heavy wine

Part I: Going to the Symphony

People like to do this for 'the experience.' That's what it seems like to me. And hey, I don't knock that. It is an experience. You get to dress up, mingle in the red-carpetted lobby with its sweeping staircases, then seek out your God-given seat and settle down politely, staring up in anticipation at the stage. Then the noble entrance of the concert-master, the beautiful sound of tuning 5ths, then silence, the wait for the conductor and the soloist. Applause. Coughing. Crossing, uncrossing legs, murmurs. Then the baton is raised.... a zillion pounds of energy quivers on a bowstring, and is released - Kapow!
3 minutes later, the first coughers start to get uneasy, start to fidget and look for coughdrops. Take 5 minutes to unwrap them painstakingly, penetrating the fullest symphonic sounds with the crinkling of cellophane. When that sound dies away, it's replaced by whispers somewhere behind you. Then someone in the middle of the 5th row suddenly needs to leave, and climbs over 20 people, stiffling coughs, and hurries down the aisle and out the door. The man besides you starts to tap his knee out of time. People squirm and sneeze. Then suddenly it's over, and people jump to their feet because the music was fast and flashy and virtuosic, which you could tell even without really listening.
It's always the same, which never ceases to amaze me. When I was a kid my Mom taught me proper concert etiquette; she was militant about it. Sit motionless, with ears open and everything else still. Pay attention. Allow the people around you to absord the music without distraction. The thing is, you can't do anything about other people. Some people had militant concert-manner Moms, but most people didn't. So you have to accept the noises as if they're part of the music. Beside the flutes, you have the 1st and 2nd cellophanes. The timpanis are behind the coughing chorus, and the random-noisers sit at the front of the stage, in black-bow-ties, and drop programmes and let their cellphones ring at cleverly provoking intervals.

Part II: When Music Jumbles Your Organs About

Ravel does this - he jumbles me, makes me all tingley and sparkey and at the same time gloopy and melty. This happens independant of the Symphony 'experience'... and I wonder how many people actually come to get what's really being offered. Ravel had the most incredible sense of colour and orchestrated like an impressionist painter. It was so delicious to get to hear some of 'Daphnis & Chloe' live, even if it was not the most inspired orchestra in the world. It really wrung me out and released all those chemicals that remind my body why life is good. No - why life is inexpressibly wondrous.

Part III: A favourite poem by Rilke:

Lord, it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.
..

This is about me, only I don't think 'restlessly' is the right word. Maybe 'wander the forest while the leaves are blowing.' It's such a sad, sweet poem. I am alone, and for some reason don't see myself not being alone - at least not for some time. But there's a closeness with everything, in spite of that, and it does not feel bad.

..