Freitag!

Friday. Friday, Friday, Friday! Actually, for me, Friday is more like Sunday, since I have to work on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. But it’s still a mythical day from back when I worked a 0700-1500 shift for a well meaning, but poorly managed, telecommunications contractor. And, of course, the magic of Fridays when you were in school.
But this is a Friday unlike my other Fridays. I don’t work tomorrow, and I had another fun, awesome, long pedagogy discussion with the great, intelligent, well-spoken members of the faculty of a college I won’t name. And went out for a drink (two beers! And I used to be such a tea totaler…or is it teetotaler? Spell check says the latter!) with J afterwards, and then saw the Great Chrome Bean for the first time. I was totally enraptured by that thing! First, I was just grooving on the reflections of the city, and people, then I started to look at the shape and figure out what formula you use to derive it. I know it’s calculus, and I was speculating whether it was a saddle combined with an ellipsoid or an elliptical paraboloid, but then realized that I was missing out on some beautiful music. The orchestra in Millennium Park was playing Bruckner, whom I had never heard before, and J and I took a moment to just listen.
Classical music just has that effect on me. It is so much more emotive than any other musical form. Only in classical music can you find a composer’s ability to make you feel the joy of crying at a funeral, the sadness of a child’s first smile, or the triumph over disappointment and fate when one has been laid at his lowest. I love just about every form of music, except jazz, and I appreciate what those other musical styles bring to the world. But only in classical can you find humor, tragedy, lust, strength and holiness, and all in the same movement.

*Note: it’s not that I hate jazz, it’s just that it puts me to sleep. Seriously, five minutes into any jazz and I will be out like a light. In my music appreciation class, after I fell asleep listening to a selection the professor made, he asked me what kind of music it was. I answered immediately, if a little blearily, jazz. And how did I know that, he wanted to know. “Because I fell asleep,” I said.
And, there’s the whole thing about jazz that it’s like an inside joke. Go to a jazz club, sit down, listen for a bit. Nothing terribly interesting happens, but then the whole crowd smiles, laugh that smug laugh, and either clap or snap their approval. You didn’t hear the band do anything clever or technical, at least you don’t think so, so you ask the person next to you what the guys just did that was so cool. He turns to you, cigarette smoke wafting artistically from his hand as he says, “It’s not what he did, man, it’s what he didn’t do!”
Now fuck that! I am not going to sit here after paying a cover and conforming to a two-drink minimum just to have to pay attention to both what they’re doing and what they should be doing! This is really starting to sound like class work. So, I bounce on jazz. It’s good, and you have to be great to play it, but I listen to music to relax, not study.*

So Jand I took the time to listen to Bruckner build this incredible soundscape, and just chill in the grass by a tree. It was special and peaceful, and the park had a great energy and community going on. J had to leave for her train, and I ran into work to give Lord K the new stuff I had written, and to say hi. He is really enthusiastic about this idea that we’re working on. We are going to have to get an outline running together here.
Friday night: fun with German.
I must go and try to get some sleep; I wound up staying out later than I expected (note the time of the post) and I have to get up later today to see my beautiful grandnieces and my wonderfully mischievous grandnephew.