I’ve managed to start writing at 11 AM even though I had breakfast first. This is a new development. I made the one-pan egg, ham, and cheese sandwich. I haven’t made that for a while. That’s because I haven’t had the good bread in the house. I still don’t, but what I have is at least better than Wonder Bread, it’s the Stop & Shop homestyle. Their baked goods are usually excellent, but this is merely OK. I cheated on dinner last night, peanut butter on a bagel. I had a craving.
Why didn’t I record Gord’s Gold last night? I should have, The Expanse is finished for the season. That’s an extra hour to do things. It didn’t help that both ilyAIMY and Birds of Chicago had streaming concerts last night. The Birds make incredible music, they need to up their streaming game. My guess is that they can’t, their internet connection is too poor. I probably shouldn’t have watched on my big screen TV. Is BoC too well-known for me to do a Gord’s Gold about? They are in the queue. When I go to a full hour I’ll certainly be playing them. I’d like some feedback, who among My Gentle Readers don’t know them? It’s hard to judge what everybody knows, especially in the restricted world of Folk Music Notebook listeners. I know that most WFUV question of the day players would think of them as one of my obscure groups that nobody has heard of. When discussing if something is well-known you have to consider what population is being talked about. Have most Falcon Ridge people heard of them? I can ask them. I will. I have already done a Gord’s Gold on ilyAIMY. They have a strong streaming game. Results already coming in from the Falcon Ridge Facebook group. Most people have heard of them. More to the point they announced that they are going on indefinite hiatus so Allison can focus on her solo career. That answers that question. When she has an album, I’ll spotlight her.
I have a quandary. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking of and getting annoyed at errors people make in reasoning, and not recognizing cognitive biases. I can say that every day, but today it’s what I was planning on writing about. The quandary is that I don’t feel like lecturing people. I’m trying to avoid one of my biases, thinking that explaining mistakes will get people to stop making them. My experiences tell me that’s not true. On the other hand, I have not done a scientific study of that. Maybe that just reflects a cognitive or reasoning bias by me? Maybe I just remember the cases where it doesn’t help more than those where it does. Telling people that they are wrong is often counter-productive, there has been research done on that. The great irony is that one of the main things I wanted to write about is that to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail, and I’m afraid that people will think that’s what I’m doing as I hammer on these themes so often. I will err on the side of reticence.
I watched a third streaming concert yesterday, Karyn Oliver. She plays every Wednesday. I miss the start because she starts the same time as Gord’s Gold. Sure, I could listen to the other two times it’s aired but I always forget those. Yesterday I got a scare before at noon Gord’s Gold didn’t come on! Was this how I discovered that I was fired? Was I in the same boat as Glenn Beck? Was there a multi-billion-dollar suit filed against Folk Music Notebook because of something I said? Turns out it was a technical glitch. That was what I suspected though my anxiety did race through other possibilities. I give everyone the COVID-19 pass. We are all learning as we go along, even the tech companies. That’s a much better attitude for my mental health than dwelling on people’s faults. What makes that even worse is that it leads to me thinking about my faults. I know it’s hard to believe but I have three; procrastination, singing off-key, and making up facts as about myself as I go along.
And that reminded me of something else I’ve been meaning to write. Today while making breakfast I found myself singing aloud a song that I find myself singing most days. It is my most persistent earworm. I suspect that if I gave you 100 guesses you would not get it. Maybe if I gave you some clues. It was featured prominently in one of my favorite shows from the late 60s early 70s. It was covered by one of my favorite bands from the 70s. It was central to an Academy Award winning film from the late 20th century. Get it yet? What if I added that the lyrics were by one of my favorite poets? No? Just don’t say “mattress” to Mr. Lambert.
The song this American Jewish atheist sings the most often is a British liturgical piece. I’d have played the Monty Python Buying a Bed sketch, but I couldn’t find an embeddable version of it. The movie should be the easiest to get; it was Chariot’s of Fire. It is Emerson, Lake, and Palmer that burned it into my brain. There’s no rhyme nor reason to earworms. I do love the song. One thing, when I sing it I don’t forget that I’m Jewish and sometimes pronounce the name of the city as Yerushalayim, even though it doesn’t scan as well.
Wise Madness 