The dark side of weblogging reared its bionic head today, as Ester's recent post churns the drama. She alluded to some details of Rebecca's personal life, in a fairly circumspect way, but it was enough to trigger tears and emotional telephone calls, and Rebecca feels quite upset and betrayed. I'm trying to stay neutral, which means I'm going to end up getting involved and arguing both sides.

My day, though, has been a delight. Pretty much. After some decent murder talk, I curled up in one of the frizzy olive chairs in parlors to read thirty-several pages of Pynchon, about pigs and pinball, a fun section. Les heures, then back here for lunch and stuff. On the way back to campus I stopped in Pearson and got a Lingusitics Department tee (long-sleeved!), which the office assistant was more than happy to give me once she had snapped my polaroid (I've had some problems with this in the past.) Pynchville was pretty good, although quite a few folks were missing. We listened to Lotion, Pynchon's favorite rock band, and I called for a small group discussion on the pig section. Christie, Kim, Marilee, Schmidt, D-Kacz rallied to the cause, although I didn't have anything in particular in mind. The latter has just started "Sotweed".

Immediately upon finishing class, I went to Marcantonio Barone's office for the semester, where he was wrapping up a lesson with a beginning student. "He's just like you, except he talks more" he said, after the student asserted that one could just as easily play an entire piece with hands crossed at the wrists. Indeed, I often struggled with a tendency to recalcitrance during our lessons last year. The conversation flowed like rubies on this occasion though. Mr. Tony treated me to the nicest meal I've had in a while, my fourth at Peking/Tokyo. I decided to go Japanese this time around, (the rule is you can have either but you can't mix), and he followed suit; we shared edamame, spinach salad, wasabi shumai, and seven types of sushi (inari, unagi, yellowtail, Spanish mackerel, avacado roll, spicy tuna roll, and some battered shrimp roll that I can't think of right now - just wanted to see if I could remember them.) On the way there I went through my favorite Philly restaurants, and on the way back we discussed the awful things driving makes us do, but the discussion during dinner was great. He's so unbelievably articulate, besides being warm and encouraging, not to mention insanely accomplished and modest about it at the same time. And he wore a napkin as a bib over his black suit and tie. I gave him a run-down on barn life and he talked about the new experience of teaching a music history class, which led to the differences between music history and science history. We got onto the topic of food: how personal tastes develop (genetics vs. cultural environment, etc.) and the implications of considering food preparation "culinary art" on the level of music or painting. This led to many fascinating food anecdotes, as well as theoretical art discussion. A treat.

On the unusual interactions with adults front, Claire Sawyers called the other day to follow up on our conversation re the fragrance garden. Actually, she called not knowing what number she was dialing, rendering Joel rather confused in the process. According to her, there was "some indication" that there had been another party in the space the week after mine. Even though nobody in the administration knew anything about that, she decided that it would be unfair to ask me and my sponsors to contribute to the extra maintenance costs. Okay, whatever.

Tony returned me to Lang a few minutes before African. Annoyingly, we didn't dance today but rather tried to make ourselves comfortable on the cold hard mexican tile as we watched "dance black america," a video of a show circa 1985 including a piece from Garth Fagan back when the Bucket was still the Bucket. It made me think of high school, since I have been in exactly the same circumstances many times in the dance studios at sota; in fact I have watched the exact same video there.

The next item on the agenda was a remarkably productive three-hour rehearsal with Jeff's band, now apparently called "The Keller Method." I won't divulge what went on at the rehearsal, since everyone reading this who is able to ought to come see the concert. Suffice to say that I am really excited for the concert now. I just have to get my other band in shape to perform. And find a costume. Oh, I've been asking people fairly randomly to tell me what to be for Halloween. Some interesting answers: a matchstick (John Fort), God (Jonah), Waldo (Alison.) Amazingly, Elizabeth Holman just e-mailed me apropos of nothing to say that she thinks I should be Waldo. Perhaps it's fated. Does anyone have a red and white striped shirt I can borrow? Or a cane?

When I returned I past a gathering of our neighbors holding a sing-a-long on the porch. Jonah, Samarah, Lizzie, Jamie, Ben, his guitar, and a copy of Rise Up Singing! I came down to join them for some "Battle of New Orleans," "Both Sides Now," "Sweet Baby James," etc. Hooray for informal music. It was really sweet. I mentioned this site, after Ester passed us and my attempts to give her a subtle warning about Rebecca's ire met with blank stares. Now that I've sorted out what to do about rehearsing tomorrow, sort of, all that's left is a bit of French nonsense before bed.

go ahead with all your sweet-talking
go ahead for all the good it can do
have yourself a dime's worth of talking
'cause then i'm gonna hang right up on you