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| "The City is A Song" fugal trio, proportion plan, 1976 |
That old gang of mine was falling apart. Entropy. Rod, being a year older had graduated the year before. There had been a trip to France and a move to New York. Xenia, hanging in there pitching with Rod as he set up a love triangle with Bou Bou, also went to New York, bailing out of school to do it. Soon she was tentatively back, though, installed back on Westland Ave with the prostitutes. She took up exotic dancing in a striptease club for money. I didn't witness her act very often, but I did witness it. She also enticed Lucy Tennant into this endeavor briefly. The moxie this entailed is beyond me.
Lucy and Laird were also still in there pitching, and it was to Laird's and Lucy's that I beat a retreat when I got off work early on the 18th of November. The Tennant's relationship had less than a month to stay above the water line.
"Cal! Long time no see."
(I thought Laird hated cliché. That must be my faulty memory.)
"How you two been hangin?"
Lucy nods a wan nod. She comes up and gives me a hug.
"It's good to see you, sweet man."
"Here, have a beer and take a load off."
Back in the bean bag chair, I ponder my conversational gambit. Beside the chair, on the floor, is a chess board and pieces all arrayed, game in progress. Next to the board is a Bobby Fischer book, "Every Great Chess Player Was Once A Beginner." I nod at the chess stuff.
"You play?" asks Laird.
"Dad tried to teach me, but it didn't take."
"I've gotten obsessed. I never got it either. I used to just push the pieces. But now I've discovered the difference between tactics and strategy."
"Bobby Fischer?"
"It's a book of end games. If you don't know what you're aiming for, you don't know how to set up the opening or direct a strategic mid-game."
Lucy yawns.
"What have you been up to Cal?"
"I've been trying to finish the symphony."
"Your friend, Flighty Heidi, was up here a few days back."
"Really?"
"Yeah. She gave me quite an earful."
"On what topic?"
"On the topic of her virginity."
"A favorite topic."
"She was going on and on about how she felt endless pressure to have sex."
"From me?"
Nodding ascent.
"She says she's strictly monogamous and doesn't want to get involved in all of this promiscuity."
Sitting cross legged on the floor, Laird is fooling with chess pieces. He guffaws at this.
"At this, I took exception. I find the accusation of promiscuity offensive."
"It is a sexual zoo out there."
"Yes. Well, then she says, 'I'm a virgin and I want to keep it that way until the right person comes along.' I'm wondering why she's telling me all of this."
"Just to get it off her chest, I should think."
More guffawing from Laird at the mention of Heidi's chest.
"I told her I was not responsible for things outside my control."
"How did that go down?"
"She got pissed off and left."
Just for the record, I can now take Heidi's side. I found the expression 'Flighty Heidi' a bit unfair. I joined in using it of course. I found Lucy's irritation unfounded, and Heidi's accusation farily accurate. She'd just caught me in bed with her roommate, after all. I couldn't share this tidbit with the Tennants. I could barely face up to it myself. That Heidi hadn't mentioned it either, but instead unburdened herself in the abstract as if before a third party mediator, I found to be the class act of someone I truly loved but had no way of reaching. Heidi did not know that Lucy and I had been intimate, so had no way of knowing that her mediator was biased. Had she known that, her notion of the promiscuity would have been reinforced. Lucy's response was measured fairly carefully. She distanced herself from responsibility for the younger woman's life. Did any of us realize the terrible chances Heidi was taking in the sexual zoo, "out there?" I didn't. It did not occur to me that those runnings around the fens at dawn, the staying late at the easel at school, the naievete, would be observable by the denizens of the deep end? We'd all been bitten in the ass. We were all on our own, and personally responsible for our well being. Perhaps if Lucy had been able to warn Heidi not to play with fire, she might still have gotten burned as we all did, but she might have been better equipped to put out the fire. That I utterly failed her, the both of us, is to my eternal shame. Nothing can be done but live it down.
I was held up for my groceries. Yes. I had taken my food stamps down to the Stop and Shop and stocked up on staples. It was snowy, and the ground crunched as I made my way back to the apartment with the bag. There were slick spots, so I was looking down. I missed the approach of the huge, tall black dude. He blocked my path. His hands were in his pockets. I leaped ahead to the possibility he was concealing a weapon. I assumed he wanted me to assume just that. He’s very cool, this dude.
