William Gaddis - J R

— A little heavy on the talking face, came murmured from the heap of cameras on the sofa — and you want a little more spontaneity here where he’s shuffling pages around like that, come in close on the way his hands are shaking, it looks a little forced…

— the um, constant yes she, she constantly spent what little money they had on luxuries and she, she was constantly pregnant and she, finally she was constantly sick so you can see why she, why Mozart burst into tears when he married her. He was always the, this little darling of the gods he’d supported his whole family since he was a child being dragged around by his father and shown off like a, like a little freak…

— He, he seems to be departing somewhat from the ahm, the…

— They needed a stronger key light on that waist shot when he threw out the script, get across a lot more spontaneity without it…

— money, he wrote three of his greatest symphonies in barely two months while he was running around begging for loans wherever he…

— Yes Miss ah, Miss Flesch will probably take over any minute she, it’s her program, studio lesson that is to say of course on our budget we can’t go all out on ahm, on these enrichment programs in music, just in music alone we’re already spending just on band uniforms alone…

— three more piano concertos, two string quintets, and the three finest operas ever written, and he’s desperate, undernourished, exhausted, frantic about money while his wife runs up doctor bills and he’s pawning everything in sight just in order to work, to keep working…

— You’ve got to watch those hot lights on these close shots.

— Yes he, he needs a haircut… and the full face on the screen dissolved to a wigged profile where the camera sought something of interest in the composer’s baleful eye.

— think he was childish, she was twice as childish and, and oh yes this mysterious stranger dressed all in gray who Mozart thought was a messenger of death, it was really just a messenger from a crackbrain count named Walsegg who wanted some music for his dead wife. He couldn’t write a requiem so he wanted to hire Mozart to, and then pretend he’d written it himself. What else could Mozart do? He’s sick, worn out, used up, he’s only about thirty-five and he’s been supporting everybody in sight for thirty years, but he sets to work again. He’s having trouble breathing, having fainting spells, he’s emaciated, his legs and hands swell up and he finally thinks somebody is trying to poison him that’s a, a real life fairy tale all right boys and girls, now the storm. It’s December, rain and sleet howling through the night. I’m already tasting death, he says, and shivers his lips in the, in a little drum passage from his requiem…

— Sorry, if someone could tell me where the men, the boys’ room is…?

— Out yes out to the right Mister Gall it’s ahm, it’s marked boys yes maybe we’ve all seen enough of this to ahm, in terms of structuring the material that is to…

— What’s their camera there an Arri? Looks like they’ve got the wrong lens…

— spent about four dollars for his funeral but that, that might spoil our nice fairy tale boys and girls his few friends following the cheap coffin in the rain and turning back before it ever reached the pauper’s grave nobody could ever find again is, do you know what a pauper is boys and girls? It means a very poor person and and, yes and we don’t like to think about poor people no, no let’s try to remember this little, little unspoiled genius in his happy moments when he, when he um, yes when he wrote happy letters to people, yes…

— I’d stay away from prop shots like this one too, they’re liable to pick up the book upside down.

— Yes we’ve had ahm, had trouble with books yes…

— that here’s um, yes here’s one he wrote to a girl cousin about the time he was writing his Paris symphony he says, he apologizes to her for not writing and he says Do you think I’m dead? Don’t believe it, I implore you. For believing and shitting are two very different things…

— Did you, did I… hear that?

The cameras heaved patiently. — You find the sound systems on these commercial receivers are pretty uniformly poor…

— um, his um playful sense of humor yes he tells her you wouldn’t be able to resist me much longer and our arses will, will um, will be the symbols of our peacemaking and then he, then he tells her down here about an imaginary village called Tribsterill where the, where the muck runs down to the sea…

— It’s that switch on the left yes the one that says off, turn it off, off…

— village called Burmesquik where the crooked arseholes are manufactured and um, in the um, his um playful sense of humor yes we, it shows us what a really human person this great genius was doesn’t it boys and um, and girls and, and you you, single child out there his letters help you, help make him somebody you can understand too…

— No on the left Congressman, the one on the left…!

— Sorry… Gibbs recovered an elbow from the maze of camera straps where he hung over the back of the sofa staring at the blur on the screen abruptly cropped across chin and hairline, replaced by an American flag, a vista of redwood forest, the music rising as though to carry off the voice.

— to humanize him because even if we can’t um, if we can’t rise to his level no at least we can, we can drag him down to ours…

— See what I mean, there’s too much bass in these commercial sets… and the foot was withdrawn as Hyde tripped over it on his way to the set where Mister Pecci stood with a control knob that had just come off in his hand.

— what the um, what democracy in the arts is all about isn’t it boys and girls and, and you, you…

— Wait, hello? I said get Mister Leroy right in here to make a small repair hello? Don’t put any more calls through on this line…

— An interesting effect… Mrs Joubert’s face peered from the screen over Hyde’s shoulder — but their synch is off… and a white-maned man erect in bed, a white-maned man seated in a wicker chair, a white-maned man in plaster replica passed in rapid sequence. — Sounds like a crossed wire there… and words and music were restored abruptly over the image of a giant redwood tree.

— of America’s beloved humorist whose real name wvrrrrrk fairy tales boys and girls like, like Franz Schubert dying of typhus at thirty-two yes or, or Robert Schumann being hauled out of a river so they could cart him off to an asylum or the, or Tchaikowski who was afraid his head would fall off if…

— Do something pretty fast where the, God damn it! came from under the planter where Hyde sought the plug on hands and knees.

— You’re in trouble when your music level is up so high it fights the voice like this…

— tell you about our favorite American composer sitting on the floor cutting out paper dolls, Edward Mac…

— Can you ahm, yes can you pull the plug just pull the plug…

— What the… hell do you think I’m… trying to… came from the shadows behind the set where now a biceped Valkyrie bearing a dead warrior aloft gave way to an amazon Brünnhilde in massive concentric breastplates as the voice rose to challenge the stabbing rondo of the D-minor piano concerto of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

— fairy tale isn’t it, that his life was a fairy tale that’s the real fairy tale isn’t it and in um, yes in the singalong to end our fairy tale today we can um, maybe we can find some of his own words in a letter for, to sing along with Amadeus Ah, muckl Sweet wordl Muckl chuckl

— You’d better watch your recordings on this open-circuit broadcasting you know. Royalty problems… The telephone rang. The door opened, closed, opened again to admit Mister Gall with the final allegro, assai.