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LOSING THE BATTLE OF THE NAP

The baby fell asleep in my arms as we listened to a recording of a calliope playing Sousa’s Liberty Bell March (song 3 on the link), but when I put him in his crib he exploded in shrieks of anger. I picked him up and rocked him to sleep again, and when he exploded a second time upon impact with the crib matress, I told him he needed to nap and left the room hoping he’d cry himself to sleep. I went in and checked in every once in a while, and after about an hour of his screaming I went in and started singing a song my grandpa taught me, which his mother had taught him. The baby, who had been sitting and screaming, immediately got quiet. I sat down and kept singing, and he stayed quiet, but when I told him to lie down, he cried. I lay down at the foot of the bed opposite his crib, facing him, and kept singing, eventually switching to another waltz (baby dude loves him some waltzes). He sat quietly, awake, alert, and eventually I sang myself to sleep. Only just barely dozed off for a few seconds, woke up and laughed, declared victory for having gotten him to stop screaming, and got him out of the crib, whereupon we had a nice lunch and played for a couple hours in perfectly good cheer until he finally did go down for a nap. I guess for some people there’s nothing so refreshing as an hour-long scream when you’re sleepy.


CORRESPONDENCE

The writer Devin McKinney informs me that Rod Stewart’s drummer on “Every Picture Tells a Story” is “Mickey Waller, one of the greats.” Judging by this one record, yes!

Josh Ronsen of The Pierre Boulez Project affirms that Boulez called for the destruction of all art of the past in 1971, when Boulez was 50, and more than 50 years after F. T. Marinetti first requested the past’s disappearance. Mr. Boulez, your demand was a little passe, huh?

And the composer and critic Kyle Gann, proprietor of the postclassical music blog PostClassic, though a staunch critic of the academic serialism promulgated by Boulez, nonetheless recommends two of Boulez’s compositions, “Pli Selon Pli” and “Rituel.”


Question answered, fact clarified, and music recommended -- thanks!