I got nothing done. It was a holiday. Sue me.
Author: Dale
Summer Countdown: Day 24
Lichtenbergian goals:
I took a stab at destroying Resignation and got one or two interesting ideas out. Here’s where I just need to sit down and crank out crap until something grows out of all the manure.
I had sent the Preludes (no fugue) No. 1 and 3 to Maila Springfield, the insanely good pianist from VSU. Today I heard back from her: she had been practicing them and wants more. In fact, she and her husband and their saxophonist friend are going to play for the jazz majors at GHP the weekend I’ll be down there, and she wants to play them as part of that gig. So there’s a deadline, which is always helpful.
I worked some on No. 4, which is a complete reversal of No. 3: completely still music, mostly fading away, barely sustainable. I like what I’ve done so far. I may have that done by the early part of next week.
Lichtenbergian distractions:
I worked a great deal in the labyrinth. I planted half a tray of St. Augustine grass plugs in the area between the firepit and the labyrinth. I’m going to see how well it grows there and what it will look like before experimenting in the labyrinth itself.
I also moved the logs left over from last fall’s tree fall. They were an attractive grouping, but they really blocked the entrance to the men’s loo.
Since I was already moving those, I decided to go ahead and set one up over at the westpoint, since that’s where it would go eventually anyway. Then I set the great stone on top of it and put the mosaic dish I already had there on top of that. So I have a new westpoint (water) station.
Summer Countdown: Day 25
Lichtenbergian goals:
Nothing really, as befits Lichtenberg Day.
Part of the problem I’ve encountered with developing variations for Resignation is that the tune is so pure by itself that any kind of alteration feels like a violation. Anything I try to do to it degrades the music instead of adding interest.
The thing to do, obviously, is to completely destroy it.
Lichtenbergian distractions:
One of the books I brought home from school to read for the summer was Word after word after word, Patricia MacLachlan, a new book. Very short and quite lovely. I read it in one session before going to sleep the other night. Yes, MacLachlan is the author of Sarah, Plain & Tall. In this book, five 4th grade friends are in a class with a visiting author, and they learn how writing can shape their lives. As I said, it’s quite lovely.
I went to Atlanta to have lunch with my friend John Tibbetts, a young person of such life force that it’s impossible not to have a good time with him. Then I stopped by Sam Flax and picked up two tubes of gouache in colors that I do not have but apparently I need if I’m to paint portraits ever. (Really? Cadmium orange and cadmium yellow light? Really? As I said, I don’t know how to mix colors.)
Then back to Newnan, short errands, cook supper, and a languid evening with my lovely first wife. All in all, a solid Lichtenberg Day: I thought about composing, and I bought painting supplies, but I didn’t actually do any work.
Summer Countdown: Day 26
Lichtenbergian goals:
I got almost nothing done. I opened up the Resignation file and played around with a couple of idea for variations, but I soon gave that up. Did the same thing with “Prelude (no fugue) No. 2.”
Well, it was Lichtenberg Eve.
Lichtenbergian distractions:
Instead of being creative, I did some major updating in Quicken. For some reason, I’ve failed to balance my credit card statement for some months. I don’t know why, unless it was some kind of subliminal avoidance thing , and if you saw my balance you’d completely agree. This required reconstructing the statements for two of those months, because amazingly not all of the documents I required were buried on my desk.
This simple task took a great deal of the morning. Then UPS delivered the St. Augustine grass plugs I’d ordered. I’m trying to find something that is shade tolerant, and this seemed to be the thing. However, upon opening the box, I was not so sure. The fescue I’ve been trying to grow is so pretty, and the St. Augustine is more weedlike. I’m conflicted about where to plant it, or even whether to plant it.
However, I do remember that the back yard at our house in Macon, when I was a wee thing, was St. Augustine. Maybe it will be a good thing.
On the other hand, I fear that its spreading habits will create a constant battle to keep the paving stones uncovered. What will be, will be. I will plant them Friday. Maybe guidance will appear before then.
