Equus

170 hours of 40/20 hindsight:

Wednesday last I played music with my violist friend, Tracie. We improvise song-suites together.

Thursday night I had a date with a woman I don't like.

Friday were auditions. I was up at 04:45. There was the usual heteroclitic chaos that auditions always bring, which maybe I'll tell you about some time, but not right now.

Friday night I had a date with another woman I didn't like. We had drinks and I bowed out earlier than I think, all other things being equal, she would have preferred.

Saturday was heavenly rest, well-deserved and much needed after three weeks of being constantly O.T.M. I finally got to catch up on some important PS2 work I've been criminally neglecting. And some reading too - Art by Yasmina Reza, highly recommended, and Relativity by Einstein, also recommended though maybe not quite so highly due to his unnecessarily mannered presentation.

Sunday morning was spent in almost-but-not-quite silence with the Quakers.

Sunday night was rehearsal with markandwanda. These days rehearsals are largely technical affairs. We spent several hours on software-acquisition. The future we're aiming at has me and Mark playing our macbooks while Wanda sings. There's a steep learning curve involved with this, which is good. I'm a big fan of steep learning curves.

A good night with Jason Monday night, beginning at Fellini's with guy-talk and ending at the Nunnery with guitars. Armagnac and Dusty in Memphis played a role in occupying the sweet, swollen middle.

Yesterday was one-of-a-kind super-secretary Charlene's last day on Earth . . . or, if not on Earth, at least in the School of Music. She's worked at GSU for 17 or 18 years. We have a long relationship, filled with humor and warmth. There was a going away party with (terrible) wine, and I even had a piece of cake in her honor, a rarity, given my aversion to all things sweet. We made our goodbyes in a quiet moment in my office and she invited me to visit her in her new home in the Outer Banks. She's a good woman.

Last night's rehearsal was canceled, so I got to read some more (yes!) and watch the Wicker Man - the original, with Christopher Lee, not the remake with Nick Cage.

Today, in the middle of a million other things, I was in a meeting with Carl Patton, the President of the University, my third meeting with him in two months. He speaks, while I and the other twelvish people in the room listen. He's cheerful, and almost but not quite affable. He's announced his retirement in June or July of 2008. Oh, and in case you're wondering it looks like GSU will indeed be getting a football team, probably in 2010, by Patton's estimate. This interests me not at all.

Earlier tonight, I visited with the Amnemonic Chiropractor, and now I'm sipping Calvados and listening to When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima.

~~~~~~~

Back off, man. I'm a scientist.

I haven't told you yet, but I got to see H.H. the Dalai Lama a few weeks ago. Rashid and I heard him speak in Centennial Olympic Park, the same night we went to the thrift store (me and Rashid, not me and the Dalai Lama - although H.H.'d probably rock some of the supersweet offerings to be found at Last Chance Thrift).

~~~~~~~

Take it away.

But today was difficult. My sense of time is slow even though my days are busy and tight. My horses aren't so much bucking as veering pessimistically and persistently to the left. I have to keep some of my attention with them constantly so I don't, you know, incurvate. Which isn't easy because they daydream constantly and don't follow instructions well.

Don't know much about history . . .

What kind of fuckery is this?

I saw my chiropractor tonight (if you've been following along, you probably know that he traditionally has bizarre memory lapses when it comes to me. But he seems to know me better now. He should - I wrote my name down for him the last time I saw him), and I bumped into Esteban in the waiting room. We talked for a good while, mostly about old guitarists - Django, McLaughlin, etc. Esteban and I have a regular gig, along with a percussionist and a turntablist, playing improvised music for first Thursday art openings at the Rialto. Good times.

I was invited - don't laugh - to a chanting last Friday night, at this yoga place down the street from the Nunnery that I've never seen the inside of in all the years I've lived here. But suddenly, about ten minutes before I was supposed to be there, I was struck by a thought I'd never had a reason to have before: just what does one wear to a chanting, exactly? For the curious, I settled on a burnt-orange long sleeve pullover over a black tee, my laine vierge sports coat, a flaxen scarf, and loose-fitted jeans. With saddle shoes. Funny thing, it turns out that's exactly what you wear to a chanting...

Saturday I went to the Chomp and Stomp in Cabbagetown with Rashid and Jason. Dozens of different varieties of chili, Sweetwater (a local beer), and live bluegrass are a decent way to begin a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning. Later, Mark came by the Nunnery and together we polished off the last of the tequila, listened to some records, and brainstormed about our joint musical process.

Sunday morning I went to a Quaker meeting, something I've done for the past four Sundays. This may initially surprise some who know Sabitathica well. Sabitathica is known to be constitutionally distrustful of organized religion. And while this (natural, healthy) attitude is not at all unusual in the sweet northeast, it is in some short supply down here in Bedlam. Which reminds me of a conversation I had last spring with a girl who was working for me around the office:

Girl: Sabitathica, have you accepted Jesus into your life?
Sabitathica: Um, I'm from Boston.

