Battery and Canterbury as well, but I'm not in the mood to list them -- though I finally broke down and bought the Hamilton OCR. Driving both ways, listened to some Glauznova ballet music, which I preferred to the Sibelius on the same disc (Soviet recordings from '62, apparently), and Schubert, die schöne Mullerin (v. Mark Padmore/p. Paul Lewis), closer to strophic forms than Winterreise. Home for dinner w/ parents, watched some of the first Thin Man movie, tried to nap. Read the rest of the Hartman chapter + a chunk of Cohen. 3 p. in daybook.
Loaded in at the Press (in the rain, which I hate), hung out (Brain Macpherson came out, plus more expected Claremont crowd). Started at 10. Good show, w/ the characteristic Spgt looseness/chaos; I played better than I did this summer (though I felt myself flailing w/ the rhythm part on "Janitor"). As I was told last night there were to be "costumes," I wore a fringey/sequined singing-cowboy shirt w/ pearl snaps that I bought in, I think, St. Louis on tour w/ Jenny in 2001. I was spared the indignity of a Peter Criss mask. Downside: the ceiling was leaking all night, and water crept down the wall and toward my amp through the evening; the staff sandbagged me into my corner of the stage w/ towels and (correctly) shut down the second set after "Head Through Iowa." I don't know what the actual degree of physical risk was, but it all felt pretty sketchy, and I wish there were somewhere else to play in town; I don't need to burnish my rock credentials through electrocution. Also soaked loading out. Home 12:30, sat up a while.