Crack This...

I want to at least start this post while the emotion is still high...

Just passing through the living room, pausing as long at a given moment as I could, to catch snippets of Tschaikowsky's ballet "The Nutcracker" on t.v.

Go 'head; ax me why I didn't watch it all, or at least view longer sessions. G'head.


[Answer]
I wouldn't have been able to see through the tears the beauty of this dance-choreographed music never fails to bring to this grown man's eyes. How's them apples?

I was fortunate to have been, during part of my youth, an enrollee in J.P. Cornelius Magnet School. Through many of their field trips and extra-cirricular offerings (and a mother's unwavering fortitude that, regardless of how many hours away from the abode it took, we kids were not to lack in ANY aspect of culture, sport, or other desired function whence would better us), I was able to take in events I now dream of being able to expose my Nephew and Nieces to: Rumple Stilskin (@ the Galley here in our beloved 4th largest city in the U.S. of A.); The Nutcracker; Houston Symphony hammering home the William Tell Overture...

I don't remember which came first in life's bid to make classical music foremost my preferential listening, so I offer them both to follow.

Long about the late 80's or so [if I can trust both memory and resume-- and both have been constantly updated since then, so who's to say... But I digress:)] I gained new employ. GREAT!!! Better pay, better...

Oh, WAIT...

Whattya mean, report @ 0630??? was this in the contract? Oh, didn't have one o' them...

Well, look... O.K. 'S only a 6-minute commute from the domicile. And a tad more dinero. So... I owe, I owe, It's off to work I go.

But being so NOT a morning person, and the morn coming suddenly much earlier-- well, I ain't kin to commercials anyhow, and sure do not care, at an hour when god has as yet even turned on the air, to be screamed at to buy one of your plethora of used cars.

Then I discovered the Austin Classical station (88.9? 89.5? whichever, a gift from above, surely!).

No more car commercials. Damn near no more WORDS, even; just pure music. PURE music.

Then I remember early on when the cassette era was giving way to them new-fangled "c.d.'s". My then-spouse and I were at some office social function what was giving away door prizes, and bless her heart, she always had the luck... So she wins the drawing for a Walkman portable c.d. player (quite a boon considering the price of 'new' technology when it is just that-- NEW). Well, on the way home, being new parents and always in need of some medicament or other, we stopped at a {name-brand 5 & dime}. Lowen B. Hauld [my optometrist, remember :)?], right next to the cashiers counter was a rack of 'discount' c.d.'s. For the low low price of one u.s. dollar (think maybe three of today's green frogskins) there it was-- the perfect compilation to truly experience the difference in clarity between those out-of-date cassettes and these laserdiscs of the morrow: one titled "The Best Of Classicals".

The beauty of this C.D. was that not only did it ring so much clearer (I'm pretty sure; it must have, oui?!?) than those bulky tapes, but it reminded me how much classical music I actually WAS familiar with-- just listen to the soundtrack to any Tom & Jerry, or Road Runner, or REAL cartoons; you might be surprised how much you know, too!

Now folks...How many of you do not recognize the four most-recognized notes in music's history?
{Ba-Ba-Ba-Bummmm!)
Or have not 'known', if could not call by title, the musical accompaniment to every city's 4th of July fireworks display {The 1812 Overture}? I promise you EVERYONE of us who lent ear to a smattering of either of these masterpieces WOULD NOT FAIL to recognize.

This is what I fear we will lose when our society gives up so much of "it's" [READ:OURS, yours and mine, folks] freedom.

The tears I shed now aren't SHIT compared to the heart and soul that will be lost when these are,too. And when we are fighting each another for basic necessities such as bread, where do you think the arts will stand as priorities? Where goeth Van Gogh, and Dostoyevski, and my friend Ash?

Ashes to ashes...

And I cry, people for the beauty my children's children may never know...

READY YOURSELF, MY FRIENDS.

Cygnus