Early a.m., record instrumental version of I. Difficult from Op 156 Vocal Sonatina No. 1 ("Spitzer")
and II. I Am Not a Monster
After eventful sleep and blogging Kurt Weill for markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com,
off to Berkeley for another Red Horse rehearsal with Allen, Beth, Eliza, Harriet, Kat, and Kristen (Jones, that is...), working on Fire from The Bald Soprano (Kat), III-V from Antigone (Beth, Eliza, Harriet), and San Rafael News (+ Kristen, working out parts for Death Catch, Immortality, The Reproductive Organs, and Rain-Death Fugato, as well as solo work on Sylvia Dryer with Beth) -- nice to discover that there's a second piano at Chamber Arts (n.b. above is Claremont Hotel on this brilliantly sunny day), which we put to good use. And -- glory be! -- there are palms above: after all, it is
Palm Sunday (with ironically the arguably most-racy-post-thus-far heading this blog entry).
Leaving in a timely fashion, back to Castro Valley / Hayward border for a walk uphill, east on Kelly Road, where the eucalypti are tall and
the hills far, including
the heights of San Francisco's Sutro Tower, between enmeshed power poles.
Homeward, and it's seemingly a photographic recapitulation of last Sunday, with shots of the Dublin Canyon Declivity (but now including the green graffiti barn.... hmm, perhaps this side canyon is actually the green graffiti graven)....
Mount Diablo from the 580 / 680 interchange,
and half-an-oak and flowers in the Diablo Foothills northeast of Danville.
Traffic on 80, however, leads to a diversion on Abernathy Road, welcomed by a fertility goddess (though perhaps not as welcoming as the top at top...)
for views of Twin Sisters (ditto...) across Suisun Valley (with wildflowers in league with those of Jameson Canyon and Moss Beach / Half Moon Bay [moon...]),
palms [again!] lining an entrance way,
Gomer School,
the Mankas Corner / Waterman Foothills
(bearing an uncanny resemblance to itself last May 18, in a closer -- and first -- shot from Waterman),
and the straight-on view of Mount Vaca.
Further, hewing to the side roads, Three-Oak Hill looms,
revealing, in this season, two as deciduous
(again, a comparison shot from last late spring --
actually --
three)
Onward through suburban Vaca Foothills
Cement Hill comes into view;
as do the South Lagoon Mountains over Paradise Valley;
Poverty Hills, to the east of 80
(another simple equation -- now three trees and a cow), and
the main reach of the Lagoons across the Cherry Valley side of the freeway
and from the Pena Adobe Road Exit.
Home, watching the beautiful Francois Girard (of Red Violin) film
Silk
(with music by Ryuichi Sakamoto), with Harriet, while beginning the Sergei Prokofiev chapter of the Music History site.
