October 26 - Adventures of Knuckle-Headed Fun

Finish re-reading Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, on a re-scheduled day, with the flight now heading off tomorrow, and fortunate, too, as phone calls and emails to Debby How and Tom Whitman re-conceive the piece for Swarthmore as The Inner Circles (Op. 199) for Cello, Piano, and Percussion -- producing and emailing the needed pdf's.  Also do page 23 pdf of Aerial Requiem and composition of page 18 Psalm 77 (finishing this) and 34 The Cop and the Anthem.

October 25 - For the Road

Harriet out early to a job and soon following suit,

again

past

the

fog, to

Diablo, for the second half of Richard Rogers's Sound of Music: Do-Re-Mi for dictation and board harmony -- plus Whole-Step / Half-Step and Half-Step / Whole Step Octatonic Scales, C Lydian and Dorian Blues, I-IV-V in a Richard Berryian context, finishing up round two of intriguing student compositions.

Chatting up Owen and others thereafter,

receive instructions from H re rendezvous'ing with Tony and Maria at

Gigi's.

We have a lovely late lunch. learning of their Ecuadorian endeavors,

then return homeward

via

4,

Cummings Skyway,

Carquinez

Bridge,

and

80

over

the Sulfur Springs

Mountains.

Typical labors follow, re Aerial Requiem pdf, and composition of Psalm 77 and The Cop and the Anthem (respectively pages 22, 17, 33).

October 24 - Red Lights, Green Lights

Up before the sun, but is it early enough?  Who's to say, as an unknown warning light appears on the dashboard, merritting departure from the freeway to a petrol stop.  Home remedies failing, backtrack on

side streets to the local

Toyota, where the trouble is diagnosed as simply low tire pressure... the warning symbol, parentheses framing an exclamation point -- (!) -- reflecting the unnecessary surprise (relieved, but at the same time mystified and slightly put-out).  So a rendezvous with Crystal today is seemingly not to be, calling her to that effect.

Since it's about time anyway, leave the car at the shop for routine maintenance, taking advantage of their shuttle service home, returning after an interval with Harriet to pick up a newly invigorated (but unfortunately not washed, as with the Novato people) vehicle.

From this point, another post office stop and a leisurely course via

Monte

Vista,

Foothill,

Pleasants

and

Cherry

Valley Roads

back to the

freeway,

where

fog

hangs over the Sulfur Springs Mountains once more at Cordelia Junction

and

along the 680

corridor,

to

Diablo

Valley College, first on a

supply

run,

then

for

a bit on Arnold Schoenberg's atonal (playing 2 and 6 of the Six Little Piano Pieces) and 12-tone music, followed by dictation, keyboard-solfege, and board harmony on Richard Rodgers's Sound of Music: Do-Re-Mi, plus Anthony Ragus's engaging Composition 2, with its harmonic resonances of the Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven opener.  Homeward, the rest of the day is given over to various music projects including page 21 of Aerial Requiem pdf (beginning the Confutatis) and composition of pages 16 and 32 for Psalm 77 and The Cop and the Anthem respectively.  More ideas back and forth with Debby How, now considering doing the Suite ("Sol[ar]") selections for Flute, Piano, and Percussion.