The Alien and the Critic

An alien being from a distant galaxy chanced to land upon the earth; and, seeking information about the place, wandered in to a record store. It was a quiet morning, customers were few and far between, and so the alien engaged the proprietor in conversation.

"What is this place?" asked the alien.

"Why, it is a record shop," answered the proprietor. "It is a place for the sale and distribution of recorded music. That is, ordered sounds, created by us earthlings for purposes of entertainment, and indelibly encoded onto tape or disc or one of the newer digital formats."

"I see . . . " mused the alien, impressed the concise nature of this explanation. "I think I understand of what you speak earthling. Only, on my planet we call these sounds not music but rhuju, and they are encoded upon not discs but zahinis, and sometimes garachas or nahrangahs – and very occasionally eight track cartridge, obviously.

"And you find, do you?" the alien continued, "that from the sale of these items you can make a living?"

"Indeed," replied the proprietor.

"Fascinating," remarked the alien. "On my planet this would be a mere sideline."

At that moment a customer entered the store and so the alien engaged him in conversation. "Are you a record store proprietor as well?" asked the alien.

"Alas, no," replied the customer. "I am an unemployed session musician."

The alien was very curious.

"That is to say," continued the musician. "I work for producers and record companies on an ad hoc basis, and thus provide musical backing on a number of different instruments – such as the saxophone and the piano and a bit of percussion – for their artistes, who are generally singing, though not always – and the odd gig when I can get one."

"I see," replied the alien, again impressed by the concise nature of this reply. "I think I understand again of what you speak earthling. Only, on my planet, these musicians are referred to as ruhuju masters, and their instruments as the ragathon, the tarrap and the stylophone; and singing is called yarhooling, and we refer to producers as chicken birianis – but gigs are called gigs obviously. "And you find from this – " the alien continued, "that you can make a living?"

"Just about," said the musician. "And some of us make a very good living indeed."

"Amazing," said the alien, "On my planet this is a mere hobby."

The alien was still reeling from these discoveries when a third person entered the record store.

"Don't talk to him," said the other two. "He's a critic."

But, regardless, the alien approached him. "Tell me, what is a critic?" asked the alien.

"Well," began the critic, "a critic is a person who earns their living by listening to the performances and recordings of various artistes and publishes reviews – that is, opinions of this work – in order to guide both the listener and the performer, and to evaluate the performance's objective worth."

"I'm sorry," said the alien. "You've lost me."