Today is All Saints day, the holy day for which Holloween is the eve, and another beautiful, warm fall day like yesterday. I voted today, even though the deadline for absentee ballots was last Friday, I could deposit it in the box kept in the City Hall. At worst I would have had to take it to the polling place tomorrow. There was a trick question, state propositions 20 and 27 (I think) were contradictions of one another. I ususally give these iniatives the most scrutany since they are full of traps put there by the special interests that use that tool.
After I voted at the City Hall I dropped by the library not expecting much. I didn't find any used books I had to have, although I bought the Python 3.0 book I had seen at Kepler's a month ago, which had been sold out. I made a point of thanking Clark Kepler for restocking it when I bought it from him. But at the library afterward I found a recording I had been expecting for some time.
This was the last in the Mahler cycle from Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony recorded November 18-23, 2008 at Davies Hall, which I knew was at the library and I missed it for probably over a year. I got it today and ripped it to MP3 which I listened to just after noon. It is a very crisply recorded performance with slow tempi, but good to pick out the details. I will learn much from it with a score in front of me.
One of the Librarians who worked for Menlo Park for a long time, my Ex knew her well, Beata and I shared a long-time enthuiasm for Mahler as Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony worked through the Mahler Cycle over the past few years, recording each of the Symphonies and Kindertodenleider. She made sure that the library got each new recording as it appeared. Beata retired not long ago and although I did see her once, I did not get a direct track on the last recording, the one I got today containing the complete Eighth Symphony and the Adagio from the Tenth. To my knowledge TTM did not record the Derik Cooke Performing Version of the Tenth. Maybe he doesn't think it indicates Mahler's intentions clearly. I am lucky enough to have his score with the sketches themselves, they are, er, pretty sketchy.
I was surprized when these three family members came sat with me this morning at Cafe Barrone. Bridget just had a little boy so his aunt and grandmother would be here to see the baby. Carlos and Therese were going home to Oceanside area today, they were on the road today.
Today was a beautiful Fall day, after a couple of cloudy and damp days. I chose a gradient background of yellow on orange with black letters, naturally. It is a coincidence that orange and black are also the team colors of the San Francisco Giants, who are right now in the third game of the World Series against the Texas Rangers from Arlington Texas, I think that George W. Bush was the owner of the club.
The colors also suggest candy korn, one of my favorite seasonal sweets.
The predicted weather is for "Indian Summer", whose phrase origin I do not know, a warm spell after the first cool weather in fall. The forecast is not for a real heat wave, just comfortably warm. dry, and clear days, with cool nights. "Cool" here is 40-50 F. maybe a few upper 30's F.
Through binoculars and dispite a cataract in my one eye, I found Uranus where Starlarium indicated above and to the left of brilluent Jupiter which is about a month past its closest opposition in decades. That occured on the Fall Equinox with the full moon nearby. But tonight it was dark and actually warm enough for a tee shirt, the only thing I coukd see even with my glasses was Jupiter, out of focus, but through the binoculars I was able to find Jupiter and east (left) to 20 Piscum, with Lambda well above in the Circulet, and Uranus at about 10 O' Clock and a little dimmer. I also saw Formalaut twinkling like Sirius will in the wee hours on tomorrow. I did not try to photograph this. I yearn for that old film camera which could have caught the dim stars and planets.