Last week Barnaby’s friend Giovanni invited him to attend a concert at Carnegie Hall. Enjoying his friend’s company, and remembering fondly many young adult evenings spent dozing next to his father on a red velvet seat, Barnaby accepted. (Barnaby and his father used to sit in Box 21 and fall asleep together to gentle chamber music.) Then, all of a sudden, through what he could only classify as a Fundamental Confusion in the Mechanics of the Universe, Barnaby found himself hunched up under the concert hall’s ceiling, his legs folded into some arcane and dangerous yoga posture, wishing for an oxygen tank—and, more to the point, for a very loud white noise machine—as he stared down into the premier performance of a new chorale by Sir Paul McCartney. God save us! God save us all!

It is hard to know where to begin. Reader—dear, gentle reader—please understand that Barnaby is a man of at once violent and tender feelings. I don’t mean like a cowboy, who divides the world into two moral phratries, one containing bad guys and the other little ladies, and assigns his feelings accordingly; he is not double and confusing like a charismatic sociopath, who knocks you down and then tenderly helps you up, and then knocks you down again; he is not even violent and tender like those saints and ideologues who ruthlessly condemn all confusion and evil for the very protection of tenderness itself. No; I mean that Barnaby treats art with the sort of fully-committed gravity that Semitic shepherds once reserved for their high and mysterious God, but at the same time, like some fat, marzipan-loving country priest, who lies awake at night fearing hellfire but rarely mentions it to his parishioners lest he hurt somebody’s feelings, he quails at the thought of condemning anyone’s innocent amusements. And so therefore when he found himself, the other day, in the nosebleed section of Carnegie Hall, looking down on several hundred people who, for all he knew, were heartily enjoying Sir Paul’s relentless cavalcade of self-important banality—not to mention his friend Giovanni, who had suggested the outing in the first place—Barnaby did his best to contain his feelings.

He sat quietly through half a dozen pop songs arranged for tenor, soprano, and strings—an inappropriate use of both the material and the instruments, to be sure, but it was no skin off his nose. If the pretentious but culturally insecure want some easy entree into orchestral music—fine, good enough, good for them. It may be fundamentally dishonest, and ultimately useless; it may be a profoundly misguided confusion of style and substance, the cultural equivalent of building castles on sand—but fine, fair enough, tous les goûts sont dans la nature.

He sat through four short nothings—pleasant, competent, and completely unmemorable sections of orchestrated fluff. They were entirely unexceptionable—good music for getting a massage, even. Something like Corn Pops in a silver tureen.

At intermission, he and Giovanni went into the hallway for a couple of sixteen dollar beers.

“It’s interesting,” said Barnaby, “but not my cup of tea.” God bless Barnaby Sandwich! He had no idea what was in store.

They went back in and crammed themselves into their seats, and in the minutes before the beginning of “Ecce Cor Meum,” Barnaby read this statement in the program:

“One night I was travelling back from a concert with the rest of The Beatles. We were in a terrible blizzard going back to Liverpool and our van skidded off the motorway and down a slope. There was no way we could get back up, and someone said, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ And someone else said, ‘I dunno. Something will happen.’ That became a phrase for us. And sure enough, a lorry driver saw us, stopped, and we all crammed into his cab. It shaped my philosophy: the faith in a benevolent spirit that, I hope, lives in the words and music of Ecce Cor Meum.”

Barnaby bit his lip and said to himself, “Well, gee, if it didn’t betray a vision of the world of such breathtaking and well-nigh blasphemous superficiality, this would be almost sweet.” A projector mounted on the ceiling projected onto the wall behind the choir an intertwined “E C M” that Barnaby recognized from the program as Ecce Cor Meum’s album cover. He bit his lip and drew blood.

Then the music began. And reader—dear, gentle reader—I tell you again, it is hard to know where to begin. Shall I begin with the music itself? With the monotonously unsophisticated music that would probably earn a B+ from most high school composition teachers, but would surely fail in college? Or with the words—which, thanks to a benevolent and merciful God, were hard to make out, but which distinctly included such gems as “Spiritus! Spiritus! Teach us to love!” and “Musica! Musica! Fill us with joy!” Or with the scraps of Latin window dressing? Through all of it, Barnaby contained himself—through “Spiritus,” through “Gratia,” through “Interlude (Lament),” through “Musica.” By the end of the last movement, the eponymous “Ecce Cor Meum,” Sandwich was only a hair's breadth away from an explosion into hysterical fury—this movement began with the lines “Ecce cor meum, behold my heart/ Though in the future we may be apart/ Here in my music, I show you my heart,” and proceeded to end with a bang, and a tarum-tum-tum, and a solemn minor third, and another bang, and another tarum-tum-tum, and another solemn minor third, and so on and so on, again and again and again, until Barnaby was trembling and growling and only preserving such stillness as he did by promising himself, “One more fucking note and I’m going to murder every motherfucker in here.”

