Who's counting? I mean, we have numbers, we put numbers on things, and count those numbers up, but, you know, numbers don't really do justice to life. Life is bigger, bolder, stranger, more unpredictable than we can know. At least, that's how I am leaning this morning. The Physicists tell us Mathematics seems to be the language of the Universe, and maybe that is so, but what of beauty, poetry, music, dance, love? They all seem beyond numbers.
My motto for the last day of 2021, and, maybe the first day of 2022 too:
Life, It's Not What You Think!
The a.m. soundtrack - "Ys" by Joanna Newsom (2006) - This record is a total mystery to me. Joanna's voice short-circuits my brain, I hear an elfin, twee, child-like, sing-song, fairy fronting a sophisticated and elaborate orchestral palate of instruments (Van Dyke Parks!). I have no idea what she is singing about. My sense-making faculty is rendered useless. At first I found the record disorienting and pretty off-putting. But now I let it wash over me. Sounds like some long, meandering fable, a strange narrative in another language (she is singing in English!), about things of which I know nothing. And that's ok. It is unlike anything else out there. Perfect way to end this strange, weird, unfathomable year.
