The Power of Music

Music can unlock some strange and marvelous doors.

The other night, my wife and I went to see the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company's all-Wheeldon program. The first number was Carousel, a gorgeous adaptation of music from the Rodgers and Hammerstein play. The piece began with the "Carousel Waltz," as dancers, portraying merry-go-round horses, kept the young lovers, Billy and Julie, off-balance and apart. But then, the musicians swung into "If I Loved You," and another stage sprang up in my mind, no less HD and 3D than the one before my eyes. Asbury Park, NJ, summer, 1945.

Sixty and more years ago, my family went to Asbury Park for vacations. Loudspeakers at the beach blared non-stop music at the sunbathers. Carousel had opened on Broadway earlier that spring and was the hit of the season, so for two weeks that August, I must have heard John Raitt sing "If I Loved You" upward of a hundred times. And in the opera house a few nights ago, as the dancers moved across the stage, a cascade of sensory memories paraded through my mind. I saw the sandy beach filled with people under colorful striped beach umbrellas. Pieces of paper and discarded soft drink bottles littered the scene; I had to be careful not to cut my foot on broken glass. Gray-green, white-flecked breakers crashed against the slope of the shore. Bathers - the women all wearing white rubber bathing caps - walked gingerly into the water, holding the safety ropes that ran from the shore out to buoys. Gulls squawked, screaked, swooped down to snatch discarded pieces of hot dog roll. Ice-cream vendors toted little freezer compartments on their backs, their names painted on the freezers. One was named Vic, another Son of the Beach, which I thought was curious. Behind us, crowds shuffled along the boardwalk, past game arcades and frozen custard shops; some people rode in wicker pedal carriages. Grannies in cotton print dresses and grandpas in suits, white shirts, and ties sat on benches whose backs could be shifted to permit them to look out onto the beach or back across the boardwalk. Little kids laughed and hollered as they chased each other around in circles. I smelled the tar on the boardwalk, and felt my mother's fingers rubbing suntan oil into my back and shoulders so I'd "get a good healthy tan." Pink cotton candy from the little open-front shop just across the boards melted in my mouth. And as the ballet artists - remember them? - danced to the line, "Off you would go in the mist of day," I watched the big gray cargo ships offshore, slowly vanishing into the far-off haze of the horizon.

These music-generated images come unbidden, but vivid as they are, and representing the viewpoint of a particular person of a particular age, wouldn't it be something if writers could learn to call them up on demand to help set scenes? That would be a skill worth developing.

The Power of Privilege

       Doctors who use their honorific to secure good tables in restaurants irritate me. But I guess we all have our price. 
      There's a great neighborhood theater here in Seattle, Kenyon Hall, and one of the performers who appears there is Peter Mintun, a marvelous café pianist from New York by way of San Francisco. Peter came to Seattle this past weekend, and a few days before his performance, Lou Magor, Kenyon Hall's major domo, brought him around to our house to see and hear our music boxes. Peter's major musical interest, early 20th-century American music, is well-represented on disc-playing music boxes, so we had a spirited audition of several instruments. And when it came time for Lou and Peter to leave, I hesitated only briefly before I asked Lou whether it might be possible to seat us up front for the concert. He said he thought he could oblige.
      As befits his customary venues, Peter's style is intimate, and for an hour and a half, we sat, Myra and I, six feet from the side of the piano, nothing separating us from the pianist as he played and sang from his repertoire of American show and movie music from the 'teens, 'twenties, and 'thirties - tunes I'd first heard in New York hotel lounges more than a half-century before, songs that had promised an enchanting, beguiling forever to a teenaged boy, nursing his grossly-overpriced glass of coke or ginger ale. At the end of Peter's concert, it took an effort to blink myself back to Seattle and 2010.
      While I was listening to the music, had I felt guilty for having sidestepped into those front-row seats? Not in the least. Could I summon up the slightest regret for my reprehensible behavior? I have to confess, I couldn't. O tempora! O mores!

Go to youtube, search Peter Mintun, and see and hear for yourself what I've been talking about. Be prepared for a long stay. Peter's put up a tune a day for the past 140 days.
  

Guest Blog by Robin Hathaway

Robin Hathaway, author of the popular Dr.
Andrew Fenimore and Dr. Jo Banks series, has
kindly agreed to appear as a guest on my blog,
and here's her contribution. Robin's writing has
always been music to my ears, and this short piece is no exception.
Check out Robin's web site,
www.robinhathaway.com , and be sure you haven't
missed any of the adventures of
slightly-stodgy-but-lovable Dr. Andrew Fenimore,
and the swingin' motel medico, Dr. Jo Banks.

FIRE, ICE, AND MUSIC

As you all know, Larry is a connoisseur of
old music boxes. We have one in our family—a
Mira, made about 100 years ago in
Switzerland. It's a beautiful wooden box, which
plays a collection of metal disks with such tunes
as "My Old Kentucky Home," "Stars and Stripes
Forever," "Lohengrin's Wedding March," etc. Once,
Larry kindly provided us with a history of the
box. Now, I'd like to tell you a true story about it.

One bitter cold February night my daughter,
Anne, aged twelve, woke us saying she smelled
smoke. (The fire alarm had gone off but we hadn't
heard it.) My husband and I shot out of bed.
Well...he shot, I crawled, because I had a broken
leg at the time. While Bob investigated the
smoke, Anne called 911, and I sat at the top of
the stairs, waiting to be helped down. It turned
out the fire was in the furnace.

The firemen arrived within minutes and
ordered us all out of the house. It was about 10
degrees and sleeting. One of the firemen carried
me out and planted me on our icy front stoop
where, despite the weather, the neighbors were
gathering. He went back in to attend to the fire.
As it turned out, the fire was electrical and was
put out easily with a bag of baking soda.
Everyone trooped back inside, except me, who had
to be carried (I could get used to this!).

While we were thanking the firemen, the chief spied the
music box in the corner of the living room.

"What's that?" he asked. We told him and he
immediately demanded that we play it.

So, there we were, at three o'clock in the
morning, in our night clothes (and in my case, a
6 lb cast) listening with four firemen to "Oh,
Susannah." One fireman began tapping his
foot—another sang along to the music. Pretty soon
we were all jigging and singing to those old
tunes. We must have played a dozen of them. (I
don't know how many houses burned down in the
meantime!) When the party finally broke up the
chief fireman warned us not to turn on the oil heater until it was repaired.

After they left, silence fell on the house,
and suddenly we became acutely conscious of the
cold. We decided we had better all sleep in the
same bed to keep warm. We were just dozing off
under a mountain of blankets and comforters when
Anne sat up in bed, and said, "Isn't there a law against this?"