Up 8:45.
Took out some recycling for Bree.
Jumping back into routine: E77, drafted 500 words on bridges in black music.
Home at noon, read some poems from the Man'yōshū (pre-8th c.) collection in Keene, and the last chapter of Tracy Thorn, Naked at the Albert Hall (which I’d left in a restaurant just before me trip, and which Bree retrieved while I was gone).
Partially unpacked while listening the Photos s/t. Classic skinny-tie sound, turns out to have been mostly produced by Roger Bechirian. Uneven songwriting, and the drummer is limited, but worth it for, at least, “Look at the Band” and the strings on “Now You Tell Me That We’re Through.” Internet tells me they were less obscure in the UK - there was one other album and a few singles, might be able to track down Cherry Red reissues.
Paid a Queens Library fine on books that came due while I was away; have to do the same for NYPL (and take in outstanding items in). Those pretty much even up w/ the surprise checks I got for jury duty and NY state tax refund.
Read a bit more of Palmer - will save last series for tomorrow.
Started practicing “Route 66” for States of Country in a week. F seems like the best compromise key between my modest vocal and pianistic capacities. Don’t know the lyrics cold yet.
Left around 5 w/ the intent of going to Scrabble at Jean and David’s; looked for Jean’s email to RSVP before I got on the train, found a more recent one cancelling for this month. Detoured back to E77, took notes (quotes and references, mainly from the introduction) on Anthea Kraut, Choreographing Copyright, so I can take it back to the library tomorrow. Ran into Macgregor on the way back - could have gone w/ him to hear Anne Boyer and Gail Scott read at the Poetry Project (or, for that matter, to opening night of the Vision Festival). A quiet evening at home (Bree out w/ parents, who I’ll see tomorrow) is rare, though.
Groceries. Came home at 7, read about 25 p. of Said Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs. Already some contentious claims about the collective and oral character of black popular music in the introduction - though it is interesting that the rise of ragtime coincides w/ piano rolls.
Put on LP of Lutoslawski, String Quartet (1964). A lot of surface noise for a $10 piece of vinyl. Difficult, w/ suitably pretentious liner notes - though I did recognize the role of a punctuating octave figure without being told. Bree came in just as it ended.
Read the last of Palmer after all - a sequence called “Still” that he says in a preface he imagines w/ musical accompaniment (not clear whether that means set to music, but I could hear parts of it chorally).
A few pages of the Keene anthology; lights out before 11.