Saturday 05/20/2023
In the morning I took care of some computer maintenance, installing upgraded OS’s onto both the MacBook and the desktop iMac. The latter, being an ancient 2014 one, is stuck on Caligula is it? MacOS 11.x. But it still gets security updates. It will be replaced like two minutes after Apple announces a new 27-inch or larger iMac. They have not done so but I live in hope. (The only way to get the new silicon with a 27-inch screen is to buy a Mini and a separate display.)
The MacBook is current hardware, it has been running Monterey (12.x) whose default background is a lovely abstract of a deep-ocean canyon that changes color with the time of day, shades of lilac in the daytime and deep blue-purple at night. Well, that’s gone, now I have Ventura (13.x) with the default background of a giant closeup of a California poppy, sort of, and I see that, yes, it also changes color with the time of day.
At 11am I went to a talk by a retired British doctor, actually a relative of my neighbor and fellow writer Prudence. He told about the British National Health Service, what it was like to practice under it, and so on. Quite interesting.
I bugged out of that early to attend a house concert in Oakland. This was the same venue on Rose Avenue where I went a month ago for Dirty Cello. The performer this time was Heidi Evelyn, along with a pianist, drummer, and a multi-instrumentalist Clint Baker, whom I had heard at several of the performances during the Redwood Coast Music Festival in Eureka last September. They did a concert of songs mostly from the 1920s, Bessie Smith songs like “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”, and it was all good fun. I would like to see them perform at CH. I asked Heidi about that on the way out afterward and it might be possible to make it happen.
The drive back was tedious. I missed a turn and ended up coming through SF instead of going down 880. That was very slow, probably 20 minutes to crawl through the Bay Bridge toll plaza, and congested through the City. But home in time for supper, and then I consulted with Kass, who is running the audio for tonights concert.
That started at 7:30, the group is The Peralta Consort, a well-trained bunch of local amateurs including one CH resident. They played music of the French Baroque era, and I didn’t much enjoy it, so I left early. Not that they weren’t competent, they were; I was just bored. Give me Bessie Smith any day.
Codgerville 