Wednesday morning, and it’s another beautiful day. I can still make it up the long hill on my bike to the Berkshire School, although it’s a little slower each year. Rehearsal was excellent. Then Carol and I drove nearly two hours each way to visit the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. It’s located in an abandoned complex of six mill buildings, and has brought new life into this grubby town. In fact, it’s the only life in this grubby town, aside from a branch of Angelina’s Subs. And what a ridiculous life it is. My kids might love it for the integration of art and technology that is its hallmark. One exhibit for example showed a large series of translucent balloons in a huge space, with arms coming off them, looking like giant squid. Air is pumped into them from a blower in the basement, and timers and motion detectors cause them to emit loud farting sounds into that echo in the humid hot room.
Fart Machine
Another features a game board of foam matting with marbles of various sizes; a TV camera projects the game onto the wall. The game has no rules. As many as four people can play, but the point of the game is unknown.
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                                                    Carol on Trampoline                                                                                              "Climb E very Mountain" as a graph
A movie on another wall shows a soccer game between Israelis and Palestinians which uses two balls. Here again, the teams have to figure out a way to play with two balls. Under the movie, a series of subtitles appear that have absolutely nothing to do with the game.

A Swedish poet and graphic designer expounds on the words and pictures associate with "Grå som gruttekritt," translated and depicted by the artist as "gray like cunt-pudding." Four hours and $16 to see this shit.
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                 Moshe Dayan Tigerskin                                                               Carol and Cuisinart

Do-it-yourself suicide kit
Carol bought a T-shirt. On the way home, we stopped at Charlie’s Cheesecake Factory in Great Barrington for supper, which was surprisingly good.

Back in the evening for rehearsal. Joe Colaneri held forth, telling tales of Verdi, of a kleptomaniacal choral conductor in Dallas. He told a great story about Sir Thomas Beecham, a somewhat less than energetic English conductor. Preparing a piece, he told the orchestra, "You all know this piece—we don’t need to go over it. It’s late—why don’t we just go home."

One of the woodwinds said, "But Maestro, I’ve never played this piece." Sir Thomas answered,

"Well, boy...you’re going to love it!"

He described the film, "Tosca's Kiss"--a documentary about an old-age home endowed by Verdi in Milan, and an interview with an old wizened woman, who, pulling memorabilia out of her trunk, growled, "Io son chorista! I am a member of the chorus. We hold the music together. It's all about us. The soloists, they are nothing. Don't you forget it. Io son chorista!"

Later, complaining about our Americanized pronunciation of Latin, he said, "It’s like when I’m driving home on Friday evening, and I hear the services from Temple Emanuel in New York. All the rabbis there learn Hebrew in the same place, I guess. It goes, "Koedoesh, Koedoesh, Koedoesh," and he does a perfect imitation of Rabbi David Lincolon reading Hebrew, which cracked up every Jew in the place. He drives us hard, making us sing at full volume, and then asking for more, again and again. Our instructors tell us not to listen to him, to save our voices, but the music is so grand, so thrilling, so powerful, and we cannot hold back.