concert kerry i am going to ask you to the show because you were my first friend and as my mom puts it i "chose" you. and i am choosing to ask you to the concert with me. 020917 ... silentbob i am going to chicago to see alkaline_trio with chanaka. does anyone live in chicago that wants to see us while we're there? i am meeting alkalinepixi already. 020918 ... kerry so last night we went to the jump little children show and she said you agonized for hours over what to wear. which shoes, black or sneakers... which tshirt, which pair of jeans. you bought me some water and i felt bad because my friends were smoking and we both agreed that smoking is unhealthy. we watched the openers and i said i wished i knew what they were saying and i felt you stare at me when they flashed green lights over the ceiling and i watched it intently because it was like a laser show. they had lighters at the end during "cathedral" and i felt your arm brush against me and the whole four hours last night all i wanted to do was grab your face and kiss you but i couldn't. 021012 ... nom to get out of bed or not to get out of bed, to spend or not to spend 051010 ... epitome of incomprehensibility An exercise in endurance: standing in heels and holding a binder. Two soloists from outside the choir for Fauré's Requiem, the baritone tall and classically beautiful. Also with a mellow, cartoonish evil laugh, as he demonstrated in the room we assembled in. I didn't catch the context, but I could imagine him as Gaston in an opera version of Beauty and the Beast. We were only supposed to leave our "valuables" in the office that got locked, but I wanted to have access to my water bottle, apple and writing notebook. Who would steal a battered burgundy backpack? I stashed it behind a small set of stairs. Second half. The accompanist went between organ and electric piano, padding from one side of the stage to another, behind all the singers. A few Christmas carols, traditional or fancied up, e.g. Twelve_Days. "Joy to the World" was stuck in my head a good chunk of yesterday, which reminded me of the Valois_Park version(s). I've reconstructed one: Joy to the world, the school burned down And all the teachers are dead! The principal's body, we flushed it down the potty, And barbecued his head, and barbecued his head, and ba-ar, and ba-a-ar-becued his head. That led me to plan out, as I walked tp the bus, a scene for the novel: Carol and Aviva are making a parody of "Ode to Joy" and Aviva makes her verse sound like that of a Lord of the Rings villain, which exasperates Carol. (Can you picture Dark Lord Sauron, Heir of Morgoth, humming "Wellspring of the joy of killing"? No? A blond, pimpled blob of teenage mood swings? Well... Cackling evilly, but not as nicely as Mr. Booming Baritone. Also partly_autobiographical: swap a LOTR-obsessed brother for a LOTR-obsessed cousin.) Anyway! I wrote a little between the sound check and first concert half, then a little during break. Gleaning time like gathering radish seeds, tiny bit by tiny bit. But it's better if surrounded by other creativity. Surround sound. Can't necessarily summon ideas or flow after hours of marking and tutoring. 221126 ... e_o_i (also, how can you hum something with words??? but Sauron would find a way) 221126 ... raze i watched the stage shrink from amphitheater to opera hall to classroom to curdled coffee shop. emptied my guts until i was the only performer left and the audience had turned to dust. no need for soundchecks or rehearsals now. there aren't any songs where we're going. just smack a hunk of wood that won't hit back, hope the strings don't split, and sing something sad, slow, and sick at heart. 230829 what's it to you? who go blather from