What am I, a question?

I guess it's just part of the improv, otherwise known as my life, to have a seat on the pillow which protects my ass from the hardness of a wooden chair, then open up the blog and see what ensues. The first field on the screen is 'Title', and sometimes I fill it in if I think I know what I'm going to write about, but there have been a few times where I've changed the title based on what happened later on in the writing. It's just a little mind game I suppose, or perhaps an amusing hoop to jump through, the idea being 'can I really title something before I know what is going to happen?' So right away there is a question, which is probably a good starting point.

Buckminster Fuller famously wrote 'I seem to be a verb' and I've always admired that thought. Now that I look at it, I realize there are two things that I like about it. 'I seem' is such a nice way to describe the act of introspection. It's not a sure thing, but an inquiry. 'I seem' implies that it's a process, not a fixed black and white certainty. It's whimsical and humorous in a way, not taking itself totally seriously, but describing the act of looking inward. And then 'to be a verb' conjures up all manner of interest, most obviously in the notion that we are taught that a noun is a person, place or thing, but here he is talking about his self person not being a noun, but a verb. Wait, how is that possible? It's the opposite of what we've been taught. It makes you stop and think.

Am I a question? doesn't have the same ring, but it's in the same family of inquiry. Maybe I should make it more Jewish. 'What am I, a question?' And it's an interesting thought, triggered by a simple screen on the computer that asks for 'title'. Hmmmmm.... I like questions, and to free-associate for a minute... on the show 'Jeopardy', the contestants have to make sure that their response 'is in the form of a question'. Here is the answer, what is the question? It's a little whimsy built right into the structure of the show, and Jeopardy is by far my favorite of any game show that has ever appeared on TV. Perhaps the format is a big part of it. Here is a category, here is an answer, what is the question?

And then there is the Jewish joke where one Jew asks his uncle, 'Uncle Max, why do you always answer a question with a question?' and Max says, 'Is there something wrong with answering a question with a question?' It's a simple joke and not particularly funny, but it tickles me, likely because it's a case of the words and the 'thing' being intertwined. Max is using words that both respond to the question and illustrate the question. The words are the 'thing', which of course reminds me of the fact that in Hebrew, the word for 'word' is the same as for 'thing'... 'davar'. That would be quite a deep, not to mention 'navel-gazing' explanation for why I like the joke, but it is kind of interesting that it's a Jewish thing and a Jewish joke. (have I lost you yet?)

In the back of my mind for years now, I've had the idea that I'd like to write a song about the crossword puzzle. And I assume that the reason it popped into my head just now is that the key to solving the more difficult puzzles is the ability to be fluid when it comes to word meanings. Many times the constructor will try to throw you off the trail with a clue that sure looks like it's talking about one thing, but if you open your mind up, you can see that 'wait a second, it could also be this other thing, or a verb, or a plural'. I don't have any examples off the top of my head, and I don't want to pause and ponder, but it's just the way it is. One has to be very flexible in the mind and not insistent that the word you're looking at is necessarily the meaning that you think. It is a question more than a definition, the question being, 'what else can this be?'. And then when your mind hits on another possibility, which turns out to be correct, and opens up a section of the puzzle which was troublesome, that's a damn good feeling.

In the winter time, my housemate is in Tucson, so we don't have home delivery of the newspaper, which means that I tend to go down to the Jiffy Market and have a coffee and knock out the puzzle on one of the papers they provide. I've been doing it for years, so all the regulars know me and give me some good-natured bantering. I put on my glasses, grab a pen, check the time, since I like to have a sense of how long it takes me to get it done, and then I go to work. I'll banter back too, of course, like if Jay keeps talking to me while I'm trying to solve, I'll call him my 'handicap', or ask if someone else will talk to him so I can do what I came to do. Or if Bert says something obnoxious, I'll reply 'OK, Bert, the clue is 'feline' and it's C A blank', referring to his limited crossword ability. He likes to solve, but isn't great at it, so while I'm doing the Sunday Times puzzle, he does the Premier Crossword, which is kinda like getting your news from USA Today and your meals from MacDonalds. But hey, to each his own.

But if I were going to write that song, how would it be? Something about the questions, and the question is me? There would want to be some kind of trick in which the act of trying to get the answer becomes more than just filling in the squares, but an inquiry of deeper questions as well. I think I understand something about it, and it's tying my head up in knots at the moment, this thinking about thinking. I can get brain fatigue sometimes, like doing one too many pushups and then it's time to switch gears. In my case, I'll grab a guitar right about now and see if anything comes. But I do understand that something did come this morning, and it's likely the key to the composition. It's about questions, both large and small, and the way that we approach them? There are many answers to choose from, and maybe that's one more definition of the word 'freedom'.