Daily OfficeWednesday
¶ Matins: The Book Review review.
¶ Tierce: In Seventeen-Hundred-and-Fifty-Two, Columbus sailed the Ocean …. WTF??
¶ Nones: The menu for Saturday’s family luncheon is set: onion soup, boeuf bourguignonne, and Dacquoise — made to recipes from one or the other of Julia Child’s Mastering treatises.
¶ Compline: What to do with old Christmas cards? Ten ideas.
Oremus….
§ Matins. There are three Yeses this week. I’ve read one of them (Beginner’s Greek), and I’d like to read another (Nazi Literature in the Americas), but I doubt that I’ll get to Robert Creeley’s Selected Poems. Thanks to Beginner’s Greek, though, I do have James Merrill’s Collected Poems, and I’ll be jumping into it soon on the Morning Read.
§ Tierce. I have never understood why students cannot be taught to read using history books. Two birds with one stone and all that, eh?
Today’s plan is to avoid pneumonia. The head cold that has been gathering forces at the outskirts finally pounced on the capital last night, and even NyQuil was no help in keeping nasal passages open. As always in cases of occupation by hostile viruses, the population’s primary complaint is feeling sorry for itself. Perhaps the Morning Read will cheer it up.
Last night at Weill Hall, Thomas Meglioranza worked his wizardry with contemporary art songs — most of which were arty only in being more satisfying than pap. Having heard variations of his program over the years, I longed more than ever for a second  CD, to complement the lovely Schubert disc. The new one would feature, among many other gems, the two Craigslistlieder from the first half of the recital. “You Looked Sexy” and “Neurotic and Lonely” are “texts” from Craigslist that Gabriel Kahane (b. 1981) has set to just the right music. The first song went something like this —
You looked sexy while you were having your seizure at the Vancouver Rite-Aid. I held your legs while that old guy stuck his wallet in your mouth. Call me when you’re feeling less woozy.
Report on Tuesday.
§ Nones. Not that I’m trying anything for the first time. It has been about twenty years since my last Dacquoise, but I am hoping that what they say about riding bicycles will come through for me. I’ve just placed an order for the basics with FreshDirect; after it arrives, tomorrow morning, I’ll do some proper shopping. Then, in the afternoon, I’ll make the stew and the soup, saving Friday for the fancy dessert. The idea is to be M du Calme on Saturday.
§ Compline. The bag of old Christmas cards — not this year’s, but last’s — has been sitting in the living room for weeks now. I don’t even remember where the cards were, before they were in the bag in the living room.
Exactly what I was afraid of: amidst the unopened cards from several years ago (that’s bad enough), an envelope full of priceless and by now unique snapshots of Kathleen and a Smith classmate who had died earlier that year.
We weren’t thinking.