Weeknotes: May 4–8, 2026
Monday, May 4
Winter semester ends after my morning class. No homework for almost four months, a joy I never thought I'd relive at 49. I plant the morning glory seedlings along the back fence, then sit barefoot on the grass drinking a beer and reading Gavin Francis' Island Dreams.
All evening I play the bongos. I'm trying to match the random changes of an arpeggiated synth part I recorded nine years ago. I map it all out, edit together a take I like, then overdub three more on top of it. A storm cell passes and the lights flicker. Today I achieved all of the Four Rs: Run, Write, Read, Record. A banner day.
Weeknotes: April 6–10, 2026
Monday, April 6
The purple house opposite mine is still for sale. Two mallards explore its front yard — please be my new neighbors, I think.
In the afternoon, Nick appears at my back door bearing the most miraculous gift. "Hello sir," he exclaims, then holds out a white Riva flute case. Inside it is a vintage Casio PT-1, a 13" wonder of monophonic 8-bit joy. Like many kids in the '80s, this was my first keyboard.
I replace its four AA batteries, locate the green demo button among its rainbow array, and press play. Listed in various Casio manuals as "German Folk Song" or sometimes "Unterlanders Heimweh," this jolly little melody is pure nostalgia. A post on the Casio forum traces it back to a German-inspired Japanese children's tune called "Yama No Ongakuka." To me, it simply sounds like Brighton, Michigan, 1985.
For the first time in almost two weeks, I run my regular route through the city and across the Spring Street bridge. A memorial has sprung up for the 13-year-old boy who drowned in the river below. The last time I was here, emergency vehicles were just arriving to search for him. Colorful bouquets are taped to the cold steel rail along with cards and messages. I pause to read some of them, then look out at a pair of mallards, wondering for a fleeting second if they are the same ones I saw this morning on my street.
Weeknotes: February 16–20, 2026
Monday, February 16
Before my A.M. class, I break my routine and just play guitar for an hour. It has a regenerative effect, and I spring to life like Popeye with his spinach. For the first time in weeks I feel creative and capable, ready to face the day.
Later, I drive into Kerrytown to spend the remainder of a gift certificate at a shop that sells a mixture of art supplies and eclectic home goods. Of practical use to me is a small box of Kaweco fountain pen refills. Otherwise, the items I buy are unnecessary, but attractive in a way I can only explain to myself. A silver candle snuffer with a hinged bell and a sheet of tiny stickers depicting a mysterious city.
Weeknotes: February 9–13, 2026
Monday, February 9
On the television, a hulking blue-clad figure slips down the mountain, video drones screaming overhead, capturing the bird's eye view of his 80mph descent. "He's loose as a handful of sand," says color commentator Steve Porino. At six feet tall, Italian skier Dominik Paris is a mountain of a man, nicknamed "King of Bormio" for the number of World Cup wins (seven) he's claimed in this locale. He's also the frontman for groove metal band Rise of Voltage. Despite his dominance in alpine skiing, he's never made the podium in any of his four previous Olympic appearances. This is his fifth and final shot. He takes home the bronze.
Weeknotes: January 19–23, 2026
Monday, January 19
I dream intensely, though when I wake, I can't remember any details. While the dark recedes, I stand with my coffee at the window, watching a snow squall whip down the street. Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day — no work or school, though I end up devoting time to both.
In the afternoon, I drive into town to buy ink cartridges for my printer. Arctic winds shoulder my little car as I try to stay in my lane amid the blowing snow. Minutes later, sunlight pierces my dirty windshield — it's a day of extremes.
Weeknotes: January 5–9, 2026
Monday, January 5
Driving west on Cross Street, there is a police barricade just past the Domino's Pizza. Typical Ypsi drama, I think, and detour around it. At the vacuum cleaner store I present two of my kitchen knives for sharpening. Why is that a combo — vacuums and knives? The woman in front of me is having a new motor installed in her KitchenAid mixer. I guess they do a little bit of everything.
I need to drum up a some cash for next week, so I spend the next hour Door Dashing. At La Marqueza Taqueria, Jodi B's order isn't ready yet, so I wait on a stool and listen to a young AT&T salesman make an awkward business pitch to the cashier. I get the sense that everyone in the room — even the salesman — is just waiting for it to be over. Despite the lateness of her order, I get a small tip from Jodi.
At home, I pull out the red plastic milk crate that holds all my percussion toys. I lay down shaker, maraca, tambourine, and vibraslap parts, but when I listen back, I realize I've accidentally left the monitors on — there's a ton of bleed and I have to track them all again. Meanwhile, my phone is blowing up. Behind that police barricade on Cross, a man with a sword is holed up inside his house after a neighborly dispute. When officers first arrived at the scene, he brandished his weapon at them. The standoff has now exceeded 20 hours. Typical Ypsi drama.
Weeknotes: November 3–7, 2025
Monday, November 3
It's hard sometimes to play fast, but we are a rhythmic species — if you practice enough, a fast part usually comes together nicely, at least in my experience. I think it's much tougher to play slowly. When there is more space between the beats, you have nowhere to hide — each note carries more weight and a whole menu of nuance opens up.
I've been trying to make some music that is very minimalist with few elements and plenty of negative space. The piece I'm working on is for two fingerpicked guitars, one playing a repeated chord pattern at a relaxed tempo and the other playing a very deliberate single note lead melody. More often than not, this is the kind of music I listen to around the house: sparse Nordic jazz records from ECM, solo acoustic guitar albums, ambient synth music, etc.
