performance review 3/3-9

1. Added 375 words to dB’s piece; told zine editor it’s in progress. Communicated w/ editor of a larger scholarly piece; I need to deliver the revision by the end of this month.

2. Repairs: (2) Picked up guitar from set-up and refret at Main Drag in Wmsbg. (3) Finally got home stereo set-up in working order. (The repair from 2 weeks ago wasn’t sufficient; project involved a lot of trial and error, and multiple trips to B&H in Manhattan, over 3-4 days, as well as putting the living room back in order, recycling boxes, etc.) Was able to listen to LPs Mary Lou Williams/Don Byas and The Work by Friday. 

3. Took sweaters and overcoat for repair at French-American Reweavers, a high-end place in Manhattan, on the 14th Floor. Unfortunately, the proprietor told me 2 items were too far gone (though I might try another place for one of them), while the third would be more economical to fix at an ordinary tailor. Still, a win b/c it was on my list to do, and at least now I have more information.

4. Visited Dave’s in Manhattan to size stage clothes for Tsunami. (I have to order the actual clothes online to be shipped to Chicago, where they’re being painted. Not my idea.) Also got contact info for a possible instore in Portland.

5. Heard David Grubbs w/ guests Wendy Eisenberg, Nate Wooley, Clerk Schrag, plus Sam Weinberg Trio (Sisters); Saw Nickel Boys [RaMell Ross, 2024]. Got a drink w/ acquaintances on Friday - rare non-musical socializing.

+ cardio, 4 days of 7 (however, I walked around the city this week and my weight went down a bit, so I feel ok about skipping a day); read 2-3 chapbooks. 

other weekly activities/appointments I don’t list here include: therapy, 2x calls to my father in California, 3-4x video calls w/ Bree in France.

february 2025 reading

Emma Cline, Daddy
W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz, trans. Anthea Bell
Trebor Healey, Falling
Dennis Yi Tenin, Literary Theory for Robots
John Yau/Thomas Nozkowski, Ing Irish
Andrew Martin, Cool for America
Gabriel Blackwell, Correction
Matt Morton, Improvisation Without Accompaniment
Lucy Sante, Six Sermons for Bob Dylan
Marcella Durand, To Husband is to Tender

performance review 2/24-3/2

1. Finished “lock” piece from last week, about 600 words total.

2. Started contribution to a friend’s zine about a dB’s EP from 1981, 200 words

3. Completed two home repairs: mailbox lock, installed by super; stereo amplifier, Chinatown electronics store; also bought a Yamaha keyboard w/ drum machine similar to one I used to record with in the ‘90s.

4. Promoted Tsunami/Ida tour online; contributed to playlist of songs from other Numero Group releases for social media campaign.

5. Went to a Glenn Ligon gallery show w/ Disklavier “performance” of a Julius Eastman piece; heard Lesley Mok Trio (Bar Bayeux), Brandon James Lewis Quintet (Nublu), Canis Major [Mary Halvorson] (Jazz Gallery); saw Once in a Lifetime [Russell Mack, 1932], The Benchley Roundup [shorts], My Sister Eileen [Alexander Hall, 1942]

+ did my cardio, 5 days of 7; read a Simon Frith paper on copyright and several poetry chapbooks; got through some kind of stomach bug that laid me up Fri.-Sat.; dealt w/ a personal financial matter

keeping the job 2/17-23

[or, 5 things I did last week]

1. Wrote a pedantic footnote about the terms “musical work” and “mechanical reproduction.”
2. Wrote 300 words of a prose piece about losing a combination lock.
3. Explained Fred Rose’s role in country music publishing to a filmmaker with an interest in singing cowboys.
4. Attended a talk/book launch by David Hajdu w/ George Lewis and others, and a chamber opera based on the Baldwin/Buckley debate; heard Matthew Shipp play twice at the Stone.
5. Paid my father’s bills online.

+ did my cardio 5 days of 7; laundry.

[Not going to list most reading in these posts to limit redundancy.]

january 2025 reading

Jessica Laser, The Goner School
Paul K. Saint-Amour, The Copywrights: Intellectual Property and the Literary Imagination
Paul Gilbert, Counseling for Depression
Sally Keith, River House
Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot, trans. Marjam Idriss
Ariel Yelen, I Was Working
Olga Ravn, The Employees, trans. Martin Aitken
Literature from Around the World (Prentice-Hall, no editor listed)
Stephen Dixon, Movies
Alexander Kluge, Cinema Stories, trans. Martin Brady & Helen Hughes
Robert Talisse, Civic Solitude: Why Democracy Needs Distance
A.D. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, trans Mary Ryan