“Don’t want no trouble, man. Just what you got in the bag.”
It’s very cool in the cold, our breath rising in mist from our faces.
“I just got my groceries, man.”
“Let’s see what all you got.”
He indicates the park bench. I comply. I am recalling that Charles Winston, the owner of the Westland Avenue Parking Garage and Car Wash, told me just a few days before that he got held up in the office at gun point. Cleaned out his register and safe, but he didn’t get fucking blown away. I don’t want any holes in myself either. One by one, I take the groceries out of my bag and set them on the bench.
“OK. You can go.”
I leave the dude with the groceries, the bag, sitting on the bench. He’s putting the stuff back in the bag. I look back just the once, and that’s what I see happening. On my shaking legs I walk back the way I came, in the direction of the Stop and Shop.
I stop in at the Garage. Winston’s in his office. He comes out to say hi. It’s unsual for me to drop in unless I’m picking up my check, or dickering about the schedule.
“What’s up, Cal?”
“I just got held up.”
“Welcome to the club!”
I buy the same groceries again. On the way up the street, again, one of the prostitutes, looking a little ill in the daylight, walks past.
“I saw all that go down, baby,” she says. “That’s some bad shit!”
“Thanks for saying,” I say, not breaking my stride. It was very cold. It was too cold for more chat. It crosses my mind that my assaulter could repeat the stunt. This time, I’ll take the bullet. I gotta eat, man.
Shit.
On the 20th of November, I went to see Linda Litman in a play, "Hot L Baltimore." I've forgotten the play, but I remember that backstage, where I watched the play from the fly gallery, someone had graffiti scrawled "the world's oldest professions, acting and prostitution, ruined by amateurs."
On the 2nd of December, I turned in a Prelude and Fugue to Hugo Norden. That Sunday, the 4th, the Chorale sang a concert at a church in Fall River.
On the 9th, after Norden, there was a Concert Hour performance. Was this the one where I read from "The Varieties of the Psychedelic Experience," Van Dyke played the hoppychord while the dancers danced, and all in all we made sport of our academic setting? I think not. That one was a one off special. That same night, the Chorale sang at St. Cecelia's.
On Saturday evening, the eve of Justin's big recital, we did acid. Now, not surprisingly, given the piled up difficulties I'd made for myself (having elected not to just concentrate on school, and having elected to anger the muse), I had a full on bad trip. Perhaps much can be learned from being turned into psychological jello, but the timing was very unwise. I recall Lucy Tennant trying like hell on the Sunday morning after to put me back together. I had been rehearsing with Justin as page turner and stop puller, and I was needed in action. Justin's recital commenced at three in the afternoon. I was very shaky in the organ loft. I did my damnedest to keep a stiff upper lip. As I turned the pages and watched the music breathe from the pipes, I had to ignore (reality test) the fires that kept breaking out at the edges of the score. I might have missed by a fraction a timed registration change. Timing never was my strong suit. Still, I survived. Justin brought down the house, as I recall. And in the end, he corked it by taking up that day with Lucy Tennant. Her marriage to Laird was effectively over. Oh, sure, there was paperwork. Laird always hated doing that paperwork. But it was done.
The sixteenth of December was the last day of classes. I hope to God I spent the winter break locked in my apartment writing that symphony. I must have, because I got the one movement done. The last movement. And all of that copying. My portfolio was becoming presentable. I ended up dickering with Lee about the symphony movement. The requirement was for a duration of ten minutes or more.
"Let's see, Cal. At 240 measures, mostly 3/4 time, you get 720 beats, roughly. You play that at 108 beats per minute, and you only get 6.66 minutes. Very roughly."
"OK, play it slower than. Just change the MM."
"Well, in that case, you need to drop the tempo to 72 BPM. That gives you 10 minutes of playing time. Is that your intention?"
"My intention, sir, is to graduate."
"I will argue for your graduation regardless, Cal. A duration of almost 7 minutes... It's short a little, but so what? I'd rather you express your intentions."
