Can I Play with Madness?

Lately, madness has surrounded me indirectly. My good friend M has suffered from several people with strange or even bizarre behaviour. Even though I have encountered these people too, they have not behaved strangely towards me. But yesterday, lunacy struck me, almost literally in fact.

Normally, my work at the department of musicology at the university is very undramatic. I do research, read articles, lecture, advise students on their future, attend meetings and so on. Very rarely does anything out of the ordinary happen. Much to my surprise, my collegue T came to my office to see me. T was obviously upset, completely white in the face and muttered something about a student that was going to sue the department.

Following T came the student who was not a happy customer. The short version: the student was very upset because the student had bought the sixth edition of the literature required for the course. All the students had been informed that there is a brand new edition - the seventh edition - available, but the previous edition is still good enough to be used on the course, and the department could sell this edition to the student at a price (including a book on music history, 12 CDs and two anthologies) almost 1000 kr below the price of the seventh edition in the shops. Even though we have copies left of the sixth edition, we recommend the students buy the latest edition. The books in question (yes, they are plural) are currently used at departments of musicology all over the world. According to the student, we had forced the "poor students" (to quote the student) to buy the earlier edition. The book was "old rubbish" and the student said the department would get sued.

I explained very calmly that the book was not rubbish. We have used this book for some years now, and musical history hasn't changed enough to discard the books. As for us forcing the students to buy the sixth edition, that accusation is simply out of order. We have never forced any student to buy this book from us. There have been no complaints from any other students on this matter. As for being sued, I don't lose any sleep over that matter.

When the student understood that I would not give the student any monetary refund for the book, the student very dramatically threw the book on the floor with some force. Interestingly, the student proudly claimed to have hit me over the head with the book. No such thing happened, which is very lucky for the student. I could have reported the student to the university or even the police had I been hit.

"Can I Play with Madness" is an Iron Maiden song I don't particularly care for. Not one of their best, but certainly a most suitable headline for this blog.

NP: Wayne Krantz - 2 Drink Minimum, a remarkable guitarist with his excellent trio on a very hot live date in N.Y.C. Highly recommended for anyone into original guitar playing, good fusion music or just great musicianship.