LAUNDRY WITH LUDWIG

Out there in the noon-plus sunshine just now getting in some of the dried laundry, one arm filling with sox and underwear, I heard the manic warbler up in one of the cedars fiddling with his old standard (he's so used to it year-to-year he just trills da-DA-da, da-DA-da until he runs out of breath) and when he got into a riffy groove he thought was good, he took off on the da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da extended riff that Beethoven sampled in Pastorale. 

The composer, however, went on to do a few other things with the riff in the human fashion, trilling it this way and that, filigreeing here and there to create a composition worthy of the symphonic pantheon, but in the present case the warbler just went on and on da-DA-da-DA-da-DA-da-ing until he was breathless, which is anticlimactic even for a Beethoven fan gathering laundry.

So when the warbler started up again, I unconsciously joined in whistling, and at the right place couldn't help but segue into Ludwig’s delightful version, which I won't romanize here - we all know it - but I tell you, the warbler suddenly stopped short, as if listening to this new and startling version of his anciently popular and splendid melody. 

When I stopped whistling, having gathered all the laundry (the mundane plays a key part in artistic creation; just ask Ludwig’s housekeeper), warbler did a chirpy thing that I can't replicate in mere alphabetics, but to my ear was the avian equivalent of “Wow! That was really something!” It led me to think that he might even be about to alter his repertoire to include a few Pow! additions by Ludwig, which would really be something!

I listened carefully as I sorted the laundry indoors. The silence was pregnant. The feathered master began... sounded great... when he hit the part where Beethoven lifts off into creation, the bird went on exactly as before, right to the end of breath. It was a bit of a letdown, but I wasn't really expecting any more than last time, when I tried to get him to cover just a couple bars of John Lee Hooker.

Like Beethoven, John Lee or any other world-class artist, vonWarbler has his own priorities.       

JOHN LEE WARBLER

I'd finished prepping the next spinach plot and was sitting on the deck sipping coffee as an early evening thunderstorm approached, when Warbler all of a sudden, out of the depths of one of the big cedars close by the deck, commenced at top volume right in my ear his usual late afternoon declamation as to the general condition of his pre-eminent life and the state of his extensive territorial possessions.

As he announced to all and sundry on the mountainside the usual long list of splendid stuff in that amazing way he has, I responded to each item by whistling in my crude Warblerese a few of my favorite blues riffs (I can be such a pain, birdwise), each of which W pointedly ignored, continuing in his usual manner, at least until I did a few bars from Boogie, Chillun by the eminent John Lee Hooker.

Upon hearing that, Warbler paused, whether in awe or some degree of self-doubt it's hard to say. He then resumed in what seemed like halfhearted confusion, as though certain of his territory was not so vast after all. He made no attempt, though, to fit even a bit of John Lee into the warbly repertoire, which would be neat beyond belief, and news around the world, but what do warblers care for fame. After a few tries to regain his composure he flew off to another corner of his realm and began again in the old way.

Some forms of life are more conservative than others, but it's always worth a try.