A friend asked me last night: “I wonder what would have happened if she smashed that priceless founding-era antique on stage? Would the audience have cared?”
Well, some would have. But the answer in respect of the aggregate is a firm “No.” It is a firm “no” because a crowd that would recognize the tragedy of such a loss is a crowd that would never have tolerated the irreverence of the spectacle in the first place. And that is a much larger problem than whatever Lizzo spat into a microphone Tuesday night.
Lizzo’s real name is Melissa Vivianne Jefferson. The flute she played was a gift to Madison from acclaimed 19th-century Parisian manufacturer Claude Laurent, on the occasion of the fourth president’s second inauguration. Its custodian is the Library of Congress. And of course, her concert took place in the nation’s capital.
So Jefferson played Madison’s flute, from Adams’ library, in Washington’s city. There’s an undeniable poetry to it, it was of the tragic variety.