Much to my surprise, I took Thursday off. I’m not good at that–I usually find a way to sneak back into harness–but outside of e-mail and a bit of blogging, I didn’t write a word all day, nor did I read a book, watch a DVD, or listen to a CD for purposes of review. Instead, I surfed the Web idly, observed the effects of April sunshine on the Teachout Museum, thought some pleasingly inappropriate thoughts about a couple of interesting people, took a nap, ate two good meals, and made a few schedule-related phone calls.
– Somewhere in there I reread Jeffrey Meyers’ Somerset Maugham: A Life preparatory to disposing of it permanently. Meyers is the very model of a professional biographer, alas: earnest, industrious, pedestrian, with a prose style that runs to the slapdash. I actually giggled to see that in the third sentence of the preface, he rendered his subject’s middle name as “Somersault,” though I simultaneously shuddered to think that so horrendous a mistake should have found its way into a book published by Knopf. If I’d made a mistake like that…but, then, Our Girl gently informed me yesterday that she’d found a teeny-tiny typo in A Terry Teachout Reader. These things happen!
– In addition, I tasted Jack Teagarden: Father of Jazz Trombone, an exemplary three-CD anthology of Teagarden’s 78 recordings which has just been released. Said Louis Armstrong: “I think Jack Teagarden moves me more than any musician I know of.” Not only that, he sang as well as he played, as you can hear for yourself by going here, scrolling down to “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues,” and clicking on the link.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get some work done.