Bill Holm is a Minnesota writer who penned a fabulous book several years ago called Coming Home Crazy. It is a collection of stories about the time that this 6’5″ descendant of the Icelandic warriors spent teaching English in the middle kingdom – China – during the mid ’80s. It’s fabulous, very intuitive and insightful, and an absolute must-read for anyone with an interest in the Land of the Dragon. It’s also the book I took on my recent vacation to Mexico.
Coming Home Crazy describes how completely different Chinese society is/was from the West in the mid 1980s, and Bill Holm’s struggle to deal with a society that is so radically different from the one he grew up in. Because China is so different there are two ways that a Westerner has to cope with the experience of living there – you can either spend your whole time fantasizing about being back in the West, or you can wallow in your China experience. If you do the latter then you end up completely unmoored from everything that you are used to, and you come home crazy. The world you thought you knew you now look at through the eyes of someone who has gone native.
Going to Mexico and listening to the music of that great country for six days was very much like that for me. We stayed at a resort on the Mayan coast, and most of the music that we heard was sanitized for the tourists. But on occasion we would find ourselves in a taxi, or going through a little town, or overhearing what the workers at the resort had on their iPods. This was where the fun was.
Like many Americans my first exposure to “Mexican” music was Mariachi, a form of music I learned to detest mightily. This was because our downstairs neighbors in the apartment my girlfriend and I rented during my stint in L.A. would play Mariachi day and night. The only truly funny moment I had regarding that form of music came during a classic Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. In the episode Deja Q, Q, played by the veteran actor John DeLancie, magically causes a Mariachi band to appear on the bridge of the Enterprise, much to the annoyance of Captain Picard. It just so happens that I saw this episode for the first time shortly after I had started working as a temporary secretary at Paramount Studios and was almost run over by Patrick Stewart, who was driving his green convertible Jaguar and cranking some lousy 19th Century clarinet concerto on the radio. I also swear that I saw that very Mariachi band on a street corner in East L.A. about three days after I first saw Deja Q. It remains one of my favorite music-on-TV moments.
What I discovered on this trip to Mexico was that the Afro-Carribe movement has swept through Mexico, or at least through the part that we were in. I’m sure this is partly fueled by the iPod revolution and the explosion of tourist activity in the area. If this had happened one hundred years ago I might be talking about the profound effect that orchestras have had on the local music. But this is 2008 and Mexico is a tropical paradise. Classical music as the fundamental force behind “common” music died in the rubble of World War II, and orchestras (the flagships of Classical music) just don’t do well in places where it is possible to worship the sun year around. There are obvious exceptions to that last statement but those are exceptions to the rule.
Funny enough, the mystique of Classical music was alive and well at the resort. The resort was overrun by Canadians, many of them from the province of Alberta. Inevitably it came up that I’m Music Director of the ESO and I was confronted by the “Gee, He Does ALCHEMY!!” look that classical musicians are so familiar with. It goes triple for those of us who are conductors, trust me. I wish that this mystique of the Other would go away and people would realize that we are just human beings who love music. Of course this would be devastating for the New York Management cadre as they thrive on the myth that we are Different. Especially conductors – we are Superhuman Geniuses who are to be Worshiped with our Intense Looks and Deep Thinking. Give me a break. How much more wonderful would our position in the world be if we just dropped the pretense and acted in public like the crazy people we are within the private confines of our profession?
Then again, look where that has gotten Britney Spears.
Next week I shall be blogging from the beautiful city of Charlotte, N.C. I have a week with that orchestra and I hope to give some insight on the Music Director Search process. Nothing confidential, but an insiders view as to what goes on. See y’all down south way.
Feliz Ano Nuevo