Norma, I am Ron
Said I, palindromically.
But the soul of wit is Irony, Ronnie
So get wit’ it already.
I am always Ron or Ronnie,
Name-born that way
By Mom, star-struck by Coleman, Ronald,
Not Reagan, Ronnie, that youngster.
I almost was John or Alexander
By name, that is.
But I am always me by whatever handle known,
So take a look at me and make up your own.
When I was managing hospitals and medical centers, I became conscious of styles of dress worn by young male accountants from what were then the “big eight” (now the huge four) auditing firms, and by other outside consultants. These styles were emulated by some people in my organization, primarily in the finance division.
Such styles varied over the years, and emphasis on specific items of clothing changed from time-to-time, but they seemed to center mostly on shoes, shirts and ties.
Penny loafers, with or without pennies, seemed the rage for a while, even if they (maybe because they) didn’t match the rest of the ensemble. Later, scuffed-up, unpolished but expensive brown shoes were ubiquitous among these chaps, no matter that brown shoes and non-brown clothing don’t go well together. Then penny loafers without the pennies came back.
Much earlier, in the 60s and 70s, skinny ties, usually by “Ernst” of San Francisco, became a distinguishing mark, especially if they were knotted and worn with studied carelessness.
The one shirt style that amused me was the very large, unfitted white shirt, lightly starched and not hampered by an obscuring jacket after the wearer arrived at work. The shirt would begin the morning rather well ironed, but at day’s end was quite wrinkled and tent-like in appearance, anchored at the neck and drooping over one’s belt line. This seemed to show how hard the wearer worked during the day.
I had my own style of dress too (one could call it my uniform): dark suit, white or light-colored shirt, modest striped tie with muted dark colors, no jewelry except for a slim wristwatch, and discreetly expensive black shoes with knee-length black socks. There were a few years where a three-piece suit was called for.
Sometimes a blue blazer and gray slacks were de rigueur.
Away from work, I became myself again: Levi’s (the preferred brand of jeans since my early youth), tee-shirt and sandals. Additional clothing depended on the temperature and venue.
At home, the main distinguishing characteristic in clothing from when I was a teenager is that the Levi’s are now clean. The ideal state for jeans, back then, was that they should be able to stand in a corner by themselves, structurally supported by layers of grease deposited through intimate contact with a motor vehicle. When worn, the jeans barely hung onto one’s skinny hips, much as with the current fashion of young people. But it was then déclassé to show underwear or bare skin as is the fashion now.
Now that I am no longer an employee of anyone or -thing, I have reverted to my natural state: ancient Levi’s, now soft and frayed (but not holey) with something on top and on the feet to suit the ambient temperature.
The boy and the old man have merged. Or, the boy has re-emerged.
The meaning of music cannot be fathomed or derived from something else, for music is a metaphor, on the same footing as our other constructs of reality: space, time, matter and number. –Roger S. Jones, Physics as Metaphor
Music is much more powerful and penetrating than the other arts, for they speak only of shadows, but music speaks of the thing itself. –Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
…And I would give you the gift of music that you might know your own soul. –Betty Kingsley Hawkins (prefatory quotation in The Nature of Music by Maureen McCarthy Draper)
Although you and I are not identical in our perceptions of music, I assert, with help from philosophers and others, that there are some fixed points we are bound to observe, each responding in our own way:
1. Music is an absolute, existing outside of Man, along with all the other abstractions assigned by him to The Great Everything (TGE) which is too vast and impenetrable to be truly known—except, perhaps, by the few who achieve, through certain disciplines such as meditation, Nirvana, or “enlightenment” as with a Bodhisattva, or through revelation. (Note: “TGE” is my construction for what others may call God, JHWH, Jehovah, Allah, etc.).
2. Each of us, I assert, is attuned to this element or aspect of TGE in various ways and degrees. I liken each of us as having differently constructed vibrating rods (or sets of rods) that respond to the universal music according to our individual resonances. Hence, some will find, throughout life and consistently, music from the Classical Period, exemplified by Haydn and Mozart, preferable to hip-hop, though the latter may be sometimes appealing.
3. Each of us, I assert, has ability in varying degrees to receive/perceive this universal music and to interpret it first, to oneself and second, to others.
4. A special few have the ability to represent this music in accepted notational form and, therefore, can concretize the music itself by the physical representation of it.
—
Music flows, from TGE-knows-where and –how, to a receiving human who, with the necessary skills, makes accepted musical notations on paper (or performs to give example) to represent what he perceives, along with written (or spoken) language remarks to more fully communicate it, e.g.: tempo rubato (as with Chopin), glissando, fortissimo, etc.
A performing musician reads these notations and transforms them through her nervous system to the instrument of her choice, for her own experience and that of others.
To summarize: music from God, to composer, to paper, to player, to audience.
