What is life, after all, but a prison? It is the death sentence. I feel cold inside today. I was up earlier than usual but still slept too long. That last kiss of sleep after waking up at a proper time but just saying fuck it, I have nowhere to be, nothing to do. Just let that kiss of sleep take me.
Here is snow. I swear I saw flurries several weeks ago, on Queens Boulevard, but if that is what they were then they made a very brief appearance. This would seem to be the first official snow of the season, unless I just have not been paying attention.
I was showering the other day. The water was extremely hot. Nowadays I’ve taken to sitting in the tub, for a hybrid shower and bath, so the hot water partly immerses me. They warn you not to take your blood pressure reading after showering, so I tried it once. It seriously jacked up my BP being in a hot shower. Sometimes it takes a while to feel normal after showering in too hot water. My whole body gets pink.
It got me wondering if anyone had ever died from a heart attack induced by taking a too-long hot shower. I did not find anything to suggest you could die from a hot shower unless you were somehow trapped, Stephen King style, in bathwater that was beyond scalding hot. So there’s one less thing to worry about.
I read a Stephen King story in Playboy the other night. I do not like that kind of stuff. I never read any of his books but the gruesome shit just is not for me.
An out of character e-mail from a friend — he wrote to share a piece of organ music of all things — had me playing through a piano sonata by Reubke and listening to an oratorio by Pietro Raimondi. The latter has long been a lingering curiosity of mine, though I can’t remember the last time I looked him up. He was an Italian composer active in the early to mid 1800s. He wrote music for monstrous ensembles requiring hundreds of performers. He first crossed my radar in high school when I was reading a biography of Liszt. The author… I think it was Sitwell… referred to Raimondi’s 64-voice fugues and massive contrapuntal creations. The funny thing was when he described Liszt’s verdict on Raimondi. Liszt said the very idea of Raimondi gave him a headache.
I found a PhD dissertation on Raimondi, from 1995. I don’t think that had been online until recently. For some reason it was on a site directed at medical researchers. I started into it, and it seems promising.
Reubke (can’t think of his first name) was a favorite protege of Liszt. He only lived to be 24 but his Psalm 94 organ sonata has remained in the standard repertoire of organists since it was published. He also wrote a piano sonata, which I found at IMSLP.org. It’s kinda craggy but way more modern than I would have expected from that timeframe, and from someone just in hish early 20s.
Two policemen just entered this coffee shop. Their walkie talkies are on full blast. I hear “Housing projects. Under rail ops. Charlie five.” And now I can’t hear anything because everyone else is talking so loudly.
Overhearing two kids talking: “Knee socks. With the red stripe. White boy hair? Why you want to do something like that? I don’t know. Get knee socks. He’s the best person I’ve ever had. Get buffalo sauce. With this? Naaaah. This is like a good meal. The best meal I’ve ever had. A burger with wings.”
Reminds me of a story Joe B. told me once. He was with some friends at a bar in midtown, having a pretty memorable conversation among themselves. The conversation would be remembered and quoted for weeks to come. Then one night Joe was watching “Will & Grace” when he heard that entire conversation in the script. Evidently a writer for the show was sitting nearby and transcribing their conversation. All involved were a little taken aback but ultimately no threat of legal action or anything like that was considered.
Someone who sent me a payphone picture over 10 years ago has enjoyed sporadic moments of fame ever since. It was first used on a Yahoo news site, where it was probably seen by a million or more people. It appeared in a couple of other places over the years but more recently I made the bizarre and accidental discovery that someone had made a life size print of the photo and put it on a wall in the Chicago subway system. It was one of 3 or 4 photos lifted from my web site for an art project that had something to do with payphones. I think the posters were placed where phone booths used to be. The posters had been there for months, but strangely enough they disappeared the day after I discovered their existence. I never said anything to anybody about it, since they were not my pictures but those of people who sent them to me.
And last night I saw a picture of a woman using a payphone at Rockefeller Center. My first thought was: someone stole my picture. I found my picture of this woman using a Rockefeller Center payphone and found that it was from a different angle. A weirder possibility: the women who took this picture did so at the same moment I took mine. The woman in the two pictures was unquestionably the same, and her posture and position and clothing all identical. But the strange thing is my picture was from March of last year, and this other photo was from last week. So this woman (who I think is disturbed) uses that payphone quite regularly. Who’da thunk it. I think she has her prisons, too.
Kids nearby are talking about their penises.
