Thursday, February 09, 2006

Come ride in my streetcar by the bay

Goat-boys on the bus again today.
Same ones. Different ones. Who cares?

Have you ever realized that conversation is like jazz? I only thought about this after a bad conversation, one I thought would go well.

A really good conversation has a rhythm and feel to it and the closest analogy I can come with is awesome jazz. Not that crappy light-jazz you hear in elevators; I mean Miles Davis/John Coltrane jazz; jazz that goes in a thousand different directions but always allows all the participants to reveal their creativity and support the creativity of the others. I love good conversations, and I don't think I've been all the quick to recognize how rare good conversations are. I have a few friends who, whenever we get together, find our groove quickly. We have our parts and we we're comfortable free-forming and improvising. We make incredible music on fly, the completely improv-ed "Elevator to the Gallows" soundtrack.

Uncomfortable conversations are rehearsing without knowing the music - hesitant, scared. You stick to the simplest beat, you play only the notes you have to for fear of playing the wrong note and ruining the music.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

the return of the goat kids...i dare you to start making goat noises next time. of course, when they look at you, look around as if you're trying to find the person who made the noises, too.

jazz metaphors, eh? interesting...

Michael said...

Yes, jazz metaphors abound in my writing... well, not really, but I do use them occasionally. I love jazz. I was going to write an article for that UM Jazz magazine, Dig. But I procrastinated. There are sweet few things that can't be compared to good jazz: writing papers, conversations, I could probably do something with the goat boys if I tried hard enough.

Anonymous said...

there's a jazz magazine?