“Charlie….Charlie…CHARLIE! CHARLIE!”
Nothing. Aren’t matadors respected, or at least noticed?
“Man, I’m always ignored.”
“Get behind him and wave your arms.”
“CHARLIE!”
The young bull finally took notice, stopped eating the shrubbery, and scampered back towards the broken fence.
“Rawwwwwhide!”
(There’s a song for every occasion.)
After many miles on the road, it’s a “home day” back on the farm. A day to refresh the horse’s water trough, do some paperwork, help the neighbor chase cows, say hello to the bees, and think about what just happened.
(In a good way, that is.)
The Salons of Roanoke
“You’ll be in the Shenandoah Room today” the activities director of the retirement home told me.
“Sweet! Closer to the coffee machine!”
Instead of the usual lecture room with rows of tables, we scooted chairs in a giant circle. I snagged a big wingback next to the TV, and set up shop, powerpoint clicker in one hand, coffee cup in the other.
The residents filled out the rest, and kept filtering in. Soon a lively program was underway about…the 1880s. The retired research psychologist cracked everyone up. “Ah, I remember that time well.”
“Didn’t Sousa invent the Sousaphone?” another friend asked.
“He sure did! Notice how the bell faces forward compared to a usual tuba.”
The slideshow ended, and the discussion began: architecture, beauty, pipe organs in old churches.
“This is like an old Parisian salon.”
Something in the air…I’d felt it before. Sure, there’s lots to be curious about, but it seemed something more.
Happy Anniversary, Apollo
“Jamie, did you realize today’s talk on spaceflight falls on the moon landing anniversary?”
“Yes, of course.”
The conclusion of the “big ideas” series for the Botetourt County library system happened yesterday, too. I had been so busy preparing for it, that I didn’t even realize the date till a buddy told me earlier in the day. (Thanks, John!)
Leave it to Jamie to rock the details.
A few retired engineers showed up for the discussion. We got into the details of the Artemis and SpaceX programs as the rain fell, passing around Oreo cookies and speculating about Elon Musk.
It was a drastically different format, both topic and people, but still, that something hung in the air.
I clumsily tried to articulate it.
I thought it might be my concern about the siloing of ideas, of an intellectual divide in the country, of how the factories of innovation shouldn’t be only in the cities, but…
Well duh, they aren’t, obviously. We’re all sitting around having big discussions by the mountain vistas.
Perhaps that very thought is born of a “city mouse” way of thinking. The coastal elites’ smugness is pervasive, but maybe step one is to reject the underlying premise that worthwhile ideas only come from the same smug elites. And they have the nerve to say religion is of a circular logic when it claims its own benefit.
That’s Still Not It
The thing still hung in the air. I’ve heard it when kids look up from seeing Saturn for the first time, and start to wonder quietly among the chatter of the crowd. I’ve seen it dance over guitar strings when someone writes a song, felt it whirl when old men tell me about a book that changed them.
What is it?
Creativity? The joy of curiosity?
Yes, probably. (And more that we don’t know.)
I think it’s the dignity of our own ideas.
Why do we recoil at propaganda, and chafe under the prospect of being told what to think? On paper, it seems good to put trust in smarter people. The glaring danger is if they’re corrupt (see: History.) But isn’t there something deeper, something anti-human in all of that, in pre-approved thought? (If that’s even thought at all?)
The ability to think is an intrinsic part of our humanity. To wonder, be curious, ponder, speculate, be wrong, be right, to figure out…
It orients us in a way that we might do good, to figure a way towards a brighter tomorrow.
Maybe it’s even a more significant dignity than wearing pants or walking upright.
Viktor Frankl got through the hell of the camps with his humanity, while his captors rotted from the inside, comfortable, corrupted.
Not a Darn Thing
I don’t think I changed one mind, or furthered one point in the four lectures for the county, and as many for the retirement home in Roanoke during the same time.
But man, I think we all came alive a bit more, took one step further towards who we might be.
Rocket scientists and astronauts and business leaders and composers will set foot on Mars and have a soundtrack to go with it.
We might not be part of that.
But there’s something calling to us if we listen. It’s our potential. Who knows where, how, or what the end result will look like, but I’m absolutely certain we’ll be sorry if we don’t heed it.
So, thank you for thinking. Thank you for being human.
Treasures from Earth
On the topic of Sousa, let’s dig his first big piece. The Gladiator March, written in 1886, sold over a million copies of sheet music. A tribute to journalist Charles B. Towle, it’s perhaps an allusion to the pen being used as a sword.
I’ll take that, and spin it next time I write a real beatdown piece.
“And THEREFORE, I shall expect a full refund on the egg noodles.”
-Josh
Even if you don't/can't change somebody's mind, getting them to think through something differently is an accomplishment.