So, finally, it’s Friday. Isn’t it amazing? Even on a short week . . . I took Monday off, remember, and sat in the cold house listening to Chappy bark at the furnace installers . . . even on a 4-day week, it always takes a long time to get to Friday.

But, it is here, finally! Chappy’s playing on the rug, and I finished the gusset on my second Jaywalker sock. I’m going to TRY to get it done this weekend. It seems feasible, and I’m definitely at the point where I want to be done with this project. I really like the Jaywalkers, but I’m not loving them like some other people (coughCaracough), and it’s been fun, they’re lovely, but . . . ready to move on. So, between working on my sock and on my shawl–working on the color patterning for my Olympics sweater.

Speaking of the Olympics, Stephanie’s got over 1800 people signed up. Wow! I am absolutely loving how this whole thing has taken on a life of its own. Amazing. (And, isn’t this a great button? There are others, too!)

And, when is somebody going to start a New Jersey, New York Metro, Mid-Atlantic, whatever team?? What? Nobody is? Okay . . . I’ll make the button!
So, maybe you don’t know, but it’s Mozart’s birthday today. Yes, that’s right, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a mere 250 years old today. (And I remember when he was just a little tyke of 230.) I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but I enjoy Classical music (yes, it’s true). I listen to WQXR on the radio at work–music with lyrics distract me, but I like catching the news and the genteel banter amongst the DJs. Well, this week, it’s been ALL about Mr. Mozart and the massive festivities in Salzburg. Really, in the musical world, this is a huge thing.

Not that Mozart hasn’t met popular culture though, too. I mean everyone’s heard of him, and there are some melodies that anyone would recognize, even if they didn’t know he was the composer. New York’s Lincoln Center has the “Mostly Mozart” festival every summer. (Another event I hear hyped on the radio a lot.) But, anyone else remember the Falco song, “Rock Me Amadeus?” Or the movie Amadeus, of course, from 1984 with Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham? I remember going to see that in high school–my best friend and I wanted to be “cultured”–and I just loved this movie. Mozart, as portrayed in the movie, was crazy and rebellious–very teenagerish, really. He made classical music cool, and exciting, and above all, new. (Come to think of it, I haven’t seen this movie in a while….)

It’s so easy to think of “Classical” as one, specific style from one, specific time–like Forties Big Band, or Fifties DooWop. But the “big” composers–Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Dvorak–come from such a long, huge, range of time. It’s just that they used similar structures, and come from a similar culture. But really, think about it–except for things like folk songs, music followed a fairly similar, structured pattern for centuries, and then the Twentieth Century and electronics happened, and . . . it exploded. Jazz. Rock. Rap. Country. Latin. Every decade or so, it seems like there’s a new musical revolution.

All I can think of? Mozart would have just loved it. I can’t help but wonder what kind of music he’d be writing now . . . so much talent. He wrote his first piece of music at 5. Performed for the emperor at 6. Wrote over 600 pieces of music before he died at 35. I don’t think even John Lennon matched that, and his songs were a lot shorter than, you know, an opera.

• Tags: General, Knitting/Spinning • Permalink:Fogey Rock //