Most of the music I've released has been densely-arranged songwriter pop with clever arrangements, layered harmonies, and lots of percussion. I will make more of that, but I also want to challenge myself to see if I can scale down and still keep it interesting. It's making me a better, or at least a more thoughtful guitarist. Because there are no vocals and just one or two instruments, I'm thinking very hard about every note and asking questions like:
What part of my finger yields the best tone for this note?
If I can't finish this part today, will my fingernails be too long and sound slightly different tomorrow?
How long should I let these overtones ring?
Do I slide up to this note or hit it dead on?
A bit of vibrato heading into the rest?
Weeknotes: October 27–31, 2025
Monday, October 27
Outside the pub the evening sky is lavender. A crew of runners, all in costume, piles up at the crosswalk, laughing and jostling on a Halloween fun run. I think I'll take the long way home.
At the bend on Norris I slip through the chain fence and walk past the old depot. To my left a man is chasing his laughing son down the hill on Maple Street. Everywhere, people are smiling. I am too. It's late October and I've been reading Ray Bradbury. Here's a gem from his introduction to the 1999 edition of The October Country:
Skeletons are wondrous ramshackle items that birth themselves when the humans they wore go away.
Ray loved skeletons. I wonder if his is glad to be unburdened of its mortal obligation.
Much of Depot Town is closed on Monday. With its silent barber shop, old brick facades, and ornate central clock, it resembles Green Town, Illinois, the fictional midwestern town where Bradbury set masterpieces like Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
At Schultz Outfitters I cross the street and disappear down the stairwell into Frog Island Park. Out on the pitch a group of friends are playing a pickup soccer game — coats are scattered across the terraced bleachers. A brown and white dog lays curled up, watching its human play. On the other side of the path the embankment leads down to the river. The stone firepit, built on the dry riverbed during summer’s drought, has been reclaimed by the rising water.
At the Forest Street bridge I lean over the rail to take my favorite photo. A man passing on the sidewalk says "I love that shot too." Another passerby comments "this summer was the lowest I've ever seen the river. I was worried about fish getting trapped in shallow pools."
"But look at it now," I say.
Weeknotes: October 20–23, 2025
Monday, October 20
Through trial and error, I think I've traced the signal hum to my outboard preamp, a Golden Age Pre-73 MKII. It was recommended to me by Fred Thomas and was integral to my last two albums. Maybe it just needs a new power supply — that would be the best case scenario. More impactful is the loss of my primary condenser mic, an old Studio Projects C1 I bought in 2006 and use for almost everything I make. Like all my gear, it's a budget piece, but it has survived nearly 20 years of abuse and performed beyond all expectations. I'll likely get both items repaired, but I can't afford it right now.
So, with my two workhorses out of commission, I'm left with what I've got. I think of the old adage "the best tool is the one in front of you." I have a handful of other mics, but nothing that really fills the role that the C1 does. I could borrow a decent condenser mic from a friend, but a part of me welcomes the limitations of making do with what's on hand. That’s where creativity starts.
During rush hour, I'm running down a hill toward a busy intersection. There's a car in the northbound lane facing me with its hazard lights on and another in the southbound left turn lane, also stopped. Several people are crouched in the middle of the road picking up some type of debris while evening traffic diverts around them. I assume it's broken glass from a collision, but as I approach, I see the road is scattered with what looks like an entire box of nails. Bending to help, I ask one of the good Samaritans how they got there.
"No idea. I wondered if it was a sabotage campaign from a local tire company," she jokes.
Some of the nail heads have already been driven into the soft asphalt and I have to pry them out with my fingernails. But, just think of all the punctures we're preventing.
Weeknotes: October 13–17, 2025
Monday, October 13
I'm drinking white wine and listening to Weather Report. It feels like a cliché, but I'm not sure why. Yesterday felt like Monday Jr. I worked so hard all day and kept the momentum going into today before falling into a slump.
At 3:00 I took apart my salt lamp and replaced the cord, plug, and in-line switch, a fairly simple household repair. Nothing. It didn't work.
When a lightbulb doesn’t go on, maybe it's the universe telling you you're done for the day. I didn't listen and instead tried to finish the baffling for my studio, stapling an old burlap coffee bag around an acoustic panel. Midway through, the tack gun jammed and I couldn't fix that either. Hello, wine.
Weeknotes: August 26–30, 2024
Monday, August 26
"Do you know your way around here?"
"It's my first day!"
I'm comforted to see another older student struggling to find the right building on the directory map. I've just finished my first class and offer to walk her over to where I think it is. Her name is Norma and she's probably a few years older than me, using the GI Bill to finish up a degree of some sort.
I steer her to the incorrect building and she ends up walking back to her car to drive to the other side of campus. I was trying to be helpful, but I hope I didn't make her late.
Weeknotes: August 12–16, 2024
Weeknotes went on vacation last week. Weeknotes thought about becoming Campnotes for a moment, but decided that being nothing was healthier. Now Weeknotes is Weeknotes again.
Monday, August 12
After four nights of camping, it's a luxury to wake in my own bed. The morning is cool with a slight blush of autumn. I love this time of year. It’s the start of harvest season, wildflowers are are at their peak, and as summer winds down, there's a bittersweet breath of change that never fails to electrify me. I'm most activated in the calendar's borderlands. Late August, November, April, early June, these are peak awareness periods for me. When the fullness of each season has yet to come, that's when the interesting stuff happens.