11.10.21

Up 7. Slept through. Breakfast, coffee. Cleaned kitchen, started dishwasher.
Read 10+ p. Lakatos. “It is a shame of present mathematical education that students can quote exactly the different definitions of the Cauchy, Riemann, Lebesgue, etc. integrals without knowing which problems they were invented to solve, or in the course of the solution of which problems they were discovered.” (122)

“It may be time to admit that our tendency to think of revolutions as epochal transformations, rather than as circular turns, has not been conducive to understanding the power of racism’s repeated reinventions, which not a few have echoed Amiri Baraka in calling the “changing same.”

Eventually did more podcast prep; listened to part of a Taylor Swift playlist for her other bridges; located my copy of Robin James’ Resilience & Melancholy. 
Therapy 11.
Found the songbook w/ facsimile “I Ain’t Got Nobody” - fairly quickly, so took some extra time to tidy up stacks of other sheet music. Ran across a few things I want to play.
Recorded podcast w/ Elizabeth Newton about 1-3:45 (inc. mic set up, some places we paused). Will need to be edited down quite a bit, but I think there were some good exchanges. Main songs/bridges discussed: “We Are Never Getting Back Together” (and “All Too Well,” which I don’t think has a bridge), “Tracks of My Tears,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody.”
Decompressed a bit, unloaded dishwasher, made coffee, watched another 20 min. of The Green Years.
Got back to Mackey, read 30 p., mostly on train, while also half-listening to the new Mary Halvorson/Sylvie Courvoisier album. I need to check her out more.
Treated myself to 2 slices from Joe’s on Carmine, saw Passing at IFC. Odd to see a movie the very day after you read the book. Good, beautifully shot (maybe even too aestheticized), couple of foreshadowing additions in the script that rang false for me, but Tessa Thompson is fantastic, and the piano score was very good.
Started reading Suketu Mehta’s This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto on the way back.
Got off a stop early to walk, swung by Terraza but there was no music tonight and  they hadn’t put a schedule up on the chalkboard (they barely post shows in advance on line - it’s actually hard to find out what’s going on). Listened to Dry Cleaning. Home around 10. Lights out 11.

—

Some of the Mackey runs together (of course I’m reading it quickly), but there are passages that just jump off the page - like “mu” part 118, “As If It Were ’This Is Our Music’ (188-192)

(…) Lord Invader’s Reform School/
Band it was we were in, the Pseudo-Dyonisian
Fife Corps, the Muvian Wind Xtet…The sense
we were a band or were in a band had come/back,
names’ wicked sense we called timbre, num-
bers’ crooken sense our bequest.
…
(…) the Freedmen’s Debate
Society our name now was, the ox Tongue
Speaker Exchange. Fractal scratch. Nominative/ser-
ration. Cutaay run, cutaway arrest…
…
Beginning again for the muleteenth time,
we counted off. It was our muleteenth
breakdown, muleteenth new beginning…

11.9.21

Up 6. Breakfast.
Idly tried to watch a Hulu drama called Little Fires Anywhere, but couldn’t hack it, won’t continue. Watched 30 of The Green Years (Os Verdes Anos, Rocha 1963) instead; much better. (Coincidentally, my dad mentioned an autobiographical book by A.J. Cronin recently w/ the same [English] title.
Worked at E77 9-11:30. Slow, but coalescing.
Somewhat aimless afternoon, couldn’t get going on podcast prep, kept finding something else to “do.” Eventually read 1/2 of Nella Larsen’s Passing (it’s very short), b/c I want to see the current film adaptation in the next few days.
Roasted butternut squash and poached salmon. Watched Rocha to halfway point, made more coffee, finished Unmark. “The woman is divided into an arctic region and a subarctic region.”
Prepped for podcast interview 6-9 pm; ended up learning the guitar part to Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Getting Back Together,” looking up sheet music for “Tracks of My Tears,” and refamiliarizing myself w/ several recordings of “I Ain’t Got Nobody.” Had a phone call w/ Elizabeth, about 30 min.
Finished Passing in the evening. Will try to get back to Mackey and Lakatos (and Charters on Bert Williams) after the recording is done tomorrow.
Lights out 11.

