What would Theodore Slutz say?

[Birgitte Jorgensen <bj@kemmunet.net.mt>]

Fellow F_Minors,

Jim Morrison wrote:
>Hi guys, just a few more notes from me and I'm bowing out of this
>conversation because I think that the most loquacious contributors to
this
>thread (me and Birgitte) are having real trouble understanding each
other.
>Birgitte's replies to my comments seem like such distortions and
over-simplifications of my positions that I can't help but wonder if
>I'm not
>doing the same to Birgitte's comments.

Jim, I regret that you feel that I misrepresented your comments.
Although I altered their sequence for the sake of convenience, I merely
quoted you directly and pruned some repetition so as not to crowd the
posting. I honestly don't believe I twisted or distorted your comments
to expose them in the worst possible light. You said what you said and
so did I. If you now regard your comments as "over-simplified" it has
nothing to do with anything I subjected them to.

And, you must admit that for someone who claimed to be ill-equipped to
discuss the topic of Gould?s psychology, you certainly had a great deal
to say in your many postings before declaring your intention NOT to
discuss it further!!

It?s in the nature of debates to have conflicting views and this I
accept. I trust we can understand each other on this point: it's a
discussion, not a confrontation. My approach to you was intended only on
the friendliest of terms and the Wilshire Ebell thing was a bit of that
fun, so there?s no need for an "apology" for your postings. I, for one,
welcome your contribution, even when my position is counterposed to the
angle from which you make your arguments.

>I don't believe humans thrive in isolation.  As a matter of fact I
think
>humans who live alone die at a younger age than those who live with
others.

Sometimes, but it's by no means a determining factor. I know perfectly
healthy people who prefer to live alone, although I am not one of them.

>I don't think all his phobias and valiums were essential to his well
being
>and genius.  I don't believe he needed all those coats or had to play
in
>that old chair, or had to play on a Yamaha piano, nor hang up on his
>"friends" when he heard they had a cold and thought he might catch it
over
>the phone.

Oops, how did the Yamaha slip in there with the litany of
eccentricities?

Actually, I didn?t mean that his personal characteristics were
"essential to his well-being and genius" in the sense that if someone
were to adopt Gould?s psychology and ape his behavior, he or she would
play the piano like a genius. To clarify my position, here?s a quote
from Robert Hurwitz, a recording producer with Warner Brothers at the
time he describes his first trepidatious encounter with the "legendary"
Gould: "All that I?d heard about Gould?s ?eccentricities? seemed true
when I met him, and yet it didn?t really matter. That is, behavior that
might have appeared eccentric in other people was not necessarily
eccentric with Gould; his habits were absolutely consistent and
fine-tuned to the man. He was an extremely friendly and interested
person, never condescending, a man of genuine warmth, kindness, and
humility. I was a virtual stranger; my connection to him was merely that
I had updated his CBS publicity biography. Yet he accepted me, if not as
an old friend, perhaps as a son of a good friend who was passing through
the city. In all, he bore little resemblance to the legend."

That first impromptu visit with Gould would last nine hours -- and you
think we?re loquacious!

>And I don't believe people can be friends with people they've never
meet or
>communicated with.  I don't believe we can be friends with a dead man
>(though we might have been when he was alive.)

Depends on how you define "friends" and "communicate." Metaphorically
speaking, we can, as in the communal form of the GG Foundation?s
"Friends of Glenn Gould." I think many people on the list and members of
the society, not just Valeria, Kate and I, would agree with that.

>I find it impossible to believe, and this may be my limitation, that
people
>having tasted great depths of interdependent relationships would trade
it
>for the solitary artistic life that Gould lead.
>My apologies to the list members who I may be misrepresenting.

While I don?t find it impossible to believe, I wouldn?t say you?re
misrepresenting me on that point.

>Now as a peace offering to Kate and Birgitte, would they mind starting
>another thread and mentioning their favorite single movements of
Gould's
>Bach?

Always want to get the last word in, don?t you? (And before you fire off
another email to me, forgive me, because I?m teasing you again.)

Speaking of last words with you on this topic, here are mine. You have
mentioned a number of times your familiarity with "32 Short Films About
Glenn Gould," but you?ve also said that you are not very knowledgeable
about Gould?s life, so I am guessing that you have absorbed most of what
you know about him from this movie? If so, it?s worth pointing out that
while it?s an entertaining, well-executed, and interesting work, the
screenwriter has taken some liberties with reality. Not that total
veracity is the hallmark of any biopic I?ve ever seen, but as Kevin
Bazzana noted in his review, the filmmaker Francois Girard generally
played it safe by trotting out a succession of the "legendary"
anecdotes, stringing 32 of them together with little sense of
unification, and rounded out the script with pure fabrication where
necessary to expedite the cinematic vision. In other words, if you?re
looking for truly expository analysis, you?ll find it somewhat shallow.
On the liability of transforming Gould into a movie character, Don
McKellar, the scriptwriter reported in an interview that while flipping
through The Celestine Prophesies" at an airport bookshop, he came across
an inspirational quote from Glenn Gould, then realized it had been
lifted straight from the movie and the words he was reading were
entirely his own fiction!

It?s a bit like composing a segmental movie on Elvis (32 States of
Graceland From The King) in which every Elvis cliché is given an airing:
we see our man gobbling a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich washed
down with a handful of downers and a swig of bourbon, followed by the
impulse purchase of a dozen pink Cadillacs, followed by the mumbling
("than-youver-much") drug-addled Presley appearing as a specter in a
southern diner somewhere, telling us as he hovers above the cream pies
that he is really okay and not to worry about him, followed by? you get
the drift. I?m not condemning the idea of "32 SFAGG" (though I agree
with Bazzana that hereafter all uses of the number 32 and of the word
"variations" in connection with Gould should probably be banned from
further use as an organizing device and prohibited in all future GG
titles and captions, despite being guilty of having succumbed to this
uncontrollable urge myself) and someday I would welcome a more
penetrating movie about GG?s life, perhaps entitled "Twenty Questions
With Glenn Gould." One hot question is, of course, which actor could
possibly play him convincingly? Suggestions, anyone?

Still, I feel acutely uneasy about the practice of making biopics of
people who exist in living memory and I take what Kevin Wood has written
as a guide: "Our judgements of Gould are flawed by his closeness to us
in the continuum of history. The dangers of idolatry applied to such a
complex artist so early in his historical existence place our ultimate
appreciation of him at risk."

Kate wrote, in bafflement over Jim?s woman-at-the-door fable:
>I'm getting A bit confused about where this thread is going....

Ditto, but one of the interesting aspects of a discussion list on the
Web, and the near-anonymity of its contributors, is the unique
opportunity to catch a glimpse of what?s inside other people?s heads.
You never know what you?ll find in there.

Kate also wrote:
>I'd better not comment on where GG might have preferred to end
>up.... So he's probably hovering by us in
>his discarnate state, reading all this over our shoulders and
>scratching his head in puzzlement.

Yes, and if Jim's eye-popping story didn?t render him utterly
speechless, I can imagine his verbal response to it in the voice of one
of his characters, maybe Teddy Slutz/Myron Chianti: "Yeah, well uh,
like? you know, whatever."

Birgitte

PS ? Change of topic: Jim, a few days ago, you mentioned Charles Rosen's
article in "Keyboard Music" edited by Denis Matthews (1972) for "some
interesting comments on why Bach is more meaningful for the performer
than for the listener." I'd love to read that, but I, and perhaps others
on the list, don't have access to the kind of library resources you have
at your disposal. If it's available in digital form, I would be grateful
if you could post it on the list for us.