Beethoven

Curiosity Can’t Kill The Cat or, Art Becomes Life*

May 17, 2011 By Sean Murphy Leave a Comment

You Can’t Go Home Again, someone once wrote
And he was wrong.
Of course you can—all you have to do is never leave—
Leaving it behind does not mean it leaves you.
(And certainly I can’t be the only grown child
who returns often—in dreams, in memories and yes,
in my mind, I must confess: earnestly, ardently, often—
to the old streets that I came to outgrow
the way we outgrow games and bikes and friends
and exchange them for jobs and cars and co-workers).

A life is not unlike a novel: too often they are eager to please, predictable, safe.

You can always go home, and you need to go home,
It is only when you want to go home that you should
Start asking yourself: What are you doing to keep things interesting? What can you do to generate momentum, keep the narrative flowing?

II.

When some of your best friends are people who exist elsewhere—characters in books you’ve read, musicians you’ll never meet, people from the past who died decades (even centuries) before you were born, or people you knew intimately who are no longer around—it might be time to ask some complicated questions.

Who are you?

That is, or should be, the first question, as well as the last question, and it should be asked as often as possible along the way.

You see, all men are islands. After all, no one else is inside you when you’re born, no one is going with you when you die, and between those first and last breaths, the decisions, actions and accountability are your own. All, all yours.

So: you find friends, you seek solace in yourself, you learn to discern redemption through the aimless affairs that comprise the push and pull of everyone’s existence. You realize, in short, that you are going through it alone, so you should never go through it alone.

Thoreau was quite correct about quiet desperation and the long shadow it can cast over us all, but you don’t want to run off to your own unseen island. For one thing, there are no islands anymore, except the ones you pay admission to enter; plus, it’s already been done; and above all, when Thoreau got lonely or hungry he walked home and had his mother cook dinner for him, a fact he forgot to mention in his quite convincing case for individuality. Besides, everyone is already on his or her own island. You can’t run away, and the farther you run, the closer you get to yourself. And you’re all you’ve got.

If you are fortunate enough to figure this out early on, you find friends: the ones who exist in your everyday world, and the ones who have been there all along, the ones you can always turn to, wherever or whoever you happen to be.

III.

Listen:

To win? To lose?

What for, if the world will forget us anyway?

I didn’t write that. A poet wrote that. I’m no poet. Poets are always looking for things, like heroes. Who wants to be a hero these days? Who can afford it? The world could be—and might very well already be—full of folks who will ring changes and do their part to shake up the constricting and crazed institutions that keep us chained, bound and complacent. There are lots of these people, I’m sure: tons and tons of them. But the thing is, most of us are too busy trying to live. It’s enough to just survive without seeking to pursue such lofty, such poetic propositions.

This is the new poetry: the more things stay the same, the more they change. Here is our art: haikus of horror in the cities, sonnets of sin and corruption, limericks of deregulation, free verse free trade, rhymed lines of laissez-faire, and the emboldened ghost writer, Death, forever at work on our collective life stories.

These days we look for poetry in all the wrong places. Some of us even believe we are gazing more deeply into the murky waters of existence when all we are actually seeing is our own reflections.

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

What he said.

IV.

Awake, alive. Alone.

Never forget this feeling.

You can remember what it was like: seeing the world through another set of eyes—that evening, halfway through high school, watching the snow fall outside your window. Lights out and that music playing: Beethoven. The sonatas, with titles that seemed mysterious and exhilarating: Pathetique, Appasionata, Mondeschein.

The music, it seemed, was always there for these significant moments: remembering those times, always accompanied by this music that was solemn yet ecstatic. Later on, being ushered into the other worlds of sexual activity, or studying for fast-forgotten exams, or those solitary seconds that sometimes turned into hours, the time alone, in the darkness, before sleep overtakes awareness and you still know who you are—tracing it all back to that first evening, staring at the snow: the sound of the piano, feeling connected to lives apart from your own, able to imagine what the world was like, then, feeling deeply aware of your own life, wholly there, utterly cognizant—which, of course, did not mean you were only aware of yourself; it was exactly the opposite sensation—and not realizing, not needing to know, yet, that this feeling would be increasingly difficult to capture, transitory moments of perception as a tonic for, or distraction from, the push and pull of adult life and the urgency and oddness that this new reality entailed. It was not that this music facilitated these feelings, but that it accompanied them. This was what made it central to your world, so inextricable from your soul, from the way you wanted to see yourself.

“Have you really read all these books?”

He said nothing. He could not say.

He looked at her eager expression—anxious for the reciprocity her youth was seeking, and finding: an outlet for admiration—and smiled. That was not a lie, at least. But neither was it the truth.

The truth was that he collected books as he had at one time collected friends: easily, earnestly, with hope and expectation. And like these books, which stood in austere, orderly rows, collecting halos of time and dust, his friends also existed. In his mind, and of course in their actual lives (lives he no longer knew): unexamined, or overlooked possibilities, wellsprings of potential, and reminders of unfulfilled promise. They were there, at once inviting, yet distant. Overwhelming by their sheer being, their ceaseless existence: a comfort, an illusion. A mirror that reflected his reality, the only truth that mattered: effort brings return. And despite his seemingly endless contemplation, the erudition and intimacy he hoped for and always had sought seemed to elude him.

