Saturday, December 3, 2016
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Unprepared Piano Segment 1 of 4 for 11/27/16
A humorous short story about an avant-garde composer, who wants to be famous, but he is down on his luck and his rich uncle, who is famous has an idea that may help.
Unprepared Piano
By Will Powers
While his uncle lived in a stylish townhouse on E. 62nd Street in Manhattan, where the Maple trees were nearly as high as the four story buildings, his nephew, the poor unknown composer was living in squalor, paying the rent late on a cheap apartment in the Soho above a donut shop on Canal, near Broadway. A run down red brick box, a bathroom down the hall he had to share with other tenants; he sometimes ate at the soup kitchen and choked down the worst vile food and for what? For the privilege of calling himself an artist, an avant-garde artist at that, and what was he? God only knows. He could be anything and yet, he felt like nothing. And while his uncle could afford fine linens and three piece suits, giant overcoats and slick dress shoes, Jules dressed in the most outrageous clothes: rainbow colored leg warmers, and purple velour shoes and on his handsome face: eye liner, mascara and rouge, glitter in his brown hair, making him look utterly fantastic, and yet, everyone ignored him as if he didn’t exist, which was a problem, because he wanted to be a famous composer.
Despite an erasable nature, Jules was shy and reticent most of the time. He did not have a pleasing tone of voice, in fact it was down right hostile. All he could say is, he was working on it. Reading into the tape recorder and listening back, trying to make his voice more soothing. And he did have the ability to lower the tone, when the words flowed out and no one was interrupting him, but that was rarely the case when he was in public and had something urgent to say and his idea of urgency was any time he wanted to make a point, then his voice would rise in volume… but in his head, all was well.
He had other problems too, tending toward the glum and humorless and generally lacking in charm. Even having lost both his parents when he was young didn’t help his outlook. One would have thought it would, given how many people he has heard complain about their parents, not all people of course, just the sour pusses he tended to hang out with. Being brought up by Uncle Zeller and Aunt Helena, who were kind enough to take him in, clothe and feed him, Jules would insist the regimented life of school and church on Sunday was making him mean and hard. He made excuses for his bad behavior, but he also tried to improve himself. Standing in front of the mirror, introducing himself: “Hi, I’m Jules Johnson. Who are you?” He could be charming and likable, then he would do something nutty just to be entertaining. Out in public, confronted with an endless stream of strangers, who didn’t seem particularly interested in meeting him, he would shy away and even become down right hostile.
Jules wanted to be a better person, getting into Yoga, obeying the law, being kind to animals and even generous. He gave to the poor and he helped the homeless, buying them meals, if he had the extra money, or sharing a meal if he didn’t. Most of the time he was broke, working on compositions apparently no one wanted to hear, but sometimes he picked up a few extra bucks doing odd jobs for the land lord, or the “slum lord” as Jules referred to him in private. Jules was good at changing a lightbulb, or cleaning the showers. Sometimes he even put in enough hours to earn himself a few extra dollars over the rent he owed to buy a meal.
Uncle Zeller was the famous music critic, author of numerous books and articles, including his seminal masterpiece: Test: Think, a book that was a huge influence on just about every music critic, for every magazine and newspaper in the US and Europe. Once Zeller had his morning coffee and you happened to be there, he would lecture you on the avant-garde music scene, or something. If you don’t know Philip Glass and John Cage, you are about to meet them. If you tried to leave, he would follow you, if you tried to interrupt, he would talk right over you. You would be overwhelmed by his intelligence and search for the nearest exit, while he goes on, “Why did Cage prepare his piano strings with screws and bolts, you ask, to alter the sound, to create a chance occurrence in the composition…” He knows something you don’t and by God, you’re going to hear about it. One night when they were together in his town house living room, Zeller listened to his nephew’s latest composition on his stereo with his usual stoic manner and straining silence, stroking his well trimmed beard and mustache, considering the odd assortment of beeps and bops, the irregular drumming, the strange eerie voices, tortured and twisted sounds that tried the listeners ears, while his nephew, the composer sat nearby, in a chair with a rounded wooden frame that rested against his shoulder blades, making him shift positions constantly if he leaned back, consequently he was hunched over his knees now. The music created a stressful atmosphere and it was a relief when it finally ended,
; Uncle Zeller, a man in his sixties was getting a headache, wondering why his nephew was putting him through this torture.
