The brilliant and wondrous Janelle Monáe planted the seed of Les Baxter in my ear as the soundtrack for the coming summer, and whatever Janelle says is what we are bound to do. Being that Andy just opened the pool and I had my first dip just a couple of days ago, this intro seems fitting for the summer to come, and these first pool days of the season.
There’s a dramatic and cinematic moodiness to this music that sets the scene for the mad world in which we live – and that madness only seems to intensify with the heat and sun and storms weather that can come with the approach of summer.
For the moment, I’m content to watch from a distance, to lean into the drama only when watching a movie or reading a book – all fiction and fun and frivolous mental meanderings. Life is serious enough these days – I don’t indulge in the self-conjured drama and fabricated travails when there are so many real things over which to worry and fret. And so I take a warm and sunny day as the gift it is, embracing its beauty, inhaling its sweet perfume, and leaving this online world behind. Back in a bit…
