Dressing the part

Tonight I'm imagining, for reasons that will become apparent in a moment or two, a tournament bracket in which the wildest, most outlandish dressers in rock history are seeded, and face off in a battle for an especially faaaab-ulous trophy. The favorite in one bracket, of course, would be Elton John in c. 1973 - although, really, John's been a consistent head-turner for many years. I suppose that Lady Gaga, despite her relatively recent appearance, has already earned a top slot, and who could deny James Brown, who often cited the professional wrestler known as Gorgeous George as a sartorial inspiration, another? (As James Sullivan wrote, in The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, "the clothes were a critical part of the show, and any public appearance, however fleeting, was showtime"). And, finally, just for fun, I'll give a fourth top seed to the band backing Gnarls Barkley, for their audacious Star Wars romp - that's Chewie on the drums! - at the 2006 MTV Music Awards.

In short, those are legendary dressers - and it would seem to be totally unfair to ask a two-year-old to compete with them. At least, that's what I thought, until I had a two-year-old. But now, a year into toddlerdom, I'm starting to think that in fact a revolutionary fashion sense is a common gift, until we finally learn to conform to the drabber expectations that we match and wear things as we're supposed to. It's that blithe disregard - for subtlety, for easy on the eye, for self-respect - that sets toddlers apart, and that creates totally unforeseen combinations born primarily of a desire for comfort and, say, a love of green. Or, to put it differently, when you're not answering to anybody's expectations of you, the very question changes. Instead of worrying about clashing colors or inappropriate informality, the toddler wonders what polka dots would look like with a tie-dyed shirt. Instead of asking Why not?, she asks, What if?

And when your toddler asks that question, you get this when you arrive to pick her up at school: Cleo, her sparkly shoes on the wrong feet, wearing goggles and a huge yellow smear of something on her left cheek, with a heart-embossed sweater and tight pink pants. One bit cavalier, one bit guileless nonchalance, one bit sloppy - and every bit lovable.

Scales

This morning I read a (not entirely impressed) review of a recent volume of essays dedicated to the study of medieval scales, and scale changes. The idea behind the collection, apparently, is that an attention to the quotidian, political, cultural, and cosmic scales used in late antiquity might help us to understand that period more fully. In other words, we may think in terms of ounces, and feet, and four-year terms and transatlantic flights - but when we approach sixth-century Spain, we had better realize that those lenses are not entirely universal.

Such a point seems reasonable enough to me, for I'm constantly in contact with at least one person whose sense of scale is considerably different from mine. Cleo's constantly announcing, for instance, that she is about to bounce 'really high' on the bed: the resulting leaps carry her a modest two or three inches above the mattress. At the same time, though, she seems to think of West Virginia, to which she's been several dozen times, as around the corner, instead of a two-hour drive. In a weird way, then, hanging out with Cleo is something like chatting with Einstein - one's notions of space and time are constantly challenged.

But if our scales thus differ in radical ways, there's another way in which our scales more or less match exactly. That's in the realm of music, where we each listen to melodies - recently, the soft lilting songs on our Music Together CD - that are built around standard 8-note keys. Sure, Cleo doesn't know what a scale is yet, but her teacher sure is trying to get her to feel it: each week, she stresses the tonic, or the home note, and sustains it in a hum as the encircled children lean and fall and ignore her, to right and left. And maybe it works: at a few points over the past two weeks, I've heard Cleo begin to imitate melodies in her singing. Sure, it's a rough semblance, but that makes sense, too: after all, she's my child, and I've got an ear that's as tin as can be. No Mozart, I'm afraid, in this family. But at least a common framework: a scale that's shared, both in theory and in the air about us.

Please Mr. Postman

I spent my last full day in Baltimore, before I head to Cairo for a week, with my favorite toddler: we dropped L. off at work, attended a Music Together class, explored a local college (one of Cleo's deepest interests of late, since she watched Steve, in Blue's Clues, announce that he was going to college), and played at Port Discovery, a local children's activity center. Cleo has a number of go-to spots at Port Discovery; yesterday, the market - with its many full-size plastic fruits and mini shopping baskets - and the water room, above, had a certain magnetism. But we also ended up, as usual, in the diner, a wonderful scaled version of a Fifties restaurant, where parents can sit at small stools while a maelstrom of focused, chaotic activity unfolds on the other side of the shiny counter.

Among the more touching details in the diner, though, is a period jukebox, filled with singles from the late Fifties and early Sixties, and completely free. Orbison, Presley, Sinatra: they're all there, and all you need to do is to press the right two buttons, to hear your song. And there, too, is the first hit by the Marvelettes: Please Mr. Postman, which came out in 1961. So we pressed C, and 3, and the tune came on. The machine coughed a deep, robotic cough, and its central mechanism then rolled to the left. A record was chosen, the needle made contact, and: instant Motown! And against that backdrop, Cleo gathered plastic ware and a menu, as though a young waitress in the spring of 1961.

As you can see in the top image, though, the song isn't completely optimistic. It's about a young woman's hope that her beau, off at war, will write her. But nothing's arrived, and spider webs have gathered in her mailbox. No word is forthcoming.

Worry not, Cleo. I'll get a card in the mail for you as soon as I find my way in Cairo. And then, before you know it, I'll be home.