The Thumbprints of "El Niño"

So I’m back up here in the north coast after nearly four weeks of being on the road. I see that a big fir had fallen during a storm, landing right on Buckshot Creek Road and making passage by car or truck impossible until my neighbor, Marcel Proost, came out and removed it with his backhoe. The winter storm season is upon us, a bad time for power outages but an excellent time for boletes and yellow foots.

My first morning back I see Marcel out on the dirt road in his Toyota truck. He’s got a load of firewood he’s going to donate to the Horicon School Christmas auction. Marcel has recently gone online, cobbling together a gravity-based computer from scavenged Japanese components he pulls out of recycle bins and signing up for the Mendocino Community Network. His service is dial-up and really slow, but he tells me he likes it because he is now Facebook friends with Sarah Palin. He also reads reviews of my concerts in far away places like New York and Los Angeles, a fact that makes me mildly uncomfortable.

“So I see you got yerself into Carnegie Hall there last Sunday night. How come they let you in?”

“Well, in fact, Marcel, I was invited. They asked me to conduct my own piece.”

“Yeah. I thought “El NIÑO” was that storm that blew through here cupla years back, the one that took down the satellite dish up on Annapolis ridge and caused the road to wash out.”

“Of course it is, Marcel. But you know the word is Spanish for “the little boy,” so it fit the theme of a Nativity oratorio. And with all the Hispanic texts, it seemed like a charmed title to me. Don’t you agree?”

Marcel, not at all a fan of what he considers my loosey-goosey stylistic thievery, gives me a doubtful look, and subtly rolls his eyes in mock exasperation.

“I read in one of them there New York papers that your “little boy” has “minimalist thumbprints” all over."

I know Marcel would love nothing better than to be able to write up his own review, and, like a good New York Times reviewer refer to me as “Mr. Adams.” He could then go for descriptive gold, citing all the familiar earmarks: the chugging engines, the four-square harmonies, the lurching vocally acrobatic melodic lines and of course the minimalist thumbprints. “Musical forensics,” Marcel likes to call it.

“I like to consider every performance I review for the Coast Observer as if it were a fresh body just brought into the morgue. You want to examine it first for signs of morbidity. Check out the lividity of those bruises, which are of course the results of interpretive abuse on the part of the conductor. Then you examine the hair samples and of course take samples from under the fingernails—that way you can tell whether the piece at the time of its being murdered by the performers, was in a physical struggle.

“And last of course you take a good look for any kind of stylistic thumbprints. You gonna find a lot of useful information here. Take your “El Niño,” for example, John. Even without the pathologist report I’m gonna guess that the investigators will be finding more perpetrators were involved. Not only are there minimalist thumbprints, but I can bet they’ll find that Perotin, Josquin and even our good friend, the stellar Mister G.F. Handel left their prints all over the body. Hell, they had a virtual strangle hold on that poor little kid.”

“Well, Marcel. When it comes to Modernist purity, I can’t hold a candle to you. I know you drive a hard bargain. I’m sorry I can’t produce another Bone Alphabet for you.

“That’s OK, John. Takes all kinds. But I’m glad you had a good time in New York anyway. I hear those Juilliard kids were positively smokin’ at that concert at Tully Hall.”

“You mean that they played with unbelievable virtuosity, right?”

“That too. Someone told me you said it was maybe the best performance of Chamber Symphony you ever heard, even your own. Is that right?”

“I believe I’d have to say that, Marcel. Just that violinist David Fulmer and the trap set player Molly Yeh were enough to send that piece into hyperspace. And the conductor Jeff Milarsky did the whole thing without going into labor! Amazing.”

At the mention of “trap set” I see Marcel is thinking of something else altogether. He puts his truck into gear and revs the engine.

“Gotta go, John. Just forgot about something.”

Marcel heads up the road, the back of his truck fishtailing on the slick, rain-soaked surface.