Up 6:30. Closed some tabs.
Finished reading Frédéric Döhl, “From Harmonic Style to Genre: The Early History (1890s-1940s) of the Uniquely American Musical Term Barbershop”
Listened to first episode of a lecture podcast on jurisprudence.
Farmer’s market. Open, w/ most vendors there, but one at a time social-distanced lines and no handling of food by customers. Got most of our usual weekly provisions.
Form notes, last 5 songs of 1947 set, and first 10 of disc 1 of 1948. 20 AABA in 1947, 12-bar otherwise ultra predominant (even fewer misc strophic and VC forms than in previous years.)
More jurisprudence; fell asleep until 1:30.
Grocery store, around 3. They’re letting groups of 10 people in at a time. This time, avocados and onions, but no lemons or carrots.
Bridge, 4-6. Got over a 2 graf hump into the next one; 555 in the doc. In all, try to press ahead to 750 tomorrow. (Did interrupt for msging w/ Evan Kindley.)
Read to p. 30, Detlev Clausen, Theodor W. Adorno: One Last Genius (big translated biography, about 10 yrs old).
Took another walk.
Wrote to a h.s. friend who I recently heard has had health problems.
Called my cousin Tony in CA (who has family in Italy).
2 LEAR poems (short, from diff. notebook)
To p. 50 Clausen, 20 p. Milne.
Finally listened to Carla Bley Trio, Life Goes On.
Lights out midnight.
Sat. 3.21.20
Up 6:30.
Counted up open tabs on laptop & phone. One goal going forward is to have fewer at the end of each day.
Started day at 8. Made coffee. Form notes, 10 songs - even T-Bone Walker recorded the occasional 32-bar pop song (“I Know Your Wig Is Gone”). Killed some email. Listened to Fred Hersch and Sara Gazarek doing a medley of a Sara Teasdale poem (“Dreams”) and “Darn That Dream.”
Read to the end of ch. in Slobin.
First walk outside.
Worked 10:30-12:45. Just getting past the graf that’s been hanging me up.
FB chat w/ an English acquaintance, Stephen Plummer. The pubs aren’t all closed there - law won’t allow it?About an hr. helping Bree reorganize some cabinets. (Intentionally devoting some time to ordinary/neglected domestic tasks - 1 small project or chunk thereof daily, if poss.)
Read more Slobin, over lunch.
2 LEAR poems.
Online for a while.
4:30. Finished the Slobin book - less concerned w/ global folk music’s commercialization, in the pop music sense, than its relationship to institutional circuits and system (the Folk Alliance, UNESCO). Occasionally insistent on terms like “homespun,” “handmade,” but I guess you wouldn’t go into the field if you didn’t have a -little- of that.
2nd walk.
Ordered overpriced rubbing alcohol from an eBay gouger.
5:3--7 - some email, virus articles and a survey, a few Carla Bley songs online.
20 p. Drew Milne.
Dinner.
Finished the Fred Allen movie w/ Bree.
Read 2/3 of a long (50 p.) journal article on “barbershop harmony.”
Nothing significant after 10. Lights out 11.
3.20.20
Slept fitfully - up for awhile around 1.
Up 7. Read news.
8:30-9:15 - form notes, disc 4, 1947. 4 AABAs in 1st 11 tracks.
Outside for about 15 min, to RiteAid. May try to intercept next delivery of (e.g.) rubbing alcohol Mon. night.
Made coffee. Worked on same graf on harmony 10:45-1 pm. Not easy to focus - looked at news several times; more intense lockdown starting Sunday.
Tried to help Bree figure out FaceTime on her computer.
Called Dad. He feels vulnerable, less to the virus than to shortages and infrastructural failures. So far, the caregivers have been reliable.
Took another walk around 3:30. People seem warier on the street than even yesterday. More masks.
Online. More bandcamp orders - Peter Hess, Christina Schneider, Emily Hope Price.
Read 22 p. Slobin. (Weak on the reading front today.)
After dinner, wrote to my cousin Tony & to Mitch about mixing the record in May w/o my presence - which means I have to work on notes & instructions before sending the drive.
Watched 20 min. of the Fred Allen movie w/ Bree.
(Have been too distracted to watch The German Sisters2 “Lear” poems, while listening to William Tyler’s “Beautiful Music” mix from a defunct AM station.
https://www.mixcloud.com/william-tyler8/beautiful-music-in-the-night/
Made a kind of ‘scorecard’ w/ my categories of (ideally) daily activity, to print out each day and keep me sane.
