10.18.17

Up at 9. Worked at E77, about 10-2. Section is now at 2600. Owner sort of made overtures about contacting their booker to play there, after I mentioned that I played piano w/ Laura. I’m really pretty secretive about music in the neighborhood. Groceries, home, email (slightly forward motion on Viable art), listened to 2 songs from upcoming Destroyer record, and a couple I have to learn for Laura. Headed downtown at 5. Took the wrong headphones. Finished Moy. Kind of a shrug, maybe a couple of points I can make use of, and some references. Rehearsed at Rivington for the Figure 8 session w/ Matt and Brandon; had to buy a gtr strap. Decided to play gtr instead of piano on the basic track of both songs (“Any Road Home” + “Paradox”). Will have to listen/play through “Paradox” a bunch before Nov. 5-6. No show coming up, but played through “Not Just When We Kiss,” “Love-Starved,” “Cover Your Tracks” and “A Different City”; and, since the keyboard was set up in the room, a couple choruses of “Well You Needn’t.” Read in Prelude on the way home, finished it over a stout at E77. A slightly drunk guy noted I was reading poetry, told me he liked Bukowski, asked if I thought poetry was an acquired taste. My reply was, I guess, positive: “If I watched more golf, I’d like golf more.” Second to last writer in the magazine, Callie Garnett, begins a poem, “I have to admit it, I don’t like Woody/Guthrie that much, I just don’t.” (Some of it is set in Rhinecliff, on what I recognize as the Amtrak from Bard.) Strangely, a poem of Charity Coleman’s involves the child Joni Mitchell gave up for adoption at 19; Moy’s book touches on the song usually read as being about it, “Little Green.” Marked some non-famous poets (in the whole issue) I’d consider reading more of: Keegan Cook Finberg, Ed Luker, Stuart Calton, Cal Doyle, S. Brook Corfman, Cait Weiss (for a sonnet set in the Valley), Mark Yanich, Andrew Zawacki, Claire Wilcox, José Vadi, Teng Qian Xi. 11 out of about 100. Much of the rest either impenetrable, all to penetrable, or in one of a few [current] period styles. Alan Gilbert, by the way, may be the most depressing contemporary poet I know – and there’s some competition. Wrote daybook poem. An older man outside E77 quoted Paul Simon – “Ooh, what a night/what a garden of delight” at me. I couldn’t place it as “Duncan,” but I thanked him – and it was a nice night out. Home at 10. Lights out 11:30.

[John Adams, “Naïve and Sentimental Music” to “Addison’s Trip” (Sondheim, Road Show)]

10.17.18

Up at 8. Helped Bree move a few things in the garden, left before 10. Mailed a record to Victor Gastelum in CA, worked about 10-2:30 at E77. Cleaned up what I guess is the first ½ of this section – 1600 words. Lost steam at that point. Came back, rested a bit, read a few p. of Moy and finished Can the Market Speak? “Just because something is invisible does not mean that it does not have real material effects. With the analysis of any ideology it is not enough to say that its objects do not exist. What is important is to bring to light what rests behind this ideology.” Great, I agree, but then there’s the part where the individuation of persons is “arbitrary.” Gave away an Arto Linsday/Beauty Pill ticket to Yumeko Jenkins on facebook, headed out to at 6:30 to meet her. BP’s singer, Chad Clark, had a recent medical scare, so the band is playing these 4 date’s w/o; so Jean Cook is handling the vocals. It came off well, “esp. Afrikaaner Barista” + one about jumping into an empty pool. Arto’s set and sidemen were excellent – much, much more tolerable mix than a few months ago at Union Hall. Wish I knew the material better, but they weren’t selling his record. Wrote daybook poem at the bar when my attn. flagged for a bit. Read to 120 in Moy and 210 in Prelude on train home. Quite tired, lights out 12:30.

