Looking back with a sigh, Jo and I agree that the happiest period of our lives were the eight years we lived in tiny Gambier, Ohio, seat of Kenyon College. We lived there from 1986 to 1994, inhabiting a charming, 19th-century home with fireplaces, cozy low ceilings, wormy chestnut beams, exposed brick walls, old windows with wavy glass and little bubbles in the panes. We were surrounded by hardwood forest on three sides and our two-thirds of an acre boasted no less than forty mighty oak trees.

Every spring the yard burst forth in, truly, about 10,000 daffodils. Previous owners had planted them but we dug up the bulbs, busted them apart and replanted them so that they spread and spread, more each year. The results were amazing. The yard looked like a movie set or the cover of a bulb-seller’s mail-order brochure. Villagers walked past our house, just to see the display of daffodils.

Best of all, our kids were little and, every moment of every day, we felt that we were, not just a couple, but a family living together.

Our next door neighbor was Susan Browning, a devoted amateur clarinetist and a passionate dog-lover. Sometimes she called to ask if our noble Springer spaniel, whom we had named “Binsche,” would like to come along with Trim, her stately, beautiful collie, for an ice cream cone treat. The dogs would pile into Susan's car and we’d watch as Susan backed out of our driveway, the dogs’ heads already sticking out the partially rolled-down back windows, tongues out, ears flapping in the wind. When the three of them returned, Susan would very seriously assure us that “the boys” had enjoyed their ice cream, as if we had doubted if such would be case and were in need of assurance.

In 1993, Susan commissioned me to write a suite for unaccompanied clarinet. She did not want a virtuoso concert work, just a set of fun, short pieces that she could play at home for her own amusement.

I wrote twelve little pieces for her, collectively entitled, “A College Town Diary: 12 Months in Gambier.”

The piece is a “diary,” i.e., a private journal of thoughts, sentiments and sarcasms, carefully recorded but not necessarily intended for public scrutiny. Being a “diary,” the piece is personal, opinionated and a little eccentric … like Susan … like myself.

Twelve movements — even short movements — would make a long haul for a clarinetist performing unaccompanied in front of an audience. Now and then clarinetists have fashioned a handful of the movements into short suites, more suitable for concert use. That’s fine with me. A few years ago, I devised a “Suite from A College Town Diary,” arranging six of the movements for clarinet and piano.

(By the way, I’ll gladly send PDFs of these scores — free — to any of you who are interested. Just ask.)

These days, Jo and I live in the historic heart of Cincinnati, a city with much to admire culturally, scenically, historically and some things to deplore, such as the nation's second-highest rates of homelessness, hunger and poverty.

We moved here for the educational opportunities the city offered our children. After they graduated from Cincinnati’s celebrated School for the Creative & Performing Arts and left home, Jo and I stayed on in Cincinnati. We wouldn’t be as happy in Gambier now, not without our little kids living at home with us. And we’ve changed, too; a tiny Ohio college town, surrounded by woods and cornfields, would feel too small for us now.

That difference is particularly felt during the month of March. March is no treat in an Ohio city but in rural Ohio, March is bleak, almost unbearable. Muddy, cold, gray and no holidays, except when Easter comes early. St. Patrick’s Day doesn’t amount to much in a rural Ohio village. Cincinnati’s Bockfest and March Madness are unknown in the Buckeye hinterland.

Or rather, in a college town, there are no March holidays for the Townies. For the students and faculty, there’s Spring Break! They get to leave! It’s the one joyous thing about March! Off they go, to warmer places where they will, you may be assured, like Binsche and Trim, enjoy their ice cream. Thus, my “March” movement is joyful after all! And less than 90 seconds long.

(The music for the “March” movement is not a march, by the way. More like a leaping-and-bounding dance. I reserved the notion of writing a march for the “July” movement, to evoke Gambier’s delightful Fourth of July parade.)

To hear Bill Perconti play “March” from A College Town Diary: Twelve Months in Gambier on the alto saxophone, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
March 6, 2016

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The French word for “tire” is “pneu.”

Get this: it’s pronounced "puh-neu”. The “p” is not silent!

What? "Puh-neu?” Yep ... er, “Oui.”

This comes as a shock. A belated April Fool’s Day joke, you ask? No … er, “Non."

Silent letters are the April Fool’s Day joke played on us, every day, by our language.

Life isn't sufficiently complicated? How were all these silent letters foisted upon us?

The answer is pedantic. I know parts of it, but I say phooey. Mocking pedantry is always more fun than being pedantic. So, in the spirit of April Fool’s Day, let’s have some laughs.

Let’s focus on the silent “p” and its cohort in crime, the silent “w."

Having no say in the matter, we tolerate, as best we can, the silent “p” when it has the temerity to precede an “n” or an “s.” But when it precedes a “t”, as in “ptomaine," “ptarmigan" or “Ptolemy?" Well, really. I mean to say. It’s a bit much. It might even be dangerous.

What if silent letters constitute a linguistic bacillus? What if they were to infect neighboring words? What might that look like?

<< Ptroubled by a ptouch of ptomaine, Wrick Psowash pspent the day wreading the writings of Ptolemy. "If I'm ptolerably better ptomorrow," he wreckoned, “I may ptry pto ptrap a ptarmigan.” >>

Not all silent “p”s are equally egregious. We can almost forgive the silent “p” when it is followed by an “h”, as in “phallic.”

An English professor friend overheard a fragment of a conversation between two students passing his open office door: “I know it’s a phallic symbol,” one said to the other, "but a phallic symbol of what?”

Ha!

But enough orthography. Let’s get to some music. Here is another way of mocking pedantry: listen to my little piece entitled, “An Eccentric Professor,” the fourth movement of my Suite from A College Town Diary for clarinet and piano.

