Day 684: Classical music zombie

[eve_prime]

Yesterday I had a headache, and it didn't go away overnight - it woke me up a couple hours early today and wouldn't let me get back to sleep. That was okay, since most of what I had on my schedule for today was to watch the new Delgani String Quartet concert online, live, at 3 pm, and I could do that just fine while reclining on my bed. They perform on Sunday and Tuesday, and I have tickets for Tuesday, but both concerts are livestreamed, so my new pattern is to watch them online on Sunday then go see it in person Tuesday, by which point I'm reasonably educated about the pieces in question. I'd been too busy to watch the pre-concert talks before now, so I did some of that before the concert as well. And then they encouraged us to shut our eyes to listen to the first piece, which was by Pulitzer-winning Alaskan composer John Luther Adams - it sounded a bit like wind chimes. So I did that, and then I shut my eyes again to listen to the second piece, Benjamin Britten's first string quartet. I thought I was awake... but then the piece ended and I felt much more rested, so I guess I slept a little! The second half was a late string quartet by Beethoven, op. 132.

Also today I watched a really interesting Nova episode about the Mayan city states in the southern part of their territory, some of which were rather large, but which were largely abandoned around 800-900 A.D. But now I'm getting pretty sleepy again...