1997 Notebook: Week 9


	Common Objects Upside Down (Pint Glass)
	`W E E K N I N E`
	26 February 1997 Common Objects Upside Down (Pint Glass) Mundane functional objects are more interesting when they're upside down. 27 February 1997 Nothing I couldn't come up with any interesting ideas today, so I went to the library. I couldn't find any ideas in the library either. It's a bad day when I'm not even up to faking it. 28 February 1997 The Difference is Only Difference I went to hear a performance of Pat's new work. I'd be told that it would be different, and it was. In fact, that's all there was to it: just difference. 1 March 1997 Musical Haikus It was a dark and stormy night when I met first met Dr. Randall Hayes. I was surprised to see his distinctive outline against a blazing fire when I paddled my canoe around a bend in a small Amazon tributary deep in the Brazilian rainforest. He greeted me warmly, and within minutes we were drinking rum and coffee. We wrote our first song, Cup 'o Java, as the sun broke through the dense clouds. The next few days saw a brilliant profusion of songs flow from our pens as we followed the long-forgotten trail of Leonard Perhotin. It wasn't until I looked down at the dense jungle canopy below from my gently moving dirigible that the impact of what we'd accomplished hit me: we'd produced a body of seminal classical music. Thus it came as no surprise when the breathless radio officer approached me when I arrived back at the ship. "Sir, we've received a puzzling transmission from the noted explorer Dr. Hayes," he puffed as he handed me the eloquently succinct printout: MUST PRESERVE FOR GENERATIONS YET UNBORN ABSOLUTELY -DR. HAYES I stared at the cold grey horizon and knew in my heart he wasn't talking about the rainforest; his heroic struggles to save the imperiled jungle and its denizens were common knowledge. No, I realized in my very soul was talking about our songs. The publication Musical Haikus is a result of that fateful chance meeting, our legacy given lovingly to generations yet unborn. Absolutely. Cup o' Java Cuppa cuppa java, Cuppa cuppa java, Cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa java Cuppa cuppa java, Cuppa cuppa java, Cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa java Cuppa cuppa java, Cuppa cuppa java, Cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa cuppa joe! Get it get it get it, Got it got it got it, Gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta go! 2 March 1997 Disease Society I walked down the street into a parade of very old people coming toward me on the sidewalk. Some were walking slowly, others moved at a crawl only with the help of aides, and others were confined to wheelchairs. They all looked through me; their eyes were focused somewhere past infinity. I understood when I saw "Alzheimers Disease Society" on their bus. I'm not afraid of death, or at least I wasn't on the few occasions I thought I was about to die or be killed. I do, however, feel a cold wave of nausea when I see someone whose mind or body has deteriorated to the point of uselessness. Will that be me someday? 3 March 1997 Mature Glass I found a nice old piece of broken glass at the side of a lake; decades of abrasion had softened its sharp edges. I also picked up a piece of sharp glass and threw it back onto the lake. The lakes too cold for swimming but fine for maturing glass. 4 March 1997 The Novel Approach to Cleaning Simon sweeping the stairs starting from the bottom. He'd brush the dirt off one stair, then sweep the dirt from the next higher stair onto the one he'd just cleaned. "Why?" I asked. "I'm still not writing my novel, and the longer it takes me sweep the stairs the less time I have to not write," he explained with a proud smile. last week \| index \| next week ©1997 David Glenn Rinehart