Perhaps the greatest joy of advancing age: these glimpses of the future….

Our house and pool in the summer evening light, Woodstock’s most glorious attribute.

Pool looking good (after a little poolwork help).

One quick addendum: Chiara with her cat Roxas…

Glorious spring/summer weather, amplified for me by a trip to the West Coast for another performance of Nolan’s Narrated Symphony, Cosmic Reflections, this time with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra under their splendid maestro, Jindong Cai. Stanford gave me a rented car (the glorious compact Toyota Yaris, goes like a bomb, with epic stereo) a hotel room at the fabulous Cardinal Hotel, a preserved & updated ’30s hotel, whose corridors still suggest that Raymond Chandler will come round the corner at any instant, and the freedom once more to screw up Nolan’s magnificent symphony (as the Cosmic Narrator). This I did faithfully at both dress rehearsals, just as in D.C. before the premiere, and somehow nailed all 200 cues on the first performance, as in D.C.. Alas there was a 2nd performance. I got complacent, didn’t work hard enough in preparation, and blew the 3rd movement. Nailed the 4th better than ever before, but nothing could alleviate Nolan’s grief. Audience noticed nothing, of course. The maestro did, of course, and the orchestra, who the day before had given me that most glorious of ovations – sitting ovation – banging their bows on their music stands as I came through them to embrace the maestro. What a thrill!

Best of all I was able to eat three evenings with Pierre and dear sweet loving Rigi. What happiness!

Another West Coast delight: the Palo Alto YMCA – like all West Coast Ys, and so unlike the dear collapsing Kingston Y, it’s deliciously modern. Daily swim! Not supposed to take a picture of the pool, and was chased out, but got my photo in quickly first.

Back to Woodstock for Chiara’s graduation – o bliss! Perfect day, gorgeous sunshine, even a fine speaker at the ceremony (NAACP Prez, best Commencement speech I’ve ever heard), Chiara rapturous, embracing all the diasporing fellow-students in the evening sunlight – ah nostalgia! Then we took her to the Canard for a fine meal with voucher from Jean-Jacques, the patron. A perfect, perfect day.

Then back to Brooklyn College, and to the Junction now bathed in sunlight too.

And some landmark news: the Berlin Wissenschaftskolleg voted to invite me as Visiting Fellow, 2016/17. So now in midst of grading 100 finals, but – with a pause through ’16 and ’17 to follow. Marvellous.

Springtime blooming gloriously around Woodstock (that magnolia beside our Library, in the photo, a yearly joy) – lilacs on the way to add to Nature’s purple and gold crown – life following its happy routine: weekly brunch with Chiara, weekly breakfast with Linda & Princess… classes winding to an end, tomorrow the last classes of the Spring semester…

Sunday May 3 was a landmark in Dr. Cicero’s life – our imprint’s first poetry launch in the series edited for us by Robert Kelly, a launch in the form of a reading from their two fine books by Billie Chernicoff and Michael Ives respectively, at The Bookstore in Lenox, MA. Wonderful reading by both, and an astonishing $600 take, beyond our wildest hopes for a poetry reading.

Thursday 7 am take off for San Francisco and a revival of Nolan’s narrated symphony, ‘Cosmic Reflection,’ once more with me as the cosmic Narrator (200 separate cues to hit), a nerve-wracking but thrilling prospect, along with a reunion with Nolan and the work’s Maecenas, my beloved brother Pierre.

Da spring is sprung / Da grass is riz/ And everywhere da boidies is / Dey say da boid is on da wing / but dat’s absoid! / Da wing is on da boid!

I wonder how many of my students would recognize that once-famous verse. Or voise.

Spring has certainly sprung, to everyone’s vast relief, after a long merciless winter. New York City spring overwhelms me with memories: it was my now 102-year-old nanny Ann (op.cit.) who would take me into the park as soon as minuscule shoots of green appeared, “bud’ns” as my German grandmother called them, for whom buds and buttons were oddly confused, and the bud’ns on Central Park shrubs have for me a quality of amazing renewal unlike any other. Otherwise this is my quietest time of year, preparing to wind up the classroom routine – 3 weeks till I fly off to San Francisco, the day following the last day of classes, to perform the narration in the Cosmic Reflections symphony again, this time at Stanford.

High points of recent weeks include Claire’s continue run of superb portraits, one of her subjects being our daughter Chiara, about to graduate from Bard…

Meals with the Rubinsteins, featuring Lolly’s fine fruit flan, and regularly with my beloved friend and fellow-novelist John, at Anarkali, our favorite Indian restaurant…

And of course, journeys through the purgatory of the New York City subway system, featuring many people peddling salvation. This one was crying over and over: “Ladies and gentlemen, where will you spend eternity?” The answer seemed simple enough: in the New York City subway system.