The Secret · American Version
Illustration: THE PHILHARMONIC ORC
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THE PHILHARMONIC ORC, image 1 THE PHILHARMONIC ORC, image 2 THE PHILHARMONIC ORC, image 3
The Philharmonic Orc makes passionate Overtures to bankers and their wives.

THE PHILHARMONIC ORC

Cacophonous gloriosas

RANGE Enormous chandeliered mausoleums named after extinct robber barons are the customary haunts of these myopic Neanderthals, but they may also be seen—and heard—on Public Television, FM radio, wine-bar Muzak systems, BMW cassette decks, and wherever gouty millionaires doze in red plush seats beside their buxom spouses.

HABITS The Philharmonic Orc high-browbeats the citizenry into believing that he and only he has the right to make loud noises—or, for that matter, any noise at all. To this end, he has created an inefficient dinosaur of a noisemaking machine, the Symphony Orchestra, to which respect, homage, and bucks must be paid. He hushes you with a lordly hiss, should you chance to cough during a pause in his machine’s noisemaking. His victims leap to their feet shouting “bravo” (for men) and “brava” (for women) during other pauses. He reserves for himself the right to be first clap in and last clap out. He is the moving spirit behind the granting of vast sums of public money to subsidize art forms which are patronized largely by persons with vast private wealth. If music be the food of love, the Philharmonic Orc is providing food stamps for the upper class. He has insidiously hornswoggled us all into the certainty that only music composed before 1900, as interpreted by seven dozen of his monkey-suited thralls, is serious.

HISTORY The Philharmonic Orc claims kinship with both the Phantom of the Opera and the emigrée Sugar Plum Fairy. He also maintains an unholy marriage of convenience with the Culture Vulture. For reasons difficult to fathom, the Germans, Italians, Russians, and French all proudly claim him as their own. Like the Vampire, a similarly attired, decadent and aristocratic monster, the Philharmonic Orc came comparatively recently to the New World—but he wasted no time inspiring the nouveau riche of the Main Line, wild frontier, and Barbary Coast to erect (by public subscription) Opery Houses, those gauche and gilded temples sacred to his cult. These days he is more likely to cause the construction (by tax deductible donation) of a square-mile-sized, pre-stressed concrete neo-fascist styled, totally unnecessary acoustical joke called The (fill in the politician’s name here) Center for the Performing Arts. SPOTTER’S

TIPS An overture (con brio) of clinking crystal and silver cigarette cases snapping; a pizzicato of popping collar buttons; an arpeggio of uncultured pearls; a scherzo of stomach noises; a continuo of muted flatulence; a crescendo of self-satisfied sighs; a diminuendo of sucked dentures; and a coda of sonorous snores.

Two editions, one page

The American and Japanese printings side by side. Click either page to zoom in.

Illustration: THE PHILHARMONIC ORC
American edition
Japanese edition page: THE PHILHARMONIC ORC
日本語版 · Japanese edition

日本語版の本文

The Classical Music Sprite · Philharmonic Orc

The Japanese text with an English back-translation.

Japanese text

棲息地 豪華なシャンデリアのさがったコンサートホール、インテリが趣味で集めているレコードのなか, FM放送, 気弱な男が女性をくどくときに使うBGMなどに出没する。やっかいなことは, この音楽を聴くまでの心の準備がたいへんで, したがって演奏がはじまるとその疲労からすぐ眠くなることである。もちろん、これは妖精たちのいたずらなのだが,演奏中のオーケストラの一員がいねむりしてしまったことがある。

習性 世間ではクラシック音楽を高級な音楽のように取りちがえている面もあるが,この妖精たちはいたって下世話であまり高級なこととは縁のない暮しをしている。 庶民の出身なのである。人間たちにとりついて高級な人種になったように錯覚させ,本人の知らないうちに内部から人格を崩壊させていく。むかし、 ラーメンが1杯30円だったころ, コーヒーが1杯150円という名曲喫茶があった。 レコードがまだ78回転のころである。こんな喫茶店に集まるお客は,気むずかしい, 根のくらそうな,とても深刻な顔をした人たちばかりだ。 わが国のクラシック音楽は、こういった根クラな人たちによって発展してきたのである。その間ずっと,ともすれば大衆音楽へとひかれそうになる気持ちをおさえ, あと1歩のところで踏みとどまり、クラシック音楽の灯を消さずにともしつづけてきた彼らの心のよりどころとなったのは, じつは,1杯150円のコーヒーだったことは、あまり知られていい。 そして彼らが結婚し, 子どその子どもが大きくももでき,「お父なるときっとこういう。さんたちのころは、食べるものがなかった」と。

歴史 ドイツ, フランス, イタリア, オーストリアなどがわが国こそ発祥の地であるといいは一般大ってどこもゆずらない。衆の生活向上の影の原動力となり, 英国の産業革命以後, めざましい発展をとげた。 しかし,ビートルズの出現以来かなり押されぎみでこのままいけば博物館か葬儀所でしか聴けなくなるだろう。

私立探偵の情報 レコード屋のいちばん奥の見とおしのわるいところにならべられている。まクラシック演奏会でもやった,て高い入場料を徴収しないと経営していけないばかでかいホールへ行けば会える。

English back-translation

Habitat Concert halls with magnificent chandeliers, the record collections of intellectuals, FM radio, background music used by timid men trying to woo women. The troublesome thing is that mentally preparing yourself to listen to this music is so exhausting that once the performance begins, the fatigue makes you immediately drowsy. This is of course the sprites’ doing — there was even an incident where a member of the performing orchestra fell asleep mid-concert.

Behavior Society tends to misunderstand classical music as sophisticated and high-class — but these sprites live remarkably ordinary, far-from-highbrow lives. They come from common stock. They possess people and make them under the illusion they’ve become a superior class of human, while quietly dismantling their personalities from the inside without them knowing. Back when a bowl of ramen cost 30 yen, there were “meikyo kissa” — classical music cafes — that charged 150 yen for a single cup of coffee. This was the era of 78rpm records. The customers who gathered in such cafes were uniformly difficult, gloomy-looking people with deeply serious expressions. Japanese classical music developed through the efforts of exactly these dark, brooding types — people who constantly suppressed the pull toward popular music, held back at the last step, and kept the flame of classical music burning. What kept their spirits up through all of this was, not widely known, actually that 150-yen cup of coffee. And when they married, had children, and those children grew up, those children would surely say: “In your day, Dad, there was nothing to eat.” History Germany, France, Italy, and Austria all insist that their country alone is the true birthplace and refuse to yield to each other. It became a hidden driving force behind the improvement of ordinary people’s lives, developing remarkably after the British Industrial Revolution. However, since the emergence of the Beatles it has been on the back foot — and at this rate will soon only be heard in museums or funeral homes.

Field Intelligence Found in the least visible corner at the very back of the record store. Also at those absurdly oversized concert halls that can only stay financially viable by charging outrageously high ticket prices.

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