realizing i've become what always amazed me
Just now I was listening to Pandora, and a new song came on that I wasn't familiar with, just acoustic guitar, and I was thinking "Oh huh. That must be Dave Matthews. No one else does that with the guitar."
And then I thought back to how that always amazed me when my dad could do that. Now granted he'd be listening to some jazz CD from 1932 with 5 artists on it, pick out the cornet from the other brass and go "Oh wow, I didn't know Muggsy Spanier ever played with them." I'd ask how he knew and he'd go "Oh that's totally a Muggsy flourish." But even that I'm starting to be able to do. It's pretty cool.
I also had this friend in undergrad. He was so smart and I looked up to him a lot, and one of my favorite things about him was his love of words. He wouldn't settle for "I just couldn't believe how boring it was" when "I couldn't believe the banality" more precisely and concisely expressed what he was feeling and painted a better picture for whoever was listening. It didn't really pop out to me that I've started to do that, too, until I started hanging out with people who aren't overeducated academics. They were sort of taken aback by my frequent use of infrequent words but would also talk back about it, like "Yeah. Amble. That's a great word." I just hope I have some of my friend's gift for passing it off as a reflection of his earnest communication efforts rather than an excuse to sound like a brainiac.
*shrugs* back to comps reading...
And then I thought back to how that always amazed me when my dad could do that. Now granted he'd be listening to some jazz CD from 1932 with 5 artists on it, pick out the cornet from the other brass and go "Oh wow, I didn't know Muggsy Spanier ever played with them." I'd ask how he knew and he'd go "Oh that's totally a Muggsy flourish." But even that I'm starting to be able to do. It's pretty cool.
I also had this friend in undergrad. He was so smart and I looked up to him a lot, and one of my favorite things about him was his love of words. He wouldn't settle for "I just couldn't believe how boring it was" when "I couldn't believe the banality" more precisely and concisely expressed what he was feeling and painted a better picture for whoever was listening. It didn't really pop out to me that I've started to do that, too, until I started hanging out with people who aren't overeducated academics. They were sort of taken aback by my frequent use of infrequent words but would also talk back about it, like "Yeah. Amble. That's a great word." I just hope I have some of my friend's gift for passing it off as a reflection of his earnest communication efforts rather than an excuse to sound like a brainiac.
*shrugs* back to comps reading...