But Quakers are badasses. I went to one meeting in Amherst twelve years ago with good guy Chris Fitz from Hampshire and I've never forgotten it.

Sunday night I went to La Fonda with Jason for margaritas and general guy stuff before we brought the good times back here.

Lunch today with Rashid and JB at Slice, where the guy sitting next to me at the bar for some reason began talking to me about Ayn Rand of all things. He was just beginning the Fountainhead. Good times, good times.

~~~~~~~

Jackknife juggernaut

Things've been busy lately, as busy as they've been in several years. Life is rich and events are rife with meaning. Synchronicity is everywhere.

My dreams are generous, with emotions strong and mixed. People I've known, women mostly, appearing to me in my sleep, negotiating complicated amnesties.

And as an aside, I've got auditions again this week. I could organize auditions in my fucking sleep at this point of my life. One would hope this to be a transferable skill, but I'm not so sure.

If I say it's safe to surf this beach, Captain, then it's safe to surf this beach!

In the form of gardenias . . .

Remember Apocalypse Now? Kilgore says, "you either surf or you fight." Fucking Kilgore. What a ham . . . Kurtz would have been interested in him, but wouldn't've taken him on board. He was too ostentatious, too showy. Fuck off, Kilgore. Leave me alone. Go away. Go surf.

~~~~~~~

With no forwarding address to trace them.

Talked the other day with dear sister Karyn. About The Road, mostly - she just read it. We also talked about the house we spent our childhood in. A beautiful, architecturally nourishing space; a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle, put together just so. Her bedroom, we reminisced, fearlessly explored a powerful Raggedy Ann motif. Mine had fuzzy-animal wallpaper.

~~~~~~~

A note on fame.

I listen and read, and I have to ask - who cannot relate to Britney Spears's situation? Compassless and wild, she's trying to break out of her machine. She's at last becoming interesting, no longer just amusing or entertaining. A cartoonish, real-time morality play is being acted out through her. It'll probably use her up before it's done - it maybe already has - and it seems reckless to unheed it's warning and graceless to mock her example.

How little we need to be happy.

By the fountain yesterday at Centennial Olympic Park . . .

She's not a girl who misses much.

"Sex is the mathematical urge repressed." ~ Freud

In an effort to, um, take my mind off things, I've been reacquainting myself with proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, the crown jewel of number theory, and Gauss's favorite theorem. Euler conjectured it but Gauss was first to give it proof. If you like, you can hang out with a crisp overview of quadratic reciprocity here. Oh, but it gives me the warm fuzzies...

~~~~~~~

Anyway, there's been dreams. The sleepy Cardinals are hard at hand...


