Folk Dance Bone Awareness Month!   
Your bones matter. 
All Bones Matter (ABM)

The United States government has designated the month of September as
Bone Awareness Month by claiming that All Bones Matter! (ABM).
Health officials have chose Bonality exercise of the month. 

Crack out the latest folk dance tunes!
Bring happy feelings in your ulna, clavicle, ileum, tibia, neck bone, and more! 
Create remarkable sounds and new folk music!
Learn to soar as you sore! 

Inspire yourself first by listening to Bonality Breakdown
Then read the Art of Bonality story below. 
Finally, crack out your own tune, create your own sound, and choreograph
your own Bonality folk dance. 

Jim
(P.S. To purchase your invisible ABM T-shirt, contact Jim)

The Art of Bonality

by Jim Gold

Historians called it “The Age of Rubble.” The worst was accepted as the best. The best was rejected as the worst. People did not respect their artists and wise men, but bowed to their fears and hatreds. Genius was feared, but imbeciles were well treated. An imbecile was provided for by the state, but a genius had to get along by himself. Geniuses were a threat: They lived above the popular mediocrity of the day. People resented their lonely existence. Somehow it reminded them that they too might be lonely if they paused to think of what they were doing. However, most were too busy earning a living, watching television or bowling to consider bothering about the direction of their lives. It was the age of the airplane and astronaut. It was the age of flight. And although a great deal of flying was done in every direction, the greatest flights of all were the flights from self. These flights from self caused the personality of he country to be split down the middle. This personality split was considered a physical split by the census takers who, when counting, doubled the population of the country. The census was accepted by the President, who claimed that if a man’s body could be in one place while his mind was in another, he could work in two places at once, thus doubling his work output.

The music of the period fell into three categories. First was music of the Deep Beat. This was the music of teenagers and children who ran the country through their parents’ earning power. Next was Classical music which was governed by electronic gadgetry. Finally, there was Folk Music, which was no longer played by the folk, but by serious classical musicians who could not make a living in their field.

During “The Age Of Rubble” music had lost its deep philosophical meaning. It had become merely a means of earning a living, a quick road to success, fame and fortune. The true roots of the living tone had been forgotten and nobody was interested in finding them again. The search for meaning had stopped. The country was united by its indifference.

The teaching in the schools was absurd. Any expression of interest by a student was squashed by the teacher. Any interest by the teacher was squashed by the principal, and any interest by the principal was squashed by the Board of Education. There was a continual inflow of squashed educators and outflow of bored, restless students who hated school and only wished to graduate to be free. The only goal the teachers and students had in common was the three-o’clock bell. An inspired student was a threat to the class because in his enthusiasm for learning he might go berserk, thereby destroying the monotony of the classroom. Pupils prone to inspiration were put in a special class held in the basement where no one could hear their screams of delight.

Creativity was being destroyed by the system. It was into such a system that Thomas Repent was born.

Youth
Thomas Repent was born in Humble Hospital. The ten months he had spent in his mother’s womb gave him more brain power and physical zing. Thus he came out boisterously singing, and his parents realized a musical son was born.

Thomas started piano lessons at the age of five. He quickly learned and mastered the simpler works of Bach and Mozart, and by the age of ten had mastered the music of all the great composers. He then began composing short musical pieces. His first work, “The March of the Vitamins, ”was performed in his health education class in public school.
Soon Tom was not satisfied with piano playing. He wanted to learn other instruments. In fact, he wanted to learn every instrument man had created. He began studying the oboe, clarinet, trumpet, flute, bassoon, cello and French horn. When these instruments were mastered, he tried singing. When his voice gave out, he learned guitar, banjo, musical saw, sitar, Chinese Huhu flute, and South African ground hole drum. He learned many more instruments but still he could not express his deepest feelings; still he was not satisfied.

