The Stages Of Listening To Classical Music

(Last night I went to see a chamber music performance with some friends of mine. We left at intermission to get pizza and did not come back for the second half. It still counts.)

1. Oh my God, I’m listening to classical music.

2. Can everyone see me? Can everyone see me listening to classical music on a Tuesday night? What is everyone else doing here? Are they here to watch me listening to classical music?

3. There aren’t even any words. Oh my God, I feel so smart.

4. Has it been five minutes?

5. I feel like a civilized serial killer on a moderately prestigious cable network! Someone bring me a sweater…it’s time to refer to something unpleasant like dental work as “exquisite”….for the rest of my life I’m going to eat dessert very slowly while also closing my eyes…I’ll only eat food with my eyes closed and I’ll never own a white refrigerator again. Those days are behind me now.

6. I am Frasier. Seattle….I’m listening.

7. Now I’m Rose from that one scene in Titanic where everyone is downstairs and jigging and boisterously Irish and brimming with honest-yet-cultured poverty! Poor in boat tickets, perhaps, but rich in song!

8. This single hour makes up for every night I’ve ever gotten distracted from watching reruns of a show I’ve already seen before because I keep checking my phone.

9. This song sounds like a mistake! I hate this! I loved the last song but I hate this! This song sounds like someone very smart making mistakes on purpose, and I don’t understand it, and I’m afraid of it, and I want to burn this song as a witch!

10. Stop hating this. You can’t be afraid of modern art your whole life. Modern art is from like, the 1890s at this point. We’re probably about eight important art movements past modern art, and you don’t even know what they are because you’re afraid of Kandinsky and Stravinsky for making shapes. Do you want to be one of those Philistines who says things like, “My kid could draw that?” Do you want to keep coasting on that same Jack Donaghy line about art being paintings of ships and horses until you die, completely unrefined and probably unconsciously in league with fascists? EXPERIENCE THE SHAPE OF THE ANGRY SOUND, YOU UNLETTERED RUSTIC.

11. This chair hurts more than anything else has ever hurt me, and it’s hurting me on purpose.

12. I’ll bet the line for the men’s room is going to be unbelievably short at intermission. Transition really was a smart investment move. I’m like the Suze Orman of classical music bathroom strategy.

13. “Oh, you stopped by last night? So sorry to have missed you, but I wasn’t to home. I was attending a chamber music performance with the boys at my club. My club puts on little concerts now and again, you know, and one has to pitch in for one’s club, boost those piano chappies and give them something to look forward to.”

14. I wonder if I look like I’m reflecting on a very civilized murder I have recently committed. I’ll bet I do. I’ll bet if someone looked at my profile right now, I’d look very reflective and like I didn’t have any loose neck skin whatever.

15. Here comes some more classical music!!! I’m the smartest ears in the WORLD, and a murder sweater!