Up 6.
Read a bit of Artistic License.
Left a little after 10, hit traffic, parked several blocks away from my destination to Pasadena, made it to coffee w/ Julie Tannenbaum about 11:30.
Left there for downtown, had tacos at Grand Central Market, spent a while in The Last Bookstore: Mitchell Morris, The Persistence of Sentiment; Norman Corwin, Overkill and Megalove; Ronald Pearsall Popular Music of the ‘20s; We’ll Understand it Better By and By, ed. Bernice Johnson Reagon; Logic as Philosophy, ed. Peter T. Manicas.
Filled up the tank on the way to Amoeba: Dr. John, Gris-Gris; Ellington “Private Collection” studio sessions v. 1, Back Room Romp (50s small groups), The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse; Ala.Ni, You and I, The New Thing box (16 album/10 CD cheapie w/ Cecil, Ornette, Sun Ra, Lacy/Cherry, Teddy Charles; Luttoslawski, Polish Carols + songs; Blue Aeroplanes, Cavaliers; Rzewski, The People United…; Kathleen Supove, The Debussy Effect, OCR Black Nativity (nice to have on CD, w/ extra Alex Bradford + Marion Williams tracks); Henry Threadgill & Make a Move, Everybody’s Mouth’s a Book; Robert Wyatt, Solar Flares Burn For You; But Yesterday Is Not Today (New World Records LP of 20th c. U.S. art song); Christine Schutt, A Day, A Night, Another Day, Summer (short stories).
From there to Westwood, looked around in the Hammer Museum bookstore (attractive but pricey - complete plays of Guy de Cointet runs $60, for example; resisted). Read the first 20 p. or so of Roxanne Gay, Hunger.
Waited around for Jennifer Moxley’s reading - read Artistic License until Diane Ward showed up. Good reading - partly from the very recent Druthers, partly poems written since, and a couple of sections from a prose book, supposedly about poets and birds, that looks to be a kind of sequel to The Middle Room; one was a memoir of Creeley, in which “The Maine Stein Song” came up.
Dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant on the reading series sponsors (the museum and the UCLA English Dept., in the person of host Stephen Yenser). J + Steve, Aaron Kunin, Joseph Mosconi, Brian Kim Stefans, some of Yenser’s family and a couple of other people from the dept. Reminded me of going out after a philosophy colloquium.
Gave AK a ride home, talked about his upcoming book about George Herbert. Home about 1, straight to bed.
Day’s car listening: rest of the drama cues CD, third disc of Triplicate, Tsunami Brilliant Mistake (ambitious, complicated record - I replayed and sang along w/ “Poodle” 3x), St. Vincent Masseduction (an object lesson in inconsistent messaging). Maybe something else?
5.16.18
Up 6. Read about 20 p. of Artistic License.
Errands — cash, Kinko’s, cold cuts. Stopped in a thrift store on Foothill, found a CD of supposedly rare Hank Williams demos (I don’t know the material, anyway), and a copy of Dakota Days, a book on Lennon/Ono.
Home briefly.
Met Jonathan for lunch at Meat Cellar - gave him the Norman Mailer record. Good talk. Picked up his kids from school, went back to the house, said hi to Amy on her way out, hung for another couple hrs. + did 15-20 min. of card tricks for the kid. Surprisingly, I think they were most impressed by Paul Harris’ “Las Vegas Leaper,” which I probably underrate.
Went to Penny Lane in Upland on the way home - picked up a Cedar Walton dis, Amy Rigby, Middlessence, an LP of John Work songs, and an early ECM LP of Dave Holland/Derek Bailey improv. All cheap except the last.
Home at 5:30. A few business emails. Quota of Artistic License. Arranged to have dinner early so I could go to Pasadena.
Drove out about 7. Listened to the end of 2nd disc of Bob Dylan, Triplicate (1st was yesterday) and about 1/2 of a strange CD of late-’1950s UK “jazz” cues for TV drama, w/ titles like “Johnny Ubiquitous.”
Stopped at Canterbury, bought 2 discs of Lutowski’s orchestra music, which I’ve become curious about, and a 1965 Roscoe Mitchell quartet (pre-Sound, only recently released).
