Right or Wrong, Play the Song: a Parable

Smugly, Theo placed his hands on the glossy volume, divided it at the bookmark, and flipped it open. 'It’s unarguable,' he said, 'look, it’s right here.'

Praxy bristled. 'Did you have that all lined up, ready? You really are obsessive about these things, you know.'

Theo ignored him: 'The Gibson Company’s most successful guitar is the Les Paul, named after its designer. It has been in constant production since its inception in 1953, to the present day.' He paused. 'Shall I continue?'

'You’ve heard of eyes glazing over? Well, my ears are glazing over, or whatever it is that ears do when they have no further function within the environment that they find themselves in.'

'In which they find themselves’, you mean.'

'Theo, you’ve just done it again,' Praxy said, throwing his hands up in frustration. 'You adopt someone else’s idea of what’s right - that’s ‘right’ in inverted commas, by the way - then throw it back at people like it’s an absolute truth. You’re an idiot. Our argument yesterday was about which Gibson guitar was the most successful, right? In your opinion, it’s the Les Paul. I thought it could be the SG or 335, but if you recall I suggested we should define what ‘successful’ meant first. Could be best sound, best looks, most innovative, best value for money or any mix of these or other criteria. But no, you just gave me your uncritical opinion, and passed it off as fact. Then you go and for all I know spend all night finding some alleged authority to back up your completely non-analytical position.' Praxy paused. 'But good work finding it, by the way.'

Theo gave a little nod, in gracious acceptance of the compliment, ignoring the abuse, and said, 'Really, you always make things so complicated. It’s obvious which is the best Gibson. Only you would sit on the fence and pick away at it like that - no pun intended - and come to no conclusion. No question is ever fully answered for you, is it? How long does it take you to decide which pair of socks to put on in the morning? And what do you mean ‘done it again’? Everyone knows you can’t take a sentence and use a preposition to end it with.' Praxy’s mouth opened but nothing came out. Theo was triumphant. 'Hah! Spot what I did there? See, I’m not totally stupid and I can do irony!'

'Yeh, yeh, very good' said Praxy. 'I’m not saying you’re stupid. Well, not exactly. Just rule-bound, and therefore essentially random in your opinions. And it’s nonsense up with which I will not put.'

'No need to get all Churchillian on me, pal!', said Theo, laughing. 'Come on, let’s get on with this tune. Pick up that crappy old 335 of yours and pick that intro.'

Praxy cast Theo his best weary look. 'We’ll have to go outside and find a fence for me to sit on first,' he said, 'or should that be ‘first on which to sit’?'

But with that, he grabbed his guitar, turned up his amp, and cranked out the intro at double volume. The chums were off again.