When the Violins Became Lightning: Across Ohio with Vivaldi

What sort of music sustains your favorite road trips?

I was recently listening to the “Summer” section of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and the experience brought me back to a visit to Yellow Springs, Ohio during spring break of 1988.

I was driving from Washington, D.C. to Yellow Springs, Ohio in my family’s tan 1978 Checker Marathon, a full-sized, boxy rear-wheel-drive sedan that you might know from Checkers being used as taxicabs in old movies. As large as a van, our Checker featured two compact, hinged jump seats folded up from the partition behind the front seat, meaning that it could seat nine.

Because radio reception faded outside D.C. (the eight-hour trip took me across Virginia, part of West Virginia, and much of rural Ohio), I brought a box of cassette tapes, the plastic cases clicking together like a stack of smooth little bricks. Much of it was classical music, one of my then obsessions.

I had so much to be thankful for in 1988. I was constantly feeding another of my obsessions, British and American poetry, by poring over the poetry in my textbooks and in my personal library. I was taking great classes with professors such as Christopher Ricks, Derek Walcott, Rosanna Warren, and Harry Thomas.

My parents were alive and well and living just a couple miles from each other. I was living in my family home on Tunlaw Road in the Glover Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., so I got to see my mom and brother every day that I was in D.C.

The two grandparents that I knew best were still alive, my best friend Tito was enjoying life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. We encountered Bill and Ginger MacKaye on Beecher Street. Our family friend John Davenport stopped by for weekly visits.

All these D.C. people are gone now, their voices echoing in the hilly alleys and sleepover row houses of my memory. I remember them fondly in the oppressively humid city they loved, a temple of artistry and excitement—with its video arcades, 25 movie theaters (see below), The (unblemished) Kennedy Center, and a dozen or more bookstores—a city that sustained my youthful absorption in urban, literary, and cinematic culture. Somehow, I knew to be grateful for what I had.

In that era, I was especially grateful to have just spent a semester studying poetry, Shakespeare, psychology, and urban life in London, England. Most beneficial was my living situation, for kismet and good fortune landed me in the same shared bedroom with Kate. Her nickname at B.U. became “my beautiful London roommate” – my Boston friends had to hear about her constantly.

Kate was the reason I found myself driving for eight hours to get to Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was so enamored of the fast-moving “tempest” movement at the end of the “Summer” section of The Four Seasons, so much so that I kept rewinding the cassette tape.

Listening to that music again today reminded me that I wanted my favorite section to be playing when I finally arrived in Yellow Springs. As magical as it was, immersed in such beautiful music, I felt that car trip took just too long.

Much like a tone poem, what some critics have called orchestral cinematography, the final movement of Summer erupts in rapid, jagged rhythms with the cellos rumbling like thunder and the violins flashing like lightning across a darkened sky, urging me westward. The rapid scales and syncopation mirrored nature’s violence, but the harmonic turbulence also reflected my own youthful exuberance as I sped across Ohio to see my beautiful London roommate, and future wife, once again.

Postscript.

As regular readers know, I can’t resist a list; when I looked up those old D.C. movie houses, I felt the geography of my youth returning in neon and popcorn. Movies were such a big part of my life back then (my dad was a film critic, and I worked in the Tenley Circle Theatre), so for fun, and for future searchers on Substack, I list here the D.C. theaters from that era.

• American Theatre — L’Enfant Plaza, 10th & D Sts SW

• Jenifer Cinema I & II — 5252 Wisconsin Ave NW (2 screens)

• K-B Cinema — 5100 Wisconsin Ave NW

• Outer Circle — 4849 Wisconsin Ave NW (2 screens)

• Inner Circle — 2105 Pennsylvania Ave NW

• Circle Tenley — 4200 Wisconsin Ave NW (3 screens)

• K-B Studio — 4600 Wisconsin Ave NW (3 screens)

• Georgetown — 1351 Wisconsin Ave NW

• Key — 1222 Wisconsin Ave NW (2 screens)

• Circle MacArthur — 4859 MacArthur Blvd NW (3 screens)

• Casino Royal — 806 14th St NW

• K-B Fine Arts — 1919 M St NW (2 screens)

• K-B Cerberus III — 3040 M St NW (3 screens)

• Biograph — 2819 M St NW

• Circle Theatre — 2105 Pennsylvania Ave NW

• Circle West End 4 — 23rd & L Sts NW (4 screens)

• Circle Dupont — 1332 Connecticut Ave NW

• Circle Embassy — Connecticut & Florida Aves NW (2 screens)

• Circle Uptown — 3426 Connecticut Ave NW

• Circle Avalon I & II — 5612 Connecticut Ave NW (2 screens)

• K-B Janus III — 1660 Connecticut Ave NW (3 screens)

• Ontario — 1700 Columbia Rd NW

• Gayety Theatre — 508 9th St NW

• Senator — 3950 Minnesota Ave NE

• Capitol Hill — 507 Eighth St SE

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I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, and Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.

Best,

Dr. Andy

Three questions from last week.

1. Mottos and Slogans. Starting with the letter P, what company introduced Jif peanut butter in 1958, later adopting the slogan “Choosy moms choose Jif”?

2. Internet Culture. Did ARPANET officially switch to using the TCP/IP protocol suite in the 40s, 60s, or 80s?

3. Newspaper Headlines. What is the topic of the new Ken Burns documentary series that airs on PBS starting later this November?