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Biography
...........................is a real problem for me. I used to teach a music history class and to get the idea of history as a construct, I would point at someone and ask them to tell the rest of the group their life story. Inevitably, 19 or 20 years of youthful energy was condensed into around 1.5 minutes (on a good day). "I was born... went to school... then another.. then I came to college". So, what happened to all the juicy bits? How do you know you were born? What did we learn about the student? What should you say?
Needless to say, I never did the exercise myself.
Maybe, on reflection, the classroom is the wrong setting for a biography. Sitting alone in a restaurant on one of those dreary overnight stays, I overheard a couple (I had no choice but to overhear them) who were obviously getting to know one another. The girl was excellent. The detailed history of her life was punctuated with personal feelings, emotions and 'this is who I (almost) am' statements. When you get to my age who you are tends to be less exciting than the person you thought you were going to be. That's not a bad thing, but the possibility of creating an interesting biog. seems to diminish with age.
When I was a bright young thing myself, at the beginning of my teaching career, a younger brighter young thing looked me sagely in the eye and said something to the effect that: 'you just don't want to grow up, do you, sir?'. I hope she meant that kindly as a quality we should aspire to even though, clearly, she already had the mind of a fifty something.
Therefore, as someone who resisted growing up, I feel that the biography is not ready for completion yet, more a work in progress. Watch this space.
