The Juggling Act Today

Man holding the leash: C’mon, boy!
Dog: It’s the journey, not the destination.

– Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.

— Pablo Picasso

I recall talking with Robert when he was writing this piece, but I only chanced on it this week.

My intention earlier was to write the Kerouac piece first, and then the piece for Triad. (indeed, that is how I cast the Opus numbers, which are now going to be chronologically misleading—Too Bad!) In my new role as AVP of Triad, though, my mind is in the thick of planning rep for the November program, so I decided I would go ahead and chop out that piece (When) first. My (not at all strict) model is my earlier Hodie Christus natus est for choir and clarinet. I am close to finishing When, but there will be no working on it after tomorrow’s PT (an observation, not a complaint) so my confident expectation is to finish it Saturday, around our initial reading of the Op.119 № 2 with Peter and Janet.

As I mull on the Kerouac piece, what should I be listening to? Somehow the chief reply from the Universe seems to be: Trout Mask Replica. 

My dear friend Peter Czipott has written back enthusiastically about the Opus 148 in spite of (as he put it) the depradations of MIDI.

And the Rasa Quartet wrote back most graciously, permitting me to send them It’s all in your head (not that that’s a bad place for everything to be). Quoth the great Fats Waller: One never knows, do one?