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| Ryan P. Carney, of St. Charles, warms up in an alley before an appearance with the folk group Antony and the Tramps at the Glenwood Avenue Arts Festival in 2015. |
If you look down enough alleys in Chicago, you will eventually see a cellist in a bowler hat. I know this is true, based on personal experience. In 2015, I was at the Glenwood Avenue Arts Festival in Rogers Park, heard the distinctive low-rosined rumbling of a cello, turned my head and saw this fellow and his instrument.
I later wrote something. At the time, I thought it was a story about ignorance, which has its own attractions, and knowledge, which bears its own disappointments.
This is how I explained it:
"When you are confronted with something enigmatic, you can do one of two things. You can either keep going about your business, accepting the gift of its mystery. Or you can investigate, plunge into the thicket, push aside the leaves of the puzzle and try to find the truth within. The former is probably the better path for a life imbued with tantalizing possibility and, even, magic. Had I kept walking, I would forever wonder."
I didn't keep walking; I found out and wrote a blog post. When I stumbled upon it after more than a decade, something struck me, something more important that I missed at the time.
The opening sentence is a lie.
Most people, no matter how many alleys they gaze down, will never see a cellist in a bowler hat.
What made me think otherwise? What made me believe a clear falsehood is actually a general truism? Easy. Because it happened to me. The fog of personal experience blinds us. Push someone with a strong opinion — immigrants out! — as to why they feel that way, and you inevitably find some minor incident. They were disturbed by music being blasted late at night, magnified into unshakable conviction because it happened to them.
I crafted the opening sentence in 2015, affected by what had just happened. To me. But you weren't there; so why did you accept it? And I bet you did. You didn't stop, pound your fist and say, "No! I'm never going to see that."
Why? Well, you read it in a newspaper. A trusted source. There is a photograph, right there, of a cellist in a bowler hat, in an alley. For all the AI hubbub, you don't distrust your eyes. Perhaps most importantly: the lie conjures up the romantic image of a city of unlimited possibility we want to embrace. Leading to an important truth: we believe what we want to believe.
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Truth is hard to put your finger on when people use figurative language devices.
ReplyDeleteThis could be a patafor.
Really only you as the author know unless you go on to explain to some degree the poetic device that you are using to describe an actual event and bring it into a further aspect of reality.
There are facts for sure truth maybe not
I don’t think anyone took your opening line as literal truth at the time. More as a metaphor (perhaps what FME meant?) for the ever-present possibility of the unexpected to present itself.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, Mr. S., you are being too hard on yourself. There are many metaphorical cellos in many metaphorical alleys, and if you are lucky and keep looking,, you find one once in a while.
ReplyDeleteI can tell more about a neighbor in Chicago by going through the alleys than by going down the streets. You see who is keeping it up or letting it fall apart.
ReplyDeletelove this piece, Neil.
ReplyDeletethank you.
Having worked in Chicago alley for 25 years, I thought "That's something that I never saw." I like the eplanation more than the idea of not knowing and wondering.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about Trump & Company's intent; so much overwhelming bullshit that people tune out.The coverage on the legality of $5000 checks, its effect on the deficit, the undelivered DOGE and tariff dividend checks just added to the stinking heap.
I do wonder what Judy thought of her long walk through the city. Better than a bumpy ride in a cramped trailer.
The first time I read that line I didn't think it was untrue. Rather, I thought it was a splendid way to begin the story. It's the writer's prerogative to stretch or flex or wander down an unexpected path. Sometimes literal becomes stiff or wooden.
ReplyDeleteA pataphor is a writing device invented by a man in order to take a metaphor to a different level where it takes on a reality of its own
ReplyDeleteI love this pataphor vs metaphor definition, but mostly the "writing device invented by a man..." What ain't?
DeleteThe pataphor was first used in 1991 by a person named P.A. Lopez. I'm sorry for assuming that's a man.
