Wednesday, June 15, 2005

You know what’s really jarring? Seizing a convenient chance to revisit the past and realizing you were completely wrong. You’ve got your nostalgia, right? And you also have a machine that measures the exact percentage of bullshit in your nostalgia. You take your sugar-frosted memories and run them through the contraption, only to despair over the fact that the machine won’t let them go.

Let me be less cryptic. I recently found a CD containing what I previously thought were my greatest musical moments. It was senior year, high school, and I had finally been accepted into Ward Melville’s illustrious chamber orchestra. I was a complete scrub, don’t get me wrong, a professional second violinist and consummate retardando grande, if I may flaunt my Italian.

We were chosen for All-Eastern, and I won’t lie to you: it was a total rush. Joy of music? Honoring the composer’s expressive intent? Mmmkay, that’s nice, file those under LOOK AT ME CARE. There were other things occupying my interest, like Times Square. The Marriott Marquis. One of the best groups on the eastern seaboard. I remember sitting there one morning, playing my all-time favorite piece, John Corigliano’s “Voyage.”

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” I thought. “Room full of critical audience members. I’m not in the last chair. I get to keep those little bottles of shampoo and everything.”

It’s a wonder I didn’t play on a rest. But when I popped in the CD lately and hit track two, the song just sounded different. It wasn’t how I remembered it. It wasn’t as rich. What I heard instead was an exhortation to take those fond memories and inject into them as much realism as possible. Makes things less disappointing, you know? Verisimilitude is the only thing that should be playing on loop.