Archives for September 2005

The buzzard never says it is to blame.

The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean.

When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.

If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.

On this third planet of the sun

among the signs of bestiality

A clear conscience is Number One.

Wislawa Szymborska, “In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself” (trans. Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh)

The buzzard never says it is to blame.

The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean.

When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.

If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean.

On this third planet of the sun

among the signs of bestiality

A clear conscience is Number One.

Wislawa Szymborska, “In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself” (trans. Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh)

– Commissioning fee paid in 1940 to Paul Hindemith by George Balanchine for the score of The Four Temperaments: $250

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $3,326.77

(Source: Luther Noss, Paul Hindemith in the United States)

– Commissioning fee paid in 1940 to Paul Hindemith by George Balanchine for the score of The Four Temperaments: $250

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $3,326.77

(Source: Luther Noss, Paul Hindemith in the United States)

“Who knows what true loneliness is–not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude without going mad.”

Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes

“Who knows what true loneliness is–not the conventional word, but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion. Now and then a fatal conjunction of events may lift the veil for an instant. For an instant only. No human being could bear a steady view of moral solitude without going mad.”

Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes

Excerpt from an e-mail sent to a friend in San Francisco twelve hours ago:

I’m feeling a bit, er, frazzled. I got up at six and wrote the drama column, sent it off and went to the gym at eleven to be pushed around by my trainer, came back to my desk to resume work from yesterday on my Frank Lloyd Wright piece, and am now standing by for what we call the “playback” of the drama column (i.e., the copyedited version, incorporating queries and requests for fixes). After that I have to do laundry, pick up my framed Bonnard (I hope, I hope!), book myself into a bunch of play previews, read the day’s incoming snail mail, talk to a Rounder Records publicist about the new Jelly Roll Morton reissue package, and catch the late set at the Village Vanguard tonight. In between all this mishegoss I’m (A) bidding on a restrike of a Matisse etching and (B) reading the first volume of Hilary Spurling’s wonderful Matisse biography. Tomorrow is very similar, Thursday somewhat less loony, and on Friday it’s off to Chicago. Whee! I took some time off last week, right? I forget….

Here’s the rest of the story: I just now got back from taking Bass Player, my kindred spirit, to the Vanguard (she’d never been!) to hear the Bad Plus play selections from their new CD, Suspicious Activity? Yes, they were incredible, and yes, I love New York, but I’m on the leading edge of a meltdown, and if I don’t get at least ten hours of sleep starting right now, they won’t have to cremate me to scatter my ashes–all they’ll have to do is vacuum them up from the floor of my office.

(A bad sign: I tried to take off my glasses a moment ago and discovered that they were already off.)

Later. Much later. Way later.

Oh, yes, one more thing: the Bonnard wasn’t ready. And I didn’t get the Matisse, either. (I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.) All the more reason to sleep late….

Excerpt from an e-mail sent to a friend in San Francisco twelve hours ago:

I’m feeling a bit, er, frazzled. I got up at six and wrote the drama column, sent it off and went to the gym at eleven to be pushed around by my trainer, came back to my desk to resume work from yesterday on my Frank Lloyd Wright piece, and am now standing by for what we call the “playback” of the drama column (i.e., the copyedited version, incorporating queries and requests for fixes). After that I have to do laundry, pick up my framed Bonnard (I hope, I hope!), book myself into a bunch of play previews, read the day’s incoming snail mail, talk to a Rounder Records publicist about the new Jelly Roll Morton reissue package, and catch the late set at the Village Vanguard tonight. In between all this mishegoss I’m (A) bidding on a restrike of a Matisse etching and (B) reading the first volume of Hilary Spurling’s wonderful Matisse biography. Tomorrow is very similar, Thursday somewhat less loony, and on Friday it’s off to Chicago. Whee! I took some time off last week, right? I forget….

Here’s the rest of the story: I just now got back from taking Bass Player, my kindred spirit, to the Vanguard (she’d never been!) to hear the Bad Plus play selections from their new CD, Suspicious Activity? Yes, they were incredible, and yes, I love New York, but I’m on the leading edge of a meltdown, and if I don’t get at least ten hours of sleep starting right now, they won’t have to cremate me to scatter my ashes–all they’ll have to do is vacuum them up from the floor of my office.

(A bad sign: I tried to take off my glasses a moment ago and discovered that they were already off.)

Later. Much later. Way later.

Oh, yes, one more thing: the Bonnard wasn’t ready. And I didn’t get the Matisse, either. (I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.) All the more reason to sleep late….