Try this at home

Thanks to Salon's Laura Miller for her recommendation of Zadie Smith's new novel, On Beauty. I'm quite enjoying the book; last night, among the last things I read was a lovely passage about the opening of Mozart's Requiem. Before falling asleep, I resolved to listen to it in the car on my drive to work this morning.

Remarkably, I remembered to do so. I had some reservations. It is cloudy here today (a condition which, owing to its rarity, makes people depressed and uneasy) and cold (a condition that other people might call "warm"). Besides, it's a Monday morning. Some superstitious part of me was hesitant to listen to something like the Requiem driving to work on a Monday.

I got over it. Minutes later, amid the sweeping pathos of the Introitus, I found myself thinking of Tom DeLay and the Bush administration: "Requiem aeternum dona eis, Domine" ("Lord, grant them eternal rest"). I felt both sympathetic and amused: try it, try contemplating Bush, Rove, Libby, whomever, in recent weeks as you listen to this thing: it will, incredibly, inspire simultaneous mirth and pity. You will be moved by the classically tragic elements of this administration's approach to government; and yet you will smile.

Here's another idea: I haven't tried this one yet, but I might look for an old pair of Realistic headphones and listen to the recording again tonight while watching something like O'Reilly. I could be wrong, but I suspect this might lead to a kind of high-voltage alternating current of pathos and bathos. If you try it, report back!