Misadventures in Music: Greeting Card Blues

Fourth in a series of musical misadventures.

When I was in high school, I had a crazy civics teacher who was entertainingly easy to confuse. One day someone took the mechanism out of a musical greeting card and stuck it to the ceiling of the classroom, where it continuously played “Happy Birthday to You.” Our teacher was a little hard of hearing so at first he didn’t notice, but eventually he became aware of music emanating from… somewhere. He asked us if we heard it too, but we all denied it. He nearly went crazy searching for the tiny mechanism, and it used up quite a bit of the morning too. (This was a summer school class, so it went much longer than classes during the year.)

That teacher did have some good stories. He kept promising to take us to the courthouse to watch a trial, which he never did, but at least he told us about trials he had seen. One day he took his morning class to a personal injury lawsuit, where the defendant, a large corporation, had a slick, big-city attorney and the plaintiff had a small-town guy like from a TV show, in a jacket and bowtie. It was very entertaining, he told us, but the afternoon class was sitting in on a murder trial, so he warned them it would probably be a lot of boring forensic evidence. Instead, they were cross-examining an eyewitness who got so tired of the questions from the defendant’s attorney that she stood up, jabbed her finger at the defendant, and said, “I know what I saw! I saw this son of a $@#* attack her!” So apparently murder trials aren’t always boring.

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Misadventures in Music: Instrument of Peace, Man

Third in a series of musical misadventures.

When I was in first grade at Catholic school, we went to music class once a week. One day the music teacher told us we had an instrument that was part of us, did anyone know what it was? The other kids were throwing out random guesses: “Drums? Trumpet?” I thought of the plaque my parents had on the wall of the St. Francis prayer that begins, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace,” so I guessed, “An instrument of God’s peace?” The music teacher just kind of stared at me for a moment, then she said, “Yes, that’s true, but I was thinking of a musical instrument.” She meant our singing voice. But that’s the kind of kid I was; when Sister Mary Pat was trying to teach us the difference between “there” and “their,” I immediately thought of a sentence in which neither seemed right, so she sighed, went to the blackboard, and wrote “they’re.” “I didn’t want to bring this up today,” she said, “but I guess I have to.” I must have been one of the reasons teachers have such high rates of alcoholism.

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Misadventures in Music: The Capricorn CD

Second in a series on musical misadventures.

Once I received a catalog in the mail full of all sorts of New Age things, and I was most intrigued by CDs for each sign of the zodiac. There was no explanation of what sort of music was on the CDs, other than that each one was specially formulated to appeal to that sign of the zodiac, so I called the company. You would think I had asked them what they made pretax in the previous year, they were so secretive about it. The person I talked to repeated what the catalog said, that each CD was specially formulated to appeal to each sign of the zodiac.

“Yes, but what sort of music is it?” I asked. “Classical? I like Baroque but not Romantic. Should I assume all Capricorns feel the same?”

The gentleman on the phone said that he would have to ask and get back to me. I never did hear from him, and upon further reflection I am guessing the CDs were all New Age music that was supposed to, in some vague way, be oriented toward a particular sign of the zodiac. I was not curious enough to order the CD, but to this day I still wonder if I actually would have liked the music on it, and if not, could I have gotten my money back? And would I have had to provide a birth certificate to prove I am an actual Capricorn who didn’t like their CD?

Tangentially, I would like to commemorate the passing of Smokin’ Joe Frazier by wondering why so many boxers are Capricorns. Not just him, but George Foreman and Mohammed Ali. OK, that’s three, but they are the only three boxers I know. I wonder if Smokin’ Joe would have liked the music on the Capricorn CD?

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Misadventures in Music: The Vivaldi Haters

This week on Famous Hat: a series about my misadventures with music.

The spring that I was eleven, I made a shocking discovery: a piece on one of my parents’ records that was attributed to Bach appeared on another one of their records attributed to Vivaldi! What could be going on? The Bach record did include this mystifying phrase: “Bach often borrowed themes from inferior musicians.” First of all, there’s borrowing a theme, and then there’s simply changing a violin concerto into a keyboard piece. Secondly, were they trying to say that Vivaldi, one of my favorite composers ever, was inferior?? This required action in the form of a strongly-worded letter addressed to “The Vivaldi Haters at XYZ Records.” Despite my annoyance, I wrote the note on floral stationery and ended with something like, “Peace, and have a good day.” I never received a reply, and to this day I wondered if anyone actually read my letter or if they all figured they didn’t hate Vivaldi, so the letter wasn’t addressed to them.

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Pumpkin Carving Fuel

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so instead of having a wordy post today, I thought I would just show this picture Rich took of our pumpkins right after we had carved them. I think the evidence of our liquid refreshment speaks for itself.

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Halloween Photos

Here are some photos from Halloween, courtesy of Kathbert. First is a shot of our pumpkins: hers, Rich's (which has Maxwell's Equation on it), and mine.

Here is a close-up of Kathbert's pumpkin, showing its ears:

This is Rich's house, with the post ghost before I put sunglasses on it:



Here I am as the Popcorn Ninja with the post ghost:

Here are the pumpkins lit up with a creepy tree branch shadow:



Here is a close-up of Kathbert's pumpkin lit up:

And here is a close-up of Rich's with Maxwell's Equation (Rich's photo):

And here is a close-up of my pumpkin:

And finally, here is Rich's porch with the lights and jack-o-lanterns (second photo courtesy of Rich):

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Popcorn Ninja

I hope my 5.6 loyal readers had a great Halloween. I spent mine at Richard Bonomo’s house, giving out candy with him and Kathbert. I was the only one who dressed up, wearing my kimono with clouds on it and an obi wrapped around my head. Rich put up the Halloween lights he accidentally bought, thinking they were Christmas lights. Our three jack-o-lanterns looked spooky in the shadow of a pine tree. Rich and Kathbert even made the post that will someday be part of the railing on Rich’s front porch into a ghost wearing sunglasses. The stage was set and we were ready to give out candy. Rich and Kathbert took photos, so I will hopefully post some soon.

Since Rich lives in the ‘hood, the kids who came to his house were mostly black or Hispanic, and they were all very polite. No problems in his neighborhood with “commuter” trick-or-treaters like in Hardingfele’s neighborhood! As I was happily handing out candy to one group, a boy of about eight said, “You’re a popcorn ninja!” As soon as they were gone, I asked Rich and Kathbert what he meant by that.

“Is it because I’m white?” I wondered.

“No, it’s because the clouds on your kimono look like popcorn,” said Kathbert.

Then I felt very lame, seeing possible racial slurs where none were meant. I also thought what an awesome title Popcorn Ninja would have been for this blog. Just a reminder that sometimes the obvious and benign answer is the correct one, after all.

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