Cello Suites

Mac mentioned a book that I had read, and that occasioned me listening to Rostropovich and then Edgar Meyer's transcription for double bass, which takes most of the night. I shouldn't be doing this, because I have a lot to do at the museum, but I have to listen to Casals playing from the manuscript copy of Anna Magdalena (not Mary's) copy. For my money, this is the greatest music of all time, and we have Casals to thank. It was lost, considered an exercise, when he found that copy in a music store in Barcelona. There's another version, transcribed by Bach's student, Johann Peter Kellner, in 1726; Anna knew his soul, Johann just heard the notes. I listened to these versions side by side, once, in Kansas, and there's no comparison. No musician ever plays these suites in order, and I wonder about that. I can play them in order, because everything is pre-recorded and I can set up a play list. You should listen to them in order. It's a whole other experience, not the player, but the composer. I can play with this, because I have the time, and I love Bach, among all other mortals. The Sixth Suite is my absolute favorite piece of music. Defined as we are, that Modigliani, the Sixth Cello Suite, a particular passage from Pynchon. I surprise myself in what comes to bear. I thought I was going to write about making a perfect cup of coffee, as the sun came rolling over the ridge, but I'm back on the Cello Suites again. I'm the victim, in a way, of a viral conspiracy, the way meaning comes to bear. Never before has it been necessary to draw a distinction between the real world and the natural world. A problem of definition. I've been up all night, listening to the Cello Suites, and now I have to go to work, we'll pick this up tonight. Worked like mad until noon. Panels down and stored, bonnets put away, then, while the decorators were starting, I made three passes along all of the walls: pulled the hardware, erased the pencil lines, filled all the holes. In the folk show, I used a lot of pan-head screws in plastic anchors, which leave fairly large holes. Adrian sent Pegi a message saying that I was very good at my job, then, today, the bride thanked me for getting everything ship-shape. I'm just trying to stay on schedule, for the second half of this big turn-around. I've been reading about commas, people send me articles and printouts. After lunch, the decorating was reaching a crescendo, and I don't like crowds (of strangers) that much, so I retreated to my office, read about commas, read some of Mary's letters, read a really good essay about Jacques-Louis David. At five, after work, I needed to haul garbage over to the dumpster behind the Cirque building, which is two doors down from the back door to the pub, so I decided to stop for a pint. Libby thanked me for the bubble wrap scraps (it was a large bag) and said that she's saving them for something special. I didn't ask. John Hogan, himself, was sharing a pint with a couple who are patrons of the museum, and the woman, whose name escapes me, asked me about pate (because my pate was mentioned in a flyer for the "Cream Of The Crop" opening). It was a nice conversation, you don't get to talk about pate that often, and even if you do, it's often whispers behind programs.