That's my opnion, and that's the end of it.
November 15 2009
The Pianobabbler went to the theatre last night. August: Osage County.
A celebrated modern play. Lots of prizes. Molten hot reviews. Buzz. Press. Hype. Hotcha.
The audience loved the show. Standing O. Hoots, hollers, handclaps.
The Pianobabbler could have throttled them all. Have you all had double lobotomies? babbled he, in his mind. Could you not see, hear, conclude that what we saw had less depth than a petri dish? That merely seeding the play with the ho-hum shibboleths of social shock (incest, pedophilia, suicide, infidelity- the usual) a great play does not make?
No, they answered in deed, if not word. They loved the play.
They were wrong. Their opinion was wrong. Their taste was wrong. Their emotions were wrong. Their feelings were wrong. Every subjective trait that led my fine fellow audience members to rise up and clap was objectively wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
And wrong.
What gives the Pianobabbler the arrogant nerve to negate an opinion? These honest people demonstrate an honest reaction, and Mr. Babbler slaps them down? Bumptious snot.
What do we have when we have an opinion? Answer: an emotion. An internal certitude. A belief that has affixed itself.
The Pianobabbler once called in a request to a radio show. Please play Bernie Senensky, one of my favourite jazz pianists. The host said he would. Moments later, he went back on air. Some listener thinks Bernie Senensky is the best piano player around, he sneered. So I'll play some Bernie Senensky, he re-sneered. Drip, drip, supercilious drip.
Naturally, the Pianobabbler felt displeased. Never one to lose his calm, he would have gladly disemboweled the radio host. Gladly.
That host, himself a musician, knew I and my opinion had become misguided. I knew, and know, it had not. I had an opinion. I possessed it. Possession is ten tenths of the law.
It never ceases to bewilder that we anchor our solid objectivities in glutinous maximus subjectivities.
As mistaken as that radio guy knew me to be, so I know the thousand clapping hands at August: Osage County to have been misclapping.
After the applause faded away, we all left the theatre, I and my fellow audience members. I went for some late dinner, and then to hear some jazz. I didn't enjoy the jazz very much. Proficient and dull.
I'm not sure where all those other people went.
The Pianobabbler has babbled.
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