Tonight I watched a special 1.5 hour show on the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra playing the Tchaikovsky Fourth Symphony, Michael Tilson Thomas (aka MTT) conducting (and hosting). MTT is in his mid 50s by now, no longer the young Wunder Kind that he once was. He's even reached the level of one of America's great conductors, and to be sure, he's at his peak, and he gets a great sound from the orchestra. But he seems small and imitative compared to the greats of the past. To me he suggests the smallness of the era. Or am I just revering previous generations and inflating their stature at the expense of today's?

Should I make my A&F pants into shorts?

Every morning I wake up and can scarcely get out of bed. Only breakfast motivates me. After a brief nap, I cast about for a plan for the day. I form one but don't follow it. I reach a low by late morning, depressed, unhappy, but mostly devoid of care. I want nothing to obligate me. I want no chores, no duties, no job. I don't even want communication with people. I want to be left alone. I want to read and nap all day. One might think I'm depressed because I'm unemployed, and yes, that must be it. But my worst fear is that a job will come along and interrupt my pleasant summer day. (Mostly I fear a dull job, a more-of-the-same-sort-of-crap job.) By mid-afternoon I'm full of motivation, mostly for creative things. Evenings are fine. My days already feel full, no room for a job.

Authors to read: Jean Genet, Jean Cocteau, Andre Gide, the novels of Sartre, check out Paul Goodman.

Music to examine or re-examine: The Rake's Progress, the Bartok string quartets, the music of Bill Flanagan, Marc Blitzstein, and Paul Bowles. More Milhaud and Les Six.

Rorem cites "profound embarrassment (guilt) at the profound enjoyment of sugar, Ravel, and of being 'bottom man.'" He alludes at other places to being a pushy bottom—I insist you rape me now. Yet if there’s a dominant complaint about his health throughout his diaries, it's his hemorrhoids. Even throughout his early diaries (late 20s and his 30s) he's constantly complaining about piles. In the later diaries they get mentioned, but are overshadowed by his flaming urethra, herpes, eye troubles, etc. How does a bottom negotiate sex with hemorrhoids?

Rorem is unrepentant about speaking with a Leonard Bernstein biographer about Bernstein’s sex life. He reports that he and Bernstein, in 1943, had sex; Bernstein was 24 and Rorem 19. "We did what young people do," he said, and "Had I been a girl would anyone think twice?" Apparently David Diamond also spoke of Bernstein's sex life to the same biographer; both were chastised by friends.

A preponderance of America's great composers are or were gay: Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, David Diamond, Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson, Samuel Barber, Gian Carlo Menotti, John Cage, Lou Harrison, David Del Tredici, John Corigliano, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, Marc Blitzstein. None of the major minimalist composers, though.