theOwl
Perhaps you’ve heard the story of how the French philosopher, art critic and writer Denis Diderot was gifted a new dressing gown by a friend who was appalled by the old gown Diderot habitually wore? Diderot liked the new gown at first, but found that the desk in his room looked quite shabby in the new dressing gown’s company, and so felt compelled to buy a new desk. Beside the new desk the tapestry was inadequate…and so forth until Diderot’s cozy room was stiff and formal and uncomfortable.
I’m getting a new piano. Actually, a twenty four year old piano, but it will be new to me. We’ll keep our hundred and three year old Everett upright in its place of honor in the living room, and the new piano, a Yamaha U3 upright, will go down the basement, functioning as the center piece of a better musical workspace for me, which, incidentally, will not interfere with everyone else living in the living room. Of course, and now harkening back to Diderot, this will change my basement.
The main difference between me and Diderot, however, is that Diderot really liked his old red dressing gown. I have never been happy with our basement. For a while now it has stood as the last frontier in the process of making this wonderful house our home. The biggest problem with the “finished” side of the basement has been an old drop ceiling that cramped the head space and just felt cheap and shoddily constructed. However, the sheer horror of facing this drop ceiling and actually doing something about it has been sufficiently daunting to cause it to be left intact.
Until now. You see, if there is a nice piano down there, that changes everything. Last night I took down all the white rectangular drop ceiling tiles. Today I pulled down the grid. Now I am nose to nose with all the ridiculous nasty stuff that has been hidden atop all those white rectangles. Loads of wires. Pipes and brackets. Just lots of stuff.
The room feels great. Lots more head space. Lots less shoddy workmanship.
So far as I know, my piano is loaded onto a truck in Kentucky right now. It will be in Detroit by Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday and here probably by Friday.
I aim to be ready for it.
