Ludwig Van Boogie

As Beethoven was to 19th century music, so was disco to 1970s music. And, to take this already absurd analogy to its inescapable absurd conclusion, the 1970s saw a confluence of the two: a disco-fied version of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, A Fifth of Beethoven (to be accompanied by a fifth of Jack Daniels?), a gloriously preposterous amalgam of the sublime and the ridiculous. One wonders (well, at least I wonder!) what Beethoven would have made of this unlikely hybrid. Would he have turned a deaf ear to it?

Purely gratuitous aside: I wondered whether there was a word in the English language signifying the process of rendering something in disco style. Disco-fy? Disco-ize? Disco-grify? Having settled on disco-fy, I am now struck by how science-fictional it rings, which has planted the idea in my mind for a movie where alien invaders attack earth, armed with weapons which turn humanoids into people with three-piece suits and no tie, gold chains, platform shoes, with one finger pointed heavenward. Lord help us, doctor -- he's been discofied!

One undeniable property of disco music, no matter how silly one finds it, is how eminently danceable it is. The moment your body hears that crazily funky bass line, harnessed to that syncopated African beat, sprinkled with electric guitar wah-wahs and short blasts from the horn section, try as you might to stop it, it will spring into action.

First, your head and shoulders will start swaying from side to side. Next, your legs will start a-quivering, while your feet are a-tapping on the floor. Soon, your entire torso is oscillating in your seat. And before you realize it, your body has picked itself up from your chair, and is dancing with wild abandon, shaking like the leaves on a tree. Go ahead, listen to the proffered video. I defy you to remain absolutely still!

Couldn't do it, couldja? See?

The Professor and The Dirty Driveway

As mentioned in an earlier post, during my high school years, on Sabbath mornings, I used to attend a small Synagogue, known as a Shtiebl, as it was located in the basement of a house. I served the role of chanting the weekly portion of the Torah.

One of the few congregants under the age of 65 was an economist, originally from England, who at the time was a professor at the University of Toronto, and who has had a most distinguished career in the field of the history of economics, spanning roughly five decades.

As his house was just a hop, skip and jump from the Synagogue, he used to occasionally invite me over afterwards for Kiddush. For those readers of mine who are unfamiliar with this term, it is, for the purposes of the present context, the ritualized equivalent of coffee and cake.

His better half, hailing from France, is a sweet, demure, intelligent woman. To my teenage mind, she struck me as decidedly reminiscent of a charming character out of a 19th century novel. The three of us would have quite a pleasant time, sitting at their dining room table, engaged in stimulating conversation.

I recall that he once showed me a book he had recently completed, and told me that he was now in the process of putting together the index. He explained to me how creating a book's index was a much more difficult process than most people might realize. (I imagine that all of the advances in computers of the past three decades have automated that process considerably.)

On one particular occasion, the professor and I happened to be standing by the window of his living room, and were presently joined by his wife. We noticed that their neighbor's driveway was full of dirt, and that the neighbor was cleaning the driveway with a water hose. He would very slowly sweep the stream of water across the width of the driveway. When he reached the end, he would advance the stream slightly, and reverse direction, now sweeping the other way. In this manner, the dirt was gradually pushed forward along the driveway, towards the street.

Interestingly, all three of us fell under the hypnotic spell of the action of the hose. It was somehow mesmerizing to watch that border, separating the now-clean portion of the driveway from the still-dirty territory, advance forward, inch by inch (or, for my metric friends, centimeter by centimeter) under the propulsion of the spray of water, like an army division pushing a battle-line forward. The effect was oddly soothing as well.

*Ring!* Hello?

Hi, Frank! What are you doing right now?

Nothing much. What's up?

Well, our neighbor is unwinding his hose -- it looks like he's about to clean his driveway!

Hey, awesome! I'll be right over -- try to make sure he doesn't start till I get there!

Will do, but try to hurry. Carol and David are already here, and I've invited Bev and Gus over too. And the popcorn is in the microwave!

Quite a while the three of us stood there, captivated by this curious form of entertainment which is unlikely to win any awards anytime soon.

