Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (Foto--Piers)

Foto: Sala Quayle--Shermanton's Dream or . . . .

Dear Piers,
° Do you require our little Gipsy Cousin’s occult skills to interpret this design? No, a 93yearold woman in a nursing home can deconstruct it, ‘cause she did just this very morning.
° It’s a man’s shirt collar (the prissy kind that the Beatles used to wear, them and Orrin Hatch), a neck, another collar blown upwards by the wind, and--
° --and what looks to be a pheasant’s tailfeather where the brain ought to be.
° You are too young to remember the Golden Age of the Republic, before Vice Presidents were either giant balding bags of ineffectual buttwind or amateur military martinets.
° La bellezza maschile di Dan Quayle.
° Whom Doonesbury, wickedly, always represented--to save ink--as a talking Feather.
° Auguri, Shermanton!

° Purringly, Giac.

P. S. E per lo più il soffitto si alzerà e scenderà per “accordare” la sala. Domus Aurea di Nerone, Pit and Pendulum di Poe.

Yankee Trash Talk (Foto--Piers)

Foto: Domus Aurea--Theseum

Dear Piers,
° Overton’s Skirmisher Hall has had its gala opening--though Keith and Nicole weren’t there, so how gay could it’ve been?--and the reviews are in. Vuol dire, the feelings are hurt.
° Leonard Slatkin said, most unfeelingly, “it’s a welcoming space, and the acoustics are good.” Of course he will’ve been thinking of the ineptitudes of Lincoln Center that cost so much effort to paper over. But locally, I’m afraid folks expected him to say that he was going to break his contract with the Ephaistionton Filharmonic and petition the Overton Symphony to permit him to revel in the todiefor acoustics of their new hall. He will’ve meant well.
° The WSJ was kinder, because grounded in economic reality. “The designers gambled a lesser number of sellable seats against a vibrant acoustic. . . . This is a hall where every sound is not only heard but felt.” The antithesis of the sterile ipod experience, a genuine reason to buy a ticket.
° The Commercial Appeal suspects the WSJ knows what it’s talking about. “Frank Gehry’s new postmodern concert hall in Los Angeles is said to be the second coming of the classical experience, a hall that is as much a part of the event as the music. . . . But perhaps the Skirmisher’s is truly the revolutionary ideal: perhaps what the next generation of music lovers will want is not a hip place to go, but a time capsule to the era when music was one of the greatest luxuries.”
° The Journal-Constitution was just asking for it (and if I live and nothing happens, I’ll give it them in the next post). “The Skirmisher is a masterpiece of friendly civic design. Its predigested, retro styles complement . . . the honkytonks . . . .” Well that was so greenwithenvy it didn’t even hurt folks’ feelings.
° But then came the galumphing Yankee. “There is quality to admire here, but it is still a hall about other people’s halls. It has no point of view.” This because the designers visited certain renowned European halls (and an American one somewhat north by northeast of Appleton Magna) with a view toward learning what worked in the past, when Mahler and Debussy and Vaughan Williams were masters, and a hope that the same acoustic principles would work in the present, when John Cage and some other John are masters, and the future, when, no doubt, a new MozartcumBach will arise to reengineer the human ear, I am so very sure.

Tootleloo, Giac.

P. S. As for me, the first time I saw it, still in scaffolding, I said to myself, “It looks like it’s always been there, and they‘ve just finished restoring it.”

Anglican Communion Saved! (Piers)

Dear Piers,

° Such good news in the Pastoral Letter this morning: the Archbishop of Canterbury will be paying his New Year's visit to Sant' Ephaistiano after all, the Unity of the Anglican Communion is saved!

° The Little Pope (for Canterbury is no Rome, it's not even Newark) dictates only that "Christian poofters must change their practises." Then he cites that famous prophecy from Isaias:

The serpent shall dwell in the nest of the Basilisk,

The little lion shall lie down with the lamb,

The first shall be last,

And the tops shall be bottoms.

° Well, it's in the Bible.

° Betwixt and between, Giac.