I must've liked the idea of a duration of 6.66 (mark of the beast and all of that), and that's what went on the bound vellum copy that I submitted. A quick look over this pile of shit (actually, it looks pretty interesting!) reveals that at 72 BPM, the piece is much more stately, and more importantly, playable. I, however, will not be copying parts any time soon. Let sleeping dogs lie. The second movement, unfinished and probably unfinishable, bears the title "The Moon in Endless Night." The cardboard box this manuscript inhabits is mostly exactly that, unfinished, the stub of a moon in endless night. The First Movement, what was that going to be? "The Cobbles at Cheshire Massachusetts." I have no idea what that would have been like. A backpacking destination. Perhaps I should hike it again and see.
On January 6th, 1977, a Friday, in the midst of a 12 hour workday at the Garage (babysitting the place, nothing was going on except regulars coming and going), I had dinner with Mara Monetti. Relaxed and lovely, we spoke of the coming semester (our last) with a mixture of apprehension and relief. I'd last seen her dance a year before. She was looking fabulous, but I knew better than to hit on her in any way. I was learning, the very hard way, the hardest way. The uproar with Gail was all too real. My lips were sealed. A quick feast at some forgotten Bistro, and then back to work. On slow nights, I took my scores in to the Garage, and worked there. I was doing much with percussion and twelve tone rows. These sorts of things did not require me to sound the notes to check the harmonies. I was working hard to achieve that synthesis of all I'd learned and turn it in. At last, on the delicious break, the calm before the storm, I was working.
On January 17th, Monday, the first day of classes. I opened the Garage at 6 AM and worked until 8 AM. I start a system of counting up my working hours.
On Tuesday, Smith has me play the works, Schumann, Bach, and a suite by Jean Berger. That evening, there is a rehearsal of the 'Homefires Fantasy' in the concert room. I bought a reel of tape for my battered old Sony and lugged it over to make the only recording of that piece I possess. I'd been up to that wicked librarian and asked her if I might borrow a tape recorder. Her response was legendary:
"No, because somebody might need it."
Van Dyke plays his part very well, though the trumpet player mars the opening and some other bits. My cast was Yoshi on flute, Diana Norris on clarinet, and good old Steve Harrison on trumpet. As you see, I wrote for my friends. It is the best way to make a piece, the real kind that actually gets played.
The next morning, I played the tape for Professor Anderson Lee. He listened from beginning to end and sat for a moment.
"Very Ivesian."
"Well, we've been really soaking in Ives."
"I don't mean that as a put down. I would never write a piece like that."
"I know, sir, you're very dedicated to the 'new music' and all of that."
"No, well, yes, of course. But I also don't think I could write a piece like that. Even if I really wanted to."
"Why not, sir?"
I'm sullen, thinking that this is abuse, when actually it's the highest praise.
"Because...I'm not sure I have the balls."
"Sorry if I offend."
"No. You...make me think I should re-think."
As a matter of fact he did. Somehow, after a brief period of famous soul searching, which I read about in the Musical Quarterly once upon a time well after the fact, he broke away from his mentor Babbitt and got involved with electronic music. After that, he became a minimalist (I share that impulse). He did very well. They all did. My obscurity is the result of being really lazy.
On the weekend, I went down to New York. I bought vellum paper at Circle Blueprint. I still have the paper, I never used it. I decided instead to simply photocopy my symphonic score. I didn't have the energy to write all of those black marks out again with a rapidograph.
New York was the scene of the reconstituted 'Nest.' This appellation stood in for the dancers who rented an apartment on West 41st street and were trying to make a go of it. They were all taking class at Farnsworth's. I tagged along to observe at one point, the rare opportunity of my past self and future self to collide. The accompanist seemed fabulous to me, on the strictly musical level. But Don Farnsworth, that prancing old queen, loved by every dancer for reasons only a dancer could know, had other things in mind as he shouted at the poor dude at the piano.
"You may be tired of the Schubert, but we're not! Just play that same piece again for heaven's sake!"
I walked in on an acid trip in progress. They had no food, but somehow had managed to score acid. A room full of crazies. As noted, though the acid crazies are a quiet bunch. Nothing but music on the stereo, not all that loud, and soft giggles and sighs. I was suiting up and heading for the airport; I couldn't myself imbibe. I went in to the bathroom to wash up. Bou Bou jostled in past me and retched into the toilet. As she righted herself and wiped her face with tp, she murmered,
"Sorry."
