I use my cell phone for my morning alarm. It plays, with all the grandeur it can muster, “Leichte Kavallerie Overture.” To me it conjures the most famous Charge of the Light Brigade. Thus it is likely to remain my alarm for some time to come.

The levels of irony, you see, make this an unassailable choice. For the tune first calls the slumberer to awake with all the greatest sentiments of duty, and it dismisses at once any question of whether it is really worth getting out of bed; “theirs,” of course, “not to question why.” But as soon as you begin to say, “Good grief, nothing I might remotely be about today deserves such a grandoise introduction,” well, then there’s the fact that this mighty theme is being piped out by a tweedling cell phone.

Charge, men! Such as ye be,
To immortal fame, or polyphony.