Tomorrow and tomorrow...

have lighted fools the way... and so forth. Christmas Eve. That means only about one more week until this bloody, cursed year is over. I would suggest to Fortune, or Whoever-The-Hell-Is-In-Charge, that having done such a botched job of this past diabolical set of days, it might be time to reconsider "The Plan" (if there indeed has been one up to this point--which I doubt), and see if something a little more intelligent might be brought into play?

I'd like a year that understood the word "kind" a little better. It's a simple four-letter word after all--I'm not asking for the definition of anything multi-syllabic, like "justice," or "fairness," or heaven forbid, "happiness." Just try and wrap your omniscient little mind around "kind," and see if you can sort of spread it around a little bit. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Oh, but if you're going to go ahead and be your usual nasty little self, kindly (think about that word, now) do it to the Republicans or some other like-minded group of empty-souled fascists and keep your fucking hands off my family, won't you? Now, there's a nice little Fate.

All the Golden Goddesses

I've invoked them numerous times. They are real and their goodness is immeasurable. Alphabetically (as all are equally powerful, infinitely kind, uniquely priceless):

Athena
Carla
Carol
Kate
Kathleen
Margo
Marilyn
Pat
Suzanne

Praise be!

From the cool of the library

Yesterday, the heat was too much. I went over to the Bryn Mawr Borders to log into my job searches; but by the time I arrived, I was weak, nauseous, and dizzy. This getting-old thing sucks. I hauled my lap-top and raggedy-ass over to a comfy chair, and just sat there hoping the misery—or I—would just go away. A woman across from me very kindly asked after my health, and I told her that I thought it was just the heat. I wanted to just say I felt majorly shitty, but even in that state, I decided to remain polite. I sat there in the haze of nauseous waves for a while and all of a sudden, the woman appeared at my side carrying a cup of ice, a bottle of lemonade and a bottle of Poland Water she had purchased from the café.

You’re probably not getting enough liquids. The café said it would be all right for you to drink this here—so drink up!

Had I still been in the DC area, she would have waited until I passed out and then stolen my lap-top, my wallet, and my car keys—knifing me in the eye for good measure. I didn’t quite know how to react; it’s been such a long time since I encountered a purely altruistic act. I thought perhaps I had died and she was some sort of Angel from the Heavenly Suburbs come to break the news to me slowly. Sure enough, after a little rest and a lot of liquids, I began to come ‘round. What a pleasant little unprecedented event. She got her Karma Stars yesterday. Thanks, darlin’, wherever you might be.

P.T. has been behaving quite unlike himself—that is to say, he hasn’t jumped onto, into anything; he hasn’t crawled under, behind, on top of anything I’ve needed to call the fire department for; he hasn’t broken or barfed on anything—he’s been remarkably, well, unlike himself. Maybe it’s the heat for him, too, but I’m at once pleased and disappointed. It’s a relief to know that the tschatschkas (sp?) can safely perch on all the shelves, window sills, tables, appliances, TVs, and mantles unmolested—on the other hand, if he were bad, I’d have a stronger argument for taking him with me. It would be better for him, I think, if he were to stay with his step-sister rather than get hauled all around the country—on the other hand, it would be better for me to have someone who needs and depends on me to take care of him. It helps to have another Center-of-the-Universe around to keep you from thinking the Center-of-the-Universe is your own foolish self. A sort of life-line to the outside world and sanity, as it were. Selfish, I know. Not to mention the fact that I don’t think I can fall asleep without a dead (though still purring) weight on my legs. Not to mention the fact that leaving him behind would totally splinter my heart into unmendable shards. I can’t imagine the morning without someone’s hot fish-breath braying in my face demanding to be fed. This—is not going to be easy.

I have, like millions of other Muggles out there, my own copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince; but unlike the millions of other Muggles out there, I have a revelation to share about J.K. Rowling. Watch this space. Or watch the next space that is—if the Obliviators don’t get me first. Nothing like being Umpty-something going on twelve.

America's best-kept secret

Ain't she a beauty?

Hot.

Too hot. I haven't been here because it's been too hot. The romantic notion of living in an attic and writing is charming--but not when the temperature is screaming past 85 degrees with no signs of slowing down and the humidity is being ladled through every open window. Confession: not only am I an insufferable snob, I'm a temperature wuss. I become like a one-celled animal with a four word basic need: Find. Bearable. Temperature. Now. It's the oddest thing--one can take a shower, turn off the water, dry and dry and dry; use towel after towel after towel, nothing happens! You are as wet outside the shower as you were in! Why bother?

