Hi :)

first my apologies not have posted thi evening on Glocals.
this was my plan, but till the very last day we didn't have a place for that and we were supposed to be already 21, maximum size of the event :)

second, thanks to Austin for the hospitality!
we really really appreciate your natural welcoming.
thanks to Shawn for helping
and thanks to Leslie for finding the location :)

here we are.
before copying my quote, just wanted to thanks everyone for coming and the volounteer for the next session :)

see you on the 8th of September at the Nyon Party - this is posted on GLocals :))

otherwise see you in October, when I'll be back from Italy

have a great time!

Davide

Canone Inverso
(Inverse canon)
by Paolo Maurensig.

“After all, it’s just a matter of playing very well an instrument” I said to him.
“Are you maybe a musician to be so sure of what you said? Do you play an instrument?”
“Only for my personal pleasure. I’m a writer.”
“Ah. A writer? And what do you write about?”
“Simply stories”.
“and I guess you wrote a lot of stories about music”
it was a question I’ve been asked so many times.
“I would have liked” I answered with a kind of quiver in my voice. “Unluckily it seems that music is not able to inspire me a story. I’m not able to put it into the human vicissitudes, like I could do for love, money, power.” At last, to rescue myself from an embarrassing situation, I said: “but is music an overcoming of all that, isn’t it?”
“an overcoming?” the man was looking at me, amazed.
“yes” I said, trying to speak with conviction “an overcoming”.
“an overcoming…” from his bitter tone, you could have thought that this world suggested to him something unpleasant. “you talk as a listener, not as musician. For sure the instrument you play just for personal pleasure…”
“a violoncello” I hastened to precise.
“for sure the violoncello that you play for your pure personal pleasure, it was imposed to you by parents who were ambitious or amateur players. From your age, I could guess that during your childhood the use of playing Hausmusik was till common.”
“that’s true”
“and naturally the hours spent to get notes from your violoncello have been a torture. When you were child, you were forced to play music. You couldn’t refuse. But, if now you think about it, you feel grateful to your parents to have imposed to you, even against your will, to study. Music now is part of your cultural heritage. You can appreciate it, you can competently talk about it, and you can also play it, if you want. Isn’t it?”
I had to admit it.
“and it’s here that you are wrong”
“I don’t understand”
“music is not that!” the musician protested. “and musicians are the descent of Caino”. Then, almost regretting his rude manners, he was silent for a long time, shaking his head in front of my incapability of understanding, and sinking into himself, like to gather ideas and worlds. With half-open eyes in the effort to remember something, his face, lowered its guard, shown all its devastation. At last he came back to stare at me like a drunk man or a madman.
“you are a writer and maybe you know that old Hungarian folktale where a violinist plays with such a huge passion that one day his soul leaves him to pours into his violin. Since that day, he’s not any more able to part from his violin, he’s forced to play it till the end of his strength, because only when he’s playing he feels to be alive…” the man stopped himself, like he fall in doubt of having chosen the wrong metaphor for the idea he wanted to explain. Then he tried an other approach: “you never took care about some of your bodily functions, like breathing, digesting, like the heart beating. Lungs, heart, intestine: they work indeed for you, regardless of your will or your awareness, and you notice them only when there’s something wrong with them.
But, let’s say that suddenly, to keep yourself alive, you were forced to consciously regulate them, using your will. Imagine having to make you heart beating, lungs breathing. Imagine having to regulate your blood pressure, the replacement of your cells, the removal of thousands of poisons you ingest every day. And imagine having to do all that knowing that a mistake, or even a simple oversight, could be fatal to you. Can you imagine all that?”
Sure, I was able to imagine that. But I wasn’t able to understand where he wanted to go.
“try to imagine to be forced to defeat moment by moment the death, with a constant effort, with an care that keeps you awake day and night. An effort, anyway, that must not impact all the rest, the daily life, I mean, with its feelings, its dues, the usual rituals of the social living. To other people’s eyes nothing should leak out, not even the shadow of a worry, everything should happen with the highest possible lightness, with the greatest naturalness, without displaying to anyone your extreme concentration.
“there you are. Try to give substance to the conventional idea you have of music, to give it bones and nerves, blood and sperm, try to imprison it into a body, into a brain, try to imagine the music in its personification, that, in order not to die, must concentrate without a break on the sound of its violin, on the movement of the bow that bounces and rubs the strings, gathering chords, melody, rhythm. Imagine that this is the only way to survive, because inside the silence every life would fade away.”
“better to die, then” I exclaimed, disconcerted. “what could attract us to a similar existence?”
the man sneered satisfied, like he was waiting for this reaction. “but it’s clear” he said “the music! Our own torture would also be the only reason for life.”

about the music... Lise can you write the details?
thanks :))


giglio6973Aug 30, 2007 @ 02:15