11.8.21

Up 7:30; slept through. Weight 205 (was lower yesterday, but lost about 2 lbs. last week.)
Breakfast, coffee, watched Last Week Tonight.
Did a bunch of tasks/chores 9-10:30. Started passport renewal procedure (have to get photo); several emails; took out trash/recycling and replaced roach traps; got mail. Had a Jackie Cooper movie called The Abe Lincoln of Ninth Avenue (1939, William Nigh) on. Very “East Side”/Bowery Boys; the other newsboys were named Spike, Jiggsy, and Flatfoot.
Talked to Bree briefly about where to get passport photo. Spend the next few hours doing that, getting everything else for the application together, and finding a FedEx, which took 90 min. Of walking around Jackson Heights, as 2 drop-offs were closed; finally found one that seemed mostly to be shipping large boxes of fufu flour. Had to call my dad during this quest to postpone our call. Listened to rest of the Claudia Quintet album; quite good.
Ate steamed momos in Diversity Plaza, as they call the no-cars block of 37th Rd.
Therapy 3-4.
Remembered other small tasks: got an invite for the KSPC Discord, looked for something in Queens Library catalog (but I think I need a new card). Tidied desk. 
Put some turkey and Brussel sprouts in the oven before I called my dad, 5:30-6:30.
Ate, then worked at E77 About 7:45-9:15. Ken Lauterbach came in, chatted briefly but he saw I was working (and Macgregor was outside). 
Half-watched a British TV suspense drama, didn’t have the energy to read. Lights out 10:30.

11.7.21

Up about 4:30 (after the time change); but on a boring academic lecture about Dogen, got back to sleep until 7:30 or so. Breakfast, coffee. Cleaned kitchen. 
Watched La Reprise du Travail aux Wonder/Return to Work at the Wonder Factory w/ subs. (Recommended; on YouTube. It’s short.)
Went to a new Starbucks (b/c E77 doesn’t allow laptops on weekends), worked on chorus section about 10:30-noon.
Listened to Claudia Quintet w/ Eileen Myles (whose poetry is mainly interstitial; I only heard one track where she’s speaking over music) while walking.
Read a little bit of Ann Charters’ biography of Bert Williams on the train.
Saw L’amour Fou (1969 Rivette) at MoMa. I guess I think it’s about failure. The play seems to get worse with more rehearsal; maybe that’s not true in the end, but the director doesn’t show up for the performance. I stan Bulle Ogier, but tbh I thought her “madness” was a little hammy. The guy who introduced it said this print had come from Paris and was about to be retired.
Read Mackey on the train back, finished a chunk over Himalayan food (soup and a small, Indian-style omelet) near home; also a section of Unmark. Got off train a stop early to get my steps in. Otoh, got a pastry for dessert on the way home.
Home a little after 7, couldn’t do anything productive.
Lights out 10:30 pm.

11.6.21

Awake for a while at 4. Went back to sleep, had a long terrible dream (in the losing something genre), up at 8.
Talked to Bree 8:30-9:30.
Read 30 p. Mackey, 10 p. Lakatos.
Badly needed nap, 10:30-noon
Would have liked to go out to write, but realized I’d scheduled grocery delivery from 2-4. Went out at 12:20 more briefly for a bite of lunch (& to get some steps in).
Came back, ate, worked 1/2 hr before delivery.
Unproductive 2:30-4:15, except that I closed some tabs.
Finally went out at 4:30, worked 2 hrs. Starting to get involved in this section.
Came home, zoned out for a while, got into a couple twitter exchanges, tried to do a couple of other online tasks. Trackpad was acting up, a restart seemed to fix it but it made me nervous.
Read EN’s comments on the Adorno section of my intro chapter; helpful. Wrote her back on a couple points.
Read another 10 p. Lakatos:

— “Heuristic is concerned with language-dynamics, while logic is concerned with language-statics.” (93)
— “For any proposition there is always some sufficiently narrow interpretation of its terms, such that it turns out true, and some sufficiently wide interpretations such that it turns out false.” (99)
— “Gibberish is safe from refutations.” (102) [A bit Popperish, that.]

Read another section of Unmark; some post-apocalyptic prose poems. Watched some SNL clips. Lights out 1.