new mus(ings)ic

It’s hard to teach when the sun is finally out again. A full wall of windows looking at an actual blue sky lends itself to focused work for neither myself nor my students. Ugh. At least I have flashy new dry-erase markers.

New Music Festival this weekend at BSU. Friday night at 8pm my Elegy will be performed by the BSU Graduate String Quartet, for those (I’m reasonably certain non-existent) Muncie-based readers.

By the way, last week (spring break) was spent in the company of Tracy’s brother and his wife, along with their nearly new baby. While pretty much no productive work was undertaken during the trip, we slept a lot and greatly enjoyed the company of our hosts. Thanks, guys. Tracy and I both optimistically brought some theological reading with us, which lay fallow in our bags… it turns out babies are much more immediately interesting than books.

We also got to visit with my former office- and house-mate from WMU, Luke Dahn, who’s now teaching music theory at Northwestern College (where Dan-in-law teaches). It had been nearly 5 years since the last time we saw him, and he’s since married a charming Korean woman who invited us over for bibimbap (with which our friends Nate and Mee Heh used to stuff us back in Pasadena)… oh, so good. It was great to catch up with him and hear some of his more recent music.

Our return trip from western Iowa was uneventful until somewhere in Illinois, when suddenly our car took to insistent vibration whenever we ventured above 60mph or so. We found an open Sears Auto center, who looked at the front wheels (where we felt the trouble was located) and found only one somewhat loose lug nut. I’m sure we annoyed more than a few fellow drivers by crawling along well below the speed limit for the next 4 hours or so, but we finally got home safely and will be going to the car doctor soon.

For now, for me, it is back to the grind. I go now for coffee, and then to teach again.