I nearly fell on the floor laughing during a story about organ players and a church and bringing in Debussy and Stravinsky and Gershwin (the conductor would play the piano accordingly for each one, "and everybody would forget where they were when they were passing the collection plate and would look up and say, 'Get me a Tom Collins...keep the change.'") and John Cage ("With his talk of something about 'chance elements'" while the conductor leaned over into the piano). I think we were (not only the only two under middle age in the auditorium) about the only two who got that particular joke because there's a John Cage collective here in K'zoo that we just saw "perform" this past spring.
He's so damn good at evoking feelings. He ended the first half with a heart-tugging song he wrote about a guy going off to war and coming back without his legs and how the people he had gone there with would march in the Memorial Day parade every year, and they just kept getting older and dying off until finally no one he knew was left to march and to remember. Then after that he went into "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and I became extremely choked up. He ended the concert with memories of growing up in the summer with farms around and gardens, and a line about picking a big, ripe tomato, dusting the dirt off and taking a bite with the warm tomato juice running down your chin that made me sigh contently while remembering similar things growing up in Oklahoma.
He really got pretty political--more than I've ever heard him get before. I was surprised, but I think all three of us were pretty pleased he did...also amused, because probably half of the audience was pretty conservative.
Okay...I need to get ready for work now, so I'll stop babbling about it.
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Date: 2006-09-19 12:01 pm (UTC)I nearly fell on the floor laughing during a story about organ players and a church and bringing in Debussy and Stravinsky and Gershwin (the conductor would play the piano accordingly for each one, "and everybody would forget where they were when they were passing the collection plate and would look up and say, 'Get me a Tom Collins...keep the change.'") and John Cage ("With his talk of something about 'chance elements'" while the conductor leaned over into the piano). I think we were (not only the only two under middle age in the auditorium) about the only two who got that particular joke because there's a John Cage collective here in K'zoo that we just saw "perform" this past spring.
He's so damn good at evoking feelings. He ended the first half with a heart-tugging song he wrote about a guy going off to war and coming back without his legs and how the people he had gone there with would march in the Memorial Day parade every year, and they just kept getting older and dying off until finally no one he knew was left to march and to remember. Then after that he went into "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and I became extremely choked up. He ended the concert with memories of growing up in the summer with farms around and gardens, and a line about picking a big, ripe tomato, dusting the dirt off and taking a bite with the warm tomato juice running down your chin that made me sigh contently while remembering similar things growing up in Oklahoma.
He really got pretty political--more than I've ever heard him get before. I was surprised, but I think all three of us were pretty pleased he did...also amused, because probably half of the audience was pretty conservative.
Okay...I need to get ready for work now, so I'll stop babbling about it.