Unpurchasability

A pleasant surprise on the radio yesterday, as I drove Cleo home from a walk and a visit to the post office: passages from Alexandre Tansman's 1951 Cavatina, which was arranged for guitar by none other than Segovia. The portions I heard were refreshingly meditative, and you can get a sense of the music, if through the lens of a slightly indulgent and pretentious performance, in online footage of Lorenzo Micheli. Just ignore the mannered head lolls and the affected parallels between Micheli's parted lips and those of Bernini's Teresa, and I bet you'll enjoy it.

While there are several videos of Tansman's work being played online, though, his music seems -to my real surprise - unpurchasable through ITunes. Is it really possible that the merchandisers at Apple hve yet to colonize this island in the archipelago of classical music? It seems so. Which, in turn, strikes me as a fact worth savoring for a moment. It's like the feeling of stumbling upon, while traveling, a warm trattoria or a pleasantly designed city sqaure that's simply not in your guidebook. Sure, the world is now largely catalogued and merchandised, but at least there are some real surprises along the way.

And that's a thought, in turn, that keeps me from becoming too cyncial as a parent. Leaf through the pages of the most recent copy of Parenthood magazine, and you'll find a colorful multi-page spread advertising the latest baby environments designed by FisherPrice - a spread that winds up, ironically, with the company knowingly telling us that "This is the moment to fill your home with love, not lots of stuff." Sounds good - at least until you remember that stuff is exactly what's being peddled: angled cribs; rainforest swings; activity centers for nine-month-olds.

Now, I'd be a hypocrite if I decried all objects marketed towards parents, for we've certainly benefitted from a small arsenal of plastic blocks, rubberized baby spoons, car seats, and so on. But we've also put up small barricades of resistance: in swapping toys with friends, recently, we managed to give Cleo a new range of options without having to visit a box store. But perhaps even more important here is, again, the realization that there are many valuable things that simply haven't yet been made, in China or elsewhere. A raspberry on the belly, to produce a high-pitched Cleo squeal? Well, they're free and they never break down. A game of peek-a-boo, with one of Mommy's scarves? The engineers at Mattel can't quite replicate it, in hard plastic.

Perhaps they'll figure out a way to, at some point. And I'm sure that recordings of Tansman will eventually crop up on ITunes. This morning, though, let's take a small delight in those things that cannot yet be bought, and yet can bring happiness.

Persistence

So, sure, my most publicly active reader of late has been a respondent who leaves comments in Mandarin and who seems to have an affinity for Leo Buscaglia. And, sure, the initially ambitious pace of posts has waned in a manner all too predictable: I'm like Lenny Dykstra in 1990, coming out of the gate with a bang, but gradually sinking below the .400 mark, below .380, and then, by September, below .350. It's a long season, folks.

But it's not over. Not by any means. Not when there are developments like this:

So I'll keep plugging away, just as Nails did in his ill-fated 1998 comeback attempt. Just keep that espresso and those Chinese remarks coming...

At hand

I don't think I've mentioned, in my sparse recent postings, that I recently traveled to Chicago for a three-day art history conference (one of the reasons, in fact, for the sparseness of postings of late). And therefore, I don't think I've mentioned, either, that I wound up, due to the whimsy of Hotwire, staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, on the same floor as a display of a 1991 Madonna concert costume. And, as a result, I haven't had a chance to note that, when one stays in the Hard Rock Hotel, one can rent a Gibson guitar for the evening. In fact, the guitars are arranged on a rack right behind the main counter. Need to strum or wail? Just let us know, they tell you when you check in, and we'll have one sent right up.

Which is, it strikes me, somewhat comparable to the situation in our house these days. Cleo, of course, would be the client, and we've tried to anticipate all of her possible whimsies with a range of appropriate toys. Need to chew on something? Hey, try the Whoozit, or the rubber duck. Feel like standing up, with a prop? The Neurosmith cube's right here; just let us know. And so on: in fact, we've even got outfits from 1991 that we, too, can show you, if you're in the mood.

The Hard Rock certainly worked for me; it was close to the conference, affordable, and generally pretty tasteful. In fact, in an exit survey, I was happy to recommend it to other customers of Hotwire. We're still waiting to see how many stars Cleo gives our pink house. But, whatever she decides, we don't expect to be dinged for failing to attend to our client's whimsies. We don't yet have, as the Hard Rock did, the life-sized photo of Styx' lead guitarist in action, and we don't offer tiny bottles of mint-rosemary shampoo. Then again, the Hard Rock Hotel didn't seem to have any music-making monkeys, or squeaky toys, on hand. In this business, you earn your stars by catering to your particular guests.

Coming upon

Is there a word, in English, for the pleasure one feels in coming across an idea or possibility that, although previously unfamiliar, immediately promises reward? A combination of discovery and anticipation; the feeling, perhaps, that accompanies a kiss, at the outset of a relationship, or that attends the first view of a city towards which one's plane is descending. This, one senses, could be wonderful.

