The Worldly Philosopher Behind The Worldly Philosophers

Abstract

six. From that point forward, best has only become better. Bob was a worldly philosopher from the start. Let me give just one example. When I was nine or ten years old, my aunt and uncle took me to see a play called Up Pops the Devil In the course of the story, the female protagonist tells a friend she is pregnant but her husband is unaware of this. I was stunned. My understanding at that point of my life was that procreation was the sole purpose of the act of love. No other motivations were involved. On the basis ofthat assumption, how could a wife be pregnant without her husband's knowledge? I gave the matter a great deal of thought but failed to come up with an explanation. Then I consulted my best friend, who had a worldly response to my conundrum: Maybe they did it once and forgot about it, he suggested. As the years went by, Bob and I shared life's exciting experiences of growing up. Girls, fine art, theater, ballet, literature, food, and drink we did it all, usually with Bob leading the way. He studied jazz piano and played with wonderful skill and naturalness while I studied classical with fingers less nimble than his. Later, we frequently sat together at the piano and improvised four-handed modern music compositions, sometimes lasting as long as an hour. How we wish we had recorded these masterpieces for posterity!