April 2 -Birthday Behemoth Beatles Beam-Up

In the lab recording Mice and Men, Act V, Scene 1 C with vocals (Curley's Wife an octave up) and a cow crescendo of barn sounds (raw material also used in recording of Act IV opener), which Doug, Sebastian, and David seem to enjoy.




Then off to William Loney's in Oakland for a Steven Clark Amok Time rehearsal -- show will be up again at Boxcar Theatre on April 14, info and production / rehearsal shots soon at markalburgerevents.blogspot.com.

Captain Kirk -- William Loney
Mr. Spock -- Karl Coryat
Dr. McCoy -- Mark Alburger
Lt. Uhura / Stonn -- Suzanna Mizell
Mr. Chekhov / T'Pring -- Cynthia Weyuker
T'Pau -- Susan Clark
Composer / Director -- Steven Clark

Ah, yes, the birthday -- home with Harriet late for cake and ice cream -- we'll celebrate a bit more tomorrow with a Napa adventure.

Meanwhile... good to hear from Bette, George, and Sorrel... decidedly lower key festivities than last year's big 50th...


Before all this, Theory dictation/harmony of Paul McCartney's Yesterday (7-bar main theme)

F:

Re Do Do
Mi Fi Si La Ti Do
Ti La La
La La Sol Fa Mi Re
Fa Mi Mi
Re Do Mi Re La
Do Mi Mi

I vii III7 (V7 of vi) vi IV V I V6 vi II (V of V) IV I

with the nicely ambiguous interplay with D Relative Minor --
reminiscent of the Renaissance Quando Ritrovna of Constanzo Festa...

March 23 - Resurrection Symphony

Rise up, rise up,



we look unto the hills, from whence come our salvation. Powerful gasoline, a clean windshield, a shoeshine, and redwoods-hard-up-against-chaparral help.



And music, always music, maybe Mahler maybe Mark mayhem and mild -- birds, the rustle of leaves, an occasional vehicle -- sounds rising from the riparian depths to the high oak savannas.



(one hopes, however, for the absence of certain strains, warned in the mossy slopes,



of cause and response, call and effect).



Naturally Napa for this ninth and final official day of spring break, in a symmetry of knarled limbs



and a symphony of elfin overhangs;



a verdant Vermontian, Verdian tunnel --



Stravinsky sinuously soaring to the sky.



Out of the canyon, heading back down south toward Orchard Road, there's Mt. George again,



across a sea of vineyards, and



looking back to the east side canyon checkerboard of vegetation,



even a few digger pines.



Back in the car, we cruise up canyon again and down into Oakville again, south Route 29 again,



dining at Mustards, across from a mansion in the Yountville Hills, ordering beer (of all things)



chez Budweiser Fairfield (of all places), which we pass on the way back, the wind so severe that even the horizon, atilt, is moving up.



Shadows are moving up, too, on the Fairfield Pyramids and



Poverty


Hills,



and the North Lagoon Mountains near Vacaville,



where sycamores,



palms and tulip trees glow for an instant, then it's night once more.



Record instrumental version of Vocal Sonatina No. 2 ("Vatsyayama"): III. "On the Means of Attracting Others to Oneself"



All the rest is silence. So far.

March 22 - Holy Saturday!

Sleep is running rampant, robbing time.

Meanwhile Napa beckons yet yet again, as perfect short getaway.

Pressing a button on the cellphone, cut to Harriet making coffee, answering emails, the dark blue screen of one of the domicile's workhorses glowing brightly, sometimes beeping loudly, ringing the years.

"Is it not time for our ennui killer?"

We interrupt our scheduled Metropolitan Richard Wagner morphing (Tristan und I-Sold-Out), and if it was a violin, answer the telephone.

Upon hearing of schemes, push a button, bust a Shakespeare rhyme, open a door and a bookcase, reading about polar opposites. Slip-sliding, mountainous in the flick of a light, switching to the car. Animated.

In full costume, we set out, Mark in the driver's seat.

Harriet would be unlikely to say, "Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed."

But I could respond, "Roger, ready to move out" and we two race off out of the Platonian Cave of Appearances at high speed.

As the Toyotamobile approaches the mouth of the freeway, a hinged light drops down green to allow the car to enter on to I-80.



After passing The Wine Guy, the initial discussion leads us back to dynamic Dry Creek Road conducting Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress .



A meeting with local gentry in unbearable brightness,



being the getting away further on the Mayacamas meander, utimately back to Marin, only to come back and walk again later Sisyphusianly.



Here, we recapture heroically senza deathtrap or cliffhanger, vetting our discontent,



and all is resolved at the intersection of Orchard.



At least temporarily, in Napamatic splendor, in test estate.



A related pattern has cycled each day at length, although a portable cycle has circled in a pinch, which way are we going to Stag's Leap,



vineyard?



Yes, she said. Yes, she will read in the sun, angelically, patiently,



but first sleep, sleep; dream-drive north of Yountville.



Napa poppies,


leaping, soaring.


Operatic soirree chez Peter Kuperman in SF thereafter, with folks from San Francisco Contemporary Opera (a.k.a. SF Cabaret Opera), San Francisco Opera, Merola, Golden Gate Opera, Wagner Society of Northern California, and San Jose Ballet.



Much later, record Vocal Sonatina No. 1 ("Spitzer"): III. Only the Lobbyists (instrumental version, paradoxically)

March 21 - Behold, I Tell You a Great Mystery

Mysteries mounting up on this definitely, paradoxically Good Friday --


delving,



plowing through, and finishing the Chronicle section of the April 2008 21st-Century Music (21st-centurymusic.com / 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com) and beginning



Vocal Sonatina No. 2 ("Vatsyayana"): II. About a Wife.



Get carried away, and it's almost dark when passing The Cowboy Vintner, or shall we say,



as Li Po and



Harry Partch, Before the Cask of Wine

The spring wind comes from the east and quickly passes,
Leaving faint ripples in the wine of the golden bowl.
The flowers fall, flake after flake, myriads together.
You pretty girl, wine-flushed
Your rosy face is rosier still.
How long may the peach and plum trees flower
By the green-painted house?
The fleeting light deceives man,
Brings soon the stumbling age.
Rise and dance
In the westering sun,
While the urge of youthful years is yet unsubdued!
What avails to lament after one's hair has turned white like silken threads?



Seems appropriate verse in the beautifully failing light



at the edge of the suburbs



where Castle Peak is framed by dark verge.


Like the hours between 12 and 3 in the old story,


via the stations of the crossed power lines dolorosa illuminescent,


we watch the dying away of visibility in dark palm


and deciduous n'


live oaks


and houses


and portals


and portals of houses.


There's nothing for it; fallen into shadow of barbed wire


in crosshairs of tail-lights and moon.


Back in residence, finish About a Wife -- bitonal, with vocal melody black-note anhemitonic pentatonic from Maurice Ravel's Mother Goose Suite: III. Princess of the Pagodas, of all notions; accompaniment C mixolydian with e mixolydian midsection on Muzio Clementi Sonatina No. 2: II with the faintest aura of tabla troped on Mice and Men: Act III, God almighty, that dog stinks and a breath of Carl Orff Carmina Burana love song (the chromatic descending oboe and children's chorus).

Lyrics, severely abbreviated from Book IV of the Kama Sutra

Virtuous women
Who have affection
Revere the Household Gods

Should avoid company
Beggars and mendicants
Unchaste and
Roguish and
Soothsayers
And witches

Wives whether they be
Noble born or remarried
Aquire the Dharma Artha Kama
And generally keep their husbands happy