“Can we listen to some music?”

“Put on whatever you’d like.”

He sat on his bed and watched her sort through his collection.

She lit a candle as he stood up to turn off the light. He looked down at her and was struck by her blithe, yearning expression. The budding sensualist, he thought sardonically. Hermann Hesse, Jack Kerouac, and eventually Ayn Rand would still hold promise, and purpose. Each experience a lesson: another flashing chance at bliss. As he gazed at her face, glowing in the candle’s light, he realized, finally, that he envied her insouciance. Of course he could still recall that feeling: having no fear as the world seemed laid bare before him, wanting whatever was out there: Bring it on, I’ll take all comers. And he was suddenly cognizant that she undoubtedly regarded him the way he had once viewed his professors, and this knowledge made him feel uneasy, and ashamed.

A broom is drearily sweeping

Up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life–

Somewhere a Queen is weeping,

Somewhere a King has no wife…

VI.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“You don’t have to understand Kafka,” he wanted to say. “As long as you feel him.”

“Well, it’s about Art,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

“And, you know, the lonely life of the artist,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

And for the first time, he found that he was not inclined to discuss the matter further. He just didn’t have it in him. That’s when he knew, finally.

“I don’t understand, why won’t he ever come down? If he’s so upset, why doesn’t he come down from the trapeze?”

Only the one bar in my hands—how can I go on living?

He recited the words to himself, and thought about repeating them aloud, then decided against it. He thought of other things he might say—so many other things to say—and decided it was best to remain silent. In fairness to her, he was not sure he understood either. In truth, he was not sure he understood Kafka, but he most certainly felt him.

VII.

When the train left the station, it had two lights on behind,

Well, the blue light was my baby and the red light was my mind.

I didn’t say that.

A vision. Actually, a fantasy: Every so often I can’t help hoping that there will be a knock on my door and when I open it, who is there but my sexy soul mate, a beautiful woman who heard the blues music every time she walked by, and wondered if, according to her own fantasy, a sensitive, erudite dude had been right there all along, waiting for her, waiting for happily ever after. And after a while, she could no longer ignore the siren song escaping through the small space under the door and came knocking.

Of course, this illusion presupposes three things, in descending order of unlikelihood: one, that there are such things as soul mates; two, that my soul mate happens to live in my building; and three, that anyone actually listens to—much less enjoys—blues music.

All my love’s in vain.

What he said.

VIII.

Bathing.

A little bourbon, a little Beethoven, and a bath. This is living.

Much earthly suffering is redeemed during that fifteen-minute interval between initial scrotum shrinkage and full body pruning as the steaming water suffocates the pains of life. For a few sublime moments this is about as good as you can feel while not on drugs or inside a woman.

Later. Alone. Listening:

I’ve been down the road and I’ve come back

Lonesome whistle on the railroad track

Ain’t got nothing on those feelings that I had…

Doesn’t that make me sad?

No. In fact, exactly the opposite; it helps. Life might leave a mark, but music is always medicinal. Make me sad? No; happy movies make me sad. Manufactured moments sold on shelves are too easy to see through. Sparkly-toothed simpletons who tell us how to live leave me cold. Too-cool commercials give me cancer. And, of course, the ingenious march of a million soulless pixels remind everyone of everything they’ll never obtain.

Reality is never enough, so sometimes anything approximating art will suffice. I would, for instance, love to instigate some excitement into my own humble narrative. Unfortunately, a fight scene is not feasible; a car chase is too much to ask for, and a love interest would appear to be out of the question. And so: it’s just the music and me, as usual. As always, this isn’t all that I need, but it’s more than I should expect, especially at night.

You know better than to try to sleep, so it’s just you and the music. Listening once again to the one person who always pulls you through, no matter what. You can listen to the symphonies or the string quartets anytime, but the sonatas, the Pathetique, especially appropriate for nights like tonight, nights when no sleep will come. That sublime suffering, the solitude, the sacred requital of this illimitable expression. The music, always the music.

After a while, before you can stop and think about it, you fall asleep.

Dreaming:

Beethoven. Not the celebrated facsimile of the consecrated composer (the image that often accompanies this effulgent music) staring down sternly at an adoring audience—the people to whom he had dedicated his great gifts—as the applause he can no longer hear surges through a breathless auditorium, but a frail, confused old man, huddled over a candle, awakened from an uneasy slumber and called into the darkness, again, to wrestle with the terrible, silent voices that fill his head.

What sort of God would suffer a man so great to be stripped of the very faculties that once compelled his creations? That refractory grace: continuing to conceive music, in the mind, yet prevented from hearing the sweet crescendo of the final coda. Agonizing over those last movements in the isolation of a lonely hour, perhaps looking to the sky, beseeching supplication, a respite, a return of the courage that once restored him.

A man whose reputed last words were I shall hear in Heaven. Proof of God’s existence for the faithful; proof of life’s capricious, inscrutable fate, for the faithless.

IX.

