4.15.20

Up for a while at some point in the night, listened to Monk’s “Nutty” from Misterioso.
Up at 8. Read 25 p. Ratliff.Coffee, breakfast. Form notes, 10 R&B songs. Exercise - first day of rung 4, w/ no skips.
Walk.
Worked 10:45 - 1:30. 1 short but I think important graf - got sidetracked looking for a Baraka quote. Sent it.
25 more p. Ratliff. Lunch.
Got through mixing notes for last song (“Illusions”), and my general instructions (suggestions). Have to organize all this a bit before sending it (and the hard drive) to North Carolina.
Therapy.
Rested a hr.
Put on Martha and the Vandellas, Watchout! (1966 LP, the hit being Smokey’s “Jimmy Mack,” but w/ several lesser-known H-D-H cuts. Got through 4 songs before there was another delivery to help Bree with.
Second walk.
Read some Ponge.
Visited w/ Bree. Dinner. Called Dad; recovering reasonably well. 
Wrote a couple of business emails.
Rest of Vandellas record.
Watched 2nd hour of Venom and Eternity, interrupted by another futile attempt to order groceries. The “love story” turns out to be even a feint - after a statement that the author, Isou, finds the previous in the 3rd section, we’re told that the protagonists have gone to a Lettrist recital, and then we hear a couple of works of sound poetry, w/ entirely non-representational imagery (scratches on film) — though we do eventually go back to narration. (The poetry, by the way, sometimes has a liturgical quality; Isou makes something of his Jewishness.) I guess the film is an attempt to be the one described in the manifesto it includes, though this itself gives the abstract passages a story-like context — as I said once somewhere else, “song form narratives noise.” It’s more self-reflexive and lucid than I’d expected. The one or two pieces of music become annoying through repetition.
Email is out of hand. Filed or trashed 100 inbox item, and a trashcan w/ over 1000. I also have trouble knowing want to do with the sent folder.
Stayed up to order coffee, filters, and a couple of books. Lights out about 1. Put on dharma talk, but fell alseep quickly.

4.14.20

Up 7.
Ratliff, to p. 50. Had posted something in fb about an annoying quote a few pages in last night; Alex Abramovich asked me and Carl Wilson if we wanted to bat it around.
Exercised. Listened to 1/2 the R&B songs, had trouble w/ Excel.
Quick shower, first in days. Need to clean tub.
Therapy.
Walk.
Worked 11-1. Sent graf.
After lunch, resumed Ratliff. Interrupted by grocery delivery (which it takes a long time to put away w/ precautions) and a nap I guess I needed, made to p. 100, but it got to be 5:30 pm. Felt like the afternoon got away.
Listened to Aorta s/t (1968 LP by a Rockford, IL psych band; gimmicky) and the 2nd side of Bobby Short.
Went back and did my form notes.
Read Bree some Ponge while she was prepping vegetables for me to cook. Had dinner together.
Watched the Isou to its midpoint. Strange (or not so strange) that for the avant-manifesto qualities, the v.o. narration eventually settles down to what seems to be an autobiographical account of a couple of Isou’s romances, w/ names changed and self-awareness. I barely remember what I read about the Lettrists in Lipstick Traces.
A couple of email responses. Printed out some documents for someone in the building w/o access to a printer.
Read more Ponge.
Read a couple of scary virus articles from the Atlantic. Lights out 12:30.

