6.19.18

Much of today was wasted, and I don’t feel like recounting it in detail. I woke up to early, got distracted by politics, needed a nap later. Managed very little before 5:30, except the usual meditation and piano. I need to think about how to restructure my day, esp. the early part. I am, simply put, not getting enough writing done.

Listened to Code Girl again on the way downtown, did a better job of following lyrics & comp. structure than previous. Took a small box of books to trade in at Codex on Bleeker, bought a pocket hardcover of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now, kept $30 credit for later. Walked from there to Jean & David’s. A couple of regulars didn’t show, Tomeka Reid only other guest. After Leonard was put to bed, played Scrabble. I bingoed w/ BRO[M]IDES, immediately after David did so w/ HO[T]ELIER; ended up winning by 1 point. (Jean usually wins.) We listened to a Marion Williams album and the Bailey/Holland improv rec. I’d bought at Penny Lane in Upland.

Wrote 2 day-poems on train back. Lights out 12:30.

6.18.18

Up at 7.
Meditated 18 min. 30 min. b-w.
Listened to Mary Halvorson, Code Girl on train. Brought lyrics, but couldn’t find it in my bag (turned up later).
Coffee, read a bit of Fagin, wrote 2 daybook poems.
Therapy.
Read in Sanjek over lunch.
Worked on bridge encyclopedia piece 2:30-6:30 at Lincoln. Read Middleton’s relevant sections on “Form” in the previous edition. Revised about the first 1/4 of the piece - 650 words, not bad.
MoMa, for screening of Frances Stark’s adaptation of The Magic Flute. Basically a teaching piece, sort of a cross between a two-hour follow-the-bouncing-ball animation and Peter and the Wolf. I’m not an opera buff, so I learned a lot. Saw Dan Fox on the way in, but he had to wait for his gf Sarah, and I didn’t see them on the way out.
Read a little more Sanjek on the way home, didn’t make 50 p. today.
Lights out 12:30.

6.17.18

Decadent: Up at noon.
Went to Caffe Bene to update this.
Came home, meditated 18 min. Read a few p. of Fagin.
Called Dad, w/ Bree, for Father’s Day.
30 min. b-w. Also tried to play “Bye-Ya” and “Reflections.”
Went to E77 around 5:30. Read 50 p. of Sanjek.
Came home, listened to a ch. of Trollope, and Cecil Taylor Jazz Advance (1958; Trane’s “destructive” “My Favorite Things” has nothing on alleged “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To”). Which reminded me to read Val Wilmer’s obit in The Wire.

Slow, post-show recovery day.

6.16.18

Up 8.
Meditated 17 min.
Coffee/bagel - finished the Scalapino.
Gym. Finished a ch. of de Unamuno (did I mention he’s long-winded), listened to Tyler First Recordings, and some of Coltrane Time (w/ Cecil Taylor).
Home around 11. 30 min b-w, about the same practicing tonight’s set.
Started getting myself/equpiment/merch/clothes together after that, and tried to relax a little. Watched a conversation between Henry Threadgill and Jason Moran at Harlem Stage from a couple years back, and part of another Moran talk that started making me mad.
Left around 4:30. Listened to the rest of the Coltrane/Taylor + the Tres Oui record.
Got to Bushwick w/ time to stop in a bookstore called Human Relations (there’s another I haven’t been to a few blocks away, Topos). A couple of tempting academic music books, but limited myself to a $1 book by a UK poet I’d never heard of (title not handy). Loaded in at Alphaville, made set list and read a few p. of Betsy Fagin, All Is Not Yet Lost. (Had decided not to pack the heavy hardcover Sanjek w/ guitar/cords/pedals/records. Felt like a pack animal as it was.) Rest of the band, and the others’ rolled in around 7. Annie brought her husband. Didn’t try to soundcheck. Went back and forth about the order, finally settled.
Overlord - solid, covered “Just What I Needed.” Pepto G, apparently an offshoot of a band I don’t know called Psychic Selves - very delayed/revered out; their hipster friends left immediately after, which I could have predicted. Still, decent, attentive crowd for the HH set - inc. Drew G. and Katie D., Deborah W. and a friend, Drew B., Rory B., Andrew H., Nick M. Seemed like most of the songs got over, Annie sang a bit more than previous show. 

Set: See Me As a Lover/Inland Valley Water Table Blues/A Different City/Soft Gamma Repeater/Illusions/The Old Currencies/Still in Error/Guesthouse/Not Just When We Kiss/Flag Pin

Unfortunately, some of -our- friends left for Tres Oui, but they brought it. Nate, the frontman, does Morrissey when not playing guitar. Got to hang out + talk for a while after, good guys. Walked to train w/ Andrew, until he found a car. Ran into Marc Nasdor just outside the Monroe L station, biking home from Katy Bohinc’s reading at Torn Page. Chatted. Listened to an audiobook of Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage which I’ve been listening to off and on, mostly before bed. Home at 2, but stayed up for an hr. to wind down. Lights out 3.

6.15.18

Upset about ICE detention centers - don’t know what to say, or how to hashtag-resist. It has to be acknowledged that the underlying policies continue Obama-era trends; yet the grotesquerie of a coloring book Trump outline on a mural, which also puts me in mind of some Glenn Ligon pieces…. As w/ the Holocaust (or slave quarters, or Manzanar) there will a ‘museum’ of this someday, but we won’t learn anything.

Up around 8.
Slow morning. Got involved on Twitter.
Meditated 17 min.
Finished the Suzuki. 
A couple of chores. Nap.
Went out to E77 at 3:30. Read 50 p. of Sanjek, American Popular Music and its Business 1790-1909. Not going cover-to-cover right now - I’m starting post-Civil War, just got to first mention of the Witmarks. Fascinating.
Chunk of last long piece in Scalapino, “DeLay Rose” as in Tom.
Winnowed some email.
Read 3 short poems at random in that Capital anthology (on Quito, Copenhagen, and Cairo, quoincinentally). Wrote 2 daybook poems (I’m ahead a couple days no - planning to end that project/practice next week, on the solstice.)
Home 7:30. 30 min. b-w. 
Played some of the HH set.
Emails going ‘round about Overlord being added to the show, and the batting order.
Don’t think I got up to much in the mid/late evening, did end up reading a few stories I from Brain Evenson’s Altmann’s Tounge.
Lights out about 1.