I am but a yam.

I have 25 minutes before I teach a make-up lesson, so I�ll try to make this fast. Last night I attended the student composers concert. Something had been nagging at me all day, and I finally realized around 5 p.m. that I couldn�t go to belly dancing and had to phone Patsy to inform her I couldn�t give her a ride. This was fine with her, as she had no desire to go out, considering winter had returned in full force. It�s warming up today, but there�s still a fair bit of snow underfoot.

So, Monday evening struck with all its craziness, taxiing kids to karate, a hurried supper, getting Hubby to the concert hall early, picking up the kids and taking them home, and then getting myself back to the concert in time. The first half was all acoustic compositions and was pretty good. One young man emulated John Cage with a piece scored for acoustic metronome and cello accompaniment, which he played. The stage manager set the metronome (an old-fashioned, triangular one with the thin pin topped by a weight) on a stool with a music stand in front of it. Tomo came in with his cello, placed music on the metronome�s stand and his own, started the ticker going and proceeded to play the piece. He would stop every now and again and turn the metronome�s page. Then he walked off stage and continued to play from the hallway, came back, turned a page, walked out and shut the stage door. We sat there for several minutes wondering what to do next as the metronome continued to tick away. Finally I started applauding loudly, everyone joined in, and the stage manager eventually came out and turned off the metronome and set up for the next piece.

The second half was all electronic pieces, composed with MAX/MSP, a program Hubby has introduced the students to this year. Some of them were played from CDs while the Mac Visualizer projected pretty patterns on the screen, and some were actual interactive pieces with acoustic or electronic instruments. One fellow played his kit-built theremin with his own piece and on another student�s. That was cool.

Afterwards I joined Hubby and several of his students at The Lion for a pitcher each of light and dark (I only had one glass of dark, but I am an extremely cheap drunk) and had a really fun time. We got home late, though, and I still had to get up early to perform my motherly duties, so I�ve been dragging myself around in a rather lethargic manner.

The first thing I did was go to the sculpture studio to clean the clay out of my moulds. They didn�t work out exactly as I had planned. As per the instructor�s directions, I ended up separating the serpent coils from the erect part and casting one one-piece mould and one two-piece mould. As I was prying the latter apart, it broke, and became a three-piece mould. So, ever resourceful, I mended it with plaster, taught a makeup lesson, came back and finally had a chance to ask Jim what to do. He applauded my solution, and tomorrow I should be able to fill the mould with tuffstone. He recommended not pigmenting the tuffstone itself, but painting the finished piece. I think this is a good idea, since I will have to whip up two or more batches, and it is almost impossible to match the colouration from one mixture to the next. If this thing turns out, I will have a really nice sculpture. Patsy will photograph it, and if she has a digital camera I might be able to get the files and I will post them here.

And now I must go and put the singing-teacher hat back on. String quartet concert tonight; when will it end?

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