Usually, at this point, I credit the musicians. Instead, paraphrasing Hollywood’s disclaimer regarding animals, I can assure you: no musicians were harmed in the making of this mp3. It’s not performed by anyone.

What you’ll hear is a MIDI file, i.e., my computer rendering the music exactly as I’ve notated it, using a music notation program. It sounds robotic, but that’s OK for this particular piece because part of the joke is that the music is NOT flexible or expressive.
The tune waddles along, like an eccentric professor in shabby corduroys, crossing the campus, chomping a pipe, lugging a battered, bulging briefcase, badly in need of a haircut, his mind long since made up, once and for all, on just about everything. “Often wrong but never in doubt!"

To hear “Eccentric Professor,” click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

Rick Sowash
Cincinnati, OH
Apr. 2, 2017

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Begone, dull care!
I prithee, begone from me.
Begone, dull care!
You and I shall never agree.

My wife shall dance and I shall sing,

So merrily pass the day,

For I hold it one of the wisest things

To drive dull care away. — anon.

These are troublous times. Daily, our sensibilities are battered; we are forced to fear the worst. Each of us finds solace and good cheer where we can.

Me? In the ten months since the inauguration, I’ve been reading little else than the novels and short stories of P.G. Wodehouse. I guzzle them down, one after the next. Bottoms up!

Wodehouse’s oeuvre is not everyone’s decanter of fizz. When I read aloud passages from his work to Jo, she smiles but I soon perceive that she is mustering the self-discipline required not to squirm.

I adore the writings of “Plum,” as his friends called him. He’s funny.

Make an assertion like that and you’re bound to back it up with an example. Thus:

"Fine weather we're having," said Mortimer, who was a capital conversationalist.
"Yes," said the girl.
"I like fine weather."
"So do I."
"There's something about fine weather!"
"Yes."
"It's - it's - well, fine weather's so much finer than weather that isn't fine," said Mortimer.
He looked at the girl a little anxiously, fearing he might be taking her out of her depth, but she seemed to have followed his train of thought perfectly.
"Yes, isn't it?" she said. "It's so - so fine."
"That's just what I meant," said Mortimer. "So fine. You've just hit it."
He was charmed. The combination of beauty with intelligence is so rare.

Rare indeed! That makes me laugh.

His plots are the flimsiest of scaffolds. Paradoxically, he drapes those rickety scaffolds with just about the nimblest dialogues and most inventive prose any johnny has ever penned. The man never misses a beat. Every work is a gem, every sentence rings true. He seizes upon the mot juste, every time. His pitch is perfect.

He makes a monkey of prosy poetasters like your friend, the undersigned.

He was every bit as prolific as Bach or Picasso. Ninety novels! Over five hundred short stories! He wrote screenplays. He wrote 'the book' for many a hit Broadway musical, including Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” Lyrics for lots and lots of songs. Good ones, too! Like “He’s Just My Bill” from Jerome Kern’s “Showboat” and classic tin pan alleys songs like “Look for the Silver Lining.” He compels admiration.

In his short story, “Monkey Business,” he introduces Montrose Mulliner, an affable fool who tries his best. We catch a glimpse of ourselves in this goofball.

Montrose utters a speech that could have been Plum’s manifesto, his artistic credo. It’s a speech like those we sometimes find in Shakespeare wherein the author seems to be using a character as a guise so that he can speak directly to us, straight from his heart, his beliefs, his experience of life.

It touched my heart, truth be told, because it comes pretty close to my own artistic credo, too.

Here ’tis ….

“I am not a man who often speaks of these deeper things. On the surface, no doubt, I seem careless and happy-go-lucky. But I do hold very serious views on a citizen’s duties in this fevered modern age. I consider that each one of us should do all that lies in his power to fight the ever-growing trend of the public mind towards the morbid and the hectic.”

In that one well-turned graf, I find summarized most of what I’ve aspired to achieve in my music, my writings, my teaching, my life’s work. In my own small way, I have countered the morbid and the hectic as best I could, by mustering tunes and stories.

Now, you are probably expecting today’s dose of my music to be light and sweet. Sorry to disappoint. You can’t have the Light without the Dark, nor the sweet without the bitter. It’s gray November, after all. Almost exactly one year since the election.

To hear “November” from my “College Town Diary” beautifully played on the saxophone by William Perconti, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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I have always loved January.

My birthday falls smack dab in the middle, on the 16th.

From boyhood, January sets me aglow with anticipation. Presents, chocolate cake, best wishes for many returns of the day, feeling like a "big boy” because now it's official: I'm one year older. A milestone had been passed.

Next week, I’ll pass my sixty-eighth birthday milestone. Strange to tell, I’ve already lived longer than either of my grandfathers. Next year, I’ll have lived longer than my father did. After that I’ll be, so far as I know, the longest-lived male my gene pool has ever produced.

My arrival at the thresh-hold of Old Age has increased my joyful birthday feelings. I love my present age. I love my white beard and silvered temples, my round spectacles, my smile-wrinkles, my arresting mustache! I love being “an old guy who can still hack it.” My diminished ability to hear gives me a handy way out of awkward conversational moments.

I love the laugh that comes when I tell my students that I am the school’s "oldest living teacher.” They say that I am “the Gandalf of the school.” Some of them even call me “Mr. Gandalf.” That’s why I put together a Gandalf costume to wear to school on Halloween Day. (See below a photo of "Mr. Gandalf" in his classroom.)

Fifty years older than my students, I AM their Gandalf.

Like Gandalf, I am someone with “a life” far beyond the boundaries of the students' little world: one little school in one little corner of the great globe. The school is their Shire.

Like the hobbits, the students are chiefly concerned with themselves, their friends and families and the sundry goings-on in their immediate environment, more or less oblivious to much of anything else, except or beyond.