This dissatisfaction led him to the invention of new instruments. He drew up plans for a Musical Holland Tunnel, a Guitaroplane, and Tuba Vacuum Cleaner. He then created the Stone Xylophone consisting of a circle of stones hit with a divining rod. The stones produced different tones giving him much pleasure, but causing the neighbors to move. He invented the Egyptian Tomb Tuba, the Medieval Windbag, the Razorophone which consisted of a razor cutting into a telephone line causing buzzing, fumes, fires and finally a visit from the local fire department and telephone company. He invented the claraviol by sticking a clarinet into a violin and bowing one while blowing the other. Then came the Melodic Meat Grinder, the Organ Exhaust Pipe, the Dog Drone where three dog teeth were brushed against a cinder block. Finally came the Fly Glassophone, where a glass filled with flies was held against your ear in order to hear the musical buzzing.

Every week he would invent another instrument, but still he was not satisfied.

Tom graduated from elementary school and passed the test to enter the special High School of Music and Moneymaking. The purpose of Music and Moneymaking (M and M as it was called) was to combine the “spiritual aspects of music with the practical aspects of moneymaking.” Once a year student graduation programs were performed in the New York Stock Exchange.

Tom’s first lecture was given in class by his music teacher, Mr. Barker. “Today’s subject is music. Music has two aspects, the beautiful, and the financial. These qualities merge when you sell a song.
“You may ask, what qualifies me to teach the sweet mysteries of this heavenly art? Let me tell you. First I worked with the Secret Service before deciding to devote myself to the stock market. Here I developed my deep love of music by listening to the ticker tape. In 1929, when minor chords accompanied financial music, I lost all my money and had to earn a living playing the violin in the street. I played the best side walk music including Bruckner Boulevard Serenade and Longhorn’s “Short Steer Boogie.” I saved my pennies and went to college. With my varied background I was quickly hired by this school.

“Today I am going to show you my new method of music writing. In it the treble clef has been changed to a dollar sign, while the bass clef is a decimal point. This method teaches you to write music like a bank account. Every note has a definite time and monetary value. The longer a note is held, the more interest it gets.”

Tom took notes furiously for the next four years enabling him to graduate Summa Cum Sumac.

After graduation there was a party in the Repent house.
“You’re going to love Plop Tech.” said his father. “It’s one of the finest colleges in the East. Life begins at college, new ways of doing things, new people, and new ideas. College is fantastic! Wish I could go.”
“Why don’t you, Dad? I’ll stay home and watch Mom.”

“Now Tom, don’t make jokes. Save your regressing for retirement when you can do it on Social Security. Now is your time to carve a place for yourself in the world.”

“But I’m scared, Dad.”

“Of course you’re scared, Son. You wouldn’t be a true Repent if you weren’t. Every Repent is scared. In fact, the prime qualities of a Repent are fear and misanthropy. These are tempered with the redeeming qualities of obsequiousness and hypocrisy, which are glossed over by the higher qualities of universal love and brotherhood for which our family is best known. We always make it a point to treat all men as brothers, unless of course they are in the family. But best of all, ours is a singing family. ‘Sing your troubles away by passing them on to another.’ Yes, the Repent code of ethics gives one strength to go on in life. These are my best words to you, my son. Now please go to college!”

And so Thomas went off to college where new worlds opened and old worlds closed. When four years had ended he received his degree in Musical Protoplasm.

He then looked for his first job in a local night club. “I’m Thomas Repent,” he said to the owner. “Do you have a job for me? I’ve just received my degree in Musical Protoplasm.”

“Musical what?” asked the owner.

“Musical Protoplasm,” replied Thomas. “Such a degree enables me to play any instrument, compose any kind of music and lead any orchestra. It makes me the embodiment of a living musical tone.”

