Older gentleman here at the LIBARRY has loudly asked two librarians if there are any books here on how to play pool. The first librarian, clarifying in the form of a question, spelled the word: “P-O-O-L?” before somewhat glumly handing him a slip of paper with what I assume was a Dewey Decimal reference number for the most authoritative tome ever created on achieving mastery of the sport.

Why did I call him a gentleman? Because he is older? He actually comes off as rude and demanding.

The first librarian sent him on his way but whatever way that led him was evidently unsatisfactory, since it sent him to another librarian. Now there is some brinkmanship, intentional or not I do not know. The man has accompanied the second librarian over to a computer screen  next to the first librarian. She (the first librarian) must feel like an ABJECT FAILURE.

Hah, awesome, the man is now in the process of checking out a book called How To Play Pool. Mission accomplished. Feels like I just watched a municipally sponsored ad for the public library system, except in that case the first librarian would have nailed it in that format. Propaganda, even.

The second librarian is now smiling as she leaves the man with his book. Maybe I will see him next at Veronica’s showing off his freshly minted billiards virtuosity. He will be working the room, book in hand at first, as he gradually works his way toward memorizing the tinctures and tics of a sport I once heard described as a perfect marriage of physics and athletic prowess.

Actually that might have been bowling.

A high school teacher once emphatically made the point that you can be a virtuoso in anything. He cited baseball as a seemingly unlikely craft at which one could be labeled with that term. This man will rise to billiards virtuosity, I just know it. I mean, he has the book! How can you go wrong when you are in possession of The Book?

…

Page 181 today comes from The Music of Black Americans, by Eileen Southern.

My brother, you promised Jesus,
My brother, you promised Jesus,
My brother, you promised Jesus,
To either fight or die.

Oh, I wish I was there
To hear my Jesus’s orders,
Oh, I wish I was there
To wear my starry cross.

Trying to remember where I know that expression, “starry cross.” Bob Dylan? I hear his name in my mind now as “Boob Dylan.” I think that is from an early concert of his in Europe where an announcer said his name thusly. I don’t think it’s Dylan whose words included “starry cross”, although it would not surprise me if he had used those words somewhere in his religiosity-fueled singsongs. I’m thinking bluegrass. Maybe the Stanley Brothers.

The cover of this book includes an image of Scott Joplin, among others who I am going to guess are Dizzie Gillespie, the Harlem Boys Choir, Odette, Stevie Wonder, and an opera singer whose identity is lost on me.

I was at the burial site of Scott Joplin last week. Unlike most times I had occasion to stop by there were no tokens of respect. I think the folks at St. Michael’s had been making the post-Christmas sweep of the place, as late as mid-February, to get rid of the holiday decorations. It is not common in my experience to see Joplin’s marker so barren of mementos.

Aha, I opened to a random page in the book (looking for page 537 and its indexed reference to Scott Joplin) and find that the opera singer on the cover is Leontyne Price. Maybe I should have known that. I’ve never known a whole lot about opera, which occupies its own distinct universe in the classical realm. I was bludgeoning the thought of Beethoven’s Fidelio yesterday, trying to remember if it is regarded as a pot boiler or if it is taken seriously. I just do not remember. The Anton Rubinstein arrangement of a Turkish March from that opera happened to cross my radar later in the day, in my tour through the hundreds of pages I scanned from old copies of The Etude music magazine.

Whenever I see or hear the word “Etude” I remember a day in high school when I was doing something unrelated to the piano. I left my room to get something connected to whatever that pursuit was. I was interrupted in my pursuit by my mother, who physically pushed me toward the piano, repeating the word “Etude. Etude. Etude.”

There was a piano competition coming up in a few weeks. I was expected to audition with Chopin’s Op. 10 No. 12, the Chopin piece so overplayed that I think it has become a hackneyed cliché. I honestly can’t stand that piece, even today, and that incident of being physically pushed against my will toward the piano to practice it might have contributed to my disdain.

Mother got a laugh out of a woman who was a finalist in some kind of Miss America type of pageant. For the “talent” portion of her performance she played that Chopin étude… horribly. But she wore her award ribbon whilst playing it. I am not entirely sure why she found this so fucking funny. I guess she considered it something of an absurdity for a beauty queen to, among all her other talents, throw in mastery of one of the most seminal works in the piano literature. Is it fair to call that étude “seminal”? Maybe that’s giving it too much credit. But it is considered a given item in any pianist’s repertoire. It never quite made it into mine…

After being pushed toward the piano with the command in the form of a single word repeated numerously I practiced that Chopin étude for a while. I don’t know how long but when I attempted to regroup in whatever pursuit had previously occupied me I spoke outloud as if I had companions in this: “Sorry, guys, I got sidetracked.” I don’t know who or what I thought I was talking to but it was neither the first nor the last time I noticed myself talking to inanimate objects or the thin air as if there was possibility of feedback or conversation.

I don’t remember what competition I was preparing for or if I ever actually made it there. I played in a bunch of those contests during school, with minimal success. I never quite got the spirit of those things, which felt to me like needless degradation of one’s musical instincts in the interest of a greater good I could not fathom. The pianists at these events were like herded cattle.

The only pianist from those events I remember by name is Leonid Kuzmin. He played Balakirev’s “Islamey” like a gunman, puncturing the piano with the bullets of his hands. He ripped the glissando from the piano like it was a geyser. I think Kuzmin was the winner of that competition, which was held at the University Of Illinois (my mother’s alma mater).

What a strange and even eccentric world to have left behind. How art has come into the barrel of competition… I retain my musicologist’s instincts, as I noted to myself yesterday whilst wading through all that piano music from The Etude magazine. For some reason I seem to think I am doing something for the greater good of humanity by weeding out the crap and finding the gems from that magazine. The music was regularly cited as that magazine’s prime asset, but aside from repertoire by established composers I have found it to be largely a bunch of junk. There are a handful of very notable exceptions but on balance the hours spent mining those magazines has been the stuff of a musicological masochist.

Wow, I really have a talent for spewing voluminous text of limited merit. I was thinking of writing prompts again. The one yesterday could have gone somewhere interesting. Today I found a post-it note on the sidewalk. Handwritten on it:

GOODNIGHT

Mr. J.

Carol

Hard to think of a story behind that note that does not involve a sexual encounter, the note left by Carol as she sneaks out of Mr. J.’s place, as he snores. Is J the initial for the man’s last name, or first? A boss at corporate used to call me “Mr. T.” so I will opt for the latter, and that this man’s name is Mr. Johnson. The relationship between them seems respectful and cordial. If I were Mr. Johnson I would regret losing this post-it, as it records a moment of mutual respect between himself and someone who might be part of his everyday existence for the rest of his life. Will Carol become Mrs. J.?

Time to think about this over a sammich and an intentioned stroll up to 18th Avenue. NTTPr.