Erik Satie's Seven Identical Umbrellas

Erik Satie's Seven Identical Umbrellas

The umbrellas remained closed.
Erik Satie's room was cluttered. Piles of sheet music, empty bottles, and letters from someone—left unopened, they formed a mountain. Amidst that chaos, the only things arranged in an orderly fashion were seven umbrellas of the exact same design.
Every day, he would pick up one of them and head out into the streets of Paris. Even when it poured, he would never open his umbrella.
"Listen. An umbrella is not something to be opened and used. The 'angle' at which you carry it tucked under your arm is the very core of music."
He would say this with a straight face, walking up the slopes of Montmartre while soaking wet.
In the margins of his sheet music, he had written: "Play like a toothache," "As if hiding yourself." Musicians were left bewildered before his scores.
At one point, he conceived of "furniture music." Music meant not to interfere with a meal, music for no one to listen to. When the performance began, the guests were so impressed that they fell silent.
Satie flew into a rage, running around the venue and shouting.
"Don't listen! Keep talking! I told you to eat your food!"
The audience fell silent once again.
The seven umbrellas changed little by little.
The handles darkened from the oils of his hands, white rain stains remained on the fabric, and the tips wore down every time they struck the cobblestones. Even so, the umbrellas were never opened once.
Satie would silently choose a new one and head out into the city again.
After he passed away, people opened the room he had never let anyone enter for the first time.
A mountain of unopened letters. And seven identical umbrellas.
Inside every single umbrella, notes for unpublished songs that he never intended to show anyone were packed tightly.
Outside the window, it was raining.