"Sit at my feet ... "

One wonders why anyone would travel halfway around the world and present himself with the opportunity to see long-heard-of places and things and then resist the urge to leave the place where he lays his head at night during the visit. But the opportunity to sit at the feet of a witness to some of the most significant events of the last half century, one who is both willing and imminently capable of relating his memories of the people and events of those times, is simply not to be passed up just to go sight-seeing. I have that opportunity during my visit here with Paul. He is a skilled storyteller who spins a yarn that makes the mention of the famous people he has known and the things he has done entertaining as well as educational.

He used to be fond of saying in the ILink Writers group, "come sit at my feet, dear boy," in prelude to his recalling his times with the likes of Lotte Lenya, Aaron Copland, Tennessee Williams or Dorothy Parker. The opportunity to "sit at his feet" is the primary purpose of my visit to this his chosen home country, and I'm soaking up every minute of it.

This morning as he was working away on his latest piece for Musical America while permitting me to look over his shoulder as he worked, he turned around and caught me reading a book. He asked what I was reading. I told him it was one of the books from his shelves, a collection of stories and poems by Dorothy Parker, and that became the occasion for about a 20 minute diversion in which he related the story of how he met the sharp-tongued Ms. Parker and of how "his" Dorothy was considerably different than the common image others had of her.

Just as he had pulled himself away from that probably-welcomed momentary break from his professional writing obligations and turned back around to the computer to finish up his article about the new $72 million opera house in Erhurt, Germany, the phone sang out, announcing a caller. (I say it sang out because here in Berlin the telephone doesn't just "ring" but instead plays an arpeggio of musical notes, similar to, but not as obnoxious as, the cell phones in the U.S.) The caller at the the other end was Kent Nagano, the conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, who was calling to thank Paul for his support in connection with a recent dust-up with a critic here in Berlin. That is a story worthy of its own entry, but for the moment, Kent's call only served to underscore the thoughts that I was writing at that very moment about the value and importance of sitting with Paul while I have the opportunity and listening to him share his stories about the wide and varied circle of friends he has. The statues and buildings will be here for a long time; people like Paul and conversations with them are far more important and regrettably more transient.

Since those early years of my childhood sitting on the front porch and listening to my father and grandfather, "Daddy Perry," tell stories of their hunting adventures, their youth, and probably a few even drawn solely from their imagination, I have always enjoyed oral history. It's one of the curses of so-called 21st century progress that diversions such as video games, the computer or the television occupy the minds of young and old alike and we sit inside air-conditioned houses watching them alone rather than on the front porch in search of relief from the hot summer nights with nothing to occupy us but conversation with one another. The only stories we seem to tell each other any more are those we make up as excuses for why we are too busy to engage one another intellectually. These times with Paul are like those on the front porch of my youth, and they are similarly precious.
- posted by Perry @ 9:21 AM