I padded back out to the living room with her. It was, like, eight people in a studio apartment. The cast included Van Dyke and Lucy. I now went for my coat.
"Time for me to hit the road, my friends." Muffled giggles. Justin tossed a book at me, which for once I cought like the baseball star I wasn't. The title was "On The Road." Our battered old copy.
I tossed it back after a beat.
"'In The Air.' It's a much shorter book." I was out the door. Because:
There was a Chorale concert on Sunday at 3.
On Tuesday, January 25th, another rehearsal of 'Homefires.' Why all of this rehearsing? Well, among the various aggregates of people making work, we had organized ourselves into several groups dedicated to the promotion of new work and especially to performances. These groups, including the Boston Composers Alliance and the Composition Department at BCM, were guided by Bonkowski, aided and abetted by Anderson Lee. Together with other aggregates of composers that were swirling around in the city, a week long series of workshops and concerts to present this stuff to the public was organized. The whole thing was termed Eventworks by Contemporary Composers. It was to happen between February 2 and 13, 1977 at the Longwood Theater on the campus of the Massachusetts College of Art (Heidi's school). The workshops at noon were free, and the concerts in the evenings at 8 were cheap. (My poster, still purple and proud, says $2.50 with a discount down to $1.25 with a college id.) The BCM night was February 12th. We followed Bob Ceely and the Beepistics on the 11th. Did I mention going to concerts where, when someone sounded the 'a' to tune, the audience laughed? This was to be one of those. The term avant garde was in decline. The blurb on the poster, likely crafted by Bonkowski, reads:
"The Boston Composer's Alliance and the Composition Department of the Boston Conservatory of Music, headed by Julius Bonkowski, present: Icons and Broken Images. They feel, that by engaging directly with convention - by embracing history, the composer creates new apparitions and discovers the factors determining musical transformation."
I'm quite sure I never read this at the time. Had I done so, I doubt that I would have felt succored. (Suckered, likely.) In fact, now I see that my role in this enterprise was fairly central. I was certainly doing all of that shit mentioned in the blurb, and I was doing it right up front. Whoever curated this thing (Bonkowski, certainly) had my piece front and center as an affront to the avant garde. I'd been blasted by jazzers and dodecaphonists alike. Even my cast was uncomfortable about making them wear costumes. Well, I'm getting a bit ahead. One of the members of the Alliance had called me reactionary. I never quite understood that, but I didn't like it. I just wanted to be good. I wanted to write pieces that made some sense. I leaned towards practical magic.
On the 29th, there was a rehearsal at the Mass College of Art at noon. Was this the point at which we discovered our total playing time was on the order of 8 hours? In the evening, the Chorale performed in Rhode Island. We were often on the bus.
On the last day of January, I went up on the roof to think about maybe jumping off. I was suffering from a bad case of Mara, and Heidi, and Gail. I had no idea how I was going to survive the next few months. I was, maybe, just out of pot. As I stood near the edge, I saw, on the adjacent roof, the one that Van Dyke and Lucy now lived under, the figure of one of the jazzers. He was up there thinking about maybe jumping off. He was suffering from whatever jazz Bassists suffer from. He was also, maybe, out of pot. He was smoking a cigarette. "Mind if I smoke? I don't care if you burn the hell up!" We saw each other. Our eyes locked. We broke up laughing. We descended. Out on the street together, went out for a beer that Marvel and I.
Another 'Homefires' rehearsal on the 1st of February. Why in hell did I record the first one? The piece must've been sounding better... Surely I would have passed on lugging the mics and recorder and uptightening my musicians. Being recorded warps the mind. 'Forever' is a long time for that wrong note to sound.
The page that bears the date Thurday, the 3rd, has a paper clipped note. On one side of the note is a pathetic list of things I had to do to prepare my portfolio.
"2nd Semester Projects
Organize Portfolio
1. Copy 1 & 3 Str. Q + finish copy 2.
2. Copy piano suite (1 f. ma, 1 f. me)
3. Copy Homefires
4. Copies of Prufrock Sonnets, Leda
5. Find and finish Eliot Preludes + copy.
6. Copy of Organ (or. C. O.) variations of Swanee.
7. Copy and Parts for Symph.
You're kidding, right? And since when did I ever write a string quartet? Oh yeah, that piece of shit.
The other side of the note is the packing list for the Mass College of Art Performance.
