Do It Big Or Stay In Bed

“Do it big or stay in bed.” That is a quote from Opera producer Larry Kelly. Being a lover of the ridiculous, I thought to explore how this quote may go entirely wrong. I have never liked opera, and the statement that it’s not over until the fat lady sings,” floats my boat, or should I say my modest raft of words.

I personally like to stay in bed! To turn that into an essay is my challenge of the day. I am all for people breaking new ground, but if I have to get out of bed to do it, I will take a pass.

My teacher, Vernon Howard, did it big. He boomed, roared and thundered at us to wake up. We did just the opposite. I wrote a parody about a teacher I called the Sleeping Teacher, or Swami Z. His students, as I created them, only came for the chocolate chip cookies. Swami lured them in and then reamed them out. Perfect.

Life today is humongously big and definitely awful enough to inspire one to wake up. You there, you who are reading it, are sound asleep and I am wearing a sleeping mask as I type this so that the clacking of the keys does not alarm me into a state of awakening.

What would happen if the world awoke all at once? Would everyone sing Cumbaya and go into a state of ecstasy? Nope. Soon those keen to get the advantage would say it was all a hoax and that the Awakened Ones were dead wrong and that he could put everyone back to sleep.

Here is another quote from The 2,548 Best Things That Anybody Ever Said: “Classical music is music written by famous dead foreigners.”

Leonard Cohen’s lawyer told him, “None of you can sing.When I want to hear singing, I go to the Metropolitan Opera.“

Pithiness beats piety. Anything designed to wake you up is gonna hurt, gonna demand a sacrifice. Go ahead and build your altar just the way you want it to look. The typing monkeys are already plotting to destroy it systematically.

*This was written on the eve of The Fourth of July. You might say that this is my sparkler!

Vicki Woodyard