“Well, what do you think?” Jules asked him, practically begging for a compliment.
Taking a moment to answer, Dick spoke in a slow deliberate voice. “That is not the question Jules. The question is, what do you think?”
A cop out if Jules ever heard one and his uncle wouldn’t review his only release: Introducing Jules Johnson was a flop. He spent almost 3 grand making 250 copies and he couldn’t sell a single cd.
Jules would have diner at Uncle Zeller’s home once a week and he would at least go for the meal, if nothing else. Compared to what he ate at the Mission, meals with his aunt and uncle were so splendid, it embarrassed him to think some people had so much, while others had so little.
Everything they owned was so expensive, their varnished cherry wood dinning room table, their fine china and ornate place mats, elegant silverware, the china cabinet, the very valuable Mark Rothko painting and their Frank Loyd Wright straight back wooden chairs.
As a boy, Jules found the chair very uncomfortable to sit in, that was before his uncle told him he was never allowed to sit in the Frank Loyd Wright chair. It was forbidden. Thomas, his half-brother would not go near it for fear of breaking it, and one day, when his uncle was away, Jules dared to sit in the chair. So luxurious he forgot about how uncomfortable it was. It felt like forbidden fruit, as well as a chair fit for a king, a king who took the crown, after he murdered his brother, the previous king. King Jules! He even found a stick to use as a sceptre and never mind if his uncle considered the chair a work of art and not a play toy.
One night when he was over for dinner, feeling hungry as usual, Jules wore his nicest clothes, a tattered suit he had since his student days and faded brown shoes. A house maid in uniform let Jules into the living room where he found his uncle Zeller listening to Pierre Henry’s Le voile d’Orphée, 1953; Zeller was so erudite, so full of himself, Jules rolled his eyes
Out of his speakers poured sharp jagged sounds and long sustained notes on the organ, then machine noise took over, leaving behind wavering elongated, electronically altered high-pitched wails and orchestral voices singing in single-pitched notes, building to a high-pitched drone. The composition was weird: a quiet passage sounded like insects at night; you could hear a man speaking German, a woman whispering French, an ominous organ becoming more dominant, a cow mooing, a discordant melody, a forceful march, a Frenchman’s voice, a German speaking harshly, symbols crashing, another discordant melody, a repetitive three note harmony…
Jules waited patiently for it to end, checking his watch, which was missing, after it was stolen, while he was taking a shower.
His uncle was leaning back in the most comfortable chair in the room, his recliner, and he had his eyes closed, too engrossed in the music to notice his nephew standing in the archway.
Jules couldn’t understand why all the other chairs in the room were so uncomfortable, but suspected Uncle Zeller had the rigid furniture to make sure his guests never overstayed their welcome.
When the piece ended, Dick welcomed his nephew into his home, awkward as usual, patting his him gently on the shoulder, since he considered a handshake an adequate way to spread germs.
Sitting on a couch with virtually no back rest, Jules eyes darted around nervously as he tried to think of something to fill the silence. Turning off the stereo, Zeller spoke softly, confidentially, leaning in close to him on the couch, “Your aunt doesn’t want anyone to know, but she is going blind.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Jules was seriously concerned. “Where is she?”
“In the kitchen giving the cook a hard time. Her sense of smell is superb.”
“She’s very particular,” Jules added for no particular reason. “I know how she likes to cook.”
“Yes, she can’t do half the things she used to: all the books she meant to read once Timmothy grew up and she retired are sitting on the shelf. Now… she can’t read them.”
“Oh, how… terrible,” Jules said hesitantly, sensing he was being set up for something.
Later that evening, Jules sat across from Aunt Helena; Tonight they were having Chateaubriand steak, rare to medium rare, a side of spicy fried string beans, a fine Cabernet Sauvignon, Tea biscuits and mash potatoes with gravy, and dessert: a chocolate vanilla creme moist and delicious. Uncle Zeller sat at the head of the table, prattling on about the Fluxus movement. “Take for instance, George Maciunas, a Lithuanian-American artist, who wrote the Fluxus manifesto, the creed that contributed to his down fall.”
