May 15 - A Semi-Wilderness of the Mind

What is this?  Rain this late in the season?  Not typical, but not beyond possible...  The sun comes out intermittently, anyway, and a good day for staying home and doing the next video clip (9) for the audio-visual version of Camino Real: Block 9 (Op. 110), finishing the pdf of  

Nocturnes for Insomniacs (Op. 10) and uploading same to

The International Music Score Library Project

(learning how to include a thumbnail of the cover), transferring Antigone (Op. 88) from PC to Mac, and beginning the composition of Psalm 56 (part of Op. 187) -- by this time, the sun shining strikingly through the billowing nimbocumuli.

Night, realizing that the two old external hard drives (roughly 250 and 320 GB) can certainly be used in lieu of the now defunct 500 (the light, while on, no longer blinks, and the Mac does not register its presence, so assume it has expired... very grateful that it lasted through the transference to the 1 TB machine yesterday).  Back up all the documents and photos now on the smaller drive, and will do music (also on the 250) and videos (on the other) soon.

Also begin to write up the press release for the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra June 2011 show.

May 14 - Record This

Weird weather, and probably weirder still over the next few days, gloomily out the door yet again rather early to record All the BBC Sound Files

XXV. Planes
XXVI. China
XXVII. Babies

in the Lab, expediting Eduardo and Jason's set-up in 101.  Errands around town (back to the big box, discovering one can go in and out of and make all purchases from the side entrance) and home, finishing  Psalm 55 (and the process of transferring the analogous King David movement from Sibelius into Encore), producing the second-movement pdf of Nocturnes for Insomniacs (Op. 10), and bringing over Violin Concerto ("Ticklish") (Op. 87) from PC to Mac (having already previously transcribed The Gospel According to St. Matthew and Magnificat in the latter).

Also take in most of Richard Wagner's Die Walkure on the Met broadcast: James Levine, Placido Domingo, Bryn Terfel, Deborah Voigt -- definite sense of deja vu, but after all these years...

While finishing up the Nocturnes work, an error message appears that the 500 GB Passport external hard-drive has been disconnected (it hasn't), and while such a message has appeared occasionally (as far back as last November, soon after it was purchased), this time, when re-connecting the unit, a clicking noise is heard.  Google the issue, and it could very well be "the click of death," signifying the imminent demise of the unit.  Hustle off to Staples, where perception is confirmed, and am directed over the freeway, past charming student musicians making their bid to save school music (amen!), to Best Buy, where a 1 TB unit is purchased.

Returning home, the larger Passport is not recognized by the computer (but suddenly, neither is the 320 GB unit that was acknowledged before disconnecion).  The horns of a dilemma: turning off-and-on the computer will probably jog it back into reading the external hard drives, but will the ailing one give up the ghost entirely?  Yes and no... the new unit boots up and the old one doesn't die, yet.  All files are transferred over, but it takes 5 hours, such that it is impossible to attend Owen Lee's Diablo Valley College Philharmonic Concert, wherein Bill Wolter's new piece is played, as well as New Big People Old Trouble So Sunday -- alas -- but Owen happily checks in via email (regrets from this end had been expressed at 7:30pm via voicemail) to assure that the pieces went well and were warmly received.

A seventh clip for Camino Real: Block 9 video quite late....

May 13 - Aye, Year, Noise...

Another early departure,

over

the

Sulfur

Springs

Mountains,

past

Lynch

Canyon and

St. John Mine Mountain Ranch, to

Marin for the

weekly rendezvous with

Crystal and Stanley in the

Crestwood Open Space.  We talk of her marvelous business and the recent Obama / Osama finale, then head down the

hill to John's computer place for more info re transferring data en masse from PC to Mac,

do errands around town,

including checking the postbox, followed by blitzes to Berkeley (to drop off very belated 21st-Century Music for printing) and Diablo Valley College for clerical matters.

Full rough circle up 680

and

80,

stopping

briefly for more video enrichment -- including

The Rainmaker (1956),

A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry, 1959 / 2008),

The Razor's Edge (W. Somerset Maugham, 1944 / 1946)

The Reader (2008, with music by Nico Muhly, b. 1981)

The Reagans (2003),

Rebel Without a Cause (1955),

The Red Badge of Courage (Stephen Crane, 1895 / 1951),

Redbelt (David Mamet, 2008), and

Alexander Korda's Rembrandt (1936). Upon return, learn that Harriet has also brought back a trove, among which are numbered

Dark Victory (1939) and three versions of

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. (1847 / 1967 /

1970 / and

1992), plus

The Young Victoria.  Additionally, Blogspot is back up, and there's even more spring cleaning, plus composing the next page (15) of Psalm 55 (simultaneously bringing the corresponding King David movement from Sibelius into Encore), beginning the pdfs of Nocturnes for Insomniacs (Op. 10), and transferring Flute Concerto ("Mythological") from old to new computer.

Late in the evening, a pleasure to rediscover Igor Stravinsky's Agon in its classic Robert Craft recording, on YouTube, plus a fine BBC documentary on Steve Reich, and several classic John Cage audio-videos (including an intriguing orchestration, by Lou Harrison, of Suite for Toy Piano).  Also pleased to be merely at 491 MB (48%) of the 1024 -- three days less megabyte usage than budgeted...

Oh, yes, and a sixth clip for Camino Real: Block 9 video on this Pogo-esque final weekday.