The concert is over, and so is an era.

Houston more or less finished his tenure as musical director of the Illawarra Choral Society tonight with the performance of Handel's "Messiah" (mentioned in a previous blog post). As usual, he did a great job conducting (he's really good). I bashed the hell out of a couple of tympani, which is always a fun thing to do, and Margaret sang in the soprano section.

Margaret said one of the security staff at the venue, a tough-looking little guy all covered in tattoos, told her it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. So -- you just never know. I said to Margaret, "And you were part of that for him. You helped bring him the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard." I think it's important that Margaret is conscious of that kind of power, and that she has it -- the power to bring beauty to people.

Houston's mentor and friend Dr. Don Erb once told him (and he'll be able to give you the exact quote, but here's the gist of it), "If you write one beautiful piece of music, you've been more important to humanity than all the Hitlers and Stalins combined."

Then Margaret went to bed, and Houston and I drank some of our beer and watched "Operatunity Oz Revisited," a where-are-they-now followup to, as you could have predicted, the reality show "Operatunity Oz". We're kind of arts-geeky at our house. It's quite a nice way to live. No Jag in the driveway, but we get chances to bring beauty to people. Better than a Jag any day.