Jules was stuffing his mouth with as much steak as he could get into it, looking at his uncle sideways.
“His credo was ‘…to purge the world of bourgeois bullshit, to rid the world of ‘intellectual’ crap, whether it was professional, or commercialized culture…’ That word ‘commercialized’ was very important.
“Oh,” Uncle Zeller pontificated, “Maciunas despised our commercialized culture. He considered it the death of creativity and true inspiration.” Taking on a lofty atmosphere, Zeller said, “Maciunas considered himself a true artist, the way he lived his life was his work, he put other artists to work, gave them the space to create; he gave Philip Glass a home for his wife and family, while Phil fixed the broken pipes for him in exchange.” Hearing Phil turn the wrench, the squeak of the rusty pipe… Now Zeller understood where Glass got the inspiration for his composition: Einstein on the Beach.
“The Fluxus movement was about bringing people together and going with the flow; he believed life was a constant fluid motion forward. A successful architect, Maciunas was no slouch, not a man to be taken lightly, serious about his commitment to the movement.”
“His mistake,” said Jules, chewing his food, trying to eat ten meals in the course of one, serving himself seconds of everything, “was breaking the zoning laws, subletting to artists was against the law.”
His uncle defended the man who believed he was a true artist, “He bought that loft space in the SoHo, which was nothing more than vacated garment factory buildings for artists to work and live cheaply; if the zoning laws didn’t comply with his wishes—”
Jules was adamant now; he even stopped eating for a moment to speak, wagging a fork full of food at his uncle. “Maciunas sold loft space publicly without filing the right paperwork, which brought the New York State Attorney General down on… him” he said hesitantly, with a glance to his aunt who was looking at him with disapproval; Jules couldn’t understand why, making no connection between his eating habits and her expression. He alway forgot what Aunt Helena said to him at the table, “Mind your manners.” Now Jules pushed on bravely, “Maciunas was either being lazy, or he didn’t know what he was doing.”
“You don’t understand. Those were different times.” He poured himself some more wine and glanced at his wife, who seemed supremely bored. Instead of damping his spirits, her look encouraged him to go on. She was his barometer: if she thought the topic was dull or out of the ordinary, he knew he was on to something, because as far as he was concerned, his wife had the worst taste. Thank God she didn’t insist on playing her country music when he was around. That’s all he could say and a lot more about Maciunas. “It was okay, in a way to cross the legal line, to go up against the man, the oppressive government intervening in our lives…” The wine was having it’s effect. “Maciunas may have been delusional, believing his credo would change the world… what you miss… is the spirit of thing. He didn’t care about the law. He was after a higher truth, that the life of an artist is often in peril, never a moments rest, due to the far reaches one must go through to come up with something original.”
Jules nodded as if he understood. After all, he was talking about the hardships he was experiencing first hand, while Uncle Zeller, the pompous twit sat in luxury. Now it was his turn to speak,. “I read when Maciunas was put under investigation, he put a trap door in his ceiling for a quick escape, wore disguises when he went out and tried to make the AG think he was out of the country by having his friends mail postcards to the Attorney General that he prepared for them. Is that what you mean by original? Or perhaps what you mean is when he switched clothing with his bride on their wedding day? That was original.” He was being sarcastic.
He was an original. No one like him since.”
“Yes, he’ll go down in history as a real eccentric, like Emperor Norton, or Lizzy Borden, or something.”
“Lizzy Borden? Give me a break.”
Jules just shoved another fork full of meat into his mouth and peered at Zeller in triumph.
Jules mother died on the day he was born. Aunt Helena was a fine substitute, a level headed woman, big as she was big hearted, a kind old lady in an apron and flower dress.
Finally Zeller was quiet and his wife said to Jules, “Your father, God rest his soul— a fine man,” she looked lovingly at him, as he shoveled another fork full of food in his mouth, “and a great story teller. You, also… have the knack…” His aunt put her hand to her heart, “You know me. I just love books… the stories they tell… just touch my heart.” Smiling at Jules, Helena said, “And your voice is nice and soothing.”
“Now she’s buttering me up,” Jules thought, wishing she would get to the point.
