I notice that my brains are little tired today. I had a good day yesterday. I found myself in the grips of unreasonable optimism (as sometimes happens to me). I had a good second meeting with Dr. Birky my therapist. Then I drove to work and made those multiple copies of two upcoming anthems. I had lunch with Eileen. I picked up a few grocery items including some stuff for my Mom. I ended the day giving a piano lesson. The entire day I was feeling pretty positive. I do feel lucky to have such a good life.

I remember a classical radio station having a rule that they played no sopranos early in the morning. However, this morning as I was continuing to read Ross’s chapter on Verdi, he mentioned the recording above and called it one of the “most stunning pieces of Verdi singing on record.”

 

Naturally I had to check it out. I have been listening to more music on my headphones. I have made a small discovery. A lot of the newer pop music I listen to seems to have been specifically recorded to be listened to through headphones. I remember years ago my friends told me that if I wanted to hear “Whole Lotta Love” effectively I had to do so with headphones.

 

There was a swirling effect in the recording. They thought that was hot shit. I’m listening to the above video with headphones. Hilariously it preserves this silly little effect. But I do think that I miss quite a bit in the new pop music just listening to it through speakers. I have been wearing my headphones while I treadmill and keep noticing this.

I make playlists on Spotify of new music to play while I treadmill. This helps keep me motivated I guess.

I love the way the interweb keeps connecting me to stuff and allowing me to share some of it here. It seems an incredible luxury to me to read about a recording and then be able to pull it up on my magic machine and also find the music to follow while listening. Man o man. I do like that.

Here are the two poems that I read this morning. I liked each one very much. Again how cool is it that I can find them online? Not always able to do that.

Hum for the Stone by Jamaal May | The Normal School: A Literary Magazine

I like how May uses stone substances in each section of this poem. For some reason this poem makes me think of Detroit (where May is from).

“Return to D’Ennery; Rain” by Derek Walcott | Last Year’s Almanac

And then there’s this poem. I like the rain in this poem and I like this:

“And as this rain puddles the sand, it sinks
Old sorrows in the gutter of the mind…”

Instead of publishing this post, I had breakfast with Eileen. She left and I decided to cook to Verdi. Put on La Traviata. I took food porn pics as I cooked. Here they are.

 

In my Chili Cabbage version, I like using portobella mushrooms.

 

I leave out the tofu and jalepeno peppers. Eileen said she didn’t mind the taste of this concoction. Here’s a link to the recipe again. You have scroll down to see it.

 

Then on Gingered Kale and Tofu (minus the tofu).

 

Many thanks to m sister-in-law Leigh for the cabbage and kale.

 

I used my wok for both dishes.

 

Finally I thin sliced some chicken breast for my favorite carnivore and put it in marinade.

Well, I have to stop since all I have done this morning is basically blog and cook. But life is good.