Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 54: a good wordle, Mozart, leader of the band

Three Things, episode 54, has a bit of Auntie Shelagh solving a Wordle (and me solving, tentatively, an old question between wives and husbands), some Mozart, some Boston (from the first album) and some notes about being summoned to the boss's office. 

1. Word up

It recently came to pass that Auntie Shelagh and I didn’t agree on something. What it was doesn’t matter. Okay, it was whether Wordle will give you more information than you have a right to after guessing one correct letter in the wrong spot. Like, if you guess, say, V as in Victor, and it’s in the wrong spot, but there are two Vs in the answer, will Wordle give you not just one but two yellow indicators? Auntie Shelagh said yes, or, at least, it should. I said no.

When we’re at an impasse like this, we usually make a friendly wager. Whoever is right gets the book of her or his choice. We marshalled our arguments. I felt my competitive juices start to simmer. And then I remembered, of all things, graduate school, and how we weren’t as interested in proving we were right or wrong as making sure our arguments and concepts were consistent or valid or sound, whether they were premised properly. That’s quite difficult enough. It also makes for a better debate and a feeling that what’s up for debate is not whether you are right or wrong, or have the truth. Those are fighting words. You know, I’m proud to admit that it doesn’t even matter whose argument about Wordle carried the day last week, but, so far, gotta say, I’m really enjoying Bewilderment, the novel by Richard Powers.

2. Playing Mozart (and Scholzart)

By playing Mozart I mostly mean hitting the space bar on Apple Music and listening to Mozart, specifically the Piano Concerto No. 27, specifically the middle section—the larghetto. The word means “fairly slowly.” If you have the time, or need the time to go fairly slowly, go and listen to it. This can wait.

When I listen to classical music, especially live classical music, especially Mozart and Sibelius, especially at the Winspear, I often feel that what I’m watching is the composer signing a signature in sound there on stage. Using the conductor as a pen. A kind of autograph, or, phonograph—a writing in sound. Which is almost as far as I will go in trying to find words for what I feel when I listen to Mozart. Writing about music is foolish. It’s like writing about drinking wine.

Cheers!

Those 9 minutes and 17 seconds of Mozart larghetto strike me as sad and wistful, like someone who’s leaving a favourite place forever, and who knows it and knows there are no words. The notes at the end are like rain trickling down a window that’s more a mirror than a window. This is where I watch myself go when I listen to the music. It’s worthwhile writing about music only if the words like the notes transport you somewhere else. If they are words only about the notes having transported you somewhere else, then the words are just relics.

In 1976, the first Boston record came out. The music changed life forever in basements in northeast Edmonton. The liner notes on the back of the album had the best advice for people like me thinking about writing about music. The advice is repeated four times, like an idée fixe. The advice? Listen to the record! That’s the imperative.

3. Leader of the band

When I worked in the CTV Edmonton newsroom, the phone on my desk would ring and it was the general manager calling and could I come up to his office immediately and it wasn’t a question. On my way up to Lloyd’s office on the second floor of the building on Stony Plain Road, I’d get my arguments together. I’d be armed and ready to defend why we did a controversial news story the way we did. Come in, close the door, Lloyd would say. And then from his big chair behind his big desk, he’d say something like: “Have you heard of Sam Baker? I just found him. What a songwriter!” Or he’d pick up the guitar he kept near his desk and say something like: “I’m working on this riff, listen to this.” And then he’d play some Stevie Ray Vaughn or something of his own he had composed. Lloyd ran the station, supported the journalists, made us accountable, was a great leader—and was the leader of the band. He still is. We don’t work together anymore but we keep in touch online.

When I got some Sam Baker handwritten lyrics for Christmas, I thanked Auntie Shelagh and messaged Lloyd. So cool, he said. How about the new album by James McMurtry? I’ll check it out, I said. Here’s something I wrote, he said, just to keep playing. Lloyd the musicphile sent me a music file. I hit play, and rewind hit me.

Thanks to Lloyd and to all musicians who give us a place to keep our memories safe.