Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.
Howlings, grindings, and a weird sort of rubberized shuffling, mostly from the traffic outside, along with the throbbing of the compressors, were what I heard just now, when I listened to see if could hear any Bartok, plus the beating of my heart. Back then, when I still liked the Concerto for Orchestra, as soon as Clarence left I would close all the windows and doors, turn up the sound, and go into a frenzy. I would start off in the usual way, smoothly and at a normal pace, but as the tempo quickened with the entrance of the brass and upper strings, I would begin to type faster, and I would close my eyes, and I couldn’t hear the typewriter then, but I could feel it shuddering beneath my fingers, and I would commence to sway in my chair. After a minute or two of that a ribbon of words would sometimes start to stream out of the music onto the page, trickle at first and then stream, and I would let go, let myself fall into the music, and it was like falling from somewhere high with no fear of striking bottom, and I would abandon myself to it, turning slowly head over heals as I tumbled, and I felt as if my fingers were tools the music was using to write what it wanted—the music or the machine, I was not sure which—that the typewriter had become the tongue of my hands, not of my brain, and I was unburdened by reflection. Among the incidents in my early life with Clarence that I find most portentous were the times he contrived to walk in on me in the midst of one of those sessions. I don’t suppose he did it on purpose, he just stumbled in without thinking that it mattered, and I say contrived because that was how it felt at the time. With the music clamoring wildly, the typewriter thundering beneath my fingers, my back turned to the door, and my eyes closed, I would have no inkling he was there until he flicked off the record player—brutally flicked it off, was how that felt. Clarence and I did not have the same taste in music. He just did not have it in him to respond with understanding when I said, “Look, it’s Bartok, it’s all Bartok,” and handed him a dozen pages of gibberish. He just glanced at it and then walked around the house opening windows. Had he paused to think, he might have tiptoed up and touched me gently on the shoulder—that would have been startling enough—or he might have withdrawn discretely, taken a seat on the steps outside, or on the swing under the oak in the place in Connecticut where we had one of those, and waited until he could hear that I had finished. It was gibberish to him, is what I mean.
More pages on the floor. They cascade off at the slightest provocation. Maybe the table is slanted, the legs on one side shorter than on the other. I don’t know. I bought it used, it was quite cheap, and that might have been the reason. The people selling it probably assumed I was not going to notice until it was too late, assumed correctly, as it turns out, though I cannot assert in a factual way that I have noticed even now—I am merely guessing it might be slanted, as an explanation for why my pages keep sliding off without being nudged by anything that I can see, even something not at all obvious, a draft from an open window, for example, or the minute breeze I stir up removing a jacket or opening a closet door. I sit in my armchair, scarcely breathing, windows shut tight, no fan running, and still they fall off, striking the floor with a small dry rattle, which, though I really ought to expect it by now, never fails to startle me. That I have not noticed the slant, if there is one, probably means I have astigmatism. Or, equally plausible, the table is as it should be, all four legs are of equal length, I don’t have astigmatism, but the floor is slanted. If I had a marble, I could roll it and see.
Brodt wore brown trousers, a brown shirt with an American flag on the sleeve and the word “Brodt” in white script on the flap of a breast pocket,
Howlings, grindings, and a weird sort of rubberized shuffling, mostly from the traffic outside, along with the throbbing of the compressors, were what I heard just now, when I listened to see if could hear any Bartok, plus the beating of my heart. Back then, when I still liked the Concerto for Orchestra, as soon as Clarence left I would close all the windows and doors, turn up the sound, and go into a frenzy. I would start off in the usual way, smoothly and at a normal pace, but as the tempo quickened with the entrance of the brass and upper strings, I would begin to type faster, and I would close my eyes, and I couldn’t hear the typewriter then, but I could feel it shuddering beneath my fingers, and I would commence to sway in my chair. After a minute or two of that a ribbon of words would sometimes start to stream out of the music onto the page, trickle at first and then stream, and I would let go, let myself fall into the music, and it was like falling from somewhere high with no fear of striking bottom, and I would abandon myself to it, turning slowly head over heals as I tumbled, and I felt as if my fingers were tools the music was using to write what it wanted—the music or the machine, I was not sure which—that the typewriter had become the tongue of my hands, not of my brain, and I was unburdened by reflection. Among the incidents in my early life with Clarence that I find most portentous were the times he contrived to walk in on me in the midst of one of those sessions. I don’t suppose he did it on purpose, he just stumbled in without thinking that it mattered, and I say contrived because that was how it felt at the time. With the music clamoring wildly, the typewriter thundering beneath my fingers, my back turned to the door, and my eyes closed, I would have no inkling he was there until he flicked off the record player—brutally flicked it off, was how that felt. Clarence and I did not have the same taste in music. He just did not have it in him to respond with understanding when I said, “Look, it’s Bartok, it’s all Bartok,” and handed him a dozen pages of gibberish. He just glanced at it and then walked around the house opening windows. Had he paused to think, he might have tiptoed up and touched me gently on the shoulder—that would have been startling enough—or he might have withdrawn discretely, taken a seat on the steps outside, or on the swing under the oak in the place in Connecticut where we had one of those, and waited until he could hear that I had finished. It was gibberish to him, is what I mean.
More pages on the floor. They cascade off at the slightest provocation. Maybe the table is slanted, the legs on one side shorter than on the other. I don’t know. I bought it used, it was quite cheap, and that might have been the reason. The people selling it probably assumed I was not going to notice until it was too late, assumed correctly, as it turns out, though I cannot assert in a factual way that I have noticed even now—I am merely guessing it might be slanted, as an explanation for why my pages keep sliding off without being nudged by anything that I can see, even something not at all obvious, a draft from an open window, for example, or the minute breeze I stir up removing a jacket or opening a closet door. I sit in my armchair, scarcely breathing, windows shut tight, no fan running, and still they fall off, striking the floor with a small dry rattle, which, though I really ought to expect it by now, never fails to startle me. That I have not noticed the slant, if there is one, probably means I have astigmatism. Or, equally plausible, the table is as it should be, all four legs are of equal length, I don’t have astigmatism, but the floor is slanted. If I had a marble, I could roll it and see.
Brodt wore brown trousers, a brown shirt with an American flag on the sleeve and the word “Brodt” in white script on the flap of a breast pocket,
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