Sometime next week I'll be on the road though, air-conditioner full blast, and listening primarily to Scandanavian composers to drop the temperature even lower. I'm looking forward to Colorado (maybe a side-trip to New Mexico) where they complain if the humidity is over 10%. I can take the heat (altogether now!), it's the humidity, the humidity, the humidity, the unbearable, ubiquitous, cruel, suffocating, heartless humidity that takes you down. Instead of Hell being hot, or as Dante portrayed it, cold; Hell must be humid, and the more damned you are the more the humidity.

Reduced to talking about the weather. That's how low my creativity has sunk. This mad planet and its mad inhabitants are going about unspeakable wickedness, and I'm sitting here stewing about (and in) humidity. Says something, doesn't it?

HOT. HUMID.

Sometimes I Wonder.

London

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

-- William Blake

Apologies to Jack

Although Capote said he didn't write, really--he typed. In any case, I'm "On the Road," as it were. I'll have to make this quick as the drive to Philadelphia looms ahead. Most of my life is stuffed into a 10 x 25 metal unit, and the necessities are stuffed to the sunroof in my car. I spent last night in a Comfort Inn after a twelve-hour day of moving and storing. I won't enumerate what hurts and what's bruised--you don't need an anatomy lesson. One spectacular gash though: I was wrapping the loft desk in bubble wrap and shrink-wrapping it, bent down and sliced my skull open on the sharp corner of a file-cabinet. Cuts on the head bleed profusely, even though the cut is not that bad. I looked like Carrie. After a clean-up and a band-aid on my bald head, I was back to work. This is the last, thank all the Golden Goddesses, you'll have to read about packing.

One bit of excitement: PT managed to squeeze himself down under the mattress and into the base of the bed--and I had to tear apart the furniture to get him out. The joys of being owned by a neurotic cat. Time for more, more coffee and to get on the road. It's a sad thing to read, I know, but you'll hear more from me later, if I don't run into a rogue eighteen-wheeler, that is. I anyone is on friendly terms with St. Christopher, put in a good word for me.

Independence Day

Of a sort, I suppose--if independence means not being tied down to a permanent address. The hardest part of the last stages of packing is the reduced space in which to pack. The more you have in boxes and off the walls and out of drawers and stacked on the floors, the working space becomes a test of contortion. And then there's the amusing time-wasters: once a box is set to seal, and you've pulled the flaps tight, the tape is nowhere to be found. Once you find enough space to unroll the bubble wrap, you can't find the box-cutter to cut the wrap, once you've sealed a box, none of the five magic markers can be found to remind you later what you've packed. And then there's the discovery of something that should have gone into another box which is already packed and sealed and always on the bottom of another stack of boxes, which then has to be unearthed, opened, and resealed and restacked. Not to mention the time it takes to stop and spend a half hour to restart a role of tape that has fallen away from the cutter and resealed itself on the roll. These kinds of annoyances keep you from worrying yourself to death about the future though, so perhaps they serve a purpose?

Speaking of annoyances, as I went out the other day to buy (yet more!) tape and bubble wrap, I discovered a crack in my windshield up by the rearview mirror which has been since snaking its way down my car window like a stroke of immensely slow lightning. Getting that repaired delays the start of the second leg of my journey--not to mention it brings another huge expense I can't afford right now. I think it was W.C. Fields who made a comment about "the innate perversity of inanimate objects."

There's at least a bit of good news: I won't have to spend too many nights in the car--at least not as many as I expected as I've been able to find friends along the way who are willing to put me up for a night, give me a meal and a shower. Having these friends come through for me temporarily bandages my tattered self-esteem, and I'm grateful.

Time to go reopen another box and reseal it--if I can find the box a recently discovered instruction booklet belongs in, that is. I wish I weren't out of coffee.

One last thing: doing all these (relatively) mindless tasks over the past few weeks, I came to a realization. I may be too tired to realize that it isn't profound, and without my books I can't check if it's a thought I picked up somewhere else: The will to live is simply a rage at impermanence.

Where's the box-cutter? Onward.

This is the voice of Hermoine Gingold

...coming to you on wax in your own home. Isn't civilization ghastly?" That's a line that just popped into my mind as I sit here doodling on the laptop (Thanks, kiddo!) that will accompany me into my new life. The "wax" Hermoine was referring to stretches back to a time earlier than Long-Playing records, for those of you who can even remember LPs. If someone had told me, back in LP days, that one day I would be writing on a machine that sits comfortably on my lap and that would send my words out into a Great Otherwhere for all to read, I would have asked to have a little bit of what they were smoking, please.

