Tag Archives: Philip Glass

Omnireviewer (week of Feb. 12, 2017)

Leave a reply

19 reviews, mostly podcasts.

Literature, etc.

Amanda Hess: “How a Fractious Women’s Movement Came to Lead the Left” — This isn’t just an account of the women’s march on Washington and its various internal controversies; it is also a brief history of conflicts within feminism since the days of the women’s suffrage movement. Extremely edifying.

Movies

13th — This is an intensely powerful film with such a tremendous roster of eloquent interviewees that its lack of narration hardly seems like a stunt. Together, the guests gathered by Ava DuVernay (including Angela Davis and Cory Booker) tell a long, fucked up story about the political processes that led to the staggering rise in incarceration of black people at the end of the 20th century. It leads with the racist myth-making of D.W. Griffith, and traces those myths through the increasingly covert dog whistle rhetoric of “law and order” presidents: Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton. It isn’t just powerful argumentation, it is deft and irresistible storytelling, even as it becomes increasingly horrifying as it nears the present day. Every talking head is beautifully framed (DuVernay isn’t just a documentarian, after all) and the soundtrack is a brilliant mix of the likes of Nina Simone, Killer Mike and Lawrence Brownlee. (Look him up. Do it.) If the Academy chafes at the nomination of what is definitely a TV show and not a movie for its Documentary Feature award, this would be a stellar alternative to my preferred nominee, O.J.: Made in America. Pick of the week. 

Television

Battlestar Galactica: Season 2, episodes 18-20 — Oh, and they pulled the season together. “Downloaded” is a classic, and the premise of having Caprica Six have her own “Head Baltar” as a reversal of Baltar’s situation with his own hallucinated (?) Six is the best addition to the show since Pegasus. Watching Tricia Helfer and James Callis play the opposite of their usual roles is a delight and demonstrates just how much they’re the best pairing in the show, and two of the most skilled actors it possesses. Grace Park… less so. The finale is a stunner, far exceeding the season one finale with its clever time jump mechanism, but also with one of the most compelling political plotlines the show has done so far. BSG season two is intensely patchy, but when it’s good, it’s staggering.

Music

Philip Glass Ensemble: Einstein on the Beach (1993 recording) — I don’t know why it took me so long to listen to this in its entirety. I have known a few of its more substantial chunks like the back of my hand for a lot of years, but had never made my way through the entire opera. It took Laurie Anderson to make me finally do it. (And hoo boy, does “O Superman” ever borrow liberally from this. In the best way.) This week, Einstein on the Beach accompanied my bus commutes, my writing, my running and my IKEA furniture assembly. (Einstein on the Beach plus IKEA furniture might not be your idea of a Saturday afternoon well spent, but I was happy as a clam.) I think if you’re going to listen to all of Einstein on the Beach, the way to do it is to take it in bits and be otherwise occupied for at least some of it. I can imagine that it would be mentally exhausting to listen to the entire recording — even though it runs a solid hour shorter than actual productions do. But what may be tedious taken all at once is often euphoric when heard in pieces. Some sections are more enticing that others, and since the sections are so long and so repetitive, that means that the lesser ones tend to outstay their welcome. (The “Night Train” scene, with its dated electric piano sound is a particular offender. Why is it that sound gets on my nerves but I’m completely fine with the omnipresent Farfisa organ? We’ll never know.) But the best scenes in this are actually curiously moving, in spite of having virtually no content. The opening and closing “Knee Plays,” where poetry is recited repeatedly alongside a chorus that’s just counting out loud is, I dare say, beautiful. But I’ll be damned if I know why. I’ll be damned if I can figure out what any of this means at all. I’d love to see it, though I halfway think it might be insufferable. The best bits of this are possibly Philip Glass’s finest achievements. Certainly I prefer it to anything he’s written for conventional ensembles of acoustic instruments. I intend to check out the 1978 recording as well, though it is less complete than this second one. Actually, come to think of it, that might be more of a feature than a bug.

Podcasts

Reply All: “Second Language” — Sruthi’s cyborg interview isn’t the real anchor of this episode, which is mostly notable for a Yes Yes No in which I was proud to be a yes while Alex Goldman was a no. But it was about Norm Kelly and I’m Canadian, so it almost doesn’t count.

