Up 7:30.
Poem. 13 min. meditation.
Sent rehearsal time/set list to band, wrote to club about backline, set times.
Gym. Chapter of de Unamuno, Ornette, Something Else!!! (listening for the form of the heads). I know nothing about the pianist, Walter Norris.
Sawhorses out on 37th Ave., unsure what parade is today. Pride? I thought it was later.
Stopped by E77, read a longer Oates story.
Home around 11:30.
Finished Rivera, Scaffolding. Book of dated unrhymed sonnets, from the quotidian to the “searching,” in conversation w/ a long list of according to the inevitable end-notes. A little anxious, not always satisfying dense or musical at the level of the phrase, though presumably less casual than it sometimes appears, nor radical in the Mayer way. I see from an interview the lines are eleven syllables - I hadn’t bothered to count, and it seems that the difference from pentameter contributes to the prosiness I’m “hearing.” I feel a little bad about not having taken to this book more.
30 min. boogie-woogie.
Lunch at home. Notes on yesterday’s chunk of Young.
Worked on intro 2:30-4. Got to a reasonably satisfactory ending of 3rd graf - think I can move on from here tomorrow - at the expense of not getting out in time for Bad Girl (Borzage 1931) at MoMa. Found/watched first hour on YouTube instead, as a reward for virtue.
Put on Ornette again, read Young on train to MoMa and while waiting for Transatlantic (William K. Howard 1931), w/ Lloyd Nolan, Greta Nillsen, and Myrna Loy. If James Wong Howe shot an episode of The Love Boat, this would be it. Story by Kern/Wodehouse collaborator Guy Bolton.
Read most of a very short book (or long scholarly article) by Joy Metta, Was the Buddhist a Shaman? (Yes.) Ordered this b/c of a passage about self and not-self quoted in one of Gil Fronsdal’s talks. Only gets flaky/freaky, to my squaresville Western mind, at the end. I’m getting something out of “just sitting,” but I’m not likely to go too far down the Eightfold Path.
Listened to 2 or 3 songs by Boston new waver Peter Dayton on YouTube.
Lights out 12:15.
6.2.18
Up 7:45
Meditated 12 min. Probably longer, but w/ interruption - timer app malfunctioned and I had to restart it w/ 3 min. to go.
Poem.
Read 2 of the shorter stories in Oates.
Tried to buy mop heads at our local (long-lined, low-ceilinged, generally depressing) Rite Aid, but they only had one, and it was stained.
Went out at about 10:30. Read Young on train.
53rd St. library 11:30-3:30. TPA intro - still tough to get back into it.
Lunch at Xi’an Noodles. Finished quota of Young (made marks to take down a few more notes).
Saw the new restoration of Sunnyside Up (David Butler 1929) at MoMa. Brown, DeSylva, Henderson musical w/ Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, El Brendel. Seen it before: better visually/photographically than dramatically, tbh. But I do love the title song and “Aren’t We All.”
Read 20 p. Rivera on train back.
Had hoped to go to gym (took bag w/ me), but it closes at 7 on Sat./Sun. Listened to “Africa,” the first track on Coltrane, Africa Brass, on the walk home.
Set up a session w/ Dan Clucas and Ehran Elisha for 6/8. A few other emails, tried to figure out my schedule for next week. Bought mop heads and pens online.
30 min. Boogie-Woogie Hanon. Some exercises much easier than others. Made a little bit of a discovery about the difference (feel of the hand) playing swung boogie-woogie v/ straight rock-and-roll eight-to-the-bar.
Went to Starbucks about an hr. before closing, worked on set list and mp3/charts folder for 6/16 set. Annoyed to find that my Sibelius license isn’t activated, though I’ve been keeping up the monthly payment.
Came back at 11, read an Oates story. When I opened my computer to figure out what was going on w/ Sibelius, the chart for “Soft Gamma Repeater” I hadn’t been able to convert to pdf printed out, as though of its own accord — I must have put it the queue at Starbucks. Odd. Scanned that, put folder in dropbox.
Listened to the rest of the Coltrane album. Read 1 more Oates story + this review of Bill C. Malone. Went down a YouTube card trick rabbit hole.
Lights out 2.
6.1.18
Up 6:30.
Meditated 12 min.
Wrote poem. (Found some looseleaf paper, about 5’ x 7’ for this month.)
Left at 9:30. John Coltrane, Coltrane. 1962, the classic quartet. Arlen-Mercer’s “Out of This World,” basically unrecognizable, post-“My Favorite Things.” Tyner doesn’t seem locked in on that track - his best solo is on the last track, “Miles' Minor.”
Coffee, breakfast. At 53rd St. Library 11-3. Trying to get back into bridge book. Looked at the (many) drafts of the intro section to the Tin Pan Alley chapter, tried to work up I guess what you’d call a “fair copy,” got stuck in some indecision about whether to include my comparison of views on AABA songs to WCW’s position on sonnets.
Checked out Betsy Fagin, All Is Not Yet Lost, Oates, Dis Mem Ber, and the most recent Rhianna CD.
Got distractingly hungry, had a bite nearby, went across the street to MoMa for The Brat (John Ford 1931). Supposedly rare and recently restored, but I realized a few minutes in I’d seen it — charming and only 67 minutes, anyway.
Went to one of the three Starbucks on the neighboring blocks during the break between movies, looked at the text some more. Couldn’t find my (free member) ticket to the 7 pm movie when it was time to go - could have gotten another one, but took it as a sign not to give up on work. Found, finally, what I think is the best version of the intro overall, did a little bit of revision, will print and work on that tomorrow. It’s 2000 words at the moment, not bad, so if I do what I want to it tomorrow, I’ll call that my writing quota for 2 days.
Booked rehearsal time for next Thurs.
Started Kevin Young, The Grey Album on train, continued once I got home; finished 50 p. quota by 10 pm, took a few notes. Read one story in Oates.
Wrote to Dan an Ehran about playing together while Dan’s in town.
Played piano (from the Boogie-Woogie Hanon) for 30 min.
Read a chunk of Rivera. Lights out midnight.
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.