Insanity

Today is the 266th day of 2021; ninety-nine bottles of beer remain on that wall. 

This is the day for mindfulness of ethics.  With mindfulness of ethics, we can fulfill all our vows.

The sun rose this morning at 7:27 a.m. and will set at 7:32 p.m. Twelve hour and five minutes of daylight - still not quite the equipoise we were promised on yesterday's equinox.  Meanwhile, the gibbous moon is waning.

Atlanta's weather continues to feel like autumn, though.  It was downright cool this morning, and the a.c. in my house never kicked on even once all day.  The good news is that the sunny, dry, and cool weather is forecast to last for at least the next week or so.

On this day in 1978, baseball player Lyman Bostock of the California Angels (and formerly of the Minnesota Twins) was shot to death while in a car visiting friends in his hometown of Gary, Indiana after a game at Chicago's Comiskey Park.  Impermanence is swift.  His murderer pleaded insanity and was released after only seven months in a hospital.

Tropical Storm 17 and Tropical Storm Peter have, well, petered out, but Tropical Depression 18 has been upgraded to a tropical storm and named "Sam."  Rapid intensification of Sam into a major hurricane is expected over the next several days, but it is still too early to tell whether or not its's likely to make landfall on North America.

"Luxury" is the name of a five-man rock band from Toccoa, Georgia. They began playing together in the early 1990s, and toured extensively in the months after the release of their first album. In late 1995, most of the band's members were hospitalized following a bad car accident while traveling between shows.  All members survived and recovered, but after recording a few more albums, Luxury broke up and the members went their separate ways.  Three of the five band members are now priests serving in the Orthodox Church.

After a six-year break, Luxury reconvened in 2005 to record a new album, making them perhaps the only band in America composed three-fifths of Orthodox priests.  In February 2013, they reunited again, and released their fifth album, Trophies, in 2015.  Tonight, Luxury will perform a show at The Earl in East Atlanta. I have tickets but I'm not going.

I actually didn't mean to buy the tickets.  Back in July, I was trying to buy tickets to see the band Algiers at The Earl on October 9th, but when I clicked the "Tickets" icon for the Algiers show, I was misdirected to the Luxury show, and I didn't notice the error until after I had bought the tickets.

I could have refunded the unwanted Luxury tickets, but I became intrigued when I read about the band (they were new to me), so I figured, "Cool.  Another show to explore."  At that time, the covid pandemic seemed to be disappearing, and I was looking for new opportunities to get back out and about.  But as we all know by now, the delta variant caused the pandemic to come roaring back to life, and the number of new cases per day spiked right back up to where it was last winter.

The delta wave seems to have peaked in Georgia and yesterday, the average number of new cases per day fell below 5,000 for the first time since August 8. It was previously above 5,000 cases per day between December 10, 2020 and February 5, 2021.  Although 5,000 cases per day is a lot better than the horrific peak of the delta-variant wave (9,244 cases per day on August 31), it's still way too many.  It's higher than the peak (920 cases per day) of the first wave of the pandemic (remember "flatten the curve?") or the peak of the Summer 2020 wave (3,490 cases on July 29).

The death toll of the covid pandemic has now passed the death toll of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918.

Although The Earl is requiring face masks for all shows, proof of vaccination is required on a show-by-show basis at the request of the performers.  Although Algiers is requiring proof of vaccination for their October 9 show, Luxury is not requiring the same, and their hometown of Toccoa is in Stephens County, Georgia. Stephens County currently has the highest per capita rate of new covid infections in the state - 127 new cases per 100,000 people per day, or 0.13% of the population each day. Seventeen percent of the Stephens County population have contracted the virus at some point. Statistically, at least one of the five members of Luxury probably either has or had the disease.

It doesn't seem like it's worth the risk to go see a band, a band I'm not even a particular fan of at that, at this time and at that place.

Before the October 9 Algiers show, I have tickets to see Oh Sees at Variety Playhouse on September 29 (next Wednesday).  I am a fan of Oh Sees, a big fan (they're one of my favorite bands), and I do plan on going to their show.  The number of new cases should continue to decline over the next week, making it at least a little safer statistically, and Variety Playhouse requires both masks and proof of vaccination for all of its shows.  In addition, Variety Playhouse is larger than the intimate Earl and my usual vantage point at the venue allows me some modicum of separation from the other attendees - at least they won't be exhaling directly into my face like they would if I was stageside at The Earl.

It's still a risk, but with better ventilation and a vaccine requirement, it's less of a risk than The Earl.  And Oh Sees represent more of a reward (at least to me) than Luxury.  So unless conditions change (or I lose my nerve), expect to see me at Oh Sees next Wednesday (and at Algiers in two weeks).