An Expert View on the Bye Week

We continue our series of bringing in experts to talk about the DC United season. Even though there's not a new opponent this week, we felt it necessary to have someone talk to our DC faithful about facing a weekend without a game. Who better to discuss the sudden sparseness of the soccer weekend in which we have no game than an expert on minimalism, composer Philip Glass. Phil, welcome to the DCenters.




I prefer the term theatre music. It has an elan that minimalism lacks.





Okay, "theater music" then.



No, I said theatre music. As a composer, I have sensitive auditory capabilities, and can tell which order you put the "r" and the "e" in. Order matters in the matter of order, which matters orderly.




Right. Sorry. Won't happen again. Anyways, as one of the 20th century's most respected artists, how do you transform a weekend without DC United soccer into something worth appreciating? Or should I say, as an auteur?


You must appreciate not only the games, but the spaces between the games. They are just as important. Was it not Simon and Garfunkle who called silence their "old friend?" Did not John Cage write 4'33 as a celebration of that moment, and then sue someone who plagarized it?




Did he?


He did. Even in silence there is a rhythm, seductive as any, in which the silent seduction of rhythm itself occurs silently.






That seems a bit... far fetched.



Not at all. In fact, one of the most celebrated moments of theatre is done in such a way. I'll allow Mr. Sam Beckett to demonstrate. Sam?








I'd like to perform one of my scripts for you. Readers of the DCenters, I give you for the first time on the World Wide Web... Breath.








...








...Ahhhhh...








...








Fin.











Do you understand now?







I think so. You're saying that we can find virtue in the apparent absence, and that the character in Quantum Leap was named after your friend?



No, I'm saying there an apparent absence of virtue, and that the charater in Quantum Leap was named for my late friend, whose virtue is now apparently absent in death.






Ahhhhh.




Indeed.







I see.




Good.







Right.





What's all this about me? Al?

Not sure Sam, but Ziggy says there's a 90.15252% chance we've moved from minimalism to absurdism... Let's leap out of here.