Indeed...

This just popped into my head today as I was talking with a class that is writing a paper about school violence.


My father once said:

”If  everyone in the world were me, a little, three-year-old girl could wander out of her front door at three o’clock in the morning, out into a big city, and she’d get picked up and find herself safely at home before she knew it . But everyone in the world is not me. “

Amen, Dad. Amen.


Seems so basic, doesn't it?

My dad, arranger and composer, Joe Matt (his professional name from a
time when it was best not to be obviously Italian -- center),
in the studio with celebrated
jazz organist
Joey DeFrancesco (2nd from left)

An Open Letter to Humanity

Dear Humanity,

I'm really trying -- really, really trying not to get overwhelmed and turn my back on you. I mean, like every other thinker, I have flirted with the whole cabin-in-the-woods thing. I know that probably wouldn't make me happy, though, because I'm torn: I like people, but I am disgusted by humanity.

Every time a person sits alone in a studio or with his or her books, lab equipment or a pen and creates a thing of beauty or of goodwill, my heart fills with admiration and love for the human animal and its endeavors. But every time that thing of beauty or of good will gets handed to the masses, the masses find a way to tear it apart or corrupt it.

In short, the atom bomb was not really Oppenheimer's fault, was it? Muhammad and Jesus are not to blame for war, the Inquisition, persecution, hate, or terrorism, are they?

And art -- such wonders get spun at the hands of solitary geniuses, then we turn those wonders into cliche by merely sharing them -- we water them down until they become almost laughable because we want everyone, whether they are at the level of the geniuses or not, to swim in the waters of greatness. "To be or not to be," is an apartment number joke now. The Mona Lisa is so common a sight that it has become impotent. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony has been turned into a cartoon by the cartoons.