Shaped to fit what we love

Hi from California. :)

I'm here at a seminar, which sort of falls under the heading of an old dog trying to learn some new tricks. Generalized Linear Modeling to be precise.

Yeah. Fun.

Plus, no beach time for bonzo either. I have hermeneutics to read about. 200 pages worth before I get back.

Out here alone, I'm thinking back to last weekend, and remembered that I never posted anything about the great little concert we saw at the Dakota Jazz Club when we went out to celebrate D's birthday (finally my age again!)

Bucky Pizzarelli was in town, and he played his 7-string jazz guitar alongside Benny Green, who employed the grand piano to contribute his share.



These guys were two full generations apart in age. And, for never playing together before that gig, they made such music! The boy was clearly a student of history. And the old man WAS history!

It was so cool to see a kid in his 20s riffing with an oldster in his 70s. Bucky showed the kid a thing or two, besides. Man, could he play! And the kid was in awe... treated the senior musician with such respect and deference, even though the kid was the front man for the duo.



This is such a great club. Made you think of the kind of place Django Reinhart might have played in Paris in the 30s.

Like last time, I got a bucket of fries, which D and I shared (I had mine with béarnaise sauce, she with catsup), and each had a drink and a dessert. Mine was a draft Miller Lite and a dish of maple cornbread pudding - oof. So good.

One neat thing I noticed as I watched Bucky play: his hands, from 50 years of playing that particular guitar, had gotten a little bit deformed. I wondered how he could still do what he did - still play like lightning.



But the answer is that his hands weren't DEformed. They were CONformed; conformed to the instrument he had wrapped those hands around for 50 years. His hands conformed to what he held in them for so long, to that which he loved to hold, and from which he brought such music.

And I thought, what a privilege to hold something you love so much... for so long... that you conform to its shape. To the rest of the world, you may look deformed. But when you're holding that thing you love...

you look like you fit... just right.

mmhmm.