Go Blue!

With yet another day out, another story is finding its way through my fingers and keyboard to you. As the chant in the title indicates, it’s going to be about a game. No, wrong. It’s not just any “a” game. It’s the Game. From more than one reason. First, it is the Game because after all, I’m in Ann Arbor, the home of Michigan Wolverines, the place where Saturday home games are social events of the highest importance. Second, it’s the Game because today was also one day of the Homecoming week, that is a week of alumni coming back to say hi to their alma mater and naturally if it's Saturday, to watch the Game. And third, just because it was my very first game here.

Oh, I haven’t said what game yet. Of course, a football game. Now, particularly my Europe-based readers, when I say football, I mean a kind of sport which is for the majority of time not played by foot and which is never played with a ball (maybe it is a ball, but to my mind the concept of a ball has always indicated something round and sphere-like). Yes, I'm talking about American football. But anyway, it was my very first experience of this kind. And I’m not saying I didn’t like it. To my great surprise, I was willing and able to stand for the whole three and a half hours, watching the game and enjoying myself! Yes, I was! It was great fun, both the playing itself and the place with its atmosphere. In a sense I had a chance to enjoy the whole event with all its multiple layers even more profoundly than other students. After all, this hasn’t been the first game they have seen or attended and majority of them just naturally lacks the outsiders’ eyes. As an outsider, not so much a fan as a viewer, I could perceive both the game proper and the rituals surrounding it.

But let me start from the beginning. Today’s plan was clear: to get up and to get myself something maize (read: yellow) and/or blue to wear. Even despite my ignorance of the rules, I was dead sure I couldn’t go to the game in a red, or even worse, orange, t-shirt. Next step was to type “American football” in Wikipedia and study the rules hard. I succeeded with the former, was totally useless with the latter. That is, I have two new t-shirts yet still don’t have the clue what the real rules of American football actually are.

As far as the t-shirts go, people may point to the fact how much overweight American population is these days. This May be so, but when I was in the shop, contemplating if I wanted a t-shirt which had “Michigan” on it in this or that font, or which said “Go Blue” or any other of the tens and tens of other M-featuring designs, all the S and M sizes were hopelessly sold-out whereas stacks with all those L’s and L’s on the second power were still full. So much for the Americans’ dietary problems. What I liked the most, though, were the senior ladies and gentlemen carrying in their hands their t-shirts and other paraphernalia of the team apparel. Yes, football is taken seriously here. I’m not particularly sure if by “here” I mean Ann Arbor as usual or the whole of the USA, but this time the latter might be the case.

As for Wikipedia and the rules, never mind. I was to go with my flat-mate’s girlfriend who is an American, and thus, my European self thought, would surely know how to answer my all questions (she didn't, but I didn't mind in the least). Proudly sporting my maize t-shirt with a huge “Michigan” across the breast, I was ready for the experience. And so set out we did.

Our first destination was a tailgate party. If I was to have the experience of a football game, then with everything else belonging to it. We didn’t manage to find the place of the party. But then, with parties going on on each and every porch it’s not such a big wonder. One gets easily lost. As well as one gets quickly lost in all those huge crowds pouring in the direction of the Stadium. Attendance of today’s game? 109,750 people.

Well then, tailgate party, maybe next time. It was time to join the crowd and drift where everyone else was heading to; drift among the waves of blue and maze. But also among slightly, or sometimes not so slightly, intoxicated people. Yes, students seem to be the same all around the world.

I won’t pretend I wasn't astounded once I found myself finally at the Stadium. The place is huge! And it was sold out. Our seats, on which we were standing for the whole of the game, were in the students’ section, that is exactly where the atmosphere was the most charged.

My room-mate was right, I did understand the basics of the rules fairly quickly. This being mainly due to the fact that the game goes on for probably thirty seconds, is stopped, the teams re-group and start all over again. Playing for thirty seconds max, stopped, re-grouping. Played, stopped, re-grouped. On and on and on. After three and a half hours of watching this (the game having officially four fifteen-minute quarters), even people as little gifted iin sport as I am could understand the basics.

What was far more difficult to understand was the social rituals the students around me were so ardently performing. All the particular body movements accompanied by certain songs, cheers and/or gestures. My, that was complicated! My friend was constantly telling me that I should be able to grasp at least the fundamental “Go blue” part of being a fan. I did not. But how could I? My time was equally divided between grasping what was going on in front of me, pestering her with millions supplementary questions and taking pictures till my batteries went flat. I promise I’ll do better next time.

Oh, and a marching band! Each and every day on my way home from school I can seen

the band practicing on a near field. I’m still having some difficulties understanding how playing music and moving to and fro go together, but as I’ve seen today, it does work. I loved their performance the

best during the break when they were all over the field, joined by the forces of the alumni marching band, playing and marching at the same time, with the conductors standing high on step ladders, vigorously

waving their hands.

