TT: Hither, yon, and back again

Mrs. T and I are in Melbourne, Florida, this morning, sitting on the balcony of a room in a beachfront hotel and listening contentedly to the waves. A little later today we'll drive back to Winter Park, where I have three days' worth of work to do. I've just finished outlining the fifth chapter of my Duke Ellington biography, and it's time to start writing.

As for our weekend by the sea, allow me to quote myself:

Coming as I do from the middle of America, I find at the age of forty-nine that I can count on the fingers of both hands the number of nights I've slept by an ocean. Like everyone who falls in love with the sea in adulthood, I'm incapable of saying anything about it that hasn't been said a million times before: its ever-changing, self-renewing presence instantly reduces me to clichés. As I sat on the boardwalk and watched the waves that my beloved Fairfield Porter painted so well, I could do no better than to recall the words of Jean de la Ville de Mirmont that Gabriel Fauré set to music with such exquisitely apposite simplicity in L'horizon chimérique, the most perfect of all his song cycles: The sea is infinite and my dreams are wild.

I wrote that paragraph five years ago. I've slept by the sea quite a few more nights since writing it, but otherwise I stand by every word.

On Thursday I head south for the premiere of Steven Caras: See Them Dance , Deborah Novak's documentary about the dancer-photographer, which will take place at 7:30 p.m. at Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach. I'm in the film, and I'll also be conducting an onstage interview with Steve and Deborah immediately after the screening. This is an article about the film that appeared in yesterday's Palm Beach Daily News.

For more information about the screening, go here .

On Friday morning I resume Pops -related activities one more time in order to take part in the latest installment of Parker Ladd's Author Breakfast Series at the Brazilian Court in Palm Beach. I'm making a joint appearance with Stacy Schiff, the author of Cleopatra: A Life. The two of us will be talking about and signing copies of our respective books over breakfast at Café Boulud. Reservations are required for this $100-a-ticket event, which kicks off at 8:45 a.m. This is an article about the series that appeared last November in the Palm Beach Daily News.

Yes, I'm a little staggered. So far as I know, nobody in the world has ever paid a hundred bucks to see me talk, though the price of the ticket also includes breakfast, valet parking, and a copy of one of our books, which makes the whole thing sound a bit less implausible. Nevertheless, I look forward to seeing whether anybody shows up!

For more information, go here .

On Saturday I return to Winter Park, where I'll be conducting a public interview with John Sinclair, the artistic director and conductor of Winter Park's Bach Festival Society concerts. John is leading a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Mozart's C Minor Mass on Sunday afternoon, and I'll be chatting with him about the experience of rehearsing and conducting the program. Our joint appearance is at Rollins College's Bush Auditorium at 7:30 p.m.

Admission is free, but space is limited, so go here to reserve a seat.

And what about Sunday? Well, I'll cross that bridge--or, rather, fly that plane--when I come to it....

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Listen to Gérard Souzay and Jacqueline Bonneau perform Fauré's L'horizon chimérique: