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After commenting on my OPML blog yesterday about Les Orchard's brain dump post on outlining projects, I went off on a tear about Amadeus.

Mozart

When Les talks about not yet having committed to "paper" some of the work held in his brain, it reminded me of a scene in Amadeus. Simon Callow's character, who is producing The Magic Flute as a low-class vaudeville, demands the score and first is delighted to hear Mozart say it's finished. "Where is it?" he asks, and Mozart points to his head. "Here, it's up here," he explained. "Now it's all just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling and bibbling and scribbling."

Not all of Amadeus was factual, but that aspect was, according to authoritative biographies. He was able to hear complete new works in his head, not just piano pieces or string quartets but full choral and orchestral pieces. Then it was only a matter of writing them down as though taking dictation.

The ability is shown or mentioned three or four times in the movie, the most thrilling one when he recruits Salieri to be his stenographer for the Requiem. Mozart is impatient that his nemesis can't scribble fast enough. That scene is an encapsulation of the whole plot of the movie (earlier a play): Salieri in obsessive and destructive awe of Mozart's complete originality. At one point Mozart describes that an instrument section (don't remember which) should map to a theme sung by the tenor section in the chorus. Salieri first doesn't even get it because it's so out of the box. Then you see the recognition dawn on his face. He sees what is meant. Beat. He's blown away by the genius of it. He's honored for the opportunity to be present at the creation, but all the while it's also about Mozart being what Salieri knows he never can be.

Can you tell I kind of like that movie? Now I want to watch it today. Want to come over?

I love my OPML blog. So much that I tend to post non-OPML things there. I'd just blog there exclusively, except that I want to find out more about what permanent hosting arrangements there will turn out to be.

I'll start trying to cross-post a few non-OPML items here. Ironically, Les sometimes has the same problem with a preference for posting to his OPML blog over his "real blog." I think part of the appeal is the ease of posting, and another part is the sense of community here. It's like a network of bloggers.