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I See Tom Stoppard Up Close Elevators make good places for small talk. When I see him, my mouth is empty, no breath rises to strum the harp in my throat and say his name out loud, even though I dream that one day heaven will be The Great Fan Jam in the sky, where you get to sit in with all the players on earth who made your soul jive. I always said I’d get in the line for Melville. His line must be pretty long––but hey––I’ve got eternity, right? But on this day, he’s right there, and I’m not even dead. He waits and I wait, and I just can’t stand the thought of breaking in on his small set with his sideman. Inside my head Tom’s my best friend, but still I look sideways. How could I think of blowing my horn with someone right there who has sat in with the likes of Bill and Neils and Al? I don’t even have the chops to say hello. |
Additional Notes:
Bill is, of course, Shakespeare. Neils is Neils Bohr. Al is Einstein. I mention these three because Stoppard combines both the literary past and the postmodern references to physics in the way all the truly great creators or the written word have done. He just takes the top of my head off. And I really did see him at the elevator in Austin.
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