Listening to The Marriage of Figaro (broadcast live
from the Met). Which reminds me of one of my less savory moments (which, naturally, I shall relate): having waited outside of the other Met for nearly half an hour (for I am notoriously prompt, if by prompt one means invariably too early — you know, the sort that John Irving, in that horrid book, described as ‘the early nerds’), my acquaintance at last arrived. After some hedging and indecision, we decided, or rather chanced, to take a walk, it being a sunny October day. As courtesy required, he asked about the general tenor (pardon the pun) of my visit, the purpose of which had been to see Wozzeck, Idomeneo, and, of course, him. Idle nothings were all I could manage. I even, I think, managed to call Mozart both great and vulgar. In the same sentence. Alas.