Alfred

The instruction manual we're using (at my teacher's suggestion) is Alfred's Basic Piano Instruction. I found this amusing, as Alfred is the name of my son's iguana. My son named his iguana--obviously--after Batman's butler. So we were both amused by the image of Batman's butler Alfred authoring a piano instruction course in his spare time, in between patching Batman back together from getting sliced, bullet-riddled, and bludgeoned from Gotham City's criminal elements.

You see, my brother, my son and I are among the geekiest creatures alive, and when the three of us come together in cosmic geek congruence we communicate in a dense, secret code comprised of obscure subcultural references derived from comics, old horror and sci-fi-movies, Shakespeare, Camus, Harlan Ellison, William Shatner quotes, and other obscurata which to onlookers must sound like a foreign language.

Alfred the iguana is a huge creature my son and his cheerful S.O. raised from a hatchling. He has his own sunroom, complete with luxury controlled environment, sauna, and foliage. he is a handsome, friendly creature unafraid of people. Alfred loves cake, especially pound cake. He struts majestically across the living room on his way to the bathroom to do his business (yes, he's housetrained) and likes to wallow in a shallow bathtub of warm water. For all I know, these hedonistic habits were also shared by Alfred the butler and Alfred the composer of the piano course.

I find these synchronicities, the synergistic smack of significance of the name Alfred, to lend a sense of rightness to my decision to take up the piano at this time. The universe itself approves. Alfred approves. All of them. Let's all have a piece of cake.