[To the music of Henry Miller in Brooklyn: At the Blood Bank]
Can you believe it?
Can you possibly reproductively believe it?
Where did I go this morning?
Why did I wake up at seven o'clock?
Where did I go when it was just getting light?
Brilliantly clear and amazingly cold
(snow in the Coast Ranges north of Winters
and as much on Mt. Diablo as has been seen in recent years).
Why did I go to the deity-damned Denny's?
Why did I order biscuits and gravy, and sit for an hour-and-a-half,
Falling behind and out of time with just a coffee, sinking fast --
Why? I'll tell you why:
To correct papers that's why, with precious little time to spare.
Make it to class on time for this Exam Day, and we have 22 survivors -- a respectable number by this point in the semester, with a seasonal dictation of the Handelian Joy to the World, five bars, cut off in mid-phrase. Check email just after, and Marty Rokeach has checked in, suggesting that we get together for lunch locally and then drive to St. Mary's to look the situation over.
He gives me a number, which I dutifully call:
"Is this Marty"
"Yes"
"This is Mark"
"Who?"
"Mark Alburger"
"Who?"
"Is this Martin Rokeach?"
"No, you have the wrong number."
So it turns out, my cell phone automatically calls within its home area code -- despite the fact that we are physically in another region. So, evidently two Martys share a telephone number in adjacent districts...
Call the correct number, and we're off to a Chinese locale in Moraga for lunch, past glorious open space,
then to campus, where we continue to discuss the upcoming Music in the Enlightment course, which is basically a Baroque-and-Classical offering required for the Music Major. Great, as well, to see Lino Rivera -- this is the second time one of his sabaticals (first was at DVC years back) has provided a striking opportunity.
It takes Marty and I awhile (two detachment and attachments of ethernet cable from faculty offic to classroom), but we finally figure out that the space has internet capabilities -- well nigh essential these days...
Borrow some scores and a book, handy for course and course of composition and life:
Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin
Music in the Western World: A History in Documents
Arcangelo Corelli
Complete Violin Sonatas and Trio Sonatas
G.F. Handel
Giulio Cesare
J.S. Bach
French Suites Sonatas and Partitas
St. Matthew Passion
Mass in B Minor
F.J. Haydn
Complete London Symphonies
W.A. Mozart
The Violin Concerti and the Sinfonia Concertante
(5th is from which my Violin Concerto ["Ticklish"] is derived)
Later Symphonies (35-41)
Spend some time in the library, then back through back roads (good to get to know -- have been in area several times and am finally connecting a few routes) to DVC, burning copies of the Samson and Delilah: X. Delilah and XI. Dagon (frament) recordings of yesterday that were in want of a blank CD.
Home to Harriet, dinner together, fully figuring out (thanks to Chris's lead yesterday late in the lab) how to get a full midi orchestra playback out of Sibelius (also sleuthing out where the mysterious "Scores" folder was placed -- counterintuatively in "Documents," now moved to "Music"), orchestrating through page 32 of Dagon, putting a bit on the music history blog re Danny Elfman and Thomas Newman. Can you believe it?