This question made Thomas realize the value of his college degree. As he walked out of the club he thought, “Years of practice, years of study, years of scales and arpeggios and what do I have? What’s it worth? People do not understand my degrees. People do not understand me. How will I communicate to them? I have played every instrument and none of them satisfies me. Perhaps I must invent a new instrument to express my own feelings. Perhaps that is my mission, to invent a radical new instrument, a new music, an anti-failure pro-growth music.”
He thought about this as he walked. He had to do something constructive with his life.

The Discovery of Bonality
Thomas rented a cabin in the mountains for the purpose of study and meditation. He spent three years listening to the sounds of nature around him and wondering how he would express his feeling for these sounds. During this time he never exercised. His joints became stiff.

One morning while sitting under a tree a strange thing happened. He leaned back and suddenly heard a crack coming from an unused joint in his neck. He liked the sound! He turned his neck to the left. He got the same sound only with more bass! He turned his head to the right, same sound only with more treble! If I can get such sounds from my neck, he thought, why can’t I get them from the other bones and joints of my body?
He cracked his knuckles and heard an A flat come out. He cracked his elbows. Out came an F sharp. His shoulders cracked out an A, his hips a B-flat, his backbone a D sharp and his jaw-bone a G. Soon he was cracking out entire melodies on one arm.
“This is great!” he shouted. “At last I’ve found the sound I want!” He called this new art form “Bonality.”

Every day he practiced Bonality. He would warm up with scales on his knee cap, thigh and wrist. Then he moved to broken chords on his knuckles. Soon he could play melody on his right arm and accompany himself on his left. This opened the possibilities of performing sonatas on his vertebrae, and crunching out passages on his elbows.
“Bonality is a revolutionary discovery,” he said. “I must now create a musical literature for it.” He thus began work on such compositions as “Bonality Breakdown,” “Fantasy for Backbone and Knuckle,” and “Sonata for Left Hand Alone.”
Finally after two more years of practice and composition Thomas felt ready to leave his cabin retreat and return to the city. Now he would work to popularize his new Art of Bonality.

Return

When Thomas returned to the city, the first place he went to was the Mammoth Booking Agency in New York.

“May I speak with Mr. Mammoth?” he asked the secretary.

“You’ll have to make an appointment,” she said. “What instrument do you play?”

“I play my bones,” said Tom.

“Bones? Huh, why do we get all the nuts?” the secretary muttered to herself.

“Yes, I play my bones.” repeated Thomas, and he cracked out a few measures of the “Star Spangled Banner” to demonstrate.

The secretary stared in amazement. “I’ve never seen anyone do that before,” she said. “Wait here. I’ll get Mr. Mammoth.”

A few minutes later Thomas was invited into Mr. Mammoth’s office. A sign hung under a picture of an elephant, which read Buy Mammoth on the Sabbath.

“Good morning, Mr. Repent,” said Mr. Mammoth leaning back in his chair and squinting through his eyeglasses. “I hear you have an exciting new act for us.”

“It is not an act, sir,” replied Thomas. “It is an art.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Mr. Mammoth. “We book that, too. Where have you performed before?”

“I do not perform, Mr. Mammoth, I concertize.”

“Well, son, go out and get some experience in the field. Then come back and we’ll talk some more.”

Thomas redden with anger. “How dare you insult me! I did not come here to ask you for work. I came here because I have chosen you to work for me. Consider yourself and your organization fortunate that I have chosen them to help further my career.”

Mr Mammoth started getting angry, but then his anger turned to laughter.

“Mr. Repent, your approach to management is certainly unique. Before I throw you out, let’s see a little of what you can do.”

“I do not concertize under threats of violence,” replied Thomas. “However, in this case, since I need a job, I will make an exception.” He then began cracking out his own arrangement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

When Thomas finished, Mr. Mammoth looked stunned. “I must admit I’ve never heard that kind of sound before. Very original, very original indeed. I think we’ll be able to work together. We’ll begin planning your debut in Town Hall at once.”

