BEACHCOMBING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 900, 2 November 1956, Page 10

BEACHCOMBING

USICIANS tend to be a wan and sickly lot. They are night workers, feverish travellers, under rested, wrongly-nourished hotel livers; they practise in seldom-aired studios, taking ‘their instrument out of their embouchure only to replace it with a cigarette. This is a depressing picture of occupational malaise, but a few find ways out. I knew a pianist from one of the moré dreadful industrial towns of Ohio who was sick all the time. ‘Finally he transplanted himself and what remained of his life’s savings to a health ranch in northern Mexico, ‘which was where I met him. He had enough money to last him three months, but he stayed six. By then he was in good health, and truly insolvent. He married a girl who had no money either, and -went to live in San Diego. Things were grim for a month or two. Then his wife was left a seaside house at La Jolla, a very tonky area just north of Sah Diego. They let the spare bedroom and turned the rumpus room into a teaching studio. One or two tonky pupils appeared. My friend got himself a steady job at a late spot within haif an hour’s drive; close by southern California standards. Now he has a good routine: teaching from 7.0 p.m.-11.0, then playing for the late customers till they’re ready to go home, say 4.30 a.m. He drives back to La Jolla, nas his supper and sleeps till mid-morning. Then he staggers down to the beach, still in a stupor of sleep, carrying a jorum of fruit juice. He plants himself between two rocks and sleeps as long as he feels inclined under a beach umbrella. When his wife has finished her housework she joins him, and they spend the afternoon on the beach, swimming and taking~*snorts of fruit juice. He is never sick and ratés his sun tan an invaluable professional asset. So much for southern California. Back to New Zealand. I° used to see Nancy Harrie years ago when she worked in a music shop in Christchurch. She was a lively pianist, but so frail she was in danger of blowing off the piano stool every time she turned a sheet of music. She plays several kinds of radio jobs in Auckland now, and lives on the North Shore by the beach. She’s not transparent any more, although she’s no discus heaver yet.

"All summer,’ she says, "I get the housework done early, and then I take the two children down to the beach with a rug and some tomato sandwiches, and we stay there the rest of the day. I have a long swim and I feel so much fitter than I did. . « » I -love the North Shore." Take hope, musicians! Come north, musicians! It can be done.

Outbursts AUCKLAND is not like the rest of New Zealand. Others have suspected this and mentioned it. Let me add to the body of evidence with two short emotional incidents. Emotional incidents, except within certain well defined limits, are very rare in the rest of New Zealand. 1. An admirably succinct paragraph in the daily press gave the whole of the first incident. The police prosecutor tells of a sailor who broke into a furniture shop: "He was found asleep on a couch in the shop window," said Mr. Hedley. "An engineer's hammer was found in his coat pocket. He admitted breaking the door panel and also the window, and said he wanted somewhere to sleep. He also said he was afraid, but the police. could not understand what he meant by that. Nothing was missing from the shop. He had not been drinking." Consider the cops discussing this odd fellow who had been driven by fear, a strong emotion: "Joker says he’s scared." "What’s he scared of?" "J dunno." "Joker must be a bit loopy. Snoring off on a couch like that, Breaking a window .. ." "Can’t understand a joker saying he’s scared of nothing." It’s a pretty shameful admission. In the south, if you have a childlike fear of the dark and want to dive into a warm bed, you don’t talk about it. If you’re a cop, you certainly don’t. talk about it or try to understand it. You label it crime. So does the law, which cops have to obey, too. 2. At the exhibition of Henry Moore’s work at the Auckland Art Gallery, a viewer was suddenly overcome by emotion and cried in a loud voice: "Nonsense! The man ought to be shot." He then stamped out of the gallery. And this outburst, mind you, was over something so trivial as art. Art-lumps’ of sculpture. What foreigners do their blocks about it in places like Paris. Wouldn’t it! Nonconformist HERE were five trucks in_ the Birkenhead ferry queue at 12.30 p.m. that day. Each driver had his (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) radio playing: each had a pie in one hand anda bottle of soft drink in the other. Four of the pies were meat, but the fifth was a real squashy job, filled with cream and dotted with strawberries, And this distorter of the norm, licking the cream off his upper lip and removing a gobbet from the end of his nose with his forefinger, didn’t seem to care a hoot that he was not merely in the wrong set, but quite alone in ‘his gaudy taste. Conformists All APPARENTLY Invercargill kids have been coming to school in Davy Crockett hats. These furry coverings not only keep the snow from going down the back of your neck, but also keep stray cats quiet and scarce. Admittedly they don’t look exactly urban. When word of this fashion was brought to Auckland, to the President of the Headmasters’ Association, he said his instinct was against the idea, He would probably have a quiet chat with boys who wore

the Davy Crockett hat and discourage them. This quiet chat thing can be dismissed in a couple of lines of dialogue: Headmaster: Boy! Take off that abomination you're wearing on your head. Boy: Yes, sir. Headmasters prefer a seemly conformity in the way of clothes, characteristics and conformation, A crocodile of children wearing decorous uniform caps is easier to control than a wild mob in Davy Crockett hats. So headmasters do their best to make it unpleasant for nonconformists. And they have the power to do that. The only way a primary school aged child can run up against worse unpleasantness is by refusing to conform to the fashions of his own bunch. His headmaster may quietly chat with him, but if his own crowd go for Davy Crockett and he holds out, he’ll be practically lynched. The wise child puts aside his individuality until he leaves school-and then finds he hasn’t any left!

G. leF.

Y.