Triumph!

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EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!  The forces of mediocrity were defeated on Friday evening in Washington.  Christoph Eschenbach took the conductor's podium in front of the National Symphony Orchestra, raised a baton, and smashed the idea that enthusiasm was reserved for clowns.  He dealt a crushing blow to the smirk, the scoff, the tepid answer of "can't complain."  The people tried not to cough in the concert hall at the Kennedy Center, but only about half succeeded.  That didn't stop Eschenbach, though.  He threw thunderbolts at the timpani, winding up his hands like a relief pitcher with an strange delivery, uncorking lighting, this boss of Zeus, the CEO of Thunder, inc.  He swayed in the perfume of the strings, wafting the sound so sweet you could smell it,  his hands like a baker, and deftly conducted a hundred person choir with his fingertips as a clockmaker tunes the gears in an ancient and honored timepiece.  It was a farewell concert, and Beethoven's last symphony...how fitting.

  The rest of us just watched, our jaded wings unable risk flight.  And here this orphan of World War II, who didn't speak for a year after his father was killed until some blessed soul asked him if he wanted to play music, this slight man in a crisp suit who waved life with his hands, he...he showed us a way.  I awoke the next morning, and remembered the good news.  The forces of mediocrity were defeated, at least for 74 minutes in the humid city of Washington.  The crowd only let him offstage after every hand in the building ached with the applause of five encores.  Bravo, sir.  And now, about that way you showed us...time to think about that.