It’s not silence.

I made thousands and thousands of exposures, but only created one good photograph. When a mother brought in her baby with yellow jaundice, I put the unfortunate thing on a golden rug and used a background depicting a dramatic, orange sunset. The jaundice photograph turned out to be the only good color photograph I’ve ever made.

I made a lot of money shooting babies. I paid cash for a new Volkswagen and some Leicas and left Michigan behind.

I said yes and, as a result, ended up at Café de la Paz.

The evening started with an interesting warmup act: a guitar player, a singer, and three painted ladies. I was impressed that the quintet featured both a singer and a guitar player; usually low-budget groups find someone who can do both. For financial and/or aesthetic reasons, the ensemble didn’t include a drummer.

When the show started, I discovered that each of the performers was a percussionist. They all clapped in elaborate syncopation, clacked little, black, clanky things, whapped the guitar and chairs, and generally made all manner of raucous bang-banging.

The women sat clapping throughout most the performance, but every so often one of them of would stand, glower at the audience as if possessed by the devil herself, then launch into a strange dance that combined graceful arm movements with powerful, vicious foot-stomping.

“You just know that she has to be screwing up her knees big time doing that,” Larry whispered.

I had to leave before the performing flamingos; the warmup group provided enough entertainment for one evening.

“What’s it like to be in a big orchestra?” I asked. “Whenever I think of symphony musicians, I can’t help but think of Frank Zappa’s reference to you and your colleagues as ‘mechanics.’”

“Zappa didn’t know much about real music,” she replied. “There’s a lot of stuff we know that the general public in general and pop singers like Frank in particular don’t have a clue about.”

I resisted the temptation to inquire why she referred to Zappa as a pop singer, and instead asked for example of her insider knowledge.

The bassoonist leaned over and asked a hypothetical question, “You wanna know something?”

“Do tell,” I replied.

“A lot of great music is boring,” she confided with whiskey breath.

“I always suspected that might be the case,” I admitted. “Could you give me an example?”

“The third movement of Beethoven’s last symphony is tedious beyond words,” she announced. “Totally boring.”

I wonder why I’ve never met a happy bassoonist.

I’m sure she didn’t mean that the dog was killed more than once; only cats have nine lives. Still, I spent most of the afternoon thinking about a dog getting killed once.

“Any court in the universe would convict me of pride, gluttony, lust, greed, and sloth,” I admitted. “On the other hand, I’ve almost never been angry or envious.”

“Why only five?” Stewart asked. “I never though of you as an underachiever when it came to anything unpleasant.”

“Exactly!” I agreed. “That’s why I only engage in the enjoyable sins. Anger and envy make one so miserable that they may as well be virtues.”

“How are you?” her secretary asked politely.

“If I felt any better,” I replied, “I’d probably spew up big chunks of joy and love all over the place.”

“I didn’t need to know that,” she replied curtly.

“I’m sorry,” I replied, “I guess you shouldn’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”

Nevertheless, I believe Ruth was right. It only makes sense that Galileo concluded that the heavens didn’t revolve around the earth after concluding that cats were the center of the universe.