4.11.18

Up 6:30. YouTube crap. Listened to a few more tracks on Code Girl (which I’m beginning to follow) and 1/2 of a long 5049 episode w/ flautist Robert Dick.
Gave up on falling back asleep at 8:30.
Helped Bree get her costume down, read a couple of blog posts about the analytic/continental split.
Left at 10, read 1/2 of Latouche quota on train. I’m really going to have to dig out Ballet Ballads.
53st St. Library, worked on Pop Con talk, 11-1.
Went across the street to see The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (H.C. Potter, 1939) - the most obscure Astaire/Rogers movie, b/c it’s a a straight, ultimately tragic biopic (of the 1910s ballroom dancing pioneers; he dies as a flight instructor in WWI). Nice comic relief from Walter Brennan and Enda Mae Oliver. The songs are period - reminded that I should look up a couple, esp. “On Moonlight Bay” to confirm (or not) my contentions about the rarity of AABA from before the late 1910s. I guess this isn’t why everyone goes to see movies.
Lunch, went back to library.
Read this Taylor remembrance.
Worked, a little desultorily, 4:30-7. Draft is already longer than I can read, but important points are missing. Will start to have cutting soon.
Checked out Oliver Assayas, A Post-May Adolescence.
Finished Latouche quota on train downtown.
Judson Church for a monthly show of “discarded” material called Dead Darlings. Wrote in poetry daybook and finished Rodney’s book while waiting for it to start. Poems that jump out include “schottische” and “mazurka,” which I guess tell you were I’m at, though perhaps my favorite lines are in from earlier in the book (“his first time in ankara”):

[…] we
will not speak in content’s
tenements, a sparrow
who flies and is cheerful
is a poem for all people,
a form to lift the district,
the district’s formal friend.

Elsewhere: “I find it so amazing/that work is too constricting/for poets to be read with full attention/attention in the love from other minds.” You and me both.
Show itself: host and one guest read memoir pieces about their partners’ infidelity; David Cale, who was in Marat/Sade w/ Bree, read a piece on his therapists’ death; Mark Eitzel played a failed song called “Gay Jesus” and 2 others. Said hi to Mark; glimpsed David Nagler but he left before I could find him.
Started the Assayas on the train home - ostensibly a letter to Alice Debora about the author’s way into Situationism. Reads fast; lots of background on the internecine French left, post-’68.
Home about 10:30. Watched an episode of Honey West for a change from Mason.
Lights out 12.

4.10.18

Up 6. Listened to a music business podcast, went back to bed. Up for good 9:30.
Went to E77. Spent 15 min. cleaning up desktop. Read middle third of Koeneke.
Spend 2 hrs. on TPA ch. intro.
Picked up bottled water for Bree. Home about 1:30.
Read 50 p. quota of Latouche, most of it on Beggar’s Holiday, his collaboration w/ Ellington, w/ breaks for lunch and (briefly) piano. That took me until about 4.
Took a nap for an hr.
Ordered a copy of a Cecil Taylor/Pauline Oliveros DVD.
Listened to one side of an old Blue Note compilation (’40s sides, inc. James P. Johnson and Sidney Bechet). 
Wrote 1 p. in poetry daybook. Made a little pile of the books I mean to read over the next month or so.
Worked on draft of Pop Con talk at E77, 7-10.
Had a slice, got some extra cash, came home, watched Perry Mason.
1 more page in daybook, to catch up. One small tax task.
Put on Code Girl. Lights out 1:30.

4.9.18

Up 8:30.
Left about 10, read Latouche on train(s) - past p. 200 by the end of day.
Therapy. Bought a Bobby Short CD at Salvation Army after.
To Cooper Union, met David Mulkins to check out piano. Not tuned recently, and 3 bass notes (F, Bb, C#) sounded bad, but it will be ok for Wed.
Lunch with David.
To Lincoln Center. Worked on Pop Con piece, 4-8 (close).
Started Rodney Koeneke’s new Body and Glass on the train home. I think he’s one of the few people I know who looks at this occasionally. Highly crafted, often metrically regular or close to it. Harder (for me) to say anything to the content immediately, but the prosody is, to sound like a poetry review “ravishing.” So far, so good, Rodney! (Oh, I also listened to you and Sandra Simonds on that radio segment. She sounded less intimidating than she does online.)
Home by 9, ate leftovers, wrote to Jon Weber (Bree’s pianist). Watched a Perry Mason.
Lights out 1.