He puts the needle in the groove and sound cascades into the room. The music: it has saved him so many times. He stands, spellbound and motionless. Hopefully he can take this with him—those words, all the songs. All these things he has loved are lodged, indelibly, in his mind, so if that went with him, so would they. And that was good. And if not? Then he wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

He opens the door and seems to float out to the patio, not entirely aware what he is doing. He is burning up. The snow feels like fire, and he can see the music in the silver flames that suddenly glisten all around him. He feels himself from far away, and an astounding warmth embalms him, holding him in its silent sway.

Then, suddenly, he is no longer hot.

He is aware of the chill air and looks down at his naked, shivering body. He can still hear the music, still making sense, speaking to him. He understands, and he is alive.

As always, he thought about his family, his friends, and especially the heroes who had created the art that made life more worth living; the places and feelings that comprised all the pain and profundity of existence, all the questions that belonged without answers: all of this was inside him. So as long as he lived, and made himself remember, they never ceased to be.

You Can’t Go Home Again, someone once wrote.

Curiosity killed the cat, someone else said.

And maybe they were right.

But something is going to get all of us, eventually, whether we ask for it or understand it. If curiosity doesn’t kill us, contentment gets there quicker.

*From a non-fiction work-in-progress entitled Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone.

Filed Under: Myself When I'm Real Tagged With: Beethoven, Curiosity Killed The Cat, Kafka, Thoreau, You Can't Go Home Again

Staring Over The Shoulders Of Giants: Overture

January 29, 2011 By Sean Murphy 1 Comment

First off, super-sized kudos to Anthony Tommasini, the classical music critic for The New York Times. To even have the interest, much less the ability, to grapple with an ultimate ranking of the greatest classical composers, is laudable. He should be appreciated for pulling it off calmly yet convincingly, and in the process he stimulated minds and (inevitably) stoked the ire of fanatics whose favorite names were (inevitably) left off his list. See what you think, here. The comments section alone is a goldmine of sorts, with knowledgeable folks chiming in with their opinions and, in many cases, taking umbrage at Tommasini’s audacity for omitting (insert name of composer here).

As a lifelong lover of classical music but by no means an expert (unlike jazz, rock, reggae and blues, I am not quite as insatiable and my appetite for new works is often satisfied by returning to the hundreds of discs I’ve already amassed, largely represented by the heavy hitters of the various genres). Put another way, I know more about –and worship– classical music than most people I know, but I am quite aware of, and dutifully humbled by the folks who know a lot more than me. I recognize that unlike, say, rock or reggae where there is one definitive version (often the one recorded in the studio though of course live versions can compete and sometimes surpass the originals), when it comes to classical music a real aficionado can spend serious time (and money) comparing multiple (in some cases, dozens) of versions of a particular piece, and make a considerable production out of measuring the ways they hold up against each other. For most people, there seems to be an implicit consensus that the integrity of a piece lies in direct proportion to capturing the best, if not actual, intentions of the composer. For that reason, I’ve never been a fan of Alfred Brendel, whose idiosyncratic (or solipsistic) tweaking always seems sacrilegious if not (with the works of Beethoven especially) insufferable. Ditto for any performer who thinks it is appropriate or permissible to inject even a bit of themselves into the work; the mature and confident players seem to innately grasp that their unique imprint will be manifest no matter what they do; by making an effort to leave even the slightest fingerprint on the sonic canvass betrays a very human sin of pride.

I also appreciate –and enjoy– the reality that mileage varies and accomplishment is always in the ears of the behearer. As such, a person whose taste I may respect immensely will find Brendel’s interpretation of Beethoven’s sonatas superlative and consider my ardent preference for Barenboim unbelievable. I think some of this has to do with a phenomenon that has long fascinated me: the notion that the first rendition of a particular piece becomes not only the basis for all future performances, but is copied onto the individual’s hard-drive as the immutable version.

So…you see where this is heading, right? My plan is not to offer an alternative list, in part because if forced to choose, my list would not be too different from what Tommasini came up with. But there are a couple of personal heroes he left off that I will pay tribute to. And I’ll have a few things to say about the giants most humans will agree belong at the very top of the list. To be cont’d…

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: Alfred Brendel, Anthony Tommasini, Beethoven, Classical Music, Daniel Barenboim, john belushi, The New York Times

Beethoven, Barenboim, Bliss

November 10, 2010 By Sean Murphy Leave a Comment

Beethoven again.

It seems impossible to believe that Daniel Barenboim is only 68 years old. It feels like he has been around forever. Possibly it’s because the music he plays–the music he’s spent most of his life playing to the extent that it seems inextricable from the man himself-seems to exist outside of time. Revered for completing a recorded cycle of the Beethoven piano sonatas while still in his 20?s, he then tackled Beethoven’s piano concertos, and then the piano sonatas and concertos of Mozart. For good measure he also handled the piano concertos of Brahms and Bartok. Barenboim cemented his legacy as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from the early ’90s through 2006. Want more? He was married to the famous, and beautiful, cellist Jacqueline du Pre (pictured above) until her premature death.

