April 2010 Archives
I know, deep apologies, the last blog-free period this long was probably when I was in Christmas Island on the other side of the world. My excuse? Well, all together now, because you've heard this one before: I've been very busy lately.
But I just had to rush to the keyboard and mention this failure to use common sense in headline writing. I'm rushing out to get food, and I grab the mail, and here's the beautiful glossy newsletter from a certain area hospital, and I look at the headline: "Exploring the Hidden Risks of Heart Disease."
Now here's the thing. Everyone in the publishing world has met marketing people, highly paid marketing people, who just weren't that bright. You wind them up and they natter out a stream of buzzwords without ever actually, you know, doing anything, creating any value, that sort of thing. But the fact that this was offered as the best headline the marketing folks at the hospital could think of and then sailed through what is doubtless a series of about seventeen people checking everything over—well, I'd have caught that one. If you would like to hire me to work for the marketing department of your hospital just get in touch.
But I just had to rush to the keyboard and mention this failure to use common sense in headline writing. I'm rushing out to get food, and I grab the mail, and here's the beautiful glossy newsletter from a certain area hospital, and I look at the headline: "Exploring the Hidden Risks of Heart Disease."
Now here's the thing. Everyone in the publishing world has met marketing people, highly paid marketing people, who just weren't that bright. You wind them up and they natter out a stream of buzzwords without ever actually, you know, doing anything, creating any value, that sort of thing. But the fact that this was offered as the best headline the marketing folks at the hospital could think of and then sailed through what is doubtless a series of about seventeen people checking everything over—well, I'd have caught that one. If you would like to hire me to work for the marketing department of your hospital just get in touch.
I went to an open-mike event tonight and knew the job was dangerous when I took it. You always run the risk at these things of hearing a series of mediocre strummers doing the same classic-rock and folk tunes you've always heard, interspersed with some very unoriginal originals. It's as standardized as the width of railroad tracks, I swear. It's all very sensitive and bittersweet, and sometimes the earnestness approaches what for me, at least, are dangerously toxic levels. Everybody has emotions, Strummer Boy. I'm not interested in hearing about yours nearly as much as I am in hearing some, you know, music.
It's not even that tonight was especially bad, it wasn't, but I was especially not in the mood for mediocrity, I suppose. Still, I saw something that was a new one on me—this guy sits at a piano with a book of Billy Joel tunes, and he's singing one and clearly needs a bit more practice, because at a couple of points he leaned in toward the book and peered at it, trying to figure out what he ought to be playing and singing at that moment, and slowing nearly to a stop. It's really not done in polite live-performer circles, actually, that kind of thing.
So at one point I've had enough and leave, and on the steps outside the church I suddenly stopped and just stood there marveling at this gorgeous planet, burning silver in the indigo sky. It was at the exact right angle—down on the street, you couldn't really see it—and clearly the exact right moment too, when the sky had enough light to still have a rich, deep color but dark enough to set off the planet (Saturn? I could check but can't be bothered). Just perfect. I felt lucky to have this weary, jaded, judgmental nature that sent me out the door at the perfect moment to see what I was seeing.
I got in the car, and to get the taste of mediocre strumming out of my ears (strummer, man! Quel strummage!) I put this very funky, jazzy sax tune on the iPod, and rolled down the dark country roads grooving to it. And then songs started coming on at random, which was fine, and one was Joni Mitchell's Little Green, which I've always found affecting. Then I came to a certain crossroads where there's a little run, a tiny wetlands creek. This is the first place I hear the spring peepers every year, and tonight was the first time I heard them in 2010. I rolled up to the light, caught the sound just faintly, and reached over and turned Joni down just as the poignance was coming on full blast. I rolled the window down and listened to the tiny, thumbnail-sized frogs peeping merrily. Birds will sing all year long, but when the peepers are going, it's really spring. And I stopped and thought—that was the best music I'd heard all night, actually.
It's not even that tonight was especially bad, it wasn't, but I was especially not in the mood for mediocrity, I suppose. Still, I saw something that was a new one on me—this guy sits at a piano with a book of Billy Joel tunes, and he's singing one and clearly needs a bit more practice, because at a couple of points he leaned in toward the book and peered at it, trying to figure out what he ought to be playing and singing at that moment, and slowing nearly to a stop. It's really not done in polite live-performer circles, actually, that kind of thing.
