Helen Mort & Aaron Meskin, Opposite: Poems, Philosophy & Coffee
Michel Foucault, Madness & Civilization, trans. Richard Howard
Steven Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro, When Bad Thinking Happens To Good People
Samuel R. Delany, Babel-17
Dorothy B. Hughes, The Expendable Man
Jonathan Hari, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention
John Keene, Punks
Alex Parish, Keep All Your Friends: The Red Crayola with and without Art & Language, 1979-1981
january 2022 reading
Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style
Daphne Brooks, Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound
Edward Mendelson, Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers
Russell Banks, A Permanent Member of The Family
Richard Watson, The Philosopher’s Diet
John Keene, Annotations
Percival Everett, Telephone
Madeline Dore, I Didn’t Do The Thing Today
George Eliot, Middlemarch
Fred Inglis, Cultural Studies
Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea
Wesley Leon Aroozoo, Bedok Reservoir
Karen Solie, The Road In Is Not the Same Road Out
Gordon Eklund, The Eclipse of Dawn
december 2021 reading
Ethel Spector Person, Aiban Hagelin, Peter Fonagy eds., On Freud’s “Observations of Transference-Love”
Simon Crichtley, Notes on Suicide
Lisa Robertson, 3 Summers
David W. Brown, When Strangers Cooperate: Using Social Conventions to Govern Ourselves
Ann Charters, Nobody; The Story of Bert Williams
Catriona Strang, Corked
Catriona Strang, Reveries of a Solitary Biker
Tracey Thorn, Rock ’n’ Roll Friend
Nicholas Brown, Autonomy: The Social Ontology of Art Under Capitalism
Kevin Davies, FPO
Marguerite Duras, Writing, trans. Mark Pollozotti.
David Batchelor, Minimalism
Stuart Hampshire, Justice Is Conflict
Richard Cadell, Uncertain Time
12.31.21
Last day of this series. May use this space differently.
Up 5. Read 2 ch. Middlemarch, 10 p. Brooks.
At some point after breakfast, picked up Pinker’s Sense of Style.
Spoke to Bree and her folks, about 10 pm their time.
Napped around 11, to Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations (a friend had posted it on her dad’s b-day, couple days ago).
Knew in advance I wouldn’t write today - still recovering from exhaustion yesterday. At least the sun has come back out.
Played piano at some point - “The Man I Love” and of course “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
Posted about the chord changes of the latter on twitter.
Finished chapter of Brooks.
Went out briefly around 5, partly to see if I could get some roasted peppers at Padua Pasta Makers, but they were closed. Got a coffee to go at Mud, walked around downtown Upland, dropped into the antique mall with the crummiest records ever. Sent pics of the gazebo to Bree.
Read the rest of Caddel, Uncertain Time.
Dinner, Jeopardy!
Watched Law & Order, half an hr. of a Thin Man movie. Read more Pinker.
Went to bed at 10, put on side 1 of Heiner Stadler, Brains on Fire - a weird record on a classical label by a Polish composer, but w/ out-jazz players inc. Barre Philips and Reggie Workman. Picked it up on intuition at Penny Lane last week, realized it’s the same guy who arranged an equally curious Monk/Bird record I have.
Bree called at 11. Lights out midnight.
12.30.31
53rd birthday; necessarily quiet one, given the circumstances (pandemic, dad, rain).
Up 6. Coffee. Read ch. of Middlemarch. Breakfast.
My uncle Joseph called from Montana; then Bree and her parents, for about an hr.; then I called my godsister Diane, whom I hadn’t seen on Christmas Eve; caught me up on her dad. (My dad told me later that she’s 70, which genuinely surprised me.)
Some of late morning occupied w/ a Facebook birthday post (pretext to talk about Susan Straight’s Didion op-ed) and responses. Also read 30 p. or so of a short book by Stuart Hampshire, Justice Is Conflict.
Got out about 1:30, went to the Barnes & Noble at Montclair plaza to take advantage of the half-price hardback sale; got the new Joy Williams novel, 2nd vol. of Lydia Davis’s essays, Claudia Rankine’s Just Us (cheaper w/ the discount than the paperback), and Stephen Pinker’s book on style (I know). Also the same weekly planner I get for Bree every year, not discounted.
Went to the Baseline Starbucks, struggled, finally wrote an even shorter, boiled-down version of some transitional material, and bits on “Doggie in the Window?” and “Que Sera, Se”
Picked up some rapini, angel hair pasta, and ice cream at Whole Foods.
Listened to most of the Spelling album between the various drives. Got back about 5:30, said hello to the substitute caregiver, rested in my room for about 40 min. and read just a little Brooks. Came back out and cooked the rapini and pasta w/ garlic & oil; did a decent job.
Played “Fascinating Rhythm” while my dad changed into his pajamas. Had some ice-cream. Jeopardy! Not done with all this until 9.
“I repeat: I am the writing project” (Carlos Lara)
“Poetry involves so much waiting” (Stephen Collis)
Petered out, couldn’t read more Brooks. Listened to the rest of a basic but good epistemology podcast w/ Liam Bright.
Poem in notebook, watched another 15 min. Safe. Emailed a covid attestation form (they’re needed weekly) to KSPC. Lights out 12:30.