All of which is to say: he’s the only thing cooler than a rock star; he’s a classical music star. You want to hang with Mick and Keith? I’ll hang with Wolfgang Amadeus and Ludwig Van. I’d rather spend a half hour listening to Barenboim discuss his experiences than a free week pass on tour with any rock band on the planet. But I’m weird like that. Then again, check this out:

“Rubinstein read Cervantes in Spanish, Dostoyevsky in Russian, Voltaire in French,” Mr. Barenboim said. “Music has become specialized today. There used to be a different notion of musical culture. I believe that Furtwängler genuinely felt — maybe he was naïve, but he felt that he personally could save German culture from the Nazis. He wrote about the introduction to Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony in relation to the Greek idea of chaos and catharsis. How many musicians think that way today?”

Any questions?

Barenboim shows no signs of slowing down, and this the profile of him in The New York Times here (from which the above quote is taken) reveals a man who is always looking for a new challenge. You think Ozzy Osbourne is controversial? Barenboim broke the half-century taboo of performing Wagner in Israel (in 2001) and has used his influence, and the profoundly positive influence of the music he conducts, to promote dialogue and understanding amongst nations. To put it simply, his work with Palestinian intellectual Edward Said arguably did more to advance relations between Israel and Palestine than 90% of our world’s politicians.

But all of this is just backstory (amazing and life-affirming though it is). Before I knew anything about Barenboim’s politics or his iconoclastic journey, I knew him through Beethoven. Or vice versa. My first exposure to Beethoven’s piano sonatas was courtesy of Barenboim’s initial take on the works (from ’67; he revisited the cycle many years later). It was that time in my life (age 17), it was that era in general (1987, one of the very first compact discs I owned) but mostly it was the music. Indelible and unforgettable. Then, and now. Bottom line: this is my favorite music in the world, and if there was one set of works I had to take with me to that cliched desert island, it would be Barenboim’s set of Beethoven sonatas. If the person sending me to this imaginary island was particularly sadistic and insisted it could only be one disc, it would be this one:

I’ve heard –and tend to believe– that a person falls forever in love with the version of a particular classical piece he or she hears first. I know that to be true of virtually all the classical music I’ve become infatuated with over the last few decades. Still, there are the more famous pieces (think Beethoven, Mozart and Bach) of which even non-fanatic followers may inevitably own more than one version. Having heard (intentionally, insatiably) and owned multiple copies of Mozart’s last two symphonies (4o & 41) I only have ears for John Eliot Gardiner’s work with the English Baroque Soloists (from ’92). Regarding the Beethoven sonatas, no one comes close to Barenboim, for me. (And I do enjoy most of the versions I’ve heard, and I have about eight different versions of certain Beethoven sonatas, but I’m weird like that.)

Here is Barenboim in concert, tackling the rapturous 18th Sonata. If it gets any better than this, I’m unaware of it.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Filed Under: Music Tagged With: Beethoven, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline du Pre, New York Times, Piano Sonata No. 18

NOMAH! or, A Welcome Return for the Beantown Prometheus

March 15, 2010 By Sean Murphy Leave a Comment

Nomah.

No mas.

It’s fantastic to see Garciaparra, and the Red Sox brass, both burying the sharpened Louisville Slugger and letting No. 5 retire as a Red Sox. Hard to believe it now, but there was a time (about a decade ago) when two things seemed certain: Nomar was never leaving Boston and he was headed to the Hall of Fame. As we now know, injuries, declined production (with the bat and the glove) and a prolonged and excessively bitter break-up (first with the front office, then the team, then the town) made him merely a once-great player who put together a career most pros would kill to copy.

Here’s the thing that a lot of people, even some Red Sox fans (so of course I’m not counting the pink-hatted posers who decided it was cool to be a Sox fan circa 2004: it was cool, especially if you’d spent your previous life –and everything prior to 10/27/2004 was a previous life for any real Red Sox fan– on that peculiar rollercoaster, the one that took years and sometimes decades to get to the top and then, like Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff, would drop down into a fresh new Hell) may not recall: with the exception of Pedro Martinez and Manny Ramirez, Nomar didn’t just play for the Red Sox; he was not merely the star of the Red Sox; Nomar was the Red Sox.

In between the late ’80s and the early ’00s, the Sox sucked. Even teams that went to the playoffs weren’t really going anywhere. And everyone knew it (especially the other teams). Seriously. After 1986, there was not a single playoff run (if you can call one-and-done series runs) where I actually believed, much less hoped, that the Sox actually had a chance to win the World Series. Nevermind the whole “curse” thing; the teams were just never deep enough to scare anyone. Of course that changed in a big way in 2003 (that team could and should have won it all, but if they had not failed they very possibly would not have set themselves up to be such a solid team going forward, which seems more true than ever in hindsight, and is easier to swallow now that the team has claimed two world championships).

But before 2003, Nomar was it.

Don’t get me wrong, Pedro was GOD, but even Petey only played once every five days. In terms of the one steady presence that bridged the bad old days and the glorious postscript that is still unfolding, Nomar was the guy. (And real fans should realize the debt we owe these two, as well as Manny, can never be repaid or properly appreciated: these three players made the Red Sox a half-way respectable franchise for the first time, arguably, since the 1986 season, and never forget there were some ugly years in between the late ’70s and that season-that-almost-was.) These guys unified the fans and sold merchandise in the slowly, but steadily growing Red Sox Nation.

