11/24

Up for awhile around 4 am, did nothing to speak of. Went back to bed, wasn’t up until 9, and wasn’t particularly functional until nearly 11. So I didn’t have my intended writing period. Breakfast/coffee, fooled around with “Love for Sale” on piano (I don’t care for the changes in my fakebook) helped Bree w/ a few tasks related to cleaning up from the plumber’s work; our tub stopper is missing, so I had to call them. Also took pictures of holes in ceiling and scheduled repair for Saturday, forwarded plumber’s invoice to board. Read a chapter of Marcus O’Dair’s Robert Wyatt bio, Different Every Time - I’m up to the Rough Trade singles. 

Big chunk of day taken up w/ getting Bree to and from an ultrasound appointment in Flushing. (She may have a kidney stone.) We’re not comfortable w/ either public transportation or taxi/car service right now, so I rented a car a couple days ago. Walked to Enterprise near LGA (about 20 min.) to pick it up, but it was locked up tight, w/ the lot empty. Fortunately, someone directed me to a shuttle to the new location, in a parking garage 10 blocks away. Came back w/ car, picked up Bree, drove into Flushing - longest I’ve been in a car, or for that matter outside, since March. Dropped her off, found somewhere to park (near a Church of Christ w/ nice Gil Sans lettering, should have taken a picture). Sat in car from about 4-6 pm; listened to one more Sutras podcast, read Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, “Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference,”  and the first 2 poems in John Ashbery, Breezeway (his penultimate book; I’d meant to bring Commotion of the Birds - I have an idea of reading him backwards). Picked Bree up, drove back home, came in for a minute, took the car back, walked home (there was no shuttle except to the airport, where I guess I could have gotten a cab or bus), about 45 min. Listened to almost all of the new album by Mary Halvorson’s “song” album Code Girl, Artlessly Falling, w/ Robert Wyatt himself on 3 tracks. Some nearly drowned out by walking near the airport; have to sit down w/ the lyrics. 

Home 7:45. Had a bite, watched a bit of the MGM McDonald/Eddy Rose Marie(Friml; “Indian Love Call”) w/ Bree. She’s in an operetta phase. Rested. Watched a jazz piano instructional piano, which “inspired” me to play through “Lover Man” and “Lush Life.” Read the title poem in Commotion of the Birds. Brief walk outside about 10:15. Lights out 11:30.

11/23

Woke up about 5:30. Listened to a short dharma talk and a jazz podcast in bed. Up before 7. Breakfast/coffee. Shower. Expecting plumbers at 8 am; Bree and I prepared to stay in bedroom/office for most of the day (took lunch, water, &c.). Watched the end of a Lord Peter Wimsey adaptation; tried not to get involved in something else. Listened to 2 episodes of a basic but good podcast on classical Indian philosophy (specifically epistemology and logic). 

Worked on bridge book 9:30-1 with some 10 min. breaks. Mostly small revisions on a 2K section of Ch. 1; decided to discuss UK usage of “middle eight” v. “Bridge” (aka pre-chorus). Found two good examples in The Guardian.

Took a break for an hr or so; came out of office briefly while plumbers were upstairs. Hard to accomplish anything in the interstices. Made more coffee. Therapy 3-4. Plumbers in and out a couple of times. Forced myself to spend 15 min. (W/ timer) on an email announcing our building’s annual meeting. (I’m secretary, but getting out of it next year.) Skimmed a review of Stephen Burt and Alfred Bendixen’s Cambridge History of American Poetry. 

Watched a few minutes of the Michigan Board of Canvassers Zoom meeting. [They certified, 3-1, later in the day, and it looks like GSA Emily Murphy is going to sign the transition letter. I don’t see how it gets in front of SCOTUS from here. But what do I know?] Looked through the Vermont County Store catalog w/ Bree. Restful, unchallenging.

Leftovers for dinner. Read about 20 p. of Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World (aka the Aufbau) for seminar on Wednesday. Took a break to play piano for about 30 min. Fooling around with some altered scales over dominants, picked up from YouTube explainers, but I’m too lazy as of yet to work on it in all keys. Played through “Have You Met Miss Jones?”, “O Barquinho,” and “A Lot of Living to Do” (from Bye Bye Birdie). Finished Carnap chapter around 10:30. Defense of “constructing” psychological concepts from physical ones, and cultural concepts from psychological ones. Some analytic shade thrown at Hegel. 

Brief walk outside around 10, per usual. Went to bed around 11:30, put on another of the Sutra podcasts.

Overall - not bad, given difficulty of working around plumbers. Also lost a couple of hours following the electoral situation. Writing again after a week off was slow, but it was a start, and I know what I want to do tomorrow.

oct 2020 reading

P. Inman, Written 1976-2013
Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr., Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop
P. Inman, Scratches
Arthur Symons, Selected Writings
David Hajdu, Adrienne Geffel: A Fiction

September 2020 reading

David Stubbs, Fear of Music: Why People Get Rothko But Don’t Get Stockhausen
Jonathan Lethem, The Arrest
Cate Disabato, The Ghost Network
Jean Genet, The Criminal Child, anonymous translation
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark
Daphne Brooks, Bodies in Dissent

August 2020 reading

Julio Cortazar, Fantomas and the Multinational Vampires, trans. David Kurnick
Francis Ponge, Nioque of the Early Spring, trans. Jonathan Larson
Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes, The Sweet Flypaper of Life
Craig Dworkin, The Crystal Text (chapbook)
A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic
Edward Albee, Box and Quotations for Chairman Mao
Peter Osborne, The Postconceptual Condition
Elio Vittorini, Women of Messina, trans. Frances Fernery
John Stokes, In the Nineties
Zadie Smith, Intimations
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mi Revalueshanary Fren