11.15.16

Up at 8:30. Weight 213.3.

Left at 10, had coffee at the new flower/gift shop in the neighborhood for a change. Read another 25 p. or so of Ashbery. "Of course you handed it so well/a rough day/getting on the phone/bee sculptures/fiber building/car surgery//wedding of the painted doll--" ("Land Mass"). "They seemed so beautiful together,/my ward and homeland security./If these are omens let us pray to pend them./Otherwise it's back to the American Revolution, and you know/what that was like. […] ("Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall") Kept at Gerswhin reader. His self-authored articles (to what extent??) are often self-serving and his notion of "jazz" is barely recognizable. Train to Oracle was unattractive in heavy rain, so just went on to E77 for another coffee, spoke briefly to my neighbor Holly, started reconstructing my Sissle/Black graf, then conversed with Ken L. about music theory for quite a while. Came back to the house about 2:30, read to my goal in Gershwin (re-read, really: long excerpts from a book on Grant Willard Still I've looked at, and Richard Crawford's "I Got Rhythm" article - which chooses not to mention the Still issue at all). 

I feel like I shouldn't be on facebook at all, at least re politics. "Social media is designed to cultivate and facilitate the projection of ego while simultaneously maintaining the delusion of audience."

Slow afternoon: I can't now remember anything worth recording. Finally went out again at 6:30 and spent 2 hrs on email and task management. At home, read a few pages each of Wendell V. Harris, Interpretive Acts In Search of Meaning (Clarendon 1986) and Hartman's Verse. Tired all day; bed before 10 pm, w/ Shostakovich Q3. 

11.14.16

Up at 7. Weight 213.4 (a little surprising, as I ate 2 donuts yesterday).

Left around 9, spend some time at E77. Read a long 1967 interview w/ Saul Alinsky. Talked election w/ my across-the-street neighbor Kristin, and also floated the idea of getting some help w/ the Work From Home cassette cover. Ran into Jenny U. (neighbor/SUNY Purchase colleague) on the way to the train, had a similar political discussion. At Oracle between noon-1, dithered quite a bit, to be honest. Getting back to writing about Tin Pan Alley is not easy right now. Read a little farther into the Gershwin reader, fooled around with a piano idea (tent. "Sad and Afraid"). Physically forced myself to work on Gershwin, beginning at 3:30 - but realized that I had somehow deleted my working draft of that section! I don't think it's impossible to reconstruct the content (the prose wasn't magical), and I sometimes end up with a tighter version in such situations, but it's still some lost time. Running a recovery scan anyway; started a new draft in the meantime, with a whopping 238 word graf (that turns out to be an ok spot to mention "Barney Google"). This is still more than I've written in the 2 days since returning. Oracle closed a bit early for an event; home before 9. Finished quota of Gershwin, talked w/ Bree before bed; daybook. Lights out 1 am.

The woman attacked in this incident is a friend of mine - a poet.

11.13.16

Up at 8. Weight 213.6.

Left house around 10, spent most of the day at Oracle. Read miscellaneously, cleared all my email (which involved various other tasks) and made a few other steps forward, mainly writing to the studio about another session in spring and putting some money in my PayPal (Trump-dirty, or not?) to send to the band, wrote to Cake Shop about a December show. Started Ashbery's new Commotion of the Birds, re-read the great title poem and another 10 or so in his "late style" - casual mastery of disjunction and odd vocabulary. Casually looked for j-card templates. "Tomalley" (the edible paste, not quite meat, inside lobsters and crabs); "nainsook" (a type of light muslin). Once home, started in on The Gershwin Reader, ed. Robert Wyatt and John Andrew Johnson.

Elvis Costello, Nov. 7 performance of "Night Rally."

11.12.16

11.12.16

Up at 7. Weight 213.7 Went to a church sale on the UES w/ Bree at 9: 2 pr pants, 1 sweater, CD of Ella & Louis singing Gershwin, Copy of v. 1 of the standard edition of Rememberance of Things Past to replace a beat-up one, 1976 pb ed. of Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell To Earth, with Bowie on the cover. Bree bought a shirt and a nice old lamp w/ a relief pattern of crickets on it. We spent $11 in all. She went hope, I stayed in the neighborhood w/ the intent of walking to the Met. But I ended up finding some coffee and then sitting in Shakespeare & Co. Caught up in daybook, w/ the help of a volume on Naval Phraseology for a found poem. Read a chunk of GG, and the remainder of Brett Milano's Scott Miller book (started yesterday, efficient rock-bio read). Listened, in fact, to 2 Steps from the Middle Ages on the way home - it had been a while - and much of Real Nighttime, which I had heard more recently; since Scott's death. I went to E77 for a while later and heard a singer-songwriter, going by "Violet" who had not an ounce of originality but a good 2nd guitarist. Fooled around with some more political writing, couldn't make myself clear email, lights out about midnight.

11.11.16

Up at 7. Weight 213.8 - steady, even a hair down from the start of the trip. Relieved about that.

I'm going to need a couple days to get back to routine. Went to coffee, wrote a long facebook post about the time I met Leonard Cohen. Came home, finished Arlo's book; I admired it, especially the 3rd section, but don't have any cogent comment. Read a chunk of Gone Girl. Talked to Bree when she came home, picked up a few groceries, went to E77 around 7 and wrote a long political post for a listserv. Not very insightful, but it helped me process. That, frankly, was my "work" for the day.

This happened the day before the election.