Life, Hardly Strictly Limited In Topic

I'm home sick from work today, itchy eyes, congestion, a symphony of sneezes, a stiff back. Maybe I have a cold; maybe I'm just allergic to people. After waking up from a doze, I thought to stimulate my brain by venturing into the intellectual discourse, the respectful give-and-take of differing opinions to be found on the comment forums on the San Francisco Chronicle's website.

Now I feel even worse.

But I'm not going to talk about that here. You can read my thoughts about the strange world of sports fans on the Internet here.

All I will say is that the anonymity of the Internet does not always breed civil, respectful debate.

Speaking of anonymity, though, the world is not bereft of signs of hope among strangers. On Saturday, Marina and I went to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free festival in Golden Gate Park that attracted musicians such as Robert Stanley, Emmylou Harris, Neko Case, Lyle Lovett, Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin), and others. And something pretty cool happened that wasn't related to the music.

Saturday was not the best of days. It was dusty, too crowded. We couldn't get anywhere near to getting in to see Steve Martin play the banjo, and we were both getting a bit fed up. We were sitting on a hillside, talking about taking off.

At that moment, a guy came up and asked if this was my wallet that he had picked up. He recognized me from the driver's license. In the crowd, he certainly could have pocketed it and walked off, and I would never have realized it was gone until later.

Just when you are considering becoming a professional misanthrope--even though that could be kind of a fun job--something like this happens and you realize that people can be smart, inventive, creative, compassionate, and capable of doing the right thing.

We left the park for the day not long after that, and went to the AMC Van Ness to watch the new Ricky Gervais movie, The Invention Of Lying, which I really must recommend.

Sunday night, we had a much better time at the Festival, finding spaces to sit to listen to Robert Stanley and Neko Case, music echoing through the sunlit meadows of the park with the towering eucalyptus trees and the tens of thousands of bouncing, dancing people. We packed food: bread, salami, peppered turkey slices, cheese, cookies, milk and water. And then the closing show, Amadou and Mariam, talented musicians from Mali, an amazing story, the pair having met at an institute for the blind in Mali. I had not heard of them before, but thousands of other people must have done so, because there was a passionate crowd standing and dancing to their energetic music as night fell, the lights from the stage transforming a tall eucalyptus tree in the background into what looked like a pair of saxophones standing back to back, flashing red and blue and green in sequence.

Music, the fundamental spiritual celebration that unites us all, atheists and theists and agnostics alike. A good festival, a good live concert, is always a transcendent experience, because you can taste this collective energy that is creative and substantial. It kind of makes more palatable all the annoyances of being around all these other people, except for teenagers who feel the need to affix stickers all over the inside of buses; they are just tacky and boring.

It makes you think that despite all the bad news in the world, we might just be okay in the long run.