On the Media: “See You In Court” — This features a useful primer on what exactly a constitutional crisis constitutes, another primer on the differences between conventional liberal values and anti-fascist tactics, and a news consumer’s handbook on coverage of protests. So, it’s meat-and-potatoes On the Media of the sort that I suspect Brooke Gladstone is most in favour of. And, as much as I enjoy Bob Garfield’s impassioned editorials, I confess I’m really still in it for the analysis. This is great. Pick of the week. 

Pop Culture Happy Hour: “The LEGO Batman Movie and MasterChef Junior” — I’m inclined to check out both of these things. Hearing Glen Weldon enthuse about The LEGO Batman Movie feels like the culmination of an entire thread of discourse that’s existed in this podcast for years. And MasterChef Junior sounds like just what I need to make myself feel inadequate just as I’m upping my own cooking game. You can’t be too humble.

Radiolab: “Radiolab Presents: Ponzi Supernova” — I’m not sold enough on this to listen to Ponzi Supernova itself, but I’m happy to have heard a bit of this story with interjections from Jad and Robert.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: “Small Batch: The Grammys” — The Grammys are a joke. That is all.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: “Philip Pullman To Follow-Up ‘His Dark Materials’ Trilogy” — I don’t know if I’m happier about the fact that Pullman is writing more His Dark Materials or the fact that Glen Weldon got to talk to the guy who is indirectly responsible for him meeting his husband. Regardless, they are both lovely things.

The Gist: “David Frum Beseeches You To Focus” — The interview with David Frum is well worth your while to hear somebody talk who is smart and involved with supposedly elitist coastal media, but is also Republican. I can’t ever quite like him, but I’m glad that he exists. If only all Republicans were like him.

Chapo Trap House: “The Devil in Mother Jones” — It would have been great to hear them talk to Bauer a bit about his piece on private prisons, but I’ll take right-wing militia infiltration too.

Love and Radio: “How to Argue” — A follow-up to “The Silver Dollar,” a back episode I’m fairly fond of. I’m honestly a bit conflicted on Daryl Davis’s advice about how to talk to horrible people. One of his premises is that everybody deserves to be heard, even if they’re wrong or hateful. Much of the time I’m not convinced of this. But honestly, the thing that I’ve been praising Love and Radio for over the past several months is its ability to present people with whom I disagree in all of their complexity. I’d never say that this show should stop featuring guests that I don’t agree with. So, why do I find Daryl Davis’s radical acceptance of hateful people so hard to accept? I can’t easily answer this. But how like Love and Radio to be troubling, even in a basic, utilitarian discussion of tactics.

On the Media: “Out Like Flynn” — I think the idea that General Flynn’s resignation might have actually thrown the Trump spin machine off kilter is ludicrously optimistic, but that’s just me.

99% Invisible: “Usonia the Beautiful” — I preferred the first part of this story, that detailed the actual development and history of the Usonian homes. But this is interesting for the details about how those homes succeeded and how they failed to live up to their promise, a generation later.

Arts and Ideas: “Rude Valentines. Neil Gaiman, Translating China’s Arts” — Yeah, I can get behind this. This is BBC’s major arts and culture podcast, and it’s as fun and smart as you’d expect. I understand there are Brits who think the BBC is severely wanting, and maybe if I lived there and was more inundated by it (and if I watched their news), maybe I’d see some of the problems. But I more or less think that it’s the platonic ideal of media and that we should all have a licence fee model to pay for a public broadcaster.

Pop Culture Happy Hour: “Legion and Planet Earth II” — I feel that Glen Weldon is overstating the extent to which Planet Earth II anthropomorphizes the animals it features by a smidgen. Linda Holmes is right to point out that it mostly portrays them as wanting to find food and reproduce. I’d add that the farthest David Attenborough goes in his anthropomorphic writing is to portray an animal as making a choice. Which, of course, they do. To what extent is the baby lizard in the now viral clip with the racer snakes anthropomorphized? The film is showing something that is true: the lizard’s life is at risk, and it has to either outrun some snakes or stay perfectly still. Tension can and should be allowed to rest on the decision that the lizard has to make, because it’s a real decision, even if not a conscious one, and it is legitimately high-stakes. I have little to no interest in Legion.

On The Media: “Leak State” — The highlights of this are the segments on why we should be careful with our use of the word “treason,” and why we should be careful when comparing Donald Trump to various other strongman leaders. Basically, the thing to take from this is that the stuff you say means things — specific things, if you’re using language right — so if you’re on TV or writing in a newspaper, you should be aware of the specific things that the stuff you say means. Has this become less than self-evident?