Concert
Thomas had been planning his debut concert for years. Now his great moment was to arrive. All over New York he saw posters announcing “First Bonality Concert in History.” The newspapers were filled with ads. Many critics had called the Mammoth Agency asking, “What’s Bonality all about?” Interest was stirring in underground music circles. Musical journals were trying to get interviews with Thomas, while many music schools were thinking that if Bonality was a successful new sound they would have to find bonality teachers.

The concert was scheduled for March 21st, the first day of spring. This day symbolized both the rebirth of nature and the birth of bonality. Thomas got to Town Hall early that night to warm up. He went through his exercises while the hall began to fill up. By 8:30 there was standing room only.

The lights dimmed. The spotlight threw a white circle of light on the center of the stage. Then Thomas walked out, bowed, and began his concert by cracking his neck. Then he played a rondo on his right arm. This was immediately followed by the Backbone Concerto. As the melody was being crunched out on his vertebrae, he added luscious harmony on his ankles and flowing counterpoint on his shoulders and knees. The mellow tones of his joints filled the hall. His bone cracking penetrated every ear.

When the concerto ended, there was absolute silence. The audience was too stunned to move. Not a hand clapped as Thomas bowed. Undaunted, Thomas launched right into his biggest piece, the “Messiah Sonata.” Its crunching melody, grinding harmonies, and trills on the rib cage brought the audience to a new emotional low. Many walked out, though some were still too stunned to move. Thomas then cracked out his own arrangement of “Tubas Forever,” by Mortimer Beethoven. More people walked out. He tried a Lawrence Haydn quartet on his knuckles and a rock song on his neck, but people kept leaving. Boos sounded from both sides of the hall. He heard a woman in the first row say, “Disgusting!”

“Belongs in an asylum,” said another.

“Drug addict,” said an elderly gentleman.

By the end of the concert only three people were left in the hall, and two of them were janitors.

No one came to the post-concert reception, not even the Mammoth Agency. Thomas went home and cried for three days. He wanted to commit suicide but was afraid of the pain. Once he stopped crying however, a terrible rage began to consume him. “My bonality is so revolutionary that no one understands or appreciates it,” he shouted as his fist tore through his pillow.
“Every artist who is ahead of his time must fight public ignorance and indifference. Why should I be an exception? I must find a few brave souls who dare to open their minds and appreciate bonality. I must find the chosen few who dare to bare their true feelings and express their true selves. The public is used to hiding its innermost thoughts. I stood before them in Town Hall, stripped away all falsity, gave them real emotion in music, and they responded by running away. They were afraid to feel. They are weak and frightened. But there is hope. I must educate them, teach them to conquer their fears, show them the emotional release of bonality. My real work now is to educate the public. I must find an audience for bonality. I will begin a bonality school. Books must be written, teachers must be informed, an advertising campaign must be organized. A campaign must be waged against public ignorance. People must learn to feel again. Their bodies and minds must unite. Bonality is the music of the body. It is the music of feeling. People must learn to hear and feel again.

“ Most adults are fixed in their ways. I must begin with children. They are open to change and new approaches. They can feel their bodies and have not yet been closed off from them- selves by demands of parents, schools and community. Children hold the future for bonality.”

Thus Thomas felt a new hope rising. Though both public and Mammoth Agency had dropped him, he nevertheless felt stronger. He wouldn’t be pushed around by what others expected of him. He wouldn’t be a prisoner of approval. His new hope in bonality had given him a cause, and this cause gave him guts, built his character from an egocentric, arrogant, self-proclaimed genius, into a more selfless man totally devoted to his new art.

First Grade

Frieda Gilfry brought her son to a tomb-shaped building called Public School 8. “This will be your daytime home for the next eight years,” she chirped. They went down some dark steps and entered the classroom. The teacher introduced herself as Mrs. Toad, guardian of morality and self-proclaimed leader of children. Thomas sat down in a seat which was still wet from the leaky pen of a previous pupil. “That is your new seat,” said Mrs. Toad. “You should be proud to have such a seat. Many brilliant pupils have used it in the past.”

