Saturday Evening, October 25, 2008: Traveled
Last Saturday I had one of the most wonderful evenings in recent memory. I had spent all the previous evening and all night working on Dr. Jones’ site-a sixteen-hour marathon brought on by my gross underestimation of the amount of copy editing that I would have to do. This labor took me through Saturday morning, until it came to be one o’clock in the afternoon, when I finally felt good enough about my progress to call it quits for the day.
Having not gotten enough sleep in the days leading up to this jam session, I was tired enough that, sometime around noon, I had turned on the radio to keep me going. Tired and worn out, I tried to stay up to enjoy the afternoon, but I only made it about ninety minutes more. Eventually this show came on KUOW (the local NPR affiliate) called the “Prairie Home Companion.” I don’t listen to the radio at home very often, but one of the many endearing things about Kendra is that she would often play it in the background for company. So listening to it like that reminded me of her. I went to the bedroom to lie down and listen for a bit, and promptly fell asleep.
I woke up three hours later, at five thirty. The sun was about forty-five minutes from setting, and filled the living room with golden light. From the dark bedroom, it streamed through the slits in the door like it always does. Tonight it was particularly stirring, the light wonderfully rich in tone. It looked like solid gold through that door, so of course I had to get up and look.
Sure enough, the evening sky was beautiful. The radio was still on, and I was discombobulated from fatigue, so I sat down on the floor to enjoy both sky and sound. A few minutes later this game show came on called “Says You.” I had never heard it before, but it turned out to be a lot of fun to listen to. (Public radio seldom disappoints!) This was their special Halloween edition, so all the questions were themed in that direction. The contestants were very smart. The atmosphere was much more casual than television game shows. Best of all, it was fun. They were broadcasting from Seattle that night, and I wondered vaguely where they were. I pulled a chair up to the window, watched the sun set, and listened to intelligent people having a good time.
By seven o’clock, when the show ended, it was almost completely dark outside. I was still sitting in the red chair by the window. Shortly, KUOW’s Saturday Night big band and swing program came on. Called “Swing Years and Beyond,” its music hails from the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Sometimes in the car I hear snippets of this show. I always mean to catch it at home, but I never did before tonight.
I was still tired, and I didn’t want to go back to bed. All the lights in my apartment were still out, and I didn’t want to turn them on. I just sat there in my hard red chair, staring out the window, listening to this beautiful old music from a bygone day. I was heartened when the host mentioned at the beginning of the show that Swing Years is five hours long, from seven to midnight. That would be just about perfect. Something was happening to me. Fatigue always heightens the emotions, and this was no exception. I felt like…like I was in another world. To appreciate it, you have to understand what jazz is. What it means. What it does.
This was a world of contrasts. I usually sit at my desk or the table; rarely by the window. I usually have most or all of the lights on at night; rarely none at all. I usually have the computer on; rarely the radio. My apartment is usually pretty clean; rarely the mess that it was due to the packaging from my new computer parts. And the music that I listen to, for all that I love jazz, is rarely jazz.
This was a melancholy world. The music coming out of that radio…you have to listen to it to understand. You have to listen to it in the dark when you’re tired and all alone and adrift in cosmic thought. I don’t want to bludgeon you with the word “melancholy,” but suffice it to say that I become the very essence of it. I stared out at the city. I love my view of the city. That view is why I moved into this place. I just stared out at it, at absolute ease, while time melted away and the vision before me vanished. What I saw instead, as my thoughts wandered, I do not remember, and I would probably not tell if I did.
I was very cold; I felt humble and small. I put on a robe on top of my clothes-very rare for someone who runs so hot. And the radio would not relent. Songs of love and loss, punctuated by a few filled with sass or sultriness, came one after the other, blending together in one beautiful, dark delectability. I lit a candle-the pine cone candle that I had bought for Kendra last Christmas-reclined in my soft desk chair, and just sat back and missed her terribly. I regretted that we had never spent an evening like this together, just sitting in the dark, staring out at the city, and listening to the music. And of course now she was gone for good. I was all alone but it wasn’t loneliness that filled me. There was some of that, to be sure, but what it really was…I would call it…well…melancholy. It was extremely satisfying, both the mood itself and my total abandonment into it. Downheartedness, let’s call it that. It was one of the best negative emotion experiences I have ever had.
