My Hot Date with an Old, Old Man

Tonight I went to my first Chamber Music Festival event, which was an amazing night of Mozart Quintet/Quartets. For any MAJOR losers out there who want to know, the actual program was as follows:

Quartet #2 in E Flat Major, K. 493 (1786)
Quintet #3 in C Major, K. 515 (1787)
Quartet in G Minor, K. 478 (1785)

All written before our dear friend Amadeus turned 30. So ultimately, he can go f*ck himself, really, can't he? Yes, oh yes he can. Also the violinist, a certain Jonathan Crow, who is in his 32nd year of life currently and is remarkably talented, can go screw himself as well. How dare he be so amazing at the instrument at such a young age? Seriously.

Regardless of who is f*cking who, the compositions are wondrous pieces, and the musicians played the bloody heck out of them. It was an incredible event, suspended-blurred-time like the lights that hung above me. The venue itself was St James Church, which amidst the sounds of such incredible beauty is in the process of chipping paint and loosing patrons during their regularly scheduled programming, which somehow added to the charm of the whole show.

One thing about the evening that totally shocked me, however, was the insanely rude folks lining up to get their tickets. I have to admit that I was younger than the majority of the people there by about as old as Mozart ever got, and so I expected the other classical nerdlings to be more polite and accommodating then myself as I have learned awful behaviour due to generational breakdowns of common decency, etc.

However, these people totally crushed, like old grapes in young, strong fists, my belief that any one age group or cultural community can be categorized so easily. They were ten times more intense and immature than the crowd at Animal Collective the night before. Their denture stuffed mouths were yelping and barking at security while (it seemed) each and every one of them used their canes and umbrellas to try to poke and prod their ways to the front of the line.

It was crazy. Maybe senility had literally kicked in for each and every one of them AT THE SAME TIME, and at that exact moment. What finally made me loose my cool, however, was when a man behind me started shouting loudly at two women whom he had assumed had somehow cut in front of him.

I couldn't take it anymore, so I actually turned around and told him in so many words to chill the f*ck out, at which point, he said to me that he was calm, and just wanted everyone to be civilized. This after having behaving completely belligerent to a couple of complete strangers. Now I have learned to temper my tongue as the years have gone on (believe it or not) and so I considered whether or not I should continue engaging with the man for a moment, and decided to simply add, "well, sometimes being civilized means letting go"...

To which he stared at me straight in the face and without hesitation said, "no, it doesn't."

His answer reminds me of why I am hardly surprised at all the bloodshed and ridiculousness that has gone on in the name of civilizing people, objects, homes and pets and why I get an immediate allergic reaction when someone mentions the word.