(The Ignoramus and The Polymath sit at either side of a chessboard. The Ignoramus (white) has just posed the Queen’s Gambit. They are listening to two songs by The Innocence Mission: “The Brotherhood of Man” and “Into Brooklyn, Early in the Morning”)

The Ignoramus: In what way is cheese produced?
The Polymath: Cheese comes from cows.
The Ignoramus: And goats, too, right?
The Polymath: Occasionally.
The Ignoramus: What about emotionally manipulative artists?
The Polymath: Them as well, Ignoramus. But you don’t have to milk Stephen Spielberg; he milks himself.
The Ignoramus: Oh. How about aesthetic innocents, seduced by viscerally appealing sound?
The Polymath: Yes. They make fine cheese, such as this.
The Ignoramus: Such as this?
The Polymath: The music we are listening to as we speak. It is a fine cheese – the fifth in my five fine cheese cannelloni. Can you not hear it?
The Ignoramus: Oh, Polymath! I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I did not recognize this auditory input as music.
The Polymath: (lets out a booming laugh) I have not since acted in as apt a fashion as I did on the day I named you, Ignoramus. You truly are an ignoramus!
The Ignoramus: (hurt) This is why I pretend to know things that I do not, so that you will not make fun of me so heartlessly.
The Polymath: Can you not hear the easy melody? The gently warmed guitars? Tambourines and accordions? That perfect voice, floating up from the music untethered and from great heights dropping lyrics as rich with cliché as half-melted brie is with flavour?
The Ignoramus: Polymath, I do not mean to presume, but is your pedagogical method not flawed? To me - an admitted ignoramus, mind you – what you have done seems the same as leading a monolingual Frenchman into a room full of objects and saying “Do you not recognize a bike, a toaster, a big foam finger?” Surely, he would respond, “Indeed, I recognize these objects, but as ‘une bicyclette’, ‘un grille-pain’, et ‘un grand doigt de mousse’.” For, though I recognize these sounds from having heard similar ones before, your utterance of the word ‘music’ was the first I had heard of it. Can you either define ‘music’ or give an exhaustive list of everything that might be referred to by the word?
The Polymath: You are right. I have shown poor judgment. To add insult to injury, I am also unable to provide an answer to your question “What is music?” As such, I propose that we complete my humiliation by switching names for all time. It only seems right.
The Polymath: As you wish, Ignoramus.
The Ignoramus: I am not sure what you mean by the word ‘wish’.

[Buy]

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