Up at 7, dithered. Figured out that Jenny had the date of the Beauty Pill/Arto Lindsay show wrong, emailed her to that effect; might meet her for something else tomorrow. Left at 10, put on read Margo Jefferson (compelling) at E77, put on Maiden Voyage and caught the bus to Langston Hughes Library around noon, since there was no need to go into Manhattan. Unfortunately, hadn’t checked the hrs., so I cooled my heels nearby w/ another coffee an typed up longhand notes from Sunday ‘til it opened at 1. Worked off and on until 6, tried to power through the conclusion of this section, so now there’s a draft of 1200 words where there should be 5-600 (if not less), and then went back to start clearning up. Got bogged down in detail by sentence 3, the previous 2 amounting to 67 words. Sigh. Distracted here and there by trying to figure out if I can get into a talk tomorrow, a Twitter exchange w/ Ted Reichman about “schmaltz,” and pacing/browsing in the small (but excellent given my interests) circulating collection. Any number of books I’m guilty about not having read, including Kevin Young’s Grey Album (because I know I want to take issue w/ what he says about “covering”) and Andrew Epstein’s on the New York School; also came across something (should get the title) w/ an interesting-looking account of Astaire’s “Slap That Bass” number. Ripped some CDs to my computer – a John Zorn/George Lewis/Bill Frisell trio date (News for Lulu), R.E.M.’s Accelerate just b/c it was there, and a cumbia comp. Checked out the recent Otis Redding bio, and walked home – 2 blocks from the library, 2 middle-aged guys shooting the breeze in front of a church saw it and we talked about Stax for a few minutes. One asked if I was a musician, and told me about his piano- and chess-playing 14-yr old w/ Asperger’s. The other had a Bible, and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but no, we just discussed Booker T. and the MGs.
Got home before 7, zoned out for a while, put on WKCR’s Monk centennial marathon, half-listened while reading ch. 2 of Levine – makes a pretty basic point that it’s difficult to do any critical or emancipatory work – in other words, to think – w/o reference to some “formal”/conceptual wholes, but it’s less impressive than the intro, and it’s depressing that that argument needs to be made at all. Then concentrated a little more on the music – most of a Jazz Workshop set, 1964, and the Straight, No Chaser LP. Daybook. Lights out ‘round about midnight.