Blaht On!

Perhaps because of the last nine months of travel and an aptitude, Leslie and I are now incredibly sophiscated. This is our steadfast opinion. There has been no independent objective agency evaluate our claim mainly because nobody is interested, I suspect. If I was a lawyer representing us in our sophistication claim, I would present the following case.

Exhibit A, is the fact that we attended an avante garde organ recital in Paris. Albeit this alleged sophistication occurred rather quickly in one evening. The sophistication-inducing event was preceded by a day spent viewing modern art at the George Pompadou Centre (Madame Pompadou was his wife), which lends weighty credibility to our claim. Yes, I know it all sounds very pretentious but when you live in the fast lane like Leslie and me, it is merely another day, pfhht (as the French say). This sophistication has happened with absolutely no effort on our part. Therefore, I suspect that it is largely superficial and may be gone by sometime this afternoon.

Madame Warnock, as she is now referred to at least until the end of this blog, got the super idea to attend a virtuoso organ performance at Notre Dame Cathedral. A splendid way, she said, to top off our day, with some boppy little Christmas tunes, as she put it. Madame also said there would be singing, probably Gregorian chants. Madame Warnock’s advice and guidance are usually very reliable. So the stage was set for another adventure.

Admittedly, I was not interested in the concert to the level of watching a stage of the Tour de France on the telly but perhaps to the level of a British touring car race. You can see I had a way to go in the sophistication spectrum. I was definitely game though, this was gay Paris after all. Culture and sophistication are infectious. I figured it is almost the same as catching a cold, if you’re around enough people who have it you’ll catch it. I reckon it also requires about the same effort level.

It was a chilly rainy night, requiring a jacket and toque of all things, pfhht. We could see our breath rhythmically condensing, like a Scottish steam engine, as we hurried along. The area of Marais, which we stayed, was a short walk from Notre Dame.
The performance started easily enough with seven singers, beautiful a cappella, very atmospheric. The singers quietly retreated to a darker area as their voices faded. The cathedral’s vast interior had wonderful haunting acoustics.

The organist commanded a huge instrument which was above and behind the audience. He started with a giganote, voluminous and initially projectile, then it hung. It could only be described as a Blaht. This is going to be great, I thought to myself. Then it was followed by a seemingly random series of Blahts. They were lobbed out of the organ pipes and reverberated before hanging. It was like eavesdropping on an industrial process.

I can do this, I thought, as I sturdied myself, much in the same way when as when viewing modern art for the first time. I dug deep into my pre-existing sophistication stores but, as expected, I came up dry.

Madame and I have really enjoyed the art galleries of Europe, in particular a mix of modern and older works. The audio and personal guides provided by the galleries are incredibly informative, in particular placing a painting in a historical context. This often transforms a piece that, at first glance, looks ambiguous and awkward into a compelling work of art. This recital would soon fall into place in the same way. I thought patience would serve me well in catching some culture.

I was wrong. Not one of the sequences of notes resembled a melody. Now, I love some jazz that even Leslie finds painful. But this was not Miles Davis or Martin, Madeski and Woods. I tried taking Miles’s advice and tried to “listen” to the spaces where the notes weren’t, but while it makes a great sentence, this proved much too difficult. Jimi Hendrix on acid, having a bad trip was the first thing that sprung to mind, but this would be an insult to Jimi whose music I like.

Suddenly, I had a lot of time to kill, so I scanned the audience. A few people looked distraught, a few looked amused and the remainder, lost and bewildered. I had just signed up for the latter category. However, on closer examination there appeared to be a consistent thread of people who seemed mesmerized. They even appeared to know when a particular piece would end! How could that be? Egads, this music might be good!

I decided I needed to concentrate more. With my eyes closed, I tried to lose myself in the music, but the veins on my forehead bulged with effort and I started to get a headache. I could “get” this just like I thought I “got” the art of Francis Bacon in London.

A quick look told me that Leslie was locked in the same struggle. A smile was germinating in the corner of her mouth. There was a clear danger of it propagating into a full blown belly laugh. Madame, this was not a time to giggle. I said to myself, please no giggling. Jean Paul Sartre never giggled, I happen to know that as a fact. Please “JP”, give me strength. He would understand this music or, at the very least, understand the existential struggle we were locked in. Man, this was getting deep real fast.

I don’t like deep. I like easy. I once almost learned Italian very easily. When we arrived in Bologna with our friend Lisa from Calgary, we got a two bedroom hotel suite. Lisa’s room was downstairs and also had a TV. Lisa and I had been following the Giro d’Italia after seeing a stage of the bike race pass by our place in Taormina, Sicily. I was watching the Italian coverage upstairs and went down to talk to Lisa. As I entered her room, she excused herself briefly. The coverage resumed as she left and I understood every word. It was if it was in English! Obviously, I had reached a previously unknown critical mass or tipping point in Italian immersion and suddenly I was fluent, wow! Unfortunately, upon Lisa’s return she let me down, she said it was English. We had a great laugh and double checked the TV upstairs and there was no English coverage upstairs, alora!

I had plenty of time to ponder that memory at the concert and I thought, maybe this music would suddenly make sense. Every now and then we got a brief respite from the organist with the singers. Madame leaned over as yet another couple was making for the exit, she said that the first intermission was approaching. It may be her” first intermission” but I thought it was going to be my last.

Leslie was only kidding and the concert ended after the next Ode to a Blaht. The remaining audience, including us, leapt to their feet and immediately oriented our applause backwards toward the organ. After thirty seconds, a very conservative looking gentleman extricated himself from the bowels of the organ and peeked around one of the organ pipes, which caused another excited crescendo of applause from his “knowledgeable” fan base. With our newly found sophistication, we “got it.“

I rest my case.