The shopping centre in the town of Gava has
the worst underground car park music in the entire universe. It has the sort of plinky-plonky randomness
that makes it impossible to imagine that it was created by any sort of
human. The only human part in the
musical creation was the nerd who created the sub-standard computer program
which produced that cacophony. Though
that is not the right word, the music is always soft and tinkly with the hanging
chime glissando of metallic irrelevance and it has that New Age awfulness that
makes it the perfect music for suicide!
Every time I go there my teeth are set on
edge by the insinuating formlessness if the so-called music. Thank god for the proliferation of
inexpensive box sets of classical companies selling off their old and not so
old backlists!
When I listen to Beethoven, say his 5th
Symphony, I can think back and consider all the different forms I have used to
listen to it apart from live concerts: radio broadcasts; TV broadcasts; cheap
records; cassette tapes; expensive records; CDs; DVDs, and all giving a
reasonable listening experience of the written music all of which would not
have been available to people like me at the time when Beethoven was writing
his music. If you didn’t hear the symphony
in the concert hall then your experience of it would have been limited to a
piano transcription or buying the printed score. The ready availability of good quality music reproduction
must have changed how we respond to music – and the quality of music that we
listen to.
Which is why the music in the subterranean
car park in Spain is so offensive. There
is no excuse for it. We are used to
much, much better. Or at least we should
be. Music is now so cheap and easy to
get hold of. Whatever type of music I
want is readily available at the click of a button. Are we more sophisticated listeners nowadays
though? When I listen to what young
people are listening to, I find it hard to believe. And where the bloody hell did rap come from
and having come why did it stay? Perhaps
it is something to do with attention span.
Watch television and see how many seconds a normal shot lasts. Look at the way that information is streamed
at people. As Sleary said in Hard Times, ‘people mutht be amuthed’,
by god they must! That is not the same
as education!
Today has not felt like a Saturday. Even in the swimming pool, though there were
small human life forms around when they are mercifully absent during the week,
their pernicious presence was not enough to dispel the week-like feel of the
day. The truly retired were playing
boules and another group were snapping down dominos and the bored housewives
were doing their pointless dance steps to thumping music. The only important thing was that I had a
lane to myself – everything else is detail.
Though I do like days to feel like
themselves and I am still not entirely sure why today didn’t. But such speculation is as nothing compared
to the fact that I have seen another watch.
I know that my watch buying has now reached the proportions of an
obsession, but it hardly an addiction to cocaine so I fail to be intimidated by
the fact that some people only own a single watch. I can type things like that, but they have
absolutely no meaning in my world. The
latest little object of desire is another Kenneth Cole creation. This time it is a day, date, second hand,
waterproof etc. and automatic with a semi skeleton showing the movement and a
glass back (a detail I have never understood, who looks?), it also has a
leather strap, but that is something I am used to and they are specially
treated to be worn for swimming and all the time without rotting on the
wrist. Sounds as if I have already
bought it. But it is too expensive for
an impulse buy. And there is, of course
no possible reason or excuse to buy it.
Tempting isn’t it!
Tomorrow our long delayed lunch with
Irene. I must remember the stuffed vine
leaves and a bottle of Cava. Always-acceptable
calling cards!
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