Beef and Dairy Network: “Dr David Pin” — Okay, we’ll see where this goes. I’m aware that this is semi-serialized, so I’m hoping that they can build on the continuity they establish without relying on it too heavily. Because this tiny episode would in itself be a fairly excellent longer segment in a sketch show. But I’m optimistic about this — it is actually produced like the thing it purports to be, thus eliminating the largest problem with the other serialized comedy podcast I listen to (Welcome to Night Vale).

Omnireviewer (Week of Oct. 25, 2015)

Leave a reply

I read, watch and listen to a whole lot of stuff. Usually, I have thoughts on that stuff. Oftentimes, those thoughts are not substantial enough to justify a proper essay, and I don’t have time for that anyway. To wit, here is the premise of Omnireviewer: if I read, watch or listen to it, I will review it in a few sentences. Every Sunday, I will compile the previous week’s reviews in a post like this one.

Before we begin, a few guidelines. Here are some things I generally won’t review:

  • Stuff made by people I know, or people who people I know know. I’m doing this for fun, not to make my life awkward.
  • Every bit of music I listen to for work. My job involves listening to a LOT of music. I’ll review it if it’s especially interesting or new, but I won’t hold myself to this.
  • Fragments. If I listen to a single song on the way to the grocery store, no. If I listen to a whole album walking home from work, yes. If I watch a John Oliver segment on YouTube, no. If I watch a full episode of Last Week Tonight, yes.
  • Blog posts/articles/essays etc. This accounts for a lot of what I read in any given week. But actually reviewing that stuff seems needlessly far down the rabbit hole, even for me.

For things that will take me more than a week to get through (i.e. books and games), I’ll give them a mention when I start them, review them when I’m finished them, and give updates periodically in between. That’s unless the book or game breaks down logically, like episodic games or collections of short stories. In that case, I’ll review each part.

Not everything I review will be new, nor will it all even be new to me. I revisit old favourites as frequently or more than I seek out new favourites — especially where music’s concerned. But I’ll only review something in an Omnireviewer post once. Subsequent revisitations will occur anonymously. In general, if I don’t mention that I’ve seen/read/heard something before, I probably haven’t.

Finally, none of what I’ve said above constitutes “rules.” By which I mean: I reserve the right to break them at my convenience. And now, here are my reviews of the 28 things I read, watched or listened to since Sunday, October 25:

Movies

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night — I’m not one of those people who gorges on horror movies around Halloween, because most of my favourite horror movies aren’t the Halloween kind of horror movies. I don’t scare easy, so I tend to prefer horror of a more existential persuasion — the kind that finds its way into your dreams and changes you for a while. (See especially Davids Lynch and Cronenberg.) This is not that kind of movie. This is a vampire movie, totally Halloween-ready. But totally, totally unconventional. Best to go into it knowing as little as possible. But, if you’ve seen it: that scene with the disco ball? Seriously.

Television

Doctor Who: “The Woman Who Lived” — This season of Doctor Who hasn’t been hitting it out of the park for me. I adored the last season, and I think Peter Capaldi is as good an actor as ever played the Doctor. But the scripts so far this year have been bland: even Steven Moffat’s, and to me he’s the best writer in all the land. Strange then, that Catherine Treganna — best known for her work on Torchwood, which I don’t especially like — should write the first really good episode of the season. It’s no “Listen,” or “Kill the Moon,” but Maisie Williams playing a jaded immortal was always going to be a winning concept.

QI: “A Medley of Maladies” — The brilliance of QI is that the humour often veers into territory that you’d be embarrassed to enjoy if it were stand-up, but it’s packaged alongside fascinating obscure trivia to make you feel less dumb. Any episode with Ross Noble is bound to be a gem.

Music

Peter Hammill: Nadir’s Big Chance — I’ve been meaning to listen to this for years, and somehow didn’t get around to it until now. This is the album where the lead singer of Van Der Graaf Generator allegedly invented punk rock in 1974. If that sounds a bit outlandish to you, you’re right. But there are places where he comes surprisingly close. More importantly, this is fantastic. Possibly second only to In Camera in Hammill’s solo catalogue.

