Up 7:30.
Read Mouthpieces on the train. Started looking at Agnes Callard, On Anger.
Therapy. Lunch. Home at 1.
Packed. Spent maybe 30 min trying to look at a paragraph. Packed, dithered as usual getting out of the house, started dishwasher, left around 4.
Read Callard on train, walked from Fordham station to a coffee house at one end of Arthur Ave., had a macchiato, met Jenny.
Shopped for Thanksgiving.
Had a Manhattan and dinner at their place.
Set up the digital piano we’re taking to her brother’s tomorrow to make sure it’s working.
Watched a couple episodes of a pretty good Chicago ensemble sitcom called SouthSide. Took dogs for a walk and kinda argued about the whole Tobi Vail shoegaze thing, which I shouldn’t have brought up. Oh well.
Lights out around 11.Didn’t sleep great, listened to a couple podcasts in the early a.m.
11.23.21
Up 5.
Read a bit. Talked to Bree briefly.
Wouldn’t have minded a nap, but couldn’t.
Worked at E77 about 10:30-12:30. Some progress, though I was also tracking a twitter thread on which I asked for examples of songs/records w/ verse and chorus in very different tempos/meters. My examples are “Kaw-Liga” and “Remember (Walking in the Sand),” Carl Newman found a good Kinks song, “Some Velvet Morning” is borderline (which one is the chorus?), and a lot of the others were proggy outliers, bridges, or also have them.
Bought some cheese etc. to take to Thanksgiving tomorrow.
Ended up finishing the Guthrie bio, Marat/Sade, and that Lakatos book in late afternoon/evening. Interesting remarks on Hegel (139) and Marx (146) in the latter, not pithy enough to quote here.
Attended Peter Blegvad’s Zoom talk, asked a question. Chris Stamey was also there.
Cleared some email. Listened to some of Sam & JoJo’s archived L.A.-themed show on KSPC, but the stream was really distorted. Did some packing for tomorrow, found decent clothes for a family Thanksgiving. (My white dress shirts have soiled collars, though.) Last bits tomorrow.
Packed it in about 10. Watched Midsommer Murders, read the 1st of a tiny book of Mouthpieces, 3 monologues by a UK writer named Eimear McBride. Somewhere between Beckett and Sarah Kane, and about that cheery.
Lights out 1 am.
11.22.21
Up 6:30. Breakfast, coffee.
Read a few p. of the Guthrie.
Therapy w/ Bree.
Couple hours of puttering around the house.
Wrote for an hour at E77.
Took 7 train in wrong direction for a couple stops, turned around at Mets-Willets Point.
Read 50+ p. Guthrie bio.
(individual) therapist on the UWS in person for the first time since 2019. (Though we’re going back to Zoom for a while after Thanksgiving.)
Had soup and salad at a new bbq place near by. Read a bit more.
Stopped in the Housing Works on Broadway, bought chap CDs by Freedy Johnston and the Beautiful South, a Chickfactor comp (how’d it get there), and a book, prob. self-published, called My Four Lives: Memoirs of a Singing Psychotherapist.
Went to Westsider Records on 72nd - Jodi Beth Rosen made me think of it, and I haven’t been by there in maybe 8 years. Used to be classically-focused, and there are still a lot of LPs and scores in that dept., but the guy working and/or running it explained that they broadened at some point. Bought CDs by Echo & the Bunnymen, Franz Koglmann, the Staple Singers Xmas album, a repackaging of a very early ska comp; LPs by Rosie Vela (model-singer w/ Becker-Fagen backing) and John McCormack, and Showstoppers, an excellent book on Busby Berkeley I’ve always meant to track down (and that he knocked down from $20 to $12).
Train back, listened to more of the Veda Hilla sorta tribute. Compositionally interesting, a little undynamic for me. Switched to Drahla.
Worked 90 min. at E77. Saw Macgregor briefly, Ken Lauterbach came in. Wanted to concentrate.
Home at 9:30, read halfway into Marat/Sade, lights out 11-ish, went to sleep 10 min. into a Buddhism podcast.
11.21.21
Up 8. SNL clips (some last night).
Got a FedEx package from Mike Scharf - some of his Mother’s sheet music, Johnny Mathis and Chubby Checker 7”s, and a booklet from the Adlai Stevenson campaign.
Had a hard time getting much going. Finished Revise.
Went to LES early, read 60 p. Guthrie bio on train. Picked up salami and olives at Essex Market (left bag at counter, had to go back after getting cash), worked for an hr. and change in a nearby Starbucks. (What’s the good of New York if non-corporate coffee places aren’t open after 6 on a Sunday?) Listened to first few songs on Nicholas Krgvich’s album of song by Veda Hill walking to Jean and David’s. Played a Harry Potter-themed version of Clue w/ their son Leonard. (I won.) Ate Indian takeout and played Scrabble — terribly. Listened to Judith Berkson, P.P. Arnold, Furniture 3. Left about 10:30. Didn’t have energy to read more on the way home.
Glanced at first poem in Heather Ramsdell, Lost Wax, lights out midnight.
(I have played the piano a little, yesterday and today.)
11.20.21
Up 7.
Read Revise over coffee + a bagel in the morning, wrote a little bit in a notebook (not much).
Spent about 5 hrs. on podcast edit - exhausting, I don’t want to hear myself say “right?” anymore.
Talked to Bree and her family for her Mom’s birthday.
Cooked a piece of salmon, and later some turkey breast.
Tidied the apt. D/l’ed a bandcamp album of Veda Hille’s songs.
Lights out midnight.