What do you suppose Ms. Gingold would have thought about the ability to put her songs, "Cocaine" and "The Borgias Are Having An Orgy," and indeed all of John Murray Anderson's Almanac on a machine along with all of Tchaikovsky's and Beethoven's symphonies, and Mozart's and then some, all of that in a tiny little oblong of plastic about the size of a hat-pin box to listen to whenever one wished, wherever one was? Isn't civilization ghastly?

I think I've thrown out about a hundred things in these two paragraphs that nobody in the world but about three people could possibly understand what the fuck I'm talking about. Beginning with who the Hell is Hermoine Gingold? If you don't know, look her up.

Change of subject: thanks to my son with the uniqe first name, I heard from someone I haven't heard from in years. Google my son's name and he'll be the only one found. Easy to track him down, while I have a name that is as dull and common as dishwater: first name, middle name, and last name. But because she remembered his name after all these years--and even how to spell it!--she was able to track me down. How cool is that? And that can't help but make me think of sychronicity, and what it means that she should contact me at this particular time of my life. My guess is that it is a good omen--about as rare as a coherent sentence from Dubyah--so I'll believe that until Fate proves me wrong.

Visit "The Grey Matter," all ye my Liberal friends. The owner, "The Angry Liberal," is being bombarded with foolish Right-Wing drivel in his comments section. Angry publishes sarcastic, amusing bits of information--which his commentators try to refute with totally off the veranda ripostes. They even bring in Ann (the Harridan) Coulter. It's fun to spar and make them splutter. It's kinda sorta easy, though--their wits are flying at half-staff.

A lightning bug has entered the room and PT has turned into a jungle cat, leaping from stack of boxes to stack of boxes--it would be just his luck to tip over and get crushed under a box of Henry James instead of some lighter reading.

Priorities: save the bug, save the cat, and put us both to bed--the cat and I that is, not the bug. Remember that Friday the 13th falls on a Wednesday in July. Isn't civilization ghastly? Fun, but ghastly. Interesting, but ghastly. Amusing, but ghastly. And whoever said that ghastly is a bad thing, anyway? I'm meandering. And I'm off to bed. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll see you at breakfast. Tell Cook I'll arise around Eleven, if you please? Good night.

Introducing

My traveling companion, P.T. (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), otherwise known as Petey. It's a baby picture of course--all the other photos have been packed and sealed. He will not be a silent companion as he has almost an operatic voice (watch your crystal!) and he has no hesitation whatsoever about using it to express whatever it is he feels necessary to express at any given moment. In fact, he should help clear a way through traffic, as other drivers will think a fire truck or police car is closing fast on their license plates--and that's with the sun roof closed. He's smart too. He can tell time. At exactly 6:30am he stands on my chest and screams in my face. It's time to be fed, I believe. He exercises his voice daily, almost hourly, by sitting on the railing of the loft and belting out arias which reverberate over and around the living room below. He's more of a Mick Jagger than a Pavarotti unfortunately. I'm certain to be deaf when I arrive at my destination riding with that voice inside my car.

The moving date has been pushed back. Something about end-of-the-month crunch and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. Too bad the Republicans won't spend that holy day reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Anyway, Delay will be off playing golf at St. Andrews in Scotland probably. Don't get me started. Even though the prorated rent is ridiculous, it's given me a few more days to pack. I. am. so. tired. of. packing.

As I suspected, I fell down the rabbit-hole and proceeded to get lost in Wonderland, the photos, and it took me a full day to pack the box. I've got more pictures of my son than Dubya has lies, so you can perhaps understand how very many pictures I had to go through. I found my Oxford/Cambridge/London and Paris pictures as well, so I had to go back in time to visit those magical days. And of course the Philadelphia pictures ranging from the park behind the Art Museum to the wedding-cake of City Hall and on to the Delaware and all spots in between. Good times, those.

Speaking of Philadelphia and photos, I digress, I was out on the pier at Penn's Landing one morning, and an Asian family was out there as well. They were taking turns photographing each other in front of Philadelphia's skyline. Finally I asked if they wanted me to take a picture of all of them together? They were thrilled and lined up shoulder to shoulder. I took their camera, and then aimed it over their heads and beside them and in a couple of clicks gave them an excellent panorama shot of Philadelphia without them in the picture at all. I mean how many pictures could they take of each other? They knew who they were and what they looked like, and I'm sure they had a number of good pictures of each of them obscuring the Liberty Bell. It just seemed to me that they should have a picture of Philadelphia proper without the view blocked. I'm sure that when they arrived home, they were delighted with my favor when their pictures were developed. I'm always doing thoughtful things like that. I did the same good deed for a lovely family in front of the Louvre in Paris. But I had to stand on the lip of a fountain to go over their heads to get a good, complete shot. No wonder my karma is so healthy.

