Yours in Acceptable Humor

We're pretty sure it's not about you. You're cool. ~ a musician friend, referring to Dadmobile's new hit single, "Caring Ain't Cool."

Wordplay, like the lobster and leek quiche I had during a late lunch at Can Can earlier, is simply irresistible.

My only walk of the day took me to Balliceaux for Classical Incarnations' latest installment, "Night of the Living Composers," some of whom played their own music, some who interpreted others' and one who suggested we download an app so that we could contribute sounds to his composition.

Even some of those with devices, like my social companion, opted out of going the app route and instead, like me, just experienced the piece as pure audience.

Looking dapper, Walter Braxton performed the fourth movement from his Dance Suite, a piece that took him nine years to write. Tonight his opus was having its world premiere to a packed house.

An earnest-looking guy named Niccolo improvised on a medieval fiddle played viola de gamba-style and French horn player Kristen played Tonia Ko's piece, "Glass Echoes," tied into sexual assault issues, but also proceeded by a customer dropping a drink, making for the sound of breaking glass.

Robert's "Meditations" were notable for their restraint, for the lack of music played by harp, viola, cello and flute in many sections. The funny part was that such a minimalist composition was also accompanied by the noise of a kitchen cleaning up and closing down, sounds that were particularly obvious during so many quieter moments.

Dressed in a diaphanous black crop top and pants, vocalist Nicole looked fabulous, so I took the opportunity to compliment her ensemble, especially how she'd mixed decades with the genie-like disco outfit over stiletto pumps, a completely un-1970s shoe style.

"Really? I didn't know," she gushed. "My boyfriend's mother gave me the shoes." Not period appropriate, but then, isn't it the beauty of today that a stylish person can draw from multiple decades, much the way musicians can for a final product that is an all-encompassing pastiche rather than an imitation?

Yet another mash-up was a woman who used her computer to draw - which we could see on the wall behind her - while a music clip played of her reading a spoken word piece written in middle school about trying to figure out her truth as an artist and person.

Never in my life could I have conceived of such a thing, much less executed it in front of a crowd. Yet people think I'm cool?

I'm pretty sure it's as easy as being there for a Sunday night show of living composers that's fooled people into singing my praises.

Next up: dynamic, highly intelligent, refreshing. Why not shoot for the whole enchilada?