After lunch, I still had no inspiration. Well, actually I did: I was inspired to make some scrumptious chocolate cookies from Dessert in Half the Time. Twelve minutes from start to finish. Yum.
Then the mail delivered, from Netflix, the first disc of The First Churchills. This series was the first Masterpiece Theatre presentation, way back in 1970 or so. Starring Susan Hampshire (for whom I had the true hots) and John Neville, it traced the career of the Duke of Marlborough and his formidable Duchess from their early love in the court of Charles II through their ultimate power and sidelining in the days of Anne.
What’s not to like? Costumes, power, intrigue, wit , this show had it all. Half the flavor of Hofvonstein came from this depiction of the Stuart court. I watched it religiously, often with the Encyclopedia Britannica at my side so I could learn who was who in more detail. (It always amazed me at how closely the performers resembled the historical characters they played.)
After having gone more than six months with the same three Netflix DVDs sitting on the television, I finally watched two of the three (The Station Agent and Hedwig and the Angry Inch , excellent, both, but uninspiring) and shipped them all back, after manipulating Churchills to the top of the list.
So I have my soap opera to watch, and I have chocolate cookies to scarf down while doing so. Was there ever a better Lichtenberg Eve?
Summer Countdown: Day 27
Lichtenbergian goals:
After days of trying to craft a response to Diane’s request for a full, uncensored accounting of myself, I gave up on polished elegance and just created a bullet list of blunt statements: I don’t know why I’m painting again. What began as a joke is now the focus of all my artistic efforts. I don’t know how to mix colors.
She responded, and here’s where we are: she recommended a couple of DVDs from an artist she respects as a teacher of portraiture , those have been ordered , and rather than a four-day long Art Camp, we’ll begin with a one-day work session, to be followed up with homework and further sessions. I’ll be heading up to Clarkesville on Sunday, July 11.
I finished Prelude No. 3. I am fairly pleased with the results, although the ending sounds too easy, and I am constantly haunted by the fear that my stuff is too short. When we hit the end, it sounds to me as if we’ve skipped a really major portion of a really good piece. But I don’t know what to do about it.
Prelude (no fugue) No. 3: score | mp3
I had an idea for Prelude No. 4, so I got the germ down in a Finale file. I need to go back and work on No. 2.
I need to go and start working on themes/variations for Resignation and Rondo. (Later, in the labyrinth, I did just that. Because of my inability, for the most part, to transcribe what I hear in my head , when I can force myself to listen for it , I usually just “draw” notes and the shapes of melodies in the little music notebook I work in. Later, I have to try to reconstruct whatever it was I thought I heard based on the literal scribblings in the notebook.)
Taking a break from the music, I applied white absorbent ground to pieces of cardboard for later painting.
Lichtenbergian distractions:
I finished The Red Pyramid, by Rick (Percy Jackson) Riordan. A ripping yarn, as usual. I also read some more of The Idea of Justice. Still tough reading, but I’m enjoying it.
Via dailylit.com, I’ve been reading Middlemarch and loving it, but I slipped maybe a week ago and now I have acres of it to catch up. Isn’t it funny how you get behind in something like that and you resist the simplest solution: just read? I also got behind in my crossword puzzle solving while I was at GHP for the week, but I’m almost caught up there. I dutifully read through all the New York Times art sections , one must stay courant, ne-c’est pas? , and clipped all the crosswords, stacking them chronologically. I’m almost through that stack, nearly caught up with the actual day I’m living through.
I was gratified to notice that they changed the layout of the crossword page this past week. You may know that the crossword puzzle is always on the corner of a page, so that you can fold the paper in quarters and have the puzzle and all the clues neatly in front of you. This past year, they’ve added a number puzzle called Ken-Ken to the page, and it was always right above or below the other side of the fold, only not quite far enough away from the fold to make it comfortable. Thus there was always a moment of refolding, which of course interfered with the self-satisfied Zen experience of solving the Times crossword.
This past week, though, the editors moved Ken-Ken to the other side of the page, so that after you fold the paper, it is tidily situated on its own quarter. One less design problem in the world.
