Dating Your Mom

by Ian Frazier

  I know my friends sometimes may think I’m a bit of a pain when we’re trading snapshots, the way I go on about my nephews Zachariah and Noah. They’re my sister’s kids from her first and second marriages, and I can’t help bragging about them. Those kids really keep me sane. Surprisingly, I find very often it is I who learn from them. They have a terrific ability to deflate their elders’ pretensions and follies with a sense of humor that is refreshingly down to earth. For example, when we ride the subway I always retreat into my shell, stare at my feet, and put on a blank expression, like so many other numbed adults. Not my nephews. They’ll stroll up and down the car, looking into the shopping bag of one passenger, mussing the hair of another. They’ll remove the glasses from this one and then replace them upside down, or they’ll pull up the shirt collar of that one and read the label. If they see an attractive woman, why, they’ll give her a pinch or a pat. They’re so in touch with their feelings—their anger, particularly. If someone laughs at them, they’ll give him a lick over the head with a golf club that they carry just for that purpose, and then take his box radio. How they come up with these things I can’t imagine. They have such marvelous savvy. They know where to sell gold chains, what arcades in Times Square are best for meeting older men from New Jersey, what day of the month the Social Security checks arrive. Being around them is a twenty-four-hour-a-day experience in wonder. I can never tell what they’re going to do next. I’ve long ago stopped trying to figure them out. All I do is love them, watch them, listen to them, and try to let them teach me.

  And what about us grownups—lapsed flower children, ex-peaceniks? Do we have anything to teach the kids of today? Can we tell them how it felt to live for an idea, to stand with arms linked against oppression and racism, to sing with our brothers and sisters about the world we were going to build? Sadly, we cannot—any more than our parents could tell us about their youth. And that is the irony: that the children of the eighties should help us to understand not only our own time but also our parents’ (the children of the eighties’ grandparents’) time; because we, the parents of today, understand better why our parents acted toward us as they did when we look at our own children and see that in twenty years, when they have children of their own, they will understand us better —the way we now understand our parents better. And maybe then the kids of today will begin to understand the spirit of the sixties.

  IGOR STRAVINSKY : THE SELECTED PHONE CALLS

  Composer, conductor, critic, teacher, iconoclast, and grand old man, Igor Stravinsky bestrode this century like a colossus, with feet on two different continents. Already respected and popular in Europe for writing pieces like Le Sacre du Printemps, he became equally if not more famous in his adopted country of America. The many friends he made here remember him as a man of breathtaking talent, whether he was composing an epochal symphony or playing shadow puppets in the candlelight after a small dinner party. Like many other geniuses, he was generous, almost profligate, with his gifts. He would write beautiful phrases of music on restaurant napkins and give them to friends, acquaintances, even passersby. Thoughts bubbled forth from him in such a torrent that often when he was sitting in his den writing a letter to a friend he would impulsively grab for the telephone, look up his friend’s number in his address book while holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder, and dial. In a matter of seconds, he would be pouring out ideas that might have required days, even weeks, to travel through the mails. At the other end of the line, the friend would listen with delight as the great man went on, humming or singing at times, until finally he was “all talked out.” Then Stravinsky would bid his grateful hearer goodbye, and, in the pleasant afterglow of inspiration, he would crumple up the unfinished letter, throw it in the wastebasket, and mix himself a cocktail.

  Fortunately for us, his heirs, Stravinsky was a man aware of his place in history. With careful consideration for the students and biographers he knew would follow, he saved his telephone bills from year to year, and before his death he donated the entire corpus to the K-Tel Museum of the Best Composers Ever. What a fascinating picture these phone bills paint! With their itemized lists of long-distance calls and charges, they are like paper airplanes thrown to us from the past, providing a detailed record of the seasons of Stravinsky’s mind in the multihued pageant of life as he lived it on a daily basis. And what better time for a close examination of the treasures his phone bills contain than this, the year after the centennial of Stravinsky’s birth? (Actually, the centennial year itself would probably have been better, but even though this year might not be as good a time as last year, still, it is almost as good.) Now let us turn to the documents:

  This call, made not long after Stravinsky moved to America and had his phone hooked up, shows him adjusting quickly to the ways of his new country. With scenes of Old World poverty fresh in his memory, he has prudently waited to place the call until 11:01 p.m., the very moment when the lowest off-peak rates go into effect. Such patience and calculation indicate a call that was professional rather than social in nature. Almost certainly, the recipient was Stravinsky’s fellow composer Arnold Schoenberg. It was common knowledge that Schoenberg often vacationed in New Orleans, where he enjoyed the food, the atmosphere, and the people. Stravinsky may have found out from a mutual friend where Schoenberg was staying and then surprised him with this call. Always one to speak his mind, Stravinsky probably began by telling Schoenberg that his dodecaphonic methods of musical composition were a lot of hooey. Very likely, Schoenberg would have bristled at this, and may well have reminded Stravinsky that great art, like the Master’s own Sacre, need not be immediately accessible. Stravinsky then probably made a smart remark comparing Schoenberg’s methods to the methods of a troop of monkeys with a xylophone and some hammers. This probably made Schoenberg pretty mad, and it is a testament to the great (albeit hidden) regard each man had for the other that the call lasted as long as it did. Possibly, Schoenberg just held his temper and said something flip to defuse the situation, and then Stravinsky moved on to another subject. Inasmuch as they never spoke again, this intense thirty-eight-minute phone conversation may represent a seminal point in the history of twentieth-century music theory.

