32-20 Blues part 6

 

An unexpected situation came yesterday morning.  Clear weather, just a bit chilly, and around 9:15 the power went out.  No storm going on, no heat to stress out the electric grid, but no power.  Usually in this case my mother checks with the power company to get an estimate of what the problem is and how long it will take to fix, but her cellphone had no reception.  Nor did my father's or mine.  Based on previous experiences, this sounded like a very large blackout, and perhaps all the regional cell towers were incapacitated as well.  My first instinct was to just turn off my phone.  Lack of cell towers can mean cell phone batteries wear out quickly from attempting to make connections with an available tower, and with no power, not much chance of recharging that battery.  Meanwhile, my mother decided to go over to historical society to help with some holiday related things, and had to take quite a detour to get there, as the traffic light was out at Main and Rt 71.  Turned out this was a big outage, knocking out miles of traffic lights on the main roads, and seemed to go up to Brookdale College, a ways from here.

One thing I knew that can be done during a power outage is to cut wood.  The process is so old and basic, that it predates electricity by a few centuries, and I heard stories from students who had done a lot of block carving during the long outage we had following Hurricane Sandy.  We had plenty of daylight, and I had everything either in my home or in my car.  So in the afternoon, I put in a few hours without power but cutting with my hand operated tools.  I decided to concentrate on the figure and bedding, now putting in those gray tones and cross contour lines that I ignored last time. Also finished the window, including the frame and sill.  Power came back on later in the afternoon, but it was too late to go anywhere.  We had to change plans for my nephew's birthday, when his choice of restaurant decided to stay closed for the rest of the day.

Today was sunny and cold again, but we had electricity, so I decided to go up to the Studio and get some work done there.  More space, and a better table.  Brought the smaller Jazz/Blues set of discs today.  The beginning of Christmas decorations were there on the first floor, but they had a long way to go.  Went straight to my Studio, set up to work and decided that the week of cold weather had some effect on the room.  Not unbearable, but I felt a little chilled, and this seemed as good a time as any to make sure the heater worked, as it probably hadn't been used since last spring.  This meant moving some of Molly's piles of stuff a short distance so I could get close enough to the thermostat to turn it on. For music today I decided to go with things that weren't blues, but could be heard over the heater.  Started with Marc Ribot and the Cubanos Postizos (prosthetic Cubans), one of Ribot's many side projects.  Obviously a latin inspired music, mostly instrumentals, some sung in Spanish, so good to work to.  Copied directly from the original album.  Wrote about it back in July, 2020. When that ended, I chose another copy of an album I had on my shelf, the soundtrack to the movie The Naked Lunch, which featured saxophonist Ornette Coleman playing leads over the London Philharmonic Orchestra.   I've never read the book, but I've heard it was unadaptable, so the movie was a fictionalized account of the life of author William Burroughs, and his slipping into drug addiction and other lowlife behavior, sometimes believing he was in the middle east.  All of these ideas are reflected in the instrumental music, which combines jazz and orchestral music, why it's in this book I had today.  Wrote about this one back in July, 2019.

As far as the block goes, today I tackled the largest thing not done yet, the walls.  This is just background, but I do want it to stay back and not draw attention.  So mostly gray tone, and some light on the side wall (influence of Vermeer this time), and a few cracks that represent plaster spread over wooden lathe, the way walls were built a long time ago.  Also did the top of the little dresser/bedside table, with the whiskey flask and glasses.  What I have left is the front of that piece of furniture, and the floor, plus the lyrics.