Road Apples by Tim Sanders
Jan. 16, 2012
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Matters of taste Taste is a funny thing. General Mills, for example, has come out with a new product called “Multi-Grain Peanut Butter Cheerios.” I think peanut butter Cheerios is an absolutely wretched idea, but then again everybody’s different. If those General Mills folks thought there was a market for sardine-flavored Lucky Charms, they’d undoubtedly mix up a few million batches. But the “taste” I refer to has more to do with other personal preferences. For example, I’ve learned that you should never, ever, accept anyone else’s recommendation where movies are concerned. Many years ago I was severely disappointed by “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,” which came highly recommended by a former close friend. And likewise, friends, regardless of how close they may be, should never accept your recommendations. Several years ago Marilyn and I rented the video “Beetlejuice,” and found it hilarious. We recommended it to some friends, and they watched it. Actually, they only watched part of it. The husband fell asleep halfway through, and his wife turned the set off. “It was stupid,” she said, and added that it was very unrealistic. The same holds true for musical taste. I really like good music. And by “good music” I mean music produced, for the most part, between 1959 and 1967, with the exception of anything by Bobby Goldsboro, Tommy Roe or (sorry, Marilyn) John Denver. But I’ve learned over the years that there is nobody whose musical tastes is identical to mine. This becomes apparent on Facebook, where people are always posting YouTube music videos so that their friends can enjoy them and admire their perception. Some of these folks will fool you into thinking they have excellent musical taste, just like yours, by posting tunes by Roy Orbison, The Mommas and the Poppas, Ray Charles, the Beatles and so on. And then, just when you feel you can trust them, they’ll insert something like Arnie and Satan’s Armpits singing Sniff This. This brings us to Classical Music, which must always be capitalized. I’ll admit that I know very little about Classical Music, but there are some pieces that I’ve always admired. Like, for example, the Lone Ranger Overture by William Tell, the theme song from The Bridge on the River Kwai, that DUM DUM DUM DUM piece Beethoven composed after he went completely deaf, and the Clare the Loon thing little Rhoda played over and over again, faster and faster, so as to get her into the mood to go out and set the janitor on fire in The Bad Seed. Classical Music is very dramatic music, and should never be interrupted by ringing cell phones. In a January 12 article in the UK Mail, Hannah Roberts tells how, during the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, a cell phone went off in the audience. Over and over again, it went off. During a very critical and dramatic portion of that symphony, right near the end. “The phone’s ‘marimba’ ring-tone went off from a front row seat of New York’s Avery Fisher Hall during Tuesday night’s performance, according to eyewitnesses.” MARIMBA RING-TONE? At that point, to everyone’s surprise, the conductor, Alan Gilbert, raised his baton, stopped the orchestra, turned toward the audience, pulled a 9mm automatic pistol from his pocket and shot the phone’s owner six times– Okay, so he didn’t do anything quite that dramatic. Orchestra conductors aren’t allowed to pack heat in New York City. What he did was: “During a pause of several minutes, [he] asked ‘Are you finished?’ When the culprit didn’t reply he said: “Fine, we’ll wait.’” And then, just to prove that Classical Music fans are human too, Roberts reported that “Some furious members of the audience called out for punishment: ‘Thousand dollar fine, Get out!’ and ‘Kick him out!’” There was concern that perhaps a hockey game would break out, but cooler heads prevailed, the offender promised that his phone would not go off again, and finally the orchestra was able to finish Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. I can sympathize with that orchestra conductor, because many’s the time I’ve wanted to do something dramatic to someone with one of those annoying cell phones that always goes off at inconvenient times. But when you don’t have an orchestra baton or a pistol, what can you do? On the other hand, I can also sympathize with the phone’s owner. I was once caught in a similar situation. When I was a youngster, most of the teenagers sat on the same row during the Sunday evening church service at our little Baptist church. My dad was the pastor, and he usually managed to ignore me during his sermons. But one Sunday night, as he was presenting a serious Biblical truth (I don’t remember what) I was entertaining the kids on each side of me by drawing caricatures of various church members on the back of a bulletin. I was hunched over, engrossed in my artistic endeavors, and finally noticed that the church had grown very quiet. The other teenagers were looking toward the pulpit, and when I raised my head, I saw Dad standing there, ominously tapping his fingers. “When you’re done, we’ll continue,” he said. I signified that I was done, and he finally went on with his sermon. During the rest of that service I thought a lot about what I’d done and how I could weasel my way out of it. After the service I hustled downstairs to the bathroom and jotted off a bunch of notes on the second half of the sermon–the half that I’d actually listened to–on the back of another bulletin. “I was only taking notes,” was a really stupid alibi for a kid who’d never taken notes on a sermon in his life, but it was all I could come up with. Like I said, I hate cell phones, but I can still sympathize with that guy at that New York City concert. He probably just preferred marimba music. |