And here’s the thing: it wasn’t just that Nomar was our all-star. Certainly, that was great and he was a blessing that any franchise could covet. He was the real deal: he played hard and he played hurt, and nobody who knows anything about the game would argue that Nomah did not give 100% every single outing. Of course it’s a cliche, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that those players are increasingly rare (outside of the NHL, anyway) and will elevate a franchise just like a team cancer can kill one.

He was, to use another inevitable cliche, discernibly old school. But he was also contemporary, and he had his signature quirk that endeared him for the ages. You remember the ritual. The whole OCD thing with the batting gloves. Needless to say, that compulsion became less cute once he stopped producing (but fortunately, he was already playing for other teams at that point!).

Yes, he was wary with the media, but trust me, if you had to deal with this douchebag every day, you’d be wary. And quite possibly violent. (And speaking of that shit-stirring punk, suffice it to say he lowered himself to the occasion and managed to be both petty and graceless regarding Nomar’s return.) Yes, he burned his bridges to get out of town, and that blew up in his face when he ended up having to watch the team he helped create make it to the promised land without him. Stop and think about that for a moment: we’re talking real Promethean type shit here. Every time he had to watch a replay of that final out on 10/27/2004, it was like that cosmic eagle taking another bite out of his liver. Just like every replay of Bucky Dent, or Bill Buckner, or Aaron Boone sent a psychic shock down the spine of every Sox fan…up until 10/27/2004. Can you say full circle?

The moral of the story? We are, of course, playthings of the Gods, and always have been. Batter up!

But all’s well that ends well. I’m not entirely sure what that even means, or is meant to mean. But I think it can safely be applied to situations like this. Nomar, having already been embraced by Boston (see video clip above), got to give hugs and smiles and transition into his new life as a broadcaster (yes, the same dude who once put red tape around his locker area to keep pesky reporters away; some might see hypocrisy, I choose to see irony –and a little irony never hurt anyone). I used to genuinely wonder, and worry, if Nomar had found (or could ever find) peace considering the way things ended. Fortunately, they had not yet ended. Now they have, and everyone can be happy.

And so I want to celebrate one of the best, most beloved and –in many ways– unappreciated players who patrolled the sacred grounds at Fenway.

Welcome home Nomah.

Filed Under: The Sporting Life Tagged With: Beethoven, Boston, Nomar Garciaparra, Prometheus, Red Sox

Ten Songs To Celebrate The Fall of the Wall

November 9, 2009 By Sean Murphy Leave a Comment

berlin_wall

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, 1st Movement

Grant Green, “Exodus”

Rahsaan Roland Kirk, “Balm in Gilead”

John Coltrane, “Psalm”

Philip Glass, “String Quartet No. 5”

Jimi Hendrix, “Beginnings”

Bob Marley, “Revolution”

Bad Brains, “Leaving Babylon”

Living Colour, “Wall”

Antibalas, “NESTA (Never Ever Submit To Authority)”

Filed Under: Music, Ruminations in Real Time Tagged With: Antibalas, Bad Brains, Beethoven, Berlin Wall, Bob Marley, Grant Green, Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, Living Colour, Philip Glass, Rahsaan Roland Kirk

August 26, 2002: Remembering My Mother in Music

August 26, 2009 By Sean Murphy 5 Comments

murph 3

Blogs are, or can be, like diaries.

Except that diaries, by nature, are private. Which begs the question: do people who blog censor or soften the observations, complaints or critiques that in other times would exist inside a document designed to remain unread by others? (Or more to the point, should they?) To be certain, only a few years ago, thoughts like the ones I’m about to express would have been safely ensconced inside a journal, not read by anyone else, even including myself (I don’t often return to old journals, hopefully because I’m too busy living in the here and now). And for whatever it’s worth, I am humble enough to know that small numbers of people visit this blog, and I have enough sense (or self-respect) to instinctively acknowledge that nobody is well served by overly earnest airing of personal trivia.

Put another way, I don’t begrudge anyone else documenting every last detail of their existences (no matter how mundane or mawkish); I simply remain uninterested in reading about it. In that regard, blogs are self-regulating: if you don’t write things that others will find interesting, you won’t have an audience. And who cares anyway? In that regard, blogs are like diaries: people post on them because they want to, or need to, and the concept of friends or strangers reading their innermost thoughts won’t necessarily hamper their willingness to compose. Still, only the sensation-seekers looking for notoriety (usually the already famous, and even those folks have a shelf-life of about six months) go out of their way to wax solipsistic in a public forum.

When it comes to the death of my mother, I of course have meditated on the loss privately and publically, and anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) understands that her life and death are an unequivocal component of my ongoing existence. Nothing remarkable about that, really: it is what it is. I am not alone; in fact, one need not suffer the untimely death of a parent to understand that their presence is inextricable from one’s own. That said, it’s not because my feelings or experiences are unique, but because they are the opposite that I have little compunction sharing some thoughts on this plaintive anniversary. Indeed, for me these occasions are much more a celebration of her life (and her unambiguously positive influence in my life) than any sort of disconsolate meditation on death. It is what it is.

