My rejection of the idea of entertainment in its current form is based on the audience that comes with it.

For several centuries what has passed for song in literary circles was any text that looked like the lyrics for a commonplace melodic setting.

The Sophists' paradoxical talk pieces and their public debates were entertainment in 5th century Greece. And in that world, Socrates was an entertainer.

When you grow up in a family of languages, you develop a kind of casual fluency, so that languages, though differently colored, all seem transparent to experience.

Children frequently sing meaningful phrases to themselves over and over again before they learn to make a distinction between singing and saying.

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music, I really don't think of speech as so far from song.

I'm aware of my audience in a way, and I do try to engage with them while I'm trying to go about my business of thinking. I believe they help me by providing a focus.