I'm Living in my iPhone Now 


Jim sees how this new life in cyberspace is all coming together—even for him. 

I have to tell you about this online experience I had today. When the iPhone first came out, I had to have it. Stephen and I have now been living with our two iPhones now since August, 2007. My laptop is still faster, but except for finances, web publishing and graphics, I do everything on my iPhone. I've dropped it over a hundred times; it still works perfectly, even the face is still unscratched.

Today, we were down to one vehicle, and with Stephen's hip so bad, I ferried him to the physical therapist this afternoon at Barnes Rehab. So there I am sitting in the waiting room for an hour. Am I bored? NO! I get a chance to read more in the Edmund Morris biography of Beethoven. In my pocket. On the iPhone. See, I read on the Google News iPhone section I created that instead of buying Amazon's new wireless reading device, The Kindle 2, for $359, I can download the Kindle software to my iPhone FOR FREE!! So I did that, and browsed around on Amazon until I found and bought the Beethoven bio for under $10 (and cheaper than the hardcover or softcover version).

I have rededicated myself to relearning some Beethoven sonatas, which I have long dearly loved, and right now I am working on the Bb sonata Opus 22. Not to digress too far, you can listen to it on YouTube if you want. So I thought reading a Beethoven biography would be rather inspiring. But I hadn't done much if any reading on a hand-held device, so this was kind of an iffy move. You can see to the left what the screen for reading looks like. Unfortunately, the iPhone capture that I used produced a very blurred image, but on my iPhone screen, the words appear crystal clear and are easy to read. You can bookmark and return to any point in the book. You can go to the Table of Contents. There are five text sizes from very small to very large.

Ok, so I am reading along in Chapter One of the Beethoven bio about Ludwig's early and teenaged life, and I come along to this particular episode in his life. Joseph II, "the people's Emperor" died on February 24, 1790. This was when Beethoven was 19 and just after he had become his drunken and washed-up father, Johann's keeper. The Electorate went into deep mourning. There was a call form an appropriate memorial to express public grief. "A local poet, Severin Averdonk, produced thirty-five lines of hastily written text. Before the month was out, the society announced its surprise choice as composer: a court musician still in his teens, with no experience whatsoever in articulating public grief." Morris surmises that Ludwig's friends, his teacher, Neefe, and Count Waldstein, had leaned on Beethoven's main patron, Max Franz (also brother of Joseph II), to award him this important opportunity.

Continuing to read the chapter, I find this quote

"Nearly a century was to pass before Johannes Brahms discovered that Ludwig had in fact produced a massive, forty-minute work for five soloists, full chorus, and an orchestra of strings, double woodwind, and horns. The evidence was the original handwritten score, complete down to the last double bar, and so individual in style as to tax the resources of any classically trained performers of the period. … The music of the Joseph II Cantata is (again to quote Brahms) "beautiful and noble" in its pathos, "sublime" in its imaginative reach, and almost "violent" in the intensity of its emotions."

I continue to read

"It begins with a held, hollow C on low strings that has no beat and no harmony. Neither loud nor particualry soft, it is an Erdenton, an earth note, the cantata's center of gravity. One somehow knows that whatever sounds come next will not have the hopeful glow of C major. Sure, enough, the string unison gives way to an equally prolonged wind chord in C minor …"

I'm thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice to hear this movement as I am reading this book. If only I were home now, I would look for this work on iTunes." Then. "But wait, I have iTunes store right here on the iPhone. Stephen's hour appointment has only begun 15 minutes ago. "But I would need a wireless connection." I check, and sure enough, the Rehab Center has a wireless network that lets guests on, no charge.

So now I'm in the iTunes store on my iPhone looking for the music. I find an album by the Corydon Orchestra and Singers, featuring the gorgeous voice of Janice Watson. The album contains the entire work, plus another work by Beethoven, Cantata on the Accession of Emperor Leopold II. I decide to download the whole album for $9.99, since if I bought the six separate arias from the Cantata, I would already have spent close to six bucks, at $.99 a track. I log on to my account and begin to download this album. Heidi Clark doesn't know it but she is buying this for me as a birthday present, since I now cash in the rest of my gift card from her to get it.

And now, wonder of wonders, I am able to continue to read Morris' description of Beethoven's Joseph II just while listening to that very work through my earbuds. All right there in public waiting for Stephen to finish his appointment. Do you see what I mean? I am really living in my iPhone now! 

Posted: Mon - March 9, 2009 at 11:44 PM          

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