The Music Was Pleasant and Soothing

The music was pleasant and soothing, smooth jazz, you know what it’s like. Soft saxes, muted percussion, synthesizers and guitars. Good music for a glass of wine or a cocktail, great for background, and even worth a concert ticket from time to time. The top item on the menu was a chicken salad wrap and a bag of potato chips decent and one of my favorites. Then it came to me, the average age of the diners was 85, their physical condition very poor! This was the dining area of a nursing home. Wraps were invented after most of these people were well adapted to a diet that certainly did not include a sandwich without bread. Watching the reaction of many of the women; they outnumber men by 10:1, was fun. “What is that stuff – I don’t like it – it is impossible to eat.” I wonder if they serve sushi?
I strolled in to the lobby and found a seat. The upholstery was attractive but slick, as if it needed to be cleaned often – which was probably true. Then I picked up a magazine from a table near my chair. It was titled Interview, which seemed interesting. So I leafed through the oversized pages, pages that were “arty” clearly the people being interviewed, or profiled were famous, famous to someone. I had only heard of one of the 30 or so people who inhabited the pages. Why I wondered did all of the Interviewees need to put on a face of disdain, boredom, or superiority? Then I looked at their work and I understood. It was vital to express - emote extravagance of opinion, a certainty of self to stand beside the work that they had produced. It was flat – flat affect, flat in coloration, flat in conceptualization even some of the faces were flat. But then, I’m hardly Avant Guarde nor “artsy.”
I looked more closely and the full title of the magazine was Andy Warhol’s Interview. I felt smarter, actually only more informed.
Recall that I was in the lobby of a nursing home. I checked the label and found that the Care Center was indeed the owner of the subscription. Strange, I wondered how many of the inmates had devoured the pages of AW’s Interview. It seemed new and untouched. I love the incongruities of life. The normal, mundane, trite is boring beyond belief. I think I must be incredible lucky to have arrived at this place – disdain, superiority, humor, mild antipathy
Some things seem out of place; they look right until suddenly your consciousness stages a small revolt.