All Things Fall, and Are Built Again. . .

and those that build them are gay.

That's what William Butler Yeats says, in his poem "Lapis Lazuli."

He's not talking about sexual preference; when he was writing this poem "gay" didn't have that denotation. (He doesn't mean "stupid", either. That coinage is even more recent.)

He means that when you are involved in something meaningful, creating something, there is joy in the process. The outcome is secondary, and certainly doomed anyway -- even Keats' Grecian Urn.

I was reminded of this -- I am all the time being reminded of things that the great artists have told us in the post -- a couple of weeks ago, at a place called Infinity Hall. It's an old opera house -- Mark Twain once read there -- on Route 44 in Norfolk, Connecticut. It seats about 305 people, and it's a great place to see a show. I say Greg Brown there last Friday, and he said "I almost hate coming here. [Dramatic Pause] 'Cause I know wherever I go next will be a disappointment."

Anyway, on this night it was Carrie Rodriguez playing her fiddle , with Ben Sollee and his cello (no, really) as the opening act. After they played their individual sets, they played together -- for only the second time, Carrie explained, and that they only knew each other's songs about half way through. "Pretty soon we'll learn them," she said to him, "and then it won't be fun anymore."

"It will still be fun," he said.

"Yea," Carrie agreed, "but. . ." Meaning, I think, that while the performance would be better, the joy of learning, of reacting to the music instead of just playing it -- the funnest part -- would have passed.