I've been reading...

...Alfred Crosby's great 1996 book, "The Measurement of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600." Crosby, professor of history emeritus at the University of Texas, lives part of the year on Nantucket.

From the title, this little book, available in paperback from Cambridge University Press, sounds like it might be a ponderous academic tome, but it's actually a brightly written, witty, fast-moving explanation of how the arts of measurement -- tools for grasping reality in discrete pieces rather than as a continuous whole -- made possible the worldwide reach of European civilization.

The chapter on music tells how how and why musical notation, the measurement of units of time, not only notes but the silences between notes (which we know as rests), grew partly out of the uncontrolled experiments of practical musicans in the Middle Ages. It started with solemn church music, but even then, the equivalent of pop music sneaked in through the side door. Crosby describes an anonymous choral motet in three parts, written in about 13th century in Paris: "Its tenor sings a traditional chant, the middle voice glorifies the Virgin Mary, and the upper proclaims:

'God! How could I leave life in Paris with my comrades? Never for good, they are so delightful. For when they are all gathered together, each one sets himself to laugh and play and sing.'"

All of which suggests again that nothing good happens without a modicum of fun.