How do I measure up to Gandalf? His concern and affection for the hobbits is genuine, as is mine for my students. He is sometimes humorous. Me, too. His esoteric knowledge of wizardry might be compared to my knowledge of the subjects I teach: French, Music Theory, Storytelling, subjects arcane to my students.

The hobbits love Gandalf and I know my students love me. Vice versa.

But Gandalf is also wise. Am I?

Having dwelt in north central Middle Earth for two-thirds of a century, l must have acquired some wisdom. What, exactly? That’s a good question. A January question. A birthday question.

Pondering it for several weeks, in devising and revising this message, I’ve concluded that I can claim a "January wisdom,” partially expressed in the following wintry platitudes:

Simple is best.

Pretty is important.

No sewers, no symphonies.

Invest in yourself.

If you don’t ask questions, you don’t get answers.

Trust everyone until they lie to you once; then cease trusting them.

Happiness equals Reality minus Expectations.

All we have to do is decide how to use the time that is given to us.

Do your best. Afterwards, however it turns out, you’ll be able to say, “Well, I did my best.”

The sovereignty you have over your own work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.

Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

There are other forces at work in the world besides the will of Evil.

Things will work out because they have to.

Take it as it comes.

This too shall pass.

Such is my hoard of hibernal platitudes.

Speaking of platitudes reminds me of a story about Plato, another Wise Old Man, another Gandalf. I love this story. It comforts me. I try to remember to bring this story to mind whenever I find myself I festering with feelings of futility. I love retelling it aloud, in my own words.

Let’s imagine we’re together, you and I, there in your living room. Winter winds are blustering outside but there’s a fire in the fireplace, a colorful braided rug on the floor, the walls are brimming with bookshelves; you’re on the couch, wrapped in an afghan; I’m in the easy chair, my feet on your footstool; steam is rising from our twin cups of freshly-brewed, just-poured assam tea.

The perfect moment for a story ….

When Plato was an old man, his disciples learned that their master, when young, had written a play. They asked him about this and Plato acknowledged that it was true and that the play had won a prize.

Immediately all the disciples wanted to read the play, but Plato told them that it had not seemed worthy to him and that he had burned the only copy, accomplishing by his own hand what the passing of Time would eventually have done and will eventually do to everything we humans have thought and dreamed and made.

They were aghast. Then it occurred to them to ask if he remembered any lines from the play and could perhaps recite them.

Plato gazed up at the blue Mediterranean sky, tilted his bald head and drummed his fingertips on his chin. He breathed in a great lungful of the clear, clean Hellenic air and recited a speech from his play.

So struck were his disciples by the expressive power, the depth of thought and the transcendent majesty of what had fallen from his lips that they demanded to know: “Master, how could you have destroyed such a marvelous thing?”

The old philosopher shrugged. "If it was imbued with that which is false," he told them, "then it deserved to be burned. If it was imbued with that which is true, then neither fire nor the passing of time nor anything else will ever destroy it."

To hear “January” from my “College Town Diary” beautifully played on the saxophone by William Perconti, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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My good wife baked several dozen "Molasses crinkles,” that prince among cookie recipes, the cookie supreme, for munching by the adult volunteers and Boy Scouts during their long, long ride in a van from Lexington, Ohio to Canada’s Algonquin Provincial Park, four hours north of Toronto, site of the troop’s annual summer high adventure canoe trip.

The Scoutmaster, my old friend Dick Ferrell, drove the van. I rode ‘shotgun.’ After an hour or two, I opened one of the cookie tins.

“What you got there?” Dick demanded to know.

“Cookies! Molasses crinkles! The best! Jo baked ‘em for us all to eat on the way up.”

“Let me taste one of those.” He munched, slowly, thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “we’re not going to pass these out to the boys. These cookies are far too tasty to waste on the likes of them. They don’t know good food from diddley squat. To them, McDonald’s is a gourmet restaurant. These cookies will be reserved for the grownups.”

“What gives YOU the right to make that decision? It was my wife who baked ‘em.”

“And I thank her for doing so, from the depths of my tummy. But as it says in the Good Book, there’s no sense in casting pearls before swine. In the Art of the Cookie, these constitute a masterwork. Some things are for the discerning few. The plays of Shakespeare, the paintings of Rembrandt, the symphonies of Beethoven will never be embraced by the masses, nor should they be. The masses are content with far less.”

“You’re such a snob! Be that as it may, I insist that we share these cookies with the Scouts, all and sundry.”

“Let me have another one,” he replied. Steering with his left hand, he held the second cookie aloft in his right hand and called out to the boys. “Listen up, you guys! Mrs. Sowash has made cookies and sent them along. There’s plenty to go around. But these cookies are special, VERY special. Probably the most delicious cookies ever devised by human ingenuity. Before you are given a cookie, you must prove yourself WORTHY! You must EARN the right to eat one … by naming The Principal Ingredient that Mrs. Sowash used in the making of these extraordinary cookies.”

“Chocolate chips!” one Scout yelled out.

“Peanut butter!” yelled another.

“Nope,” said Mr. Ferrell.

Sugar, cinnamon, ginger, oatmeal, flour, eggs, raisins, walnuts, vanilla frosting … all were ventured, with the same result: “Nope.”

The Scouts’ imaginations strained further and further from the ingredients of the cookies they had known, rummaging ever more remote regions of the culinary world. An hour went by and none had guessed The Principal Ingredient.

What kind of weird, unnatural, bizarre and esoteric cookies had Mrs. Sowash fashioned?

“Oh, come on, Dick,” I said finally. But Dick is stubborn. He shook his head. Then he called out to the Scouts, “Alright, you bunch of sad sacks, I’ll give you a clue and here it is. (Dramatic pause.) The Principal Ingredient has to do with the hind-ends of little furry creatures.”

What? The hind-ends of little furry creatures?

