At a Starbucks, feeling so-s after navigating a night of sleep sans booze. I’ve gotten almost good at it, mostly on the basis of not expecting miracles… or sleep. I usually am puzzled and even uneasy about those nights I sleep 12 and 13 hours. My excuse is that I must have needed it. But I know that’s not true. I just do not want to wake up. Lately, perked by my nihilistic project and other things, I’ve been turning in early and waking up earlier than in the past I don’t know how many years.

I had a brief correspondence with Stacy G., an old high school flame. Hah, she was not really a flame, but I think she wanted to be back in the day. None of that informs the correspondence, or my intentions upon initiating it. It’s just nice to check in on a familiar name once in a while… as in every 30 years. Her name came up when I randomly encountered Molly in Tampa a couple of weeks ago. I think Molly was one year ahead of Stacy in school.

We talked about a few things but (and I don’t think she was lying about this) she had no time to chat because she was getting ready for a 4 or 5 day cruise leaving from Vancouver the next day. But we’ll probably talk later. Or not. All good.

She has two sons. I think she said 18 and 16. She asked if I had any. I said “Zero and zero. Is there a negative zero?” She described her current life as “unconventional.” Whatever that  means maybe I will find out later. I gather she’d been divorced, but she still uses her ex-husband’s last name on Facebook and anywhere else linked to from there.

The first thing she said in response to my message was “I still have your cassette!” At first I thought she meant I had sent her a voice cassette letter, as I and other friends were wont to do back then. So I commented that I have recently been having issues with the sound of my own voice. (More on that later.)

But now I think she might have meant that I sent her a cassette tape of me playing piano. I can’t remember now which of those is more likely a scenario. It’s also possible I just sent a mixtape of songs. Maybe I’ll find out later. Funny thing, though, I found a stash of letters she sent me during college, and maybe even into the Parc Lincoln era. And a few unlabeled cassettes, which could be intriguing if they were from her. Just have to wait for Diane or George to mail them here.

One Last Scanning Binge

I spent an hour or so scanning the August, 1955, issue of The Etude magazine. Starting from the last issue (May, 1957, I think) I’ve scanned backward, quickly doing some of 1955, all of 1956, and what there is of 1957, the year the magazine quietly ceased publication without even a farewell editorial. Those 1955-1957 copies were quick to scan because the pages were a lot smaller than issues printed from the 1880s through August, 1955. So I could scan 2 pages at onceSeptember, 1955, brought few and smaller pages, and perhaps signaled to anyone in the know that the magazine was finally fading away.

I call it “one last” scanning binge because this time around, once scanned, I’m throwing these copies into the trash, or at best leaving them at the Salvation Army or other second hand shop. The later issues in particular, from the 11940s on, I don’t think I have held in my hot little hands since the last time I boxed them up and got them all chronologically organized. Just no need to have them once satisfactorily scanned and, in some cases, digitized.

It feels like an end of an era for me, though. Those old magazines have been in my space and in my mental furniture since 1989 or 1990, when I bought a stack of Etudes from a thrift shop in Oberlin. I think I paid 10 cents for a stack of 5. They have never been worth much (anything, really) as collectibles. This helps explain why I have so many copies. It’s the poor man’s collectible.

I will hold on to the very old ones. My real intent os to rid my life of everything from about 1940 on. I seem to remember 1938 as being something of a watershed year for that magazine, after which everything from the content to the cover images faded from sincere pedagogical and musicological intent to dogmatic and even strident diatribes. The same old names appeared year after year, and of particular dismay was how the quality of the sheet music section just went completely down the toilet. The music was, I think, the Etude’s weakest section, its enduring promise for undiscovered gems notwithstanding.

…

I had hoped to sit here longer but the noise cancelling headphones just ran out of battery, which means I am treated to the full aural avalanche of the man screaming into his phone, sitting opposite me at this table. The noise-cancelling headphones did ace work of drowning him out, though, gotta mention that. I could see him gesticulating madly and laughing heartily at his own wit. But I could not hear a fucking thing. That’s good for the $400 I sunk into these things.

All as well as should be. I need to scan away the forest fire of paper and listen to the sounds I’ve been making lately of myself walking and talking. The sound of my own voice gets tiresome but the occasional interlude of real world sounds (binaural!) feels nice. Scanning is a good thing to do while listening to that stuff. It doubles up the monotony and makes me do other things as well.