Thinking of Hollywood clichés, I pulled out a small glass and fetched my bottle of Irish whiskey from the liquor cabinet. I’m a pretty light drinker. Most days none, some days one. Hard liquor I almost always mix. But tonight it would be neat whiskey. So I poured myself a drink, and knocked it back in one draught. That’s another thing I never do. Except for Guinness, I never gulp alcohol. I sip. I’m dainty. Sue me. And do you have any idea how much good Irish whiskeys costs?
It set my throat on fire, which I had expected. I managed not to break out wheezing. I left the bottle at my desk, momentarily forgotten as this first hit of liquor worked through my system. Over the next few minutes, the warmth spread out to my hands and feet, very cozy and nice. I got a euphoric feeling of giddiness in my stomach. I relaxed even more than I already was. The music hit even more deeply. I poured another drink. The aftertaste was so good…there’s nothing quite like it.
I listened for ninety minutes like that, desiring a companion, a love, still staring out at the city with the seven hills, my mind lost in the music, candlelight dancing on the walls in my periphery, and the poisonous warmth of the true coursing in my hot blood. It was so…satisfying. So cathartic. I don’t know what to call this other world, but, whatever it is, I’m glad I went there.
My mood was so sad, and each song took me down further. At one point there came a song, “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” The Velvet Fog was singing about being in love, of course. Then he continued, “And you can get it if you try.” I thought to myself, “Yeah right, buddy.” But then, later on in the song, he turned the lyrics and said, “Nice work if you can get it…and, if you get it…won’t you tell me how?”
I don’t remember my exact reaction. I think I murmured…a small, poignant warble of understanding. He kept right on going, but I was changed. That’s why I love jazz so much. Only jazz can do that.
“It’s the best kind of work…if you can get it.”
Sometimes I would recognize the song, or the melody, or even the singer. A little later, another song came on called “Istanbul, Not Constantinople,” which, somehow, against crazy odds, I had actually heard before. I would never have remembered it again, though. But here it was. My, that was a fun song! One of the most upbeat of the whole evening, and yet…! Ostensibly it was a song about how the city of Istanbul isn’t called Constantinople anymore. But I interpreted it as a song about change and loss, cleverly hidden in an upbeat tempo and a geographical metaphor. “No, you can’t go back to Constantinople.” The punch line:
“Why did Constantinople get the works?”
“That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’!”
I barked, a moment of sheer glee from a place inside me-that melancholy place-from which such mirth rarely emerges. Truly, this was a night of upside-downs and inside-outs.
Days later, I would recount this evening to Dad and Kendra. When I mentioned those two songs to Dad, he knew both of them, and sang a few bars back. I was delighted, but not surprised. He grew up with that stuff. He always has insights into the past, and I will dearly miss them one day. He is one of my most genuine connections with something that I will call “the world as it used to be.” There is a genuineness, an authenticity, that comes from listening to five straight hours of music from that era. I have a deep-seated, long-standing, still-growing fondness for that period of history spanning from when Einstein theorized relativity to when Eisenhower took office. But I was never there myself, and any attempt I make to travel back there usually feels inadequate. This night was almost an exception. That is another of the powers of jazz. I invite you try listening to it for yourself sometime; follow that link up above.
What really floored me is that Kendra also knew “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” Just like with my dad, I mentioned the title and she sang a couple bars back at me. Apparently, she had sung it in choir once upon a time. Needless to say, I felt very good to be able to share that one song, which perhaps was the symbol of the entire night.
Around eight thirty, I turned on the light over the oven to make spaghetti. Not my usual spaghetti; just plain old noodles and red sauce and crushed garlic, with less parmesan cheese and more red pepper flakes than usual. I ate a bit of it; it was fiery.
