Frank and James are playing "Seeing Other People." I just got back from doing my show, which included a twenty-five minute tribute to XTC. Liza stopped by towards the end with some water, which my throat had been in desperate need of since the beginning of the show. On the way out we passed a party in the 5th Lounge; Amanda Cravens offered me some cheese and Jeff Regier some jug wine. "You'd be better off; at least they know where to put it."

Inflight (it seems the Gangster Lean has been vetoed at least for now) rehearsed from 3:00 to 4:45 and then again from 7:15 to 9:30, both times upstairs in Olde Club using the sound machine equipment. I think the first session was more productive: we came up with a very good arrangement for Matt's rock song (I still haven't heard all the lyrics, but apparently they're about his fear of STDs), and made headway on subduing the chaos of "Onward Christian Soldiers/Inflight Announcement." After Joel went to dance, Matt and I riffed a little bit on "Take-off" (working title), which I'm trying to write verses for (lyrics and melody); the music was pretty collaborative, I wrote the chorus. I'm working on another song too, which may sound a bit like the Crystals. I came home for dinner but there was nobody here, so I ended up just meeting Joel at tarble for a BLT wrap. When we got back to OC, a bassist was sitting there waiting for us, he's a curly named Allen, who seems pretty competent, although I think we wigged him out a bit. To be honest, the songs seem to work pretty well without bass parts, and I think we might ask him only to play on one or two tunes. He was having trouble finding a way in on OCS/IFA, but mostly because Joel was being frustratingly evasive, insisting on turning conventional verse/chorus/verse into indeterminate space. We have a good structure/arrangement for that, I think, we just need to work on it a lot; especially the funk section. Fortunately we have all day Saturday. Then we worked on "Lullaby" for a while (the one with Latin lyrics), and although I was confused at first, it turned into a really neat latin-ish groove (hey, I never thought of the musical pun there); I suggested we find a conguero for that tune. The kicker is the bridge, which is a strummy jazz waltz, and then mogrifies into afro-6/8. Matt played very lyrical trumpet, and even Allen was getting into it. I'm excited for the show; but more for the band.

A lot of discussion of null complementizers and inflectional heads in Syntax today put me in the mind of a bit of alphabetical algebra I did a long time ago, wherein I showed that "CAMP ENCORE/CODA" simplifies to CØ (C half-diminished.)

and i know storms inside your head will sometimes amplify your plight but no matter what the weather you and the clouds will still be beautiful