They got to work on it. First, they made a list of every "little furry creature" they could think of. Squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, hamsters, girbils, rats, mice, mink, weasels, otters, beavers, koalas, chinchillas ... Then they made a list of every word or expression for "hind-end.” Bottom, behind, buttocks, butt, derrière, fanny, fundament, rump, hiney, keister, tush...

Finally, Chris Carpenter, one of the older Scouts and one of the brightest, leapt to his feet, thrusting his forefinger into the air and whooping, “I’ve GOT it!” He made his way to the front of the van and whispered his guess into Mr. Ferrell’s ear.

“Yep!” said Mr. Ferrell, “Chris has figured it out!” I presented Chris his hard-won cookie and, closing his eyes in ecstasy, the envy of every other heavily salivating Scout on board, he bit into the cookie. “Ah!” he said. “Dee-LISH-ious!” and returned to his seat.

You can’t keep a secret like that. Soon, Todd Boebel, Chris’ equally bright best friend, came forward and, after whispering The Principal Ingredient in Mr. Ferrell’s ear, received his reward. Gradually, one by one, the boys advanced, whispered the password, relished their reward and returned to their seats.

Soon, all the Scouts had proven themselves worthy, had earned a cookie. All except Heath Bair. He was close. He had all but attained enlightenment. He had determined the two component parts of the riddle. He had singled out the correct little furry creature. He had pinpointed the correct synonym for “hind-end.”

But, aghast, he could not combine the two concepts in a manner acceptable to any reasonable human being.

“Come on, Heath!” the other Scouts shouted. “Put ‘em together! You’ve got it! Just put ‘em together!”

“It can’t be RIGHT!” Heath shouted back. “It just can’t be RIGHT!”

“Heath, no! IT IS RIGHT! You’ve GOT it! Just put ‘em together! You’ve got it!”

“OH YEAH, RIGHT!” Heath shouted back, cynically and louder than ever. “I’M SURE! I’M SURE THAT MRS. SOWASH IS GONNA MAKE COOKIES OUT OF THE ASSES OF DEAD MOLES!”

Everybody laughed as hard as laughter can be laughed. We held our stomachs, twisted in our seats and punched each other, tears in our eyes, laughing ourselves silly, as only the male of the species can do, for a good five minutes.

Heath’s pronouncement became part and parcel of the legend and lore of Boy Scout Troop 152 of Lexington, Ohio. For days afterwards, during our high adventure canoe trip, none of us could resist the temptation to remind Heath, every now and again, of his Moment of Truth. “Hey, Heath,” we would say, with casual good cheer, “How ‘bout if we try and trap a few moles so's we can rustle up some good cookies like Mrs. Sowash makes?”

Heath was a good sport about it. “Okay, you guys,” he would say with a smile and wave and a shake of his head. “Okay, Okay.”

You’ll find Jo’s recipe for Molasses Crinkles at the end of this message.

To hear “June” from my “College Town Diary” beautifully played on the saxophone by William Perconti, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

Molasses Crinkles
3/4 c. shortening
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. light molasses
2 1/4 c. flour
2 t. soda
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. cloves
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. ginger
Mix shortening, sugar, egg and molasses thoroughly. Blend all dry ingredients. Mix the two. Chill. Roll dough in small balls. Dip tops in sugar. Place balls, sugared side up, 3 inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Sprinkle each with 2 or 3 drops of water. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, just until set, not hard.

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Waiting to be admitted, people had spontaneously arranged themselves into a line spilling out onto the sidewalks of New York.

Without knowing what it was that the people were waiting to see, I queued up at the line's tail end.

“When in Rome … “

With so many people in line, it must be worth seeing, whatever it was.

Soon others queued up behind me. All very proper, observing one of the unwritten laws that grease the gears of our society.

Taking one’s place in line is “comme il faut,” an unquestioned given, in English-speaking parts of the world. Along with the Magna Carta, trial by jury, the plays of Shakespeare and the prose of Charles Dickens, it is among the many gifts Anglo-Saxia has bestowed upon the world.

We take it for granted, this instinctual willingness to wait in line, but there are broad swaths of the world where the custom is unknown.

A bus driver in Vancouver told me that twenty years earlier, when he had commenced his career behind the wheel, riders had formed lines at bus stops as a matter of course, but that, as more and more Asians swelled the local population, the practice had ceased. He said that nowadays Vancouverites arrange themselves into a large bubble of humanity at the open bus door. They wait as a group, politely, quietly, never shoving or elbowing, but never in a line. He said that the spontaneous forming of lines is "not an Asian habitude."

(Is this true? I don’t know. I merely report what he said.)

I soon realized that we were lined up in front of the Morgan Library at 225 Madison Avenue. I was in the city for a December conference but there were no events scheduled for Saturday afternoon, leaving attendees at liberty to shop and explore the city. I’m no shopper but I love tramping crowded sidewalks, ambulating to the rhythm of the city, taking in the department stores’ Christmas window displays, honing my skills at people-watching.

I had a dim idea that the Morgan Library was the erstwhile home of the Gilded Age banker J. Pierpont Morgan and that its collection of rare books, prints and paintings, illuminated scripture, original musical manuscripts notated by the likes of Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky and Bob Dylan (!), was available for public inspection.

Still, why the line? Would that many people wait in line for a glimpse Stravinsky’s hand-written score for “Petrouchka”?

I eavesdropped on my fellow wait-in-liners, ahead and behind me, hoping to overhear a hint about what it was we were waiting to see. No luck.

I was shy about asking, “What is it that we are waiting to see?” I didn’t like to make plain my status as a clueless sheep shambling along with other wooly-headed members of my species, destined for the slaughter, for all I knew.

At length we were admitted. It was warm in the foyer and I removed my hat, gloves and scarf. We shuffled past glass display cases and through the immense library room, an eye-popper, with intricately decorated ceilings three stories overhead, gorgeous doors and paneling, medieval tapestries on the walls and, all around, carved wooden bookshelves burgeoning with “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore."

