The Language
There is a deep and blue mystery to the music of Thomas Newman. His melodies are something unsolved. I actually dreamed something from the song "Here I Am", a number from "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", a musical not many people have heard or heard of at all. All non Joanna Gleason fanboys back off. She's mine.
When one meets a person, there are expectations and the meeting, failing, and transcending of those expectations. There is a improvised dance and within the hasty steps the two dancers must act quickly and cling to the nearest thing, holding on for their lives so as not to disrupt the requisite melody. They must find and seize the commonalities and comfort zones or they shall be forced to fumble in darkness until they do so. This is the meeting. And after this meeting or several meetings akin to it have taken place, a language is formed. The vocabulary might be limited or expansive, the grammar confounding or absolute sense-making, but once established this is the tongue that the two must speak in upon each encounter. Some folks never see reason to broaden the scope of their language, keeping the familiar rhythm clicking for years and years without concern. Others can't wait to have enough knowledge of the new tongue to write a book about the other, or about the other and himself, or on himself as the other sees him. And then, of course, the dreaded and age-old conflict arises; the dueling wills. One contents oneself with being the underachieving student in this class of language. The other develops a restless heart for more. More words, more knowledge, more discovery. And so it is, and so it has been, and evermore shall be.
My thing is that I want to speak it all. I want to know it and speak it and be able to zig zag through the life with an unparalleled fluency. I want to be able to dazzle my opposite with masterful command of what the language means and is and should be and can be and I want to do that with two languages in the same breath. I want that. I may not do those things, but I'd like to be able to get to the place where I am, at the least, able to.
When one meets a person, there are expectations and the meeting, failing, and transcending of those expectations. There is a improvised dance and within the hasty steps the two dancers must act quickly and cling to the nearest thing, holding on for their lives so as not to disrupt the requisite melody. They must find and seize the commonalities and comfort zones or they shall be forced to fumble in darkness until they do so. This is the meeting. And after this meeting or several meetings akin to it have taken place, a language is formed. The vocabulary might be limited or expansive, the grammar confounding or absolute sense-making, but once established this is the tongue that the two must speak in upon each encounter. Some folks never see reason to broaden the scope of their language, keeping the familiar rhythm clicking for years and years without concern. Others can't wait to have enough knowledge of the new tongue to write a book about the other, or about the other and himself, or on himself as the other sees him. And then, of course, the dreaded and age-old conflict arises; the dueling wills. One contents oneself with being the underachieving student in this class of language. The other develops a restless heart for more. More words, more knowledge, more discovery. And so it is, and so it has been, and evermore shall be.
My thing is that I want to speak it all. I want to know it and speak it and be able to zig zag through the life with an unparalleled fluency. I want to be able to dazzle my opposite with masterful command of what the language means and is and should be and can be and I want to do that with two languages in the same breath. I want that. I may not do those things, but I'd like to be able to get to the place where I am, at the least, able to.