She said, “I’ve always wanted to hear Motive and Opportunity by Agatha Christie.” Reaching out, Helena touched his arm as he was about to help himself to a third helping. “I just loved it as a child when my mother would have the servant read me a story.” Her pleading eyes said with words to match, “Would it be too much to ask you to record the book on tape for me?”
“Sure,” Jules said, and smiled, “no problem.”
And so it was decided, he would record a tape for his aging relative, since Aunt Helena thought his voice was ‘“soothing and nice to listen to,” Jules told himself he recorded the audio book out of the goodness of his heart, but he would never admit to himself, that maybe he wanted to curry a little favor her husband, the famous music critic, Dick Zeller.
Returning to his small dirty hovel was hard for Jules. The building was at least a hundred years old and what did Jules have to glorify his residence, an old heater that barely worked, walls crawling with cockroaches and rats, a rickety wooden table, and a wooden chair, about as comfortable as the Frank Lloyd Wright chair he used to play on as a kid.
On his bed, he thought of an idea for an arrangement he was composing, but he couldn’t decide if he should go with a jack hammer, or a single hammer in irregular beats. He decided on the latter, as the sound of a nail being driven into wood would be a better accompaniment to his discordant organ playing.
The phone rang. It was Sandra, his girlfriend, a gorgeous woman, he made every attempt to keep in his camp, but was failing to do so, since he was seeing less of her.
“Come on over, we’ll rent a movie,” he said.
“When are you going to buy me that dress? You promised me over a month ago and it was my birthday.”
“I wrote you that lovely serenade. You said you liked it.”
“Are you going to get me that dress?”
“Are you coming over now? I need you.” He hated to admit any weakness, but there it was. She turned him down.
“When am I going to see you again?” He asked.
“I’m seeing someone… else.”
“Who?”
“Someone with an actual job, that pays the bills.” She said in a huff.
“Oh, yeah, what’s his name, Pseudo Bullshit?” Sandra hung up the phone.
Jules always got angry, before he was able to control it. Realizing a long time ago, he needed to dispose this bad reaction mechanism was half the battle; if only the other half was so easy. And now he justified the anger, thinking she was probably making up the boy friend to squeeze him for another dress. If he started begging her to come back to him, Jules reasoned, he was putting himself at her mercy.
He tried to put it out of his mind, but he was having trouble concentrating on his music, then he remembered his promise to his aunt and began reading the Agatha Christie story into a small tape recorder, given to him by Helena for his birthday a long time ago.
“Motive and Opportunity, by Agatha Christie” Jules read, “‘Mr. Petherick cleared his throat…’”
As Jules read the story, he became more animated, as his interest in the story grew; he even assumed different character voices, and introduced dramatic pauses. When he was half-way through the story, the cat, who was laying on a window sill in his room, squealed and jumped off the shelf, knocking over a potted plant, which fell to the floor, making a huge crashing sound, ruining his concentration.
After yelling something at the cat, Jules left the tape running, while he got up to pick up the potted plant. While he was standing up, broken potted plant in hand, he hit the underside of the table on his head, upsetting the milk pitcher he left out, which fell over on its side and rolled off the table and onto the floor, where the African Violet lay in a heap of dirt and a pitcher he paid way too much for at Bloomingdales lay in a broken puddle of muddy milk.
Seeing that hurt. He had so little of what he considered to be precious in life and that pitcher was one thing, his girlfriend was another and the African Violet he transplanted into a new pot was the third noteworthy belonging he now lost.
“No,” he shouted and before he knew it, he was in a terrible rage, an uncontrollable horrendous fit of anger. Although, he tried to control his impulse to lash out and scream and shout, he was loosing his composure fast.
Raising a fist and facing heavenward, letting out a scream the Gods could hear, he started railing against the invisible man in the sky. “You take this… what little I have… Why not take it all? Why not take everything of mine, take this, and this too?” He threw two plates, breaking them. “Take everything! Everything!” He threw glasses and plates and smashed everything in his kitchenette, then turned to the bookshelf, facing it. “Why not take it all!”
Grabbing his Philip Glass records, he tossed one at the window, hitting a pane of glass, cracking it. The next record made another crack until one broke through, and he cheered, then he tossed the Steve Reich records through the opening. Albums flew through the night sky, pedestrians 30 feet below dodged out of the way. Unaware of this, the exasperated artist was yelling, “Out, out with you, I hate you! All of you!”