Early in the 1820s, Franz Schubert issued an ominous invitation to his friend Joseph von Spaun. "Come over to [their friend] Schober's today," he said, "and I will sing you a cycle of horrifying songs. I am anxious to know what you will say about them. They have cost my more effort than any of my other songs." When von Spaun arrived, what he heard was remarkable: the entire Winterreise cycle, sung by Schubert in an especially emotional voice. "We were utterly dumbfounded," von Spaun later remembered, "by the mournful, gloomy tone of these songs."

My copy of Winterreise arrived yesterday, in the mail, and as soon as I put it in - with Cleo in one arm, and large, talon-like icicles outside the window - I knew what von Spaun had meant. How could you miss it? The songs open onto a bleak landscape of melancholy that is virtually without parallel, in my experience of music. "Look!" reads a section of Dreams of Spring. "Who has painted leaves on the windowpane, as if to mock the dreamer who sees flowers in winter?"

A question that resonates especially powerfully this week, as we scurry through walls of snow, slide across iced pools of temporarily melted, and then re-frozen, water, and study, with close attention, the deals on cruises that float into our inbox. Who has placed, we wonder, the book with the many flowers within Cleo's reach, as though it were April, rather than February? Are the plush lambs that surround her a real prospect, or merely a cold joke?

Cleo, of course, doesn't ask such questions. And she doesn't worry about the text of the lieder. For her, discovery lies not in a CD case so much as in major principles, which are currently the source of her fascination. When she throws things, they roll, and stop. When she drops them, from her high chair, they drop - and then Daddy picks them up (until he doesn't). And when she smiles, strangers smile at her.

The world outside may seem mournful, gloomy, desperate. The one inside, though, seems full of hope.

Snowbound

With Baltimore more or less turned into Omsk (we had 26 inches of snow last weekend, and are currently in blizzard conditions that will dump up to 20 more on us today), L. and I have been pulling out all of the stops in trying to keep Cleo entertained.

Improvised fortress, made of a Malagasi lamba stretched over some stacked plastic toys? Done. A game of Texas Hold 'Em, with me as dealer and Cleo as outlaw, chewing sagely on her cards? Check. Strapping her into the Baby Bjorn and swaying about the dining room to old Madonna ballads? That was L.'s good idea (Cleo seems partial to the slow songs, and we can thus already see her, cell phone held high and illuminated, at a concert of whatever the 2022 equivalent of the Jonas Brothers or Lady Gaga might be). We still haven't plunked her down in front of CSI: Miami, but let another 20 inches fall in the coming days, and she might have to become a fan of the show.

L.'s definitely more creative than me when it comes to such activities, but I've been the star of at least one modest success. The old guitar that's sat, sadly ignored, in the corner of our room for the past few years, has suddenly acquired a new relevance. Indeed: strap it on, tune it up, and play a few familiar chords, and you've got a rapt 8-month-old. Her initial expressions, on first hearing the singing strings, were really wonderful: a mixture of pure curiosity, slight apprehension, and, perhaps, real concern at my seeming inability to strum three chords cleanly, without major mistakes.

While listening, Cleo likes to reach out and touch the bright tuning pegs, and the ends of the strings. But those of you who have visited might remember that we have an ancient, hulking piano, as well (free from Craig's list; it seems to have been made c. 1920, although given its weight and the stunning degree to which it is out of tune it might as well have been fashioned by Icelandic smiths in around 700). Anyway: a piano, it turns out, can interest even the tiniest hands. So we've also been sitting, Cleo in our lap, at the keyboard every now and then for three or four minutes at a spell, letting her bang away, and become attuned to the ancient relation between cause and effect.

In the meantime, L. and I learn other ancient patterns. Shovel, drink hot chocolate. Feel sore. Bake; share with the neighbors. And so on. It's odd, perhaps, that such a daunting and even dangerous storm - a storm that's left a number of motorists stranded, and has closed schools for six days now - should bring us together, both as a neighborhood and as a family, but that's, perhaps, its happiest aspect. So let it snow, let it snow: so far, so good.

Experimentation

So I woke up on Saturday, with the house covered in 18 inches of snow and flakes still raining down, to two noises. In the guest bedroom, Cleo's shrieks of delight, while playing with L., who's generously been doing the early shift (c. 5:30-6:30 a.m.) of late. And, on the clock radio next to me, a recorded saxophone squealing a series of seemingly unmoored notes and reedy squeaks in a sequence that was too unconventional to be called a melody, and yet too delicious to be simply dismissed. It was James Carter, the dj helpfully announced after an atonal climax, winding up a 2009 live performance of Street of Dreams.

Even while wrapped in a groggy, snowbound haze I felt that I was hearing something special in Carter's performance. When I looked up reviews, later, I found an All Music Guide review of the album that referred to "Carter's idiosyncratic penchant for mixing old-school bop blowing and avant-garde skronk with a bit more greasy funk." Well, okay. But what it really felt like to me was pure experimentation and exploration. What can this saxophone do, Carter seemed to ask?

