Candlepower
My cab driver slammed his hand against the wheel in frustration. Nothing was moving, and we were inching our way up Massachusetts Avenue — plus, some eastern European (diplomatic plates) driver near us was blasting bad techno-polka music on his car stereo with the windows open. The problem turned out to be a power outage in Northwest DC, and the absence of traffic lights at rush hour was causing a lot of congestion.
The techno-polka guy finally crept away from us, and after a long time behind a belching bus we ended up at Ward Circle. “It's that building, the new one,” I said. “No lights there either,” he replied.
I gave him a big tip and dragged my many bags up to the American University recital hall building. The hall's stage manager was standing outside, moodily smoking a cigarette. “No power. Generator lights only.” The stage lights took so much power to run that they'd been cut off at some central point. So there wouldn't be any way to read the music.
I was there for a birthday concert (pianist had the birthday) that had been elaborately planned, to the point of bringing us down from NY to play (surely there are musicians in DC?) and hiring a caterer. I decided that my top priority at that moment was putting down all the bags I was carrying, and the stage manager seemed happy to have something to do so he let me into the dim hall. I headed toward the green room. “No lights there. And no lights in the bathroom,” he said.
The pianist arrived and marshalled her many friends into getting candles and flashlights together. My job became to get dressed in the dark. (Not easy, I can report.) Eventually the audience arrived — they'd been stuck in traffic too.
So we decided to play with candles and flashlights. Suddenly the generator lights went off too, and the audience was in complete darkness, in a dark hall, looking at us (presumably — nothing else to look at), our faces and music lit up with tens of candles and carefully-placed flashlights set up on flattened music stands. The stands were perilously close to our elbows, but we didn't knock any of them down and we didn't catch on fire. But it was very very hot up there with all the candles.
The lights went on and off a few times, and then triumphantly and finally on at the beginning of the second movement of the second piece. The audience murmured and we kept playing.
In the end things turned out fine. The music was better than techno-polka, the birthday celebrant was happy, and there were lots of lawyers on hand to discuss the romance of the power outage. Driving back down Massachusetts Avenue was easy.
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