Sasha Berliner et al at Battery - vibes/gtr/bass/drums/vocal quintet. Some of it was a bit jazz-program-studenty, tunes by Chick Corea, Esperanza Spauliding. 2nd set both straighter and looser - nice bass/vocal duo version of “My Romance,” one chorus, and a solo vibes piece by Berliner. Caught up, and then some, in poetry daybook during music.
Bought the Robert Wyatt bio I’d seen yesterday. Dan Clucas didn’t make it, wrote me later. Rich West gave me a CD of a disc he’d produced for Eugene Chadbourne. He also had copies of Chadbourne’s 1178-page (!) memoir.
Listened to Fresh Air on the way back. Stopped for a hot dog at the Hat drive-thru - sheer self-indulgence.
Home 11, lights out soon after.
Skipped Pankey today. Work (writing) hasn't been taking center stage for a few days - too much running around, both for my parents and myself.
5.15.18
Up 5:30. Read about 30 p. of Artistic License.
Helped dad w/ a business call.
Took him to dermatologists appt., 11:45. Read quota of Pankey while waiting. The poems get more oblique in the oughts, and a book from 2003 consistently uses a longer, snaky line.
Took too long there to get lunch, went home. Got back to our “business,” finished around 2.
Napped. Left 4:30, CVS, got a coffee at the Spot. Email, mainly.
Dinner, Jeopardy. Didn’t go out; read quota of Artistic License, watched most of an Andy Hardy movie.
Lights out around 11.
5.14.18
Up 8.
Therapy.
Went to Claremont at 10 atto meet Mark & Joel for coffee; good to catch up. Mark gave me a copy of a new Pelekenisis book by, apparently, “the poet laureate of Anaheim.” After they left around 11:15, I read my quota of Pankey and wrote daybook poem.
Met my grad school colleague Alex Rajczi at the Meat Cellar for lunch - he had asked me for some possible readings (criticism that might change someone’s opinion/appreciation of an artwork) for an aesthetics class. Had a few ideas.
Another coffee date at fell through; rescheduled. Bought issues #3-5 of the DC Snagglepuss reboot at the Claremont comics shop, checked out the prison charity bookstore again. They’d gotten in some recent poetry since 2 weeks ago (I have a feeling this stuff comes from submissions for the Kingsley Tufts Award or some critic assoc. w/ the colleges). Picked up, for $2.50 each, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Poems of the Black Object; Rachel Zolf, Janey’s Arcadia; Michael Palmer, The Laughter of the Sphinx; Denise Riley, Selected Poems; Jason Morphey, Dead Boy, an older copy of Tim Dlugos, Enter Nous, and a $1 CD of the last St. Vincent album.
Listened to most of Tsunami, Deep End in the car over the course of the day. It’s been a long time! The songs, performances, and vocals still have a lot of energy and, for me, resonance - but someone should remix it.
Home before 5. Printed and filled out some medical forms for dad’s appt. tomorrow.
Dinner, Jeopardy! Watched the last episode of Barry, read quota of Artistic License and the 3 issues of Snagglepuss; still need to track down #2.
In bed before 11.
5.13.18
Up 7:45.
Watched the first episode of Barry (Bill Hader’s hit-man-in-an-acting-class HBO dramedy) after breakfast.
A couple of family calls for Mother’s Day - spoke briefly to my dad’s brother Joseph and my cousin Toni after they said hi to my mom.
Found a suitable Mother’s Day card in the playroom. Gathered (yesterday + today) some books I might try to sell in L.A. on Thurs.
Practiced card tricks to show JL’s kids on Wed. Played “Bye-Ya.”
Came up with a verse melody in the shower - realized it was pretty close to “Pulling Mussels from a Shell.”
Left around 11. Upland Starbuck’s - read 30 p. of Pankey (“What comfort a refrain when it returns—/The same words sung again yet somehow changed”).
Cleared a good bit of email. Enjoyed this new Laura Marlin/Mike Lindsay song.
Worked at Ontario Library 1-4 (when they closed). Didn’t get back to the McCrae.
Can’t recall what I did between then and going home for dinner.
Another low-key evening. Didn’t find the energy to start a new book. Wrote daybook poem at some point but don’t recall when.
(Binge?)-watched remaining DVR’d episodes of Barry. Not sure when I went to bed/sleep.