Speaking of Paris, I digress, I've been watching a lot of French films lately. I know it's unpatriotic to speak highly of the French nowadays, but the intellectual nihilism of their films appeals to me. When I was there, it was wonderful to go to dinner and watch them eat, smoke, drink wine and argue with raised voices and a lot of emphatic gesticulation. The French in their lives and their films never tie up anything neatly in a bow. They tend to leave you with more questions instead of giving you a Cinderella living happily ever after ending and that's the way life is, tra-la. How many Americans do you know who throw Racine, Foucalt, and Voltaire all together into a dinner conversation? Americans don't even know the names of American philosophers, much less French or British or German philosophers. My guess is that a Happy Meal is not conducive for discussing the meaning of life. And, by the way, Parisians are not rude or dismissive to Americans who are polite. Most of them speak English fairly well. But they do tend to get cranky at those Americans who think that by screaming at them in English they'll make the dunderheaded French understand them better. Sacré Bleu!

Back to my first digression, I have four photos of Oscar Wilde's tomb at Père Lachaise--only one of them with Christopher and me in it. And I wouldn't have had that one if a gay German couple, who spoke both English and French hadn't insisted on taking one of us. Oscar Wilde, that rascal, said that When good Americans die they go to Paris. This good American has more packing to do. And I won't be going to Paris, more's the pity.

Packing in the past

Fascinating and wondrous the things you find when packing: the program from a long ago Santa Fe Opera performace of Eugene Onegin; the front page of The New York Times from the morning of September 11, 2001--the early edition, before the attack; the score to Symphony for a Small City, which I commissioned for one of the bicentennial celebrations in Colorado; papers I had written while in College (was I ever really that bright?), tons of letters from friends who are still my friends and their voices lift from every envelope, and also a wonderful stack of poetry by Kathleen Cain. The latter of which I wish I could bring along with me. Those, and the most important memories I have accumulated will have to rest for a while. Those have been wrapped and sealed in plastic before they were boxed. With certain things, extra care and caution must be taken. I'm hoping that the vague unsettling notion lurking at the back of mind--that I'll never see these treasures again--is simply the uncertainty that is haunting my future as I pack, look forward, and look back.

I've shed a lot of flotsam--but nothing, nothing, from family and friends. I've drawings and letters from the childhood of my son, for instance, that could never be thrown away. These things, these gifts, from my son and my friends sing to me. They are, after all, those things that give harmony to my life. And then there are those things which are touchstones for certain times in my past--letters from the famous, my airline tickets to Paris, cards from when my sister was in Thailand--can be physically packed and stored, but they are always with me because they are my life.

The music to go and the music to store has been sorted out--unbelievably difficult task--and I hope I can make my way through the photographs without getting lost down too many memorable pathways. Yeah. That'll happen. When our porcine pals are lined up to lift off Runway Twelve.

The above-fold headlines from The New York Times the hours before the world changed: Nuclear Booty: More Smugglers Use Asia Route; In a Nation of Early Risers, Morning TV Is a Hot Market; Violence in Mideast Despite Plans to Talk; Scientists Urge Bigger Supply Of Stem Cells; Key Leaders Talk of Possible Deals To Reduce Taxes.

And the world spun on.

Where's the outrage?

I'm exhausted. I was up until 2:00am playing with my Father's Day present--and loving every single minute of it. That means I'm going to be lazy today as far as this place goes. You've heard some of it before (Do I repeat myself? Very well then, I repeat myself), but I'm going to go ahead and post a letter I recently sent Tim Page, music editor at The Washington Post (nice guy--he likes Orff too):

Dear Tim ~

I’m your friend who also likes Orff--you may remember me? In any case, I read your article this morning on “PBS's Classical Conversations.” I’ll be watching.

