Shut up and dance

Well, it seems I inadvertently opened a can of worms with this post...

All of these accounts of Jarrett going SACPOP on some dude with a camera or a cough remind me of one of my favorite David Foster Wallace short stories, "Girl With Curious Hair," in which a sociopathic Young Republican and his punk friends behave very badly indeed during a Keith Jarrett concert in Irvine, CA in the early 1980's.

I've posted one excerpt before -- here's more:

Last night we arrived at our row of six seats in the Irvine Concert Hall and sat in our seats. My new friend Grope sat down far away from me next to Big, and Mr. Wonderful sat beside Big also. I sat between Cheese and Gimlet who sat at the end of our row of six seats. Far down on stage in the Irvine Concert Hall was a piano with a bench. The woman seated behind Gimlet tapped me on the padded shoulder of my new sportcoat and complained that Gimlet's hair was creating problems for her vision of the piano and bench on the stage. Gimlet told the woman to Fuck You, but good old Cheese was concerned at the situation and politely traded to Gimlet's outside seat so as to solve the vision problems of the woman, who was coughing at what Gimlet said. Cheese was a shrimp and he had very little hair to ascend from his head into the air so he was a good fellow to sit behind. Gimlet only has hair at the center of her round head, and it is very skillfully sculpted into the shape of a giant and erect male penis, otherwise she is bald like Cheese. The penis of her hair is very large and tumescent, however, and can introduce problems in low spaces or for those people behind her who wish to see what she can see.

[…]

Cheese leaned toward my body and made the assertion that the Negro Keith Jarrett was such a skillful and pleasurable musician because his jazz music performance was in reality improvisational, that Keith Jarrett was in reality composing his performance as he performed it. Gimlet began to cry because of this and because of the small girl's curious hair and I lent her one of my silk handkerchiefs which complements the color and design of several of my wardrobe ensembles.

[…]

At the Irvine Concert Hall last night Grope nursed his mid section and began to opine that Keith Jarrett was firing forms of electricity at him from the outer regions of his Negro afro, and he became a nervous Nellie. Gimlet no longer cried but did become even more fascinated with the blond and curled hair of the young child sitting with an older man in a very attractive sportcoat two rows of concert seats below our six seats. Gimlet stated that the girl's curious hair represented radioactive chemical waste product anti-immolation mojo and that if Gimlet could cut it off and place it in her vagina beneath the porch of her stepfather's house in Deming, New Mexico, she could be burned and burned and never feel pain or discomfort. She was crying and beating at fictitious flames, and subsequently tried to rise and run pell mell over concert seats down to the hair of the girl, but Mr. Wonderful held Gimlet back and offered her his assurances that he would attempt to get her some of the curious hair at an intermission, and placed something in Gimlet's mouth courtesy of Big.

Next to me at the end of our row of concert seats Cheese became very interested in me as a person and began to talk as we listened to Keith Jarrett improvise his performance right on the spot on his bench. Cheese stated that while it was evident that I was a swell individual he wondered how I had come to become friends with my punkrocker friends in Los Angeles, Big and Gimlet and Mr. Wonderful, since I did not look like them or have a distinctive punkrocker hairstyle, nor was I poor or disaffected or nihilistic. Cheese and I began to have a deep conversation that was very fascinating and compelling. We talked in depth while Mr. Wonderful restrained Gimlet and Big restrained the nervous Grope, quietly so as to be able to hear the very good melodies our outstanding Negro performer was putting forth at all times.

Comments

now look what you did... I just ordered 'Infine Jest' on Amazon after checking out that David Foster Wallace of yours on wikipedia.. August is the best time for some serious reading, no?
thanks, talk/hang soon!

Posted by: Sebastian Noelle | 13 August 2007 at 02:14 PM

Hey Seb,

Infinite Jest is one of my absolute favorite novels of all time. It's a cliché, but in this case it's true -- it really did change my life. I've read the damn thing cover to cover multiple times and I will still occasionally reach for it and just open up to a random passage. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did. (Advice for dealing with all the endnotes: use two bookmarks.)

Posted by: DJA | 13 August 2007 at 05:05 PM