Good morning, all! I am up early to be at the laundromat when it opens in 30 minutes, I can finish the laundry, mop the bathroom and kitchen and tidy the apartment by 10am. Then, I've got to wrap Bruce Pomahac's Christmas present and meet him for lunch at 1pm on the East Side, before we see THE ROAD TO QATAR by Stephen Cole and David Krane, two most excellent gentlemen.
Last night was another dead relatives night: my mother, her sister Jean and Jean's husband Harold, along with my brother Randy, were in this strange dream about God knows what at this point. I do remember that I was looking for clothes in the closet of my bedroom of the house where I grew up, and the closet went on for miles.
After today's matinee I shall head back here to see what fresh hell arrives in the post, maybe tally some taxes - Thursday is accounting day - and watch something.
TOD: there sure is a lot of 20th Century Music, from Puccini, Strauss and Mahler finishing up the 19th Century romantics to John Cage and John Adams.
And I would choose, for this board, Ravel's piano concerto in G; there's a great debt to popular American popular music, from Sousa's band to Gershwin, because of European tours and recordings; there are "blue" notes, brassy riffs, and one of the most beautful slow movements ever written. I also choose it because Ravel's harmonic idiom may be one of the strongest influences on Steve Sondheim's writing, and because the concerto is ravishingly beautiful and hilariously cheeky.