2004-09-20 - 2:15 p.m.
Long time no see...Yah well. Things happen but mostly don't. Still waiting for our "green" card. No news is not good news. Buckling under the strain is what it is. So anyway, Quiq made me think of my very very best time in Ottawa, talking of music and rock concerts and live vs recorded.
Our favorite thing all along has been to have season tickets to the symphony orchestra..starring Pinchas Zukerman and his surreal violin..and his enamorata, the cellist with Madonna's non clothes. (It's bad when the most talked about thing is what Amanda wore).There is little doubt in my mind that recorded music is as Prima sees it, or hears it. Better sound quality than the best acoustics can provide in a hall. And refined by editing and redoing and goings back for perfection. All true. But there is something about music with living breathing people producing it that is more involving (to me). It's why I like live theatre better than movies. It's a people thing...the non tech, non-mechanical expression of others of our kind (only talented) It's a Michael Jordan phenom.
This July there was a jazz festival in Ottawa..most of it outdoors in a bandshell in a park (bring your own chairs) One featured"act" was Youssou N'Dour..whom I'd heard on a CD that a friend (I think Nadeen) gave me long ago. He's been here before, doing a Francophone entertainment thingy but we'd just arrived and didn't get to go. But this year was a Big Thing. I hesitated to buy tickets because it was July and heat is daunting to me. And further, it had been rainy and dank. And people would smoke. And I ...well, we went.
It was soooo cold. Incroyable! I thought I would be embarrassed..a little old lady trying to snuggle in wi her sweater..but younger ,wiser, more experienced concert goers had sweat shirts over sweaters under jackets with scarves and even wintery tuques.After the opening act..Canadian jazz musicians from music schools round and about, (they were well worth hearing)porta-potties were sought desperately..but successfully and they were clean.! Then it came time for Youssou. No one could put their chairs within x number of feet of the stage. No one could take pictures, no one could dance unless they went to edge of the field. (Many did) and no smoking was allowed except at a distance from the scene. And it was time for Youssou. I looked around and saw many many women in my daughter-in-law's clothes. Matter of fact, on the way to the potty, I saw those kinds of clothes being sold for exhorbitant prices..I don't know if they sold, they were being *offered* for sale though.And it was time for Youssou.
It went on being time for Youssou for quite a while. There were signs of action behind the scenes. Youssou was in the park. And after forever, Youssou N'Dour and his people, in all their splendid splendor were there and drumming and swaying and singing and vibrating. People on the edges danced. Then people in the seats, stood up and danced and sat down again..the dancing rose in bursts like that as though the dancers just couldn't help it. Little children danced. Dad and his little boy rocked together, arms and legs and middles all in rhythm. French, Woloff, little English..everyone understood everything. Because..the earth moved. Really, literally. Not only did the beat get to your heart and into your brain, but your feet, on the ground, felt the drumming, *felt* it and you felt trembly, but soaring. All the sound, and all the color and the beat, the drums, several kinds beaten without cease, the voices crying, shouting,joyous, beseeching, bodies moving in impossible ways, swaying as never befor seen. Embodied spirits inspirited other bodies. Mine tries, when times are bleak, to recall that pure unalloyed PLEASURANCE, the magical uplift..but you really had to be there. I hope I can see him ,them, again. And I hope you will see him too.
