Today's Report

I'm not arguing about the value of studying how we know what know. It's just that these days, I find I am more interested in how we forget what we forget.
A proposal to modify the New Hampshire State Motto to “Live free, but don’t be a jerk.”
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

When a case gets too tough, I’ve gotta talk to my wife.

— Lt Columbo the Wise

The possession and cultivation of talent will not guarantee success “in the marketplace.” Do I even yet hope for such success at this point? I’m not sure, but in any event, I still compose because that is what I love doing. Especially since I am at present separated from the clarinet. One thought which I have had for The Cape has been, to cannibalize another piece or two. Although, I do not propose abandoning/discarding the source pieces. I’ve thought of incorporating both one of the Intermezzi from White Nights, and a passage of The Young Lady Holding a Phone in Her Teeth. After my return from church today, I began by expanding yesterday's Nope through salvaging some material from the initial, abandoned Nope. And I’ve determined that the Intermezzo from the ballet which I had in the back of my mind for incorporation here is the first. I have some creative re-scoring/arrangement ahead of me (both in this, and in the passage from La jeune mademoiselle) but of course that additional creative work is part of how I “justify” to myself the “laziness” of the theft from my portfolio. Interestingly/fortunately, even before my “research” into the White Nights Intermezzi, I managed to bring The Cape to just the right pitch center. Call it Destiny. I seem to have slouched into another survey of The Twilight Zone, and this time (especially when the composer is Bernard Herrman) I’m making a point of enjoying the Isolated Score feature. While I am not literally copping/borrowing any material, the tone of the shows is one factor going into The Cape of Good Nope. 

I suppose I’m allowing myself to devote the energies to The Cape because I already have a reasonably solid strategy ready for the adaptation of The Mask I Wore Before.

Separately, last night I dreamt that my left fingers were managing the saxophone just fine.