So at one point I've had enough and leave, and on the steps outside the church I suddenly stopped and just stood there marveling at this gorgeous planet, burning silver in the indigo sky. It was at the exact right angle—down on the street, you couldn't really see it—and clearly the exact right moment too, when the sky had enough light to still have a rich, deep color but dark enough to set off the planet (Saturn? I could check but can't be bothered). Just perfect. I felt lucky to have this weary, jaded, judgmental nature that sent me out the door at the perfect moment to see what I was seeing.
I got in the car, and to get the taste of mediocre strumming out of my ears (strummer, man! Quel strummage!) I put this very funky, jazzy sax tune on the iPod, and rolled down the dark country roads grooving to it. And then songs started coming on at random, which was fine, and one was Joni Mitchell's Little Green, which I've always found affecting. Then I came to a certain crossroads where there's a little run, a tiny wetlands creek. This is the first place I hear the spring peepers every year, and tonight was the first time I heard them in 2010. I rolled up to the light, caught the sound just faintly, and reached over and turned Joni down just as the poignance was coming on full blast. I rolled the window down and listened to the tiny, thumbnail-sized frogs peeping merrily. Birds will sing all year long, but when the peepers are going, it's really spring. And I stopped and thought—that was the best music I'd heard all night, actually.
About a year or so ago I decided to make a serious effort to sight-read at the piano. I'd been playing for decades, but never really learned to sight-read. So I bought a bunch of baby books and stacked them on the piano, and every day I would take one from the top, put it on the rack, and stumble haltingly through it.
I'm glad to tell you that I still stumble haltingly through them, but a little faster these days, and I stumble haltingly with more confidence and assurance, if that makes sense. Things like this take a long time, and I often think of that exquisitely cruel haiku by Issa, "O snail, climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly." When it comes to the piano, I know how that snail feels.
But even as you slowly, slowly progress, there are compensations. One of my baby books is Anton Diabelli's Op. 125, "The First Lessons on the Piano." Just now I was playing the last piece and at the end there's a moment of real lyrical sweetness. It's simple stuff, but still affecting, and for a moment I had a reverie where the player and the listener in me became people from another world. There was a middle-aged man, a middle-class fellow somewhere in mid-19th-century central Europe, and it was mid-morning, so he was dressed in vest and frock coat and the whole deal. And his little daughter was playing the piano, and she got through the whole piece that I had just played without a mistake and turned to him and smiled. And he smiled back, and thought to himself that if only such moments could last forever, that would be all the heaven he could ever ask for. It was all imaginary, there was nothing going vaguely like that, it was just me, sitting at the piano in T-shirt and sweat pants, and the cat looking out the window with the sun rising above the rooftops to the east. But the gentle, melting tenderness of the music still hung in the air.
And I suppose that's a roundabout way of saying that if the snail climbs diligently, it will certainly notice that with a year's effort behind it, the view has improved quite a bit. It's the kind of thing that keeps you going. And now I'm going to have a bite of breakfast and get back to that piano.
I'm glad to tell you that I still stumble haltingly through them, but a little faster these days, and I stumble haltingly with more confidence and assurance, if that makes sense. Things like this take a long time, and I often think of that exquisitely cruel haiku by Issa, "O snail, climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly." When it comes to the piano, I know how that snail feels.
But even as you slowly, slowly progress, there are compensations. One of my baby books is Anton Diabelli's Op. 125, "The First Lessons on the Piano." Just now I was playing the last piece and at the end there's a moment of real lyrical sweetness. It's simple stuff, but still affecting, and for a moment I had a reverie where the player and the listener in me became people from another world. There was a middle-aged man, a middle-class fellow somewhere in mid-19th-century central Europe, and it was mid-morning, so he was dressed in vest and frock coat and the whole deal. And his little daughter was playing the piano, and she got through the whole piece that I had just played without a mistake and turned to him and smiled. And he smiled back, and thought to himself that if only such moments could last forever, that would be all the heaven he could ever ask for. It was all imaginary, there was nothing going vaguely like that, it was just me, sitting at the piano in T-shirt and sweat pants, and the cat looking out the window with the sun rising above the rooftops to the east. But the gentle, melting tenderness of the music still hung in the air.
And I suppose that's a roundabout way of saying that if the snail climbs diligently, it will certainly notice that with a year's effort behind it, the view has improved quite a bit. It's the kind of thing that keeps you going. And now I'm going to have a bite of breakfast and get back to that piano.