As I have mentioned in other pieces (most recently on my birthday), one of my earliest and most positive memories of art and discovery is associated with my mother: listening to Nutcracker Suite and drawing pictures. Tchaikovsky has a real Proust-like effect on me (and, I suspect, a great many grown-ups who have indelible memories of the Nutcracker or Fantasia, or both), but on a purely aesthetic level it is like Bizet’s Carmen: I can (and do) enjoy it on purely musical terms. Moreover, I prefer it that way (and having seen my share of holiday performances and the opportunity to enjoy a full performance of Carmen, I’m happy to have those experiences and need not go there again). Anyway, there are more than a handful of favorite moments (coincidentally or not, conductor Fritz Reiner’s version from 1960 is the first compact disc I ever purchased, in 1986), but the one that gets me every time is the sombre yet majestic ”Coffee: Arabian Dance”.

There’s no shame in my game. I cannot deny my past and the fact of the matter is, back in the ’70s I thought Jesus Christ Superstar was pretty awesome. Moms, sis and I knew this one by heart (at least Side A of the 8-Track, which received heavy airplay in the Ford Grenada). This was in the pre-Kiss and post Fantasia time period, and of course before I discovered the original “rock opera” Tommy (not the last time ALW would be influenced by a rock band). In any event, this was my first and last dalliance with Andrew Lloyd Webber and while I can hardly stomach it now, oh how I loved it then. And you know what? A handful of moments are still worth reliving.

I’ve also alluded to the fact that we worshipped at the altar of the White Album, and we’d listen to the cassette (taped from the original double record) constantly in the car. Our favorite singalong was (obviously) “Rocky Raccoon”, but one of my favorites that I can never hear, now, without thinking of my mother and those million car rides is another great song by McCartney, “Mother Nature’s Son”:

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It was pretty cool to watch movies with my mom, who was much more lenient than Pops when it came to the Rated R ones. One we watched many times (which I haven’t seen in ages and suspect I’d like much less now) was The Big Chill. Of course, the soundtrack was ubiquitous at that time and did for Motown what soundtracks like O Brother, Where Art Thou? did for bluegrass and Goodfellas did for oldies (or at least Tony Bennett). It’s silly to contemplate now, but it was almost a novelty to hear Smokey Robinson and The Temptations in the very arid early years of the ’80s. Indelible baby steps for an impressionable young honky:

Beethoven. I’ve spoken often in regards to my worship of Ludwig Van. Everyone encounters the symphonies first, but once I latched onto the piano sonatas, that was it. It still is. I’m not sure if I ever succeeded in getting my mother to really appreciate the immortal Mondschein, but she at least tolerated how often it was played during the late ’80s and early ’90s in her house. Since I’ve already thrown Barenboim a bone, I’d like to give props to Freddy Kempf’s superlative rendition of one of the truly sublime compositions ever written:

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The other great discovery and love of my life around this time was Bob Marley: kind of like Beethoven and the symphonies, it’s impossible to have ears and not be exposed to Legend at some point in high school or college. When the amazing Songs of Freedom (by far the best box set of all time) came into my life during grad school I latched onto it like a remora. This career-spanning set opened a large door wide on Marley’s music (particularly the mostly unknown, and remarkable, work from the late ’60s and very early ’70s), and eventually, reggae. Moms needed no convincing, she formed her own deep love and appreciation for Marley and would sing his songs on my answering machine. Suffice it to say, our shared love of the great man is one of the very special bonds in my musical and spiritual life.

I think she saw pretty quickly that I was going to be a special case, and there is little doubt that regardless of anyone’s opinion, I was off and running early on, and little could come between me and music. Nevertheless, her encouragement (from Kiss to The Beatles to The Doors all the way through classical and then jazz) was generous, ceaseless and always appreciated. It’s kind of neat to consider that a CD she originally bought for me my senior year of college (when I explained to her that it was very important for both my studies and my sanity to procure this album) is one I wrote about almost twenty years later. I can’t think of a more beautiful song from a more perfect album to commemorate my gratitude.

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Not too much needs to be said by way of introduction to Jimi Hendrix, but my mother definitely dug some of his (less experimental? more accessible?) work. This one was, and is, a no brainer: a song he wrote about his mother (who passed away when he was ten years old): “Angel”:

August 27, 2002 was the first day of the rest of our lives. Anyone who has lost a loved one will recall (or half-reall) the blur of events that come after, all of which are a blessing in the disguise of distraction. I did a lot of driving: driving from father’s house to my place, from funeral home to father’s place, to the airport to pick up relatives. The emotions and sensations would become overwhelming at times, and there are those awful moments when you wonder how you can possibly find peace or make sense of anything ever again. During one of these episodes I was coming or going somewhere and I had not been paying attention to my car stereo, and then this song (by the great Israel Vibration) broke through that haze like the sun and saved my life:

