11.17.16

Up at 8:30 am. Weight 213.1.

A fairly dead day, until mid-afternoon: email, practical tasks, put something in the mail, wrote an email to (I think) the Mekons' publisher re a mechanical license for the "Last Dance" cover. Attempted to call Sen. Gillibrand's office to protest the Steve Bannon appointment, but rec'd busy signals or full mailboxes at 3 numbers. This, by the standards of my political activism, is guerrilla warfare.

Left at 3. Met Bree at MoMa for two restored (not Restoration) comedies: The Brat (John Ford, 1931), w/ Sally O'Neil putting on the thickest East Side accent ("voigin") this side of the Dead End Kids, and Bachelor's Affair (Alfred L. Werker, 1932), in which Adolphe Menjou entangles and then disentangles himself from a Harlowesque gold-digger (Joan Marsh), w/ the latter taking fuller advantage of pre-Code license. Earlier than I would expected for references to the rumba craze (complete w/ louche dance teacher). Some good lines: "There's a man here with a mustache"/"Tell him I already have a mustache." "Every man has his price, and every woman has her figure." Had dinner together, then went to see Bree's friend Edgar Oliver's modest one-man show, Attorney Street, at Axis Theater. Hard to capture what this was about briefly, but a comment about hoping someday to write something that would making him deserving of a friend struck home. 

Got through some of the Gerswhin book over the course of the day, and resumed Susie Timmons' Superior Packets before bed, but that's about it. No prose, skipped daybook (though doubled up yesterday). Lights out 11:30.

11.16.16

Up at 5:30 am. Weight 213.1.

Paid/reimbursed the band via PayPal as promised. Got coffee and started some notes that turned into a graf on Gershwin's "classical" background, 7 to 8. Or so. Napped when I got back. Exercised 10 min. (1st since NC, b/c I'd made myself put it on yesterday's to-do list). Left again before noon, found a notary (2nd floor law office, just walked in) to deal w/ something I have to return to my dad, had lunch, got to Oracle around 1:30. Worked off an on until 7 - finished the graf on Blake/Sissle/Shuffle Along and a reasonably cogent 427 words on Berlin, "Everybody Step." (Longer than what I lost, but probably better.) Found a pdf of "Lady Of the Evening" to download for tomorrow. Talked to David, the novelist who's always there for a while - he's worried about writers critical of Trump being jailed as enemy combatants or seditious.

Left before 8, went to the Park Church Co-op in Greenpoint (border of Wmbrg, really) to hear Rose and Bob Bannister at a benefit for a sexual abuse charity (+ to give them their copies of the Iowa 4-track comp.) Running way behind; read my quota of the G. reader and they still hadn't started; left for a slice down the block, eavesdropped on a long conversation between the staff and a regular who wanted a deal on dozens of canoli for his construction crew. Came back, had missed on act, saw Public Speaking - one guy on electronic loop + two violinists, plus back projections. Came off gothy in the space. Wrote 2 1-p. poems in my daybook during their set, chatted w/ Rick Brown in between - turns out Easter and Stamey had recorded some Information material years ago. Rose and Bob were as good as I've seen them, though her gtr was undermic'd; she read some written-out intros the songs about her relationship to "religiously motivated misogyny" and the p.o.v. of murder ballads. Covered Leonard Cohen's "The Story of Isaac" (very effectively); recalled that John and I had played it in a Pitzer auditorium something like 25 years ago. Didn't stay for the last act.

Listened to Shostakovich's last quartet on the walk to the train, finished Ashbery on the ride. Home midnight, lights out 1.

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."