We filed through a narrow hall that opened into a small room containing a single glass display case, flanked by armed security guards. I saw the people ahead of me in line quite literally bowing over the display. Had we been waiting to view a sacred relic? Would a bow would be expected of me when my turn came?

Drawing closer, I saw that the bow was necessary for a close examination of the item. The folks ahead of me kept their investigations brief, perhaps in deference to the dozens waiting behind them or perhaps because little time was required to appreciate it, whatever it was. Once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. Time to move on.

Finally, my turn came.

A leather-bound notebook was displayed, opened to page one, a piece of manuscript paper covered with handwriting, with many words stricken through with a thick line of ink, with cramped revisions crowded between lines, over top the scratched-out words, all jotted in a crabbed cursive, an almost illegible longhand, distinctly Victorian.

The first three words were plainly written, no revisions, easy to read:

“Marley was dead.”

With a pleasant shock, I realized what I was scrutinizing: the original manuscript, written in the author’s own hand, of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” the Holy Grail of our Anglo-Saxon concept of the whole point and purpose of Christmas, our best-known, best-loved emblematicization of the possibility of redemption.

It was the perfect thing to behold in a great city on a cold December afternoon.

It was to be wondered at, though twenty seconds sufficed. I made my way to the exit and was soon on the sidewalk. Gloves on, scarf wrapped and knotted beneath my gray beard, hat bedecking my silvering temples, beaming at all and sundry, I might have passed for Ebenezer Scrooge as he appears at the end of the tale -- after he has turned over his new leaf, not before!

Suddenly, unexpectedly, I found myself aglow with the spirit of the Season. It showed, I’m sure, in my twinkling eyes, my affectionate grin, my red and wind-busked cheeks.

Seeing me smile and nod at them, passing Manhattanites may have thought that I was mentally deficient. More likely, they simply assumed that I was from the Midwest and didn’t know any better.

I didn’t care what anyone thought. I felt happy to be alive and proud to be a bona fide member of the species that had produced Charles Dickens, the self-same person who, in the fullness of time, would in turn produce “A Christmas Carol."

My jovial "God-bless-us-every-one!” mood prevailed during my stroll around Manhattan that afternoon. What I felt during those hours is precisely expressed in the “December” movement of “A College Town Diary,” my twelve-movement suite for unaccompanied clarinet or saxophone.

Will you give it a listen? It asks only a minute and eighteen seconds of your time.

To hear saxophonist William Perconti’s sly, witty rendition of “December” from A College Town Diary, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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You must have looked through the wrong end of a telescope. It used to amaze me, as a kid. Things that were big and near looked tiny and far away.

What would it be like to HEAR music through the wrong end of an auditory telescope, if such a thing can be imagined?

It would be like hearing The William Tell Overture played upon an ocarina.

Beethoven's Emperor Concerto played on an African thumb piano.

The Hallelujah Chorus on a kazoo.

Or a loving parody of a Sousa march played, NOT by "seventy six trombones … with a hundred and ten cornets right behind,” but instead by exactly one saxophone.

The “July” movement from my College Town Diary for solo clarinet is precisely that.

To hear saxophonist William Perconti playing the movement, click the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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On a hill above the Kokosing River, overlooking the cornfields of central Ohio, reposes the village of Gambier, the seat of Kenyon College. Founded and funded in the early 19th-century by two wealthy Englishmen, Lord Gambier and Lord Kenyon, it was intended to be what it continues to be: a fragment of the Old World’s Etonian traditions improbably plopped smack dab in the center of the Buckeye State.

My wife, our two children and I passed six happy years living in Gambier, prior to moving to Cincinnati in 1994. We were ’townies,’ enjoying the absence of any affiliation with the College. Our view of Kenyon was ironic.

Irony is frequent in our conversations and literature. Language bends toward irony much more readily than music.

Music is sincere, heartfelt. There’s nothing ironic about Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet or Debussy’s La Mer. In works like those, the apparent meaning IS the actual meaning.

Musical irony is rare, but it does exist. Prokofiev’s March from the Love of Three Oranges or the faux-triumphant finale of Charles Ives’ Second Symphony or Peter Schickele’s superb A Bach Portrait exemplify irony, demonstrating that a composer, like anyone else, may harbor the capacity to simultaneously admire and mock something, may mingle genuine admiration and sneering mockery.

The buildings and campus of Kenyon College are so lovely that it can be difficult to remember where they are located. Gambier is an Anglophile’s dream and never more so than in August at the annual Opening Convocation featuring a majestic procession of banner-waving faculty ‘in full battle array,’ costumed in caps and gowns, the accoutrements of their academic status.

For me at least, a bystander in the crowds gathered on either side of “Middle Path,” watching the procession evoked an amalgam of admiration and mockery.

The twelve short movements of my suite for solo clarinet, “A College Town Diary,” express some characteristic of life in Gambier during a particular month.

For the “August” movement, I wrote an presumptuous little march in the manner of Edward Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance marches, the most famous of which is quoted, twice. The first time, it’s sly and a bit hidden, like me when I tried not to laugh at the sight of 'the perfessers’ waddling past in their robes, sweating under their mortar boards in the heat of an August day in Ohio. You’ll have to listen closely to catch it the first time but it comes out from hiding pretty clearly at the end.

Am I sneering at professors, Kenyon and Elgar here? Or am I admiring those entities?

See what you think. As you listen to “August” ask yourself, is this admiration or mockery?

( Spoiler: It’s both! Musical irony, violà! )

To hear saxophonist William Perconti playing the movement, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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Heath Bair blinked in astonishment. Just beneath the surface of the water, two steps off the rocky shoreline, was a snapping turtle as big as a wheelbarrow.

Something this amazing must be shared. Heath looked around and spotted me.