  This call is of particular interest to the student because of its oddity. One is compelled to ask, “Who did Stravinsky know in Custer, South Dakota?” He never went there; none of his friends or relatives ever went there; the town has no symphony orchestra. So why did he call there? It is hard to believe that on a June morning the sudden urge for a twenty-five-minute chat with a person in Custer, South Dakota, dropped onto Stravinsky out of the blue. No, we must look elsewhere for an explanation. Two possibilities suggest themselves: (1) an acquaintance of the composer, perhaps an occasional racquetball partner, a fan, even a delivery boy from the supermarket, comes by the Stravinskys’, sees no one is in, and takes the opportunity to make a long-distance call and stick someone else with the tab; or (2) the telephone company made an error. In either event, Stravinsky should not have paid the ten dollars and sixty-nine cents, and I believe it was taken from him unfairly, just as much as if a mugger had stolen it from him on the street.

  Here we have a side of the composer’s personality which we must face unflinchingly if we are to be honest. Every man has a dark side; this is his. On an evening in late September, just after dinner, Stravinsky placed a call to New York and talked for a hundred and four minutes. A hundred and four minutes! That’s almost two hours! As one ear got tired and he switched the phone to the other, he obviously did not realize how inconsiderate he was being. It was as if he were the only person in the whole world who needed to use the phone. What if his wife wanted to make a call? What if somebody was trying to call him from a pay phone, dialing every five minutes, only to hear the busy signal’s maddening refrain? Surely, after an hour or so he could have found a polite way to hang up. Surely, he could have at least made an effort to think of someone other than himself. But he didn’t—he just kept yakking along, without
a worry or a care, for over one hundred selfish minutes.

  We should always remember that the perfection we demand of our heroes they cannot, in reality, ever attain.

  Calling Stravinsky collect would seem to be the act of either a madman or a genius—or both. Yet here before us is the evidence that not only did someone pull such a stunt but Stravinsky actually went along with it and accepted the charges. In all likelihood, the caller was a young admirer, possibly a music student (Boston is known for its many music schools), who found himself in the middle of a creative crisis with nowhere else to turn. It shows how nice Stravinsky could be when he wanted to be that he gave the young man a shoulder to cry on, as well as some helpful encouragement. The disconsolate youth probably said that he despaired of ever finding an entry-level position as a composer, and that even if he did he was sure he would never make very much per week. Stravinsky may have gently reminded the lad that music is not a job but a vocation—which its true disciples cannot deny—and he may have added that a really good composer can earn a weekly salary of from eight hundred to one thousand dollars. Comforted, the student probably hung up and returned to his work with renewed dedication, and later went on to become Philip Glass or Hugo Winterhalter or André Previn. As success followed success, the young student (now adult) would always remember the time a great man cared enough to listen.

  This delightful series of calls reveals the Master at his most puckish. The time is a drab afternoon in midwinter; Stravinsky is knocking around the house at loose ends, possibly with a case of the post-holiday blahs. Maybe he starts idly leafing through a San Francisco telephone directory. Then, perhaps, a sudden grin crosses his face. He picks a number at random and dials. One ring. Two rings. A woman’s voice answers. Stravinsky assumes a high, squeaky voice. “Is Igor there?” he asks. Informed that he has the wrong number, he hangs up.

  Fourteen minutes pass. Then he calls back. In a low voice this time, he repeats his question: “Hi. Is Igor there?” Sounding a bit surprised, the woman again replies in the negative.

  Nineteen minutes later, again Stravinsky dials the San Francisco number. Now his voice takes on a rich Southern accent: “Hello, ma’am, is Igor there?”

  “No, there’s nobody by that name here,” the woman says, by this time truly perplexed.

  Stravinsky lets fifteen minutes go by. Then he is ready to deliver the classic punch line, which he has orchestrated as carefully as the crescendo in one of his most beautiful symphonies. He redials the number. The woman answers, a trace of annoyance coloring her tone. The great composer waits one beat; then, in his normal voice, he says, “Hello, this is Igor. Have there been any calls for me?”

  An artist such as this comes along only once in a great while. Had he done nothing else but accumulate his remarkable portfolio of phone bills, he would merit our consideration. But, of course, he did much more than that, in music as well as in other areas. We who are his contemporaries cannot presume to judge him in his totality; that task we must leave for future ages blessed with a vision far greater than today’s.