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Finally, and this one is the most important, for me.
The ’70s: this one reminds me of coming home from school and spending time in the house in between games of soccer or kickball or whatever else I was up to in those days. I have a memory: it was either autumn or winter, but it was a day I couldn’t play outside, so I was stuck inside the house and my mother had first dibs on the sounds. She was a huge fan of Janis Ian (as I would become, and remain) and I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider Between The Lines one of the better albums of that time, or anytime. “At Seventeen”, “Tea and Sympathy”, “Light a Light”: this is as good as it gets. But it’s the swan song, “Lover’s Lullaby” that affects me most; it haunts and restores me in equal measure. This one makes me think of my mother, so young; myself, so young, and even the beautiful Janis Ian, so incredibly young and so unbelievably beautiful. Sentimental? Not so much. True, this is wistful on multiple levels, and while my nature is to embrace or confront things that I consider cliche, it still took me quite a while before I could bring myself to listen to this song after my mother’s death.

I can, now, and when I do I naturally think of her. And inevitably I think about myself:

Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,

Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth;

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

–Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

Filed Under: Music, Myself When I'm Real Tagged With: Beatles, Beethoven, Bob Marley, Israel Vibration, Janis Ian, Jesus Christ Superstar, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Smokey Robinson, Tchaikovsky

Of Big Macs, Beethoven and Fisherman’s Friends

May 6, 2009 By Sean Murphy 2 Comments

Ten years is a long time.

Imagine something you love, or crave. Then imagine ten years without it.

Some cravings (indeed, most cravings, it might be argued) involve things like Big Macs or Coca Cola or candy that aren’t good for you and you don’t (or shouldn’t) miss once you jettison them from your wish list. Once you get them out of your system, they are like any bad relationship: you don’t miss them and wonder why it took you so long to move on. In the case of fast food and soft drinks, I went cold turkey on the former more than fifteen years ago and stopped drinking Coke back in college (still had a lingering fondness for Sprite until the mid-90s and only now will occasionally have the random ginger ale, particularly when I’m sick. Ginger ale, and old school Campbell’s Chicken with Stars, are the two things I still tend to require when I have a seriously sore throat). I don’t miss any of those old indulgences, and in fact, can’t believe I ever used to drink this junk (I say this without judgment, especially for my myriad Diet-Coke dependent friends, but just considering how much sugar is actually involved in creating this chemical swill remains revolting). I still have the ephemeral pangs (mostly sentimental, I’d imagine) for Big Macs; kind of the way an amputee will feel the phantom limb that is no longer there. In the case of the Big Mac it’s probably not all that complicated: they were good, then, and I associate the days I ate them with a much simpler time (for both myself and the planet).

I wouldn’t quite go so far as suggesting that Big Macs are for me what the madeleines were to Proust, but you get the picture. In any event, I don’t miss fast food burgers one bit. (I saw the light more than a decade before I encountered Eric Schlosser’s incredible and highly recommended Fast Food Nation but reading that book certainly obliterated any possibility that I may one day backslide.) Being human, however, I would never turn my nose up at some fast food french fries. I mention that just so you know I’m not insane.

However facile it may sound, I have always readily conceded my obessesion with books, movies and music. Especially music. Always music. That is readily apparent to anyone who knows me or has read my work at PopMatters, or just this blog. Aside from the financial implications of being hopelessly, unabashedly addicted to the appreciation and acquisition of art ones loves, it’s difficult to deny this is a very positive thing. It certainly has enriched me in far greater proportion than the filthy lucre I’ve coughed up in exchange for it.

Plus, I know Ludwig Van has my back:

As does infamous Beethoven lover Alex from A Clockwork Orange (as well as Anthony Burgess, not to mention Stanley Kubrick):

So, obviously, when it comes to compulsions there are two extremes (the ones that are inexorably bad for you, like fast food, and the ones that are almost entirely wholesome, like Art-with-a-capital-A). Where it gets a tad more interesting, or complicated, as usual, is when one considers that vast gray area. What about the things that are not necessarily good but not necessarily bad?

Exhibit A: Fisherman’s Friend. In case you are unfamiliar and need the history of these mysterious and alluring lozenges, they are not for the weak-willed, the unimaginative or the salubrious. In other words, not for normal people. But if, like Baudelaire, Rimbaud or Verlaine (just to name some of the famous Frenchmen), this world never quite sits right with you, there is eventually going to be a craving that you cannot contain. For these gentlemen it was Absinthe; for me it was Fisherman’s Friends.

At first it was only for those occasions when I was really sick; in the throes of bronchitis or some combination of extreme indulgence and reduced sleep resulting in a minor case of walking Bubonic Plague, common to the post-college/waiting tables finding oneself phase. When it hurt to breathe, or eat, or drink fluids, or to simply think, it was time to pop in a Fisherman’s Friend, that oddly licorice-like lozenge that (I fancied) did to my bacteria-laden esophagus what scrubbing bubbles did to the soap scum on my bathroom tile: it overwhelmed it. And so, at that time, they were only for special occasions.

You see where this is heading. Eventually, no doubt aided by the sheer regularity with which a young twenty-something with a young twenty-something’s habits tends to fall ill, a tolerance was built. And then the seeds of dependence were planted. Soon, it was a matter of course to step beyond the original flavor and experiment.