Mrs. Gilfry left the room and the class began. The first topic was the birth of Mrs. Toad. She explained, “You see, children, life is created by the combination of sperm and egg. However, there have been certain exceptions to this rule. Our Lord Jesus Christ was one of them, and I am the other. Instead of being impregnated by another man, my mother was impregnated by God. She would never let another man touch her, and neither would I. All my children will be born through this virgin birth as it is called. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, how many children in this class have been born like me?”

The children looked at her blankly. Thomas yawned, then stretched. His hands rose high in the air as he did so.

“So, my boy,” said Mrs. Toad to Thomas, “you too are a product of virgin birth. I am glad someone here didn’t need a father. The world would be a better place if less time were spent in bed.”

Then Mrs. Toad pointed to some letters along the top of the blackboard. “Today we will learn the alphabet. When we speak or write, we use words. They are made of letters. All the letters are part of the alphabet. There are 26 letters. I want you to repeat them after me.”

The class spoke the letters together. Then they learned a song to help them remember it.

Thomas went home after school excited about the alphabet. He practiced writing and saying the letters until he knew them perfectly. At supper time he recited the whole alphabet to the surprise of his family.

“I see your first day at school has been a success,” said his father. “Do you know the Chinese alphabet is different from ours? Their letters look like pictures. They sound like singsong. When we hear a Chinese person talk it sounds strange. But when a Chinese person hears us talk he laughs because we’re so strange.

Then there’s the Greek and Russian alphabet whose letters are still different. When you go to the museum you’ll see ancient Egyptian letters which were actually pictures of things. There’s just no end to the number of alphabets you can make.”

Thomas went to his room after supper, his head swimming in alphabets. He lay down on his bed and dreamed about strange letters and foreign sounds. He thought about all the things he couldn’t say because he didn’t know enough words. He felt frustrated. No matter how many alphabets he learned he still wouldn’t be able to say everything he wanted to say.

Then he had an idea. Why should he use other people’s faulty alphabets? Why bother with their faulty creations? After all, he had nothing to do with writing their alphabet. Why should other people force him to use their alphabet? Why should he say things their way? He had his own way of saying things. Therefore, he would make up his own alphabets.

He began by collecting sounds. First there were human sounds such as burps, gargles, bone cracking, coughs, and singing. Then there were the sounds of human beings relating to one another such as silence, purring, screams, stomach rumbling, heartbeats, pulse, the hissing of osmosis, the growing of capillaries, the shouting of sperm cells and the gossip of ova.

The non-human sounds followed, such as sirens, honking, airplanes, roaring, pile drivers banging, shopping bags swinging, wind groaning, trains moaning, plants growing, and rivers flowing.

Thomas gathered forty-two pages of sounds. Slowly the magic of synthesis was taking place in his mind; slowly the sounds were combining into the Gilfrian alphabet. That night he sat down to compose it.
Aump
Blub
Crapblab
Dlump
Eept
| 194 |

HANDFULS OF AIR
Floop
Greetch
Hablebable
Ish
Jujaw
Klab
Lupf
Mumpf
Numpf
Ompf
Pumpe
Queg
Reltch
Skreltch
Tubble
Umpf
V1yap
Weetch
Xeblehoffle
Yeeps
Zeebeeskrootchenbufflebierberg

Gilfry Meets His Ancestor Tobias

One eveniong at the end of a Gilfry concert, a skeleton jumped on the stage and said, “My fellow skeletons, I am the great grandfather of Thomas Gilfry. Three cheers for Thomas. He has brought the art of bonality to the public. He has turned the human skeleton into a concert instrument. He has given skeletons a place in the world. He has given the dead a chance to express themselves. If not for him I could not be here tonight. The living have forgotten the dead. But the dead shall inherit the earth with the living. Because of Thomas Gilfry it is no longer a crime to be dead. He has given the dead a respectable place in society. Death is in every person. When they know this they will begin to dance. The death dance is the most beautiful dance ever created. It is a monument to life. No living person should be without it.”

