It's about style ... a signature. We were all taught proper penmanship, but how do you sign your name? Who taught you that? I think it comes out naturally at some point for anybody who's any good at anything (and I'm not necessarily including my own pool game here!). Charlie Parker had a sound and so did Coltrane, and there's no mistaking them. Van Gogh painted the way he had to, and so did Picasso. I think it goes for bartenders and pool players, too.
Not often is a poem called for on AZB, but I think we need a dose of Bukowski's "Style" ...
Style is the answer to everything.
Fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous day.
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without style.
To do a dangerous thing with style, is what I call art.
Bullfighting can be an art.
Boxing can be an art.
Loving can be an art.
Opening a can of sardines can be an art.
Not many have style.
Not many can keep style.
I have seen dogs with more style than men.
Although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun, that was style.
For sometimes people give you style.
Joan of Arc had style.
John the Baptist.
Jesus.
Socrates.
Caesar.
Garc?a Lorca.
I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is a difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water, or you, walking
out of the bathroom without seeing me.
