Yesterday was all cello, all the time. Well, not precisely; I did three hours of errands and grocery shopping and such in the morning. But I had an excellent two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, then had half an hour to tidy up, and headed then off to my cello lesson. It was great to hear my teacher say that it was really coming together, and there were just twiddly things to do to the duet. When I was packing up she said that in general I was sounding good: my bow was more confident, and my intonation was really improving. It put me in a great mood as I left, and it stayed with me for the rest of the day, even through the traffic from hell on the highway that nearly made me late to collect the boy from the caregiver. (Hello, construction season. I have not missed you.)
The night before had been orchestra, so in effect I had five hours of cello in the space of eighteen waking hours. *flexes her callouses* I have to find a way to keep my left hand relaxed through the Vaughn Williams; I’m using way too much pressure. It’s not like I have to press any harder with my left fingers if I’m playing louder, after all. It’s all about bow speed.
I’m currently struggling with my latest work project. My job is to evaluate several different aspects of a manuscript in order to recommend the proper level of editing. I’ve run into a situation I’ve never had to deal with before, namely that the writing level is so low that I can’t find the plot or any characterization. I need to supply examples of things to be fixed, and it’s very hard to prove a negative. Spending yesterday away from it was helpful, I think; I did what I could on Wednesday, and now I’m going to try to wrap it up today. The bad ones take so much more time than the good ones, partly because it’s harder to read them, and partly because it’s difficult to be diplomatic about the shortcomings. It takes me more time to write up my report than it does to make my notes on the problems.
I’m also struggling with a decision regarding tomorrow’s outing. Originally we were scheduled to spend Victoria Day weekend with my parents, but HRH realised that it’s the Creative Arts show tonight and he couldn’t take Friday off to make the trip out to southern Ontario worth the drive. The substitute plan was to travel to the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa for the Glenn Gould exhibit, which I hadn’t known about until I saw that it was being held over till May 18. I’ve missed every major Gould event for the past ten years, so the new plan was to do this on Saturday. Except the orchard planting last Saturday really exhausted me, and I’m still not operating at one hundred percent. I’ve been achy and low on energy all week. I don’t know if another two-hour drive plus a museum visit is going to be worth the energy invested in it. I can’t find a review of the exhibit, which would help me decide if it’s worth it or not. It’s a decision that will have to be made Saturday morning.
In the meantime, the 1981 Goldberg recording, some Dragon Moon Darjeeling, open windows, and good incense.
I guess you’re not allowed to say “This author doesn’t need editing, they need high school English.”
Alas, no. Or: “Someone hand this author a copy of Strunk & White, and tell them that no, they are not special, the rules of punctuation and paragraph formation *do* apply to them.”
John and I saw the exhibit a month or so ago while seeing the Museum of Civilization, and it wasn’t that good. I was quite bored with it, actually, although J. thought it was somewhat neat–but forgettable. There were 2 monitors showing him playing and humming away; there was a piano he once played; several negative reviews, one of which described his body and facial expressions while playing as ‘ape-like’ and distracting to viewers; some scores he annotated. I can’t recall anything else. I wouldn’t go to Ottawa only for that.