Some random items as we settle back into 'reality'

We just got back from a week at Grand Canyon, and it was wonderful despite the heat. For one thing, we got to see baby elk, including a play-fight between two young males, followed by their racing each other up and down what the Park optimistically calls “revegetation areas.” (Their smaller and possibly female companion, left alone during one of their laps, chirped worriedly. The mothers were nowhere to be seen, probably up the hill at El Tovar Lodge munching down on the landscaping there.)

I’ll have more to say about that trip next week, particularly on the topic of awe, the subject of the very powerful book I’m reading at the moment.

For now I’ll share two brief items.

Ten Little Waltzes

It’s been five years since I made Ten Little Waltzes one of my Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts, and in all that time I have finished exactly one: #4, Waltz for Corbett, and that was only recently. But that little waltz kind of flipped a switch in my brain, and I think over the next couple of weeks I’m going to revisit some of my ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS and perhaps even sketch out a structure for the ten.

In the meantime, I went poking around my former attempts and found two pieces that actually were perfectly cromulent, so as of today I have three little waltzes done. Huzzah.

Here they are:

3. Tranquillo | score [pdf] | mp3

4. Waltz for Corbett | score [pdf] | mp3 

5. Cheekily | score [pdf] | mp3

A thought about shinyperfect

Before you trust that BRILLIANT IDEA that your brain just had, remember that this is the same brain that in dreams offers you absolutely fool-proof solutions like “Just sew the ruffle on top of the thing,” and that will surely defuse the giraffe…

My apologies for any mental agony this insight may have caused.