Books

 I practiced last night and it went pretty well. I noticed I was pressing down way too hard with my right pinky, so I need to work on the three points of hold being my right thumb, base of left index finger, and chin, and not the right pinky (although at this stage the book is saying to press this one lever down with the right pinky all the time). 

In the autobiograhy of Jean-Pierre Rampal he says that if the G just above the staff is easy for you, you will have an easy time. It's easy for me so I guess I'm having a lot less trouble than a lot of people have. It's also a handy way to check if my position is at least fairly good. 

I woke up at about 2:30 today, and had coffee etc., and I had a box of books I wanted to take to the used book store, which stops taking books at 5. So I went through them, making sure they're clean etc., loaded them up into two Whole Foods bags and rode right over there, making it in plenty of time. 

I actually got $22 trade credit, and one of the books, an "arty" one with tons of drawings of what the physiology of various fictional creatures, like harpies, would look like, was set up on display there at the counter right away. 

I didn't buy anything there today, but the Wall-O-DVDs is nice and full so I should be able to find some things to buy next time I'm by there and in a buying mood. 

I went over to Whole Foods and there was just nothing in the buffet (they were changing over from lunch to dinner I guess) so I got some roast beef from the deli and a beer, and ate downstairs. There was a guy with a guitar and amp, mic, etc. who was singing some stuff that was ... OK at best. The best part was when someone's dog decided to bark almost in time with the music. 

I took my remaining books over to the little free pantry by the Peace & Justice Center and then went to the Amazon place for bubble mailers, getting a good wad of them. Then I went to Lee's and got two bags of day-old croissants for $3.50. 

I checked the little free libraries on my way back and left off gallon bags of over the counter remedies and other stuff at the two that don't have a "books only" sign. I found a couple of art books, one about living through the 2005 tsunami, "The Pianist" which is probably even better than the movie, and "The God Of Small Things" which was worth picking up just to see what that crazy title is about. 

I stopped by Nijiya for a few things, and got back here. 

Now, Whole Foods had that guitar guy, but I could probably have set up to play by the bike racks with no problems. Not to mention Sunnyvale's downtown is probably really good these days. And whatever other places I haven't tried yet. 

I think if I can play a dependable, secure, "Danny Boy", "Annie's Song", "Ave Maria", and some other things of that level, it will be time to get out there. A good number of Christmas carols are of that level or easier, and there are a load of other songs like "Amazing Grace" that are easier. 

Rampal also wrote in his book that when his father took him on as a pupil (only to fill up the roster in the music school he was trying to get going) he woke up early, studied flute for two hours, then went to his regular school. And his father was a flutist good enough to play in the orchestra so he'd has exposure to the flute early on. His family wanted him to be a doctor. He'd probably have become one too, if it weren't for the Germans. Dodging Nazis kept things rustled up enough that while he was studying to become a doctor, he was able to play flute also. And sloping off to some flute thing kept him from being rounded up and sent to a work camp in Germany. 

But two hours a day when you're still a teen, and doubtless teen-Pierre was practicing on his own also, to show he'd digested what he'd learned in class with his father. This is like a teen being infatuated with any interest, from surfing to building Gundam models, but he also had it formalized where he had to go to his 2-hour lesson each day. This is how you get places. This is how you work    your way  out  of  poverty  and  homelessness. 

The internet has been getting slower and slower every year, but now I notice it getting slower by the day. Even now, it takes several seconds per character to type this in. I type for a while, then sit back and watch as the characters slowly appear on the screen. There's a reason I don't put anything but text on here these days. 

It's like the old days when you had a 14.4 dial up modem and there was a lot of noise on the line so it would kick down to 9600. Or maybe it died, so you had to dig out the old 2400 you started out with and kept because of nostalgia. 

I'm glad the little free libraries have so many good books to read, with regular libraries hardly a thing any more. I suppose I'll be able to watch DVDs while I'm still here, and then my move back to Hawaii will actually be like moving back to the year 1986, when I first left as a young adult.