With three-and-half hours yet before the show ended, I decided to continue my evening of contrasts. I turned on all the lights…every last one. Every switch, knob, and chain. I even turned on the light in the front closet. I kept the candle lit, too. Its understated pine scent had filled the room and, even if I could see it in all this light, it comforted me just to know it was there.
Nearly all of my computer hardware had arrived in the preceding week, so tonight I resolved to put it all together and set up my new computer. The hardware was already plugged in; tonight was for managing the cables. Inside the case, everything has to be plugged in to both the mainboard and the power supply. That led to a sea of cables that I had to try and arrange as non-chaotically as possible, to improve accessibility and reduce the risk of malfunction. Outside the case, there were wires and cords everywhere, all needing to be plugged into something at both ends.
At one point during this work, my dad called. I didn’t give him much time, though, because I was eager not to be pulled out of this other world just yet. I told him to call me back tomorrow, and didn’t tell him anything about the Experience I was having. (I would go on to do that the next day.)
If you want to talk about contrast, it was quite a contrast to be putting my old computer of eight years to rest. I took advantage of this changing-of-the-guard to move my desk away from the window and roughly to the spot where Kendra’s desk used to be. After closing up the case, I put the new monitor on my desk, made a place for the tower alongside the desk, set up the speakers, and began plugging things in.
Swing Years and Beyond ended at midnight, and I was still working. Robe long gone, I was quite sweaty from moving the furniture and scampering about with the cables. BBC World News came on next, and I decided to keep going. I began to unravel pretty fast, though. This BBC World News program was pretty lame…sensationalized and not terribly newsy. And I was exhausted. I had lost sleep, then spent sixteen hours doing web design, only to sleep for three hours before plunging headlong into a whole ‘nother world-and back again! The assumedly simple act of plugging things in became harder and harder for me to comprehend, let alone carry out, and eventually I ended up where my adventure had begun: Lying in bed, listening to the radio.
But I’m not quite Kendra. In my last coherent act, I got up and shut it off…then went to sleep for good.
The next day was a beautiful, crisp, sunny Sunday. Everything was fine. Most fine.
Having not gotten enough sleep in the days leading up to this jam session, I was tired enough that, sometime around noon, I had turned on the radio to keep me going. Tired and worn out, I tried to stay up to enjoy the afternoon, but I only made it about ninety minutes more. Eventually this show came on KUOW (the local NPR affiliate) called the “Prairie Home Companion.” I don’t listen to the radio at home very often, but one of the many endearing things about Kendra is that she would often play it in the background for company. So listening to it like that reminded me of her. I went to the bedroom to lie down and listen for a bit, and promptly fell asleep.
I woke up three hours later, at five thirty. The sun was about forty-five minutes from setting, and filled the living room with golden light. From the dark bedroom, it streamed through the slits in the door like it always does. Tonight it was particularly stirring, the light wonderfully rich in tone. It looked like solid gold through that door, so of course I had to get up and look.
Sure enough, the evening sky was beautiful. The radio was still on, and I was discombobulated from fatigue, so I sat down on the floor to enjoy both sky and sound. A few minutes later this game show came on called “Says You.” I had never heard it before, but it turned out to be a lot of fun to listen to. (Public radio seldom disappoints!) This was their special Halloween edition, so all the questions were themed in that direction. The contestants were very smart. The atmosphere was much more casual than television game shows. Best of all, it was fun. They were broadcasting from Seattle that night, and I wondered vaguely where they were. I pulled a chair up to the window, watched the sun set, and listened to intelligent people having a good time.
By seven o’clock, when the show ended, it was almost completely dark outside. I was still sitting in the red chair by the window. Shortly, KUOW’s Saturday Night big band and swing program came on. Called “Swing Years and Beyond,” its music hails from the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Sometimes in the car I hear snippets of this show. I always mean to catch it at home, but I never did before tonight.
