Well, dear readers, I’m sitting here like so much fish, as I have for the entire evening, listening to marvelous music – some great, some interesting, some not of interest, but all worth hearing in one way or another because one must always have an open mind, one simply must. So, tonight’s potpourri has included two great violin pieces by Khachaturian (this guy could write a tune – the most famous of which are his ebullient Sabre Dance and the adagio for his ballet Gayane, which was famously used in 2001. I loved these two pieces as much as I loved his piano concerto. Also heard, some terrific music by David Diamond (much more to hear – I uploaded five CDs of his music), and a composer I’d never heard of named Samuel Jones – I mean I had this CD that had pieces by him and another composer named Paul Cooper, but I don’t know that I ever actually played it. The Jones pieces are tonal and wonderfully touching and beautiful. Cooper is a bit more modern, but I certainly am enjoying his stuff. Then there was Robert Russell Bennett’s fun violin concerto, which I issued on Bay Cites, with violinist Louis Kaufman and Bernard Herrmann conducting. We issued several things with Mr. Kaufman playing (he was one of the leading violin players on a whole slew of iconic Hollywood film scores of the Golden Age), and he and his wife Annette became friends. One of my favorite memories of Louis was having him come to the mastering session for the Robert Russell Bennett concerto – he sat there listening as we did our thing and then he said, “Excellent – but put a little pepper on the violin.” We moved some knobs and found the “pepper” and he was happy. I’ve also listened to a ton of Korngold, all of which I’m mad about – both classical works and his film scores.
Prior to all that listening, I got almost eight hours of sleep and, in fact, awoke a mere five minutes before the arrival of my morning visit/meeting. That went well and lasted about an hour. Then I went over to the mail place only to be told it was a mail holiday. Then I went to the bank only to find out it was also a bank holiday. When did that happen? I do not ever remember banks and mail being shut down on the day after Christmas. Who decided this? Then I went to Jerry’s Deli for some food – the entire parking lot was full and so was the lot for the bowling alley, so I knew it would be a madhouse in there because that’s what Studio City is all about. So, I went to Du-Par’s, where it’s never very crowded at lunch time – it was very crowded and even though I was disgusted I waited about ten minutes and got a booth. Frankly, the food just isn’t good enough to endure a ten-minute wait. I had bacon, eggs, toast, and of course they were out of hash browns (how can a breakfast place be out of hash browns) so they gave me some red potatoes with onions – peculiar but okay.
Then I came home and went through the upper portion of the hall closet, pulling out about thirty CDs to put into iTunes, and that’s how the rest of the day and evening went, and I found it very relaxing and a lovely way to spend a day and evening.
Also, I’ve been trying to get myself into the place I like when I’m about to begin a new book – I’ve been finding that difficult, even though I had fun writing a couple of rough paragraphs a few weeks ago, and I know I’ll have fun writing it when I actually buckle down, Winsocki and do it. But I have to visit somewhere for research purposes – to take photos, have a couple of conversations, just for verisimilitude. And I haven’t done that and I keep thinking there must be a reason. I can do it this weekend, on Saturday, and I may, but it’s weird to me that I haven’t done it yet. Yesterday, I was sitting around and began to ask the question what if I wrote something else? And the second I thought that a title came into my head – I really don’t know why but it did. This is a title I came up with many years ago, and David Wechter and I came up with a film idea using the title, but while people enjoyed our pitch it never went anywhere. But every now and then I think about the title and am amazed no one, to my knowledge, has used it yet. So, when I went to bed I thought about that for a while, and in fact my dream was about writing a different book than the one I was planning. So, as I was listening to all the music yesterday and last night, I began making notes, trying to figure out a story that might be fun to go with the title. And I got a couple of notions and jotted them down and then just free associated and wrote more down, took a shower, got more ideas, and wrote those down, too. I’m going to keep doing that over the next couple of days and if I end up with something that I get jazzed about I may just switch over and write this other thing. If not, I’ll just continue with the one I’d been planning to write. We shall see.
Today will be another day to relax, listen to music, eat, hopefully pick up packages, choose songs, get singers their music, do some banking, and hope for a day without irritants.
The rest of the week is the same – I have a dinner on Thursday night and on Saturday I may do my research trip if I feel like it and it’s feasible.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, relax, listen to music, choose songs, eat, hopefully pick up packages, bank, and relax some more and perhaps watch a motion picture or two. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to keep having this music education.