Sad about Trump? Try playing the piano
Daily Comfort ZoneFrom Tracey Thorn’s column in the New Statesman:
The morning of the US election result I sat down at the piano and tried to play some Beethoven. Bearing in mind that I haven’t played the piano in about 15 years, and haven’t properly practised since I was a teenager, the results were mixed. At first I was tentative and nervous but before too long my mood overtook me, all the shock and anger and frustration and disappointment flooding out in a torrent of hammering and excessive use of the pedal. Reader, it was a cacophony, but it didn’t half make me feel better.
I didn’t want to look at the papers, didn’t want to read any opinion pieces or explanations for what had happened – not yet, at least. I was feeling let down by the news, or by my social media feeds, which I had curated so heavily that I’d avoided seeing what was coming. My little bubble of optimism had kept my spirits up for the last couple of months, but it now seemed a place of utterly fanciful delusion. I had clung to posts saying, “Don’t worry she’s gonna win easily,” taking them as gospel truth, and here was my punishment.
“To hell with social media,” I thought, “it has lied to me.” Deleting Twitter/X from my phone felt therapeutic. By lunchtime I had fully resolved to stop wasting my time online. I rummaged in a cupboard and found more sheet music – Chopin, Mozart, some easy Bach. A book of Debussy, almost none of which I can even attempt. And another containing works by the jazz pianist Bill Evans, including his beautiful “Waltz for Debby”, which I can just about play if you ignore the fact that I’m playing it at half speed, and the fact that on page three when I reach the ominous word “Improvisation” I cough politely and stop.
The thing is I’m not really any good at playing the piano and I’m trying not to let that matter. The concentration required for me even to fumble my way through these pieces is such that there’s no room left in my brain for anything else, hence the feeling of relief. I think it’s called being in the flow state, when you’re fully immersed in something and time seems to become immaterial, passing both fast and slow, unnoticed, unremarked….
Read on here.
If people didn’t live in self-affirming bubbles, they might have realised that Trump had an excellent chance of winning the election.
Social media is designed to re-affirm the opinions in the media with which the reader is already engaged. And not to seek out alternative views and opinions. It would be better for democracy if people spent more time trying to understand the opinions of those they disagreed with, rather than denigrating them.
Oh, poor baby! Your candidate lost and Orange Man won. You suffer from a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Rather than wallow in self-pity, why not seek out some MAGA supporters and listen to them with an open mind and shut mouth and try to understand their position. You live in Hampstead, not exactly the slums. The elite think everyone should kowtow to them and believe like they do. Suck it up, Buttercup.
Trump is surrounding himself with billionaires. Are they not the “elite”?
When Trump lost his supporters stormed the Capitol. When Harris lost her supporters took out sheet music and played Beethoven.
They are not the same.
All of them? Hardly. Seen the video of those lunatics indulging in a primal scream next to a lake. Deranged, deluded.
But notice that no one ever asks the MAGA supporters to listen to us and understand our positions? We’re always expected to be the adults in the room, presumably because we’re, as a whole, better educated and don’t carry guns wherever we go. And btw, Democrats are not the “elites.”
Really?
The Democrats the adults in the room? The ones who tried to prove Russia influenced the 2016 election? The ones indulging in lawfare to prevent Trump from standing for election? The ones who support mutilating children in the name of gender choice? The list goes on. Adults maybe, but utterly reprehensible ones who should be kept away from the reins of power.
“The thing is I’m not really any good at playing the piano and I’m trying not to let that matter.”
Ditto for me at the harpsichord. I tried out her therapy, but it just left me in despair about two things, rather than just one.
Divine lady, great talent and a super article. Christmas approaching, it’s time to bring out her Tinsel and Lights CD!
Oh please, the now usual self-centered nonsense.
It took the election of Trump for her to “resolve to stop wasting my time online”. Yet all that before lunchtime? Honey, you will waste the rest of your life online, stop kidding yourself.
These people are basically semi-articulate (and certainly verbose) fools. See Joyce DiDonato, another of the many artists who should “resolve” to keep her mouth shut unless she’s actually singing. (Some might say even then, too).
Deluded, narcissistic Democrat bathes in self-pity after hopeless presidential candidate loses election in a landslide. Is this really news?
Not a landslide – actually very close. And btw, Harris was an outstanding candidate. We just have a plurality of uneducated, misinformed people in the U.S. who couldn’t get past their bigotry to vote for a highly qualified woman of color.
Idiot, not only did you lose the house, the senate, the popular vote, and the electoral college, you also lost every single swing state. Keep calling the majority of voters uneducated ignorant bigots and keep losing elections, Marxist moron.
I wonder how much good you do the cause by stating indisputable facts in such an ugly, boorish, ill-mannered tone.
https://condenaststore.com/featured/facts-dont-matter-joe-dator.html
Let’s see how many more times Carl can indirectly call himself educated and brilliant. Had a successful career Carl? Became a self made millionaire, changed the world? I probably can’t even imagine how “educated” you are. Everyone, be like Carl
Outstanding candidate? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.
Landslide?
Here are the margins of popular vote victory in the three US presidential elections where Trump was on the ballot:
2024: Donald Trump, +1.5
2020: Joseph Biden, +4.5
2016: Hillary Clinton, +2.1
Trump’s 2024 winning margin was the fourth smallest since 1960. The elections with winning smaller margins were those of 1960, 1968 and 2000.
Tell me where those extra fifteen million Democrat ‘votes’ came from in 2020 and then we’ll talk. Nothing ‘close’ about the result this year, not even the popular vote.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election
2. I don’t understand how 1.5% is not a close margin.
3. It is very sad that disinformation is allowed in blogs.
TDS is a debilitating disease for sure. The best cure is reading the U. S. Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights. This would lead to understanding why people voted for Orange Man bad. People want freedom not government to run their lives. Government is not the answer to your problems. Government is an obstacle to your freedom. Educate yourself and you’ll find most of what you’ve been told is a big fat lie.
And Democracy in America, by de Tocqueville.
So if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 US presidential election Tracey Thorn would have not considered returning to the piano on a more permanent basis?
Or would Tracey have attempted Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.29, “Hammerklavier.”
In any case, music (including solo instrumental) can be soothing. Whether listening to it or playing it on an instrument.
Did Tracey even consider some easy listening or “smooth” jazz — in performance.
Kamala might have even had some tips.
Ecstatic about Trump? Play the trombone!
Awww diddums. Can’t deal with democracy much?
I’m delighted that Trump won and the Dems are as good as finished for a generation. Every tear from the entitled woke liberal so-called elites gives me joy.
Me, too.
TDS writ large. Poor child.