O'Reilly and his body-language specialist whose name would evade anyone right now watched a replay of Beethoven's performance on CBS' early show and started analyzing Beethoven's body language:
"Okay," said body-language woman, "let's look..."
"Wait a second," said O'Reilly, typically steam-rolling through his interlocutor mid-sentence, "see there at the start of the segment where that lady Maggie tries to offer him his composer's stick, Beethoven says silence, but there's no body language towards her..."
"Right, that's because he never actually heard her and possibly never saw her either, he says 'silence!' loudly but it appears he is not saying that to her but just describing his own psychological state to the orchestra, he touches on that again later when he mentions his inability to hear clearly and tendency towards deafness."
"Right, he actually clenches his fist at that point and bangs his lectern, that's probably a sign of rage and frustration," says O'Reilly.
"Right you are, now look at this, this is very interesting, one of the Cellists tries to answer Beethoven's question and actually takes off her helmet..."
"Right, now what's up with the helmets?" asked O'Reilly, "are they gonna play a game of football after the symphony?"
"It's not clear," answered body-language lady, "but just for contrast, let's quickly analyze this body language of this Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle at a scrimmage, watch here how the opposing team from Green Bay prepare to hike the ball back, after the ball is snapped, you can see the Cowboys defensive tackle is putting his hands up in front of him: THAT is definitely defensive body language..."
"Right!" agreed O'Reilly, "he's doing that because the offensive lineman from Green Bay weighs the same size as a washing machine, about 160 kilos and is charging at him with explosive energy after a three minute-long chance to regain his breath as is the nature of this game and he seeks to barge and block the Cowboys defensive tackle so as to buy time for his quarterback to make a good pass."
"Right," agreed body-language lady, "grasping at her own inner nostril to pinch it quickly with a view to killing an itch that manifested itself there, the thing is, that is amazingly defensive body language, see there how he holds his arms out before himself using his forearms as weapons to block with... now look at Beethoven's conducting style..."
"Which he's doing without a stick, because he couldn't hear Maggie offer him it..." said O'Reilly.
"Right."
"So you think he is conducting like that because the orchestra might try to tackle him and he wants to be ready?"
"It's possible, but look now again how the Cellist removes her helmet before answering, the other musicians don't do that, they just leave their helmets on."
"Do you think they are afraid Beethoven will wet their heads?" asked O'Reilly with tongue-in-cheek geniality.
"It's possible, but now look, here is some footage of a man kidnapped by some Russians and used in a live human hunt in Kamchatka, here you can see real footage of him running away from his pursuers, see there how there are brown spots around the buttocks, that is because he has crapped his own pants."
"Well that's understandable," said O'Reilly.
* * *
Back at CBS' Early Show studios Beethoven was working on a slow part of the 6th symphony, he doused his head on the water pool as was his habit, as the orchestra played, and walked amongst them...
"Now remember what I said," he said as he laid his hand atop one of the violinists helmet, "the 6th is a symphony of rest, of summertime, of joy after the hunt, after the harvest, after the storm has come and gone and the rebuilding has been completed and you toast some beers to celebrate, there are many moving passages carried by paraphrases from the violinists..."
* * *
"Ok, now watch this," said body language lady to O'Reilly, see how he grabs the metallic grid at the violinists mouth - the part of the helmet that protects his mouth..."
"That's illegal in real football, by the way, but maybe they allow that in Canada, I'm not sure," offered O'Reilly.
"Right, but that isn't Canadian football, what they're playing, it's classical music, those people are all from philharmonic orchestras.
"Why do they call them 'philharmonic'?" asked O'Reilly.
"Let's stay on track, look you see how Beethoven is grabbing the helmet face/grid with his left hand, but with his right hand, it is curled into a fist and he is clearly threatening to punch the guy in the face with that..."
"So what does that mean?" asked O'Reilly.
"Well clearly he is threatening to remove the helmet and punch the guy in the head if he doesn't start playing the way Beethoven wants him to..."
"Wow you really can read a lot into a simple looking situation," commented O'Reilly.
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