[Salem 66, “Across the Sea” to Red Krayola with Art & Language, “Ad Reinhardt”]

10.16.17

Up 6:30. Read 2 or 3 short chapters of Can The Market Speak? Got coffee, came back, got back in bed, up for good 9:30. Started listening to all the songs in my iTunes in alphabetical order, for some reason. I would eventually like to listen to every stick of music (like “stick of furniture,” except it doesn’t work) in this apt., physical and digital, at least once. And get rid of some of it. Could take a while. Left 10:15. In a similar vein, figured out how to get “songs” to go alphabetically by title rather than artist on my underpopulated phone and listened while reading Moy, which improves after the intro. Started trying to do the shortest possible draft of the 3 main distinctions for my “publishing” section at coffee on 96th. Got through 1st 2 grafs without too much trouble. Therapy. Lunch – read Moy on James Jamerson/Carole Kaye attributions, started gender chapter. To LC, worked over coffee (lot of coffee today) nearby, then to the library proper around 5:30. The statutory licensing graf was impossible, somehow, in under 330 words. Got a little beyond that (“implications of the system”), cut and paste some kind of rough organization of the full section from the docs of the past week: Looking at 3317 words w/ some redundancy and some holes. Goal is 2500 + notes; finish this week! Left just before 8. Read to p. 60 of Moy – he’s discussing writing credits on Genesis records – on the way home. Nothing much doing after that – put the A-Z playlist back on, read past halfway point in Market? (it’s short.) Learned therein of the TickTrola app, which assigns pitches to market fluctuations, but on searching, it’s PC-only. Daybook poem.

[Dylan Hicks, “A-24” to Jonas Kaufmann, “Reich Mir Zum Abschied Noch Einmal Die Hände”   ; the composer, Paul Abraham, was in the title field, as on many classical releases]

10.15.17

Up about 7. SNL – whatever; Cecily Strong (underrated) had a good show. Pink’s new music seems already-dated and even fairly “rock” in the current milieu. Found an NYPL e-book of Can the Market Speak (Temporary download? How does this work, exactly?) Read a bit – ploddingly clear (I appreciate it). Went to Caffe Bene, caught up in poetry daybook (2 p.), read about 50 p. of poems in Prelude, which I’d put aside. The eds. do seem to group things together – in this section, there was less millennial vernacular and more lyric pretense, but still a lot of adolescent memoir. Realized I hadn’t posted these entries for a few days, rectified that. Helped Bree water the garden. Looked again for the music ms paper on which I’d written out Brandon’s bassline for the break in “Believe in Ghosts” (which I need to harmonize) and an organ line I’d worked for “The Old Currencies.” No luck: I need to reconstruct these before the Mitch session. Did have the presence of mind to put aside the chord chart for “Paradox.”

Left 11:15. Started Ron Moy, Authorship Roles in Popular Music. Earnest, dissertationy, too much throat-clearing. I am waiting for an argument. Somehow ended up on the wrong side of town (confusion between 5/6). So I changed my itinerary and went to Dear Mama – longish walk, but I need it. Worked from about 12:45 to 6:45. Section length creeping up again toward 2000 words; decided to cut a graf on Richard Rodgers reaction to Peggy Lee’s “Lover.” Met Bree at Silvana on 106th, saw 2 sets by John Wriggle’s 12-piece big band: Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Mary Lou Williams, of course Chappie Willett. Always enjoy this, but it seemed better rehearsed than in the past. I hope he gets to record his arrangement of a K-Pop tune. Cab home.

10.14.17

Awake at 6:30. Listened to 1½ episodes of a Civil War podcast. Went to Starbucks by 8. Spent a couple hrs. on email and tasks it generated. Went back to bed for a while, read the last 20 p. of Jefferson, listened to a different podcast, w/ Jonathan Lethem discussing the Spanish novelist Rodrigo Fresán (whom I haven’t read), napped. Left around noon for Langston Hughes library, caught bus and started Levine’s “network chapter,” worked 1-5; another draft of the “publishing section” of intro w/ better pace, less detail and legalese – 1200 words in. Got home at 6, zoned out for a while, did some mundane tasks from to-do list. Rec’d a nice email about Suggestion Box from a stranger in Riverside CA. Went out around 8:30 – walked by E77, sort of wanted a beer but didn’t feel like hearing a singer-songwriter; ended up at Starbucks, which surprisingly had a free table. Read and took notes on a talk of Stephanie Burt’s I’d like to send her some comments on, and finished the Levine chapter. Came back at 11, went ahead and read the last chapter of Levine – a reading of The Wire that makes its point but didn’t require close attention for my purposes. Lights out 12:30. Should have arranged things to work longer during the day.