I’m just back from NYC. Got up at 6am and headed to JFK. (3am PST — although honestly, I have no idea what time I think it is.) It’s good to be home. It definitely smells better here.

AEJ picked me up at the airport and we had lunch at In-N-Out. Quite the tasty homecoming.

I’d write the debrief now, but I’m exhausted. I also can’t begin to face the dozens of emails that went unanswered while I was away. (If you wrote me anytime after Monday afternoon, I promise I’ll write you back by Monday!)

The big news…
I’ll mention this again because it’s exciting news, but I can now officially announce that I’ll have four (yes, 4!) performances at Midwest in Chicago this December. They are:

Wednesday, December 20 : Permian High School Symphonic Band performs “Turbine,” conducted by Michael Watts

Thursday, December 21 : The Dallas Wind Symphony performs “Redline Tango,” conducted by Jerry Junkin — two performances

Friday, December 22 : Friendswood High School Wind Ensemble performs “Strange Humors,” conducted by Gregory Dick

I don’t know concert times yet, but I’m told that Friendswood is the “Friday night” concert, presumably around 9pm. The Dallas Wind Symphony performances are in the early and mid-evening. I’ll be writing about these concerts a lot as they approach, and I’m sure I’ll have exact concert times soon.

I’m off to nap.

I’m heading to New York tomorrow for that grant panel. Dinner with Corigliano tomorrow night, and then the panel starts at 9:30am on Wednesday. That’s 9:30 Eastern time. This means I’ll be up by 8:15, so I can get all dolled up for the panel. That’s 8:15 Eastern time. I usually don’t get up at 8:15 Pacific time. (I know, I know. I can feel your sympathy from here.) Needless to say, after getting up at 5:15am my time, I may be a bit slap-happy at this panel. I’m not exactly a morning person. (I’m tempted to link to that gawd-awful Garfield cartoon of… ah, what the hell.)

AEJ and I watched “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” on Friday night, and I’m only slightly-ashamed to admit that I absolutely loved it. Yeah, it’s a French musical from 1964, and I loved it. To quote the writer of this blog, “I will now gouge my own eyes out.”

It’s more of an opera than a musical, which would normally translate to “I am so bored, please kill me,” but the music — by Michel Legrand — is just perfect throughout. There’s jazz, bop, lush epic ballads, all beautifully written. I almost never notice lyrics when I listen to songs — at least not initially — so I actually was more aware of the text when I had to read the translation. It’s a little weird at first, as the lyrics are really just a sung screenplay. There’s no rhyming, and no verse. It’s sung dialogue like, “would you tune-up this gentleman’s Mercedes before you leave?” and (also in the auto shop where the film begins) “that little rattling noise is normal.” And the path the story takes… Well, it’s believable and realistic, not forced and cliched. (It’s a movie that could only come from France — and I say that not to discourage you from watching it.) We got it from Netflix, but I loved it so much, I immediately ordered both the soundtrack and the DVD. I also ripped one particularly gorgeous scene from the DVD, so I can listen to it on the plane tomorrow. (The MP3 is right here, at least until I receive a cease and desist order.) Plus, the film looks wicked-cool. It’s worth renting just for the set design. If you have any sort of soul, no matter how black and dead it has become, you should watch “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” — even if you still insist on using the term Freedom Fries.

This’ll probably be the only entry until I get back on Friday. I’ll try to post a big ol’ photo entry upon my return. In the meantime, if you need performance materials for something, the soonest I can fill an order will be Monday the 18th, and I’ll be largely unreachable until then. Just know that I’ll be missing you.

But I leave you with one more taste of Garfield, courtesy the JoshReads blog.
Enjoy. (I wanted to post the second comic directly, but I was told it might be a little much.)

I’d like to point out to the new readers that I do write blog entries about things other than Pac-Man. Sometimes, I also write about food.