Free Dating Your Mom by Ian Frazier Page A

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?”
    â€œNo, 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,