... hallucinating lucidity. What gives?

~~~~~~~

I'm returned tonight from the first half of a NATS Alexander Technique workshop. NATS is the National Association of Teachers of Singing; the Alexander Technique is a way of doing things. I have no association with NATS.

Today it was necessary to leave music school and go to Borders. Being there, I bought a DVD set of fifty - yes, fifty - movies, called SciFi Classics. For twenty dollars. Have you heard about this? Fifty movies. With titles like

* The Incredible Petrified World
* The Atomic Brain
* Attack of the Monsters
* Mesa of Lost Women
* The Astral Factor
* Assignment: Outer Space
* Destroy All Planets

... except there's fifty of them. For twenty dollars. Fuck. ing. sweet. Attack of the Monsters... heh.

By the sound of your voice . . .

I was at Turner Field last night, watching the Braves explain some things to the Marlins. Wanda (of markandwanda)'s back has been troubling her (and is apparently, thankfully, beginning to mend), so Mark invited me to go. He had passes to the "755 Club", so we spent most of the game in the very lap of luxury: tureens of cocaine, cigars, fallen women . . .

Hear the memories come in waves.

A beautiful day. Full, really, with things good and bad, pleasant and un-. Walked in the park and talked, instead of eating lunch, with an old friend of mine about Dag Hammarskjöld, martyr for the good guys. This would fall under "pleasant". Vlindinhauer Haverhast, the old friend in mention, himself also a sort of martyr for the good guys, was enviably on the Cape as we spoke. Fuck, how I want to be on the Cape. I've been homeless for too long. Cape Cod, if you're lost. Keep up. But don't ask me anything else about it. I don't want to talk about it. Fuck.

Placing that aside, I watched The Pope of Greenwich Village last night for the 1st time since 1984 or 5. I'm all about Mickey Rourke right now. Motherfucker quits acting to resume his relationship with boxing in '91 - at 35 - this time as a professional and doesn't lose a single fight (though he drew against both Fransisco Harris and Thomas McCoy). His acting is spot on. Between him and Eric Roberts, the method is dropping thick.

My dreams have taken on a new direction the past two nights. Are they waving or drowning? I can't tell. There seems to be an upheaval in the works; I'm generally in favor and my concern is mostly with facilitation.

Oh, and I watched Zeitgeist over the last 21 hours, in installments. My inner conspiracy theorist wants me to tell you he's giving it two thumbs up. Rashid turned me on to this film a few weeks ago. And speaking of installments, Ken Burns, who I can never mention without reminding everyfuckingbody that he went to Hampshire, has a new documentary on WWII premiering this Sunday on PBS. I don't care if I'm the only person I know who finds this even remotely interesting. Ken Burns is a gem of a man.

And David Sylvian serenades with Orpheus.

Vlin, I can see your entries now.

We've all gone crazy lately

Trouble sleeping. I was up until about 06:00, wired, unable to shake some strange wakefulness, my head overflowing with thoughts, my horses bucking. Awake until 06:00, which was just a few minutes before my (goddamn) alarm went off. Past five and close to sleep, I mobilized myself to investigate two loud, sharp knocks at the door to my front porch. This deep into the night, there's no reason for someone, anyone, to be knocking on my door, but of course you have to check. I don't know though, maybe I'd only imagined it, because when I opened it there was nobody there. I'm not sure what I thought I was going to do anyway. I was only in boxers, and apart from my body itself, totally weaponless (I keep a natural wood Louisville Slugger by my bed, just in case, but in my sleepless forgetfulness, I opened the door without it).

So I did what I usually do when I'm home alone and can't sleep - I watched 2001, beautiful soporific masterpiece.

The other night, the night the weather changed (it's been cooler here than it was throughout August), I had a vivid, technicolor dream. I was standing in front of the Atlantic, on the porch of the Marshfield house, looking out at the moon, which was enormous - as big as the earth - and only a few feet away. The porch had no railing, and I almost jumped across, over to the moon. I probably could have. Part of the imagery came from a story I read by Calvino in '96 called the distance of the moon. I almost jumped, but I didn't. Something stopped me. It felt dangerous, maybe.

Now playing: Someone saved my life tonight, by Elton John.

I'm leaving in a few minutes to meet Rashid for dinner at Figo. We ate together yesterday too, at La Fonda.

Backtracking: on Friday I left work early and went to Jason's for a drink and to watch some early Beatles footage (I have a great weakness for all things early-Beatle). From there we headed over to Rashid's for more drinks and engaging guy-talk. Eventually we all moved on to La Fonda for dinner and even more drinks. And later we drove to Sheila and Tim's, et al, where there was a house party in mid-swing and the drinking began in earnest. And then, finally, back home.

There was something to celebrate - I'm now vested, after ten years at GSU.

My head has been a tumult again today. I'm going to try to get some real rest tonight. Wish me luck.

The sky is breaking

Asked to guess, I'd say temperatures today were in the low nineties, which comes, believe it or not, as a big fucking relief. And there was a breeze too, which. . . you just can't imagine what it's been like here. But the stultifyingly static weather finally broke yesterday afternoon as Bedlam inched its way across a pressure front. It's still hot as fiery hell, but currently overcast, so for the moment we're no longer directly under the fat old eye of the sun.

I woke this morning at 06:00 exactly and, not for lack of trying, couldn't re-enter sleep. This is not unusual. The gods of sleeping late do not smile upon me, my friend. Their ways are mysterious and occult and I am afraid their dark logic confounds me.

I purchased a haircut at Salon Red this morning at 09:30 before engaging my Saturday usual at Gato's Sweltering Nuclear Furnace Oven Emporium. Of Hell. And the obligatory iced-coffee from Dr. Bombay's found me returning on foot to the Nunnery where I began the recording portion of my day.

I'm currently borrowing a Moog from makandwanda and finding it endlessly fascinating. I've always wanted one but couldn't afford, so I'm making this opportunity count. Oh, and Mark dropped off a cd I requested of reference recordings to aid me in my writing. We're learning how to work together.

