5.18.21

“Chubby Checker was Ernest Evans,” said Dave Appell, “and he was working as a chicken flicker in a poultry place. When we needed a name for him, Dick Clark’s first wife says, ‘Fats Domino…let’s call him Chubby Checker.’ You couldn’t say, ’Now here he is, Ernest Evans!’”

John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers, 430

Up about 8.
Made some bacon in the new pan.
Watched a short Palestinian film, Solomon’s Stone (Ramzi Magdisi 2015).
Harmony class is postponed, and June 4 will be the last for a while; Judith Berkson is moving to L.A. to do her doctorate.
Read 10 p. Fanon bio.
Attended Eric Weisbard’s Zoom presentation on his new book in the Pop Music Books in Process series.
Read 30 p. Broven in the evening. Played a little Monk.
Recycling around 10, short walk outside.

3.17.21

Smoke rises from the fire.
It is shaped like departure.

In my unoriginal dream
The bear

Forages with its black claw.
Perhaps it also believes

There is another route
Through the ashes.

— Monty Reid, “Songs for the Mammoth Steppe,” Disappointment Island, 13

Up 7. Watched Last Week Tonight, and some videos about seasoning cast iron.
Coffee/breakfast.
Read 10 p. Fanon bio + first section of the above book of poems.
Wrote about 11-2, better than yesterday; drafted about 500 words, started cutting it down to <400.
Listened to 3 songs from David Nagler’s Brazilian project. (Private link; can’t share.) Impressive - daunting arrangement and mixing.
The Love Hangover peeps posted “Impedance and Resistance,” inc. “Free to Organize.”
Fooled around on guitar a bit - I have the germ of an idea for 1 or 2 NPB-style songs.
Therapy.
Bree gave me a draft of her letter to a composer she wants to commission for her musical; need to read it carefully and make some suggestions.
Did two rounds of seasoning (oiling and baking) on the cast iron pan, decided not to cook anything w/ it ‘til tomorrow.
Read 30 p. quota of Broven fairly late in the evening, broken by a short walk outside. Finished about 11, lights out.

3.16.21

The opening words of the first chapter of Peau noire come directly from [Fanon’s] study of phenomenology: “I attach a fundamental importance to the phenomenon of language. Hence, I believe, the necessity of this study, which should provide us with one element that will help us to understand the for-others [pour autrui] dimension of the man of color.” The appeal of phenomenology was that…of all the philosophical discourses available to him in the late 1940s, this was the philosophy that could be best adapted to an analysis of his own ‘lived experience’. The classics of French phenomenology - Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenologie de la perception and Sartre’s L’Etre et le neant — are obviously not treatises on racism and anti-racism, but they provided tools that were much better suited to the analysis of ‘the lived experience of the black man’ than either Marxism or psychoanalysis.

— David Macey, Frantz Fanon, 126; pardon some missing diacritics

Up 7:30. Coffee, breakfast.
Played through the last couple of harmony exercises. Sent the page to Judith.
Finished Planisphere.
10 p. Fanon bio.
Eventually worked for 2 hrs. - really resisting attacking a couple of missing but important grafs.
Called dad around 2.
Walked to park, 30 p. Broven.
Pretty tired from mid-afternoon on.
Watched the rest of Chris Molphany’s “Old Town Road” presentation.
1 p. poetry notebook.
Took out recycling, short walk. Lights out before 11 - too tired to read in bed.

3.15.21

UPTICK

We were sitting there, and
I made a joke about how
it doesn’t dovetail: time,
one minute running out
faster than the one in front
it catches up to.
That way, I said, there can be no waste.
Waste is virtually eliminated.

To come back for a few hours to 
the present subject, a painting, 
looking like it was seen, 
half turning around, slightly apprehensive, 
but it has to pay attention 
to what’s up ahead: a vision. 
Therefore poetry dissolves in 
brilliant moisture and reads us 
to us. 
A faint notion. Too many words, 
but precious.

John Ashbery, Planisphere, 128

Up about 8.
Read another chapter of the marketing crit. book.
Have been watching a UK serial killer drama with Gillian Anderson, yesterday and today. No good reason.
Did another couple of harmony exercises, checked them on the piano.
20 p. Fanon bio. A few pages of JA, including the poem above, a real standout.
Read more JA later, finished the harmony homework.
Took out trash and recycling. Short walk outside.
Lights out about 11. Marketing crit, a couple p. of a book on pragmatism.

3.14.21

“We made sure the songs were songs, not just funky blues. The productions had to have the R&B with a dance rhythm. Regardless of how funky it go, it had to have a melody so the songs could be sung by anyone. And, when we could, dress it up, put icing on the cake, which was the strings and horns…..If you check back, just about all of it had those elements. That’s why those songs survive today. The name of the game was the song, not the artist.”

Billy Davis on “the Motown concept,” in John Broven, Record Makers and Record Breakers, 335.

Up 5:30, listened to dharma talks, got back to sleep off and on, not really up until 9:30. 
Took it very slow today, didn’t wright. Can’t entirely account for it.
Eventually went to the park, read a few JA poems and 30 p. Broven.
Saw Jeremy Tepper and Macgregor Card (separately) outside at E77 walking back; chatted w/ both for a bit. We’re all vaxxed. It’s still weird. It’s conceivable we’ll go visit Laura and Jeremy in their garden before too long.
Joined Bree’s call with Ron for a while.
Eventually wrote out one harmony exercise.
Went to bed around 11:30. Marketing criticism.