Philip Glass: Solo Piano — This is a collection of three separate pieces of music that all feature a two-note repeating pattern in the left hand. One might think it would get old, but it’s actually hypnotic in the way that Glass is at his best. His piano playing is pretty scrappy in places, but it’s always nice to hear recordings where that feels beside the point.

Wilhelm Kempff: Brahms Klavierstücke, Op. 116-119 — It was about time I sat down and listened to Brahms’s final piano pieces all the way through. The famous Eb-major intermezzo was always a favourite, but all of these pieces are gems. It’s perfect mood music — a mellow old scotch in harmony and counterpoint. I can see this joining my other favourite solo piano music (Debussy’s preludes, Beethoven’s late sonatas, Bach’s partitas) within a few listens. Kempff’s 1963 recording is deservedly a classic. I’ll be checking out his Beethoven next, for contrast.

Jethro Tull: Peel Sessions, 1968-69 — A revisit, inspired by a book I’ve been reading (see below). These recordings really highlight what Mick Abrahams brought to the table. For all that Martin Barre added to the band, Abrahams plays most of these early songs better. Ian Anderson’s vocal performance on “Stormy Weather” is borderline minstrelsy, though. This is not a pun; this is an allegation of casual racism, lest anybody misunderstand. These things happen with white blues bands. I still love this, though.

Neil Young: Time Fades Away — An old favourite of mine. It’s hard to reckon why Young still hates this album and refuses to reissue it. Is he even listening? He may have been out of his head at the time, but his band has never sounded better. “Last Dance” is not one of Young’s best songs, but it is one of his very best tracks. It’s all in the performance. The fakeout at the end is one of my favourite moments on a rock live album. Also, how is this not in every list of best album covers ever?

Literature, etc.

China Miéville: “The Rope is the World” — This is from his short story collection Three Moments of an Explosion, which I’ve been really enjoying. Miéville’s writing sometimes borders on poetry in its density. In this story about elevators into the atmosphere, he coins words on the fly with no explanation. It forces you to think through their likely etymology, lest you lose the plot entirely. I can see how some readers might be frustrated by that, but I find it fun.

Reza Aslan: No God But God — I’m about two-thirds of the way through, and already recommending it to everyone I know. I was always amazed by Aslan’s eloquence in interviews. He could basically talk into a microphone for several hours, transcribe it, and that would be a decent book. But he’s way more of a craftsman than that. He structures his chapters around an introductory anecdote or parable, told in prose worthy of the best living novelists. Each of these stories helps situate you before he transitions into his always-lucid argumentation. It’s an ingenious structure. I’ll have more to say about the content itself when I’m finished the book.

David Cavanagh: Good Night and Good Riddance — I bought this as soon as I finished the Kindle sample. Good God, is this ever exactly what I want to read right now. In case you haven’t read the Guardian’s shimmering platinum review, this book is a deep dive into the life’s work of the BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, with whom I am not directly familiar, being 25 and Canadian. But his show was clearly a force in a number of consecutive countercultures. And Cavanagh’s a dazzling writer. I’ll be putting a couple of other books down for a while, to tuck into this.

Games

Stasis — After reading so many rave reviews, I confess to being a little disappointed. There are bright spots in this: parts of it are genuinely terrifying, and exploring a post-catastrophe civilization riddled with biological horrors is never not going to be fun. But, the voice acting leaves much to be desired, the writing is weak at best, the villain is of the moustache-twirling variety, and the backstory just introduced a hackneyed love quadrangle that I assume was supposed to make me feel something but didn’t. By the time I finish this, I may like it better.

Podcasts

(These will always come at the end, because I listen to a lot of them — commutes, runs and dishes, you know — and I listen to several of the same ones every week. It may get dull for you, even if it never does for me.)

Welcome to Night Vale: “Rumbling” — My general opinion of Night Vale is that it’s a great idea with some great writing and some great jokes, but it has structural issues. This instalment foregrounds some of those issues. Cecil Baldwin, who I generally like a lot as a character and slightly less as a host, oscillates back and forth between phoning it in and overselling every joke. The choices of background music seem arbitrary. Still, this is tying up threads of a major plot arc, and I can forgive a bit of sluggishness while the show adjusts to a new status quo.

The Allusionist: “Vocables” — I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts from the Radiotopia network, lately. They’ve got a fundraising campaign on, and they’re going big. This is apparently the first of several planned crossover events where Helen Zaltzman will collaborate with hosts of other Radiotopia shows, which is satisfying in itself for podcast geeks like me. This week, it’s Hrishikesh Hirway from Song Exploder. So, language geekiness collides with music geekiness and I couldn’t be happier.

