SEAGULL
I work hard, play harder, plato hardest.
正文
Adagio in G Minor (Albinoni)
M is a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant at the dubious corner of P and D in W's "The Hub" district. I got mugged a few paces from there, saw a couple of really drunk and awkward sex in it's back alley, and the rugged pavement that is its welcome mat hosts humble guests.
It gets dark pretty early, these cold snowy winter days. I passed by in the evenings, sometimes from running errands, sometimes from the club, sometimes with my friends going to dinner at G's.
I'm not sure if they've always done this and I 've just not noticed, or if they've just begun, in a sort of light-hearted crusade, to play classical music that is set to a pleasant but high enough volume to be heard faintly from a block away. They've set the speakers in an unreachable place behind the grilled, and thence comes Mozart, Brahms, Bach...
Music affects the human instinct. And many other things. Plant growth. The speed with which you eat. Sanity. People worship it, sweat and close eyes and wring their bodies to it. Kings have paid gold for it. Men have swooned. Women have wept. Cultures have begun and ended because of it. You have only to look at the most banal of examples to see this: raves, sound curfews, restaurant acoustics, musicians at royal courts, Beatles concerts, the Grateful Dead and their following.
I thought about this as I left my friend D's and walked home in the light rain this evening. The air crisp and mixed the sound of rain and wind with Tomas Albinoni's "Adagio in G Minor" which is one of my favourite classical songs. It's a little melancholy, but I've always been a sucker for sappy, lingering strings. As I walked by G, as I have so many times during the past four months, the corner seemed, for the first time, different. Not exactly frinedly, or even peaceful, but somehow... at peace. A place that is seeing a few hours of spiritual cease-fire. Even if the combatants themselves are not aware of the reluctant lull that they've briefly reached. I wonder if this changes anything.
I wonder if the music is heard, if it's annoying the people selling heroine behind the corner alley, if it's giving pause to poeple running to catch the bus and finish their errands, if it's interrupting the desire of a man about to hail a cab, if it's enough to stop the midst of an argument. I wonder if it changes things.
Regardless I realize that it was still just "The Hub", the corner of W's P and D. There were still unhappy people there, and lots of unhappy things were happening to them or because of them. But tonight, there was also Adagio in G minor. And that made it different. The speakers are invisible and most likely small, but lively, alive. And their voice rings sweet and vibrant in the cold night air. Amongst the music are rows of trees, lined up quietly along the sidewalks. Their branches are spread out, their leaves ruffled, almost as if they are streching out their slippery limbs toward the surprising source of sound, like hands asking for arms.
Seegull, January 31, 2008
M is a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant at the dubious corner of P and D in W's "The Hub" district. I got mugged a few paces from there, saw a couple of really drunk and awkward sex in it's back alley, and the rugged pavement that is its welcome mat hosts humble guests.
It gets dark pretty early, these cold snowy winter days. I passed by in the evenings, sometimes from running errands, sometimes from the club, sometimes with my friends going to dinner at G's.
I'm not sure if they've always done this and I 've just not noticed, or if they've just begun, in a sort of light-hearted crusade, to play classical music that is set to a pleasant but high enough volume to be heard faintly from a block away. They've set the speakers in an unreachable place behind the grilled, and thence comes Mozart, Brahms, Bach...
Music affects the human instinct. And many other things. Plant growth. The speed with which you eat. Sanity. People worship it, sweat and close eyes and wring their bodies to it. Kings have paid gold for it. Men have swooned. Women have wept. Cultures have begun and ended because of it. You have only to look at the most banal of examples to see this: raves, sound curfews, restaurant acoustics, musicians at royal courts, Beatles concerts, the Grateful Dead and their following.
I thought about this as I left my friend D's and walked home in the light rain this evening. The air crisp and mixed the sound of rain and wind with Tomas Albinoni's "Adagio in G Minor" which is one of my favourite classical songs. It's a little melancholy, but I've always been a sucker for sappy, lingering strings. As I walked by G, as I have so many times during the past four months, the corner seemed, for the first time, different. Not exactly frinedly, or even peaceful, but somehow... at peace. A place that is seeing a few hours of spiritual cease-fire. Even if the combatants themselves are not aware of the reluctant lull that they've briefly reached. I wonder if this changes anything.
I wonder if the music is heard, if it's annoying the people selling heroine behind the corner alley, if it's giving pause to poeple running to catch the bus and finish their errands, if it's interrupting the desire of a man about to hail a cab, if it's enough to stop the midst of an argument. I wonder if it changes things.
Regardless I realize that it was still just "The Hub", the corner of W's P and D. There were still unhappy people there, and lots of unhappy things were happening to them or because of them. But tonight, there was also Adagio in G minor. And that made it different. The speakers are invisible and most likely small, but lively, alive. And their voice rings sweet and vibrant in the cold night air. Amongst the music are rows of trees, lined up quietly along the sidewalks. Their branches are spread out, their leaves ruffled, almost as if they are streching out their slippery limbs toward the surprising source of sound, like hands asking for arms.
Seegull, January 31, 2008
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