Money
Yount writes, “He is sixty-seven and on some level or other he is perfectly aware of that, but he is also bemused at the fact. Oh, he knows well enough he could account for his age as a man might account for an extraordinary amount of money he finds has slipped through his fingers.” Money is comparable to one’s lifetime because both are spent. Moreover, accounting for how one spent every year of his existence is comparable to the archetypal accounting of finances.
“Machinery of Digestion”
Yount recounts, "At last, after so many days of nothing to eat, his innards had quit growling and rumbling, passing along the volume of emptiness inside him. The machinery of his digestion had grown quite sullen, painfully tight, and in his mouth there was the constant and unhealthy taste of brass.” The emblematic machine alludes to music’s stomach which bids indications of his starvation. The machinery’s appearance confirms that hit has not been working due to the lack of food to digest. Its sullenness is a confirmation of the agony of hunger.