An ethnographer's account of his study of jazz-piano playing, which led to discoveries concerning the ways his hands learned about the keyboard and improvisation, sheds light on the nature and range of improvised conduct.

Given that written texts are characterized by indexicality and incompleteness; how is it that they are read and followed then judged adequate? In particular how are social scientific arguments read as plausible under such conditions? It is suggested that the very natural language that renders such arguments in principle problematic, provides a resource in its textual particulars for the repair of indexicality. The article analyzes some local textual features with methods borrowed from conversational analysis to demonstrate three reader/writer strategies 'age (...) orientation', the categorization of a population as more than incidentally juvenile; establishing 'author authority' ; and 'investing' (apparently senseless actors with 'purpose'. (shrink)