Today disappeared. I somehow slept until 1:30 PM. It was a rare day that I made breakfast before I turned on my computer. I know you care what I ate, it was hameggandcheese on a bagel. I’m considering not cooking dinner and just having peanut butter. Usually I think of that as a failure, but I have nothing special set out to cook and I have an overabundance of bread products in the house, two types of bread, English muffins, naan, and the aforementioned bagels. I should really watch some baseball too.
It’s the next day. I watched the Rays beat the Stros. I had mixed feelings. I just realized that the Astros are the Patriots of baseball, morally reprehensible but they do everything right from a team building point of view. The Astros didn’t need to cheat to win. They drafted and developed great players. They turn good pitchers into great ones. Ironically one of them was pitching for the Rays, Charlie Morton. I wanted them to win so people wouldn’t say they just won because they cheated. On the other hand, the Rays are so good at winning on a low budget. They too know how to build a team and develop players. They had the best record in the league so I’m happy they won but if we played a full season my money would have been on the Astros. That is how I feel about sports. I want the best team to win. I don’t go for the underdog except of course rooting for whoever is playing the cheating, GM/Coach-stealing Patriots.
Today’s breakfast was eggs ala Horvendile which is also ham. Eggs, and cheese, but the eggs are poached and served over toasted English Muffin then topped with cheese and a slice of ham. It’s what I had a craving for this morning. Last night I ended up having the peanut butter sandwich and then later making dinner, kielbasa and plantain. I started making the plantains in the air fryer as a labor-saving device but now I prefer them that way. Putting on the garlic salt and pepper before cooking makes a difference, it lets the flavor soak through. Do any of My Gentle Readers regularly eat plantains? It’s something I didn’t grow up eating. I never had one till I was over 40, but now I love them. I miss living in a Caribbean neighborhood where I could find good cheap ones more easily.
Good, The Kennedys live stream is almost over. Why is that good? It will let me concentrate on writing. I’ll have a couple of hours until WFUV Sunday Supper. I often listen to that in the archives but I’m exciting because John will be playing a new song by South for Winter. I’ve heard it already, I have an advance copy, but I still want to be there for the radio debut.
South for Winter is special and that’s what I want to write about; not about South for Winter, I’ve done that before, but about the importance of things that are special. The nature of statistics is that in most distributions most things, the mode, is near the mean which is near the median. Most things are by definition mediocre. That doesn’t mean bad. It means average. The antithesis of special. The things that are special are the chocolate chips in the cookie of life. They are the bright stars in the vault of heaven, the Grand Canyons, the Einsteins, and the Beethovens. They are what makes life not a uniform gray.
This is not an idea peculiar to me. This is why we have the Academy Awards and the Baseball Hall of Fame. The most common complaint about the Hall is that it has opened its doors to those that aren’t exceptional. There’s a tendency to want to declare those that we like as great even when they are just very good, we don’t want to damn with faint praise. Then the bar for entry into the pantheon keeps getting lower. If Tony Perez is in the Hall how come Harold Baines isn’t. Then Harold got in and the bar dropped even lower. When we spotlight the ordinary it becomes harder to perceive the great ones in the crowd. It’s why I’m careful about who I call special. When I say South for Winter is special, it’s a high honor. Here’s a tip, never ask me if you’re special. It puts me on the spot. I want to be honest and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Everyone should also be clear that what’s special to me is not necessarily special to you, and visa versa. It’s not purely objective, but it’s not purely subjective either. Like most things in life it’s a mix and it’s hard to draw the line.
I used to take a count as I walked in the streets of how many attractive women I saw and more importantly, how many I considered exceptionally beautiful. The purpose of this was not to figure out what fraction of women were exceptionally beautiful, but to figure out where I draw the line between good and great. It turned out that I consider the top seventh of those that I already consider beautiful, to be exceptionally beautiful. The advantage of doing that was I was doing it on the fly, it was about my gut feeling. I could try the same with baseball players, but I’ve thought about all of them too much in advance. Babe Ruth is special. Al Simmons was great but not special. Jacob DeGrom is special, Aaron Nola is great but in a different class.
I go to NERFA and see hear scores, perhaps hundreds of acts. I leave finding maybe four special. My opinion can change. At first Jean Rohe was a discovery but second tier. She is now at the top of my pantheon? Did she evolve? Did I? The answer is yes. None of this is set in stone. People change. There are hundreds of musicians that I love, far fewer are in my pantheon. There are even fewer that I’m not sure of.
The same goes with people. I have 1775 Facebook friends. They are not all special. They aren’t even all friends. But there are some whose posts make me immediately feel good. Not many but not none. Enough that when I see one it makes my day better. Some of these are close friends. Some aren’t. There are people that for one reason or other I never got close to but that I’d love to. They shine with the inner light. Don’t you dare ask me if you are one of them. If you were asking would make you no longer special. It’s like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
So, here’s to chocolate chips, friendly dogs, the planet Venus, Casablanca, peanut butter, bacon, and coffee. The things that give me a rush of endorphins. I’d much rather concentrate on them than evils of the world. I will think of the evils only to fight them. I will not judge the world by them. I get to live in the same universe as Mozart and I appreciate it.
Wise Madness 