The Vivaldi Brothers (and the unresolved Issue of the Peni$)

Giovanni Battista Vivaldi ran a barber shop in the late sixteen hundreds Venice, he was also a talented amateur violinist. He had two sons and three daughters who, by a strange twist of genetics, all had flaming red hair and great talent for music. This story is about his sons: Antonio Lucio and Francesco Gaetano. The boys learned to play various instruments but also received advanced musical education: composition, counterpoint, harmony, orchestration and were actively composing music since they were teenagers. Antonio, a gregarious extrovert, easily made friends and enemies. Francesco was shy and spoke very little. Antonio managed to get a publisher to sell his music earning money and a growing recognition. His brother, who was also a barber, wrote mostly for woodwind, and had Antonio sign and sell his works for him. One of  Francesco's oboe pieces, the Largo movement from his Concerto in C Major, was lifted by Ann Ronell  in 1932 to become the jazz standard "Willow Weep for Me".

Antonio became music director at the Ospedale della Pieta which he turned into a center of musical excellence. Early in the eighteenth century, the  Opera craze hit Venice and Antonio couldn't pass-up the chance of making serious coin. Dozens of theatres were staging opera to satisfy the public's growing appetite and Antonio ended up composing more than fifty operas (almost all of them crap). He joined up with the other Venetian giant of the time, Carlo Goldoni, for a sure hit: the opera "Griselda", but when they submitted it to the censors, it was rejected for moral turpitude (Goldoni overdid it and had Constanza, a woman, fall in love with Griselda, another woman). Goldoni and Vivaldi had a horrible fight blaming each other and never spoke again. 

About 1740 Antonio was invited to Vienna by Emperor Charles VI to become his Court Composer. Alas, shortly after his arrival Charles died and Antonio found himself without a job, without a sponsor and without much money. He fell ill an died a year later almost destitute (the money he left barely covered the cost of a decent funeral).

Back home, brother Francesco was cutting hair and  still composing. Every now and then he would take his pieces to Antonio's publisher pretending that he found more music left behind by his bro. When Francesco found the "Griselda" manuscript, he took it to Goldoni to change it so it will pass censorship. Goldoni resolved the issue: Griselda was disguised as a man which proved good enough for the censors. "Griselda" was staged at Teatro Sant'Angelo at a huge success. The interest was helped along by somebody who wrote in bright red paint on the poster "Has Griselda a Penis?" Everybody suddenly wanted to see the Griselda Penis Opera. It ran for astonishing fifty-six weeks.

Francesco made money of it but still maintained the barber shop. He was composing small oboe pieces to play them with family and friends. Sometimes asked  himself if Griselda was really a man after all, and did it have a penis. 

The Composer as an Uncle

What I am about to tell you happened a long time ago in France. If you're preoccupied with how I know what I am about to tell you, you're asking the wrong question ... just try to focus on what I am about to tell you, ok? Here goes:

Jean Phillipe Rameau, 1760 

Jean Phillipe Rameau (hereunder simply called Rameau) was born in Dijon into a family of musicians and, naturally, became a musician himself. He had brothers and sisters of which only one brother plays a (minor) role in what I am about to tell you. 

Rameau had his first sexual experience after he turned twenty-four (which was about ten years later than the average age of the French males of his time) and was so deeply and utterly disgusted by the act that he remained celibate for the rest of his life. 

While Rameau was busy composing operas and writing treaties on musical theory, his younger brother Jean Christophe Rameau, a prosperous rice merchant, married the charming young German soprano Amanda Chloe Sturz. They had a son whom they named Jean Francois. The boy just turned sixteen when his parents died in a house fire and Rameau, the ever avuncular, took him in to try to raise him into a useful member of society. Jean Francois was more interested in nice clothes, fine dining and women and less in making France great for  Bourbon Louis #fourteen and #fifteen.

Rameau knew what the nephew was like, but being busy, he didn't do much about it. He was thinking and hoping that it was just a stage that the youngster would soon outgrow. Uncle and nephew shared the house, the habit of smoking tabaco and the pleasure of taking long baths in fragrant, soapy, hot water. One mild October evening in 1752, after a long and luxurious bath, the nephew went to the dining room for a snack and a smoke. He was wearing his uncle's bathrobe and his new wig when a masked intruder climbed through a window and stabbed Jean Francois in the neck. The blade severed the internal carotid and he bled out in four minutes. Monsieur Nicolas Rene Berryer, Lieutenant General of Paris Police, personally conducted a vigorous investigation. A large number of suspects were arrested and questioned but still, the case remained unsolved ... which is exactly what I said that I am about to tell you and now, I did. Pauvre neveu!