Up 9, not too much the worse for wear.
Went for coffee, posted to facebook about meeting Randy Weston. 
Had a passing idea for a musical-theater piece based on the Chomsky/Foucault debate.
Finished the Hoover book. 2nd section is in shorter lines, mainly based around word count (3 or 4). Some of it seems written and then broken as it falls. More “theory”-ish concerns. A poem dedicated to a Vietnam vet works for about 2-3 sections, but seems diffuse by the end. 3rd section (of book) goes back to lyric (I’m painting with a broad brush. “Fog and smoke on snow/Make the park opaque.” I don’t think I have a very insightful read on this (or much) poetry.
Put on some Cecil on WKCR (they interrupted the memorial broadcast yesterday for Billie Holliday’s birthday).
Decided not to go to hear Elkhorn in Bushwick tonight - looked up the transit situations, and the weekend trains are verkakte.
Jon Weber came over at noon to rehearse w/ Bree - I wanted to be around to talk him through the chart for “In the Bowery.” Stayed about an hr - went smoothly. Lucky to have an excellent, historically-minded jazz pianist in the neighborhood. Called David Mulkins about checking out the piano they’re going to use at Cooper Union.
Read Latouche on train to Long Island City. Stopped in the new Book Culture. Decent general bookstore, certainly a boon by local standards; 2nd floor all kids/YA stuff, pretty good poetry and lit sections, not so hot on serious non-fiction. A Queens version of the more academic branch near Columbia would be too much to hope for. No remainders either.
Went to a coffee place nearby (there’s a Xi’an Famous Foods coming on the same block) from 3 until they closed at 6. Did an okay job completing the end of the intro from the last 2 days. Looked at the whole section - too many competing drafts, too much to set up before the body….Would love to keep it under 1500 words. Also engaged in a twitter DM change with an philosopher/AI specialist I met in Illinois.
Poem on train.
Back about 7. Went to (a rather meat-oriented) dinner at Chivito d’Oro w/ Bree.
Came back 9:30, watched most of The Model and the Marriage Broker (Cukor 1951, w/ Thelma Ritter and Jeanne Crain).
Tried to rescan some 1099s and book my Pop Con flight, ran into snags on both.
Read to 150 in Latouche.
Lights out 1:30.

11.6.14

Up 6:30. Late-night clips.
R.I.P. Cecil Taylor - put on the WKCR broadcast for a while, and watched part of this. (Returned to Taylor, on radio and YouTube, throughout the day.)
Went to E77, tallied up my 2017 book/record (“research materials”) receipts.
Hadn’t brought anything to read, so l redrafted a graf of the Tin Pan Alley chapter for an hr.
Came back around 10:30. 
Cold and rainy out, hard to get motivated, esp. for a library trip.
Read 20 p. of Latouche. 
Email exchange w/ 33 1/3 ed. on excerpt Salon is running. Other correspondence.
Called my dad. Nothing new.
Read rest of day’s quota of Latouche. His friend Ruth Yorck died at a performance of Marat/Sade. Related this an other tidbits to Bree.
Scrubbed tub so Bree can take an Epsom bath.
Went back out around 5:30, got a bite, went back to E77. Typed up the lyric of “The Bowery” for Bree to send to Jon Weber.
Filled out the rest of tax workbook as best I could. Retweeted Molly Ringwald. (A lot of Twitter today, actually.)
Had a beer. Read another 1/4 of Hoover. Came back at 8:30.
Listened to this.
Watched Smart Woman (Edward Blatt, 1948, w/ Constance Bennett).
Finished/scanned/sent tax materials to family accountant.
Lights out 2. Mundane day.