My Favorite Book

20,000 Words book by Leslie
20,000 Words book by Leslie

My math scores on the SATs were about twice my verbal scores. I am visually oriented. My favorite book is only 20,000 words long. In fact the title of the book is “20,000 Words.” It’s a dictionary without definitions and an old-time, invaluable resource for those who can’t spell. Me.

I love looking at the phonetically hyphenated words. Kilo-watt, knee-high, knight-hood, la-dy-bug, la-goon. And it is still a perfect resource for naming instrumental songs. I used it last night to come up with “Hard Boiled.” The photo that we used for the cover is one that went off while my camera was in my pocket. Somehow it found this amazing red light.

Each Margaret Explosion show is different but we’ve been closing in on this melody for the last few weeks. You’ll hear it stated here about a minute and a half into this song from last week’s performance. The bass clarinet plays variations on the theme and the guitar beautifully crystallizes it while the double bass carries the tune. The band is on a roll, as usually happens at the end of a string of shows. We hope you can stop out tonight for our last show in the Little Theater Café until Fall.

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