“Mr. Sowash! Come here, quick! You won’t believe this!”

I came right over, looked where he was pointing and jumped.

“Oh, my gosh! This is incredible! I never saw such a big turtle!”

I hurried back to the campsite. We had just finished breakfast and the scouts were getting things squared away for another day of adventuring on Big Crow Lake in Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. I told them to drop whatever they were doing and follow me, quick. They saw that I was serious and fell in behind me.

They were all amazed. We watched Heath's snapping turtle for a long time, speculating about his age and weight and whether or not he could 'bite your arm off.'

After a while, the others drifted back to the campsite. Heath and I lingered. He interested us, this testudine. We did not interest him in the least. Insofar as we were neither snails, worms, leeches, water plants, small fish, frogs, toads, smaller turtles nor even snakes, he gave us nary a modicum of consideration.

Heath’s discovery warranted an affirmation. I would deliver it.

Affirmation from a family member is fine but, if a kid is lucky, such affirmations are just part of family life and not particularly cherished at the time.

Contrariwise, when someone older and outside the family affirms a young person, it means the world.

A few elders outside my family affirmed me: my Scoutmaster, two or three high school teachers, a college instructor. It was enough. I try to be alert to occasions when I can do some affirming, a way of returning the favor by passing it along.

Intending to gift Heath with an affirmation, I said, “Good work, Heath. If you hadn’t spotted that turtle, probably none of us would ever have seen such a thing.”

Heath was still looking at the creature. “Seeing that turtle just made my day,” he said.

So far, so good. But then the cynical jerk that lurks in me and in all of us suddenly found his voice. Regretting it as soon as it was out, I said, “Yeah, but what about tomorrow? How you gonna equal that?” What a jerk.

It didn’t phase him. He simply said, “Oh, there’ll be somethin’ else tomorrow. There always is.”

The words of Jesus came to me: “Not in all Israel have I found such faith.”

I had thought I was being the Wise Teacher. Now it was Heath who was teaching me: "There’ll be somethin’ else tomorrow. There always is.”

It’s been thirty years since Heath said that; I remember the incident as clearly as if we’d come upon that turtle yesterday morning.

There always IS something else tomorrow. All we have to do is expect it and keep our eyes open. That’s how I want to live!

May we all aspire to the wisdom and faith of the 14-year-old Heath Bair.

Sometimes I think gangs come into existence because young men, failing to find affirmation from older men, find there a dark but better-than-nothing affirmation. But what do I know about gangs?

Sometimes I think that young people join the military partly in hopes of being affirmed by an elder. I remember an older man, a dealer in rare books, telling me, “When I joined the Marines, I was illiterate. My drill sergeant taught me to read and write. He began by fashioning a stencil I could use to sign my name.” What an affirmation that was!

Sometimes I think that schools and colleges came into existence partly because parents, however affluent and loving, know that there are affirmations they cannot give. They deliver their children to such institutions not only to become educated but also in hopes that the affirmation young people crave will be found there.

The September movement from my "College Town Diary" for solo clarinet, depicts a vulnerable, homesick Freshperson.

To hear Bill Perconti playing the September movement on his saxophone, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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Creativity. How do we do it?

We ask ourselves a question. Answers come, telling us what to do. Then, we act.

Seeing the end result, people marvel. They are inspired by the fact of our having done the work and also, hopefully, by the content of the artwork itself.

“How did you come up with that?” they ask. Often, before we can answer, they conclude: "I guess you’re just creative.”

Sure, we’re creative. But there is a process.

Two examples.

First, over the past two days, I’ve written a story, a story that didn’t exist two days ago.

Why? How?

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I teach two 75-minute classes -- French One and French Two — to fifteen bright, funny, energetic teenagers. I’m mid-way through my sixth year of doing this. I love every minute of it.

I have not found a French textbook that pleases me. I’ve look at about 40 of them; only one didn’t bore me. It’s pretty good and I use it on-and-off.

Last summer I decided to write my own stories in French, for use in my courses. My stories had to be written in simple, basic French and they had to be funny or suspenseful or both.

I began by asking myself a question. What plot would my students find funny or suspenseful? Gradually, answers came. I wrote about two dozen stories, each just 40 sentences long. I numbered the sentences so that we could study them carefully, one at a time, in sequence, understanding as we went and referring back to words used in earlier sentences. I underlined the words that would be new to the students.

Well, my stories are a hit. We’ve been through all of the stories I wrote last summer and now they want more. You see? I HAVE to write more stories, I HAVE to be creative. I have put myself in the position of having no choice. They are insisting and will not be gainsaid.

When I got home from school on Thursday afternoon, I took a nap. Half-asleep, I watched another new story take shape. Our hero wants to join Robin Hood and his Merry Men (Robin des Bois et ses Joyeux Compagnons) but when he goes to Sherwood Forest the guards tell him he is too young, weak and absurd and that, in any case, the whole operation is out of business because Robin has been captured. So, of course, with a little supernatural assistance, he rescues Robin and becomes the newest Merry Man. All in French. Fun stuff! I am very eager to spring it on my classes next week.

Friends, that is how creative work is done.

Now, a second example. When we lived in Gambier, Ohio, a college town, a neighbor asked me to write some music she could play on her clarinet, unaccompanied, and just for her own amusement.

I asked myself, what music would Susan like to play? A series of twelve short, fun, intriguing pieces, each depicting a calendar month. I titled the suite “A College Town Diary.” The suite begins with “August” since that is when the school year commences at Gambier’s Kenyon College. This prompted me to ask myself, “What music would be apt for August in Gambier?” And so forth, with all twelve movements.

Today, I’m sharing the movement titled “February” as an example of how creativity works. I asked, "What music for February?" Well, with what do we associate February? Valentine’s Day and by extension, Romantic Love.

