Eight Years Ago Today; and Yesterday, Arguably a Surprise

From the annals of Arguably Overthinking Pop Lyrics:
Is “Ain’t it a shame” REALLY all a friend can say of someone living on reds, vitamin C and cocaine?
This is a “friend?!” I cannot be the first to consider this, can I?
I probably shan’t, but some composer with a penchant for dance might could, write the Cthulhu Toodle-oo.
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I always attempted to produce something conventional and it always, against my will, became something unusual.

— Arnold Schoenberg (at the U. of Chicago, 1946)

I wrote about composing Oxygen Footprint for Ensemble Aubade here. And later that month, eight years ago today, I finished it:
Whatever else this day may bring, it dawns upon the completion of the world's newest trio for flute, viola and harp. There is not only the pleasure of having finished the score, and the feeling that it is musical work in which I can take pride; but also the artistic confidence that the instrumentalists for whom I wrote the piece will also find the piece engaging, even exciting. And in turn, they will play the piece in November, and some in the audience may be puzzled, some in the audience may be enchanted, and what composer could ask for more?

And, thanks to Ensemble Aubade’s consistent and superb embassage for the piece, Oxygen Footprint is one of my pieces to have reached the widest audience. Meanwhile, yesterday:

My initial title for the Opus 192 was impossibly sentimental. I'm not averse to sentiment, but for this title, no. I decided that the best solution was to turn to Whitman, so the title is O singer, bashful and tender, I hear your notes. And that afternoon, instead of sleeping after PT, I drew up a string fugato.

Karl Henning · Op138a Oxygen Footprint