Usually after communion, our priest will dismiss the congregation with some “go in peace” proclamation and everyone retires to the parking lot to go home or to chit-chat over coffee and cookies. But today, he advised us to remain briefly for a “prelude” featuring the organist, a grey-haired lady who looks to be well in her 70’s.I wouldn’t suggest that she is a poor organist. I would assume that the church doesn’t just let anyone play at the pipe organ as it’s a substantial piece of equipment. I would instead suggest that she is pretty old and on many occasions, notes are missed.
The prelude that she chose was a complex little ditty that would test most musicians. It was a flury of notes in which she repeatedly bobbed her head while propelling the piece forward. None of the incorrect keys seemed to discourage her much, and at the end of it all she hammered the last note and walked away from the pipe organ, which continue to utter this killer low note. It was unintentional as the organ should have stopped at the end, and it reminded me of when a guitarist leaves their guitar against the amp, walking off the stage immersed in feedback. It was pretty rockin’.
Earlier, she played some hymn that was the exact same music as Cat Stevens’ “Morning Has Broken,” which made me check my version of Teaser And the Firecat to see if Yusuf had ripped it off himself.
He had.
When I was a kid, I thought Teaser And The Firecat was so awesome that I bought the book. That’s right, Cat Stevens wrote a children’s book based on a story he had written complete with his own artwork. It was part of the box of shit my parents had brought up, and I hadn’t seen it in years. I paid thirty-five cents for it from the school book fair and decided to read it to Ethan before bed. I had forgotten how stupid the story was. “Teaser” a top-hatted kid that, with the help of his red cat, tries to put the moon back up in the sky after it fell into the top of a barn.
Even Ethan wasn’t impressed.
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