Lights out midnight, dharma talks.
3.19.20
Up 6:30. Listened to some of disc 5 of Monk/Okzaki.Made coffee.
Finished notes on current R&B disc, 7:30-8:30.
Read last few p. Ponge.
A Dani DaOrtiz performance video (card magic) that I started last night was in there too.
Groceries. No lemons, onions, or avocados, most other produce and dry goods available.
10-noon, shut myself in to write. Not much focus, didn’t get beyond rolling revisions on graf about harmony. Hung up on how to express the relationship between Western “common-practice” and “popular harmony” (Tagg’s “everyday tonality”).
Helped Bree start a stew.
Tried to close a lot of tabs, clean up loose ends. Made some Bandcamp orders (Ted Hattemer, Flowers of America, a Monk project Christgau recommended by an L.A. concern called Mast), downloaded an ebook by Steve Zultanski, msg’d with Ethan Stoller about a 50s singer (Wini Beatty) I’m curious about. Took a short walk outside.
Watched the rest of that Earl Sweatshirt/Cheryl K. Harris MOCA talk - she talks about the basic theses/insight of “Whiteness as Property,” not a ton of meat otherwise.
Also - this Fall Peel session from 1983: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPAiOLd-0f0
And a good Brazilian gtr album I can’t find the link to.
Read Walter Hughes, “In the Empire of the Beat: Discipline and Disco.”
Needed a break around 3, watched The Bad Sister (Hobart Henley 1931), w/ Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart billed below Conrad Nagel.
Took a walk in here somewhere.
Venting sort of COVID/Trump post on a listserv.
Started Mark Slobin, Folk Music, in the “Very Short Introduction” series. Not bad.
Watched about 20 min of It’s In The Bag (Richard Wallace 1945) w/ Bree — a Fred Allen vehicle, which we were supposed to see at Film Forum Monday.
2 “Lear” poems, while listening to disc 6 Okzaki.
Lights out 11, dharma talks.
3.13.20 - 3.18.20
[Our Internet was down until the 17th.]
3/13
Up 8:30. Took a while to get going.
Form notes, 10 songs, The R&B Years 1946 v. 2-disc 2.
Coffee. Read quota of Butler.
Not a lot of action until 2:45. Tried to work on intro for 2 hrs. Found the right draft of one particular graf, took a long time to revise.
Bldg. meeting.
Misc. work in office - email, filing - after dinner. Tried to set things up to do something real tomorrow. Had on a so-so thriller, The Shadow on the Window (William Asher 1957) w/ Betty Garrett.
Got involved in card magic instructional videos. Lights out around 11:30.
[Pretty desultory - first day of event cancellation/social distancing/semi-quarantine. I did go out for coffee twice.]
3/14
Up 8:45.
Form notes, 10 songs.
Coffee 10-noon. Wrote 400 words on meter.
Reading/watching COVID-19 news of an on.
Read 50 p. Scott. Changed sheets w/ Bree. Lunch.
25 p. Butler (w/ unplanned nap).
Finished reading Johnston.
45 min. or so on email.
Read another 50 p. of Scott.
Started watching the RAF-themed The German Sisters (Margarethe von Trotta 1982) on Mubi. Saw about 15 min., but the internet went down and stayed out for the rest of the eveningMade myself write another 100 or so words.
Listened to disc 3 of Okzaki/Monk, worked on organizing living room, vinyl, sheet music in credenza, etc. for 45. Helped Bree w/ laundry.
Read a poem from Hotel Lautremont.
3/15
Up 7:30. Internet still downForm notes, 10 songs.
Farmer’s market - open for the time being, meat purveyor was out of some things, the produce guy Bree likes was fine, Hawthorne farms had the usual.
Coffee, worked about 11-1. Revised/added to “meter” bit, started reconstruct “harmony.”
Rite Aid out of rubbing alcohol, backing soda.
Notes on a few more songs, more card magic, started watching a (saved) video of Amy Silliman talking about paint at the Whitney.
Finished Butler. Read more Scott.
Called dad.
Worked on setting Hadju lyric 45 min.
Went out for coffee to get online, ripped a few more r&b discs and worked on harmony grafs a bit more. Probably did add 500 words or thereabouts today.
Lights out 11:30.
3/16
Up 6:30. Listened to part of a 5049 podcast w/ Nate Wooley.
