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p150 [Adrian’s continuing training in music and composition is covered] His studies in orchestration under Kretschmar’s guidance were not the less zealous on that account [he rejected the “post-romantic monster orchestra” and preferred something smaller]. For he agreed with his teacher that one must have command over what has been achieved even though one no longer finds it essential. He once said to me that a composer who is sick of orchestral impressionism and therefore no longer learns instrumentation seemed to him like a dentist who no longer learns how to treat the roots of teeth and goes back to the barber technique because it has lately been discovered that dead teeth give people rheumatism of the joints. This comparison, extraordinarily far-fetched yet so characteristic of the intellectual atmosphere of the time, continued to be an oft-quoted allusion between us, and the “dead tooth” preserved by skillful embalming of the root became the symbol for certain very modern refinements of the orchestral palette, including his own symphonic fantasy Ocean Lights... That sound-sparkling Ocean Lights was in my eyes a very remarkable instance of how an artist can give his best to a thing in which he privately no longer believes, insisting on excelling in artistic devices which for his consciousness are already at the point of being worn out. “It is acquired root-treatment,” he said to me. “I don’t rise to streptococcus disinfection.” Every one of his remarks showed that he considered the genre of “tone-painting,” of “natural moods,” to be fundamentally out of date.
But to be frank, this disillusioned masterpiece of orchestral brilliance already bore within itself the traits of parody and intellectual mockery of art, which in Leverkuhn’s later work so often emerged in a creative and uncanny way. Many found it chilling, even repellent and revolting, and these were the better, if not the best sort, who thus judged. All the superficial lot simply called it witty and amusing. In truth parody was here the proud expedient of a great gift threatened with sterility by a combination of skepticism, intellectual reserve, and a sense of the deadly extension of the kingdom of the banal. I trust I have put that aright. My uncertainty and my feeling of responsibility are alike great, when I seek to clothe in words thoughts that are not primarily my own, but have come to me through my friendship with Adrian. Of a lack of naivete I would not speak, for in the end naivete lies at the bottom of being, all being, even the most conscious and complicated. The conflict -- almost impossible to simplify -- between the inhibitions and the productive urge of inborn genius, between chastity and passion, just that is the naivete out of which such an artist nature lives, the soil for the difficult, characteristic growth of his work; and the unconscious effort to get for the “gift” the productive impulse, the necessary little ascendancy over the impediments of unbelief, arrogance, intellectual self-consciousness: this instinctive effort stirs and becomes decisive at the moment when the mechanical studies preliminary to the practice of an art begins to be combined with the first personal, while as yet entirely ephemeral and preparatory plastic efforts.
BrainWash
The SOMA and Mission districts here are full of trendy coffee places in industrial spaces, but BrainWash, one of the first (and my favorite) has been here for something like 20 years and is attached to a laundromat. (Opened 1987, so I’ve been coming here at least 25 years. And I felt like I was too old and un-hip for the place at the beginning, when I was around 40, now I don’t much care.) An entire wall of seating is built as one piece and is on wheels to make it easier to re-shape the space for when they have live music... or something. Like many of my ideas, this massive bench on wheels is cleverer than it is practical -- seating that can be shifted in relation to your table by any of half a dozen people is like having a committee in control of the distance between you and your food. I’d say the place hadn’t changed in all that time, but I do notice the chairs no longer have backs that look like skateboard decks. The ceiling is still the bare wood of the rafters of the floor above. The street side walls are a combination of concrete posts and large, steel, industrial windows with lots of small, poorly insulated panes of glass. (I notice the glazing putty is on the inside rather than on the outside the way it is on my wood, sash style, windows at home. There is actually room to put double pane glazing in these windows if you cared to, which is not the case with mine. On the other hand, there's no way to insulate the steel frames.)
But the food is why I keep coming back, though they are also one of the few places I know with hard pear cider on tap. My regular dish is a vegetarian Cobb salad with lots of fried tofu (I’ve never asked but I suspect they cook the tofu like they cook French fries.) Besides the tofu there is cheese and avocado and corn and beans as well as lettuce. I can’t understand why I don’t see it on more menus. If I’m within four or five blocks, and it is anywhere near mealtime, I will come by for this salad.
Brain Wash has also added a parklet out front on Folsom Street. There were a few cramped tables out on the sidewalk before, but not much space for people (especially with their laundry) to pass. Now there’s plenty of seating and much more room. Characteristically, their WiFi is funky... as in I can’t get it to work now, though it was working fine when I first arrived.
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