Today being All Souls Day and Election Day combined, I think all the souls should get to vote too.
All the people in all the cemeteries should get a vote!
That would include the composer Gustav Mahler, pictured above.
I am thinking of Mahler because yesterday I got to call the British author Norman Lebrecht. Notice how I wrote "the British author" not simply "author." I have seen how it is always "the painter," "the writer," "the pianist." "I am writing a book about the pianist Leonard Pennario." That is how you have to put it.
Norman Lebrecht and I are Facebook friends. I could not wait to talk with him because now you are dealing with a funny Facebook situation, you kind of feel as if you know the person. Because I have to say Norman Lebrecht besides being this world-renowned author on music topics, he is an excellent Facebook friend. He posts a lot and is involved and cracks jokes and has friended other Buffalonians too.
Anyway, it is always fun when a Facebook friend comes to life and it was great to talk to my Facebook friend Norman on the phone. We discussed many things chief of which was Gustav Mahler because that is what his newest book is about. Norman is coming to Buffalo on Nov. 16 to give a couple of talks about the book.
"Are you going to take me to any garage sales while I'm there?" he asked me.
Hahahahahahaaaa!! Does he know me or what? But let me get to the point.
After our conversation, I was all jazzed and I got up and waltzed over to this editor friend of mine to tell him about it. I'm talking about Mahler, and Facebook, and blah, blah, blah.
Then the editor asked me: "Are you ready for tomorrow?"
And I had no idea what he was talking about!
"What, do I have something due?" I asked, blinking.
"The elections," he said.
Hahahaha!! Election Day had been, for two hours or so, completely knocked out of my mind! Which is incredible because I am famous in the office for being, shall we say, passionate about these elections.
Now here they were, out of my head.
The power of music!
I am telling you.
6 comments:
I'm not sure you would want Mahler to vote. In Vienna, he once spotted a group of socialist workers out on a protest march. He joined them, took a picket sign, and marched with them for a while. Hans Pfitzner ran to Alma, furious about it, and some others grumbled for the next few days, saying that Mahler could lose his job at the opera for doing that. Mahler himself simply said "They are my brothers."
If he marched with socialists, then he's alright in my book. Why wouldn't we want him to vote? Is he supposed to be a blood sucking Capitalist?
Great election results!
I didn't know Mahler was a socialist! Maybe he thought they were socialites. Once I made that typo, wrote socialist when I meant to write socialite.
And Larry, yes, it was nice to put Nancy Pelosi in her place!
Mahler, as far as I know, wasn't a socialist. He was a Jew in a Jew hating society, and also a hired hand to primogeniture morons (Princess Metternich, for one; he once spat on every side in the street when he had to talk to her), so his sympathies would be for those on the bottom. I know that Pfitzner, who saw the same march, told Alma how much he despised seeing those proletarian faces. Incidentally, Mahler had no time for socialites in Vienna or New York, which helped make him unpopular, which is why I questioned whether his vote would be welcome in this part of the blogosphere.
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