Take this waltz... please

The one that's stuck in my head. I don't even know if it's a real piece of music or not, but it's been firmly rooted in my head for about an hour now.

This possibly-fictive musical interlude was spawned by this quote from this week's New Yorker, in Justin Davidson's piece "Measure for Measure" about the mysteries of conducting:

After the artillery-fired fury of the first movement [of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony], the second opens with a muted, shell-shocked waltz. To describe the shift in tone, Tilson Thomas intoned, "Meanwhile, in Madame Rupenskaya's dance studio..."

So, while I'm almost wholly certain that the waltz in my head is not from Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, it seems to have a dragging wistfulness to it, an air of forced gaiety. Which is funny, 'cause that's kind of how I've been feeling all week.

Much Benham (tm) afoot tonight, perhaps. I'm supposed to go meet with the program director of KAFM and the programmer who has the same scheduled time slot as me, only on alternate Fridays (good lord, you'd think a self-described writer could come up with a succincter description than that). Our motive? To discuss the "future" and "direction" of the show. Which I haven't even freakin' done yet in any sort of official capacity. But I have a feeling that my musical tastes (beat-driven, lyrically complex, ranging in emotional tone from just plain snarky to ravening despair) may not be compatible with those of the show's Original Conceivers (um... lite jazz, blues and lots of jam bands).

And whereas one might think the easiest solution would be just to give me my own damn show and drop the facade of my covering someone else's gig... apparently some of the powers that be don't think that songs about drug addiction and serial killers are the best way to start our listeners off on a happy weekend. (Happy weekends? Pfaugh! Who needs 'em? Where would Emily Dickinson or Charles Dickens or Charles Bukowski or the Big Lebowski have gotten in life if they'd experienced nothing but one pleasant and relaxing freakin' weekend after another?)

Or something. I could be totally misreading the intent of this meeting. I have a tendency to assume that people hate me way more than they actually do. (Or maybe they're just really good at pretending they don't hate me. Is my paranoia showing?) We'll see how it goes...

...but if it goes at all non-suckily, guess what I get to do at 1 p.m. Mountain time on Friday?

*
*
*
*
If you guessed "interview Nickel Creek live in the studio," then you are absolutely 100% correct! Zowie! Got any questions for 'em?

...edited some hours later... Hey, it went swimmingly. The Programmer in Question even invited me out for a drink. Smashing. Why am I so freaking paranoid?

Comments

[Angi]

Glad you were just being paranoid, because you know I enjoy a good healthy dose of music about drug addiction and serial killers.

[Gwyn]

Hey, This sounds way too fun! And really, how the heck is anyone supposed to APPRECIATE the good times if that's all they ever have?
(My motto these days).