12/20

Up before 6, watched last night’s SNL. Took laundry down w/ Bree before 7. You’ve heard our every-3rd-Sunday routine before. Played “Stella by Starlight” again in between trips downstairs. Done around 9, 9:30; ran into our neighbor Christine while unloading the drying. Wrote a fairly long personal update for a listserv I’m on. Remembered to post about tomorrow’s radio show on Facebook and twitter.

Several online tasks I’d been putting off. Ordered a couple things for Bree from Bob Baker Marionette Theater, and wrote to our contact there about make an end-of-year contribution. Checked in on a record ordered from Holland - got a quick response, but the package showed up this morning. Couple of other things I’ve immediately forgotten, but they were on my mind. Played “Music w/ My Meals” a little more, called my dad about 1:45-2:30.

Worked on the song more w/ Bree; it’s wordy, so a slower tempo is easier for both of us. Recorded the piano part w/ metronome so she can work on it alone. Folded laundry. Napped for an hr. Got up and listened to last night’s Kenny Barron stream for the Vanguard while online. Immanuel Wilkins sax, Kiyoshi Kitagawa bass, Jonathan Blake drums. Largely originals, feels pretty different than the set I saw last year. Good bass solo on a fast salsa-ish tune; closed w/ “Footprints.”

Read first 10 p. of Fredric Beiser, Hegel, a Routledge introduction someone recommended on twitter. Starts w/ some biographical basics, and more polemical comments on the impossibility of turning Hegel into a non-metaphysician, and on the need to combine, somehow, “analytical” reconstruction with historical context. Seems pretty lucid. Later, read to p. 100 of the Blesh jazz book - gets into some very basic comments on AABA form re Lester Young. Opened a package I ordered from the Brooklyn museum - 3 Ideal brand notebooks, which for some ineffable reason have a vibe I like. Crossword, short walk outside. Lights out 11.

No writing today - always hard on laundry day. But I noticed tomorrow is winter solstice, which always makes me feel like things are on upswing (at least re season affect). Lights out 11. Sayers.

12/19

Up for a while at 5 or 6 - put on an audiobook of Dōgen. Up for real at 10, worked noon to 2 or 3, mainly on current section, not quite there, but got a little tired of it and also looked at the next long section on Adorno - cut a couple hundred words w/ no harm. Actually might have trailed off around 4. Watched another piano lesson and practiced — played “Stella By Starlight” which I’ve somehow never dealt with. Nice changes, I can see why players like it — its in Eb but starts on Emb5, which is probably really working as a Gm6; still, it’s unusual to have a note not in the tonic key in the first chord of a tune. Then did my scales - coordination improving at slightly faster tempo, and blues-scale exercises in E (works well) and F# (much harder to remember or use at this point). Went over week’s grocery order’s w/ Bree. Then spent maybe 45 min-hr. working on the benefit song. Made a chord chard a step down and more or less learned to play from it. Couple of interesting touches in the song — chorus starts on the dominant, there’s are “Maple Leaf” diminished passages, and both sections are 20 bars. 

Took a break, had a bite (we haven’t really been cooking the last few days, just catch as catch can), watched 20 min. of a Bob Hope/Virginia Mayo movie w/ Bree, then rehearsed the song together for 1/2 and hr. — basically learning the melody and rhythms. Tricky, but made some progress. Sunday Crossword, took about 45 min. Lights out midnight, tried to listen to a leftist philosophy podcast but absolutely hated it, switched to a Dorothy L. Sayers audiobook.

12/18

Up 7:30. Watched a couple of videos in bed (recipe video for a lemon pasta I might make tonight). Worked on show for an hour, 9-10. Read a JA poem cos I hat the time, then kinda spiraled for a couple hours, worked on book noon 3-pm. Not cutting that much from this section, and I need another short graf on “retransitional” lyrics at the end of bridges (e.g. “You Send Me” — “marry you and take you home”), but I am improving and clarifying some things. Took a break for an hour. Finished the show, submitted log and online playlist by about 5:30, so that’s off my mind until around New Year. (Or at least I don’t have to rush to choose the music.) 

Bree found the song she wants to do for the Pangea benefit video, “Gee, But I Like Music With My Meals” (Nat D. Ayer/Seymour Brown, 1911). Playable, but I need to take it down a key. Hope I can manage this without entering the whole thing into Sibelius. 

Reviewed/updated to-do list. Made some bucatini w/ a lemon + garlic “sauce” from an online recipe I’d been meaning to try. Good, meant to add parsley, could have let liquid cook down a little more - not sure the lemon adds that much to garlic and oil, at least for me. Put on a stream of a holiday program from the Louis Armstrong House Museum, w/ displays of memorabilia (Christmas cards from Nellie Lutcher), a couple of performances (Ethan Iverson, briefly playing Louis’ living room piano), and a tape of Louis reading “The Night Before Christmas” near the end of his life — w/ coughing, etc. that were edited out for the commercial release.

Watched a piano lesson, then practiced - chromatic scales at 108, the furnished “blues etude” in C and D (easy, but it will help me get the scale in rarely-used keys). Played until Bree had to call Ron. (I’m glad I didn’t let the “urgency” of the Pangea song keep me from doing this.) Short walk outside. Crossword. Lights out 11. Felt like enough got done today - still hard to fit in reading.

12/17

Woke up 6-ish. Watched a couple of YT videos and the Law & Order podcast I go back to for some reason. Up 8, breakfast/coffee. Put together playlist for 2nd show - all 2020, inc. a few reissues. Organizer for my every-other-Thurs. Carnap group had an emergency, rescheduling. Did some other basic radio work (scanned log, send station dropbox link). Took it easy for a couple hours. Called dad about 1-2; his Christmas card arrived. Worked 3:15-5:30 or so, finished revising “Constrast” section, started looking at “Transition and Retransition.” Could but a bit - a structural decision is how much info about harmony (esp. dominant-tonic cadence) to put here v. introduction. Helped Bree make some Swiss chard, put on John Wright, South Side Soul (really good meat and potatoes blues piano trio album that started coming up on YouTube). Bree is supposed to record a performance video for a cabaret she has performed at; might want to do a song I don’t know already. Worked on the radio show after dinner, got to the halfway mark. Did pick up Ashbery, The Conference of the Birds for the first time in a week or so, read 2 short poems. The epigraph from “Cartoon Music” is from Gov. Cuomo: “Do I wish none of this happened? Yes.” Watched the end of a Zen documentary so I could close the window, Fri. crossword, lights out 12:30.

12/16

Up 8. Breakfast/coffee, did a little radio work - still need to remember/figure out how to rip vinyl to Audacity (may be different w/ new version), but there was a d/l code for the 7” in question (Mike Watt covering Squeeze), so it can wait until next week. Had some videos/talks about Zazen as I went through (physical) in-box, made entries in to-do list app. This actually helps (Bree thought I was in a good mood). Joined Carnap seminar call 11; fairly long tech delay. The student presentation this week, on Goodman’s critiques of the Aufbau, was excellent - I want a copy. I drifted a lot during the rest of the session, in all honesty. There won’t be another one until after the New Year. I might watch the recording in a different mood.

I’m not going to do a blow-by-blow for the rest of the day. I spend most of it assembling my KSPC show for next Monday, recording/editing back-announce segments, etc. Several hours in all, w/ a break for therapy w/ Bree and a couple others to rest. Glad to know I can get through it; one more to do this weekend, and then I the pace eases up b/c of the holidays. I don’t think any other meaningful tasks got touched, except that Bree found Christmas cards she has in reserve; need to send one to my dad. No reading, no piano, first day I didn’t look at the book since the start of the month. Lights out midnight.