Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, once again listening to Bill Evans and his second sequel to Conversations with Myself, called New Conversations (the first sequel was called Further Conversations with Myself). I like this one better than Further Conversations with Myself – he’s just in great form here, and for the third piano track he’s playing a Fender Rhodes electric piano, which gives some really interesting and magical textures. There are four original Evans tunes – he was also a wonderful composer – and then interesting stuff like the title song from the Broadway show I Love My Wife and a great version of Cole Porter’s After You. My favorite of the Evans originals is Remembering the Rain. Prior to that, I watched a motion picture on Amazon Prime entitled The Perfect Enemy, a foreign thriller but in English (not dubbed – everyone speaks English). It’s based on a novel and it’s not bad. The ending surprise has certainly been done several times before, but the two lead actors are interesting and I didn’t mind it and it does move along. And now, it’s the terrific Symbiosis album with Bill Evans and the trio along with Claus Ogerman and his orchestra doing an Ogerman original multi-movement piece for jazz trio and orchestra. It sounds great, the music’s great, and it’s a complete winner.
Yesterday was certainly a day. I’m told it was a Monday. I was up by eleven after around seven hours of sleep. I moseyed on over to the first bank to cash the pension check – I was in and out of there in record time, about four minutes. Then I walked over to my branch of Bank of America only to find it “temporarily closed.” That was completely irritating. So, I drove over to my nearby branch where, in completely predictable fashion, there was a line all the way around the building. I just came home, disgusted, and will try again in the afternoon on this day. I ordered a burger and fries from Islands for food – basically the same burger I always get but with thousand island instead of ketchup and mustard. It arrived pretty quickly and was really good, as were their excellent fries.
Then I futzed and finessed the pages from the day before. This I did for a whopping two-and-a-half hours. It just wasn’t feeling right and so I did a lot of rewriting, adding, subtracting, and just making sure the tone was right. Once I finished all that, I wrote two new pages but was exhausted. So, I watched the movie, then wrote about eight more pages. I made a little salad with chicken for my evening snack, and that was good. Then I wrote another three pages, so I’ll try and do at least two more for going to bed. I’m in an interesting sequence so I should be able to.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven, I’ll futz and finesse, which will hopefully go faster than it’s been going, I’ll write new pages, I’ll eat something light, I’ll write more, then I’ll shave and shower, go to the mail place, and then I’m seeing some play reading at the Group Rep – not really a reading – I think the people involved think of it as almost a full production, which really isn’t the purpose of these things. After that’s done, I’ll come home and depending on how much I’ve written, I’ll either write more or watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is much the same – a lot of writing, perhaps a meeting and meal, going and doing as well as doing and going, doing whatever needs doing, also working on the project with David Wechter and doing a Zoom thing, and then, on Sunday, getting Muse Margaret however many pages I’ve done by then. I’m hoping it’s around 100 pages – if I keep up the pace I’m doing, it should be possible.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven, futz and finesse, write new pages, eat, write more new pages, hopefully pick up some packages, see a play reading, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What do you think of the way the media reports on the Omicron variant and what do you think of the way that affects people? I’ll start – I find their reportage appalling, designed to stoke the flames of panic and fear. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, having thoroughly enjoyed New Conversations.