Friday, October 30, 2015

COMPLAINT WEEK 2015 #5 OF 5: PEOPLE WHO DON’T LISTEN TO MUSIC.



People who don’t listen to music park their cars in front of fire hydrants. People who don’t listen to music develop repetitive stress disorders such as Dyspeptic Political Identity. People who don’t listen to music lament the idle swells of “steely gray clouds” dimming the north-northwest. They wander through the lobby in search of the lobby. They perch like slumbering owls, one-legged, on marble staircases. They marvel at the defunct telephone booth, the handset dangling off the hook, the dial-tone expired. People who don’t listen to music struggle at the vending machine, their currency upside down, their intended treat manacled by the tight coil of the apparatus. People who don’t listen to music suck imported, boutique plum pits. People who don’t listen to music scoff at the buttered onion! They attend registration drives in circular parks but withdraw after discovering that they won’t receive a gift, such as a four-slice toaster or a festive doilies four-pack. They gnaw on the principles of other generations even as the principles of other generations gnaw on them, “gnaw, man”, says a jokester from a jokester generation, but the wordplay carouses briefly, glancing off a plate-glass window. They monitor their carotid arteries during periods of inactivity, often with concerning results, such as mule-kick pulses or blender-on-pulse, pulses. People who don’t listen to music listen to people who don’t listen to music. They clasp their hands like “hurrahs”, only they won’t raise these “hurrahs” over their heads, and their hands, unclasping, approximate the weary countries of sequestration.
                                                                                                                   

complaint week 2015 editorial schedule:
October 30: People Who Don't Listen to Music


14 comments:

douglang said...

You are wise beyond your ears, Sir Dan.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

So long as I'm not being cheesy, i.e., "ears of corn." Thanks for the kind words, Sir. Up the Swans!

----------------b.a.

Anonymous said...

as a boy and young man i went to gnaw bone camp in nashville, indiana.
everybody called it "the bone". nobody called it "the gnaw". -- casey

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

i had a geometry teacher named mrs bone but she didn't run a camp -- i called her mrs bone but others called her bone! -------ba

Anonymous said...

I had a friend once with the surname "Haight" which he pronounced "hate". He worked at a movie theatre, manning the refreshments stand, and for that engagement he wore a nametag "Mr. Hate" because he found it ensured people would say his name correctly while at the same time forcing children to buy their goodies from "Mr. Hate"'. He hated it when people said Height instead of Hate, although he was particularly short, he could've been taller. Although he could be short, particularly when you didn't call him Hate.
--Utenzil

mark wallace said...

I know people who listen only to the preacher and the Wall Street Journal. Is the Wall Street Journal the kind of music you mean by music?

tpw said...

What about people who listen to bad music?

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

Utenzil -- that's a fine report, thanks. We were stuck on Bone and you got us off that, onto Haight / Hate / Height. Where is he now? one wonders. Hopefully nobody's Hating on him. Hopefully nobody's Heighting on him.


-----------------BA

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

Mark,

I wish I could get a poem into The Wall Street Journal but their aesthetic is too much Fleece Every Butt They Can. I think that's a song of theirs anyhow. The preacher can surprise you every so often -- crossing over into rock n roll on occasion, with devastating impact. Only problem is, they get fired once they go back into shepherding. They get a #26 hit in 1962, but nobody hears from them ever again and they might be alive now -- or not -- but nobody knows for sure.

--------------------BA

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

T.P.W.,

You speak of the Republicans, yes? Well, I lump them in here, too. You can't even get a hurrah outta them, just "procedural roadblocks."

----------------------------BA

hthr said...

Sometimes people hear thunder when music's not enough.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

Such Sweet Thunder (album), Duke Ellington, (1957), based on the works of one William Shakespeare, hoy hoy, praps this is the sweet thunder you speak of, Hthr, hoy hoy.

-------------------------BA

Anonymous said...

He was ironically successful, actually, having risen to great heights. I'd like to low as how he didn't hate the heights.
-Utenzil

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

Utenzil with the puns! Thanks, man. Good stuff.

-------------------BA