Up before 6 - too early.
Meditated 14 min. Had a long talk w/ Bree.
Had to go back to bed for a while.
Boogie-Woogie 30 min.
Read Scalapino (“The Tango”) at breakfast. Her explicit (to me too sweeping) critique of reason/“heirarchy” more explicit this one.
Lincoln Center library, TPA intro, 2-6.
Headed into Wmsbg. Listened to Teddy Charles, Tentet - larger group arrangements, a lot of blowing over backgrounds, didn’t wow me. Bought 2 sale-rack poetry books, the new Wire, and an anthology of essays on Chinese philosophy at Spoonbill & Sugartown.
Went to Wonders of Nature; met Dan Clucas there. Two Mule Team (Rick Brown and Sue Garner) w/ Willie Klein from Mofungo - included cover of Woody’s “Deportee,” which I have to admit is a good song. Wrote daybook poem (and 2 ahead) during set. Talked to Chris Nelson about Your Band Sucks. C. Joynes, a UK guitarist - instrumental electric set, mainly in a folk/modal fingerpicking mode (inc. “Red Wing” and some other trad material), but ending w/ “Someone to Watch Over Me,” a nice surprise. When I asked about another original I liked, he said it was based on the structure of “Night in Tunisia.” Bent Greg Peterson’s ear about standards. Elkhorn, w/ Rick joining for the last piece. Left a Human Hearts record for someone I knew would be playing there in a few days — he had bought it at a show, there in fact, but gotten wasted and left without it.
Managed to read quota of Young on the way home - section mainly on Bob Kaufman, interesting but not as directly related to what I’m looking for. Home/lights out about 1.
6.5.18
Up 7:45.
Meditated 14 min.
Boogie-Woogie 30 min.
Gym. Chapter of de Unamuno (insistence that belief in the immortal soul is irrational; so much the worse for reason; interesting commentary on Hume, Kant, James). Listened to Jimmy Guiffre, Western Suite (enjoyable and adeptly played, but suspect, what with originals called “Apaches” and “Big Pow Wow”; there was a bit on Ray Noble’s “Cherokee” turning into Parker’s “Ko Ko” in Young yesterday).
Coffee (and 2 hardboiled eggs and a banana) at E77; read last two stories in Oates. Talked to MacGregor for a while.
Home 1:45. Ran out of steam - abandoned library plan.
Called dad. Considered posting to fb about the Alan Seeger book, decided not to take the time.
Made a business call. Played piano for another 30 min. to make up for skipping yesterday.
Went out about 7:30; had a burger, intended to go to E77 but they were having the monthly open mic for a local poetry scene I give a wide berth, went to Starbucks instead, worked on TPA intro 2 hrs. and change. Getting somewhere?
[Reconstructing this later, I don’t remember what I did after 11 or so.]
6.4.18
Up 8:45 — needed to catch up more than I realized.
Breakfast, got myself together, quickly washed walls near sink at Bree’s request.
No time for piano, which I’d hoped to do in the morning.
Left 10:30, read 25 p. Young.
Therapy.
Stopped in the Salvation Army near 96th St. station on the UWS, bought a mass-market paperback of Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a Latin jazz CD (not at hand now) that looked promising, and — huge score — a 1917 edition of the poems of Alan Seeger, brother of Charles and uncle of Pete, who died on the battlefield in WWI. $5 total!
Lunch, listened to Dolphy, Far Cry on train.
Library before 2. Spent an hr. on some email/fb/twitter responses.
3-7, TPA intro. Spinning my wheels, revision-wise.
Read Young on train to Bushwick Public House, heard sets by following groups:
Stephen Gauci – tenor saxophone/Sandy Ewen – guitar/electronics/Adam Lane – bass (fair, a little indulgent - but wrote a poem during)
Mika Pontecorvo – Guitar, Flute, Electronics/Kersti Abrams – Alto Sax, Libyan Maqrunah, Mbira/Adriane Pontecorvo – Electric Cello, Erhu, Percussion/Mark Pino – Drums, Waterphone/Elijah Pontecorvo – Electric Bass/Calvin Weston – drums (full bore)
Igor Lumpert – tenor/soprano saxophone/Sean Conly – bass/Jason Nazary – drums (much straighter, but got to some places; bassist a standout)
Dave Sewelson – baritone saxophone/Dan Clucas – trumpet/Ras Moshe – tenor saxophone/Joe Hertenstein – drums (why I was there - to see Dan; free/energy blowing, esp the tenor, but some actual interaction as well; drummer excellent)
Skipped before the last group. Read the first piece in a Green Integer book of Leslie Scalapino’s (performance texts, mostly) during the breaks. Been a long time - this piece from the 2000s, mainly “about” the Iraq War through her usual techniques of refrain (‘night’) and oppositional (to “‘our’ language) syntax, was not hard to get the point of, if not “follow,” until an odd turn toward naturalism (like, plants and bears, not Zola) near the end.
M train not running back into Manhattan, found cab - probably just as well, given the time. Home 12:15, lights out 1.
6.3.18
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.