And then—praise the assembled firmaments and powers—it ended. Barnaby trembled, coughed, and ran down the stairs and out of the building, and up two blocks and into Central Park, and he threw himself at full length into the cold, wet grass to wait for Giovanni. Shortly afterwards, while walking through the park, the two of them discussed whether McCartney was to blame for his vanity, and they decided that in fact the lion’s share of blame must rest with the culture that provides a forum for a man’s work, regardless of its inherent merit, simply because he is already famous. Then they went to the Pierre bar and had a couple of very expensive drinks, and there the whole thing would have ended, if Barnaby had not heard Sir Paul being interviewed on National Public Radio the following day.

Barnaby learned from this interview that the “Lament” movement made reference to the death of McCartney’s first wife. He learned that McCartney’s friends had warned him that the critics would “sharpen their pencils” for him, but he didn’t mind; he could very easily write the sort of “atonal stuff” that would make the critics think he was “really far out,” but that simply wouldn’t be him. And Barnaby learned about the absurd outer limits of Anglophone anti-intellectualism, as a fantastically wealthy Englishman and a vacuous American radio interviewer competed to see who could most completely disavow all knowledge of Latin.

“The title of the piece,” said the interviewer, “is—well, I’d better let you pronounce it.” McCartney had no choice but to do it: “ECK-ay CORE MAY-um,” he said. Score one for Dumb America! Wham! But Dumb England always comes back from behind to win it—McCartney proceeded to explain at length how he had come by his title:

“I was in this church, you see, and there was a picture of Jesus, and beneath it it said, ‘Ecce Cor Meum.’ So I went back to my schoolboy Latin, and I remembered ‘ecce’ meant ‘behold,’ as in ‘Ecce caesar.’ All right, ‘Ecce—behold.’ And then ‘cor,’ I thought it must be like in ‘corona,’ or ‘coronary’—heart! And ‘meum,’ well, that’s pretty simple, ‘mine’—so, ‘Ecce Cor Meum,’ ‘Behold heart mine.’”

Needless to say, this was the part that sent Barnaby out on a ledge to begin carving deep gashes into his “Yellow Submarine” album with a fish knife.

“All these educated people blather on so much about what the world needs,” Barnaby growled at the record, “when it’s all so simple, really, innit? All we need is love! Yes, quite right, you pusillanimous, honey-fed maggot—you know what’s more difficult than producing treacly generalities? Fucking well putting them into practice!” Barnaby wiped his sweaty brow and took a deep breath, and then set at the record again. “And all those nerds laboring away to learn Latin?” he spat. Two pigeons with white wingtips set down on the ledge to listen. “Are they doing it to lend moldy ancient dignity to such banalities as in vino veritas? Surely some of them are. Or to make people less fortunate than they are feel stupid? Yes, surely sometimes. That is indefensible. But are some of them, perhaps, simply doing it to improve themselves? Or because they’re interested? Yes, they must be. And do you know what some of them are doing, Sir Paul? Some of them are trying to learn about the world in order to get outside themselves—because however full you may be of vague benevolence, however happy and grateful you are, however compelled you feel to prattle about love, love, love, if you have no real conception of the world beyond yourself, then all your vague benevolence cannot end in anything but self worship. All your high aspirations and unimpeachable intentions can end in nothing but paeans to the wonder not of the world, not of humanity, not of all men, but of one man—you. If this takes the form of catchy, beautiful three-minute pop songs, then more power to you. But when you express this self-satisfaction and self-regard with an orchestra and a choir of eighty voices, for a full hour, then frankly, sir, the spectacle is nauseating.”

On this note, the pigeons took wing and flew away. The real shame of the whole thing is that “All You Need Is Love” is—or had been—one of Barnaby’s favorite songs.

The other night, Barnaby Sandwich decided to attend a mixer in a bookstore on Maple Street. After he had checked his coat, filled his pockets with broccoli, and loaded up on Portuguese shiraz, he found himself being addressed by a beautiful woman who kept looking over his shoulder for someone else to talk to. Every time she looked over his shoulder, he turned around—which, for a gentleman of Barnaby’s girth, is no small thing. But he saw nothing in particular except dozens of other beautiful women looking over dozens of other men’s shoulders. Glabber glabber glabber—one hundred gazes on the prowl.

