Hit Me With Some Lightning

Oliver Sacks' new book, Musicophilia, examines the neurological happenings the brain experiences when listening, making, composing music. One case study, a man named Tony, from upstate NY (where else) became a musical savant of sorts after being hit in the face with lightning in a freak accident involving a big storm and his phone. My mother always made me get off the phone during a lightning storm; she also made me take piano lessons, which maybe, if I hadn't heeded her first request, would not have been necessary.

On obeying your parents: apparently, children who are taught to control and regulate their behavior at an early age (playing Simon Says, or being held accountable for not following rules) are more likely to have higher math scores. Self-control does not seem to play a part in the scores children recieve in reading or vocabulary. My mother could have had a brilliant pianist or a math whiz for a daughter. Instead, I obeyed her over-protective warnings and was never accountable for anything. As to how I fared at Simon Says, I do not know, but my SAT scores suggest not well.

Verbally, however, I seem to fare much better than some, say. . .Berlusconi:

"Italy is now a great country to invest in... today we have fewer communists and those who are still there deny having been one. Another reason to invest in Italy is that we have beautiful secretaries... superb girls."

''I've never paid a woman. I never understood where the satisfaction is when you're missing the pleasure of conquest.''

"The left has no taste, even when it comes to women."

Word.