5.30.18

Up 7. Meditated 10 min.
Read quota of Keene at E77. Commentary on puppet theater and haiku aesthetics + an amusing story about a miser.
Gym. Chapter of de Unamuno during cardio. Diametrically opposed view of mortality to Buddhism - I think we’re about to get to the Catholic content.
Spent afternoon on Laura’s set, off an on - I had planned to catch a movie before the show, but it seemed better to take it easy and not be rushed.
Emailed Matt, Pete, and Annie about rehearsing for our show on the 16th.
Read a few poems in Elena Rivera, Scaffolding to relax, and put on Gabor Szabo, Spellbinder while dressing, etc..
Took LIRR into Manhattan around 6 to save time.
Set list for States of Country:

Oakie Boogie
Take Me Back to Tusla (Bob Wills)
Oklahoma Hills (Jack Guthrie)
Crazy Arms (Ray Price)
Route 66 (my vocal ‘feature’ - based on the Nat King Cole arrangement)
Funnel of Love (Wanda Jackson, w/ Robin Goldwasser)
Wichita Lineman (w/ Jay Sherman-Godfrey)
Never Been To Spain (Merle, guess it’s a Hoyt Axton song)
Rumor Has It (Reba, w/ Amy Allison)
Friends in Low Places (Garth, w/ Amy)
One More Last Change (Vince Gill, ft. Boo)
High On Tulsa Heat (John Moreland, ft. Boo)
Jesus Take the Wheel (Carrie Underwood, kind of a bad song)
Okie from Muskogee (Merle)
High on a Hilltop (Tommy Collins)
So Long It’s Been Good to Know You (Woody)

Ragged but right, overall. RJ Smith came - in town to consult on James Brown for Tales from the Bus. Put Bree in a cab after the set, hung out for an hr or so - didn’t sing piano karaoke.
Cab to JH w/ Laura. Stayed up for a bit once I got home - lights out 1.

Up 6:30. Read a bit of Keene.
Worked on “Route 66,” made a chart.
Left at 10 for rehearsal - almost went to the wrong studio before I saw an email from Laura. Read Fronsdal, The Issue at Hand, en route.
Played w/ Boo, Jeremy, Kenny Kosek, Laura at Euphoria, 11-2. Amy Alison came in for her 2 songs, and Robin Goldwasser for “Funnel of Love” (we spent a long time deciding how to interpret the changes on that one). Productive, still some woodshedding to do tomorrow.
Got lunch, read quota of Keene at a branch of Cafe Grumpy in the 30s, came up to MoMa for Rackety Rax (Werker 1923), w/ Victor McLagen - a gangster/college football comedy, and in its way an effective satire on both. Ends w/ the main character and his rival blowing up in a car. Wrote in daybook beforehand, and during break between movies.
2nd feat. - Trick After Trick (Hamilton McFadden 1933 - but highly dependent on John Cameron Menzies’ design and effects). Old-dark-house mystery w/ dueling magicians and over-the-top performances.
Home 9, sketched out a few more charts for tomorrow. Lights out 11.

5.28.18

Up at 6:30. Overcast. I’m so sick of it being cold everywhere I go.
E77 7:30. Quota of Keene; noh plays. 10 p. of rights/wrongs. The digital chapter is kind of dull, to me.
Groceries w/ Bree.
Rested/dithered a while, started reading the poems in a book of paintings and texts by Natalie Häusler:

[…] Nobody ever had
a real subject matter in painting. It was either excuses,
paying subjects, agreed upon stories or given nature,
all for eventual comparison. On this basis
it was worked around, behind, with against
or underneath. Just about anything will do. As I
had understood this, I also understood that none
of those realizations would help anyone to actually
make a painting. […]