  TO THE HEAVENS, AND BEYOND

  World literature is like a great river, with its source situated somewhere in the dim past not far from man’s own beginnings and its terminus ever receding before us in the mists that veil the destiny of our race. Some men, such as Dickens or Tolstoy, ride the middle of the river, and, in turn, contribute their own works to the surging of its flow. Other writers, whose names and works you have never heard of, might be compared to small drops of water on the waves along the river’s edge. But of those many thousand souls who share the mysterious urge to set words on paper it might be said that, be they famous or be they unknown, all are part of this same river. To a greater or lesser degree, they all partake of its waters in the high communion of their art. Why is it, then, that in the broad spectrum of humanity writers should be the meanest, the pettiest, the most jealous, mudslinging, backstabbing, self-centered, conceited people who ever lived? It is only within the last few months that I have come to an understanding of just how bad writers can be. The event that really opened my eyes was when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected me, out of a multitude of other writers, to participate in their five-year Community in Space program on an orbiting station twenty thousand miles above the earth. I won’t bother to review all the nasty, sniping attacks on me which many of the unsuccessful candidates for the position have given vent to in national publications. I only wonder if the space colonists (all of them leaders in their fields) who were chosen to represent the other professions had to endure such a torrent of abuse from their colleagues. My feeling is that they did not.

  It has been written that my selection was the result of backstairs political maneuvers on my part. When you see that written anywhere, you will know for sure that the author has never met me, and that, in fact, he knows less about me than he does about the President of Togo. As anyone with even a slight acquaintance with me will tell you, I am a man who was born, and has remained, a truthteller; that is the very core of my nature. To speak anything other than the truth is an act of which I am almost physically incapable. So, as it happens, the hypocrisy, flattery, and glad-handing that grease the social wheels for millions of my fellows are skills far beyond my ken. The unblinking light of my regard falls the same upon everyone (including myself) without fear or favor. This troublesome honesty of mine has stood in the way of my advancement more times than I can count, but I accept its disadvantages without complaint; you see, it’s just the way I am.

  Now, to set the record straight, and to put a stop to the half-truths and rumors, I will tell how NASA came to choose me. I am afraid it is a simple story, entirely devoid of exciting secret schemes. One day, I picked up a newspaper and saw the announcement that NASA was looking for top members of some forty different professions to live for five years in a creative community housed in an orbiting space station. By chance, I was unemployed at the time, and eager for new challenges. I rushed down to the Pentagon, found the offices of the Air Force, and put my name on the sign-up sheet. My name was not at the top of the list; nor was it at the bottom. Then I was told that anyone who wished to apply had sixty days to submit the necessary recommendations, as well as a sample of his or her most recent work. I gave much thought to the sample I would submit. I wanted it to have a little something for everyone; I wanted it to be fresh; I wanted it to grapple with large themes. So, first of all, I went out and bought a middle-sized motor home with my own savings. I was convinced that I must leave behind the comfortable routines of my life up to that point. After much painful soul-searching, I decided to split once and for all from my estranged wife. I had lost her boyfriend’s phone number, so I left a note on her car informing her of my intention. Then, just to be on the safe side, I also broke up with the guy at the newsstand, the boy who serviced my vehicle, and a tolltaker on the New Jersey Turnpike. I set off down the highway with her recriminations still ringing in my ears.

  My first stop was New England. I picked a comfortable campsite and got right to work. Immediately I was pleased to notice that the stately, brooding shadows of Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson fell across my typewriter as I chronicled life in the land of the three-martini lunch, where Ivy League-educated denizens of sprawling bedroom communities improvise unconventional marriages in the sexual confusion of the later twentieth century. That was fun; but I began to worry that I was speaking in a voice that could do with a bit more American authenticity. So I headed out on Interstate go. As I passed Buffalo, I could feel my voice becoming more authentic. Cleveland—even more authentic. Then Chicago. Aah—authenticity was now all around me. I spent eleven days on the outskirts of that city, creating, growing, and learning. (For example, did you know that Chicago is actually not the windiest city in this country? In fact, it’s rather far down the list.) Then I was back on the highway. When I reached the Far West, I noticed that my prose suddenly became as vast and brawling as the landscape that surrounded it. Eventua
lly, through a careful budgeting of time and money, I was able to pursue my stylistic development in forty-six of the fifty states. Then I drove back to Washington, to type up my final copy and turn it in. Reading it over, I discovered that I’d found a large theme, all right. That theme was America itself.

  The news that I had made the final cut absolutely floored me. I was even more stunned when I showed up at the Air Force offices and got a look at the nine other finalists. Among them were some of the most famous writers in the country, people whose names you would recognize in an instant. We were all given a mandatory essay question to complete in three hours. I was sure I’d be over my head in competition the likes of this, but I resolved to do my best. Our springboard topic was “The World’s Greatest Dad.” I chewed the eraser on my pencil for a moment, and then my hand began fairly flying across the pages of my blue book.

  I shall always remember the day I found out that I’d been selected, because it was one of the happiest days of my life—and one of the saddest. The telegram found me at my campsite outside Bethesda. I screamed for joy; I jumped from my motor home; I took Mrs. Main, the campsite manager, in my arms and waltzed her around her office. But she had to get on with her work, so I called one of my closest friends, a novelist and essayist, to ask him to have a few beers with me in celebration. When I told him my news, a chill came into his voice. I knew for the first time that loneliness which must always walk hand in hand with the successful.