Fifty-Four (and counting)

A few days after his fifty-fourth wedding anniversary, he sat in the backyard with a book open in his lap and thought of all the things he'd learned 

1. There are things we know and things we don' t know; between them, there's the Doors.
2. Never wear green on Wednesday
3. Best day to go on a trip: Tuesday
4. Best day to return from a trip: Thursday 
5. All his dogs are called Lola
6. All his cats are called other names
7. You regret more the things you didn't (do) than the things you did (do)
8. Never put your bag on the floor
9. Never put your hat on the bed
10. Always use Arial
11. Never use Arial
12. Say as little as possible, mostly "Yes"
13. It is not only Flight or Fight, there is also Freeze
14. If you lose something, it is OK. You will never have to lose it again
15. Always add more garlic
16. If you don't like it, don't eat it, but if you must eat it, eat it
17. Buy two of everything
18. You did a whole lot better than they thought you would
19. Old hearts break just like young hearts, but hurt less
20. The past is truth, the future is lies
21. What goes up must come down, spinning wheel go aroun'
22. Look to the right and to the left, but also, o-c-c-c-casionally, look up
23. Only remember ideas and sensations
24. You can leave your hat on
25. Yes, you can steal time
26. There are clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, and here I am, stuck in the middle with you
27. No! You cannot put everything back where you found it
28. When you say "never," you probably mean "always".
29. When you say "always," you probably mean "never."
30. There is always something, as there was never nothing
31. They invented time so that everything wouldn't happen at once 
32. Tried to trade in all tomorrows for a single yesterday ... it didn't go well
33. It starts with love, and it ends in hate, and in between it is mostly fear
34. There ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
35. Boredom chews up your soul
36. If they ask "how many?"  just say "approximately six." and you'll be usually correct
37. Don't be the canary in the minefield
38. Don't be like the bull in the Chinese shop
39. Don't be the escape goat
40. When you know they know, deny, deny, deny, and run away 
41. No set density is safe
42. No set density is dangerous
43. Zed's dead, baby, Zed's dead!
44. Turns out that the love you take is equal to the love you make
45. Fibonacci was right, but he was also an idiot 
46. There's nothing I'm wishing to be owning
47. Always hold hands when you cross the road
48. It was always me and Julio down by the schoolyard
49. Don't ask "Are you breaking up with me?" They'll tell you when they are
50. The romantic perception is the reflection of an erection
51. Always pick the tallest, blondest
52. Fixing past screw-ups in the future often screws it up more ... so just do your thing in the present
53. If you think that the world in your head is the real world, you're in trouble
54. And so, castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventualleee 

Later, he also learned to rap:

She liked nectarines

And the mandareens

And theatre scenes

And necklace beans

And Wednesday greens

And Voodoo queens

Of New Orleans

Where they play slot machines

In submarines

With ugly teens

In dirty jeans

They never cleans

Oh, worldly spleens!

Errare Humanum Est ...

This ancient dialog holds true to this day. Read on, my friends, and think on it.

She/Her: You're late!
He/Him: It is three twenty nine.
She/Her: We said three o'clock.
He/Him: No, we said three thirty.
She/Her: We said three o'clock!
He/Him: Sorry, I made a mistake.
She/Her: You make many mistakes
He/Him: You don't understand, because you don't make mistakes.
She/Her: You are my biggest mistake.

The Ringleader

The very pretty village of Lourmarin in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur is about an hour south-east of Avignon. It has a sumptuous Renaissance castle which is booked for the glamorous and extravagant annual grand-fête of the Anonymous Association of Ornament Removal (AAOOR). That weekend, the number of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Maybachs parked locally rivals Monaco, Qatar or Knightsbridge in London. Originally, the local council was against hosting the world's most famous jewel thieves, but seeing how much money came in, they quickly changed their mind and welcomed them warmly. 

Extravagantly dressed people make their way to the castle's the ball room. A clever observer would notice that nobody wore jewelry, zero, not even wedding rings! How strangely bare the Balenciaga gowns of the ladies looked without their rings, bracelets and necklaces as did the gentlemen's Brioni,  Dormeuil and William Westmancott suits sans their usual Audemars-Piguet, Vacheron Constantin or Rolex President Edition watches. 

Jewel theft is an extremely lucrative business and these were its crème de la crème. The event was to award prizes for last year's individual haul with the dollar figures aggregated  by Meyer & Herzberger LLC from Universal Insurance Agents yearly reports and could not be contested.

