Context – writing that other impression

According to my own math, I’m behind an entry due to this weekend’s festivities.  And I’ll be damned if I don’t have 365 of these by December 31st.  30th?  I can never remember how many days are in months, and I’m using both of my hands so the knuckle trick is out.  I never learned the mnemonic device for that.  Something about May and December.  I’ve gone this long being fine, I’ll be damned if I learn new things now!

Outside of that I’m into the music Margaret Glaspy makes.  I’m definitely glad I learned that one.  Shout out to my homie for the recommendation!

This is one of the seemingly rare times when an album’s title exactly prepares you for what’s to come.  Most album titles are a clever phrase from a song or a quip that adds a little uniformity to the album’s themes and concepts.  Which sounds a lot like it should be preparation for what’s to come, but it usually isn’t.

This album opens with an emotional ballad with a math-y sounding melody, despite it being a pretty standard 4/4 ballad.   Actually I lied just now–the math comes in during “Situation”.  The opening song is pretty good, all the same.

I find the title apropos to my own experience these days, as I seem to be stuck between respecting logic/math and knowing the power of an emotional argument.  As I get older I find myself more drawn towards the emotional or the logical in a general sense.  When I hear someone try to defend a thing with logic, my brain replaces “logically” with “because I’m an asshole.”  It’s not a fair or perfect replacement, but it’s what happens.  The irony is I have to logic my way out of that impression.  Or at least convince myself that it is I, in fact, who is being the asshole.

It’s just that logic has a way of removing experience or wonder, two words that can best be summed up as Magic.  Using logic to navigate through an argument or decision ends up feeling very dehumanizing.

Which isn’t to say that logic doesn’t have it’s place.  Emotions and faith-based approaches to a discussion tend to get fanatical and hyperbolic, which runs the risk for the addition of personal attacks and the spread of misinformation.  I just find it cold these days.

I could be projecting.  I’m definitely avoiding trying to talk about this music, which is grounded in familiarity despite evading all the easy genre tags I would normally use to provide context.  Regardless, I enjoyed it.  Not as much as I enjoy thinking about my changing opinions of approaches to arguments or what constitutes knowledge, but enough that I will try to remember Margaret Glaspy when I’m next shopping for music.