Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 June 2009 09:25:47
I found all the best cowboys have chinese eyes. I'm a strong believer in serendipity. I think most people are - not all, definitely, but most. An awful lot of people are prepared to trust themselves to luck with the lottery. And on a more esoteric level a lot of artistic types rely on luck - there's a prevailing belief that trying something new is likely to yield good results. And so I am often willing to take a lucky dip, and try something untested, with a fair amount of conviction that the result will probably be good. Sure it may just be that I remember the good outcomes in the past, but if so, then the fact that I do that seems to me simply to confirm that my faith in serendipity is strong. Whether it's wrong or right is of less import to me - at the moment I'm finding that having any beliefs is better than having none, regardless of their validity. So, all those years ago, I took a chance and it paid off. As well as my serendipitous faith I have a deep background in accountancy. I can't manage money to save myself, but I can make lists and be as anal as anyone. And in my teens I was a compulsive lister, listing long, and listing boringly. So I would soak up information from books (wikipedia being then not even a glint in anybody's eye) and collect that information in lists. Since music was my latest passion, I listed music, forming lists of albums that I should buy because I liked one song by the band, or because the artist was associated with some other band that I liked. A very inclusive approach to music, which again speaks of a blind faith in something - either serendipity or the infallibility of genius. I have no idea which. With my lists I would approach my local dealers, particularly the ones that would supply my addiction cheaply, and seek out what they had. And thus it was that one time I found a very obscure record, by a one-time member of a not-so-obscure band. And I've always wondered since whether I found it or it found me. For it has always meant a lot to me. The music sure wasn't what I was expecting - it sounds very little like the band the man was a part of - and in fact as I know now it was recorded by someone who had recently broken a serious alcoholism and was finding a way to do something that he had always done drunk before. Not a recipe for something great. It's a record, I suppose, of someone who is crawling from the wreckage of one life and facing the prospect of building a new life. That's something I can sure relate to now, and I suppose it would have connected with me even back when I first heard it, albeit for different reasons. But when I first saw it in the rack I had no idea of its contents, or its history, and no particular reason to expect it to move me, except for the fact that my lists had led me to a fair amount of music that did move me. I would have no confidence in recommending that album to anyone else as something great - I suspect the effect it has on me is too personal for that. Yet, of all the albums I could have found and bought, by that man or his band, I'm sure most would have been closer to what I expected, and none would have made as strong a connection with me. And I suppose that's one of the reasons I believe in serendipity so much, or perhaps that was just another occasion where that belief has contributed positively to my life.