I lost your e-mail address as I am getting ready to move out of this goddess-forsaken place (not city), and my surroundings look like the Great God of Chaos spit-up in here. Anyway, your article reminded me of something that genuinely more than annoys the Hell out of me about D.C.: the “Classical” radio station. I can’t remember the call letters as I stopped listening to it years ago and only tune in on occasion (I usually listen to the Baltimore station--better music, and a British woman DJ with a voice like buttah). Shortly after I arrived here I would listen to the D.C. station in my car during the dreadful commute into the city. I mean, really, how much Johann Christian Bach (of all composers!) can one listen to? So I innocently e-mailed the program director about where was the Shostakovich, the Adams, the Hanson, the Prokofiev, the Stravinsky, the Rorem, the Russo, the Gottschalk, as well as the Orff--and where the Hell was Copland? And why couldn’t we hear a full symphony or concerto?

I was unfamiliar with how D.C. works then. I didn’t realize that no one takes a poop here without favorable polls. The program director wrote back snippily telling me, “We only play what our listeners want to hear. Our polls tell us that this is what they want to hear.” Give me a break. That station doesn’t love Classical Music--they whore it out. After that I had a six-CD player installed in my car. I mean a taste of Petrushka is going to drive the listeners away?

I’ve always been accustomed to stations that were devoted to a rich variety of classical music--giving listeners a rich variety of experiences. Tastes range, you know. Someday I hope you’ll take them to task over their narrow-minded approach to music, and shame them into crawling out of their own minds (and polls!).

I’m so glad I’m moving. D.C. has cost me a lot of money in CD’s. That’s my rant for today. Keep up your terrific work. Chip away at the musical deedle-deedle darkness that pervades this place. I’ll be far away, but rooting for you. As always, my warmest

Best wishes,

Where's the editor?

This is an amended version of yesterday's dire post. I went too far without explaining where I was going--or where I was coming from. The Chesire Cat often gives baleful instructions.

"Don't ever let yourself think that things can't get worse. If they can, they will. As sure as the sun will set tonight and rise tomorrow, things will get worse. The Golden Goddesses have compassion, but we've stripped them of all their powers. I thank them for their love, and apologize to them that most of us have let the memory of them fade, depriving them of their ability to intervene in the lives of mortals.

"As of the end of the first week in July, I will be officially homeless. I never thought it would really come to this. It's in a way fascinating to watch the turn of Fortune's Wheel. In the past few months, the wheel has continued to slowly spin lower and lower. My life now is like that long instance of clarity you perceive when you realize an accident is inevitable and you are powerless to stop it. The stars I am sailing under are cold and indifferent. They are like winter breath, a long white sigh across the black and empty sky."

Purple? Well, yes. Sometimes purple is a perfectly respectable color however, and often used for affect. Though sometimes, it is merely affected. I clumsily nuanced, or rather did not nuance a few sentences in the original post. A failing for which I was rightly taken to task. I do like the images and the way it flows (true or not, it doesn't matter) therefore I'm keeping most of it intact. So, after all those wine-dark words, a clear glass of cold water is in order, to wit:

"Robert Frost in 'The Death of the Hired Man' said, Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in." Dear Frost obviously never had to go looking for a home with a cat under his arm.

I hope that clarifies things. [Some damned poster out there trying to keep me honest. But, you know what? I love him for it.]

I would add an additional post this evening--but I received a great gift for an early Father's Day present and I think I'll go gleefully off to play instead. I'm going to try and download We Are Family, by Sister Sledge.

Twenty-eight. No, oops, make that twenty-nine.

My age. I wish. If I were twenty-eight or twenty-nine then my knees wouldn't be sore, or my back, or my neck, or my elbows. I look like I've been thrown through a windshield. No, no accident, just packing. I've got a gash on my nose and have no idea how it got there. When I finished packing yesterday I looked in the mirror before I took my shower and there it was, a big gash on the bridge of my nose. I don't remember banging my nose, but I obviously did. My arms are all scratched, and my right knee feels like I smashed it repeatedly against a concrete wall. Actually the only thing that doesn't hurt is my beard. And if I were 28 or 29 I probably would have found a job by now. But let's not dwell.

I was so pleased yesterday to have finally finished packing the books. Then came time to tackle the loft's closet, which I use for storage. Flinging open the doors, guess what I found? More books. *Sigh* To the 28 cartons already packed I had to add one more. And of course that fragmented the library because I found a Poe book, a Weldon book, a Henry James book, and one other that I can't remember, but belonged as the others did in other boxes where the authors were grouped together. After packing that one I just wrote on the carton: "Fragmented. Open first." With all the stuff that's been thrown out, it proves my grandma's maxim that "three moves are equal to one fire."

