A day worth remembering. Wake up a little hungover from playing a killer practice set for the Next Waltz with the Flynndiggers in Schupback gardens. Playing with those guys under a full moon is campfire song bliss. They are so good. Witchita Lineman into Neil Young was transcendent.
After some coffee I graded "new" Canterbury Tales from the sophomores, got through a half a dozen. Then cleaned and went to buy candy for the Halloween party at the park. (The kids have to bring a bag of candy to be admitted to the party.) Then I played a couple hours of tennis with Gabriel. Super fun.
After tennis went to the park's halloween party. The Ferriers won group costume. They went the extra mile and actually built a security fence like they have in the movie. Nice.
Afterwards I went home and did some more grading, and read a few Emily Dickinson poems. I'm up to 590 something. Just one banger after another. I spend some time on Prowlingbee's blog commenting on the poems I've just read. I also start Middlemarch, because it is Emily's favorite novel, as well as my favorite novelist's favorite novel (Proust, don't you know.) So how could I not. The first paragraph features these great lines,
"Her passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self."
Finally the family went to eat at a Dominican restaurant in Brooklyn, Puerto Viejo. Good. Fun to see all the costumed Brooklynites out and about too
From there we went to see a performance of Bach's Chaconne by Doori Na and Faure's Requiem at Co-cathedral of St. Joseph. Two of my favorite pieces of music. They did this incredible thing where the last note of the mind-blowing Chaconne was synced up with the first note of The Requiem, followed by singers walking down the aisles beside us toward the altar. I teared up from the pure beauty of it.
Then home to watch an episode of "Only Murders In the Building", a show we are loving.
Full day of a full life.
