Highly Cultured

I could be cultured, I think. I have potential.

But other than my ownership of a few Mozart CDs, there’s not much I can brag about beyond sheer potential. I haven’t been to the symphony in years, and even then, I went with free tickets and friends who thought “dressing up might be fun” (though it never is). I went to see Maynard Ferguson when he came to Southington in the 90s and scrunched myself up over the agony of the high notes his second trumpet was hitting (as a fellow trumpeter, I experienced his pain the way I imagine husbands experience sympathetic labor), but have not repeated the experience in the new millennium.

And yet, it’s not that I’ve had too little experience. I’ve been to plays, including a terrible version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon. I’ve eaten fancy dinners out and remembered the rule about starting from the outside when selecting utensils. I’ve worn my share of eveningwear, despite its many encumbrances, and shucked my nylons at the end of the night like any debutante returning from a gala.

I’ve even faked, though exceedingly poorly, a British accent.

Why, then, do I remain the Eliza Doolittle to the cultured world’s Henry Higgins? Surely some of this high culture should have worn off on me as I partook of it. Surely I should have digested some of the many lessons offered me from, as it were, the silver spoon. And yet the reason I own I Pagliacci is that I heard Kelsey Grammar sing the aria in the guise of “Sideshow Bob” on The Simpsons.

I am an educated woman. Yet I would rather sit down in front of the DVD version of The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged, with a mini pizza and a bathrobe than do any of these “cultured” things.

It may be that I’m lazy, and that high culture activities — and “fancy” things in general — are more work than their popular culture counterparts. Perhaps I lack the strength of will, stamina or fortitude that sitting through Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights requires. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination that causes me to drift constantly away from Food and Wine’s “Lebanese Chicken Mixed Green Salad” and toward my two-dollar, heat-in-bag chana masala. It may be an unattractive stubbornness that makes me eschew makeup or earrings in favor of having the time it would take me to put them on, and proper etiquette in favor of practically no manners at all.

Calling me lazy, unimaginative, unmannered or stubborn (or, in a particularly nasty mood, unattractive) may seem like the obvious choice had I never attempted any of the activities I describe — except that I have done all of them. I have done them with and for my friends. The problem is not that these activities are intrinsically boring, but that they do not stand out — among the many options — as primarily social activities.

High culture, if it ever did, no longer lends itself to community. The purpose of a cocktail party seems to have evolved from “an intimate evening with friends”—"intimate" here meaning "very polite"—to “a networking opportunity.” The symphony hall and the playhouse, once the only places to see performances, have been replaced by the mosh-pitted concert hall, the movie theater, and increasingly, the home entertainment center. A night out, which may have once meant dinner and the foxtrot, has become “clubbing.” People are congregating elsewhere because the focus in leisure time is to be social, a fact not often taken into account when planning or executing “high culture” activities.

Where are the tailgating parties for the symphony? What provision have foxtrot aficionados made for large crowds with pop music sensibilities? When will gown makers design something that’s comfortable to “chill” in? Which playhouses allow viewers to clap or jeer or throw things at the action onstage as it happens? (Perhaps more importantly, where is the overpriced popcorn with extra butter ooze?)

I want to like these high culture activities — I do — but my first priority is sharing experiences and face-time with friends. Is it my fault that I don’t want to spend my leisure time in formalwear, staring straight ahead and not talking?

Perhaps it’s high culture’s fault for being so snotty and difficult to get along with, like the stuck-up cousin you’re forced to invite to your birthday party.

But give me a social reason to go, and I would. I might even enjoy myself. Underneath this casual exterior, after all, I have a high-class heart of gold; like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, I’m just waiting for some john to pick me up and take me to the opera.