Who knew there were so many flavors?

I did. And I tried many of them. Some were interesting, like the Aniseed, some not so great, like the sugar free mint. But it always came back to the original, with its strangely soothing, menthol powers. Not unlike the occasional glass of wine or bummed cigarette becomes a bottle or pack a day, the lozenges ultimately wielded their odd influence. At first it was nice to “take the edge off” the morning coffee: post caffeine buzz and pre-tooth brushing, it was an elixir to ease one into the day. But eventually that little white box was following me to work and I was developing a pouch-a-day habit. I had no reason to suspect these posed any health risks but they were so…strong that I was never entirely certain what they contained–no matter what the ingredients listed on the back. That, and the aftertaste is sufficiently strong you have that heavy licorice-menthol taste on your tongue all day. Not a bad proposition if you are on the crew of the Pequod or the Edmund Fitzgerald or this guy.

If you are sitting in a cube all day, not so much. So I set out in search of a new addiction. Fortunately, as I eased myself off the FF about a decade ago, I came to discover the joys of Ricola. The original flavor is like a thinking man’s version of the original Fisherman’s Friend lozenge; a tad sweeter, a tad cleaner and doesn’t leave you wondering if your lungs are turning brown. But Ricola has really branched out in the last decade or so, dropping a ton of new varieties, all of which are recommended without reservation: Orange-Mint, Honey Lemon with Echinacea, Honey Herb and especially Lemon Verbena with White Tea. Healthier than Altoids, less intimidating than Fisherman’s Friends, and better than virtually anything people with oral fixations tend to stuff in their mouths, Ricola is where it’s at.

See you in ten years.

Filed Under: Ruminations in Real Time Tagged With: A Clockwork Orange, Absinthe, Altoids, Baudelaire, Beethoven, Big Mac, Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation, Fisherman's Friend, Gordon Lightfoot, Popmatters, Ricola, Rimbaud, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Verlaine

Song of the Day: Daniel Barenboim (Sonata No. 14, 3rd Movement)

November 23, 2008 By Sean Murphy 4 Comments

Daniel Barenboim: The Prodigy at age 13

Beethoven again.

It seems impossible to believe that Daniel Barenboim is only 66 years old. It feels like he has been around forever. Possibly it’s because the music he plays–the music he’s spent most of his life playing to the extent that it seems inextricable from the man himself-seems to exist outside of time. Revered for completing a recorded cycle of the Beethoven piano sonatas while still in his 20′s, he then tackled Beethoven’s piano concertos, and then the piano sonatas and concertos of Mozart. For good measure he also handled the piano concertos of Brahms and Bartok. Barenboim cemented his legacy as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from the early ’90s through 2006. Want more? He was married to the famous, and beautiful, cellist Jacqueline du Pre until her premature death.

Barenboim shows no signs of slowing down, and the profile of him in todays New York Times here (from which the above quote is taken) reveals a man who is always looking for a new challenge. You think Ozzy Osbourne is controversial? Barenboim broke the half-century taboo of performing Wagner in Israel (in 2001) and has used his influence, and the profoundly positive influence of the music he conducts, to promote dialogue and understanding amongst nations. To put it simply, his work with Palestinian intellectual Edward Said arguably did more to advance relations between Israel and Palestine than 90% of our world’s politicians.

Filed Under: Ruminations in Real Time Tagged With: Beethoven, Daniel Barenboim, Jacqueline du Pre, Moonlight Sonata, Mozart, New York Times

Song of the Day: Beethoven’s Pathetique, First Movement

November 16, 2008 By Sean Murphy Leave a Comment

Ludwig Van

Not winter yet, but it’s close. Dark even before the sun sets, cold even when you turn the heat on.
You know better than to try to sleep, so it’s just you and the music. Listening once again to the one person who always pulls you through, no matter what. You can listen to the symphonies or the string quartets anytime, but the sonatas, the Pathetique, especially appropriate for nights like tonight, nights when no sleep will come. That sublime suffering, the solitude, the sacred requital of this illimitable expression. The music, always the music.
After a while, before you can stop and think about it, you fall asleep.

Dreaming:
Beethoven. Not the celebrated facsimile of the consecrated composer (the image that often accompanies this effulgent music) staring down sternly at an adoring audience—the people to whom he had dedicated his great gifts—as the applause he can no longer hear surges through a breathless auditorium, but a frail, confused old man, huddled over a candle, awakened from an uneasy slumber and called into the darkness, again, to wrestle with the terrible, silent voices that fill his head.
What sort of God would suffer a man so great to be stripped of the very faculties that once compelled his creations? That refractory grace: continuing to conceive music, in the mind, yet prevented from hearing the sweet crescendo of the final coda. Agonizing over those last movements in the isolation of a lonely hour, perhaps looking to the sky, beseeching supplication, a respite, a return of the courage that once restored him.
A man whose reputed last words were I shall hear in Heaven. Proof of God’s existence for the faithful; proof of life’s capricious, inscrutable fate, for the faithless.

Filed Under: Ruminations in Real Time Tagged With: Beethoven, Pathetique