That prompted me to ask, “What music would express Romantic Love?” There is no shortage of precedents. All those great love themes from Hollywood films, from Broadway musicals, from operas and tone poems. What could I conceive that would extend, a little, those traditions?

It had to be a yearning, languorous melody, written in a major key but with a flatted sixth. That is to say, in C major but with the sixth degree of the scale being an A flat instead of the usual A natural. With this in mind, I noodled around in my head, humming and whistling, then trying out the shapes on the piano until -- Bingo! — the tune was born and the movement took shape.

You see? I asked myself some questions, listened for answers and then did what the answers told me to do.

That is my account of how creative work is done.

To hear saxophonist Bill Perconti, playing “February” from A College Town Diary, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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Our happiest years as a family were 1988 - 1994 when we lived in the little college town of Gambier, Ohio. So small, it had not a single stoplight. Our kids, who were six- and three-years-old when we arrived attended Wiggin Street Elementary School and a very sweet place it was.

The school's annual "May Fun Fair" was a fundraising event that featured a genuine cakewalk. Do you know what that is? I knew Debussy’s “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” but had never participated in a cakewalk in person.

The piano player (me) was positioned in the center of the gym floor. A dozen squares in various colors of duct tape were placed on the floor in a wide circle stretching to the edges of the gym. When the ragtime music was being played, about fifty grownups and children would shuffle and dance from square to square. After a minute or two the music would abruptly stop and the pianist (me) would yell out the color of one of the squares. “Red!” or “Blue!” or “Yellow!” Whoever happened to be standing on that particular square got their choice of a “cake” from a table of baked goods the families had prepared.

This was a very big deal, especially for the children. You were not allowed to win twice; nearly everyone triumphed, winning at least a cupcake.

Happy Memories!

I improvised quasi-ragtime tunes and one of them stuck in my head, becoming the “May” movement of my College Town Diary, originally scored for solo clarinet.

To hear saxophonist Bill Perconti playing “May” from A College Town Diary, click on the link above.

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Once again this year, same as last year, April Fool’s Day came and went and I wasn’t able to play any tricks, one small factor of life during a pandemic.

So instead of playing one on you, I’m going to let you in on one of my favorites, a stunt I’ve pulled dozens of times.

First, the set up. A practical joke must be set up. The set up for this one is intricate and must be done exactly right. Read the following instructions carefully and follow them ‘to a t.’ Practical joking is a serious business!

You’re giving someone a lift in your car. Our car happens to be a 2013 Honda Fit, but the type of car you have doesn’t matter; the trick can be done with any kind of car.

Your prospective victim must not be a family member; your family knows you too well. They know you’re a trickster and they won’t fall for it. Maybe your passenger is a fellow chorister and you are kindly giving them a ride home after choir rehearsal (when such things resume).

After you’ve both settled in for the ride and have been chatting for a while, your passenger will very likely ask you something about your vehicle. People are curious about cars, particularly newer models; it’s a source of conversation. The advent of electric cars will heighten this curiosity, opening new vistas of opportunity for those who know this trick.

Your passenger will ask, “So, how do you like your _______?” (Tesla, Prius, Honda or whatever) ...

You must wait for your victim to pose this question. The victim must introduce the topic, not you. This gives them the illusion that they are controlling the dialogue.

If they don’t ask, you must resist the temptation to inquire. Do not say, “Would you like to know how I like my [your model] ?” That would tip your hand. Likewise, do not say, “Let me show you a peculiar feature of my [your model].” Such statements raise suspicions and will alert the passenger.

Wait for the inquiry in an expectant silence. If you are blessed with or suffer from logorrhea, pleonasm and/or periphrasis, or all of the above, as I do, the long, silent wait will be difficult for you. Trust me, your patience will be rewarded.

When they finally make the inquiry, reply truthfully. Say: “Oh, I like it just fine. It handles well and it gets good mileage. It’s easy to parallel park and can make sharp turns.”

Let this sink in for a moment, then continue in the same, matter of fact tone.

“It has some pretty cool features.” Name one or two. These can be very minor but they must be true. Tell them about the cute little icon that lights up when the gas is low. Or the cheery little beeps that remind you to buckle up.

Then, in the same truth-telling tone of voice, you add, “Also, the horn is on the dashboard.”

“What?”

“Yep.”

Steering with your left hand, you extend your right hand until you can lightly press your fingers onto the dashboard directly in front of your passenger. Your passenger will be watching your right hand. At the precise moment you press the dashboard with the fingertips of your right hand, you use your left thumb to give the horn (which is, of course, actually on the steering wheel), a toot.

“Well, I’ll be darned!” they’ll say. “I never heard of this!”

“It makes a lot of sense,” you say, reasonably, appreciatively. “Suppose you spot something that I don’t -- like a deer running out of the woods or a car in front of us suddenly hitting the brake -- well, with the horn on the dashboard, YOU can sound the toot!”

Then you say, “You can try it if you like, but not right now.” Refer to the actual traffic situation in which you find yourself, saying something like, “I don’t want this guy in front of us to think that we’re tooting at him.” Or, “Wait until we get through this intersection.”

Your passenger will wait, exclaiming the while, “This is amazing! How clever!”

At this point in the proceedings, my friend Claire announced, “A WOMAN thought of this! I just KNOW that it was a woman’s idea! Her husband was driving and she told him to toot the horn at some jerk who just sat there after the traffic light had turned green -- and her husband wouldn’t do it! And THAT was when the idea popped into her head!”

Of course, your passenger will be very eager to toot the dashboard-horn, but they will wait respectfully.

Finally, when the traffic situation would seem to allow for an impunitious toot, you say, “Now’s a good time.”

They press the dashboard. Nothing happens.

“That’s funny,” you say, reaching over with your right hand again and pressing. This time it toots.

They try again. Nothing.

“Maybe you’re not pushing hard enough,” you suggest, trying to be helpful.

