Personal – Page 3 – An Echo That's Reversing

The Ckab

There was a guy I worked with, just post-college at a call center, named Steve Baker. He had once taught English in some somewhat respectable university in California (I don’t remember), moved to Atlanta for some reason, lived on the streets in L5P, and then got this sweet-sweet-job making calls for a bank updating people’s insurance coverage records. The calls were legit, but we were still viewed suspiciously by those on the receiving end. He was intelligent and well-read, obviously, and the two of us and another co-worker, Bruce-something, had active discussions on literature, history, politics, all of that stuff. They were both maybe 10 years older or so. Post-call center Steve taught world lit at Moorehouse for a while and then we lost touch. I have very fond memories of him.

I still have the book he wrote and lo-fi self-published.

Suite for Orchestra, “Figures in a Landscape”–Documenting themes and structure

Updated 21 Apr 2023

A couple of years back I purchased the score for Finnissy’s piano collection English Country-Tunes, a beautiful score and equally arresting music. The first time I listened to it it deeply terrified me. Following that, and following along with the New Complexity composers, I purchased Ferneyhough’s Lemma-Icon-Epigram. Another stunning piano work. (And one, equally, I’d never be able to play.) Since then I’ve purchase a couple of other beautiful modern scores.

Brian Ferneyhough’s *La terre est un homme* (1976-1979), *Lemma-Icon-Epigram* (1981), Sylvano Bussotti’s *Pour clavier* (1961), and Michael Finnissy’s *English Country-Tunes* (1977)

Suite for Orchestra, “Figures in a Landscape”–Working with limited resources

I’ve just started the 5th movement, Fire, in which our heroes are trapped in a conflagration in the field of local villagers. (In my research notes, I have it covering pages 94-115 of the 2020 Penguin/Vintage edition I use as reference.) At this point I am struggling with the idea of program music in contrast with soundtracks. A few months back I had an abbreviated, stumbling Twitter conversation with an individual Much Better Informed but we ended up having the same opinions of soundtracks-as-pure-music. That is: a low one. In these days of a renaissance of quality composers, it’s admittedly a bit unpopular to get all academically scoffy about music written for movies.

Suite for Orchestra, “Figures in a Landscape”–Finishing the first two movements, intent

Working on the 2nd movement, *Village I*

reMarkable 2 tablet, first impressions

At the new job, a coworker uses the reMarkable e-ink tablet and has praised it as the perfect note-taking and design tool. They received it as a gift and were skeptical at first, but soon found it to be a fundamental and irreplaceable gadget. Though I only saw it used as a screen shared whiteboard, I was fascinated.

The research began.