I don’t have a degree in art, but I did get through high school, not counting algebra, and I know beauty when I see it. I also expect I’d be forcibly ejected from a theater audience at a ballet performance. In the first place, I could only be in such a place hog-tied, blindfolded, gagged and dragged, and I promise there would be quite a ruckus, not to mention plenty of armpit-generated flatulent noises after chewing myself free.
Secondly, while I recognize the physical strength and coordination required to pull off those ballet moves, it seems to me those blessings are wasted. In trying to appear to be a butterfly or swan or some other such thing, the dancers to me just look silly. I can tell a butterfly from a skinny lady in a tutu and a swan from a guy with a 5 o’clock shadow and a potato in his tights. However …
I witnessed a performance of such grace and coordination that it had to be compared with a stage ballet. One big difference is that this performance involved 87 octane and oil rather than tutus, matching buns and damaged toes. Yes, my friends, I’m talking about the enchanting, choreographed performance of my lawn care guys. It was beautiful.
In this one-act performance, the scene is an unkempt and overgrown green wilderness that the troupe entered from stage right as the orchestra settled into a lovely monotonic arrangement. Special effects were well chosen and accompanied the dancers’ movements with familiar sounds and wonderful smells that transported me back to Ed Johnson’s service station in the 1960s. The dancers performed simultaneous solo routines, their mechanical partners providing simple but perfectly chosen music for the dance.
The primo ballerino was riding in some mysterious fashion on a wonderful, snarling, orange dragon that moved smoothly and gracefully over the stage, changing direction in time to the orchestra while blowing a fine green mist over the stage reminiscent of the fog of Brigadoon. Then he would spin and spin, and just when I thought he was about to screw the dragon and himself right through the meager soil and into the ledges, he would change direction and shoot across the stage, disappearing in the fog behind some realistic shrubbery. Mahvelous!
In time, the big dragon was quieted by the primo ballerino. The dragon, apparently pregnant, loosed a litter of smaller dragons with higher-pitched voices. They fanned out over the stage, getting under trees and bushes, along fence lines, under the deck — they were everywhere at once. With voracious appetites for little guys, they managed to chew up everything deemed untidy, then created a sudden, grand pause, leaving the entire stage a silent and beautifully groomed set that looked once again like my yard does every week or so between rains. For maybe a day.
There were no curtain calls. I didn’t toss any roses onto the stage. I expressed my appreciation for the performance by presenting the cast with a handsome, large denomination bill.
I know — just when it appears that there exists not a shred of cultural appreciation in this old man, you now know what a well-bred, sophisticated patron of the arts I truly am. Beauty takes many forms, including incomprehensible, and the proof of its existence is valid to observers who acknowledge it.
Speaking of incomprehensible, I managed to look like an idiot again this month, but it took more effort than usual. Normally this transformation from my usual calm, assured demeanor happens in small doses and can be shrugged off as “an easy mistake” or “It could happen to anyone” or “He’s just being a jerk.” This one was harder to pull off.
I fell off my truck. Luckily, it did not require a visit to Snail’s Pace Urgent Care, which I talked about a couple of months ago, but I think the circumstances were more interesting. Also luckily, it’s a small truck, one that 3/4-ton truck drivers refer to as a shopping cart.
It was a Sunday morning, damp and quickly becoming more so. I had finished performing songs for a service in the Harbor and was loading my equipment into my truck, where it would be out of what was rapidly becoming a downpour. The instruments, mics, PA and a pair of heavy speakers were first, followed by all the other stuff, such as stands, cords, wires, etc. Everything was getting more wet as I hurried to get it all put away, climbing on and off the truck bed as I went. Then something went very wrong.
Someone was helping me up. Someone was yelling. Someone loaded the rest of my stuff in the bed and buttoned it up. Someone gave me paper towels to wipe up the blood and stop the bleeding. Someone kept firing questions at me. Someone put me in my truck and drove me home. People prayed. My thanks to all.
This sounds more serious than it was, as it turned out, likely because of all the prayers. In a few days I was back to my usual charming self, but with no memory of the incident.
If there were only a way to erase a few other bothersome memories …
