House Hearings vs. Beethoven

I left my spin-cycle class this morning where I happily imagined I had finished last. Lately my goal (my goad!) is to finish in effort neither significantly less nor appreciably more in effort than during  the last spin in the previous spin class. This effort is measured in revolutions per minute (of the pedals and not the earth) and in Watts, though I don’t know exactly what that measures—but I am told it announces my energy output labor. Personally (and what isn’t so, really), I want merely to sweat a little and breathe a little hard. And live a day longer that I would without the cardiovascular effort. The workout is the magic charm.
     I left the Club and it was still snowing. Well, it is December in Minnesota and as I advised my brother who wondered if there was still snow on the ground, yes, it rests there until May. I turned on the car (in the Prius I push a button with my foot on the brake and do not turn any ignition key!) and Minnesota Public Radio emanated from the car speakers. And I had a choice. On the news stream was the House hearings on impeachment. On the classical music stream I heard playing the final movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.     The triumph of that movement and the degraded discourse of the House hearings made the choice simple. Listening to the Republicans on the committee I thought of Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding): “While one who sings with his tongue on fire/Gargles in the rat race choir/Bent out of shape from society’s pliers/Cares not to come up any higher/But rather get you down in the hole/That he’s in.” From their voices there was no singing but only nonsense and refuse. I thought of the Scorsese film, The Irishman, and of Frank Sheeran, devoting his life to protecting criminals often by “painting houses,” a euphemism for killing people. The Republicans on the committee cannot dispute the phone calls, the corrupt directives from Trump, or the illegitimate, lawless regime that organizes and operates the White House and that threatens to kill our democracy.

     That last movement speaks of having weathered the storm. Though the storm menaces still in this final movement, yet I know I have prevailed. Wherever it now threatens, its tensions resolve into triumph. I have become stronger that the storm which continues to rage. The last measures of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony are filled with triumph: twenty-nine out of the final forty-one measures are tonic C major chords . . . The symphony began in C minor. But the final moments in this symphony speak ebulliently. In the symphony’s final measure, the entire orchestra plays the plain and simple C notes: no tension or dissonant element remains anywhere.
     And why would I choose the House hearings and listen to the discordant atonal noise?
     But the storm nevertheless rages and I hope we will survive.