DeleteMost figures of speech similes metaphors hyperbole and such date back and are as old as writing itself and nobody knows who exactly was the first to use it though maybe some research has been done I don't know enough assumptions on my part for the day
This one is not very old though it is somewhat odd complex and confusing and they know who the first person was to employ it in their writing
The only way that opening sentence could be a "lie" might be if you had staged the whole thing, with the cooperation of Mr. Carney the cellist. But you didn't, and Mr. Carney probably uses the nearest outdoor space whenever he needs to warm up before an indoor performance without disturbing others, so I would think there are quite a few others who have indeed witnessed an alley cellist.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mister S, for the cello-in-the-alley story in my Grandma's old neighborhood (1956-62) and mine (1970-71). Missed it the first time around...was not yet an EGD reader in 2015.
ReplyDeleteIf you walk down or look down enough Chicago alleys, you might see any number of things. And people are inherently curious, and are desirous of explanations. Things are often not at all what they seem to be, or appear to be.
The guy could have easily been practicing in the alley because the neighbors complained, or because his wife kicked him out. But when the Glenwood Arts Festival was mentioned, it all fell into place.
He was warming up before he went onstage.
Sometimes a seashell is just a seashell.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Had a friend, as a teen, who was a cellist in the orchestra at Evanston High. After hearing him sawing away while practicing, and watching him rosin up the bow, I'd get pretty antsy after a while..
Don't remember where I first heard the Judy story...probably here. Or in your EGD book. But 18 miles...from zoo to zoo...is quite a shlep. Think of the poor shmoes who had to follow behind her, waiting for the inevitable. Elephants will do what they do. And what they do is doo. Eighteen miles of it.
As a columnist, you deal in bold, provocative, declarative sentences. Kinda goes with the territory. If your sentence from 2015 had read, "If you look down enough alleys in Chicago, you *might* eventually see a cellist in a bowler hat," it would have been true and nothing would have been lost.
ReplyDeleteAmong inconvenient truths is the fact that our climate crisis is not just about "people who sell coal and gasoline." If nobody bought those commodities and used them, then the sellers would go out of business. But how many are willing to go without air conditioning when its 95°, or never travel in a car that uses gas? Or never take another airplane flight? Not many. Not you. Not me. And we're on the "right" side of the issue. Some may, perhaps, but they're more than made up for by folks in the developing world who are finally getting to enjoy those perks of modernity.
We all bemoan the effects of climate change, but, while the option exists, most of us will be using more air conditioning, not less, to alleviate the problem. In a world where people didn't just live for the moment, Phoenix and Las Vegas would be largely uninhabited desert villages, not huge cities fighting a long, losing battle against reality.
I recall watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006. At the end Al Gore says: "We have everything that we need to reduce carbon emissions, everything but political will. But in America, the will to act is a renewable resource." As compelling as the film was and despite his optimism, I knew right then that we were screwed.
Aside from the strange interlude of Barack Obama's administration, which now seems like it must have occurred in Brigadoon, or somewhere similar, the "renewable" aspect of political will in America is most significantly represented by the reelection of an orange felon, who is the most blatantly corrupt, ignorant and dangerous president in history.
Just today, the EPA said that "it is repealing rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, an action the agency said would remove more than $300 billion in costs for the industry and help 'unleash' American energy." So much for "the will to act," alas.
https://apnews.com/article/epa-power-plants-trump-coal-gas-climate-cac1c2c75f8656d8eaf5f0a240edae15
An excellent book on climate disruption is "The End of Ice" by Dahr Jamail.
DeleteI was worried that perhaps you were making up the elephant story to test how gullible we are. What a delight to find it true. https://chicagohistorytoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/judy-elephant-walk-brookfield-lincoln-park-zoo/
ReplyDeleteThere's a good book out now by J. Weisenberg? sp? called Profiles in Cowardice about this admin. Saw the author interviwed on Msnbc this morn.
ReplyDeletea good play on profiles in courage but the opposite