10.20.17

Up about 8. The Good Place – whatever one thinks of the show’s ethical sophistication, it is disorienting to hear Philippa Foot referenced in a sitcom! Got out before 10, read a few (very few) p. of McClary on Bizet on train, worked at Communitea in LIC from about 11-2. (What explains my intuitions of which coffee shop I will feel able to write in on a given day?) Cut the extended discussion of “Tutti Frutti” and deferred one of “My Favorite Things,” which allowed me to go on a bit. Section now at 3400. Knocked off to deal w/ some email – responded to Brian Mello’s cover design w/ some tweaks, and sent text for inserts. Made arrangements for Between the Tom Petty set and Laura’s, I will have a lot of woodshedding to do over the next week. Left a little after 3, called dad while walking around – he’s getting cataract surgery tomorrow. Met Bree at MoMa for the first night of their Poverty Row series: High Tide (John Reinhardt 1947), a hard-to-follow plot about newspaper corruption starring a worse-for-wear Lee Tracy, and Hollow Triumph (Steve Sekely 1948), one of my favorite movies of all time. Ran into Eric Meyers and a friend on the way out. Home by 9, dealt w/ some email and small tasks. Stayed up fairly late – started watching the Menendez Brothers miniseries.

[Golden Music Orchestra, “African Honeymoon” to Luciano Perrone, “Afro-Brasilieros”]

Up at 8. Tom Shad got in touch about having me play keyboards at a Tom Petty tribute for the closing week of Hi-Fi. Some back and forth about that later in the day, but I think I’m doing it. Left around 10. Breakfast, coffee, started McClary, Feminine Endings on the train, at LC library by noon. “Worked” til 7, though I feel like I only got going around 2. Added 1000 words, but a lot after the first graf either has to go or move. Got bogged down in “Tutti Frutti.” Left to hear the JACK Quartet at Columbia. A selection of 20th/21st string quartets (one of two nights, but I can’t go to hear the program w/ Ruth Crawford Seeger on Sat.)

Erin Gee Mouthpiece XXII (the singers also vocalize; nice but comparatively slight)

Mark Applebaum, Darmstadt Kindergarten (same music five times w/ one player each time getting up to make movements corresponding to their part; hence, last repeat is silent; effective)

Elliott Carter, #2 (I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to follow this music)

Anthony Braxton, Composition 173 (reworking of a 1976 piece for a larger ensemble – I may have the LP; it’s in his abstract music drama mode; “Here’s a sound for you, Mr. Experiencer.”)

Morton Feldman, Structures for String Quartet (early, short, repetitive, subdued; he’s so great)

Cenk Ergun, Sonare (loud-quiet-loud; the grunge hit of the piece; looked taxing to play, not sure if the off-sync sound of some rhythms were an ensemble problem or an epiphenomenon)

Good overall, except for jerks in the audience. Kept on w/ McClary on the way home, daybook poem. Home at 11, read a few poems in George Starbuck, Bone Thoughts. Yale Younger Poets 1960, a few years after Ashbery. It hasn’t dated as well as Some Trees. But what has? Lights out midnight. Feel like I have a heavy couple of weeks coming.

[The Anonymous Que Pasa, “Addy” to Young Tiger, “African Dream”]

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]