Pitch Perfect for Our Times.

Yes. I received my copy of Albert Camus' "The Plague"  in the mail yesterday. Last night I blasted through 63 pages, finished Part I in one fell swoop. Yes, it's great. Pitch-perfect for our times.

I realize I am one of those people scrambling, desperate for some context, desperate to fashion, to fabricate some kind of meaning and wisdom from our present predicament.

What jumps out at me is that we should all have known that a pandemic was coming. It's part of our human experience. It's a matter of the historical record. We should have been much better prepared. The key is to catch any outbreak early, and do our best to prevent the spread across populations.

Of course, that didn't happen. We collectively failed miserably. There were smart folks (scientists & doctors), who knew the danger, but the rest of us (especially our governments & politicians), pretty much ignored them. It didn't take long for the virus to reach pretty much every country, every human population, across the globe. Stunning. And bad.

As Camus points out in the the novel, our collective failure is a matter of hubris, a lack of imagination, we are too small-minded, too self-absorbed, thinking that it can't happen now, it can't happen here, it won't happen to us.

2020 proves that folly. The revolution is here, now. Everything has changed.We are the clever monkeys. Sometimes we "out-clever" ourselves.

This morning I hear REM's Michael Stipe singing in my head, "It's the End of the World As We Know it..." Yes, but the kicker to the line: "And I feel fine..." is a lie. I don't feel fine at all. No one is fine. Everyone is under a cloud of potential infection. It is sad, tragic, terrible.

A dark time, no doubt.  We must carry on, do our best, but this new reality alters our lives, and will do so for the foreseeable future. Too bad, I mean, we really, really fucked up. We are in for a bumpy ride.

The a.m. soundtrack - The xx's - xx (debut album). (2009). A laptop album, which is not usually my thing, I usually like to hear a full band in a room together making music. But this laptop album is amazing. A stunningly great record. Opens with an instrumental, and from the first notes it grabs you. Something new. Unique. The record has a gorgeous, hushed beauty. It's got heart, and soul. It's so human. There is a deep well of emotion in the voices, a quiet sadness. The voices, male and female, create a special, intimate vibe. Maybe that is the key. The two voices singing and recorded together, at the same time? That comes across.  Surprisingly great. Love this one. Yes, dare I say it,  it is a life-affirming work of art. A bright light in the midst of the darkness.