The Truth: “Starburst” — I loved this. I won’t spoil it by describing it too much. It’s a radio play about a jerk magazine writer at a comic con, but it quickly veers off in a truly unpredictable direction. The really notable thing about it is how The Truth’s pristine, elaborate sound design feeds into the story to become a structural element. I’ve never heard that before in the episodes of this show that I’ve listened to. It’s only fifteen minutes long. It’s well worth your time. Also, people who are interested in nominating things for Hugos should nominate this for a Hugo.

This American Life: “The Night in Question” — I love a good conspiracy theory. And here’s one with political implications, to boot. This is about how most of Israel questions the official narrative about the assassination of their prime minister 25 years ago. It’s gripping in exactly the way that Serial gets too much credit for being.

On The Media: “Truth(ish)” — Where Jon Stewart was always a comedian who also happened to be a media critic, Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield are media critics who also happen to be funny. If you were one of the people who watched Stewart’s Daily Show as much for the sanity as for the humour, you need to be listening to this. If the West Wing pastiche that opens this episode doesn’t sell you on the entire show, you’re unlikely to be into it at all.

Fugitive Waves: “WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts” — The Kitchen Sisters’ radio storytelling can be a bit on the slow, meditative side for my taste, but they have a great ear for interesting characters. In this two-parter, they interview the women (and a couple of the men) who kept the first all-woman radio station in the United States running. It also contains an infuriating yet funny clip of one of the first female radio announcers trying to ward off the explicit advances of her male guest while maintaining on-air decorum. Worth a listen.

This American Life: “The Call Was Coming from the Basement” — The story of a woman getting attacked by a rabid raccoon is perhaps not Alex Blumberg’s very best work. But David Sedaris’s story about hanging out in a morgue makes up the difference.

The Memory Palace: “Butterflies” — This podcast might just have the best writing for the ear that I’ve ever heard. Nate DiMeo is basically a spoken word artist for history nuts. This is a particularly sweeping and ambitious story, at more than twice the normal length (it’s 20 minutes long). It’s a story about humans screwing themselves. Those stories are always relevant.

Fresh Air: “Gloria Steinem” — Steinem is a hero and has some great stories. Hearing her talk about the circumstances she encountered in media at the beginning of the women’s movement is fascinating: editors feeling that one editorial saying “women are equal” needed to be counterbalanced by another saying “no they’re not,” etc. Terry Gross asks some unexpected questions and gets some truly wonderful moments of radio out of it. There’s a reason Marc Maron calls her the “industry standard.”

Meet the Composer: “Ingram Marshall” — This is the first episode of Meet the Composer that I’ve listened to that’s about a composer I’d never heard of. And, I’ll certainly be looking into Ingram Marshall’s music further. So, mission accomplished, there. But the great thing about this show is that every episode incorporates at least one tangential discussion of an element of music history for context. This time around, we hear about the legacy of gamelan in Western music: from Debussy to the Canadian composer Colin McPhee, who transcribed gamelan music for two pianos and performed it with Benjamin Britten. That you’ve got to hear.

99% Invisible: “War and Pizza” — Most of what’s in our grocery aisles started off as military technology. That is a tidbit I can now file away and impress somebody with later. This is why I love 99% Invisible.

Reply All: “The Law That Sticks” — A somewhat procedural episode of Reply All. You should listen to it, because the law it’s about is properly disturbing. But it feels like that’s the main reason the producers think you should listen to this episode, also. Basically, not one of their most fun episodes, but worth hearing.

The Moth: “Kimya Dawson & Kevin Haas” — It’s fine. Kept me amused during my run. Sometimes The Moth knocks me flat. Not this time.

Theory of Everything: “The Things We Do For Money” — ToE’s cross-promotion game has been strong since the start of the Radiotopia fundraising campaign. Last time, Roman Mars helped tell the long-view story of podcasting, and this time Jonathan Mitchell from The Truth reconstructed a radio play by Walter Benjamin. (I know.) I don’t mind people asking for money when they do it in a way that’s this clever.

Welcome to Night Vale: “The Retirement of Pamela Winchell” — Oh, look, it’s picking up already.

