When music haunts you, and you don't know why

So Wednesday night Cass the All-Knowing and I, Tiresias, ventured to the Great Lawn to catch the first act of Verdi’s Rigoletto. We met up in front of the Delacorte Theater in the shade of the huge dumpster truck parked on standby and proceeded to the very edge of the Lawn at the softball field and plunked our asses down on the grass.

At first, there was no one. Then it was twilight no more. Our shorts became soaked with the dew or whatever liquid seeped from the earth. And one thigh became dinner for some enterprising bugs that wisely stayed away from the crotch. We itched through the first twenty minutes, watched a couple plunk themselves down nearly in front of us (and Cass, in response to something else entirely, said, “Perfect,” but I think the couple thought we were talking about them), watched little punk kids kick a soccer ball around the field, then watched perhaps the same kids twirl around with swatches of neon glow-in-the-dark whips, the kind they always sell at outdoor night venues.

And the music? So lovely, so Verdi, so free. And then one of the aria’s haunting tunes caught my ear and for the longest two minutes I went through every last Korean film I’ve watched in the last two months, because I remembered hearing the very same passage. Never mind that I didn’t remember it was Verdi. And aha! It wasn’t Korean, it was actually Match Point, which of course makes sense with Woody Allen's other references to Crime and Punishment and the idea once again reinforced of a redemptionless man (amidst a group of redemptionless people) conniving his way to security and comfort. I turned to Cass and she confirmed that it was that very same piece.

How sad that my musical recognition has become so stunted that it took me sitting on a wet lawn listening to free opera to get me to realize that I had been listening to Verdi while watching a Woody Allen film.

But still, it was free! And free opera is really hard to come by, and you don't get perfect nights like that, cool breeze, nicely scented by the pines close by, the scent of the portable toilets still gathering their forces to unleash their legions of ass on the crowd. I saw a lively cleanup crew the next morning, taking down things, picking up the rubble, sucking out the suckage from the toilets, getting ready to pack them on the truck to send on their next adventure.

I came home refreshed, feeling slightly cultured, and found that while I was away, my dog moved my shoes around the room so a white sandal was lying on its side a few feet from where I had taken them off, and its mate was facedown on the bed. A tender reminder of sorts. A threat, if you will. She's not so very subtle.