After the opulent dinner, the chairman went to the front with the envelopes for the three categories: Most Necklaces (Necklaceleader), Most Rings (Ringleader), Most Overall (Mostleader). Drumroll ... Ayelle B, won for Necklaces, then, unexpectedly, the Mostleader was announced which went to Virginia X. The audience was stirring and whispering when the chairman announced that this year the Ringleader diploma will not be awarded. Rumors were that whoever won broke the AAOOR conduct code by returning loot.

Earlier there was a disturbance at the gate when an veteran member was not all. He was shouting that he was the legitimate Ringleader and he gave back one ring by mistake. When he was later asked by reporters how he felt about being disqualified, he said that he can only compare it with having an arm and a leg chopped off.     

How it really was and how it really happened

This happened long time ago when there were no people, there was no Dharma, there were only birds in the sky, animals on land and fish in the sea. It was decided that the world needed heart, soul and mind and a triumvirate was formed: the unicorns had the soul, the fish had the heart and the cats had the mind. Everybody was happy (it seemed). The cats, of course, weren't happy (they are above silly notions like happy/unhappy) but they had a plan (cats always have a plan). They figured out that the unicorns have a master unit, the holder of all unicorn knowledge and skills. All the others just mimic, imitate and copy what the master does. The cats tracked down the master, killed it and the unicorns quickly died out. Without their chief, they didn't know how to feed and reproduce. 

There was an inquest (there's always one when a species becomes extinct). Everybody figured that the cats must've done it but there was no proof and the decision was to move on. They just implanted the unicorn concept into the general consciousness, gave it a symbolic meaning and associated it with French Vanilla flavour. 

The fish thought they were safe. They were 6'4", weighed 250 lbs and were strong, built like props (a reference to a rugby player position). Cat hydrophobia was well known and it was thought that it was enough to keep them away from the fish environment.

At about that time people started showing up in greater numbers and in various places. When the cats noticed a handsome redhead walking on the beach, they killed her and cut her into two. The head of the fish patrol came to see what it was all about and the cats killed it too and cut it into two. The cats were under caution for things they had allegedly done, so they didn't want to press their luck and they glued two halves together and threw the new creature, half girl half fish, back into the sea. They sprayed the special dust that made anybody who saw this thing and talked about it  not to be believed. To animate it they used the S1 App release E version N. It was awkward to pronounce so everybody called them siren. The new fish, made from the pieces left, was also brought to life with the Sa App version D, release N and was rebooted as S1aRDn (awkward to pronounce so they dubbed sardine). It turned out to be a rather small, silvery fish, oily, delicious with no intention to be the keeper of the heart. 

After a while there were more and more people and the world started to look, sound and feel much like what you now see, hear and feel: a lot of mind, very little heart and even less soul. Meanwhile, the cats wait and watch ... the cats may have another plan.

M. De Kuyper

De Kuyper appeared, as he always did shiny and translucent at the same tine, sitting in the corner of my room. When he saw the look on my face, he quickly said, "Don't start again."

Everyone can see De Kuyper if they know how and where to look. He is the keeper of memories and everything remembered. Very few know that people don't have memories and that they don't remember anything. What they get is just what De Kuyper gives, according to his unknowable rules and his impenetrable algorithm.

From my many long talks with him, I still have only a vague idea. I know that when you die, all your memories die with you—and then, in that moment only, you get to see everything (ALL).

I always argued that it was too late, and useless, and cruel—bitter, brutal, and callous, but De Kuyper just smiled crookedly and shrugged.

De Kuyper doesn't admit it, but he clearly favors the young over the old. The young get a lot of stuff fast. The old get more stuff from childhood and youth, but not "what they had for breakfast the other day" or "why am I in this room?" When he is too busy and he doesn't get around to everybody in time, he gives a lapsus that some people physically perceive as on the tip of their tongue.

I always thought he liked me, until one day he said he liked no one and hated no one. "You're all the same to me," he said, but he enjoys interacting with the few who could see him and talk to him.

One day I said something (I don't remember what) that upset him and made him sad. He clearly wanted to make up and offered, "C'mon, what do you want to see? August 1961?" When I said, "I don't care," he continued, "How about that goal you scored that put your team in the final?" "We lost the final. Don't remind me. I want to see ALL."

De Kuyper shook his head and told me that I will see it the day I die. 

"But ALL is a lot of stuff. How long do I have to look at it?"

De Kuyper said, "You have an eternity."

I got angry, "And how long is an eternity?"

He looked straight at me, as if I should have known: "Eternity is sometimes as long as one second."