When Thomas Gilfry heard this, he rushed back to the stage.

“Are you Tobias?” he asked.

“I am,” replied the skeleton. “I have been in the grave many years waiting to be resurrected. Who would have thought you would be my savior? When your grandfather died, he told me were an idiot. You just can’t trust a person who has died.”

They walked to the wings of the stage as half the audience fainted.

“By the way,” said Thomas, “have you ever seen New York City? Most of it had not been built when you were alive.”

“That’s true,” said Tobias, “but I’ve heard a lot about it from the corpses (boys) in the cemetery.”

Thomas and Tobias walked down Fifth Avenue. Although the streets were crowded, few saw the odd couple since most people refuse to see the living and the dead walking together.

“When were you alive?” asked Thomas.

“My years were 1816 to 1871,” replied Tobias. “In those days musicians really had a hard time. No free training schools and no jobs. And if you cracked your bones you’d be jailed.”

“We have many music schools now,” said Thomas.

“I’d like to see one.”

“Fine. We’ll visit the Fewbard School of Music. It’s just three stops on the subway.” Thomas bought a token and went through the turnstiles, but Tobias got through for nothing since he had no body.

They arrived at Fewbard and saw two bonality players practicing scales on their elbows and knuckles. When they walked past, one of the players looked at Tobias and said, “There’s a man who really practices.”

“Yeah,” said the other. “Just shows what a little hard work can do for the figure.”

“This school has two floors,” said Thomas. “The second teaches only bonality, whereas the first is for more conventional music.”

They walked in. The first floor was lined with practice rooms. They opened one of the doors and found a student practicing on a coffee pot.

“Can you play a Gregorian chant on your pot?” asked Tobias.

“I don’t play Communist songs,” said the student.

Tobias was about to ask another question when suddenly a gong rang. Students rushed out of their practice rooms to lunch. ln the emptiness of the hall the gong spoke.

“I am the school gong. Students run when they hear me clang. Our purpose in this school is to turn students into instruments. We do this by using instruments to teach our students.

“All our music has been written by the dead. Therefore all our music is dead. Even I am getting tired of ringing. These are tired times. Long ago a student would roar before he would snore. Now he snores and never roar. Return to the grave Tobias. There is more life there than in this music school.”

Just then the director of the school came storming down the hall. He grabbed Tobias by the arm. “How dare you come into s school like this!” he said. “I’m going to call the police and have you arrested.”

Thomas Gilfry groaned, “Will the living and the dead ever come to understand each other? Sir, this is Tobias Gilfry, one of the great names in music history. He composed the Turnip Serenade which all your students are required to play before breakfast.”

“Oh, is that right?” said the director. “Then, if he is so successful, why did he die? Where is his body?”

“Tobias was taken away in 1871,” replied Thomas. “You see sir, Tobias is dead.”

“I’m sorry about that,” repented the director. “I didn’t mean to speak so harshly. lt’s just that he looks so alive.”

“I think big thoughts,” said Tobias. “It keeps my figure trim and keeps me hopping around.”

“Well, we’ve never had a dead person visit our school,” said the director, “although many of our visitors have been close to death. Some have died after visiting our school. Between you and me, it’s a miserable place to learn anything. The bonality section on the second floor is our only hope for the future.”

“Bonality will save the world,” said Thomas.

“I certainly hope it saves me,” said the director. “If I don’t produce a good student soon the board of directors will fire me.”

