birthday card

anthony braxton is seventy years old today. happy birthday maestro!

so... 70th birthdays... a big deal, or not? many would say yes, but there are others who would simply prefer not to make a fuss about such things. i suspect our man falls into the latter category, but i don't actually know for sure; he has gone very quiet lately.

- and of course he is not the only one. this is all pretty weird, but my drifting (definitively - for now!) away from this blog has coincided with the maestro's post-academic "self-imposed exile" - as he is apparently calling it. he is busily composing the rest of his opera cycle... and me? no, i just drifted off it seems. - but then, i thought i was starting something else, didn't i? and just never (yet) got going (yet) on that one at all (yet). don't know what to say, really... for most of this year i have been off the ganja, and that in turn (as it usually does) has left me short of inspiration... i just have not felt like writing at all. [more recently, i did in fact begin still another blog, but as this is on a totally different subject - the novels which donald westlake wrote under the pseudonym richard stark - it's not necessarily likely to appeal to any readers here - assuming there are any.]

anyway... this is not the occasion for bemoaning my own lack of activity. many happy returns of the day to a master composer, instrumentalist and educator, and may he enjoy his retirement!

***

a glance at the blog's stats suggests that a few people lately have been looking at the town hall: trio and quintet entries from the original braxtothon, or more specifically at the one for the quintet. what readers may or may not have realised is that i did eventually get back to that piece with a deeper level of understanding: check it out if you're interested. (damn. was that really back in 2011?? how these last few years have flown, with so little to show for them...)

... that is all for now.

c x