Aside from the weather and just about everything else, it’s been a good month. This is the sort of old-fashioned winter we had when I was a kid—though when I was a kid I could handle it. Rather than the usual one-day snow dump (the St. Patrick’s Day surprise), angels and seraphs, thrones and dominions have been shaking their copious dandruff on us for months. Other cities in the region have been largely spared. We’re getting the stuff that usually lands on Syracuse or Buffalo. It’s hard not to take it personally.
I had to venture out a few weeks ago to lay in the most essential of supplies, without which I could not begin to face arctic gloom. As I was bringing in the first case of my sanity-saving libations, I caught my foot on a snowbank and lost my balance. I landed fine, but I broke a rib trying to get back on my feet. Eventually it occurred to me to grab the bumper of my car to lever myself back up. So much for this whole “going outside” thing.
Since then we have had several more feet of snow and the wheels of our car are frozen to the driveway. One of us (not me) will have to go out eventually because provisions (of the sort that Amazon does not deliver) are again running low. We have enough food to get through the siege, at any rate. But why rush to the embrace of John Barleycorn at the first sign of trouble? These are, I am constantly assured, the Best of Times.
In fact, the very act of allowing oneself to feel anxious and blue can be terrible for business. A couple of years ago, when I was writing on Facebook of ominous Things That Were Not but Might Yet Be, a friend took me aside and gave me some excellent advice. “Many of your readers/potential readers are politically simple, or at least uncomplicated. To them, you probably come off as hard left. That means that you’re alienating half of your audience.”
I demurred. “As I have often said, I never have feelings that aren’t mixed.”
My friend replied, “But I don’t think that most of the guys who think of themselves as D or R give things much thought beyond that self-identification. Your complexity challenges people, and that forces them to define you. And from what an average guy would see, that couldn’t be a conservative…so you come off as a leftist.
“That might be accurate, or partly so…but you can be pretty certain that it’s going to kill sales for you, when it comes to readership on that side of the aisle. I’m not encouraging you to stifle your honesty…but I do think you need to be equally honest with yourself when you consider how that might impact your bottom line.”
What I am (and what you, the reader, think I am) matters little—even to me. I have work to do and I have to proceed with good cheer and under the assumption that we are living in a Golden Age of American Culture where wise stewardship of our national arts institutions will prevail. A nagging melancholy has no place in this brave new world. It is not for me to be a Gloomy Gus, a Sad Sack, a Doubting Thomas, or a Nervous Nellie. It does not make sound economic sense, even for a nonprofit (or, should I say, especially for a nonprofit). Happy Days Are Here Again!
And I do have actual glad tidings (rather than merely tidings I am enjoined to believe are glad). A week before this writing, my wife and I very gingerly made our way out to the car and drove ten miles to the Kirkland Art Center in Clinton, New York. There my friend and Syncopated Media board member Monk Rowe hosted the magnificent pianist Rossano Sportiello (who appeared on our cover in January 2024) in an evening concert. It was a transcendent event to have occurred in snowbound Central New York. What’s more, Rossano’s dazzling playing took me out of my soreness and any sense there was an absurd, roiling world outside the concert hall.
Who knows what the future will bring? Will it be fire or ice? But here’s a pro tip: Keep your piano in tune.
Andy Senior is the Publisher of The Syncopated Times and on occasion he still gets out a Radiola! podcast for our listening pleasure.