1. music desk lamps
2. music stand for piano
3. lid stick
4. dinner jacket
5. candle, plate, wild turkey
piano bench
tuning hammer
Some of these items are crossed out, meaning, I suppose, check mark.
Wild Turkey? This is your emergency survival kit contents check.
On the 5th, Rod was up from New York and he and I worked on sprucing up the Silvertone gramophone. It was not just a prop. It was going to play the theme on shellac.
On the 8th, I played the tape of the piece for Gail, and Jimmy France. They were over at the Cal Crib. The New Yorkers must have come up and stayed at various cribs for the big Eventworks splash.
The rehearsal on the 8th, the dress rehearsal, has us going over steps and trying on uniforms. I wanted my cast to get up at a certain point and do a little soft shoe. As for costumes, that must have been a little dicey. I wanted World War One costumes, not boy scout uniforms.
After counterpoint on Thursday, I had an appointment with Regina in the costume room.
Now I can recount the performance, since I have the all important memory jogging program. My peice, given its semi-full title "Fantasy Variations on "Keep the Homefires Burning," was up first. I went out, wearing some ridiculous ill-fitting army jacket. There was applause. I bowed. I cranked up the gramophone and played the John McCormack recording of the song. I walked off and stood in the stage left wings. Out came my cast, led by Van Dyke. Van Dyke hated the dress-up aspect, and so kept his arms over his chest on the walk out. Once seated, music deployed, they all settled down and gave a credible reading of my piece. It was not booed. Somewhere, there is a recording of that performance.
[No. There's not. That library's gone. It's a pile of debris.]
The first blast of the evening's festivities concluded with a jam to some films in black and white. The jams and films went long.
By the time we got down to part three, it was already 11 PM. Van Dyke played Cordiero's spidery harpsichord pieces. All very good. Many of the audience members had left by the time we got to my vocal solo in Aram Gharabekian's 'Kibosa,' music for an Armenian play.
The last item on the menu was the craziest thing imaginable. The title was "The Warrior Cat vs, the Starlings of Warp Factor Nine." The composition was by Justin Van Dyke. It was a plan for a happening, and it happened at about one in the morning or so. The battered audience that remained was draped over the backs of their seats like characters in a Dali. There was much laughing and chatting. The piece itself featured, as star soloist, the Tennant's Siamese cat, named Ace. Ace's story was the story that the piece purported to explore as myth or fantasy science fiction. ('To boldly go...') Ace had been out a-birding, when he was dive-bombed by some starlings locked in mortal combat. Ace fell from the tree, breaking his tail, which thereafter dangled. One night, during Star Trek, Ace began gnawing at the tail. I guess he's had enough. So, to prevent the infection from eating the animal alive, the Tennants had taken Ace to a vet and had his tail removed. He looked, therefore, like a Manxed Meezer. Ace was like a bagpipe drone. You could pick him up and squeeze him and he'd make the noise. You know, that Siamese cat noise in the tenor tessitura? Ace was judged a fair performer on this count. In the piece, Ace was in a cage, miked. A meezer in a cage keeps up a running dialogue. There was some fear that Acer would clam up. The microphone in the cage was pre-amped and sent to a Buchla modular synth operated by Steve Harrison. There were many mics and most fed the Buchla. There was a live component that featured all of the competent improvising composers. The ensemble did not include me, as Van Dyke was at the 88s. (Also, since the harpsichord was lugged over, at the 64s) Ace was listed in the program as "Ace D. Conehead, vocals." (A misprint: Ace's middle initial was actually a 't.' I spent the time backstage, minding Acer. Acer did not disappoint. In a lull in the jam, there he was, loud and clear, sweeping octaves as a control voltage morphed from audio, but also plain as his own feline self.
At last it was all over. A high point of my musical life, it's fair to say had now been reached. The way forward has been a pleasure and a pain, but there never was a gig like that. OK, maybe there were a few more. But I count them on the fingers of one hand!
As I approach the end of the runway, (there are but 2 more pages of entries after the concert at Mass Art!), the time continuum gets very thick. The stick and rudder of the airship of memory are unresponsive. I'm wallowing in the air of time. I see that ending just ahead, and I cannot quite get to it without so much reminiscence. Ah, but let's see what we can do.
