This morning I slept in a bit. The Barnes & Noble Nook Store kindly sold me a set of P.G. Wodehouse novels for the small sum of four dollars and ninety five cents. I figure that if one has the Holy Bible , a volume of Wallace Stevens poems, and a brace of Wodehouse novels on hand, one is prepared for almost any contingency.
Lately I fret, a bit, that when I make music it is no longer "ambient" music but instead simple, vid-game-like melodic electronica. I have a baseline knowledge of how to make deep resonant drones in long, slow pieces, but I rarely employ that knowledge anymore. Now the songs that come to me most easily are keyboard driven melodic ditties in which I use a software sampler to sequence the sound of, say, an ocarina or a child's water pipe toy or even a human voice.
I spent part of my morning trying to take some samples by Fireproof Babies to create something more ambitious. I found my efforts particularly unavailing. Instead, I just loaded up some of my simple, home-made woodwind samples, and wrote two new songs. Each came out gentle, melodic and quite simple. I found the experience of making them very relaxing. I will do another 3 or 5 and call it an album.
I hopped on my bicycle for a late Sunday morning ride. I try to stay on little-used suburban streets and park sidewalks. Today I went through nearby little Glendover Park, crossed busy Exchange Drive, and got onto Cross Plains Drive in the Twin Creeks neighborhood. I turned left onto Comanche, passing the nobly-named Flossie Ford Green Elementary School. I like the name Flossie, if for no other reason that one of the four Bobbsey Twins in the books I read in childhood bore that name.
I parked my bicycle at adjoining Green Park, a small park between the school and a fire station, with a fair number of trees and a bit of sidewalk. I parked my bicycle using its handy kickstand, and began to explore the trees.
The trees were filled with mockingbirds. I also saw one very active blue jay. I was able to get some photos of one mockingbird, but the jay was less available to my lens.
I also saw a fair number of migrating monarch butterflies, making their slow, lovely way towards Mexico, though in fact a number of them seemed a bit wrong-way in their orientation.
found myself listening to ragtime and cakewalk music on Mog dot com. It all seemed to fit.
I expected my weigh-in at Weight Watchers to go astray, due to a Mexican dinner Friday night, but I was actually down about .2 pounds. I got a sandwich at Firehouse Subs in the late afternoon.
I watched the Dallas Cowboys snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against the 49ers on television.
This evening I walked Ted and Beatrice. Ted is so slow that walking them is a bit like being the fellow pulled between horses in a sword and sandals epic. Next time I must resume my habit of walking them separately. We went in when dark clouds began to gather. As it was, I had to dispel the optical illusion/vague fear I have that I was pulling Ted along, by picking her up and instead carrying her part of the way.
As I write, rain and hail is falling.