Untitled Apora
by Jacynth Apora
“...but up here it cannoned from rock to rock, divided, met in shocks of sound which rose in smooth columns (that music should be visible was a discovery)...(That’s an old man playing a penny whistle by the public-house, he muttered)...The music stopped. He has his penny, he reasoned it out, and has gone on to the next public-house”
- from Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
I’m a musical conman. If you aren’t seeing the physicality of music in a dance, in sound waves and waves in the arms of a crowd at a concert, or in a vinyl record, you see it in the penny that is in my light brown fedora. I wear it with these light brown and pastel pink Coach sneakers my godmother gave me for Christmas. The very top and bottom of me look grand, but I’ll just be wearing a white tank top and white jeans, anticipating how muddy and melancholic but merry I’ll look by the end of the day. Where the dirt comes from, most of the time no one really knows unless it’s an obvious accident or insult, but at least my light brown fedora and sneakers make the color of dirt look nice. Once these strangers who were barely listening at all are bored of me, I move elsewhere, to strangers who will barely listen at all, but at least are only burdened with the slow boredom or the tiring rush of transferring from place to place. So who is being conned here, the worthless musician or the one person who tries to give a cent of worth to the music?
“...but up here it cannoned from rock to rock, divided, met in shocks of sound which rose in smooth columns (that music should be visible was a discovery)...(That’s an old man playing a penny whistle by the public-house, he muttered)...The music stopped. He has his penny, he reasoned it out, and has gone on to the next public-house”
- from Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
I’m a musical conman. If you aren’t seeing the physicality of music in a dance, in sound waves and waves in the arms of a crowd at a concert, or in a vinyl record, you see it in the penny that is in my light brown fedora. I wear it with these light brown and pastel pink Coach sneakers my godmother gave me for Christmas. The very top and bottom of me look grand, but I’ll just be wearing a white tank top and white jeans, anticipating how muddy and melancholic but merry I’ll look by the end of the day. Where the dirt comes from, most of the time no one really knows unless it’s an obvious accident or insult, but at least my light brown fedora and sneakers make the color of dirt look nice. Once these strangers who were barely listening at all are bored of me, I move elsewhere, to strangers who will barely listen at all, but at least are only burdened with the slow boredom or the tiring rush of transferring from place to place. So who is being conned here, the worthless musician or the one person who tries to give a cent of worth to the music?
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