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May 3, 2022:

UNTITLED

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting a very strange symphony by Roger Sessions, who’s an American composer I’m not all that familiar with for some reason. This is his second symphony and I’m sure this is its premiere recording circa 1950. It’s “modern” but has appealing things in it – some of it’s noisy but not TOO noisy. Prior to listening, I watched half of The Bourne Ultimatun – talk about noisy – shaky cam forever, edits every two seconds, and at the halfway point the film just seems to present the same chases and scenes over and over again. I may have seen it before, but they all seem the same to me. Prior to that, I watched a motion picture entitled Kidnapping Stella, a German movie from Germany and, in an interesting twist, a remake of a British film from 2009 that I never heard of. It’s a three-character film in which there are three characters – two kidnappers and the titular Stella. It has some interesting things in it but ultimately it’s not that interesting. And prior to that, I watched a motion picture entitled The Clovehitch Killer, a motion picture about a serial killer called The Clovehitch Killer. This one I kind of liked – not great and I’m not sure I buy the ending, but it’s pretty well done and the acting is of high caliber, especially Dylan McDermott, who’s excellent, a young fellow named Charlie Plummer, and a young actress named Madisen Beaty, who’s quite good. There’s no real bloodshed, but the serial killer’s fetishism is more than a little creepy (bondage). It moves right along for all its 110 minutes. And now, Mr. Sessions’ symphony is coming to its noisy conclusion. But it’s followed by Morton Gould’s Philharmonic Waltzes, and I always enjoy Mr. Gould’s music so I’m enjoying it very much. I’m surprised I’ve never heard this piece before.

Yesterday was just plain weird, I got three hours of sleep, was up from seven-thirty to ten-thirty, went back to bed and slept until two-thirty, so seven hours of not so satisfying sleep. I prefer satisfying sleep, don’t you? Once up, I signed off on the book, which is now on its way to the printers, then I got dressed and moseyed on over to the mail place and picked up the important envelope, went and cashed it, which took exactly two minutes, but knowing my bank as I do, I didn’t deposit the cash, which I’ll do today at some point. From there, I went to the gas station and filled up the motor car – I did go three weeks on the last tank and I’m hoping to do that again because it’s just too costly to fill one’s tank these days and this station was cheaper than any other in the neighborhood at $5.99. It took $86 to fill it but would have cost more had there not been gas left from the last fill-up.

Then I stopped at Taco Bell for food – haven’t been there is about six or seven weeks, I think. I got some crunchy tacos and a bean burrito, which added up to exactly 1,020 calories, which was perfect. I came home and ate the food – it was a good batch. That was it for food if I can just stop myself from ordering something before I go to bed. Because I’d only had about 800 calories the day before, that’s exactly what I did and that was the cause of my sleeping poorly. Then I did my viewing and now it’s the music listening, specifically Elie Siegmeister’s Ozark Set, which is VERY Americana, music-wise.

Today, I’ll try to be up by eleven, I’ll do the banking, I’ll write liner notes, I’ll eat something reasonable, I’ll see if David Wechter can Zoom so we can make a plan for the rewrite or at least cutting the script down to a more reasonable 120 pages or so. And then, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.

The rest of the week is more of the same, some meetings and meals, then we play our final weekend of performances, which I’m hoping will be well attended, given that everyone loves to wait until the last possible second.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, try to be up by eleven, do whatever needs doing, do banking, write liner notes, eat, hopefully pick up packages, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Who are your favorite American classical composers and which are your favorite pieces by them? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have written untitled notes.

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