May 2018 reading

J.K. Huysmans, Parisian Sketches

Jordan Davis, Shell Game

Jacqueline Warwick, Girl Groups, Girl Culture: Popular Music and Identity in the 1960s

Charles Johnson, Dr. King's Refrigerator

Qui Xiaolong, The Mao Case

Darren Hudson Hick, Artistic License: The Philosophical Problems of Copyright and Appropriation

Eric Pankey, A Pear As One Example: New and Selected Poems 1984-2008

Christine Schutt, A Day, A Night, Another Day, Summer

Michael Palmer, The Laughter of the Sphinx

Tracey Thorn, Naked at the Albert Hall

Julie Agoo, Property

Nathalie Hausler, A Virus Can be on a Mussel or in Some Liquid on this Salad Leaf or That Tomato or in This Person's Mouth

Siva Vaidhyanathan, Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity 

Anthology of Japanese Literature, ed. Donald Keene

Up 9. Slow morning (I did have three drinks last night).
Went to E77 at 10:30, finished Vaidhyanathan and Keene, chatted briefly w/ Macgregor and Kristin.
Home at 1, meditated 10 min.
Despite a library/writing plan(we shall start afresh tomorrow, June 1), stayed in while Bree was out in the afternoon. Read parts of another book on Vipassana meditation. (Do you want to know what I actually think about this practice or the metaphysics that is supposed to be behind it — or, for that matter, the cultural fortunes of “Western Buddhism”? It’s much too early to say. I do know I have little desire to read the evo-psych books on the subject.)
Also tried to work on organization/a general to-do list. Made me anxious.
After Bree came home, we had a long, serious talk about our plans for the rest of the year, our developing financial situation, and some things that I need to help her with around the house (hanging curtains, etc.). I felt good about it.
Went out to E77 a little before 8, had 1 beer - a coconut-almond porter, less cloying than the coconut-vanilla one I had in Upland. Made something of a to-do list after all, not complete but petered out after 35 items.
Read a review of a new miscellany of Barthes’ unpublished writings.
Chatted with Ken L. Some kind of Columbian festival across the street - chiming, almost gamelan-ish music, although I could detect I/V movement. In E77, listened to a bit of a pleasant but very unprepossessing singer-songwriter.
Ordered books by Joy Metta and Charles Johnson, and a CD of the UK musical Cranks.

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.