Marlow's Musings 12/3/23
Insights, adventures and fun stuff from this week.
Audio narration by David Marlow
Perhaps it was brought on by the boldness of having turned 18 three days prior. Whatever the reason, sneaking a cassette recorder into an arena was no small task.
This was late 1978, years before even the Sony Walkman. Somehow we got the enormous device into Hulman Center to record the hottest act in the country at the time, Comedian Steve Martin.
Lucky for my buddy and me, it was winter, so a ‘bulky’ looking letter jacket provoked no notice.
Today, of course, with patdowns at every venue by crack security teams ( i.e., teenagers with no business frisking people) we would have been caught immediately.
Remind me to tell you sometime how I feel about the Kabuki Theater that is stadium security, but I digress…
Martin walked onto the stage, his prematurely white hair and trademark white suit gleaming under the spotlights.
He paused by the speakers and started talking after only a few steps onto the stage. Then he laughed as if he had told a joke even though no one in the audience could hear him.
Suddenly, he stopped, pointed emphatically at the center of the stage, and then walked over to the microphone.
“Oh, “ he says with a surprised tone, “you have THESE things here,” grabbing the microphone. The audience erupts as if it is the funniest thing we’d ever heard in our young lives.
He put an arrow on his head and played the banjo in between jokes. Little did we know at the time, despite his antics, he was an accomplished musician.
Though the quality of the recording was awful, we knew his act so well that for the months until the tape wore out, we would listen and mimic the entire show, reliving the experience.
A few months after the show, Martin was interviewed in Playboy magazine and asked about the most exciting place he’d been. He answered, and the interviewer followed up by asking about the most boring place he’d been.
“Without a doubt…Terre Haute, Indiana.” For those who don’t know, Terre Haute is my hometown and where I attended his concert.
He told about his experience trying to get something to eat, failing to find any open downtown restaurants and nothing but fertilizer and farm implement ads on local TV. He described the city as “Nowhere, USA.”
The mayor protested Martin’s assessment, which made national news. It ended up being an excellent thing for both Terre Haute and Steve Martin.
Martin returned to Terre Haute for a VIP tour that netted national network coverage. At the airport, as he was departing, he declared Terre Haute a great city and encouraged his friends to vacation there.
It was such a big deal, my wife, whose family was from Terre Haute, was in high school in Washinton state and heard all about it. We would meet some two and half years later when her family moved back to Indiana.
Martin would go on to premier his first movie ‘The Jerk’ in Terre Haute and make a tongue-in-cheek reference to the city in his next movie, ‘Deadmen Don’t Wear Plaid.’
The comedian did another interview that has stuck with me even more than the one that made my hometown famous.
Keep in mind, this guy was like Taylor Swift level popular for the time. The interviewer asked him how it felt to be an overnight success.
Martin shot her one of those ‘if looks could kill’ kinds of stares and, with an angry tone, answered, “I’ve been putting arrows on my head for ten years, and NOW I’m $%&*ing funny.”
If Steve Martin defined himself like most people do by his ‘job’ he might still be walking around with arrows on his head.
If he did, he wouldn’t be funny anymore.
Word of the Week
Craxis (n )
krak·sis
Latin crāstinō diē, tomorrow + praxis, the process of turning theory into reality. Pronounced “krak-sis.”
1: The unease of knowing how quickly your circumstances could change on you—that no matter how carefully you shape your life into what you want it to be, the whole thing could be overturned in an instant, with little more than a single word, a single step, a phone call out of the blue, and by the end of next week you might already be looking back on this morning as if it were a million years ago, a poignant last hurrah of normal life. 1
In case you missed it…
🌀The Remarkable Power of Not Being Stupid!
Charlie Munger, passed away this week at the age of 99.
Described by his business partner Warren Buffet as someone who...
“Marches to the beat of his own music, and it’s music like virtually no one else is listening to.”
That's living your Ikigai if you ask me.
Ikiquest+
This week in Ikiquest+…
The Coffee Contemplation was the final in a series of three reflections to energize your end-of-year thinking.
Plus subscribers can read it here.
You can find the first two here…
Quote I’m Pondering
This week, I’ve pondered this passage from T.S. Eliot in Little Gidding
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.”
Comment of the Week:
This comment from Tom sums up the comments of many who were touched by the story of my grandson ‘E’ and the honey container shaped like a bear.
Thank you, David. You gave me a wonderful gift with today's Musings, a quote (and story) that I hope to stay with me for the rest of my days.
"Sometimes you just have to buy the bear." - David Marlow
I love that so much! ❤️
You can read the story here.
Fun Thing I Saw This Week
Speaking of Steve Martin’s overnight success, Jono Hey has been at it for 10 years with his marvelous Sketchplanations.
I’ve used several of his drawings to illustrate a point here in the newsletter. Jono is generous with his art and talent.
It was fun to celebrate a decade of artistic exploration along with him.
You can find out ways to follow and support Jono here.
Final Thoughts
This week’s final thought comes from a piece written by my friend and Ikiquest reader, Sue Heatherington.
The title caught my eye.
“For times when our words are too small.”
I experienced such a time this week where my words were and remain too small. A post-craxis moment, that phone call with news that forever alters life as we’ve known it.
Do you know those times when you have something to say but can’t find the words?
When what you are sensing feels expansive, yet your words barely cover the edges? Like a sheet that doesn’t reach your feet.
Yes. Me too.
And I don’t think this concerns a lack of vocabulary.
T S Eliot discerned this nearly a century ago in Little Gidding when he wrote:
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.”
Sue Heatherington
My words are too small to do justice to the event the phone call foretells. Perhaps, next year’s words will fill the measure of the sadness.
In the meantime, Quest well.
🌀 Can you articulate your Ikigai in a single sentence?
Having an Ikiverse clarifies how to live out your Ikigai.
✅ Being able to state it invites others to support you in your Ikiquest.
You can learn more about Ikiquest+ here. Check it out!
Koenig, John. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (p. 219). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
Love the Terre Haute story! That’s French origin for high land. My Mom, Beulah Malott was born in Converse, Indiana. My son was born in Lafayette, when I was a Junior at Purdue, along the Wabash. My great great grandfather Robert Malott, was born on July 17, 1827. Robert is said to be the first white child born in Washington Township, Grant County, Indiana. His father, Reason Malott, was 100% French.
Love the Indiana history!