Something similar might be true of poems.
Spent most of the afternoon, about 2:30-5:30 on Laura’s set. A number of the songs are 2-3 chords, and familiar in form (“Oakie Boogie” [except that it’s in B, still one of my worst keys for playing blues], “Take Me Back to Tusla,” “Crazy Arms”). The trickiest are the ‘80s country hits - Reba’s “Rumor Has It,” which I charted, and Garth’s “Friends in Low Places.” More info on keys, and some substitutions, came in by email later — Boo Reiner, the guitarists, wants to do different Vince Gill and John Moreland songs that originally called. Also worked on getting my piano part on “Route 66” closer to where I want it (though by any standard a poor imitation of Nat King Cole’s).
It’s Great To Be Alive (Alfred Werker 1933) at MoMa; musical fantasy about a polo playboy (Raoul Roulien, unknown to me) who becomes the last man on Earth after “masculinitis” devastates the planet. Gloria Stuart as love interest, Edna May Oliver as the leading American scientist. Completely nuts. Clever songs by William Kernell, an early 20s B’way/TPA writer who apparently had a career but whom I’ve never heard of. “No man could be luckier/Than to marry a girl from Czechoslovakia.”
Finished the main text of the copyright book while waiting for the movie, and later getting a bite, though I should skim the notes and read a 2nd-ed. post-DMCA afterword. Finished the Häusler poems on the train. 
Pretty dead by the time I got home at 9 or so. Listened to a couple of the Laura songs again. Lights out 11:30.

5.27.28

"One should never make a show of having a deep knowledge of any subject. Well-bred people do not talk in a superior way even about things they have good knowledge of. It is people who come from the country who offer opinions unaksed, as though versed in all manner of accomplishments. Of course some among them do have a really enviable knowledge, and it is their air of self-conceit that is so stupid. It is a fine thing when a man who thoroughly understands a subject is unwilling to open his mouth, and only speaks when he is questioned." Yoshida Kenkō, "Essays in Ideleness" (c. 1300s).

Up around 8. I have been listening to dharma talks/related interview, either in the morning or before bed, w/o mentioning it much here.
Read this: An equivalent argument could be made about song lyrics, inc. some of my own.
Updated this site - realized some of my dates are a day off b/c I left out an entry, but I don’t feel like fixing it right now.
Coffee - read to 200 in Keene and 25 p. in Copyrights/wrongs, and wrote ahead 1 p. in daybook.
Rehearsed at Michiko with Drew Gardner and Andrew Levy. Hung out for a while over coffee at Dean & Deluca afterwards.
Too late to go to Mid-Manhattan library, so worked on the Plummer interview at the Hilton near MoMa.
City Girl (Murnau 1930), w/ Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan (from The Shanghai Gesture). Very late silent (there was a compromised sound version as well), not unlike The Wind in tone. Excellent live piano score by Donald Sosin.
Had a bite at a diner, read rest of my quota of Copyrights/wrongs. The music chapter is sloppy. Uncritical understand of jazz musicians’ use of “stale” standards, misleading descriptions of “Good Times”/“Rapper’s Delight” and Aerosmith/Run DMC’s “Walk This Way.”
Finished Agoo, Property. Shorter poems of last 1/3 not as striking as “Deposition,” but the whole book is earnest and well-made.
Stuck on 7 train for a while.
Lights out 11:45.

"One should never make a show of having a deep knowledge of any subject. Well-bred people do not talk in a superior way even about things they have good knowledge of. It is people who come from the country who offer opinions unaksed, as though versed in all manner of accomplishments. Of course some among them do have a really enviable knowledge, and it is their air of self-conceit that is so stupid. It is a fine thing when a man who thoroughly understands a subject is unwilling to open his mouth, and only speaks when he is questioned." Yoshida Kenkō, "Essays in Ideleness" (c. 1300s).

5.26.18

Sleep schedule still off. 
Managed to go to gym around 11, but needed a nap after.
Read quota of Keene (I like an “Account of My Hut,” circa 13th c.).
Copied two poems from yesterday in the right notebook, listened to Lasalle Quartet, string quartets by Penderecki and Mayuzumi (flip of the Lutoslawski). 
Went to Caffe Bene, wrote 500 words, I guess the ending of the bridge piece, from about 4:30-5:15. Time to start revising tomorrow.
Wild Girl (Raoul Walsh 1931) w/ Joan Bennett, Charles Farrell, Ralph Bellamy, Eugene Palette. Based on a Bret Harte story, filmed in the Sequoias.
Read to p. 100 of Copyrights/wrongs on the train, both ways. Interesting to learn that Griffith’s film of Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona was probably American cinema’s first licensed adaptation of a literary work.
Home before 10, read most of Julie Agoos, Property in bed. Better than a later book I’ve read by her; the middle section, “Deposition,” in the form of a courtroom transcript, is remarkable.
Lights out around 11:30.