Digestive Digressions

[Brinkerhoff's hallucinatory notes below lead me to question his sanity, and therefore mine in answering it. -- The Producer]

In keeping with the true cryptology of music, where notes on a page are symbols for sounds which in turn are recreated in an entirely dubious fashion by modern stereos, so that any initial truth is interfered with at every stage by some sort of grotesque symbol for a waveform, by some inventor's metonymic device wherein so-called "minor" chords, represented by italicized bees supposed to induce the notion of a flatted tire, wherein these minor chords are commonly supposed to induce melancholia and substitute for the composer's dead cat or the listener's mother, thus introducing a bit of bogus authenticity into the stack of carefully marked cards, those strange amalgams of the Tarot and an Alice in Wonderland aristocracy of fattened squirming jacks and queens which centuries have taught us never to question, in keeping with this parvenu's Almanach de Gotha, this Albigensian Bible, that is, this highly suspect methodology for conveying emotions correctly, if ever such an oxymoron could be taken seriously, in keeping with this grand tradition of acceptable scams, I would like to offer certain suggestions for continuing the suspension of disbelief beyond the tidy listening room with its bibelots and bric-a-brac, its writhing human andirons and its coolly hanging clock, to the listener himself who, being a composite of what he hears, what he eats, and what he mixes (cheese being fatty but wine and cheese dietetic), thus owes it to himself or her to parallel the act of listening with suitable beverages, as the French insist that the running dog lackeys of foie gras might be properly introduced to the digestive facilities by the voluptuous ambassador of Burgundy, so indeed here are complementary codicils to the aural repast.

    For the Clair de Lune, a light Burgundy might be initiated, such as a red Volnay or a white Nuits-St.-Georges, but only from an acceptable producer, such as Jadot, or Gouges, or Mongeard, and, only after several glasses must the stereo be activated.

    The Rachmaninoff demands a bit of salsa with tacos, a few tapas by the wrist, and a margarita with tequila, Cointreau, and fresh-squeezed limes is recommended for that Carmen Miranda afterglow.

    In keeping with true programmatic music, in which nature, say, a setting sun, inspires the composer to compose and the performer to re-create the original heliotropic phenomenon which inspired the composer, that kaleidoscopic splash of parting dust particles, and the listener to receive the original tableau in its unaltered purple, so the audience might also participate in the natural event in order to experience fully the meaning of the piece, as the Around-the-World Tosca was televised at precisely the times at which Puccini set his three acts, to whit: Clair de Lune can be played only at night; the Raindrop Prelude can be played only during storms; the Paysage and the Copland must be played on a Walkman while hiking in the countryside; the Rachmaninoff would work well in the Roseland dancehall; the Berceuse can be listened to only in bed; the Harmonies du Soir only in the evening; the Nocturne only at bedtime; and the Satie is so typically otherworldly that it can only be heard to proper effect while floating in outer space, or maybe walking through Central Park in New York at midnight.