And that, of course, seems to be a question that Cleo asks about her body virtually every hour of the day. If I blow out of my mouth, with my lips closed, what will happen? If I suddenly, without warning anybody in the room, release my grip on the support that's holding me up, what might transpire? How do my toes taste? And so on: a baby's body is a world that awaits discovery.

It's tempting, then, to say that experimentation is a pure and simple good. It can yield rich and unprecedented music, and it leads, over the course of months, to a greater sense of self: to full coordination, and to new abilities. But before we go too far, it's probably worth keeping in mind that experimentation can lead to some odd results. For instance, have a look at this undeniably innovative product from China:

Hmmm. So it's probably too simple to place experimentation in the proud list of unmitigatedly good things (with, say, pumpkin pie and Romanesque capitals). Nevertheless, in the soft grey of a winter's morning, there are worse things than wakening to the sounds of experimenting.

Predictability

Cleo's now 8 months and a day old and, if you think about it, the world's more or less only been getting colder since she was born. We're supposed to get a foot or more of snow tonight, which will put us well over 40 inches for the season -and while I'm sure that there are many well-adjusted babies in, say, Winnipeg (average annual snowfall: 40 inches) or King Salmon, Alaska (46 inches), I do wonder about Cleo. I mean, does she know, on some level, that the sun will eventually grow strong again?

Such a question is really, though, just another way of acknowledging that it takes an immense amount of courage to be a baby. Or is it simply raw, naive faith? The way in which Cleo opens her mouth as wide as she can, when hungry, to eat a spoonful of whatever we happen to have chosen is simply heartmelting: she can't imagine, it seems, that we'd choose something harmful to her. And, similarly, when I watch her learning to support herself on two feet, by gripping a nearby toy, I'm struck by how fully she assumes that someone will be there to catch her, or to cushion her inevitable fall.

Of course, we usually are (boy, I'd like to write always, but, well, you know). And that must at least begin to explain why babies usually begin to cry less and less as they grow older, and as they grow used to their surroundings. After three or four months, they've learned more or less what, and whom, they can depend on. The shock of novelty wears off, and the baby sees that the world will support her. So why not simply roll off that sofa?

But does a predictable, safe environment thus breed a willingness to experiment? It would seem so. And yet, this past week, I received, from a loyal reader, a book review of a new collections of writings on music by the Marxist critic Theodor Adorno. Adorno's especially well known for his argument that pop music - by which he meant, essentially, jazz in the 1930s - cynically attempts to appeal to the consumer by offering slight variations on known, predictable formulas. This boy band, that boy band: for Adorno, they'd all be members of the same tired species.

I don't want to argue with Adorno; certainly the music industry can tends towards conformity and monotony. But maybe babies offer a happy corrective to the otherwise grim conclusions of the Frankfurt School. Sure, mere variations on an established theme can grow old. But if you roll enough, and keep rolling, eventually you figure out how to sit up. And if you keep watching the snow gather outside your window, then soon enough, it's March, and Opening Day is around the corner.

It all changed in an instant

Driving home today, I heard a segment on NPR dedicated to SmithMag's popular Six Word Memoirs. You know the idea - derived from Hemingway's famous six-word novel (For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn), the principle involves an attempt to convey a meaningful idea, or, better, an entire life, in six words. Many of the examples, unsurprisingly, feel a bit incomplete, but a few do deliver, and it's worth scrolling through the website for a few minutes, just to gain a sense of what's possible, in an extremely condensed format. Or, if you're feeling flush, you can always order the recent published collection, which is named for one of the memoirs featured in it. It's called It All Changed in an Instant.

Can it all change in an instant? Well, it certainly seemed so last night, when I walked out of my criticism class shortly before 10 p.m., exhausted, with Diderot on my mind, only to find myself in one of the loveliest snowstorms I've ever seen. The whole world was transformed, as inches of fluffy white fell on trees, and sidewalks, and cars. The beauty of Joyce's famous closing sentences in The Dead; the sudden transformative power of a haiku.

Parenting, though, rarely involves such dramatic changes, simply because we're so consistently present in our children's lives. Cleo's a lot bigger now than she was in November, but she's not much larger than she was yesterday, and so L. and I don't register the growth as sudden, or as surprising. Still, every now and then I am surprised at some new talent or interest that seems almost to spring out of nowhere. For instance, she's been holding small objects for months now, and has long been interested in tugging at or hugging the bottle as she's fed. Still, the seeming confidence and maturity that she exhibited two days ago when I let her have a turn struck me as simply breathtaking:

It doesn't, generally speaking, all change in an instant. Things evolve; things age. But those slow, organic processes that form the common pace of our lives only throw into high relief, I suppose, moments of real change. And, too, they form the staid extended narrative against which the six-word memoir gains its force. We live much of our lives at the pace of a novel. It's exciting, then, when action occurs in compressed form.