Sunday, February 24
Yesterday (Saturday) was okay. I haven't kicked the sickness, but it never got to the point of being bothersome yesterday; I wasn't moving a whole lot for most of the day, and when I went out to dance I was happily unhindered by ickiness. Nice that it was for the most part limited to throat stuff (and to be sure I was quite croaky when I got home at around two), unlike Friday when it was threatening to spread to nose (Vicky was having that problem on stage; she resorted to wiping with back of hand a few times and I felt really sorry for her.) Well that was a pleasant introduction.
I let myself sleep until noon (unlike today, when I set an alarm for ten), then sat here and made a stickie to write lyrics for this song about Brigid that has been slowly evolving for a long time. It ended up quite a bit longer than I had plans, with each 'verse' having three distinct sections, plus an intro and an outro section which don't have music yet but should be somewhat different from the rest of the song. There's no chorus or repeated section, which I like, it's like a Shins tune. Joel compared it to Big Star when I played it for him. I don't have a title yet, but I'm thinking about "Word Games," since each verse is centered around a game: 'death hypothetical', housebox, "never have i ever," with also some scrabble and card references. Joel and I played around with that and with some of his tunes ("immortal billionaires are working on the problem.") I also got a bit of reading done and ate some interesting food (Nori came back from Chinatown with "bubble tea," which comes with an extra-wide straw so you can suck up the doughy brown balls) before leaving the house.
I called the shuttle at 6:15, but after it finally came we sat at Parrish circle for ten minutes while I hiccuped in the darkness, then eventually to ML at 6:40. But Alyssa wasn't there. Kate Duffy directed me to the breakfast room for sushi, but her roommate Kate and her friend were all set and didn't need my help. So I sat and read and enjoyed the nice ML people interacting; Joy, Amy, Elizabeth McDonald Liz Singreen and "Elizabeth's mama", Ross Messing, Duffy strolling oddly in and out again. After a few chapters I went to go chat with her, but Alyssa was home instead. She thinks Joel has gotten more cynical. We looked at Grünewald's Issenheim crucifixion. At eight we went back down for sushi, armed with chopsticks. They had made a goodly amount; pieces with shrimp and tuna, and rolls with cucumber, avocado, crabstick, tuna and others in all sorts of combinations, as well as sliced and chocolate-covered strawberries. Not the best (the seaweed was pretty hard), but fairly impressive for handmade. It's unsettling not to be the primary Ross of reference. As that ended, I decided to practice on the piano there rather than heading for campus. That was partly a bad idea, since I never practice as efficiently when there are other people in the room (even though it was just Joy Mills and some other guy working on masks for their dance-theatre class), but it was fun. I think the Bartok improved even so, and arpeggios. I played around with some new songwriting ideas, started improvising and realized that I should incorporate the blues and funk of my piano improv into my songwriting. So I tried a funky swung "mind games," which almost worked, and then a more successful version of the song that I'm on the verge of writing about doting. The shuttle appeared as I was heading back upstairs, so I went for that instead.