They push on the dashboard even harder but nary a toot is heard.

You could try to time an actual toot with the moment they make their third attempt, but timing it just right is very difficult. I usually just let them continue to push in vain.

You will be surprised at the people who will fall for this. My favorite victims are college professors. But I’ve pulled it on doctors, lawyers, pastors, teachers, students, actors, musicians. All walks of life. It never fails.

From this point forward, play it as it comes. Driving our 2013 Honda Fit, I sometimes will say, “The honking dashboard was only in the 2013 Honda Fit. The feature was discontinued after that. Most people just didn’t know about it. We only discovered it by accident. I mean, it’s in the driver’s manual but who actually reads a driver’s manual? Life’s too short for that.”

Summarize thus: “What times we live in, eh?” Shake your head in wonder and add, “What will they think of next?”

In my “Suite from ‘A College Town Diary’” for clarinet and piano, there’s a movement titled “Eccentric Professor.”

Alas, this suite has not yet been recorded. I can only offer you the mp3 of a MIDI file, i.e., my computer’s aural rendering the score.

It sounds robotic, but for this particular piece ‘robotic’ is OK, because the joke is that the music, like the eccentric professor it portrays, is inflexible.

The tune waddles along, like an eccentric professor, badly in need of a haircut, wearing a shabby corduroy jacket and wool tie, chomping a pipe, lugging a battered, bulging briefcase as he makes his way across the campus on an April day.

His mind has long since been made up, once and for all, on just about everything. Often wrong, but never in doubt! He probably hasn’t even noticed that Spring has arrived. What he needs is to have a good practical joke played on him. What he needs is the honking dashboard.

to hear the MP3 file of “Eccentric Professor,” click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.

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When I was a third grader at Brinkerhoff Elementary School in Mansfield, Ohio, Mrs. Nye, a music teacher, visited our class once a week. For half an hour, we were to sit still, pay attention and try to do as she asked. She taught us little songs, explaining them, singing them and then directing our singing of them in turn.

One of these was “Stodola Pumpa,” a Czech folk song. I can still sing it:

“Stodola, stodola, stodola pumpa
Stodola pumpa, stodola pumpa … “

Mrs. Nye told us that the correct way to pronounce “pumpa” was “poom-pah,” which was so close to “poop-uh” that I and my friend Jeff Bell, who sat next to me, found it hilarious. Really? We were supposed to sing “poop-uh?” We shook with suppressed laughter.

When the time came for us to sing, Jeff Bell and I sang our heads off. We sang, as loudly as we could:

“Solid, solid, solid poop-uh,
Solid poop-uh, solid poop-uh … “

I fear we accrued neither honor nor glory for our family names that day. Neither were we role models for our classmates. We were bad boys.

But wait, there’s more. Mrs. Nye next taught us another song that I can still sing, titled “Grandma Grunts.” This was the refrain:

Grandma grunts, “It’s a curious thing:
Boys can whistle but girls must sing.”

When Mrs. Nye announced the title of that song and began to sing it for us, Jeff Bell and I looked at one another with raised eyebrows. We could hardly believe our ears. A song about a constipated, elderly female relative? No use trying to stifle ourselves. It was hopeless. We loosed a ‘crescendo’ (a musical term Mrs. Nye had taught us) of laughter.

Coming hard upon “solid poop-uh,” the phrase “Grandma grunts” had us laughing so hard that the tears streamed down our cheeks. Our abdomens ached. We clutched our midriffs. We gasped between hoots; we hooted between gasps. We were beserk.

Mrs. Nye was nice but old, we thought, and daffy. I wonder, did she have any notion as to why Jeff Bell and I were laughing so hard?

She didn’t try to silence us, didn’t send us into the hallway. Oblivious or heroic or both, she stuck with her lesson plan and led the singing.

Mrs. Crawford, our regular teacher, would not have tolerated our uproarious disruption; she would have sent us to the principal’s office. But when Mrs. Nye arrived for her weekly visit, Mrs. C., as we called her, left the classroom and retreated to the teacher’s lounge for a half hour of repose. Thus, she did not witness the effect of “Grandma Grunts” upon Jeff Bell and the undersigned.

I still deem that one the funniest moments I ever lived through, one of the few times in my long life when I laughed myself into an hysteria that could be described, without exaggeration, as Dionysian.

Of course, I was a kid. Everything was funnier then. Now that I’m in my 70’s, sure, my memory of that music lesson is amusing; it warrants a light chuckle. But it does not wrangle me into a frantic fit of frenzy, a ‘panic’ in the original sense of the word: extreme merrymaking. It doesn’t deliver me, delirious, at the doorstep of nervous collapse.

Today, that memory is mildly funny in the way that certain pieces of instrumental music are mildly funny. Music can be deft, light, rippling, witty, even ironical. It can catch us off guard when the melody leaps or the harmony shifts in unexpected ways. But without funny words, very few pieces of instrumental music soar into the rarified realm of the 24-carat knee-slappers, the genuine gut-busters.

Spike Jones could do it, yes, and Peter Schickele. Geniuses. Comic geniuses, yes, but geniuses nevertheless.

My own attempts at the “sweet thunder” of musical mirth, though adequately “pert and nimble” and sufficiently “merry in spirit,” never attain the intensity that Spike and Pete (who proudly acknowledges Spike as his inspiration) achieved at their best, let alone the composer of “Grandma Grunts.”

“A College Town Diary,” my droll little suite for solo clarinet or saxophone, amuses me and, I’m told, those who play and hear it. I propose to share one of its movements via the link indicated below. Never fear. It will not absent you from your sanity, not the way that memorable music lesson did for Jeff Bell and your obedient servant, so long ago, at Brinkerhoff Elementary.

To hear saxophonist William Perconti’s sly, witty rendition of the “December” movement from “A College Town Diary,”, click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.