Up a Lazy River

I'm either insane or just really zen right now. The week I'm facing is, well...we'll just call it daunting. I can think of other words. But somehow it barely matters to me that I have two tests and three papers due next week. (That's at least one major assignment for ever day but Friday mind you.) And that's not including the stress of our impending Variety Show... or registration. Or my entire Saturday being swallowed whole by Springfest.

But the thing is, I'm listening to Bobby Darin, and Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday these days. How can I be anxious in the face of all that swing? Nothing keeps your head cool like jazz.

I heard recently that no one knows the exact origins of jazz music. But I like to think it was born out of an attitude of transcendence. Someone down in the Louisiana basin thought, "Broke don't mean we can't be happy. It don't mean we can't have class." And damn does jazz have class. Soul, show. I heard this quote about jazz once.

"From the start it had a kind of epileptic charm, it fitted the times, it made jokes and it wept, it laughed out loud, it dozed, and sometimes spoke of regret."

I think that's about perfect.