I was one of the first to arrive at the Paces Purim cocktail hour (after head jews Susan and Susannah,) but more people showed up almost immediately - Jess Sheldon, Wirzbicki, Jake and Andy, and they hadn't figured out the music yet, so we were just hearing the first minute or so of "Born to Run" repeated over and over. Doughy goodness hamentaschen, and dried apricots, grapes, chocolate orange. Then all kinds of my favorite people started showing up - Brigid, Zabby, Kate, and all the others - Stef and Jedd doing an over-emotive lipsynch to "Oh Darling" (which, appropriately, we had sung about Ester last weekend) - Ben photographing them, Nina and Adena (who I didn't get to talk to), Addie and Celia, Holts, Joel, Micah and gold-haired Jav (chatted about semantics). I asked Rae for something, and she handed me a Long Island Iced Tea; quite potent, and within a minute I was bawling and air-guitaring to "Bohemian Rhapsody" along with a tablefull of goofies (as Kara and Ted sat in the corner and smiled). Despite my intentions not to drink much due to being nominally under the weather, I had another (bay breeze) and another (improvised 7 and 7 with Jack Daniels instead of Seagrams 7, right?) and it felt pretty okay. I was never all that far gone, but it certainly made a difference. I helped them get some Lauryn Hill on the box, and soon we had a circle going in the center of the raised area (they had it excellently set up with tables around the edges and open space in the middle). If they had wanted to it could easily have gone all night, with just a better music setup. The group of people was terrific - all the people I like to see at Paces parties, plus twice as many more who never go to parties. And a lot of them stayed out, moving (as I did) down to Olde Club and the WRC, where as I had anticipated, one of the happeninest nights of party action was in full force. Upstairs was already pretty crowded when we got there, but downstairs was nice and open; plenty of space for Ben and I to go abstract around the painted poles. Both floors had excellent music - one off-campus and one on-, but both were spinning for real, albeit covering similar musical ground (awesome hip-hop, though downstairs was more techno at times and up threw in some reggae and dancehall stuff.) I danced with Morgan, Celia (to the amusement of her friends), Maria, Camilla (drunk; we had several interactions throughout the evening, at each of three parties, and maybe said more than we should about J and S), Rae (back in the basement; my most energetic, exhausting stint), but not Sara or Sarah. I ran into Liza, and we danced for many songs, but we stopped before things went too far (well, too far by my definition at that point in time). Alison and Lauren Appel in the basement ("get Ur freak on" minutes after Liza and I had upstairs; that song will always make me think of Addie Candib, with whom I danced to it at the formal; then he played a rather bizarre song looping "ass…titties…ass, ass…titties." okay.) And so I decided to head back, stopping to offer a shirt to half-naked Jocelyn.
Back past Willets, where Jarrett was sitting on the stoop like an oracle; puffing on his cig and then exhaling into a bubble wand, so that his large, grey bubbles smoked and evanesced on contact, really very beautiful. We stood in silence, then Brigid and Ali showed up, returned from the city, and we all dispersed. Today: reading, phil stuff(?) cab rehearsal, directing II scenes, inflight rehearsal (in preparation for Rose Tattoo this week.) Banana breakfast? Let's go see what's up.
I went down to the county drug store
I let myself sleep until noon (unlike today, when I set an alarm for ten), then sat here and made a stickie to write lyrics for this song about Brigid that has been slowly evolving for a long time. It ended up quite a bit longer than I had plans, with each 'verse' having three distinct sections, plus an intro and an outro section which don't have music yet but should be somewhat different from the rest of the song. There's no chorus or repeated section, which I like, it's like a Shins tune. Joel compared it to Big Star when I played it for him. I don't have a title yet, but I'm thinking about "Word Games," since each verse is centered around a game: 'death hypothetical', housebox, "never have i ever," with also some scrabble and card references. Joel and I played around with that and with some of his tunes ("immortal billionaires are working on the problem.") I also got a bit of reading done and ate some interesting food (Nori came back from Chinatown with "bubble tea," which comes with an extra-wide straw so you can suck up the doughy brown balls) before leaving the house.
I called the shuttle at 6:15, but after it finally came we sat at Parrish circle for ten minutes while I hiccuped in the darkness, then eventually to ML at 6:40. But Alyssa wasn't there. Kate Duffy directed me to the breakfast room for sushi, but her roommate Kate and her friend were all set and didn't need my help. So I sat and read and enjoyed the nice ML people interacting; Joy, Amy, Elizabeth McDonald Liz Singreen and "Elizabeth's mama", Ross Messing, Duffy strolling oddly in and out again. After a few chapters I went to go chat with her, but Alyssa was home instead. She thinks Joel has gotten more cynical. We looked at Grünewald's Issenheim crucifixion. At eight we went back down for sushi, armed with chopsticks. They had made a goodly amount; pieces with shrimp and tuna, and rolls with cucumber, avocado, crabstick, tuna and others in all sorts of combinations, as well as sliced and chocolate-covered strawberries. Not the best (the seaweed was pretty hard), but fairly impressive for handmade. It's unsettling not to be the primary Ross of reference. As that ended, I decided to practice on the piano there rather than heading for campus. That was partly a bad idea, since I never practice as efficiently when there are other people in the room (even though it was just Joy Mills and some other guy working on masks for their dance-theatre class), but it was fun. I think the Bartok improved even so, and arpeggios. I played around with some new songwriting ideas, started improvising and realized that I should incorporate the blues and funk of my piano improv into my songwriting. So I tried a funky swung "mind games," which almost worked, and then a more successful version of the song that I'm on the verge of writing about doting. The shuttle appeared as I was heading back upstairs, so I went for that instead.
