Serial 1: Men I've "Slept With" or "Consumed"!

2006/2/20 10:04:35

I

Men are mud, but even mud has moments worth consuming, even worth consuming in one's sleep. Of course, the kind of men worth consuming in one's sleep -- in all of world history, there probably aren't many. It's not that the bar is high; it's that men are truly dull. Men without taste cannot be consumed, let alone consumed in one's sleep.

Being an expert in music, naturally I'll start with music. Yesterday I listened again to a first piano sonata written in my teens, and feeling a bit stirred, I thought of Mozart. Though I never slept with Mozart, he is undoubtedly a man worth consuming.

Mozart's music, from a fellow practitioner's perspective, can of course be analyzed in great technical depth. His materials and techniques were quite ahead of their time -- for example, his use of dissonance. Also, take "The Magic Flute": it blends virtually every vocal possibility known at the time. Within it, there are the simplest folk songs, oratorio, mass, art song, Italian opera elements, and more. But the most exquisite thing is that "The Magic Flute" is unified and harmonious. The Queen of the Night's coloratura, the Birdcatcher's folk song, and the Priest's religious chant are to the opera what organs are to the human body -- a harmonious whole. This is absolutely unprecedented and unrepeatable.

In truth, artistic height often has nothing to do with materials or technique. Whether one can combine various elements into a living whole -- that is the key to art. For example, Wang Wei could use the simplest words, the shortest form -- five-character quatrains, twenty characters -- to write the finest works. That is art. From a purely artistic standpoint, Li Bai and Du Fu's artistic cultivation in certain respects cannot match Wang Wei's.

Wang Wei and Mozart -- two of the greatest geniuses in world history, one from the East, one from the West. Wang Wei's scope was even broader: he was China's greatest musician, painter, and poet, and of course one of the men most worth consuming.

(To be continued)