8.15 am: The rubbish men (or ‘dustmen’ as we used to call them in South Wales, in the day when they also collected the ash and clinker remains of coal fires) removed the contents of our green bins and recycling bags out of sight and mind. The spiritual metaphors proliferate: all the broken, useless, unnecessary, degraded, foul, and encumbering residue of our daily lives — lifted and taken away. And, as in the realms of the heart and soul, there’ll be more of the same dross to be dealt with by this time next week:

9.20 am: A further blood test. The vacuity of the space and radio broadcast at the surgery was more than usually acute this morning. The receptionist told me: ‘The lady upstairs’ (I assumed that this was an administrator rather than a metaphysical construct) was on holiday; ‘So, GP appointments for September can’t be made until she returns’. (I mean … ‘What!?’):

9.45 am: GIF production went into full swing. I was determined to complete the Settings of the Psalms gallery and ‘further information’ by the close of the morning. While rifling through the publicity materials generated by the project, I found a poster advertising a lecture that I gave during an ultra short teaching and research sabbatical at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, back in October 2001, on my first visit to the USA. I’d quite forgotten about the presentation:

I was there at the invitation of the American Jewish composer Ofer Ben-Amots. It was he who first anticipated that my visual artwork might eventually move in the direction of sound and music. I responded to his suggestion with a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. What, for me, is now obvious, was not so then. (Always consider the advice of your betters.)

Lunchtime. The morning’s task was finished on time (with 5 minutes to spare). Afternoon. Back into the studio, to continue testing the new configurations of equipment:

First, I checked the L & R/Channel 1 & 2 (A & B) consistency on the main rack. Then, I went back to the mini-rack in order to confirm input levels through the rear of the preamp. I’ll must rethink the routing, using the MacBook/DAW as the interface between the rack pre-amp & A/D unit and the mixer. Mid afternoon, I plugged in both record decks and set up the main rack inputs for them. Contact!

The test records were taken from my box set of Alexander Scourby‘s reading of the whole Bible. The recording was commissioned by the American Foundation for the Blind, and was completed in 1953. There’s no information on the discs other than in braille, appropriately:

Evening. Further testing of the inputs and mixer on the main rack.