Fantastique

 

So I fell asleep with Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste … en cinq parties on the turntable, the 1830 excursion into psychedelia by the maestro Hector Berlioz and dreamt – of all things – that I coached basketball.

 

Now I know nothing of basketball, and basketball knows nothing of me. We had a brutal breakup sometime in the late 70s when I was unceremoniously cut at CYO tryouts. Right off the bat my dreamself felt trapped, triggered, threatened, and soaked in sweat.

 

That grating air horn buzzer signaled the start of the first game of the season. I slowly examined the ensemble of broken downs sulking on the bench, each studying the floor, walls, and ceiling for inspiration. And how was I to inspire a crew like this – ?

 

Ludwig van Beethoven – 5’ 4”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – 5’ 4”

Franz Schubert – 5’ 2”

Richard Wagner – 5’ 5”

Arnold Schoenberg – 5’ 4”

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky – 5’ 3”

 

Have you ever seen such a bunch of sickly sad sacks?

 

Well, just then the record skipped at the fourth movement – Marche au supplice (“March to the Scaffold”) – and I realized I was dreaming, dreaming last night. And as the fog and purple haze dissipated I ordered the boys back into the locker room to change, promise they’d quit hoops forever, and through themselves two hundred percent back into the compositional studies.

 

My arm lurched out for my phone in the early morning darkness, and the numbers “3:15” mocked me, yet again. But that’s the subject of a future post …