Everything I associate with you I once associated with storms.

I awoke this morning thinking of rich people eating breakfast. Well, brunch actually. There is an event held nearby each weekend at one of those converted steeler mansions. They throw open their doors to all, but seem only to invite those who could at least plausibly inhabit the grand old place as tenants. The rest of us just look and feel kind of unwanted. The house says no. This event is called 'Bach Beethoven & Brunch' and sounds preposterous. I like the idea of a secular alternative to the conventional forms of worship and I love Bach and brunch. But the confluence of money, cultural showboats and foreboding real estate just sounds gross.

Instead I had a cup of coffee sitting in a bathtub. I was looking at ferns, housesitting in the most literal sense. The first record of the day, which as best as I can date it, goes back to the mid-30's but could be as late as 1943, was called, "Hula Blues" by Sol Hoopii. As I wandered off, occasionally batting away a curious kitten (the only time a cat ever wants a bath is when you're in the bath), I thought of all the disconnect and hard resistance fought by artists who emerged in the good light by virtue of talent alone. And then I thought of the rest of us, how limited we are by those means, and how we're compelled, not always by the direct motivation of happiness, but by the displacement of an audience we do not enjoy. By the lack of a recognized greatness. I was listening to Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 20, in D minor and then a formative favorite, the tumultuous 2nd Piano Concerto by Rachmaninov.

The former, by my limited means of articulation and insight on the subject, shows a quality in Mozart that I suspect may even have been watershed to his composition, the unity of confidence and color invested in the solo instrument in the context of the orchestra. There is no room for preening, though the piano delivers limitless surges. The authorial instinct gave intelligence to the strings in a way familiar to anyone who enjoys, say, Gauguin or (my favorites) those old WWII-era Warner Brothers cartoons, all of which rely so heavily on the currents and rigor of the backgrounds, without which the central characterizations would pale. I know precious little about Mozart, and sometimes to a silly degree wish I could have met him just to watch old cartoons and trade Playboys from the 60's--the ones in which the very idea of nudity is only possible as an outrageous opposition to the equally contrived setpieces in which it is displayed. What a blast.

Of course there's high school, but that Rachmaninov, anymore, reminds me of a wonderful movie from 1945, Brief Encounter, starring the magnetic Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, the latter whom you may remember as the embattled English cop in The Third Man. When I think back to its evocations--the concerto, it now feels slightly strange to associate it with a romantic scene, an association made concrete in a terrific staircase farewell sequence in the movie. In much the same way young people are occasionally caught off guard by Turner and Constable, I was impressed by something in the 2nd Piano Concerto that felt purely abstract and atmospheric. Like Turner's roiling waves hugging the sun and all but blotting out the doomed evidence of sea-going humankind, this concerto speaks in heavy, ominous gestures. It's amusing to think of it just now. I heard it at an age when nothing romantic had ever done that.

This recording was made for the Remington label (1950-57; the specific date of this recording escapes me), one that creeps up in my crate digs with increased frequency these days. Listeners in the Pittsburgh area are advised to check out the small but impressive Remington section at Jerry's. A budget label devoted to classical recordings, Remington captured in a way few small imprints could the austere stylism and substance of the golden age of the record industry--a time when the currency of art in music recording was king.

Sadly, brunch will not be served today. The photos I took of last night's grilled sockeye salmon and sweet and sour potato ratatouille came out dark and blurry. Customarily I like that in food pictures, lends them a kind of Bruegelesque binge delirium. But I was really relying on my cheapo digital Polaroid to pick up up a little of that ruby red grapefruit color of the fish, offset by the onyx cubes of eggplant. No dice.

On a final editorial note, I extend gratitude to my latest reader, Cap'm. Thanks for your kind words. I'll be following along with you!

Middle-aged romantic seeks low blue flame, steady employment.

Jacques Louis David Self Portrait (French 1794)

I am trying to get at something

and I want to talk very plainly to you

so that we are both comforted by the honesty

That stanza was taken from David Berman's excellent, shaggy meditation on aging, Self Portrait at 28. I distinctly remember discovering the poem five years ago, when I turned 28 myself. There is a silliness that helps move the underlying notes of regret and confusion; it is a world with a hill, a dog whose reliance on the compassion of its owner is paramount, and a kind of time passage that leaves wisdom in a dearth residue. We (our people) never actually become smart.

Today is precisely the kind of spiritual day that I looked out from a window above houses that rowed like the layers of shark's teeth, and beyond, the Delaware and decided to return to Pittsburgh and live. I thought of that tired adage about the Alaskans and their 69 words for snow; we must have at least as many in Pennsylvania for no longer raining exactly. There it was. And here it is. The sad truth of rewards is that what they most often reward is so probable, or maybe even inevitable, that the thrill is just a vague buzz in the hands, or a feeling of surprise, like when you fall asleep with the flu and wake up momentarily not knowing if it's 6:30 P.M or A.M.. It just occurred to me that while trying frame an observation in a Berman poem I unwittingly began to parrot him.

Right. 

The rain is only part of the equation. 

Over the weekend I picked up Howard Hanson conducting a Barber bill on Mercury, probably around 1947. Logistically it's a fantastic jumping off point for both Barber and Hanson, as it includes the familiar Adagio for Strings. Instantly the rapport between Barber and Hanson is established. Just as instant is the conductor's conservative approach. Much as I like Charles Mingus for his adherence to classical and folk modes of expression in his composition, I appreciate how Hanson, a charter figure in the influential Eastman School, seized a moment bustling with avant garde ideas and resisted judiciously. Symphony no. 1 appeals as a kind of statement of New Romantic principles. There's nothing pedestrian in the excitement and abstraction of the Pennsylvania lansdscape, nevertheless listening to it--perhaps the product of the wackiness that surrounded it--and then ensued; or just time itself, it feels as if the chemistry of composer and conductor produces a stabilizing expression.

These late mornings in which music is invariably a solitary experience, seem cut from time and set aside. Symphony no. 1 was written in 1936, when Barber, a child prodigy whose earliest compositions were written at age 7, was just 26. What stands out today--again, especially in contrast to the enduringly jarring sound of the avant garde that ran in a kind of self important caravan through the 20th century, is how at once confident and stirring it sounds without ever falling upon novelty or haughty challenges. The composer's love of the Romantic poets presses the ardor of the composition, while the sterling features of the sound suggest something entirely local, tactile and absolutely familiar.

But in the authorial chemistry of that sound I keep finding myself thinking of Samuel Barber, the imaginative, sharp-minded child.  There is of course no anecdote to support it, but the Symphony emits the sense of a child's imagination (set to an adult's talent for order). The moving parts are brilliant and impossible, striding with the essence of the land, its living and all sound.  

It is not that kind of day.  Not naturally. 

The Gimmel 100

I'm inching ever so much closer to restoring--in true, working form, the podcast feature on the site. I won't bore you with the litany of setbacks and idiotic mistakes made by yours truly that have put it off this long. Sufficed to say, it'll be back and better than its crappy predecessor ("The Gimmel 80").

For now I'll tell you this evening has been a Bossom Buddies checkerboard of Dan's Iron Maiden and my Israel "Cachao" Lopez. Oil and water, I tell ya. But we're being diplomatic about it, and, splitting the difference, I threw Gary Numan's Pleasure Principle on. Hopefully some time in the weekend's flurry there'll be an hour or so to get dusty-kneed in the classical aisle at Jerry's--it's like looking for Datsun owners manuals in the Library of Congress. They keep 'em in the mop closet next to Marilyn Quayle's novel(s).

You'll receive a full report.