The Taste of Things Long Delayed

First off, a thanks to some friends of mine for the comments online and in person that I received for my previous post. I've got a revised version now because of some particularly helpful criticism. Thanks to Steve Delchamps for some very specific and helpful technical criticism. And to Laya for the encouragement from her own blog (called ihaveoneofthesealready.blogspot or somewhere i have travelled, gladly beyond, where she is blogging her year in Cairo) and to Morgan, Evan, Billy, to name a few.

There are several things I'd like to mention, sort of a journal-style more than anything else, but I'd like to focus on some related ruminations. If this symphony shit really bores you, go ahead and don't read it.

I do love the symphony. I feel like it's a good way to look sorta snobbish talking about it, but I can't apologize. It has been a long time since I've been to a symphony... or anyway it had been before last night, when I went to see the CSO under visiting conductor Michael Tilson Thomas (one of my favorites alive) play three works last night. I went with Laura, Darin's younger sister, who is without a doubt in my mind the only person I know who loves the music of Dmitri Shostakovich more than I do. This is saying a lot, I'd say he's my favorite musician at least in the twentieth century. I was reawakened to the experience of watching this performance. Some things I'd like to say of the experience are unrelated to the particulars. Some are intimately tied to it, but here are some things that I'll expand upon from notes I took on the bus home:

The approximate performance times of each piece are in the program. I honestly can say this is the only way I would ever be able to tell anybody how long any performance is. Time really gets very little notice. I can never be sure how long that violin melody lasts, or the length of the overbearing and ominous sequence of notes and blasts from the brass, there's no way I could tell you how long the whole thing lasts. I really get caught up in it. It's spectacular. Now I do have a terribly short attention span, and my mind does go everywhere, but it's so different than my usual day. Maybe I'm just used to seeing the clock at the bottom of my screen or the timestamps in my terminals. Quentin's watch is shattered for those moments though, to borrow a metaphor from Faulkner*. Sitting like that through a performance is something people in my generation (as well as probably many before and after) I believe find unfamiliar. Not often do we sit so quietly with one particular sense targeted for any longer than a couple minutes.
The first piece was composed by Tilson Thomas himself. It's a song in symphonic brass. t a big fan of brass only (which isn't to say I don't like it) but this was a well written piece. The thing to notice about this one, is the conductors movements seemed different than the next two. Maybe it was the orchestration. Something I thought about though, was that it must be odd for a renowned conductor to be performing something of his own while he's so known for conducting rather than composition. I imagined what it would be like, and felt it uncomfortable, like I would have to be more detached for something so far more personal and outside of my own established façade to reveal more. Fine if one was just the composer, or just the conductor, or at least so well known to be both, but this? -- Anyhow, I probably projected too much onto this conductor. If I could do anything in music, it might just be conducting.
Sibelius's 4th Symphony is really something else. So much so that the conductor turned and faced the crowd, and addressed us. Spoke right to the audience. This is weird in a way that only symphony-goers who have seen it before know. Ive seen it thrice, and have been to who knows how many concerts. He said it's his least performed, not because it has less to offer, but on the contrary, because it has more. It's a weather front of dark variations on a theme. It's downright intense. It cuts you off in the middle of a motive or a melody and throws its force in silence, or in a full orchestra of a new motive. It's auspicious, frightening, and uncertain. I hear it's on of his least liked -- Sibelius has never been one of my favorites, but I loved this. I caught myself about gasping with surprise.
Shostakovitch 5 is what I came to see. I'm not sure where to begin. First of all, if you can, you should download this. Or at least a Shosty symphony. However much or little interest you have in the style. One thing I can say about Shostakovitch is I'm never for a second bored. It really keeps my elusive attention, and it seems incredible every moment of it. It was also brilliantly conducted that night. I could go on, but with this symphony... you get the idea.


I've also mentioned at the beginning of September that I quit drinking and smoking for the entire month. I took thirty days without a cigarette or a drink. I didn't miss alcohol that much. I really didn't. There are some things I despise about it, but I do also kinda like it. And I like whiskey. And I like wine. And I like beer. A little odd to start drinking again though a month before I'm actually of legal age to do so. I got a good wheat beer for this, and I assure you, I still think its fantastic stuff. Tastes no different than I remember it...
...unlike the first cigarette I had this month, at 12:02AM on the first. I tasted it like never before. A Nat Sherman Classic, by the way. It assured me that this is something I do for enjoyment. But I'll be honest, I really can't say for sure that I'm going back to being a regular smoker. Not sure I like it that much. Not sure it's worth whatever... money, having a non destroyed esophagus, whatever.

My facebook message was changed on the first to "Mike Henning is smoking and planning..." in honor of that first cigarette, and because it's NaNoPlanMo**! That's right, I'm going to participate again. It's also funny because... well, you'll see on November first.

Before I conclude, I'd like to mention a new purpose for this blog, or an intention at least. I'm going to use this to write open letters to politicians and the like. Feel free to suggest a matter about which to write them, or ask why I would want to. my goal is at least two per month. Eventually, perhaps two per week.

* from The Sound and the Fury, specifically in the second chapter. I am aware of how pretentious that may be, but there's no other way I can think to explain it half so well. For a description of this concept, see Jean-Paul Sartre's great essay Time in the Work of of Faulkner. Both of these are recommendations.
** Google NaNoWriMo for hat the hell I'm talking about.