TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 67

[Tobie Shapiro]

November 22, 200000000006


Dear Friends,

	Yesterday was a non-stop, no breaks 
marathon.  I didn't even get to edit my Life 
Story and mail it in.  So I just shot it off, and 
am working on this next one.  We may double up 
today, so forgive me.  Yesterday's ordeal started 
with the petty dickering of villainman and his 
lawyer.   Just to give you an idea of the 
activity from villainman and his lawyer, I saw a 
chart that we all had to fill in.  In it, stated 
clearly were the amounts that each of us had 
spent on our legal representation.  I'd spent 
$6,000.00 roughly.  He'd spent $27,000.  It's all 
those unnecessary letters that add up to 
harassment:  "I am dismayed that....".  "I am 
outraged that....".  "I am indignant at ....". 
"I must voice my vigorous objection to....".  We 
usually let them slide.  The Judge is onto them. 
So we worked on a settlement from 9:30 until 2:30 
with no breaks but for the toilet.  Someone was 
sent out for sandwiches which were eaten while we 
worked, but I couldn't partake because of ... oh 
it's too complicated.  I get bladder infections 
that back up into my kidneys, and eating without 
drinking  a bucket or so of water will get me an 
infection.  So I passed.

	We'd hoped to get the whole settlement 
completed so that we wouldn't have to return and 
do this all over again, but no.  We have a return 
date on the 6th of December.  Feh.  I got out of 
there just in time to head on over to the 
realtors' office to accept bids on the house. 
There seems to be no slowing of the real estate 
market where our house was concerned.  There were 
6 bids, and all but two went way over the asking 
price.  We accepted a bid, and are now officially 
in contract.  This means I have to find suitable 
storage for my great grand piano.  Something 
climate controlled.  On top of everything else I 
have to do.

	When I returned home last night, at about 
7:00, I was spent, wrung out, seeing funny and 
light headed.  I was in a different world, 
stressed and suspended between reality and 
surreality.  It took a few hours to come down. 
Now here I am the next morning, and it's like 
I've got a hangover.  Time to start trussing 
turkeys, and stuffing turkeys and swabbing the 
turkey tails.  It's a challenge.

	A challenge.



 
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Denting the power structure


	The orchestras I belonged to as a 
teenager all worked on the challenge system.  It 
was a primitive pagan ritual of duelling to see 
who was the better instrumentalist, and who would 
sit in which chair.  In an actual professional 
orchestra, a group of  musicians, all playing the 
same instrument, are seated by twos, called 
stands, and who sits where, except for the first 
stand, is determined by what will make the best 
sound for the audience.  In the first stand you 
have the principal or first violist, say, and 
that would be the musician most suited to solo 
playing, and next to the principal violist would 
be the assistant principal violist, also suited 
to solo work, who can take over for the principal 
player if he or she is indisposed.  But the most 
important factor is the overall sound.  In high 
school and college orchestras, musicians are 
seated, one, two, three, four, by how good 
players they are.  So the best player sits in the 
first chair, closest to the conductor, and the 
weakest, shameful, miscreant player is the last 
chair, where the conductor's baton is a distant 
little stick.

	The way you get out of the last chair and 
sit in the next to the last chair is by 
challenging the player ahead of you.  This is how 
it works.  A challenge is officially brought up 
to the conductor, and a time for the duel is set. 
It will be after school at 4:00 in the orchestra 
room, or 8:00 p.m., after rehearsal is over for 
the extra curricular orchestra, at the site of 
the rehearsal.  Then what happens is this (and 
remember, I said it was primitive).  The 
conductor sits, blindfolded, in a chair, facing 
the two duellist.  One after the other, the two 
play the same section of any particular piece the 
orchestra is rehearsing for concert.  The 
blindfolded conductor selects the player that is 
thought to be the stronger of the two.  If the 
last violist is deemed to play better than the 
next to the last violist, then they trade places. 
From there, of course, the challenger can work 
his or her way up the hierarchy until the place 
of their own incompetence is achieved.  Actually, 
there are no challenges in the last and 
penultimate chairs.  By the time you're sitting 
in the last chair, you could probably care less 
if you were sitting, instead, in the next to the 
last chair.  The challenges usually take place in 
the first two stands, and particularly, the 
assistant principal challenges the principal 
player.  It's gross.  That's the only way I can 
think of it.  Gross.  But that was the way things 
worked.

	Imagine eighty musicians in an orchestra, 
each one jealous of the first chair, and each one 
challenging the principal player on a regular 
basis.  Musical chairs, I think, is the 
expression.  How can competing entities cooperate 
to make beautiful music?  Music is supposed to be 
harmonious, right?  The challenge system stood 
for everything that was wrong in high school, 
everything that was wrong with American society, 
everything that was wrong with the world.  Why 
can't we all just get along?

	In the Berkeley High School Orchestra, 
and the Young People's Symphony Orchestra I was 
the principal cellist.  And next to me sat 
Barbara Lockhardt, a most competitive soul.  I 
remember Barbara so well, I could draw her 
picture.  Mostly, those eyes,, glaring at me from 
the darkness of her little teeny soul.  She 
wanted my chair.  She wanted to be FIRST!  And so 
every week, a challenge would issue forth from 
Barbara Lockhardt to Tobie Shapiro.  Every week, 
we'd sit in front of the blindfolded Thomas 
Haynes, who conducted both orchestras, every week 
we'd play for him, and every week he'd select me 
again as the principal cellist.  This made 
Barbara mad.  She was hopping mad, and deeply 
jealous.  It caused her to make comments such as, 
"If I were first chair, I wouldn't use those 
fingerings.", or, "I think your vibrato is rather 
fake."

	The same thing was going on in the first 
violin section.  Poor Frank Bliss was challenged 
every week by Peter Hansen.  The results of those 
contests were similar.  Frank always came out on 
top.  Frank and I talked.  The process was eating 
us alive.  So we teamed up and went to Thomas 
Haynes and told him we wanted to get rid of the 
challenge system.  Do anything, we said.  Give 
Peter and Barbara the first chairs and let us sit 
in the second chair, just to get them off our 
backs.  I did one better.  I told Mr. Haynes to 
move me to third chair so I wouldn't have to get 
eaten alive by Barbara from either direction.  I 
did not want her incessant challenging, nor did I 
want to suffer her gloating.  Put me in the 
second stand.  Anything to get away from her.

	The next rehearsal of the Young People's 
Symphony, I came in, and set myself up at the 
outside of the second stand.  When Barbara 
Lockhardt came in, I motioned her to the empty 
first chair.  I said, "Take it.  You've wanted 
first chair all this year.  Now it's yours."  She 
looked stunned and oddly disappointed.  "But I 
can't just usurp the throne," she whined, "I need 
to win it."

	Oy!

	She went to Thomas Haynes and told him 
that she needed to win the chair not just have it 
given to her.  But I told both of them that I was 
unwilling to go through the challenges again. 
She could just take the chair for the greater 
harmony.  That didn't suit her, and she whined 
some more.

	"Look," Thomas Haynes said, "How about we 
flip a coin?  Whoever wins gets first chair for 
this next concert and second chair for the last 
concert."  This form of earning the chair 
appealed to her, and she agreed.  We flipped the 
coin and she called out heads.  It landed heads. 
So she took first chair, boldly and insufferably.

	"Now that I'm first chair," Barbara said, 
"Things are going to change around here!"

	"What?  Where there was once a down bow, there will now be an up bow?"

	Frank let Peter Hansen take the first 
chair.  So there was a new configuration in the 
orchestra.  After that arrangement was made, the 
challenge system was retired forever.  I made my 
dent in the power structure.


 
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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net