I was still tired, and I didn’t want to go back to bed. All the lights in my apartment were still out, and I didn’t want to turn them on. I just sat there in my hard red chair, staring out the window, listening to this beautiful old music from a bygone day. I was heartened when the host mentioned at the beginning of the show that Swing Years is five hours long, from seven to midnight. That would be just about perfect. Something was happening to me. Fatigue always heightens the emotions, and this was no exception. I felt like…like I was in another world. To appreciate it, you have to understand what jazz is. What it means. What it does.
This was a world of contrasts. I usually sit at my desk or the table; rarely by the window. I usually have most or all of the lights on at night; rarely none at all. I usually have the computer on; rarely the radio. My apartment is usually pretty clean; rarely the mess that it was due to the packaging from my new computer parts. And the music that I listen to, for all that I love jazz, is rarely jazz.
This was a melancholy world. The music coming out of that radio…you have to listen to it to understand. You have to listen to it in the dark when you’re tired and all alone and adrift in cosmic thought. I don’t want to bludgeon you with the word “melancholy,” but suffice it to say that I become the very essence of it. I stared out at the city. I love my view of the city. That view is why I moved into this place. I just stared out at it, at absolute ease, while time melted away and the vision before me vanished. What I saw instead, as my thoughts wandered, I do not remember, and I would probably not tell if I did.
I was very cold; I felt humble and small. I put on a robe on top of my clothes-very rare for someone who runs so hot. And the radio would not relent. Songs of love and loss, punctuated by a few filled with sass or sultriness, came one after the other, blending together in one beautiful, dark delectability. I lit a candle-the pine cone candle that I had bought for Kendra last Christmas-reclined in my soft desk chair, and just sat back and missed her terribly. I regretted that we had never spent an evening like this together, just sitting in the dark, staring out at the city, and listening to the music. And of course now she was gone for good. I was all alone but it wasn’t loneliness that filled me. There was some of that, to be sure, but what it really was…I would call it…well…melancholy. It was extremely satisfying, both the mood itself and my total abandonment into it. Downheartedness, let’s call it that. It was one of the best negative emotion experiences I have ever had.
Thinking of Hollywood clichés, I pulled out a small glass and fetched my bottle of Irish whiskey from the liquor cabinet. I’m a pretty light drinker. Most days none, some days one. Hard liquor I almost always mix. But tonight it would be neat whiskey. So I poured myself a drink, and knocked it back in one draught. That’s another thing I never do. Except for Guinness, I never gulp alcohol. I sip. I’m dainty. Sue me. And do you have any idea how much good Irish whiskeys costs?
It set my throat on fire, which I had expected. I managed not to break out wheezing. I left the bottle at my desk, momentarily forgotten as this first hit of liquor worked through my system. Over the next few minutes, the warmth spread out to my hands and feet, very cozy and nice. I got a euphoric feeling of giddiness in my stomach. I relaxed even more than I already was. The music hit even more deeply. I poured another drink. The aftertaste was so good…there’s nothing quite like it.
I listened for ninety minutes like that, desiring a companion, a love, still staring out at the city with the seven hills, my mind lost in the music, candlelight dancing on the walls in my periphery, and the poisonous warmth of the true coursing in my hot blood. It was so…satisfying. So cathartic. I don’t know what to call this other world, but, whatever it is, I’m glad I went there.
My mood was so sad, and each song took me down further. At one point there came a song, “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” The Velvet Fog was singing about being in love, of course. Then he continued, “And you can get it if you try.” I thought to myself, “Yeah right, buddy.” But then, later on in the song, he turned the lyrics and said, “Nice work if you can get it…and, if you get it…won’t you tell me how?”
I don’t remember my exact reaction. I think I murmured…a small, poignant warble of understanding. He kept right on going, but I was changed. That’s why I love jazz so much. Only jazz can do that.
“It’s the best kind of work…if you can get it.”
