GG: Who WAS that gloved man?

[vxavier@sfsu.edu (Veronica Xavier)]

Dear f_minor members,

Hello!  I'm enjoying my first full day on the f_minor list.  Please forgive
me for running at the fingers, but when it comes to Gould.... This is
primarily a response to Bonnie Hammond's posting which is in the digest
sample on the f_minor web site, but I'm sure many of you have had similar
experiences.  I hope you'll enjoy and relate to mine.

Bonnie, first of all I'm hopeful that you're still on the mailing list (!)
and secondly when I read your posting yesterday about your first experience
with Gould, it was so similar to mine I got a lump in my throat reading it.
My first encounter was at around 12:45 am on January 8 of '95; KCET
(public broadcasting station in Southern California) was running "On the
Record/Off the Record" over the midnight hour.  I happened to be
channel-surfing and caught the last ten minutes of "On The Record" during
which Gould and the studio staff listen to the playback of the last
movement of the Italian Concerto.  I had no idea what I was watching, and I
had no idea who this young man was, but I sat there with my mouth hanging
open after the movement ended--I was certain it was the most incredible
thing I'd ever heard in my life, and I was confused and frustrated by how
casual he and the technicians seemed to be about it!  I scrambled for the
TV guide to find out more information, and there was the name:  "Glenn
Gould".
As I had no CD player, I spent the whole next day driving around town
looking for tapes, none of which I could find (I lived in Orange County, CA
at the time...not the best place to find a great selection of music) and
subsequently bought a CD player, which I really could not afford.  When I
got home that night I had that and the soundrack to "32 Short Films...". I
listened to it over and over with tears running down my face, convinced
that I was losing my mind.
I don't know how to describe what happened to me over the next few weeks,
but in a nutshell I believe I started to look at things differently, it was
as though someone had pulled up the blinds in front of me.  By the end of
the month I had made plans to quit my lousy job, end my nine-year
excruciating stint in Southern California, move up to San Francisco and go
back to school, and that's where I've been now for a year.  It was almost
as though I had no choice. It may have happened sooner or later anyway, but
I am not sure what could have caused me to make such profound changes in my
life with unprecedented speed.  Nothing and no one I've ever encountered
before or since.  Right before I moved I spent three weeks in Toronto, just
to be there; I suppose in some strange way I had decided that Toronto was
where I should start, perhaps start over.  I decided to study art--in light
of what had happened, it only made sense to study the thing I do best.
Like you, I've drawn several pictures of him...just finished my 12th, I
believe, two days ago. Every few months I feel a 'tugging', or something,
to do that, and so I do.  I also had come to the conclusion that it would
be right to give them away, not sell them.  When I read that you had gone
down the same road, I could hardly believe it.
On March 19th '95 (I started keeping a journal as well after that
'epiphany') I also encountered Monsaigneons words--"Come and follow" in
"...a Life and Variations" when I came across it in a bookstore.  I leaned
against a bookshelf with my knees knocking together--Oh my God, I'm not
crazy after all.  Nothing I'd come across before had hit the nail on the
head so definitively.  I wondered then, as I wonder now...who WAS that
gloved man?  Did he have any idea of what he could/would do to some of us?
Not just give us something to listen to, but yank us out of our comfortable
holes and cages, and change our lives?  Do you know what I'm talking about?

If you, Bonnie, or any other f_minor members would like to respond with
your own answers to my questions, or takes/outtakes on this phenomenon, I'd
love to hear.

(Very) sincerely,

Veronica Xavier
vxavier@sfsu.edu