Let’s start by recognizing that, insofar as the probability of a given event happening is the product of the individual probabilities of all of the events needed to produce it, we certainly shouldn’t be here. Everything is impossible.
It’s nonetheless funny when individually improbable streams cross, which is what’s happening when we talk about serendipity. It’s probably a mere coincidence — lots of streams are running at any given time, and weird shit happens just by the law of large numbers. But check this out.
Step 1, In the Beginning
1) a fragment a canceled Dead show 9/27/70 becomes an occasion for me to talk about death in the Garciaverse, especially during that period.
2) this leads me to David Crosby; I use the phrase “homeward through the haze”;
3) I am reminded that I don’t know that song well-enough, nor the Crosby-Nash record Wind on the Water (ABC, 1975) well enough, so awhile ago I put it on and start listening to it. Note that this is maybe the second or third time I will have heard the record (I am not a big Graham Nash, generally), ever.
Step 2, parallel streams
4) in this same space, I am going back through some of Crosby’s amazing autobiography (the first one) (Crosby and Gottlieb 1988), mostly scanning some of the Garcia-relevant pages for good research at a distance.
5) because I come across it, I start copying some of Crosby’s digressions and thoughts on drugs, which come quite frequently, and with the analytic depth that you’d expect from such a true connoisseur.
6) In a flash, I am thinking about cocaine as a private drug, and I come up with the idea that Jesus gave loaves and fishes to the people, but by the looks of the Last Supper He and the Disciples kept the best stuff for themselves.
Step 3, the weird serendipity.
7) Having referenced loaves and fishes, being fully lapsed but inclining toward precision in referencing and such, I Google “bible verse loaves and fishes”. Turns out all four of the gospels use the phrase, but never mind. I maybe look up Bible verses 2-3 times per year. As I am doing it here …
8) up comes “Howard Through The Haze” over the speakers; and …
9) it’s got bible verses in it.
Weird, huh?
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