4.30.18 - 5.1.18

4.30-5.1.18

Pop Conference in Seattle went well (my paper included); not going to attempt a report.

Read 1st 1/3 of Jordan Davis, Shell Game, on place, did a daybook poem. Arrived at Ontario Airport around 4 pm; Kyle drove me to my parents. 
Caught up on how things are going here, fooled around on the piano 15-20 min., had dinner, watched Jeopardy w/ my dad, and a silly episode of Screen Directors’ Playhouse (w/ Jeanette Macdonald, Laraine Day, and Leo Durocher) that I DVR’d from TCM months ago.
Went to bed around 10. (Was relatively sleepless in Seattle!)
Up for a while around 3, fell back asleep to a YouTube of a MoMa conversation on Adrian Piper.
Up for good around 6. Routine around the house looks like I’m needed to keep an eye on mom until around 9-10.
Checked that the car I usually use here would start, went out to Sanctuary Coffee in Claremont (maybe its Pomona), started work on the revision of Richard Middleton’s “Bridge” entry in Bloomsbury (formerly Continuum) pop encyclopedia. 10-1, wrote around 500 words, some of it quite close to my book — the main thing here will be strategizing about what to include given the available length (around 2000, maybe can push to 2500).
Tried to go to Claremont Library book sale - but the library’s closed for renovation until fall.
Dropped by the mostly-media Goodwill on the way back; 3 classical CDs (Rameau, Gesualdo, and Britten), a nice older hardcover w/dustjacket of the play-script of Moss Hart’s Lady in the Dark, and a pb of Everett’s Erasure, which I’ve read but don’t own.
Back to the house before 2. Cleared some email; saw confirmations of 2 of my 3 grant rec. letters. Wrote a reminder to 3rd.
Visits from my mom’s nurse and a clinical social worker/therapist who comes every two weeks; this started while I was gone, so I hadn’t met either.
Watched part of a Penny Singleton Blondie movie. Dinner w/ parents at 7. Watched Jeopardy w/dad.
Went to Upland Starbucks a little after 8. Read farther into Huysmans, Parisian Sketches, which I’ve been dipping into since before I left NY. Falls between Zola and Baudelaire, I guess - hard to get traction in current state of mind. Daybook poem.
Home; lights out by 11.

(Listened to Exile on Guyville over course of the day.)

April 2018 reading

Susan Fast, Dangerous

Andrew Levy, Ashoka

Stephanie DeGooeyer, et. al., The Right to Have Rights

Paul Hoover, Viridian

The Ballad of John Latouche

Rodney Koeneke, Body and Glass

Oliver Assayas, A Post-May Adolescence

Jennifer Moxley, Druthers

Jenn Pelly, The Raincoats

Stuart Isacoff, Temperament

Tracey Thorn, Naked at the Royal Albert Hall

hiatus

4.23 - worked on talk, packed, had dinner w/ Bree (and left Tracey Thorn book in the restaurant), called dad. Listened to dharma talks and some of Dewey Redman/Cecil Taylor/Elvin Jones (who's unbelievable), Momentum Space.

Flying to Seattle today; Pop Con starts tomorrow. I don't expect to keep this up for the duration, though maybe I'll record some quick notes (not a full "conference report") later. SEA --> ONT on Mon. 4/30, to see my parents for 3 weeks. Will resume at that point.

4.23.18

Up 8.
Set up a monthly order of a case of sardines for Bree.
Left by 9:30; Thorn on train. 
Coffee. Caught up on this.
Therapy. Lunch.
Worked on talk from 2-7. Got somewhere, not as far as I need to be.
Dharma talk on way home.
Laundry. Daybook poem. Read Charles Johnson interview.
Lights out 11:30.

4.22.18

Up around 7. Read the last ch. afterword in Isacoff before I really got the day going. Staid, in its way, but I learned a lot — what he says about reactions to his “defense” (actually, explanation) of equal temperament (and so, Western common practice music) is cautionary.
E77 family early; daybook poem, started Tracey Thorn’s Naked in the Royal Albert Hall, read maybe 20 p. Eric Pankey, The Pear Is One Example.
Took notes on intellectual property/critiical race theory refs in Kraut, Choreographing Copyright, until the kids/parents in the cafe on weekends got to be too much.
Tried to do laundry at home but the machines were in use. (Helped Bree change the sheets a day or two ago.)
Left before 2, Thorn on train.
Spent around 2 hrs at the Adrian Piper retrospective at MoMa. Tried to actually take the time to read the various text pieces/“pageworks,” and listen to some soundpieces - one is 20 min. of her and her partner at the time arguing about an argument they had previously had about a passage from Strawson’s Individuals on “disembodied consciousness.” I’ll probably go back. Would like to get the catalog and reader (sep. publications, though the latter didn’t seem to be available), also paged by a bilingual ed. of her Escape to Berlin, largely her account of how she came to leave Wellesley. 
Headed down to Red Hook, listened to some of the 2nd CD of the Coxsone Dodd/early Studio One set - some very early Wailers toward the end of the disc.
Met Alex Abromovich at Freebird Books; bought a biography of Mike Romanoff for Bree, J. Warwick’s girl group book (which I should know), a translation of Russian absurdists at Alex’s rec, and a copy of Brian Evenson’s Altmann’s Tongue, a deeply strange book I clearly recall borrowing from the UCLA library in grad school but have never owned. Sad to pass up (overpriced copies of) a 1914 ed. of Vernon & Irene Castle’s Modern Dancing, and a copy w/ dustjacket of J.P. McAvoy’s Show Girl (satirical 1928 novel turned into early Alice White musical). 
Drove to Unnameable. Bought one of the books on copyright whose title I’d written down this morning, and an older book on the English ballad.
Had dinner w/ Alex, hung out at his place until about midnight - ended up coming home w/ a recent Paris Review w/ a Charles Johnson interview, and his copy of Rock and the Pop Narcotic.
Lyft home; lights out 1:30.