The House
The Lobby
The interval between Movements II and III runs approximately twelve hours.
The management apologizes for nothing. Intermission is where the music
finds out what it did to you. Mind the chandelier; it remembers the fire.
✦ ✦ ✦
Overheard During the Interval
A patron in mourning dress, Saint-Médard, 1727
"At the deacon's tomb we shook until the King locked the gates. Locked the cemetery. Against joy. I have waited three hundred years to see whether the trick could be done again indoors, and I am told the encore is tomorrow."
A church deacon, Georgia, 1954, still holding his hat
"That is OUR chord. That is our chord and our amen-corner call and he has put a WOMAN in it. ...Play it again."
A young man in a very good shirt, New York, 1970
"No, that's the thing, nobody could sell you a ticket. It was an apartment. You got invited or you didn't, and the invitation was David liking your face. Balloons on the ceiling. Best sound system on the Eastern Seaboard and the drinks were free because the whole night was a gift. Try locking THAT cemetery."
A woman in a violet stole, recently of Mount Shasta, checking the exits
"Our teacher said the body was an error to be ascended out of. I gave them nine years and the deed to a house in Pasadena. Movement One was about us, wasn't it. The corpse in the filing system. ...The bar is free here, you said?"
A tuning theorist, era unclear, uninvited, gesturing with both hands
"Twelve fifths do not close the circle. They never have. Twenty-three cents, every civilization, no exceptions. The only question any culture answers is where do you put it. Everything else — the church, the cults, the dancefloor — is commentary on that one decision. I don't know why I have to keep — where is my drink."
✦ ✦ ✦
The Bar Card
The Wolf Fifth23 cents
Every error in the house, poured into a single glass. Bitter, howling, honest. Ask for it neat; it arrives that way regardless.
Equal Measurehouse standard
Twelve pours, each of them very slightly wrong, none of them unbearably. You can order it in any key. Bach drank nothing else after 1722.
The Meantoneask about our keys
Gorgeous in the middle of the menu, undrinkable at the edges. A Renaissance favorite. The management keeps it for sentimental reasons.
Just Intonationmarket price
Mathematically perfect. In one key. Do not order it for the table; it does not modulate, and neither will your evening.
The Ascended Masterbilled in perpetuity
The glass arrives empty. The emptiness is described to you at length as a higher form of fullness. Refunds are characterized as spiritual failure. The house lists it as a warning, not an offering.
Waterfree
Mancuso's rule. Nothing is sold at the sacrament. The party is a gift or it is nothing.
✦ ✦ ✦
Notice — posted by the management at dawn
The house listeners report that at seven o'clock this morning the street outside
went, for the first time in nine days, completely silent. Not quieter.
Silent.
Patrons are advised that this is not an omen; it is acoustics. Every hall in the
world goes dead in the instant before the downbeat. The silence is the orchestra's —
borrowed from the room, held at the tip of the baton — and it was returned
at the bell, with interest.
The bell rang this morning, on time, which had never once happened before.
It is the same bell that failed to ring in 1785, which is why it now rings early
and with what several patrons have described as "an attitude."
It was heard. Nothing was finished. The glasses came along. The music, as promised, did not mind.
Patrons returning to the hall are reminded that the
program is still in effect,
that the
ghost light room is not an exit,
and that anyone attempting to pay for water will be escorted, gently, to 1970.
— THE MANAGEMENT