4.13.20

Up 7:30.
Read Toufic.
Coffee.
Form notes, 10 R&B songs.
Exercise.
Walk 10:15.
Worked 10:45-1. Sent graf.
Lunch. Watched a couple of odd, comically animated video histories about the basics of the French Revolution.
Finished the Toufic. Underwhelmed. 
Listened to Carla Bley, Musique Mechanique. Don’t think I’ve played it straight through - enjoyed Roswell Rudd’s vocal turn on “At Midnight.”
Phone battery was out. When I charged it, I had a message, about 2 hrs earlier, from Dr. Singh telling me my dad would be released today. He was already home when I called. Says he’s shaky on his feet from having only minimal pays. therapy/walking in the hospital, but otherwise, as well as can be expected. Home nurse will be monitoring the sodium and blood pressure medications. Not much else I can do now other than check in.
2nd walk. Dinner. Listened to the first side of an old Bobby Short album (s/t) on Atlantic.
Wrote mixing notes on “Still In Error.” I song to go — I forgot about “illusions.”
Started Ben Ratliff’s Coltrane book in the evening.
Lights out 11:30.

4.12.20

Up at 7, watched clips from the “at home” SNL. They tried.
Went back to bed until 9:30. Let myself start the day late.
Form notes, 10 R&B song (inc. Fats Domino’s first appearance, with “The Fat Man” - 10 and 8-bar sections on New Orleans changes rathe than the standard 12-bar blues.)
Read the first piece in Jalal Toufic, Two of Three Things I’m Dying to Tell You.
Exercise. Walk.
Worked about noon-2. Got stuck early, really crawled. Maybe knowing I had a graf in reserve - the one I didn’t send yesterday - had a psychological effect.
Read Toufic about 3-4. Write 100 words of something else from a prompt.
Called dad, but need to call back to talk to nurse for an update on discharge. Did that around 5; maybe tomorrow. They’re still trying to figure out how to balance his sodium and his blood pressure; he’s started a medication for the latter. I think a nephrologist also saw him today. Wrote an update email to several family members.
2nd walk around 6.
Wrote mixing notes on 3 more songs.
Finally watched the Mike Davis teach-in video from a couple weeks ago. Informative - though as of its recording, Bernie Sanders had not “hung up his colors,” so that makes some of his comments on the getting Medicare for All into the Democratic platform optimistic.
Watched about 20 min of Isidore Isou’s Venom and Eternity (1951) on Mubi. More watchable than its rep - I just know it from a description in Lipstick Traces. It’s also on Ubuweb, but this is a restoration.
Listened to some of Dylan Hicks’ Judy Collins playlist.
Watched some Jimmie Dean w/ Bree.
Lights out about 11. Not a big day.

4.11.20

Up 6:30.
A little more than 50 p. Lethem by 8.
Form notes, 10 R&B songs - started 1950 discs; v. 1 includes Hampton’s “Rag Mop.”
Exercise.
Had time to read Dylan Hicks’ recent pieces on Judy Collins (may get into accompanying playlist) and Bill Withers.
Walk.
Worked 11-1. Decent graf on 12-bar blues progression, about 350 words.
Finished Lethem, w/ a break for lunch, by about 2:30.
Watched a panel about musicians and the internet w/ Melvin Gibbs and Jean Cook, while also downloading a ton of theory pdfs. Did some other online reading, watched Douglas Wolk’s ukelele jukebox session (covers by request).
Call from hospital - dad doing ok, but a kidney specialist is seeing him to help figure out the cause of the sodium drop, so he’s not going home yet.
Worked for an hr on mixing notes — which covered 2 songs. I think I have 4 left.
Called dad at hospital - nothing different from what Dr. Singh told me earlier. I don’t think he’s walking frequently enough.
Second walk. Was outside during the ritual 7 pm applause for health-care workers.
Drafted a poem for an hour, using some things that have been of concern over the last few days, inc. Domains, Magic Town, the Buddhist notion of “clinging,” and language from an email about bathing loved ones with dementia.Realized via an email that I’d sent out yesterday’s graf again.
Started looking up info about “Rag Mop” and the Jubilee Four (a group w/ Bill Johnson of the Golden Gates who was on Jimmy Dean). Showed Bree some videos, and then we watched an episode of Tex Ritter’s Ranch Party w/ Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash, the Collins songs, and one of the most sexist songs I’ve ever heard, “Dimples and Dumplings.”
Wasn’t up to any more reading. Lights out 11:30.