10.27.16

Up 8. Weight 214.4

Out at 10. Finished Gates [at a near-skim, some later parts of the book aren't too directly relevant to what I'm doing] on the train and at coffee. Oracle 12-4, mostly cleaned up the graf on "Swanee." Answered some emails; offered to play piano for a few other singers at David H's book party in Dec. Listened to the rest of Fallen Angels on the train home - with another delay, just suddenly going express past my stop so I had to double back from Junction Blvd. Rested, read intro to Jack Hamilton, Just About Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination (which I'm worried scoops me on some points about, e.g. the relationship between "Blowin' in the Wind" and "A Change Is Gonna Come"), and started Percival Everett, Wounded (in his less taxing contemporary Western mode). Made a stack of my intended reading for Nov., went to the gym (for the first time in months!) around 7:30, as much to exert some willpower as anything. 25 min. elliptical, finished the last section of Gilbert, also had on some Wire. Stopped at e77 on the way back, daybook, more of the Everett. Left before some music started - curious, but didn't want to get up in the middle. Read this group of Ashbery poem from upcoming collection.

10.26.16

Up 8. Weight 214.4

Not an effective day. Some email exchanges 10-noon, noon-5 almost entirely wasted. Cleaned  up my desktop, listened to most of side 1 of Game Theory, Two Steps in the Middle Ages (starting to think about liner notes), left 5:45. Read about 1/2 of the remainder of Gates, on Hurston and Ishmael Reed. Triple Canopy event/performance at their new space on Canal. Dan Fox talked back to Gilbert and George (briefly mentioning Linton Kwesi Johnson), Okkyung Lee played horrific cello to clips from Eyes Without a Face (dir. Georges Franju, 1962), The Face of Another (dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara, from a novel by Kobo Abe, 1967), and El Espejo de la Bruja (dir. Chano Urueta, 1962). Hung out for a while afterwards w/ Dan, Andrew Hultkrans, and C. Spencer Yeh, who organized - oddly, he had been a Shrimper fan in Cincinnati. Left too late to go to Strand as I'd planned. Left around 10, ridiculous train delays, esp. once in Queens. Wrote in daybook, read liner notes to Spike, an Ike Turner collection, and that Jazz Arrangers comp., about 10 p. of Gilbert, and an article my godfather sent me on Sicilians in New Orleans jazz. Listened more closely to some tracks from the arranger's comp. (liner notes actually useful in picking out some things, notable that there are tons of augmented chords in Chappie Willett's "Uptown Rhapsody" and Fletcher Henderson's "Queer Notions"), about 1/2 of Dylan's Fallen Angels (it may be better sung than Shadows of the Night), that Sneaks record, and Stravinksy's wind octet. Walked into apt. after 12:30.

10.25.16

Up 6:30. Weight 214.2

Dl'ed absentee voting form, Bernadette Mayer,'s Utopia. Looked at some card stock I have around for Work From Home cover; possible, but involves a fairly complicated printing/scoring job. Out by 9, read 25 p. Gates [I am in the middle of too many books, will limit to 1 prose/1 poetry as much as possible for a while]. A stranger decided to adjust my shirt collar. Daybook. Oracle from 11, had to work on a range of non-book tasks - long email to John Shaw, gathered album demos for Peter (still should do quick phone recordings of 2-3), located some charts to send to Pete. Left at 1:45, met Bree at Film Forum for Vitaphone shorts, entertaining as always, and Show Girl (Alfred Santell 1928), a long-lost Alice White late silent, not shown in the U.S. since its release. 2 decent, if generic, songs. Got my voting form printed in between. Ran into Will Friedwald, Russell Scholl, and Imogene the mysterious Buster Keaton scholar, waiting for the next showing, on the way out. Walked to Gaia, some ways down Houston, to Jean & David's birthday dinner: Brandon + Devon, Jenny, a fair number of people I didn't know. Bree left early b/c she has something tomorrow; I read he middle half or so of the Gilbert book. Listened (on various train rides) to disc 5 of the Lester Young set and v/a The Jazz Arranger vol. 1, until my phone died during Jimmie Lunceford's "Taint What You Do." Lights out 12:30.

10.24.16

Up 6:30. Weight 214.1

Went to coffee early, caught up in daybook, read Keynes. Needed more sleep. Up again at 9:30, listened to a couple of Shostakovich fugues, read about scansion. Decided to go out at the same time with Bree, played through 2-3 tunes from my Monk fakebook while waiting. I grasp the tunes and basic harmonic motion, but don't know how he voices many extended chords (#11 and such). Picked up Vic Hobeson, Creating Jazz Counterpoint from interlibrary loan. Parted at the train, looked into Hobson on the way into the city, immediately learned something relevant (about "barbershop chords") to my discussion of "Stairway to Paradise." At Mid-Manhattan library, mainly to get a Gershwin bio but also checked out a 2012 issue of VQR w/ some interesting-looking poetry, and Percival Everett, Wounded. Wrote about "The Man I Love" for an hr. or so. Headed to MoMa early to renew membership (actually, it turned out it had already put it on autopay) and met Bree for Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox, 1956). Though I have visual associations w/ the film (Anne Francis, Robby), I had somehow remained innocent of the plot, which is tripper and less "adventure"-like than I expected. Have to love Bebe and Louis Barron's bloop-bleep score, which comes straight out of high-avant electronic experimentation. Took a quick exploratory look around the branch library that has re-opened across 53rd St., had dinner w/ Bree in LIC, showed her around Oracle Club (the writer's room I belong to) nearby, which she's had no occasional to visit in the 8 mos. I've been going there. Stayed behind, wrote another 90 min., trying to get to the other side of Gerswhin via "It Ain't Necessarily So." Knocked off at 10. Listened to some Lester Young, inc. a nice version of "Somebody Loves Me." Read the 1st section of Alan Gilbert, The Treatment of Monuments. Discontents of the contemporary, fragmented above the level of the sentence; palatable. Lights out by 12:30.

10.23.16

Up 8. Wt. 204.

Some sort of reduced train service, couldn't get to LIC easily, so worked in Lucid Cafe, Woodside, about 11-3:30. Continuing to draft on 1920s Gershwin, have 3300 words in the file since Mon., but it needs a lot of work. Read Gates on the way back. Took a nap, spent about 90 min. on organizing regimen. Headed out to Joe's Pub for Laura's show. Finished reading Kizer on the way - the translations from Tu Fu are really fantastic, would quote but the book isn't ready to hand. Listened to a bit of Wire, 154. Show: The solo opener had some chops, but was cloying between songs. Laura's set quite good, w/ Mark Spencer/Jeremy Chatsky/Jimmy Ryan/Steve Goulding - chagrined to say it was overall better than most times I've been in the band! Guest spots by a ppl involved w/ "Not the Tremblin' Kind" - Jay Sherman-Godfrey and George Usher, writer of the title song, whom I've never laid eyes on. Chatted after w/ Jay and his daughter Lily about the 21 Pilots show he'd taken her too, got a ride home to Queens w/ them and Laura. Read a few p. of the scansion book. Lights out 12:30. No daybook.