Up in the middle of the night for a while, to no effect – though I did write to Dan Clucas about the possibility of a show in Pasadena in January. Up for good around 9, got out before 11 – realized I’d forgot the C.L.R. James book, but it didn’t matter b/c I ran into Ken L. and we chatted on the train. Which wasn’t running local, so it took a while to get to LIC. Spent 1:30-6 at Communitea. Watched a 10 min. intro video on Scrivener (which I’m using, but in an ad hoc way), and imported the first 3 sections of the intro therein, polishing a bit. They’re pretty good, but need more fns. Started to get back into the next section, in a limited way – feeling resistance. Read a bit of Ann Lauterbach (no relation to Ken, I’ve asked) somewhere in here. Called my dad when I left. Took train to Chelsea for Peter Kotik’s S.E.M Ensemble concert at Paula Cooper Gallery. Good program note here. The Cage was an hour of overlapping solos, w/ performers scattered through, moving around, and sometimes leaving the gallery space – as I told Bree later, if you didn’t know it was an avant-garde performance, you’d think you were in the dayroom in Marat/Sade. Kotik’s own piece was a somewhat monotonous setting from the early ‘70s of Stein’s “Composition as Explanation” (the same essay David Greenspan did as a memorized monologue a couple years ago) – a bit like plainsong, with a fairly attractive, even consonant flute and/or trombone obbligato. Julius Eastman’s Macle involved Kotik and three other singers vocalizing (screaming, mumbling, with some passages of discernible text) in rough unison, with a big finish of the three younger members rushing around the gallery yelling “Take heart, take heart…” while Kotik, in his sixties, collapsing on a yoga mat and quietly reciting some final text. I should study up on Eastman. Saw Steve Silverstein; he pointed out Phil Niblock. Home; cold. Listened to an episode of a reasonably well-regarded “intellectual” podcast, which I won’t name – was genuinely surprised by how shallow and smug it was, on both sides of the conversation. Already past midnight when I got back, didn’t have the fortitude to read. Bree still up, related her travails at the annual building meeting (she lost a vote about our door numbers). Lights out 12:30.
[Colin Newman, “Alone on Piano” to Ray Stevens, “Along Came Jones”]