Saturday, March 22, 2008

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)







Friday, March 21, 2008

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

Thursday, March 20, 2008

March 20 - Mystery Be Wrought


Harriet and I at leisure, watching Jesse Stone: Sea Change, with surprisingly good photography, for an athletic adventure, then writing up Anton Webern for markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com and we're off to Napa yet again on this



Maundy



Thursday of vacation week... unquestionably Holy Week...



The seemingly requisite shot of the Wine Guy, perhaps attempting to increase the Passover supply --



which brings to mind Op. 55 The Passion According to St. Matthew: II. Where Will You Go?, here in a rustic instrumental rendition, soon to be over at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com.










First it's back to Dry Creek Road, with stately palms as part of three distinct Northern California transplanted residential tree groups --


eucalyptus, redwood, and palm --


all grander than


the not-quite-a-mansion


which they shelter.


Past the spire


of the local Mormon ward (its lower roof nicely compromised by the gentle arc of the Vaca Mountians),


a path of the preserved open space opens up (and it is at this point that the melody to Vocal Sonatina No. 2 ["Vatsyayana"]: I. Introductory appears),


with oaks and a stump


squinting in and


arboreally eclipsing the disc of the rabid sun.


Back and


beyond, Castle Peak


framed;


the rise of the upland toward the outland Mayacamas;



a dragon aloft and



all


there is.


All that's left is a taste of local vintage


with the Napa sized-bottle and white-shirt brigade.



Back home on this first full rebirthing day of Spring,


the music and words of first movement Vatsyayana, the latter much reduced from yesterday -- mostly whole notes to be performed freely; and, unlike accompaniment, G Dorian/Lydian/Minor mix.

Lord of Beings
Do Me Do Te

men and women
La Le Me Do

Dharma
Do Me Mi

Artha
Sol Fi Me Re

Kama
Do Me Do Te La Le

Kama
Do Me Mi

Sutra
Do Me Mi Sol Te Do

Vatsyayana
Do Me Do Te

composed his work
La Le Me Do

small volume
Do Me Mi

as an abstract
Sol Fi Me Re

of the whole
Do Me Do Te La Le Me Do