To sum it all up, I loved this typical American experience. Despite the body-shaking cold that settled in in the last quarter. Despite the fact that majority of the fans had left before the game ended because they deemed it hopeless. Despite the fact that Blue lost (again, one has to add). Despite the fact that it lasted three and a half hours. I enjoyed it.

Music

This place has been rather neglected lately. I apologize and blame my lack of writing time on the abundance of reading time, so shamefully dominating my schedule. Time to take up the lost thread of narrative and move on. For today, I decided to be moving on the tones of music.

But before that, quite a few things have happened since my last post. One would say that even more than quite a few. Being unable to decided which I want to share with you – a lecture by Michael Moore, another by prof. Carby, or yet another by an incredibly beautiful human being, Eddie Daniels, or the fact that the weather was unspeakably lovely and not it’s beep beep beep cold – I am settling on music, on its charm and universality of its language.

Those who know me also know how fond I am of symphonic and chamber music. They also know that one of my biggest worries about the year-long US-stay was that I would miss the whole season of Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra. I know, silly silly me. As if they didn’t have orchestras here, right?

To make a long story short, I’m exposed to so much music as never before in my life. I’m not particularly sure if it is even healthy to attend a symphony orchestra concert and a chamber/solo instrument recital each single week, and to intersperse the time in between by listening to the same music on the ipod (or as one of my friends said: “Yes, you did a very American thing, buying an ipod, but you have European music on it, anyway, don’t you? Oh, by the way, could you recommend me some?” I was more than happy to point his attention to Dvorak’s and Elgar’s cello concertos). Well, I am yet to see the consequences of such an indulgence. The worst thing that can happen is a withdrawal symptom when there’s all of a sudden less music in my life, that it when the battery goes flat.

The most beautiful aspect about this music is that it speaks in a language which is truly universal. One can be illiterate, but once the orchestra starts playing Dvorak’s Eighth Symphony, words are no longer needed; everybody understands. And that’s exactly what the orchestra did start to play. I have never heard this piece live so I was rather curious and full of expectations. After all, it was Dvorak, a Czech composer with so many ties to America. A Czech composer being performed on a stage in the country whose Muses inspired him to write the most beautiful pieces of his repertoire. Enjoying this particular Symphony was definitely a more complex experience than mere listening to the subtle tones of the Third Movement or the jubilant mood of the Fourth one. Speaking of the Third Movement, let me quote a program:

“For beguiling beauty and haunting enigma, nowhere in music is there a moment more captivating than the exquisite waltz in G minor which soars from the violins at the beginning of the third movement. It is as if the dance in triple time has just returned from heartache – barely but bravely – but with faith intact to whirl:

Thou, Ambrosial Waltz, when first the moon
Beheld thee twirling, to thy melting tune
Endearing, delightful Waltz – Muse of motion!”

(Lord Gordon Byron)

It was incredibly heartwarming to listen to this particular piece of music (who cares that the acustics in Michigan Theatre is only a far cry from the acustics in Hill Auditorium). But even more heartwarming was meeting a very nice lady, sitting next to me (with both our husbands out of town, as we put it), with whom I was for a coffee today and who I’m looking forward to meeting again soon. Which leads me back to what I’m saying in some of my previous posts. People are really nice over here. And when I say over here, I mean in Ann Arbor, in this liberal-minded sanctuary engulfed by the sea of conservatism of the rest of the state of Michigan.

There have been other concerts and recitals. Be that Beethoven’s Seventh performed by University Symphony Orchestra or Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony by University Philharmonia Orchestra, or oh-so-beautiful interpretation of Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano and Cello in C Major.

The only thing that struck me, and that falls into the category of differences from the title of the blog, is the anthem. One may ask, an anthem? And my answer would be, yes, my dear, an anthem. It happened so quickly that I really didn’t know what had hit me. At one moment the conductor was welcoming the audience, at another his baton was high in the air, the whole audience standing, the whole orchestra (yes orchestra, except for the cellos that is, as this would be close to impossible) was standing, and The Star-Spangled Banner was being sung all over the place. Now, that was a novelty to me. However, I have to admit, some people around me had really very nice singing voices. Afterwards I was told that this was a norm. With the high rate of my concert-attendance, I might as well learn the words from mere listening to them before my sojourn is out.

Oh, and have I mentioned that nearly all the University-based performances are free of charge? Not yet? Well yes, they are. No wonder that when my beloved ones ask me how I am over here, I have to answer them time and time again, I’m really good, thank you for asking.

And off to the VP debate I switch. Sarah Palin has just said that other countries in the world don’t care about global warming as much as The United States do. Ehm, I mean, excuse me? Someone should maybe explain to her that the word “much” is not quite a synonym of the word “little”. But this is getting me just too far from music. I promise to devote some of my next posts, apart from requested recycling policy, also to the election-craze. One almost wishes to be a sociology not a literature person now.