To resume my archaelogy this morning I fished out a t-shirt that had "First Cat" written on it with a drawing of Socks wearing socks. Whatever happened to Socks? It was nice to have a cat in the White House for a change. A cat may look at a king, said Alice. I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where. Neither can I, probably in Alice in Wonderland, but at least the nine lives of Socks had his fifteen minutes of fame.

People think, I think, that "bling" is a recent invention. Those who think that obviously didn't live through the 70's. Before there was rap there was disco. Before "bling" there was "glitz." This may seem at first glance a non sequiter, but it relates to my archaelogy. In digging through my layers of crapola I found two remnants of that magic age. A big chain-link silver bracelet that either belonged to someone else from that era, or was given to me. Who remembers? Too much dope and poppers has had its way with my memory. I put it on after removing the tarnish. My working out since then has made it a little snug, but it actually sits fairly comfortably between my hand and my wrist bone. I also found a stretchable thin silver metal belt which I wore with tight black pants and a black turtle-neck. I had hair then, too. We blinged on the dance-floor in a way that rivaled the blink-flashing of the mirrored balls that flash-spun and dervished overhead at The Broadway and we drank and sniffed into sweaty pools of timeless delight and oblivion. You had to be there. We Are Family. More, More, More. Boogie Oogie Oogie. You had to be there. Bling.

Someday I'll tell you about Studio 54. And the difference between VIP and VFIP. And Liza Minelli. And Patti Lupone. And Cher. And white parties. And Nureyev. And Peter Allen. And Joan Jett. And black and mirrored co-ed bathrooms. And the Rubber Room. And other debauchery. Actually I had better not tell you about Peter Allen and Nureyev. You wouldn't believe me anyway. I had an in through the alley, thank all the Golden Goddesses. I wouldn't have made it past the front doormen.

If I didn't LOATHE AND DEPISE Andrew Lloyd Webber SO VERY MUCH, now would be a good time to break out and sing a few bars of Memory.

Back to the dig. Maybe I'll discover a mummy. Friday the 13th falls on a Monday this month.

Good Question

This has been a bad morning. I was up by 6:30, but just couldn't pull myself together enough to get anything done. At 11:00, I did manage to force myself to go work out. Glad I did--that was a hour of listening to Tchaikovsky that I might not have had otherwise. The last of my loft/study books are packed. Ten cartons--clearing out five bookcases. I hate not being able to get to the poetry books. Which reminds me--as I'm not pretty when I go through withdrawal--two more books have joined the others going with me. Don't do the math, you'll institutionalize me. I'm taking The Library of America 2-volume set, American Poetry: The Twentieth Century. There are five bookcases yet in the living room to pack. *Sigh*

Do I know completely where I'm going yet? No. The first stop is Philadelphia where I'll get rid of some baggage I should have left long ago. From there, I vaguely have an idea that P.T. and I may go to Colorado for a while and take turns licking our respective wounds at my brother's house. If my sister-in-law will take both of us. The next few weeks are going to be Hell with all the good parts left out. "Ignominius" is an interesting word I think. Has a latin flavor. And some gravitas. More latin flavor. Though I'm much more fond of Greek.

Enough walking through the garden of shadows and evil. Except perhaps to mention that late last night I finally posted John Heath-Stubbs' brilliant poem, "Mozart and Salieri." I'd make a link to direct you to the link, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. You'll have to go through the trouble of swinging over to my sidebar links to get to it. My son will have to walk his doddering old Dad through the in-text link procedure. You think it's easy being a Diplodocus?

Anyway, it's a terrific poem. Even better when you hear him read it. Alas and unfortunately, the poem or any of the Heath-Stubbs' volumes are not available in the U.S. Of course. Don't get me started. He would be 87 this year I think. I don't know if he's still around. I couldn't find any notice of his death last time I looked. In any case, I don't care if I'm violating copyright. I don't think Carcenet or Heath-Stubbs himself would really mind it being available. Besides, they'd have to find me first and I don't even know where I'll be. Back when Denver had a classical music station, don't get me started, they would play the recording of him reading it on Mozart's birthday. He had this wonderful, plummy British accent. On the recording he prefaces it with, The story that Salieri poisoned Mozart is probably not true. But it's a delicious premise, and in 18 stanzas does a better job of capturing the rivalry between the two, and the aftermath, than Amadeus did.

I'm putting off another task that will be painful: deciding which CD's to take, and which to store. And I can't take any of my (nine!) Kandinsky posters with me either, nor my mother's paintings. My eyes will starve. Sorry. I'm having a difficult time finding my way out of the garden.