Sometimes I would recognize the song, or the melody, or even the singer. A little later, another song came on called “Istanbul, Not Constantinople,” which, somehow, against crazy odds, I had actually heard before. I would never have remembered it again, though. But here it was. My, that was a fun song! One of the most upbeat of the whole evening, and yet…! Ostensibly it was a song about how the city of Istanbul isn’t called Constantinople anymore. But I interpreted it as a song about change and loss, cleverly hidden in an upbeat tempo and a geographical metaphor. “No, you can’t go back to Constantinople.” The punch line:
“Why did Constantinople get the works?”
“That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’!”
I barked, a moment of sheer glee from a place inside me-that melancholy place-from which such mirth rarely emerges. Truly, this was a night of upside-downs and inside-outs.
Days later, I would recount this evening to Dad and Kendra. When I mentioned those two songs to Dad, he knew both of them, and sang a few bars back. I was delighted, but not surprised. He grew up with that stuff. He always has insights into the past, and I will dearly miss them one day. He is one of my most genuine connections with something that I will call “the world as it used to be.” There is a genuineness, an authenticity, that comes from listening to five straight hours of music from that era. I have a deep-seated, long-standing, still-growing fondness for that period of history spanning from when Einstein theorized relativity to when Eisenhower took office. But I was never there myself, and any attempt I make to travel back there usually feels inadequate. This night was almost an exception. That is another of the powers of jazz. I invite you try listening to it for yourself sometime; follow that link up above.
What really floored me is that Kendra also knew “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” Just like with my dad, I mentioned the title and she sang a couple bars back at me. Apparently, she had sung it in choir once upon a time. Needless to say, I felt very good to be able to share that one song, which perhaps was the symbol of the entire night.
Around eight thirty, I turned on the light over the oven to make spaghetti. Not my usual spaghetti; just plain old noodles and red sauce and crushed garlic, with less parmesan cheese and more red pepper flakes than usual. I ate a bit of it; it was fiery.
With three-and-half hours yet before the show ended, I decided to continue my evening of contrasts. I turned on all the lights…every last one. Every switch, knob, and chain. I even turned on the light in the front closet. I kept the candle lit, too. Its understated pine scent had filled the room and, even if I could see it in all this light, it comforted me just to know it was there.
Nearly all of my computer hardware had arrived in the preceding week, so tonight I resolved to put it all together and set up my new computer. The hardware was already plugged in; tonight was for managing the cables. Inside the case, everything has to be plugged in to both the mainboard and the power supply. That led to a sea of cables that I had to try and arrange as non-chaotically as possible, to improve accessibility and reduce the risk of malfunction. Outside the case, there were wires and cords everywhere, all needing to be plugged into something at both ends.
At one point during this work, my dad called. I didn’t give him much time, though, because I was eager not to be pulled out of this other world just yet. I told him to call me back tomorrow, and didn’t tell him anything about the Experience I was having. (I would go on to do that the next day.)
If you want to talk about contrast, it was quite a contrast to be putting my old computer of eight years to rest. I took advantage of this changing-of-the-guard to move my desk away from the window and roughly to the spot where Kendra’s desk used to be. After closing up the case, I put the new monitor on my desk, made a place for the tower alongside the desk, set up the speakers, and began plugging things in.
Swing Years and Beyond ended at midnight, and I was still working. Robe long gone, I was quite sweaty from moving the furniture and scampering about with the cables. BBC World News came on next, and I decided to keep going. I began to unravel pretty fast, though. This BBC World News program was pretty lame…sensationalized and not terribly newsy. And I was exhausted. I had lost sleep, then spent sixteen hours doing web design, only to sleep for three hours before plunging headlong into a whole ‘nother world-and back again! The assumedly simple act of plugging things in became harder and harder for me to comprehend, let alone carry out, and eventually I ended up where my adventure had begun: Lying in bed, listening to the radio.
But I’m not quite Kendra. In my last coherent act, I got up and shut it off…then went to sleep for good.
The next day was a beautiful, crisp, sunny Sunday. Everything was fine. Most fine.