Live events

Welcome to Night Vale: Live at the Chan Centre — I waffled on whether to go to this. Night Vale is scrappy at the best of times: their live episodes even more so. Plus, I’m about twenty episodes behind. But then I thought, eh, what are the chances of the most popular comedy/horror podcast coming through your town on Halloween? And I bit the bullet, ditched my plans and went. (I tried to convince my friends to come with, but it went down kind of like this.)

Gosh, but this was a whimsical experience. The story was a fluffy, whimsical romp. The musical guest was a whimsical sort of musical guest, of the harmonium/glockenspiel/ukulele-playing variety. And the audience sure was whimsical. I mean, it was Halloween, to be fair. But one gets the feeling that some of those people might dress like that year-round. Good on ‘em.

This live show lacks the bloat of some of the others I’ve heard. Cecil carried the bulk of the story, with a brief appearance from Carlos being the only significant guest spot. The story was mercifully continuity-light, considering how much listening I have to do before I’m caught up. It just told a story and got done with it, which is what I wish Night Vale would do more often. Cecil was in top form. Everything was in its right place and made me glad I decided to go. Plus: kidding aside, that whimsical musician, Eliza Rickman, is completely fantastic.

But even in a live setting, Disparition’s background music still doesn’t make a lick of narrative sense.

I ran, I fell – OR – Why my hands were bleeding at the Kronos concert

Leave a reply

The word “injury” can elicit tremors of terror amongst musicians, and with reason.

I have known two trumpet players whose careers have been interrupted by a malaise of the muscles around the mouth. One was able to retrain his chops to behave like they did before, but it was a painstaking process that took months of delicate practice. The other needed surgery to reconstruct his embouchure.

I once spoke to a violist whose hand contracted into a fist inexplicably, and didn’t come undone for several months.

Singers may develop polyps on their vocal folds, making their jobs rather painful for a while.

And those are the lucky ones. Musicians are vulnerable. An injury that most people could easily adapt to can mean never playing music professionally ever again. Snap. There goes that career.

However, I count myself unique amongst these cases, as I am the only person I know to have suffered an injury as a member of the audience. This is the story of the night when the universe confirmed that I was never meant to be a musician.

***

On the evening of October 19, 2013, I attended the Kronos Quartet’s 40th anniversary concert at the Chan Centre on the UBC campus. I reviewed it for Vancouver Weekly. I had just emerged from the hall after an (intermittently) interesting pre-concert Q&A with Philip Glass, whose sixth string quartet was to be premiered that night. I was excited.

I realize now that I may have been spared a great deal of inconvenience and physical discomfort if my press credentials hadn’t garnered me such an excellent seat at the concert, so near the front of the hall. Had I been closer to the door, I might have been among the first to make it to the washroom after the Q&A ended, but no. By the time I reached the lobby, the line was firmly in place and not getting any shorter.

I have a natural aversion to public toilets, but I can normally get past it. Also, I’m not usually opposed to waiting in lines. But before I will commit to placing myself in such close proximity to people I don’t know, I need to be reasonably certain that those people will not attempt to make social contact with me. Call it what you like: it’s how I am on all but my best days.

Situations in which people have been stimulated en masse are always high-risk for awkward conversation. Minutes prior, the Chan Centre audience had been in the presence of a legend: an (intermittently) interesting experience that required unpacking. My fear was that whoever I lined up behind would feel the need to unload his analysis upon me, obligating me to offer up an original, creative thought in response. And I damn well wasn’t going to be coming up with any of those until I settled down to write. I don’t think well on my feet.

So, I figured I’d just dart over to the nearby journalism school, which I attend by day, and to which I conveniently have 24-hour access. The building has two men’s washrooms that I’ve come to trust (and a third one that I still feel weird about).

I don’t know why I decided to run there. I had plenty of time. A leisurely stroll would have been entirely adequate. The concert didn’t start for a half-hour. And frankly, running is not a thing that I do. (That’s partially because it makes me look ridiculous. I run with my torso plank-straight, arms flailing about. It looks stupid, but there’s nothing I can do about it.) I’ve been known to walk quickly when under stress, but for the most part, I’m a stubbornly slow-moving individual. In high school, it drove my phys-ed teachers nuts.

Anyway, between the Chan Centre and the J-school, there’s a slight downhill grade. So the crucial point is that once I’d started, I only kept running because I was too lazy to forcibly decelerate. And then there were stairs.

