Leverkusen and the Kind and Romantic Grand Gesture

Yo, yo, everybody who has ever been to Leverkusen (Coat of Arms below) will agree that it is not much of anything. The city has a decent football club and is where Aspirin was first made, but otherwise, it is totally unremarkable. The prestigious German Crime Series, "Tatort" (first episode aired 1970, and still running today) never made "Tatort Leverkusen" (although they did neighboring Duisburg and Münster). So much bigger was everybody's surprise when Leverkusen became City of the Kind and Romantic Grand  Gesture.

There was a distinct upswing in the city's mood, behavior, and attitude. Flowers in all stores were 50% off (Roses 60%), prices subsidized by City Hall. Longtime feuding neighbors became friends and were asked to dinner. Old friends disconnected for imaginary slights suddenly called up and invited each other to a "weekend by the lake, as in the old times". Parking wardens (especially Lovely Rita, meter maid) would give a twenty minute grace period and after that they would draw a heart on the 28€ ticket. The whipped cream topping on Mocca, normally 1€ extra, was suddenly complimentary everywhere. Jürgen Boberg, seventh grade (class 7B), who used to silently walk home with Bärbel Hoffman, seventh grade (class 7A), and would whisper shyly "Tshüß" at her door, one day, when they turned into Mühlen Straße, asked her if she'd like to for ice-cream at the Eis und Imbiss. He was delighted when her lovely pink and blond face broke into a wide grin and she said "Yes". The city felt differently, violent crime was down 78%, divorce rate was down 56%, Beyer Leverkusen qualified for the quarter finals and everybody was happy-smiley-lovey-dovey. Karl Kurzmüller, mid-level executive for "Grund und Boden", was home late every Wednesdays because the weekly status meeting. His loving wife Ulla waited with his favorite, the delicious Knödelsuppe. Karl, with newly found honesty and ethics, wanted to confess that there was no Wednesday status meeting, and he spent that time in Stefanie's bed (Ulla's beguiling best friend). Karl was also going to say that he knew Ulla didn't make the soup but bought it at Hanselmeier Feinkost, but when he sat down at the dinner table, he just said "looks great, Ulla, as always" ... I guess the Kind and Romantic Grand  Gesture only goes that far, eh?

Prisoners of the Paradigm

It was a literary luncheon that my agent insisted me to attend to increase my exposure for the highly anticipated second novel to be published soon. I was approached by a young man, who said that his name is Will Kale and he worked for The Wednesday Literary Credit Weekly. Could I, please, sit for a few questions? I accepted. He asked if I wanted coffee and how I take it. I tested him: "Like Winston Wolf." Will smiled broadly " 'lotsa cream, lotsa sugar' ." and added "The Wolf also said 'Oak is good'." I said "yes, that too" and sat down. Will came back with a cup of coffee and a cookie. I took a sip and raised my eyebrows, Will shrugged: "They ran out of sugar" and then asked: "When you plan your writing, do you start with the character or with the action?" I thought about it for a moment and then said: "Let me answer this with an example from my own family." "My grandmother, Rosa, died very young, she was just three when she passed. Each time I asked my grandfather about her, he would only say what beautiful hair Rosa had, that they met at the Mondberger Academy for Music in Clermont-Ferrand where she played the oboe and he played the xylophone and the saxophone and that they took long motorbike rides." Will asked: "How can she be your grandmother when she died when she was just three?" I cut him short: "Will, don't interrupt, just listen!" "But it doesn't make sense" he kept saying.

"You think time and space are linear, you think that where and when you are matters. Listen: only where and when you believe you are counts, ok? Timelines split frequently and the strands can break in any direction, some even double back so future events already happened and past events are still waiting to occur. Imagine a blue spiny sachidore with yellow wings in n-dimensions, you get it?" Will said that he don't get it. "Will, you don't get it because you're a prisoner of the paradigm, remember that things can happen before they start and continue after they ended, like when Kurt V. said 'unstuck' " Will looked puzzled for a moment and then asked: "So, then, for you is it the character or the action that comes first?" I replied that they are bundled, just like the sachidores, but even more so. Then I told him that I died on April 12th 1961, it was a Wednesday. 

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.