Music of Princes

Apparently the writer Paul Bowles left behind a treasure trove of reel-to-reel-tapes he made of native Moroccan music, including the sounds of Tangier at dawn as the city started to wake and come to prayer.

When a goose flies near enough for you to hear it it sounds like linen bedsheets are being snapped in order to take out the wrinkles, or a towel so large it takes two people to fold.

The average number of words in a sentence constructed by Henry James is thirty-five, enough time for a reader to take up residence in it.

I once knew a man who was making a list of the things he couldn't listen to. The sound of geese flying didn't make the list, but the sound of the German woman who lived next-door and screamed at her children did. When her screaming got to him he'd take long trips to the countryside, wander around under the redwoods for some peace and quiet. While he was gone phone calls piled up on his answering machine, but he swore he only listened to the erased messages.

I'm sorry now that I didn't know the music of Prince, though it's just like me not to have known it; I was absent from his life and he was absent from mine. I stayed true to myself this way, by not knowing his music, as he stayed true to his own life, making music that didn't matter whether I heard it or not. Not having heard Prince's music, I heard instead the music of his absence, how much he meant to people who had heard it and how much they would miss him.

A guy like Prince could be the kind of guy who shows up to watch his own funeral, like Huck Finn.