A Highway Shoulder to Cry On: Music for Prague

This is just a random thought I wrote and I'd rather not lose and thought I might as well hide it here. It started as a formspring question and then snowballed into this.

Q: What was the best concert you went to?

A: Music for Prague 1968.
When I was in high school our Symphonic Winds played a piece called Music for Prague 1968.

It was a musical narrative of the spring of 1968 when a new national government swept into Prague and began instituting changes like allowing freedom of the press and freedom speech and a possibility for multiparty government. The leaders of the USSR feared this democratization so they started talks with the government of Czechoslovakia. When talks broke down the USSR and three other nations decided to invade with more than 200,000 troops. The results were bloody and brutal.

The music is designed to reflect the events in very literal ways. Oboes play Morse code. Trombones are meant to be air sirens. The entire third movement is nothing but percussion. In the music you can hear the chaos of the invasion.

Woven into Music for Prague 1968 is a melody of a folk song that is traditionally symbolic of resistance and hope. In the movement describing the chaos of battle and the brutality of the USSR invasion the folk melody is played on the timpani almost as a song of mourning.

It made me cry in a way nothing else had ever made me cry. It was a deep and inexplicable pain that made no sense so I tried to stop the tears and move on.

We all left the concert hall and as I was driving home I ended up in the wrong lane and had to exit and merge on to the highway. I was finally alone in my car and I had to pull over on to the shoulder of the freeway and put on my emergency lights because I was crying so hard I couldn't see or breathe and I didn't know why. The thought of people being shot as they tried to help people, of people being killed for wanting to be free made me physically hurt inside.

That was the first time I ever understood what a really well written and well performed piece of music can do.

You were so beautiful

So I dropped off the face of the earth, I know this. There has been a lot going on with finals and the difficulty of the summer. I always dread the summer because from the time I was 8 I have had people die in the summer. All four of my grandparents died in May or June each a different year.

This year was not someone I was related to but someone I admired and appreciated.


Kahlo Benavidez was two years ahead of me in school. He was one of the most openly gay members of the student body who paved the way for younger gays, dealing with the teachers' prejudices and the snide remarks, forcing the administration to sell couples' prom tickets to same-sex couples (something they briefly fought).

After highschool I learned that Kahlo was HIV positive. Rather than retreating into depression and denial he became an amazing and inspiring activist. I'm still blown away by how hard he worked and the things he accomplished.

On the 24th of April he took his own life.

It's still surreal and painful and confusing. It doesn't make anysense. The outpouring of love and sadness over his death is astounding.

I'm sorry he chose that path. I can understand what it's like to be staring down reality and choose that path. It's just so tragic that despite how much people looked up to him and loved him and admired him and respected him he still felt that death was the best option.


I'm in the midst of trying to finish the semester and sort out my emotions and maintain my own delicate balance between mania and depression. I'm struggling but I'll make it through this.



Kahlo, wherever you are, I'm sorry I never thanked you for everything you did. I hope it's easier, that you're happier, wherever you are. Around here you're missed greatly.