Monday

I woke up with Owen lying next to me. Matthew, Jenny and Owen stayed over with us rather than driving back to Mnt View late at night and Christi hijacked OAT to try to wake me up in the morning. It worked. All of us, including Tiffany and Christi’s mom went for breakfast at Tomate cafe, which has improved a lot recently. Then we returned and I complained that my relationship to Owen was way too complicated to explain, so Jenny said that Christi, her mom and I could all be godmothers.
Everyone went back to their homestates or work or whatever, and I called up Best Music about my tuba and they told me to go to Best Repair. When I lived in Cupertino, I got all my tuba work done by a guy named Sousa (what elese could you do with that name?) in San Jose. So I was wondering about Best Repair, since I was unfamiliar with them. When I purchased my tuba, the old owner told me that BOBO (the world’s greatest tuba player, who is with the La Philharmonic) had seen it in a shop after the 5th valve was added and tried to buy the horn, but the owner refused to sell, lending it to him for a couple of seasons instead. This story took place, I figured in LA, but the shop was called “Best” something-or-other. Anyway, I walked in with my horn and put it on the counter and the guy looks for about 5 seconds as I point at the worn cork on the valves and says, “I did all this valve work.” He went on to explain that he added the fifth valve. I asked him about the story with Bobo and he said that he knows Bobo, but the story was wrong. He also told me that he didn’t add the spring-loaded tuning thingee, so maybe that’s where Bobo saw it, or maybe the whole Bobo-connection is a myth. Anyway, I feel very good about having that guy work on my horn, since he’s already worked on it extensively and done a great job. I’ve left in good hands.
Then I came back home and got the mail, where there was a thin letter from Wesleyan. I feared the worst, but since I got into Cal Arts, I could go someplace if I wanted, and I’m not sure if I want to, cuz it’s a lot of money and who knows how valuable an M.A. in composition is anyway? Christi told me years ago that the average salry of a music graduate declines as their education increases. I’d do better financially if I just have a B.A. and not a M. A. and if I went back to high tech and anyway. Wesleyan’s short letter explained that they are happy to offer me admission,a full ride and a stipend. I started jumping up and down and jumped on christi and then ran over to my neighbor’s house where I jumped up and down and frightened her dog. Then I jumped up and down some more.
Then we took the framed fine-art scores to Christi’s office, cuz I always worry about things getting harmed when I have them and they’re not mine. when we got back, Christi told me that she had a long conversation with Lyn Liston of the American Music Center with at the Other Minds festival. Christi and I met Lyn at the Composing A Career confrence last spring. The AMC is holding three carrer building workshop thingees coming up soon. I think I posted the info to the call for scores blog, linked to in the left margin. Anyway, Christi and I will be unable to attend the SF one, because we have to play in Seattle right afterwards, but there’s one in Seattle the next weekend that we were going to go to. Lyn told Christi that the AMC has been advertising our “Meet the Composer” thingee in Seattle as an adjunct to their confrence. Obviously, they would comp us in to the festival since we’re featured, etc.
Blinking extensively at that news, I stumbled over to a computer where I had email from my dad telling me that he purchased me a whole case of Girl Scout Thin Mints.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a day quite like yesterday before. Certainly better than any day I had last year. It was just one good thing after another. My my fairy godmother’s sabatical just ended or something. I still have deadlines creeping up though, and yesterday was not a good day for working on stuff. I’m still blown away.

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Charles Céleste Hutchins

Supercolliding since 2003

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