“Barnaby,” muttered this woman confidentially, leaning in and whispering, “I am worried about you. You clearly expend enormous energy on your work, but I’m afraid that there’s something missing. Why are you so afraid of emotional committment? Why can’t you be kinder to the women in your life? Why can’t you engage with the problems of the people? You’re—well, you’re moderately—that is, you have a certain sort of rough talent, Barnaby, that’s undeniable, but as it stands now you’re essentially wasting it. Is it a question of laziness, or of an overdeveloped sense of entitlement? I don’t know what the problem is. You see, if I were you, I would be traveling in North Africa, selling trinkets to Bedouins and starving to death. That would be a real experience. Or else maybe working in the post office, or selling Avon door to door. That would get you in touch with the real world. That would allow you to grow as an artist. My goodness, what could be more obvious? What on earth is preventing you? Instead of moving to Appalachia and working in a Wal-Mart for ten years and doing something worthwhile, you insist on trying to make hay out of your overprivileged, phony, artificial, bullshit, unfair, son-of-a-bitch bourgeois little, silly little, ridiculous little life. What good is that? I mean, seriously, Barnaby, it’s awfully condescending, don’t you think? If you won’t take the trouble to go out and rub shoulders with the meatloaf-eating plebeians, why on earth should you expect them to be interested in what you do? My goodness! Stand up straight, man! Look at you! All of your chakras are out of alignment, and this one—” here she jabbed him in the belly with four well-trained karate fingers “—is totally dead. You’re passionless! You’re an ice cube! You’re all locked up! How do you expect to be an artist if you haven’t got any passion? I mean, my God, Barnaby, commit yourself to something! Open yourself to the winds of change! Take some criticism! Look reality in the face! Stop masturbating into a phone booth and get out and do something in the world!”

Barnaby listened to this monologue in slack-jawed shock; when she jabbed him in the belly, he choked on a mouthful of shiraz; and at the words “do something in the world,” the damn broke, and he began to blubber.

“Oh, God, you’re right!” cried Barnaby into the glabber glabber glabber of the crowded cocktail party. “Who am I trying to fool? My entire life has been a misdirected waste! I’m a fraud! I’m a joker! I’m worse than Pol Pot! I—uh—I—uh . . . I’m sorry, who did you say you were?”

“Oh!” the woman said and broke into a magnificent smile that made Barnaby’s heart flutter. “Justine Prune. We went to nursery school together! Isn’t it incredible? It must be twenty years since the last time I saw you!”

“Uh—oh,” said Barnaby, coughing, furrowing his brow, and smearing half a pint of mucus across the sleeve of his corduroy Norfolk jacket. “Well, it’s—yes, it certainly has been—I mean, of course it’s wonderful to see you, Justine, but if you don’t mind my asking—forgive me, I don’t mean to be presumptuous, or ungrateful, but if you don’t mind my asking, if we haven’t seen each other in twenty years—the time sure does fly, doesn’t it—well, but if we haven’t seen each other, the advice you just gave me, well . . .”

Justine Prune shook her head in a brisk, businesslike fashion.

“Barnaby,” she said, “your problems are obvious simply from the way you cut your hair and handle crudité. Even if I hadn’t spent two years after college working as a receptionist in a psychoanalyst’s office, your life would still be as clear to me as day.”

Barnaby excused himself from the lovely Ms. Prune and pushed and clattered his way through the mating young men and women toward the bar. He was politely, supplicantly, desperately asking for another glass of shiraz when a fellow he knew named Antonio pulled him by the sleeve. They both got their drinks, moved into a small empty corner, and made small talk for a few moments. Then Antonio said this:

“I ran into a girl who knows you, Barnaby. I mean, she doesn’t know you, really, but she says she’s been admiring you from afar. Christ, she was fucking gorgeous, too. She’s a brilliant photographer, unattached, comes from money, and is kind to children and animals. Anyway, that’s the impression I got. I might be wrong.”

“What?” Barnaby said. “Who? Who are you talking about?”

“I met her at a bar and for some reason I mentioned that I knew you,” said Antonio.

“What?” said Barnaby. “Why did you mention that?”

“I can’t remember,” said Antonio. “Anyway, she said to tell you that she had sent you several letters—”

“Letters? What letters?”

“—but they might have gotten lost in the mail. But it doesn’t matter. She only wanted to tell you that her uncle Mortimer Nadelbrawn is a big fan of yours, and hopes you keep up the good work.”

“A big fan of—what? Who’s Mortimer Nadelbrawn? What’s the girl’s name?”

“You know,” said Antonio. “He works with Ben Hessel at Schechter & Plotz.”

“Schechter & Plotz?”

“You know,” said Antonio. “They handle Tony Blaffit and the Levine Sisters. They represented Captain Santa’s Snowman Explosion, and I don’t have to tell you, they really cleaned up on that shit. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The point is, the guys over at Schechter & Plotz are rooting for you, and so’s the whole team down at Henderson, Raditz, and this girl said to tell you that if you want to have a drink sometime, she’s there every Friday.”

“She’s where every Friday?”

At this point, Antonio spotted Justine and lit up into a smile.

“Justine!” he called out.

“She’s where every Friday?” cried Barnaby.

Antonio called out “Justine!” again and dove away into the crowd. Barnaby smelled his shiraz, winced, and decided to leave. As he pushed his way out through the glabber glabber glabber, past a blonde yoga teacher who had once taught him to say “lick my ass” in German, Antonio gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up, and Justine waved, winked, and carefully mouthed the words “Wal-Mart.”