Max
From: Claudia Fisher
Sent: November 27, 2012
To: Max Davis
Subject: Re: Re:
Max:
Being a good person isn’t easy. There are days it feels like a twenty-four-hour job. I wonder if work gets in the way of that. Of being good. For me. I think of Frank Lloyd Wright and Corbusier and Philip Johnson. Two philanderers. One Nazi sympathizer. Not the finest men you’d ever meet, but then you look at the work. Johnson atoned for his anti-Semitism, but even if he hadn’t, who would remember it in the shadow of his Glass House, the Kunsthalle Bielefeld? They will stand longer than his stupidity. Not that adultery and bad politics are the province of men. Women, too, make terrible mistakes, but it’s different for women. Men can have it all. Work. Love. Family. Or, if they can’t, we forgive them the sins they commit while trying. The man can be flawed so long as the work is good. But women, we still expect to choose.
I sound like I’m getting ready to teach a gender studies seminar. When what I want to say is that I don’t doubt your goodness. You have been kind and incredibly patient. And then there’s your work. I have to trust what others say as I’m a complete idiot when it comes to music. Oliver has been tutoring me, though. Last night we listened to your recording of Philip Glass. Oliver says you capture the lyricism of Rostropovich. I wish I knew what he meant. Give me time. I’m a quick learner.
Claudia
P.S. I’m not comparing my work to Wright et al. So you know.
From: Max Davis
Sent: November 28, 2012
To: Claudia Fisher
Subject: Do you think…
… leaving our Subject lines blank means we have nothing to say?
It’s officially been a week—8 days actually — since we met. Happy anniversary! Do you think it’s odd that we had so little to say in person, but here we are talking like this on e-mail? Do you find it easier that way? I’m not complaining. I think I find it easier too. I’m not a huge fan of the phone. I hardly ever call people because I’m afraid I’m disturbing them & I NEVER leave voice mails because I hate the way my voice sounds. I’m text & e-mail all the way. I guess there are some relationships that work better when there’s some sort of distance built into them. Speaking of work… I’ve been writing. Like a madman actually. I have this idea for an opera & now that I’ve started, my pen is moving faster than my mind. I’m having trouble keeping up. I feel like I’m coming out of a fog & I’m finally able to do the work I want to do. Amanda told me that I’d miss playing within a week of giving it up. Wrong. She says I’m turning my back on the audience that’s been so good to me. I don’t think I’m doing that, but I don’t want to die knowing that all I did in life was play other people’s music. I hate the idea of performing these days & recording is even worse. At least performances are honest. It’s me, on stage, giving everything I’ve got. If I’m great, I’m grateful. If I suck, I’m happy I didn’t buy a ticket. Lol. Playing is a moment between me & the conductor & the audience, you know? We come together to create this thing, something that’s as alive as we are for the time it takes to make it & if I’ve done my job, the music doesn’t die when the performance is over. It’s gone. Like the moment, it can never come back, but it lives on in the people who heard it take shape. Without them, it’s not music. It’s practice. So they carry it with them as much as I carry it with me. It’s funny you mention Rostropovich because he visited me when I was 12 & played for me in my dining room — like, who the fuck am I?!? — & that moment shaped the way I hear Bach’s fourth suite. Forever. (Though tell Oliver I’m not him. I’m me!) Recording is a whole other story. When you’re a musician, most people think that’s your legacy, the record of your greatest achievements, but nope, I don’t agree. You’re in a studio for days on end, doing take after take after take, until a sound engineer steps in & stitches it all together like this quilt of the best parts & leaves you with a masterpiece you never actually played. It’s a lie. If I’m going to be known, I’d rather have it be for the music I write than for the music I only sort of played.
M.
P.S. You’re right not to compare yourself to FLW & company. Not because your work isn’t as good, which I think is what you meant, but because your work is yours. Think Beethoven when he said, “There are & will be a thousand princes, but there is only one Beethoven.”
From: Claudia Fisher
Sent: December 1, 2012
To: Max Davis
Subject: Something to say
M:
Happy anniversary to you too! May there be many more. And no, not always at such a distance.
I’m happy to hear work is going so well. What is the opera about? I know from my father that writing can feel a bit like making a soufflé, and though it’s a different type of writing I imagine the same must hold true: the more noise you make about it, the more likely it is to fall.
I’ve been a bit buried myself. The end of the semester approaches and I’m readying to grade 30 papers about eco-responsible architecture. I just finalized the designs for a space I’ve been working on, and I’ve started sketches for Nick’s site at Compton’s Mound, which he tells me he took you to see. When is the next time you’ll be in Alluvia? I know that Benji and my mother love your visits. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I’ve already been home more this year than in the previous two combined. Not under the best circumstances. I miss my father. I miss my mother, too, though she’d never believe I told you so. My father’s illness has ruined him, but it’s also ruined her in many ways. I don’t think that had to be the case. If only she cared for herself as much as she cared for him.
It’s odd that I still refer to my parents’ house as “home” when I’ve lived away from them longer than I lived with them. Oliver and I rotate the holidays with our families, and this year we spend Christmas with his parents in Vermont. They have a lovely place in the mountains outside of Burlington, though whenever I stay anyplace more rural than 14th Street my fantasies about ax murderers kick in. I’ll leave you, for now, with that.
C.
P.S. I wasn’t exactly putting myself down by putting myself in the same sentence as FLW. I’m proud of my work. Though doesn’t every artist compare herself to those who precede her? That seems inevitable. Besides, I don’t feel bad that I’m not FLW or Eileen Gray or whoever. Benji is more the one who fears that History is going to sweep him under the rug. Not me so much. I understand his hunger for recognition. But I’ve never wanted it in the same way.
From: Max Davis
Sent: December 3, 2012
To: Claudia Fisher
Subject: Soufflé’s in the oven
C—
Do you think it’s odd how often I’ve been back to Alluvia since September? My mom thinks it’s way too much. I know this because she & I have started talking again. I feel like we’re hashing out the Treaty of Versailles, taking it slow, but she’s trying. Who knows? I’ve spent most of the fall with Navi in Dallas, but when I get homesick — or just sick of him, lol — I seem to end up with your family. My family, too, I guess I should say. I wish I’d known your dad before he got sick. Most of the time he thinks I’m Benji, which I don’t mind but I think Benji does. Evelyn offers me the big bedroom on the third floor, but I prefer to stay in Henry’s study & even with all the stuff that’s happening with your dad, it feels peaceful to me there. I get a glimpse of him. For whatever reason, I work better there than anywhere else, which makes me think maybe he left the place charmed. Then there’s Nick. He’s so sweet & available. He offers to fly me up pretty much every weekend like I’m in college & have no money, but he always wants to do these father/son things that I’m not sure actual fathers & sons do — fishing, football. Last time he asked if I wanted a PlayStation. It’s like he has this checklist that we’re working our way through. He even mentioned camping — talk about ax murderers! — but don’t say anything. I’m not sure he’d know I’m joking. Can I ask you something? What’s the deal with you two? You can tell me to mind my own business. Navi’s always telling me how nosy I am. He says if I didn’t stick my nose in other people’s shit, I’d have nothing to smell. Except he doesn’t say shit, because he’s Navi.