Evening Away

Excellent trio, Percussion Group Cincinnati, at the museum, needed help unloading and setting up, then loading and putting away afterward. Stage hand. Also I had altered the air-conditioning system for the theater (one of the main gallery units is out, so things are heating up) and wanted to be there in case something blew up. AC guy was around, last week, ordering parts for the big unit and we picked his brain. Theater unit is really an outdoor compressor, but we don't have an outdoors and the roof is too far away, so the original installers had run torturous ductwork for the exhaust. Too restrictive, burns out the coil, but the thing is in the big, awful, basement storage room, and the guy says, as I had thought, just cut a big hole in the plenum and baffle the air up, away from the intake. Easy enough, but a really loud and ugly job, gloves, metal snips, sawzall, hearing protection, drill, to start a hole. Cut it on both sides and the top, then bend it out so that it makes its own baffle. Elegant solution. Works. The group played some interesting pieces, one by our local Barnhart, a couple of John Cage pieces (they're famous for their knowledge of Cage) and finished with Four Chilean Songs that they've adapted from those mountain pan pipes transposed to the Karimba. Barnhart and Amy came over, he'd been best man at a student wedding over at the college, for most of the second half. Nice conversation for the load-out. Briefly thought about going for a drink at the pub, blew it off, wanted to get home, get cozy on the ridge. Spent an hour in the gallery the Wrack Show will occupy, walking around slowly, looking at walls and ceilings, some hoops to jump through. I'm anxious to get started sand-blasting stumps. Our lives move us, you notice that? you get interested in one thing over another and suddenly you're fixated, down on your knees with a magnifying glass, and let the wild woods grow. No nappe at the spillway, but squalls coming in from the west, fireworks, and a low rumble of thunder. I get a drink and make some notes. I've never been more comfortable. Not answerable to anyone other than a few close friends that make no demands. It's an amazing freedom, to not compromise, approach it slowly, it means you'll be alone most of the time, consider how you'll deal with that, yourself alone. B left early, to get home to his squeeze, I saw that look in his eye. I nod, you know, your greater graces, what we think we know.