Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

• E. Lockhart, We Were Liars: A Novel (Delacorte Press, 2014): “A privileged teenager named Cadence, who spends summers on an island owned by generations of her mother’s family, narrates an addictively enigmatic story. Something is amiss on the island, and a sudden tragedy only deepens the mystery — until all is explained in a shocking ending that will make you want to start the book all over again.”

Novels, from the dark side:

• Kate Elizabeth, My Dark Vanessa: A Novel (Morrow/HarperCollins, 2020): “There are flashes of clarity. When Vanessa sees Strane shove her dog off the couch. When he continues to have sex with her for the first time even though she is crying. When he threatens that she will have to go into foster care if she tells anyone. When she finds out he betrayed her at a crucial moment. But then she reverts to the love story. She protects the idea of their being in love because she needs it.”

Poetry

My parents thought that I would be
As great as Edison or greater:
For as a boy I made balloons
And wondrous kites and toys with clocks
And little engines with tracks to run on
And telephones of cans and thread.
I played the cornet and painted pictures,
Modeled in clay and took the part
Of the villain in the “Octoroon.”
But then at twenty-one I married
And had to live, and so, to live
I learned the trade of making watches
And kept the jewelry store on the square,
Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, —
Not of business, but of the engine
I studied the calculus to build.
And all Spoon River watched and waited
To see it work, but it never worked.
And a few kind souls believed my genius
Was somehow hampered by the store.
It wasn’t true. The truth was this:
I didn’t have the brains.

[Edgar Lee Masters, “Walter Simmons”]

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Coleman Hawkins is widely considered to be “first great tenor sax player”, and is called the “Father of the Tenor Saxophone”. “His pioneering use of the tenor saxophone brought the instrument into common use in dance and jazz bands throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s.” He “could read music before the printed word. He began piano lessons at five, learned the cello, and picked up the C melody saxophone at nine. He played his first paying gig at twelve . . .” “. . . he developed a unique, full-bodied tone and started employing long, rich, smoothly connected sets of notes that he often played independently of the beat.” He brought the saxophone into the jazz mainstream, so we could say that the made the jazz world aware of the instrument’s potential. “Hawkins invented the tenor saxophone in the way Richardson invented the novel: he took an often misunderstood instrument and made it work right for the first time.” In doing that, he also made saxophonists more aware of the possibilities open to them. For example, Sonny Rollins “considered Hawkins his main influence”. Hawkins’ output includes:

• His playlists, including his albums;
• Live: Art Ford’s jazz party, 8/18/58; (50’); and
• Live with Harry Edison Quartet at Wembley Town Hall, London, October 1964 (44’).

Compositions:

• Brazilian Mozart Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993) composed five books of Ponteios (see recordings by Isabel Mourão and Max Barros) (approx. 95-97’), short pieces for piano in the style of preludes. “The word ponteio was taken from the popular music repertoire in which it referred to a freely composed instrumental melody, generally played by pluckin the strings of the guitar.” “All the Ponteios have in common a certain internal rubato that is achieved through subtle inflections of tempo and supported by a network of astonishingly varied syncopated figurations.” Their atonality, combined with the preparatory style of the prelude, suggests the process of becoming self-aware.
• Pierre Boulez, Sur incises for three pianos, three harps and three percussionists (1998) (approx. 37-39’) explores “the myriad ways the sound of three pianos can be extended by adding three harps and three percussionists (playing mallets and other tuned instruments) to the basic ensemble.” It can also be heard to reflect the piano’s internal life, influenced by those elements. In explaining the work, Boulez remarked: “‘You don't become a painter by looking at a landscape but by looking at a painting’, said André Malraux. And that is perfectly true: you become a musician because you have looked at music, studied composers, which makes it possible to deduce a number of things and to see the real consequences of the gesture of the composer who preceded you.”
• Charles-Marie Widor, Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 13/1 (1872) (approx. 36-39’); and Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 13/2 (1872, rev. 1887) (approx. 35’): These are two early works in this genre, and in the composer’s output. 

Albums:

• Sarah Elizabeth Charles, “Inner Dialogue” (2015) (57’) “is a work of confidence and maturity, an intensely personal musical statement, and a hip blend of styles, suggestions, and sounds.”
• Geoff Eales, “Invocation” (2014) (67’): Eales writes: “One of the biggest challenges facing an improvising musician is to deliver a performance that holds the attention of the listener when playing completely solo. To achieve success, one must dig deep into one’s musical psyche in order to invoke the muse within.”
• Soft Works, “Abracadabra” (2003) (60’): Elton Dean’s saxophone is forward among the quartet, as if in a conversation with himself.
• India Gailey, “To You Through” (2022) (38’): “For this, her second solo album, Nova Scotia cellist India Gailey (b. 1992) put together a program of six works from a multigenerational selection of living composers—five by others, and one by herself.” She says that each selection “feels like a part of me”.
• Yulia Ayrapetyan, “Komitas: Songs” (2022) (71’): these songs, arranged as short pieces for piano, convey a sense of self-awareness. The composer became a priest but then pursued other paths, leading to irresolvable conflicts with the church. His music suggests that he was clear about who he was.
• Catrin Finch & Aoife Ní Bhriain, “Double You” (2023) (47’): “Running through their stories – as individual creatives, remarkable women, and now as an inspirational duo – are universal themes of identity, self-belief and the courage to find yourself and follow your own path.”

Music: songs and other short pieces

• Judy Collins, “Both Sides Now” (lyrics)

Visual Arts

• Pablo Picasso, Girl in Front of Mirror (1932)
• Edouard Manet, Woman Before a Mirror (1877)
• Peter Paul Rubens, Woman with a Mirror (1640)
• Giovanni Bellini, Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror (1515)

Film and Stage

• Face to Face, about a woman who “comes to the realization that she doesn't understand the nature of her own inner reality”
• Raging Bull: after years of self-destructive behavior, a world-champion boxer“emerges with a gleam of self-awareness”; one review calls the film “a landscape of the soul”
• Marguerite is a wealthy woman who thinks she can sing, and is cruelly encouraged by her “friends”, who want something.