One crazy night

Aubrey and I had an adventure last night that we will never forget.

It was a concert celebrating 100 years of John Cage.  Aubrey participated with Fear No Music which presented the concert.   I'm not sure that is something to be celebrated.  As far as John Cage's "music" goes, I felt like it was a modern-day Emperor's New Clothes.  All of the high-society, educated, elite, snobby people just acted amazed at the genius of the performances, just like the people in the old story talked about the beauty and elegance of the Emperor's clothes.  The regular people with brains like me saw it for what it was--not music, just noise and dissonance.  I could see plain as day that the Emperor was parading around in his birthday suit, and I wasn't afraid to say it.

 But it was the hot ticket in Portland--all of high society was there.  Aubrey "played" her harp along with 15 other harpists for a piece called "Postcards From Heaven."  There were a lot of interesting performances last night, each one stranger than the next.  It ended with the famous 4'33".  If you don't know how weird John Cage music is, go to youtube and search for Inlets, Lecture on Nothing, Litany For The Whale, Fourteen, or any other crazy thing that comes up.

Aubrey had a rehearsal at 5:00, where I had my first glimpse of the bizarre evening that was ahead, and then we headed to Portland for some fun as she wasn't on until 10pm.  We had dinner at Swagat, where I watched my daughter fall head-over-heels for Chicken Makhani.  Then we went to Powells where I purchased a copy of Jim Croce's Greatest Hits for piano and guitar.  A treasure.  Next up was Voodoo donuts, and then back to the venue for the concert.  We got there just in time to hear two grown men speaking "whale" back and forth to each other, each word on a particular note.  Next, we went upstairs for the riveting "Inlets."  This was where 3 grownups each had a conch shell, and they used a horse trough full of water to fill their shells and swish the water around under microphones.  Not kidding.  The maestro of the Oregon Symphony was there performing "Lecture on Nothing."  This is basically where in a monotone voice someone reads nonsense phrases for 90 minutes.  The Jabberwocky makes more sense than this did.  It was ridiculous.   During "Fourteen," a tiny man used strings to "bow" the piano strings.  There were about 15 instruments surrounding him, each one playing out random long notes.  20 minutes of this.

At this point of the night I spotted a very fat guy with a white beard that stuck out from his face.  Immediately my thoughts went to Mouse Tales by Arnold Lobel, one of my favorite books from childhood, and one of our children's favorite books.  If you don't have this book, order it RIGHT now. In this book there is a story about an old man who cannot get his pants to stay up, and the children of the town save the day by using their chewing gum to stick his pants up.  The man we saw was identical to the old mouse in that story...and he was dressed just the same!  I got Aubrey's attention and said, "Aubrey!  That guy looks exactly like the old man in.."  And she cut me off with, "MOUSE TALES!" We both had the same reaction to this guy.  Keep reading for Aubrey's drawing of the crazy man.

Then it was Aubrey's turn.  16 harps in a circle, each one playing every which way but the way a harp was meant to be played.  It started with everyone singing into the back of their harps, and then 24 minutes of random glissandos and notes, plus each person had an implement of percussion to beat their harp strings, tuning pegs, soundboard, etc. and make some really strange sounds.  At the end, each person picked up her music from the stand and rubbed it up and down the strings.  And then, on signal each person dropped her music into the middle of the circle on the floor, making a dramatic rustling sound to end the piece.  The applause was deafening.  Seriously, it was the best-received and possibly strangest performance of the night.

I headed out of there to go get my car to load the harp back into, and discovered that someone had broken my window and stolen my knitting bag.  Every knitting needle and tool I owned was in that bag, along with 1/2 a hat and 1.5 mittens.  When they broke in to get the knitting bag, the thieves also discovered Aubrey had left her purse in the car under the seat (I was unaware of this), and they got away with her wallet, a bunch of cash and a very expensive graphing calculator.  It made me sick, but all I could do was file a police report and drive home missing a window.

It was a bummer of a way to end our evening.

Aubrey made me this book to remember the night.  Aubrey is such a great daughter to have.  She makes life a party.  Every picture looks exactly like the person we saw that night; except for the hoodlum.  We have no idea what he looked like.