IDYLLOPUS PRESS IS A VALIANT LITTLE ROWBOAT

Julia Harding of Fox News gave the Centennial Olympic Park’s firework display as ending with the 1812 Overture…when instead, prior the fireworks, the youth symphony ended with the climax of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, while the fireworks display ended with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. I know this because we were at the display, and afterward when I was trying to find how many people might have been present I found and watched online the Fox news clip. From it, I was unable to learn how many people were at the display because Julia Harding said that Centennial Olympic Park said it was “against their policy” to divulge how many people were present. What I did discover is either the climax of the “1812 Overture” is now easily confused with “Ride of the Valkyries” or someone at Fox perhaps thought it a little odd that the closing music was “Ride of the Valkyries” and preferred it had been the “1812 Overture”.

Maybe “Ride of the Valkyries” is standard now and I didn’t know it as for a number of years we’ve attended the fireworks display in Decatur, sitting on a popular grassy area a good half mile away where you (mercifully) can’t hear any music.

Though living in Midtown, we’ve continued to go to Decatur for the fireworks as H.o.p. has always opted for it, having good memories. But this year, given the choice, he decided on Centennial Olympic Park.

We rode the train. The streets around the park were so jammed with people it was nearly impossible to reach the park’s entrance, standing room only everywhere, inside and out, and barely standing room at that. Literally.

The New York Christmas crowd outside FAO Schwarz paled in comparison.

Attendees were simply wanting a good time. No one around us complained. They sang the songs they knew and whooped and clapped and we shared our thoughts on the display with each other as it progressed.

I can’t remember the complete musical program but there was some requisite country and Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America” and Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes forever”.

Then there was the finale, “Ride of the Valkyries”.

And I wondered at the choice.

No, nothing really to say about it except that, all things considered, I wondered at the choice, conjecturing nothing.

After the display, attendees pouring out into the streets of paralyzed traffic, we realized there was no way we’d be able to get a ride on the subway for at least an hour, perhaps longer.

It was a nice, cool evening for Atlanta, so we walked home, purchasing for H.o.p., along the way, a couple of cheap July 4th glo-sticks from a street side table, its Muslim merchants anxious to clear stock.

We’re big appreciators of Tom Waits around here. H.o.p. as well. He’s been an avid listener since he was little. When he was two or three he listened to “Bone Machine” non stop for a year.

Back in 2004 when he was, what, 6, he did the below picture as a tribute to Waits’ “What’s he building in there?”

H.o.p. listens to not only the music, he keys into the lyrics. A few weeks ago he admitted that some of them used to frighten him but he said he gets it now that he “understands poetry”. And we knew that some of the imagery used to frighten him–yet he was fascinated, he loved the music, he just had to listen. A kid and his magnet, there was no drawing him away from the music of Wait.

So after he said that he gets the music now that he “understands poetry”, I asked him why he would repeatedly listen to the CDs when he was younger, though some of it was frightening, giving H.o.p. the ten-year-old the opportunity to think about it and explain. “Because I loved the music,” he replied.

I also suspect it was scratching the sacred itch of secular mysteries (or the secular itch of sacred mysteries, it’s all the same). He would listen and for weeks and months would question us on the lyrics of every song, what they meant. He would also ask about instrumentation. He was eager to learn about it all.

I may be a writer, but Tom Waits, and his co-writing wife, Kathleen Brennan, have been H.o.p.’s big window on the art of telling a captivating story that drags universal meaning from the incidental.

Marty was the one who first brought the music of Waits home many years ago (he was a household name before 1979) but I didn’t start listening to Waits until about 1995.

The last U.S. stop for Tom Waits on his present “Glitter and Doom” tour is Atlanta. Walking distance from here. When I first tried for tickets, none were available. Not only that but the tickets are paperless and only two are sold per household.

They had sold out in 30 minutes.

Late in June and I was still thinking about it, how H.o.p. and Marty had to go see this show, which I’d read was incredible. Late one night, on a whim, I looked the Atlanta show back up on the off chance that someone had canceled their tickets…and this time, by some insane miracle, two were available.

I promptly bought them for H.o.p. and Marty.

Marty and I argued about it the past couple weeks. He wanted me to take H.o.p. I kept saying no, I wanted him to take H.o.p. He’s a musician. He can relate a lot to H.o.p. about the show that I can’t. Tell him things about the band and the performance that I don’t know. It would be a memory that they can talk about together for years, each ever augmenting with an intellectual musical appreciation that is beyond my ability.

I really wanted H.o.p. to see Waits, the performer (and just plain wanted Marty to finally see him).

This evening I walked them up to the Fox Theater. Accompanied them inside. I needed to as I made the purchase and the paperless tickets are only available to the individual who purchased them. My bag was checked for the camera I didn’t bring along because I knew they’d be checking bags for cameras. Identification properly made, I told Marty and H.o.p. I hoped they’d enjoy the show, gave each a kiss, and Marty and H.o.p. progressed on inside to see Tom Waits in his last U.S. show of his “Glitter and Doom” tour, while I weaved my way back out through the crowd, against the tide, and walked on back home.

I read that the wonderful Lucinda has been played at every show. I put on the new album, “Orphans”, on which the song appears.

H.o.p. will be likely hoping they play “First Kiss”. He is fascinated by the image of the woman who, through holes cut in the back of her dress, wears scapular wings covered with feathers and electrical tape. He plays that song over and over.

I instead play “Dog Door”.

I’m playing it now.

No sacrifice. I did the right thing on my summer vacation.

Update: The Atlanta setlist is now up at The Eyeball Kid’s blog.

Forget music appreciation night, H.o.p. was suckered in by the disco ball bowler Wait wore during the Eyeball Kid, he thought it was great.

I’d wanted H.o.p. to see the performer, the theatrical element. I thought it would teach him something about the music.

When he got home and I asked him about the show and the hat was the first thing he went on about, pretty much overshadowed everything else…except for his wanting to find out the name of a song that he didn’t recognize and that he really liked. Turns out it’s “9th and Hennepin” off “Rain Dogs”, which we have but is an earlier vintage than what is usually playing of Waits around here.

The show started a little late. 45 minutes or so. By about that time H.o.p. needed to visit the restroom but he was scared to go because he didn’t want to miss the opening song. So he waited and he didn’t miss the opening song and eventually made a break for the bathroom about four songs in.

Marty said it is the show of the decade.

Updated update: I see people writing about powder ghosting up around Wait’s feet as he stomps his two leagues’ legs in the show’s opening, but Marty described the effect as coming from a smoke machine underneath the riser on which Wait’s was standing.