Time Design: Fall 2015

Monday:

8-11:30: Exercise (1) / Research (1).

1-5: Class prep, grading, (office hours: 1-2).
Clean office.

House cleaning (1)
Music

Tuesday:

9:30-10:45: Spanish 453. Learned 2115.

1-2:15: Spanish 424. Wescoe 4012.

2:30-5: Research (2).

5: exercise (2).

Wednesday:

8-11:30: Exercise (3) / Research (3).

1-5: Class prep, grading, (office hours: 1-2).
House cleaning (2)
Music.

Thursday:

9:30-10:45: Spanish 453. Learned 2115.

1-2:15: Spanish 424. Wescoe 4012.

2:30-5: Research (4) /meetings
Clean office.

5:30: poetini


Friday:

8-11:30: Exercise (4) / Research (5).

p.m.: house cleaning (3) / music

Crippling Self Doubt

When I am not writing regularly I suffer from crippling self doubt. Once I open up a document and start working on it this disappears. I am able to do it with virtually no transition time. I simply do it. All my past successes count for nothing if I am not working right this moment (or have worked within 24 hours)) And the doubt extends to all other areas of my life too. My sense of self is profoundly affected. I cannot even give you good advice on getting your projects done.

I am not recommending this attitude. I am trying to change it, in fact. Let's just say that for now the solution will be to write.

5k Dream

I was to run a 5k race. I was in some kind of huge tent. The first problem was that I had already run 5k that morning (as I had in real life that day right before I had that dream. The second problem was that I had the dog with me, and was responsible for it. Would she be able to keep up with me? I didn't have a leash. (I had been taking care of this dog for about 12 days this month, also in waking life.) The dream stopped before the race began.

86. Ten Versions from Trilce

This is a translation from Vallejo done by Charles Tomlinson, the British poet, and Henry Gifford. I read it at one sitting, aloud, and was quite moved (San Marcos Press, 1970). It is a beautifully printed book, and lacks the Spanish original: less distracting. These poems are haunted by the maternal presence.

Here is 77:

It hails and with so much zest
as if it wanted to have me wake
and augment the pearls I gather
from the very snout of each tempest.

Let it not dry up, this rain.
Grant me this grace at least
to fall int its place now,
or that they might lay me in earth
soaked in the water
that would spout from all the fires.

How far will it reach into me, this rain?
I am afraid I shall be left with some flank dry;
I am afraid it will go away without having proved me
in the droughts of incredible vocal chords,
by which
to harmonize,
one must rise always - never descend!
(Don't we rise perhaps to go down?)

Sing, rain, along that coast that still no seas attend!

Compare Mayhew's translation here.

[UPDATE: Aug. 26: Tomlinson has died]

Song (iii}

I'm writing another song to procrastinate from starting on class preparations. The harmony is a bit more sophisticated, at least I use more chords, with a melody almost as simplistic as my first one. I had avoid having the exact chord progression as in my first song. Certain chords are addictive, though. I learned about the tritone substitution recently, and it just sounds very cool, but then I realized I didn't have to use it every time.

Melodies can be rather simplistic. Look at one note samba or c jam blues, or thelonious. You can repeat the same phrase and put a different chord under it.

The process is infinite, because even after the song is written the arrangement needs to be refined.

87. Infamous Landscapes

This book by Prageeta Sharma (Fence, 2007) is the kind of poetry I like, though I do not like this particular book as much as I should. Too often, she misses by a narrow margin, being clever in all the wrong ways. Yet still it resonates with me by stretches because it is my kind of poetry. For some reasons I have a review copy of uncorrected proofs.

Song (II)

Thinking about my song, the amazing thing is that I could write it at all, not its quality (or lack of). Just doing the thing is what's fundamental, making the thing, whether it's a soup, and oil painting, a scholarly article, or a song.

Though it doesn't sound particularly bad, it bothers me that I use the same chord 3 times in the bridge. I think I should find a chord substitution for the second time around, maybe Ab minor?