Slice last night after hours with my boyz, Rashid and Jason, with Joe behind the bar. J. & J. had to leave, but R. and I stayed for a while, conversationalizing with the new barista and rocking to Shuggie and Sabbath on the jukebox. :()*

*Why do I not know the smiley-text symbol equivalent of death-metal devil horns? I imagine I would feel adrift in a world where such a symbol did not exist. Until I discover one, this will have to do.

And my god, what a fucking week this has been, work-wise. And there's no reason to expect next week will be any better. Fall semester begins Monday.

Take the leap and never waver.

Work (for Esme - with love and squalor)

My life these days occurs between meetings. Here's today:

* an hour and a half School of Music administrative meeting, which took place immediately following my
* one on one meeting to bring the new Graduate Director up to speed; then
* a Staff Development Committee meeting across campus to discuss, among other things, allocation of funds by the
* Scholarship Committee, for which I 'volunteered' today. As always, there were
* sundry impromptu meetings with troubled (yet ever charming) music students; and
* one more sit down later this evening with my financial advisor to discuss the pecuniary implications of my impending resignation.

And since I'm on about work, I'll mention that I sit on several new committees, viz.

* I was recently elected to the Staff Council;
* as mentioned above, I sit on both the Staff Development Committee and
* the Scholarship Committee; and also, for kicks, I'm on the
* Green Issues Committee. It's not easy being green . . .

This, in addition to my ongoing work within the School of Music itself, which was amped up to eleven when my boss went on sabbatical in Spring and wasn't made any easier when he resigned upon returning in Summer. I've been doing virtually all of his academic and administrative work since January. His replacement will take over in a few weeks and hopefully share the load, though he'll need some time to get up and running.

And it's hot here. It's a fucking heat wave. Almost unbearable. Looking back, I don't know how A. and I made it through our first summer here in the deep south without air-conditioning, migrating, as we were, from the middle of a deep, cold winter in Maine. We tried everything we could think of to stay cool, including sleeping on our apartment's porch, which would sometimes catch a cross-breeze through the bullet holes in the windows when the wind was right.

Niels Bohr said,

"How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress."

It's real fucking hot here. There's a heat advisory for this area. This afternoon John from Slice told me temperatures are supposed to be in the upper nineties here through the end of the month.

I'm listening to Shuggie Otis, funk guitar cynosure. His voice conjures Michael Franks in a younger day; his guitar playing is, in some alternate universe, what Prince's guitar would have sounded like were he, Prince, to have taken psilocybin in, say, 1983. As it is, Shuggie was doing this in 1974. If there's not enough sweet beautiful funk in your life these days, you should download Inspiration Information immediately. It's Bill Withers channeling Dr. Seuss, swear to god. Thank me later.

And Saturday last was dear sister Karyn's birthday. She and I talked for over an hour on Friday, with me uploading news from the Nunnery. She and my sweet goddaughter are well. Karyn is two years older than me which must make her, let's see . . . thirty-three, I believe.

Rashid, I bought another, so keep the one you've got.

And welcome back, Team Amsterdam. Hope the trip was productive.

Queueing theory

Listening to Dusty in Memphis. The song "No Easy Way Down" is currently two-stepping its way around the room. I'm partial to Mark Eitzel's version (the first time I heard it was in April 1998 at a critical juncture), but who could deny Dusty in '68?

Work has gotten busy. Dense days keeping me forever on the phone and near my email, with increasing demands on my attention from the aspiring musicians who tap on my office door.

Hung out with my crew at Slice last night after bringing things in the office to a state of equilibrium for the week. Good friends, hard work. Not bad.

Death standing up

Now playing: Runaround Sue by Dion.

Went with Jenny last night to Park Tavern. There were bands playing, three of them, two of which you've maybe heard of. Musically, they weren't terribly imaginative, but several margaritas later and who really cares? Well, me still . . . but appreciably less.

Earlier on Sunday I finished that book I keep telling you about. Sunday was a real sad day for me in several ways, and the ending of this book sure didn't help matters. Fucking reduced me to a gelatinous, quivering mass of pussyishness. It might be the saddest thing I've ever read. Death of a Salesman is the only thing I can think of to approach it in terms of its effect on me, but Arthur Miller generated some of his voltage by making Willy Loman delusional and pathetic, which never seemed like the easy way out before, but is starting to now (heresy, I know). But McCarthy takes a higher road and shows us only the unadorned dolor of love plus time, with the tenderest nobility in place of pity. You probably shouldn't read it.

Moving chronologically contrariwise, Rashid left his personal effects in my car on Saturday and we met for lunch today so he could reclaim them. We got food from good girl Favan's place, which has the best tuna downtown that I know of.

There was lots of conversation as usual, though most of the big topics, including the two workhorses - our jobs and women - had been covered abundantly on Saturday. In fact, conversation was so smooth on Saturday that at one point I even got to bust out a Flubber reference. Which, for the record, was actually a reference to the original 1960's The Absent-Minded Professor with Fred MacMurray, and not the 90's remake with Robin Williams which I've never seen and which I simply cannot condone, mostly because I'm opposed to Walt Disney and his sycophantic henchmen fucking with my childhood memories.


And now playing: I think I Love You by the Partridge Family. I swooned for this song as a boy and still do. Not least of why is the relative rarity of hearing a pure, sweet pop song fall as unapologetically into a full diminished mode as this one does. And you have to love the twee harpsichord solo.