I sifted and sorted and re-arranged and got rid of stuff last night, and had 20 things lined up to list but decided it was too late so I didn't list anything. This is ... something I need to be more careful about because I need to list 50 things a week and this last week I've listed ... 20.
Ken is the world's most easygoing boss but I have to keep this shebang going for the next couple of years, then I can check out. No checking out early. I have to keep sales up.
I settled down to an episode of "Century Of The Self" on YouTube and octave exercises on the flute headjoint. I don't know why this exercise is actually becoming harder, except that I must be "straining" too much or something. When I put my finger into the end of the headjoint to lower the fundamental pitch, it's easy-peasy although I think I then get the octave plus a 4th or a 5h. The point is a higher note.
I went to bed, a bit head-achy but it is what it is... I woke up head-achy too, had coffee and aspirin and got the plastic shinobue out... what if I just keep this thing out to blow on at a whim? Anything to improve my flute skill ...
I woke up a bit past 2, and at 3 I was out the door with coffee filters to drop off at the little free libraries and about 20 lbs of books for the used book store. It was windy as hell out there but a benefit of that is it keeps the zombies hunkered down so I didn't have to dodge the staggering, gibbering, things.
My books got me $9 cash, and I got most of them back. I tied them back up in the bags and locked the bike up at Whole Foods. The $9 got me chicken wings and a near-beer.
The bartender upstairs asked me about my trumpet playing as in, isn't it time I got out there busking again? I said I was changing over to flute, and he said he'd actually come across a bunch of cut down bamboo once and took some and made a bunch of flutes, from quite short to one really long one. I said there's a type of Chinese flute that's actually really long, and he said some of his flutes were musical and some ... were not. I said you have to make a lot of bad ones before the good ones start coming out. I said I'd found that at Lowe's they sell those tiki torches for about $5 and the "handle" is of bamboo, some of them pretty nice and thick, good for making flutes. So for $5 I can get the bamboo for at least two flutes.
After eating I walked up to the drug store and got a small bottle of store brand "Listerine" original flavor, to gargle with next time some tree fluff sends me into a coughing fit. I'd just as soon just carry some Underberg, but drinking that one I did in Willow Glen made me headache-y so I'm really hesitant to use Underberg for that purpose - better to save it for its intended use, which is to enhance digestion after a large meal.
I stopped in at the hardware store and asked them if they had raw shellac which they don't, and ended up buying some liners for my paint roller pan. I want to get a "pusher" stick for pushing out flute corks but I forgot to bring anything with me to see if I can find something that's just the right size.
Back to Whole Foods now where I bought some things, and then I headed out. It was really windy. I was headed toward Santa Clara and 7th to drop off my unwanted books at the little free pantry there, when I realized I could just put them in my usual little free libraries, and in fact they all fit in the one on 5th, the one where the guy in the house there had said something about a homeless person who comes by and takes all the books. I'd put coffee filters in there on my way out, and those were already gone. I actually managed to fit all my books in that one little free library.
Next was Nijiya, where I ... got some things. "Blondie" wasn't there but I'd found my copy of Pau Hana last night and have it in my bike bag to give him. His mother grew up on one of those plantations and doesn't want to talk about it much, he told me. So I'd told him I'd keep my eyes out for my copy or a copy, of this book and give it to him.
My idea is to keep my books down to one banker's box full. There's tons of stuff I need to give away or sell. I can't even think of any books I want to take with me, other than perhaps a copy of "Sonorite'" by Marcel Moyse if I get one before I take off. Maybe not even that, as it's such an important book that I can probably fine excerpts online for free as well as demonstrations of the exercises in it on YouTube.
I got back here, had chocolate and a Doutor canned coffee and eventually added up all my spending and got on Amazon and ordered some stick shellac for working on flutes and the James Galway "Flute" book in the Yehudi Menuhin series - they are very good books so even though the thing's costing me $27 I feel it's worth it.
I fiddled around with stuff and cooked dinner and did a lot of fooling around on the plastic shinobue, because it's so easy to keep it on my desk and not worry about it. Then late at night (early in the morning) I remembered that I *had* wanted to spend about $25 on a flute book, but it was not the Galway/Menuhin one this week, but one on playing the shinobue by some guy who does taiko and plays shakuhachi also, and that book is also $25. So I went and ordered that one, too.
The thing is, playing around on this little plastic one, and the book coming in on Wednesday, I might be able to learn a Japanese tune or three and I think I can do some things to this plastic flute to make it look less "plasticky" so I could play it a bit at Obon which is next weekend.
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