Maggie's Farm

While the Mrs. took the youngest Bird Dog theater-intoxicated and Shakespeare-intoxicated pup and her theatrical pal to the Vivian Beaumont to see the rarely-performed Cymbeline (the Beaumont is perfect for Shakespeare), my self-assigned chore was to clean up and polish ye olde farmhouse for the Thanksgiving hordes expected soon.

While finding many dust balls as big as alley cats, and some lost mail, magazines, a dried dog poo or two, and some important faxes under sofas, I cranked up my gigantic Legacy speakers for consolation.

They were the top of their line when I splurged on these darn things, delivered by an Airways Freight truck. 175 lbs. each, 5' tall, and they look like beautiful furniture. But what the heck was I thinking when I bought these monsters? (A movie-business friend told me I have the same ones Tom Cruise has in his house. Sheesh. That is not good.)

These speakers are powerful enough to knock down my walls or to blow a cow to the moon, but sensitive enough to capture the most subtle inflection of Dawn Upshaw's voice, like she is singing to you. The Messiah was on the CD player, from Eastertime. I listened to the whole thing while vacuuming, dusting, dog-poo-removing, polishing, and pickng up. How many Bibles do we have in this house? Well, I love that music and know every word, but I realized that I do music now on the computer. This dang computer-internets machine-thingy simultaneously shrinks and expands life.

I realized that I had not turned on that fine sound system, with the mega-ultra ultra amp, since Easter.