Quaesivi (Piers)

Figliolino,
° While it’s true that you’ve landed in high cotton, and higher to come, it must be acknowledged that the field itself lies so very low that tidewater laps its very edge.
° So you’d better just slip inside Sant’ Ephaistiano while nobody’s looking--you know how intolerant infidels are--and celebrate the Dormition of la Guadalupe. The Tournemire would do just fine . . . .
° And then why not hire Joel (“ah Joel”--yes, Tex Tyler was entertaining at Trattoria Coloreproibito the other night, no Cowboy in sight) to set the proper Lectio?

In omnibus requiem quaesivi . . . .
Qui creavit me, requievit in tabernaculo meo . . . .

((Nota bene: here’s the entire dispute between Rome and the da Vinci Codesque Gnostics. They claimed that Σοφια, having emanated from God, gave Virgin birth to the deficient tribal god (JahwehSabaoth) of the Jews. While we Americans affirm with Rome that Σοφια, aka la Guadalupe, gave birth to the allsufficient Sun.))

Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libano,
et quasi cypressus in monte Sion.
Quasi palma exaltata sum in Cades,
et quasi plantatio rosae in Jericho.
Quasi oliva speciosa in campis,
et quasi platanus exaltata sum juxta aquam in plateis.
Sicut cinnamomum, et balsamum aromatizans odorem dedi;
quasi myrrha electa dedi suavitatem odoris.

Joel nothing--any cottonpicker in any field in the world could set those words to fragrant musick.

§

° Though yes, certainly Joel. For if you use the infidels’ money to pay for a platinum setting, how sweet that would be.
° Not at all as our rulers use our own tax money to pay for cheating us at home and for murdering babies in Libano and points East.

° Picking big green worms off the flowering tobacco, Giac.

Rip-oso

Fool and Juggler--in riposo.

° And not on account of Ferragosto.
° Megalomane, my 2 year old HP thoroughbred (fast and big and strong), is in R(equiescat) I(n) P(ace)-oso. Yes, he lost his thread and died.
° At least, Microsoft said he lost his thread. Don’t see how, I know I don’t have it.
° And Symantec swears a Trojan silkworm didn’t devour his thread; but you know what the fake Lorelei Lee said to the French judge, “But your Honour, I never swear.”)
° And HP has moved to India, and wisely and timeously so.

° So, Megalomane died. And the computer geek resurrected him, at the cost of all my recent files.
° And I spent a day restoring all the files and programs and settings.
° And then he died again.
° So I resurrected him by appealing to the Recovery Wizard that dwells across the Great Partition. And just before Megalomane dies again, I did think I would post this summary notice.

° As we prepare to celebrate the great Summer Festival of la Guadalupe, we find that my beloved Piers is in high cotton, with every expectation of next year’s crop being even higher. So there’s my retirement all provided for.
° We find my little gypsy Coz hoeing that very long row called wedded bliss.
° We find the little Lad pursuing his B.A. in Art, minor in Starvation. And yet I do not think he will starve.
° We find Sandy mired down in the molasses of wealth.
° We find Lettye bleeding from her heart like the Pelican, niente da fare.
° We find Julja having done the one thing the French do better than be Rational, but I’m too polite to call its name.
° And Leggero is off to Charleston, for good, in senso doppio.

° Megalomane’s last movie, before he began to make those clicketyclack sounds of incipient cybermadness, was Room with a View.

Truth! Beauty! Love!

If there is Truth, we hominids are too mentally deficient to apprehend it; if there is Beauty, it lies in the eye of the beholder; and if there is Love, it’s worthless in comparison with Lust, with Liking, or with Parental Duty.

° My most recent movie, that made me cry and salt up the inside of my glasses, was Gone with the Wind, on the arthouse bigscreen. For I’m a lot like Scarlett, all Southerners are, even Tonio Scalia. And I wasn’t crying at the end, because I know Scarlett got what she wanted and what she needed and what she was capable of appreciating.
° Namely, she got a Cat and its Kitten to rear (Ashley and Beau), she got Tara (and the money to maintain it), she got a hobby (eating beignets and costillas), and she got rid of that codpiece of a Rhett.
° Who went off to Charleston, for good.--Giac, lo Sciocco di foolandjuggler