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Predicament: Music and Whit 2 3/13/2012 9:05:39 PM
So, Whit just came in from a symphony, dressed well in cuff links and tie. I noticed it when he came in but I guess he did not hear me when I yelled at him. As I mentioned he proceeded to smoke his pipe at a table, far from where the regulars were congregating. Whit asked me if I like symphony and I said no. Well, perhaps if the music was familiar. In Opera, I liked “Carmen” for instance because I was familiar with the music. Andrea Bocelli, for instance, though not a total classicist, was my favorite classicist. And I’m sure that I would like to hear a few more familiar music but I didn’t know their titles.
Few good things that had happened to him was that he found free parking and that he was dress to impress. His cuff links were “modeled” after Gustav Klimpt and indeed, it was the first among the accoutrement he had that night. Then, his tie. I never had seen him in tie but tonight was truly special. But the single source of his good fortune was his “flask cozy.” You see, he brought along a manpurse. He explained that a manpurse when one was sporting it did not mean anything. Really! After all, this was derived from Europe. (It’s so funny that I mentioned it because I sometimes sport a manpurse too. I did it so that I would not carry a whole array of things in my pants pocket and pull my pants down.) He referred to his manpurse as his flask cozy. You know what a beer cozy is? It is a wrap around the bottle or can of beer so that it remains cold. Now, in his manpurse was a flask of something to drink, thus, it was his flask cozy.
As I was mentioning, Whit loved music and this I did not realize. He played the drums that when I went to Greater Trumps that next night he was composing drum music in music sheets. It was the first time I’ve seen someone composing drum music. I’ve seen piano and violin but drums? I thought that you just hit the drum just whenever your heart desires. But it was not the case. He was being invited to gigs. He already has commitments and yet, the gigs were flowing his way; and they were paid gigs. He said that if the gig was worth it, he would take a vacation day or two just so that he could play.
He talked a lot; just the item about music was stunningly long. I was at Greater Trump to write but he kept talking that I just opened my computer at his table even though I already chose a table to set it up. He said that he was about to finish his beer and off he goes. But his pint seemed to be an endless pit.
And then the conversation changed course. He proposed to tie in a College Summer Program with a college here in the States with one in Salzburg, Austria. He remembered that when he was young, his mom brought him to Salzburg because his mom was a professor here in the States and was accompanying his students for a study-abroad program. Remember the “Sound of Music”? Well that gazebo when Julie Andrews and the guy (sorry, forgot his name) were dancing in was where he had his first kiss. I thought that he was a teen or in his early twenties. But a boy of six? So in Salzburg when he was a kid of six, he proposed to a college exchange student to wait for him. She was in her twenties, then, and you could just imagine if she had waited for twenty years more. So instead of waiting for him, she gave him his first kiss.
It was a jolly night whenever Whit was there. He exudes a wry sense of humor that unless you were incapable of understanding his humor (like I sometimes do), you will find that he truly has a sense of humor. He was generous, too. Knowing that I smoked those cheap (but NOT foul) cigars, he offered to buy me two sticks; one for tonight and another one, the next night. And granted that Greater Trumps does not sell cheap cigars, he paid dearly for it.
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