He picked up a whole pile of Kronos Quartet albums and tossed them at another window, shattering glass. “I hate you!”
His anger and indignity only grew more intense as he looked on his path of destruction as a righteous journey to cleanse the soul. His eyes fell on the shelves of books, books he dutifully read to know his craft, his art, all the words, the empty words, that he learned to repeat, like a parrot; he opened a book and read at random, “‘…atonal and arhythmic, predictable accents and fleeting colors… sporadic blips, gurgles and gushes of sound…’
“What the hell did that even mean and who the fuck cares?” He yelled.
After throwing the book out the window, he picked up another one and read. “‘The Fluxus Manifesto’?” He couldn’t believe it and threw it out the window. “George Maciunas was out of his mind!”
Raging, eyes blazing, he took his book on Source magazine, his biographies of Yoko Ono and John Coltrane and tossed them too. Grabbing his art history books, he did the same, breaking every pane of glass in the studio apartment, screaming at the top of his lungs, as he released another book from his crazed grip, “Oh you… what good did you ever do anybody? Your books are full of nonsense!” He screamed and tossed another book out the window. “To hell with all your pseudo-intellectual ideas!”
A man on the street was struck on his shoulder and collapsed to the ground. He was still breathing, but people were alarmed, someone was getting on his cell phone. Another man was pointing up toward the window he saw the book come out of.
Inside his apartment, Jules could see all his shelves were empty, and he looked around for something else to destroy and noticed his piano organ. Pounding on it, making loud discordant notes, he smashed it to the floor, then happened to see himself in a large ornate mirror he had leaning against the side wall. A savage ape man was staring back at him, breathing heavy and sweating in his eye; as he wiped it off with the back of his hand, he felt faint and staggered over to the mirror someone left behind when they moved out of the building, glaring at himself in the tarnished glass, he adjusted his hair and wiped his brow, but it was no good. It had to go.
“I never want to see my myself again!” He screamed at himself, then picked-up the heavy mirror and walked it across the room, then smashed it over the metal Wassily Chair his uncle had given him as a house warming gift. Broken bits of glass flew in every direction and cracks formed and the remaining shards hung loose around a steal frame and torn leather.
Exhausted, he collapsed in a heap on the floor, breathing heavy and whimpering, “I’m a failure, a looser!” Wailing and crying, he opened his watery eyes and raised them heavenward, “Oh God, what have I done?”
All his plans to be famous, to compose the greatest piece that stretches the boundaries of acceptable… acceptable what? He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t know what he was doing? That was obvious, going to his uncle with some vain hope of gaining recognition, how pathetic. He was a failure, as a musician and all his efforts for the last ten years, college, Juilliard, training camps, private tutors, the hours and hours of practice and what did he have to show for it?
Only two pieces of furniture were left unharmed after his rampage: the two worst pieces of furniture he owned: his wooden chair and table, where the tape was still turning in the machine recording everything, until an audible “click” could be heard, only Jules wasn’t listening. However, he did hear the police knocking at his door. He decided not to answer it; with tears in his eyes, he curled up and hid under the blankets. Eventually the police went away, now that everything was quiet and no one was seriously hurt. Besides, by time they arrived, there was nothing to see. For all they knew, they might be disturbing a law abiding citizen.
The next morning, faced with what he had done, Jules realized he made things a lot worse for himself, but he was too despondent to do anything about it. He wondered what brought the police to his door, then thought about the things he was throwing out the window from the third floor apartment and the flying glass shards. “Oh, my God,” he said, “what have I done?” He went to the window and looked out: business as usual. A homeless man picked up one of his books and started reading.
He sat down at the table and noticed the small recorder, then remembered his promise to Aunt Helena and turned the tape over absentmindedly and finished recording the story from where he left off in the book, this time without emphasis or drama, then dropped the tape in an envelope and sent it by US media mail to Helena Zeller’s townhouse near Central Park, she would have her story by the weekend.
In the next segment: Aunt Helena receives Jules tape in the mail and has a chance to hear his outburst, which sounded like he was doing something horrible to the cat and all the yelling at God. You can almost see the look of horror on her face now.
copyright William Leslie
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)