Form notes, 10 songs, The R&B Years 1947, disc 1 of 4. [1946 collection stayed close to the proportions of 1942-1945; perhaps 1 or 2 fewer 32 bar songs, and a few more blues-w-bridges, e.g. “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” and “Wake Up Old Man.” Still 15-20% AABA]
Verizon service call; scheduled technician for Wed.
Coffee 8-10. Worked on intro. Harmony section could get long. Maybe not needed. I won’t have this luxury from here on out: by state-wide decree, restaurants (I assume including coffee shops) among other things are closing tomorrow, 9 am.
Home. Finished Scott; watched Sillman video; read 25 p. Drew Milne, Go Figure.
Moved a cabinet shelf.
Read editor’s intro to Foucault, The Politics of Truth (late-ish talks/interviews about the Enlightenment)
Song notes on rest of current disc.
Worked on a notice to distribute to the building of corona virus, for rest of the board to revise/approve - had been putting it off b/c of email being down. Finally took a screenshot, sent it to board pres., went up to her apt. later to hash it out.
Notes on rest of same disc.
Hadju lyric, 30 min. or so.
Jenny T. called.
Okzaki/Monk disc 4
Read to p. 59 of the Foucault.
Lights out 11:30.
3/17
Up 6. Misc. podcasts.
Bree says she feels a sore throat, cancelled a housecleaner whose first visit was supposed to be today.
Notes, 5 songs, The R&B Years 1947
Therapy, via Zoom.
Had a weird/garbled phone msg, apparently about an investment opportunity, from a friend’s #.
Groceries - no onions, or Bree’s preferred brand of eggs, but plenty of most produce, and paper towels.
Not a lot of focus in afternoon. More of the current R&B disc. Tried to read in Foucault, too abstruse. Card tricks. Went back out to buy Bree a thermometer (last one they had at Rite Aid, expensive new-fangled model). She talked to her doctor, who said to monitor symptoms. Temp. below 99. It’s possible she has a cold or something, but so far I doubt it’s corona. But we’ll see. She’s supposed to avoid contact w/ everyone other than me (and limit that, not share utensils) until symptoms subside, + 72 hrs.
Made myself do some work. Typed up and revised 2 short poems from a notebook c. 2018.
Went back to the harmony grafs. Didn’t cut as much as I thought I might, but came up w/ a version of 1st graf I can stand, for now, w/ some sense of the direction forward. 278. I’d like to progress at 250 a day during this stressful period — there’s a lot of time, potentially, but it’s hard to focus.
Tried to watch a Fred Allen movie I’d downloaded w/ Bree, but the sound and sync were erratic. Watched 30 min. of an old campy favorite instead — the pilot episode of The Big Party, a Revlon-sponsored variety show, with the conceit of celebs getting together b/c host Rock Hudson is in town at the Waldorf. Also ft. Tallulah Bankhead, Sammy Davis Jr., Mort Sahl, Esther Williams, Lisa Kirk — and Matt Dennis (“Everything Happens To Me”) at the piano.
Read 1/2 of Frances Ponge, Soap, trans. Lane Dunlop. Reminded of it by a fb post of Nada Gordon that linked to an excerpt in the Paris Review (different translation). Delightful — I read Ponge and think, oh, this is poetry.
Read Jose Antonio Bowen, “Who Plays the Tune in ‘Body and Soul’?”
Lights out around 11. Dharma talk.
3/18
Up 7. Watched/read coronavirus news on phone, showered before 8.
Form notes, 7 songs, R&B Years 1947, disc 3.
Verizon technician came; worked in the basement, then gave us a new modem. (Had said he hoped he wouldn’t have to come into the apt., but didn’t balk.) Probably done by 9. Bree stayed in bed to avoid contact. Not much change in her slight is-it-or-isn’t sore throat/temperature - the latter ranging from 99.3 to 98.8 over the course of the day.
Wasted time. Napped (no caffeine). Read some Ponge.
Watched a CDC Q&A on coronavirus w/ Bree. Live-stream hung up, so we paused it until it was almost over. Nothing really new, or that you can’t read online.
Cut down yesterday’s graf a bit. Short walk outside to Rite Aid.
Therapy, online.
Made coffee at home for the first time in many years (I have a grinder, a stand-alone water boiler, and a one-cup ceramic dealie.) Not terrible. I actually have 1 lb+ of beans someone gave me in the freezer.
Revised 2 more notebook poems.
2nd walk, around 6.
Finished Ponge.
Called our friend Ron in L.A.
Lights out 11:30.
[Too much time online today, and didn’t really get the book window I wanted, between the scheduled repair and therapy. ]