[Not following my previous practice, I returned home right after class. It took me a while to get home, though not because of the snow. My internal dialogue was making so much racket, that I was temporarily unable to remember how to get home. Once I got myself straightened out, and the truck pointed in the right direction, I still missed all my cues and stumbled over my chore list. Dangerous.]

I was at the studio early this morning and had a bit more time to read. I read two movements from the Bach French Suite in G, the Allemande and the Sarabande. Both are pre-classic dance forms that are filled by Bach with much emotion and honey. I took the time to read them accurately and with all the ornaments. They are both slow and stately. I guess, for me, slow is back.

Then, with the students now coming in, I read the Rondo (Allegretto Grazioso) from the Mozart Sonata in Bb, K333. This was prima vista reading. Yes, I’ve read all of these before, but not since my Mozart blowout in the ’90s. I think you’re a virgin again after three years. So I did the smarmy thing and started out too fast. Had to double back when I couldn’t play the sixteenths at that tempo. I stopped at the bottom of each page, turned the page, and put another score against it to hold the book open. It’s a basically virgin copy, since I bought it and haven’t cracked it that much. So eventually I stopped trying to hold myself back, but just raced through. Sloppy, but so what? Mozart said “Father, that kind of sight-reading and shitting are all the same to me!” Well, Wolfie, a good shit is really useful from time to time.

Turning to the Fakebook, I read “I Could Write a Book.” I read this just playing the melody and voicing the chords, taking the time to read the text. This kind of choked me up a bit.

“If they asked me, I could write a book
about the way you walk and whisper and look.
I could write a preface on how we met
so the world would never forget.
And the simple secret of the plot
is just to tell them that I love you a lot.
Then the world discovers as my book ends
how to make two lovers a friend.”

Yikes! Who’s guiding this random sample!
(Do I need to revisit my opinions about God?)

Anyway, to get the mist out of my vision, I read it in tempo, with boom-chicks and some swing.

[Class was the same as yesterday, except that the instructor dropped the pop song. Applause at the end was scattered and not  aimed at me. Did I fail? I don’t really think so. I just think the dancers are now distracted by the deepening rehearsal process. I hit the road.]

[Repeat my opening paragraph, as in a Rondo.]


I came home to write in the comfort and privacy of my own home, in the off chance I needed to have a bit of privacy while doing it. Now why would this be? I went over all of this last evening with Del, but I don’t much feel like sharing. I could write (another) book. I might. I should. Though – I haven’t sold the first one yet. It’s good to have a fertile imagination, to not be running dry. But I also might just let it hang for the next few months. Let the fictions be truly hammered out in the summers. Do I think I’ll forget this story? If it’s really my horse, it will return to me.

[I’ve got the first sentence, though not the title:
“Shit,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been cut off!”


Despite my desire to silence the voice that speaks this pack of lies,
the argument does not cease:


“I’d been lobbing pebbles up at that window for a fortnight, standing in the streetlight, rain or shine. Sometimes, I saw the light. Sometimes there was a shadow there. Sometimes, I saw the curtain drawn an inch or so as if someone were peeking. A barrage of pebbles, after all, can be upsetting. Especially after hours. Sure enough, I saw the plywood go up as if in preparation for a hurricane. I heard the pounding of the hammer loud and clear. Now what? Go find a bigger rock? Now comes the courrier with a note on lilac paper. What’s this? I’ve been granted an audience it seems. But still the hammering continues. The meaning of all of this is obscure. It is not a negotiation, it is a contradiction. It is time to return home. Return home. Do I remember where that is? If I can find the way I’ll be welcome.”


The truth of the matter is way too much reality for a piece of fiction. So no. I can’t/won’t go into any of it here.]

Other than that, there’s no way to go but back with my survey of dance and music. What have I seen in the course of the 30 odd years?