Superglue and Heet (and heat)

Notes from the Berkshires, Day 26

Lenox Coffee, 7.12 a.m.

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, both icons of my growing-up in the 70s, flew away yesterday. One more-or-less expected, the other, well, also expected, but not quite so soon and perhaps not in this manner. I always thought MJ would go out in a blaze, in a very public way somehow. No matter what one thinks of their work, both have left us too early in life. As Harlan Ellison wrote in the introduction to Slippage, which I’m currently re-reading: Pay attention.

Yesterday was the first “real” day of summer, in that it was warm, the sun was shining, and I would have preferred to be outdoors rather than in, for the most part. My evening run was a genuine sweat-fest for the first time this season.

Work was very up and down, with some satisfactory events and some problems to be solved. I spent a lot of time with dampers and the back-action, which is good for me, as I consider it my weakest skill area. Also broke another hammer shank, which is always frustrating. There is a real contrast between some of the highly designed tools we often use in our work and some of the home-spun remedies we sometimes employ. The hammer shank repair: superglue. A problem with sluggish underlevers: methanol, literally antifreeze from the local Auto Zone. Sprayed liberally directly onto the underlevers of Steinways of a certain age, it first actually freezes the underlevers, and then sizes the bushings and frees the action as the alcohol flashes off. Bizarre, but it works. Or at least it worked for Scott, our supervising tech from the first two weeks. I’ll find out this morning if it works for me or not. All in all, it’s great when problems crop up here, because we are in the middle of this incredible laboratory for the summer, where we are free to experiment to our hearts’ content – as long as the pianos work when they’re supposed to.

This coffee shop is often invaded by loud-talkers, it seems. Perhaps I’m becoming more sensitive as the buzz of finding internet access slowly wears off, but I think my time here will be limited. There is another potential Wi-Fi source on the horizon that I learned about yesterday that may prove more convenient and less expensive.

Tonight I plan to attend my first Tanglewood concert: the Emerson String Quartet performing works by Ives, Barber, and Dvorak. If the weather holds, it promises to be an excellent show.