TENDERNESS IS ALWAYS AFLOAT

I am back to music, just in case anyone is wondering. For those few of you who might not know, I have been making music mixes for about thirty years and have made hundreds, all documented in perfect OCD style. I made a mixtape of all the versions I could find of My Funny Valentine. You ready to hear that song for 45 minutes? I love it, and many others did too, so I made a Volume 2. I do not have current access to my CD collection so I am relying on my iTunes, only 23, 667 songs. For years I belonged to a mixers collective and got turned on to amazing stuff, of which I have not listened to all of it. Mixing is probably my finest unmarketable skill (or maybe petting cats?). I will sit still in a chair, not eat or anything else, for upwards of 10 hours when I am on the music hunt.

I say this to explain why I am so sleepy now ("No, the bourbon has nothing to do with it!") as I staid up way past my bedtime to complete a mix for my old friend Terry. Right now, I am making a mix of my favorite Richard Thompson cuts. But wait! I have 769 RT songs which will take me 2.5 days to listen through. Right now I am going through the 16 versions of 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (and the official release from Rumor and Sigh is not among them). A May 1993 version from Bloomington, Indiana with Danny Thompson is current front runner. The song was new then.

At any rate, I am a bit other focussed, though I should not be. I did manage to tear away from the computer to make Garden Vegetable Soup and Golden Potato-Cauliflower Soup as well as carmelizing onions and some brown rice, too. (We are working through all the vegetables we didn't use at Thanksgiving.) Tomorrow, I will be roasting brussels sprouts (balsamic, olive oil, garlic) and possibly doing something with some kale. But then I am headed down to Brooklyn again after dinner for three nights.

This by way of saying I am not thinking much. Nor am I doing much. Although it was a balmy 64 degrees today, I did not so much as open the front door. I haven't been out of the house since Sunday. I guess that happens when you hang out in the cold climes.

Maybe this return to music mixing is a good thing and perhaps I will return to reading and posting poetry again.

I have been meaning to share this little email from Iris for a couple of weeks:

Nice blog, amazing photos, as usual.  Good to have talked to you yesterday on my sloooow way to BAM.  The performance (Donka: A Love Letter to Chekhov) was…amazing…brilliant…extraordinary in every way.  A love letter to Chekhov conceived with sharp sensitivity and profound intelligence. What I learned from it, which I realized I had already learned from Chekhov: We are, from birth to death, inmates in one asylum or another.  But tenderness is always afloat. (November 15, 2012).