I was one of the first to arrive at the Paces Purim cocktail hour (after head jews Susan and Susannah,) but more people showed up almost immediately - Jess Sheldon, Wirzbicki, Jake and Andy, and they hadn't figured out the music yet, so we were just hearing the first minute or so of "Born to Run" repeated over and over. Doughy goodness hamentaschen, and dried apricots, grapes, chocolate orange. Then all kinds of my favorite people started showing up - Brigid, Zabby, Kate, and all the others - Stef and Jedd doing an over-emotive lipsynch to "Oh Darling" (which, appropriately, we had sung about Ester last weekend) - Ben photographing them, Nina and Adena (who I didn't get to talk to), Addie and Celia, Holts, Joel, Micah and gold-haired Jav (chatted about semantics). I asked Rae for something, and she handed me a Long Island Iced Tea; quite potent, and within a minute I was bawling and air-guitaring to "Bohemian Rhapsody" along with a tablefull of goofies (as Kara and Ted sat in the corner and smiled). Despite my intentions not to drink much due to being nominally under the weather, I had another (bay breeze) and another (improvised 7 and 7 with Jack Daniels instead of Seagrams 7, right?) and it felt pretty okay. I was never all that far gone, but it certainly made a difference. I helped them get some Lauryn Hill on the box, and soon we had a circle going in the center of the raised area (they had it excellently set up with tables around the edges and open space in the middle). If they had wanted to it could easily have gone all night, with just a better music setup. The group of people was terrific - all the people I like to see at Paces parties, plus twice as many more who never go to parties. And a lot of them stayed out, moving (as I did) down to Olde Club and the WRC, where as I had anticipated, one of the happeninest nights of party action was in full force. Upstairs was already pretty crowded when we got there, but downstairs was nice and open; plenty of space for Ben and I to go abstract around the painted poles. Both floors had excellent music - one off-campus and one on-, but both were spinning for real, albeit covering similar musical ground (awesome hip-hop, though downstairs was more techno at times and up threw in some reggae and dancehall stuff.) I danced with Morgan, Celia (to the amusement of her friends), Maria, Camilla (drunk; we had several interactions throughout the evening, at each of three parties, and maybe said more than we should about J and S), Rae (back in the basement; my most energetic, exhausting stint), but not Sara or Sarah. I ran into Liza, and we danced for many songs, but we stopped before things went too far (well, too far by my definition at that point in time). Alison and Lauren Appel in the basement ("get Ur freak on" minutes after Liza and I had upstairs; that song will always make me think of Addie Candib, with whom I danced to it at the formal; then he played a rather bizarre song looping "ass…titties…ass, ass…titties." okay.) And so I decided to head back, stopping to offer a shirt to half-naked Jocelyn.
Back past Willets, where Jarrett was sitting on the stoop like an oracle; puffing on his cig and then exhaling into a bubble wand, so that his large, grey bubbles smoked and evanesced on contact, really very beautiful. We stood in silence, then Brigid and Ali showed up, returned from the city, and we all dispersed. Today: reading, phil stuff(?) cab rehearsal, directing II scenes, inflight rehearsal (in preparation for Rose Tattoo this week.) Banana breakfast? Let's go see what's up.
I went down to the county drug store