My recollection of what happened next is a little hazy. What I remember can be summed up into these points:

  1. I made it down the stairs without incident.
  2. There was a truck turning the corner as I dismounted.
  3. Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, I botched the landing.
  4. The person in the truck began to roll down the window while I lay on the ground, moaning.
  5. I was deeply embarrassed about what had just occurred.
  6. I managed to get back on my feet and I ran into the school before the person in the truck had the chance to say anything. There was no way I was going to speak to a human being about the astonishing lack of equilibrium that I had just demonstrated.

Thus it was that I incurred my injury in the most prosaic fashion imaginable: I ran, I fell.

***

The second floor of UBC’s journalism school is arranged in a ring. If you’re so inclined, you can walk past three or four professors’ offices, through the reading room, past the stairs, end up back where you started, and do it all over again. This is especially convenient when you suspect you’ve broken your hand in an embarrassing “running and falling” incident, and you need to walk it off.

I suspected that my hand was broken, or at least fractured, because it had felt this way before. Six years prior, when I was in high school back in Fort McMurray, I had fallen down a cliff on the banks of the Athabasca River. I fractured the fourth metacarpal in my left hand, and was in a cast for several weeks. At the time, I aspired to become a professional pianist of some kind.

Snap. There goes that career.

But, never mind. At some point, my singular lack of talent and commitment would have scuppered me anyway, so it doesn’t upset me too much. I earned a degree in the trumpet instead. It wasn’t for me. And here we are.

In the J-school washroom, I started running my hands under cold water and I realized that my right was probably not going to stop bleeding for a while. My fall onto rough concrete had left my hands not only internally injured, but displaying some semblance of road rash.

I gingerly put my coat back on and headed back to the Chan Centre. My hands were both becoming sorer by the minute, but I had a concert to review, and I’d be damned if I was going to miss the premiere of a Philip Glass string quartet.

***

I didn’t make a good impression on the guy sitting next to me. In retrospect, I suppose “I’d shake your hand, but mine won’t stop bleeding,” isn’t the best way to introduce oneself, but what else was I meant to say? Mercifully, the concert started right away.

It’s a strange thing, hearing live music when you’re in pain. Sometimes it seems so immediate, so present: the perfect distraction. But sometimes you find yourself drifting.* You start thinking things like “Should I leave and go to the hospital?” Or, “Man, it’s hard to clap.” But three things kept me in my seat:

  1. This was history. A new work by Philip Glass is a big deal.
  2. I had a job to do. I said I would review this concert, and I was damn well going to.
  3. The Kronos Quartet is extremely awesome. Sometimes, they were so good I forgot I even had hands.

So I stayed at the Chan Centre, soaking in the music, hands bleeding into my lap.

***

My hand wasn’t broken, just sprained. I left the hospital at 3:00 AM that same night. By that time, the pain was (intermittently) much more manageable, and the road rash had scabbed over. The only problem was, I couldn’t move the fingers on my left hand. For the next week, it was difficult to do dishes, put on clothes, shampoo my hair, and pour things. Writing was okay. (Well, kind of.)

But, if I were a musician, my entire life would have ground to a halt that week. No practicing, no rehearsals, no concerts. If any of the members of Kronos had run and fallen on October 19, Philip Glass’s sixth string quartet might still not have premiered.

But they didn’t, and that’s the key. See, playing an instrument isn’t all about what’s in your brain. It took me a long time to realize that. Playing an instrument requires a connection to your body that I just don’t possess, and never have.** Ask my old phys-ed teachers. Ask anybody who has ever witnessed the ridiculous spectacle of me running.

So, I’m very happy to live in brainland now, with the intricate physical skills of music-making far behind me. I have a cliff on a riverbank to thank for that, and a concrete staircase to remind me that my life is good.

_____

*In my VanWeekly review, I proclaimed that “String Quartet No. 6 lacks the immediacy of Glass’ previous chamber music, but one gets the feeling that repeated listening will yield rewards.” Avid classical music fans will recognize this statement as a euphemism for “I sat through the concert but I can’t remember how the damned music sounds.” It’s a common problem when you’re hearing a piece for the first time. I would normally have reservations about admitting this, but given that my hand was quickly swelling up and becoming immobile, I think I deserve a break.

**Don’t get me wrong, there are many other crucial traits that I feel I lack: natural musicality, perseverance, etc. But this one is undeniable. Even my mother would admit this one.