impulses of motion and further notes

future stories:

raccoon story   

I had scored a copy of The Whos 'Who's Next.' Killer album, right? I'm listening to it rather quietly and my wife is bathing one of our children. Our oldest son, 4ish at the time, is listening with me. He's obviously enjoying it. My wife calls me into the bathroom to view some sort of unbearable cuteness just as the album is ending. Sure enough the cuteness is unbearable but I manage to stay in the bathroom and talk and play with my other child. I'm out of the room long enough for the album to finish playing.

My oldest son is technically adept but we, until this point, kept him away from the stereo. Never even really showed it to him because, as you well know, music is quite near everything. It encompasses all that is good, right and holy with the world and then some. So by necessity we have kept him pointed away from the stereo. Otherwise we might find it assembled into some sort of alien tracking device. You never know with my kids.

So, the album ends, and I'm vaguely disappointed. Music, and in particular, The Who, rocks. Suddenly 'Baba O'Reilly' starts playing. At impressive volume. My son has determined how to get this wonderful stuff pouring back out of the speakers and, by god, it needs to be louder. I don't manage to get back into the den until Pete Townsend takes off with the guitar and as I walk in my 4 year is swinging his arm in the standard Townsend move. As if he is trying to push all the blood in his body to the very tip of his fingers.

Have you ever wondered why Townsend played this way? Was it an easier method of playing the notes he needed? A good way to keep time? My pet theory is this: it felt good and the music itself manifested itself in this physical motion in his body. Have you ever had to shake your rump? You know what I mean then. I think this because my son had never seen or heard Pete Townsend play before. Yet here it is. You could take this to the jungles of South America and descendants of Incas would all be playing air guitar and swinging their 'strumming' hand round and round. They'd have no choice.