Until finally, the professor looked at his wife and me and said: "What are we doing?!" The spell broken, the three of us looked at one another, simultaneously burst into laughter and then returned to the dining room, to resume our conversation.

Postscript. Speaking of being easily entertained, in Street Gang, the encyclopedic chronicle of the television show Sesame Street, author Michael Davis tells us that in the mid-1960s, when children's television was still in its, uh, infancy, children who were up early in the morning would turn on the television and sit and stare at the test pattern until 7 a.m., when the daily programming would begin. If only they had neighbors with dirty driveways...

One-Time Smoker

I have several memories of the typical events that would take place in the mornings of my childhood. You know, the regular morning rituals, such as brushing your teeth, packing your schoolbag, eating toast and orange juice. And, of course, the sound reverberating throughout your entire house, of someone coughing without end. *Cough*, *cough*, *cough*. Yet another minute, and yet another. Horrible, raspy hacking sounds that come from the depths of the chest cavity. Culminating, just as often as not, in a gag reflex leading to actual cough-induced vomiting.

This was the morning ritual which my poor father had to go through, the effects of a three-pack-a-day habit. Unfiltered, I might add. As a consequence, throughout my life, the thought of smoking never once entered my mind.

I recall once asking a friend in my senior year of high school, out of idle curiosity, whether he smoked. His answer: "You know what I think makes more sense than smoking. To take a comb made out of steel, and comb my skin with it, so that the skin peels off and starts to bleed." His response graphically expresses how utterly untempting the notion of smoking was for me.

I'm reminded of a show I once saw on television decades ago. (How odd, and oddly pleasant, to be able to conjure up stories several decades old!) The show, "Scared Straight", was a documentary of a program being used on at-risk teenagers. These teenagers were on the road to a life of drugs and crime, and nobody was able to reach them.

The solution: these teenagers were put alone in a room with some of the more hardened specimens from the penitentiary. (I cannot recall whether the encounters were one-on-one or group settings.) Quite a sight to see these cocky, ornery teens suddenly swallow and become meek as lambs, in the face of the display of ferocity from those inmates. Scared Straight, all right.

My idea for a Scared Straight program: play for youths a video of the first 30 minutes of a typical day of a heavy smoker, in all its non-stop coughing, hacking, wheezing, gasping, and vomiting glory. Every day for a week. My prediction: the percentage of youths who take up smoking will plummet.

One day, a year out of high school, I saw a close friend of mine, who adheres to the proverbial straight and narrow path as closely as anyone I know, smoking. Well, land sakes alive! My shock was such that, if memory serves correctly, I literally snatched the cigarette right out of his mouth and crushed it, followed by quite a stern lecture.

Thus, for the first 45 years of my life, a lit cigarette had never entered my mouth. (I may have once put an unlit one in my mouth.) But two years ago, a friend of mine was over one evening, and we were relaxing and talking. She is a light smoker. I do not allow smoking in my home -- my friends know that they must retire to the balcony when they feel the need to indulge.

But for some reason, on this particular evening, I allowed her to light up in my living room. After a minute, I said to her: "Let me have a try." Her eyes wide-open in utter disbelief, she handed me her cigarette. I held it in my hands, and put it to my mouth. I drew upon it, inhaling deeply, thus, at the ripe age of 45, becoming a first-time smoker.

I loved it! What a rich, pleasing taste! And, much to my surprise, I did not cough in the least. For the next minute or so, I took several more drags on that cigarette, enjoying that satisfying aroma. (Tastes good -- like a cigarette should.) And then handed the cigarette back to her.

Since that evening nearly two years ago, I have not tried another cigarette, nor has the thought as much as crossed my mind. But something about the notion of never having even tried a cigarette made me feel like I was regarding cigarettes as more powerful than myself, as if in order to guarantee that I not fall under their spell, I must make sure to never so much as try one -- otherwise, I would become enslaved to them. Now, having tried one, I know that they are a pleasant indulgence, but one that I can easily choose to forgo.

Postscript. I am pleased to add that, about 20 years ago, my father gave up his decades-long habit of smoking, through the aid of the nicotine patch. Kudos, Dad.