November 21 - Crossing Over

Do the orchestration for Joshua Fought the Battle: III. Deep River and prepare for publication



IV. The Battle of Jericho while Harriet's on the road for a job in Novato and meetings with Meghan in San Francisco and Eliza in El Cerito.

November 18 - Gather at the Watering Hole

Busy day, with dictation of Police Synchronicity: King of Pain (verse - theme song?), scheduling of student teaching, and an evocative piece from Seth. Lunch at Elephant Bar and quick trip home to revise quizzes for evening, in which are covered selections from Aram Khachaturian and Harold Arlen to Gyorgy Ligeti and Henry Mancini. Left Bank follows with Owen and Doug, wherein potentially ominous news is discussed. Manage to orchestrate a page of Joshua Fought the Battle: II Shall We Gather (5) upon return.

November 18 - Doctors of Invention

Glenn Appell in class today for routine (every three years, evidently) teacher evaluation, and everything apparently goes well, with brief video clips from Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi and John Williams's Star Wars: Main Title, blog examples from Glass Einstein, Williams The Empire Strikes Back, and Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here: Shine On You Crazy Diamond III. Dictation is a combo plate of Glass's Satyagraha: Act I, Scene I (with no common tones in harmonization) and Akhnaten: Love Duet (with nothing but common tones. Listen to a bit of John Veitch's latest, then in the lab recording Moses and Aaron: XX. There Shall a Star. Following this, seems I must blitz out to U.C. Davis, past the atomic-barn of a new building, to take a look at Michael Tippet's A Child of Our Time (which includes settings of Go Down Moses and Deep River) and two versions of Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.


Orchestrate Joshua Fought the Battle: I. Go Down, Moses (a post-minimalist, modal take on the Tippett, rather than on the pure form above) upon return, just after stopping for gas at $2.09 in Dixon.

November 16 - Tales from the Crypt

Off on another dangerous mission, towards splendiferous skies on I-80 West in the direction of Cordelia Junction and the Sulfur Springs Mountains,



with petrol at $2.13 in at Vallejo 5-Star and Albany Hill a seemingly appropriate abstraction of eighth notes and threes (serendipity of movement in the half-light), this time back to Oakland's Chapel of the Chimes for the final Opera Apocalypse (Amy Beth Kirsten's Ophelia Forever, John Bilotta's Quantum Mechanic, and my Antigone [sounds like a pop song] -- featuring our two shining alternate-night stars:


Eliza O'Malley and Letitia Page). Fantastic final show (despite further alterations of the playing space as compared to two days previously in the same venue), in a full house, which includes Patti and Joel Deuter, Andrew Flesher, Chris Fowler, Alexis Lane Jensen, Diana Landau, Hugh Livingston, Luis Lobos, Ken Medlen, Sheli Nan, and Mark Steidel.



After the strike, many of the cast head down Piedmont for tapas at Cesar's,



including Maria Mikheyenko, Laryssa Sadoway, Kimberley Anderman, William Loney, Megan Cullen, Eliza,


Johns Bilotta and McGrew, Mark Alburger,



Harriet March Page, Meghan Dibble, Michael and Stephanie Desnoyers,



Adam Broner,



Alexandre Jerenic, Micah Epps,



Lisa McHenry and Terrence Bennon.



Down for the count upon return, but write another two pages of orchestration for Joshua Fought the Battle: II. Shall We Gather before all of above.