Bonality Marches On

Thomas returned to his mountain cabin to meditate and write. After three months he produced the one literary work on bonality, entitled Tone or Drone. In this work he expounded upon the philosophical foundations of the art. “. . .bonality fuses the banality of tonality with the finality of musicality resulting in reality.” The book goes on to describe ideal bonality children’s workshops, a history of bonality, a few bonal beginner’s pieces, and the relationship of people to music. In the words of Thomas Repent, I quote from the last chapter: “For centuries civilization and its taboos have pushed people’s feelings into the gutter. People whose feelings are in the gutter can stand no higher than the gutter. It is the work of bonality to free people to climb out of the gutter….”

After his book was completed Thomas returned to the city. He traveled from house to house trying to find parents willing to send their children to his school. The only ones who would consider it were parents who wanted to get rid of their children. In the beginning he only had three students. Then something happened which was to change the course of his life.

Disc jockeys throughout the country had been working and looking for a new sound. Thomas had recorded the Backbone Concerto, with Knuckle Rot on the flip side and sent it to one hundred radio stations, One jockey, as a joke, played it on his program. Almost instantly his telephone began ringing as hundreds of listeners called. Who was the composer? Who was the recording artist? What was that sound? Other disc jockeys picked it up. Soon the Backbone Concerto was number one on the music charts. Radio stations played it countless times a day. Thomas began to receive phone calls. TV specials wanted him on their program. Colleges were asking for bonality concerts. Record companies and agents were calling for exclusive rights to his bonality compositions, performances and lecture appearances.

Soon he didn’t have a moment to himself. He was besieged by fans, agents and businessmen looking to sell their products through his name.

The next years brought one success after another. His concerts were given to thousands of cheering fans. His bow brought a mellow A flat from his backbone. Then he would open with the popular Backbone Concerto, followed by Variations on an Empty Knee Cap, Bonality Break-down and Knuckle Rot. After each concert he spoke with the audience about “Repent University,” a school he was starting to teach up-and-coming bonality players. The leading music critic of the New York Grimes now said of Thomas, “Thomas Repent was once ugly, but today he is beautiful. He has changed himself from a squeaking runt into a musical prince through his art. Bonality purifies the mind and body by emptying them of the garbage of everyday existence. No longer does he walk through the streets like a trash can making ugly and empty noises. Music makes your body beautiful. It is true that Mr. Repent’s face has changed little since the old Town Hall concert. But today, when people look at him, they are in reality listening to him through his eyes. And when they hear the beautiful sound of his bones cracking they can’t help but love him.”

This life force had surged through Thomas Repent from the day he was born. It was so great that words alone could not express it. From his vital center came a force which caused his bones to crack. And his bones were extensions of the world around him. They were hard, strong, and yet they could sing and dance. They were the highways over which new thoughts traveled from his body to his mind. They sent blood messages to the tiniest islands of his body. No cell remained uninformed. Always the message came, “I must come through. I must speak!”

When Thomas Repent reached the age of ninety-six his eyes were hollowed by years of bone cracking. The time had come to return to the true father of bonality, the maker of cosmic tones and maker of all bones. He felt at peace with himself. “His life had been a success. Not the simple minded success of mass worship and financial riches, but a success in the deeper knowledge that he had experienced great music and shared it with others. He had left a legacy behind him: those who knew him would continue to develop bonality after he died.

Thomas sat in his armchair remembering the original vision. He wanted to see everyone cracking their bones, laughing and dancing together. He now knew this vision had driven him all his life. He had been the first to speak through his bones. He expressed a deeper reality. His music was earth music. Were not the volcanic fires of the earth caused by the friction of the earth’s unexercised joints? Didn’t the earth crack when it quaked? Were not the earthquakes expressions of earth bones fighting to speak the essence of the earth? They had been trying for millions of years. The urge for self expression could never be destroyed. Human beings were no different from the earth in this respect. Rivers poured, rocks melted, seas withdrew, then returned to flood continents, and always the great life force unseen behind each mammoth minute kept saying, “I must come through. I must speak!”

from Handfuls of AirAvailable on Amazon and BN.com
or visit www.jimgold.com