Page 85 - The Irony Board
P. 85
Into the World
A musician is
A cat with a bell;
His goal had better
Not be to eat well.
In many cultures and eras, musicians have been pariahs, a status
conferred perhaps to offset their freedom and license. Like the
fabled cat whose approach was signaled to mice by a bell around its
neck, musicians gain little from the sounds they make. In jazz argot,
a cat is a man; etymologists have traced this term to the Wolof suffix
for man, “-kat.” Upon that pun the simile swings.
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