Summer Countdown: Day 28
I kept working on Prelude No. 3, returning to the opening chord phrase and wrapping it with the sixteenth note arpeggiations. I stopped at one point and emailed it to Maila, who gave it a thumbs up for its playability. So I kept adding to it. Didn’t finish it, but got it longer. I think I have some ideas for wrapping it up. I’ll refrain from posting another mp3 until I have it finished.
I also sketched for a while, using my new proportional divider, and let me tell you, that is a very good tool to have. I purposely went back and redrew some poses that had given me particular trouble, and all of them were 1,000% better. Still haven’t used my circle guide, but irises and pupils are not my real problem.
Summer Countdown: Day 29
I heard from Wallace Galbraith in Ayr. In his first email, he essentially agreed with my assessment of the five pieces, but expressed no preference for any of them in a way that my American brain could discern. I asked for clarification, and he suggested that we move forward with Resignation and Rondo. So there we go. I have new goals. (He also proposed Waltz as a “third movement,” but I’m not sure what he means by that.)
I woke up with the start of a piano piece in my head, the first of a series I conceived earlier in the spring, Preludes, no fugues. This is mostly driven by my sense of guilt over never having written the Trio for piano, trombone and saxophone that Maila Springfield asked me to write three summers ago. I can at least throw half a dozen bagatelles at her.
So I was quite productive on that front: finished No. 1, conceived No. 2, and am halfway through No. 3. I’ll loop back to No. 2. Nos. 4, 5, and 6… this week, maybe?
Prelude No. 1, score | mp3
Prelude No. 3 (as of 6/27), score | mp3
The third prelude will continue with that opening theme now interwoven with the sixteenths, I think, in multiple octaves in both hands, more grandiose than the delicate opening. Since I cannot possibly play any of it, I’m going to have to be very left-brain about its construction: where can the fingers actually be at any given time? Can I notate it so that the quarter notes of the “melody” are distinct from the sixteenths? How is this thing supposed to end?
I also heard from Diane Mize. While her cabin is being repaired, she has asked me to write a goal statement for our Art Camp: what do I want to accomplish and why? This is supposed to be “uncensored.” No fair making me think. Or be honest. You can see how this has taken me two days even to get half a page written.
Summer Countdown: Day 30
The Idea of Justice
Grayson gave me The Idea of Justice, by Amartya Sen, for Father’s Day. I began reading it today while basking in the labyrinth. It contains sentences like
An appropriate understanding of social realization , central to justice as nyaya , has to take the comprehensive form of a process-inclusive broad account. It would be hard to dismiss the perspective of social realizations on the grounds that it is narrowly consequentialist and ignores the reasoning underlying deontological concerns.
Okay. I’m already reading it with a bookmark sliding down the page, line by line, to keep my eyes on track. I guess I need a word wall to help keep the dialectics sorted out. I got it that he’s not a transcendental institutionalist (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant) but rather a fan of realization-focused comparison (Smith, Condorcet, Bentham, Marx, Mill), and I think I’m on his side.
For example, the term nyaya above is one of two basic Sanskrit jurisprudence concepts. Niti is organizational propriety/behavioral correctness , the Law (which as Mr. Bumble reminds us, “is a ass”) , while nyaya is realized justice, i.e., an inclusive view of human behavior. The Western example he gives of niti is Ferdinand I (Holy Roman Emperor) and his dictum, “Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus”: Let justice be done, though the world perish. As Sen wryly notes,
it would be hard to accommodate a total catastrophe as an example of a just world.
Precisely. He also gives an Indian term,
matsyanyaya, “justice in the world of fish,” where a big fish can freely devour a small fish. We are warned that avoiding matsyanyaya must be an essential part of justice, and it is crucial to make sure that the “justice of fish” is not allowed to invade the world of human beings… No matter how proper the established organizations might be, if a big fish could still devour a small fish at will, then that must be a patent violation of human justice as nyaya.
So far, the path he seems to be taking us down is one that I already have a sense of as being the proper one.