My morning ritual for December 4:
A cup of Irish Breakfast tea, a random verse from the Tao te Ching, and a little music: Side A of Out of Sight.
The verse is #24; here’s an excerpt:
A man who justifies his actions isn’t respected.
A man who boasts of his achievements has no merit.
A man who brags will not endure.
When COVID hit and we realized that we’d be hunkered down for the foreseeable future, Suzanne and I decided to work through our album collection, playing side one of every album while we had our morning drinks. Since then we’ve kept it up, but I’m choosing something from the whole collection instead of playing the next one alphabetically (that made for some interesting mornings, by the way; turns out I’ve got some fairly weird stuff). Now I can choose to stay away from that for my first listen of the morning and go with something I’m in the mood for.
Out of Sight is in my collection because of Big Ears. Jake Xerxes Fussell was one of those performers I’d never heard of, and I ended up on the front row at the Jig and Reel for his performance. This kind of thing is the best part about Big Ears, and what keeps me returning every year.