I Want to Marry Mozart...

...and I want to run Crusello over with my car.

I'm neck-deep in orchestra music that's two or nine levels above my I.Q., and this year's concert line-up seems besieged by flats. The sole exception is Mozart's Drittes Konzert für die Violine, which boasts only one sharp (happy, happy little sharp!). The high water mark, on the other hand, is Crusello's Clarinet Concerto, which clubs you over the head with five -- count 'em: FIVE -- flats. I didn't even know how to find two of them! Let alone play them, let alone at any kind of speed, and never mind keeping on key with the other cellist. Oy vey. It was an unlucky night to find myself in second chair (aka the front row), and I fear Kevin (who plays first chair) had greater cause to regret it than I had. But he is unfailingly kind and composed, and at the midpoint he merely shook his head and murmered in his quiet British accent, "All this so that the clarinet can play in C Major." Translation: life's not fair. Solution: Crusello must die. Vroom, vroom.

For those of you who were curious, it turns out that happiness is: discovering a new way to assemble my basic messenger-style purse so than I don't have to use bias tape to finish the inside seams. I wonder why more people don't put this information on t-shirts... imagine how much more perky everyone could be if they only knew.

Observation: Such a lot of well-known Christian theologians (Ravi Zacharias, R.C. Sproul, Chuck Colson, etc.) have comfortable demeanors, pleasantly wrinkled faces, and warm voices. They're not lazy in their speech, but they don't look combative either. While I admit that I probably have a bias, in that I agree with what they say, I find it interesting that there is a respect in which comfortableness with the truth and steadfast pursuit of it can leave such dramatic, and even visible, marks on a person.

Of course, the opposite can also be observed, in that Richard Dawkins is probably the most miserable and crabby looking man I've ever seen.