The sun is setting on another early summer week; today, we finish the week with our thoughts on a more miniature world built on your immediate community.  An orchestra of caregivers plays The Adagio to honor all first responders.  Bar music and an in-depth on Boy Genius take us home today.

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For some of us, the Age of Rage has always been a waste of time.  The reach of crazy is broader and deeper than before, but it's still a waste of time.  Stories continue to come out referring to how much better off most human beings are, and surveys also suggest individuals are hopeful about the future.  It's the world at large and other people that we think are all going to hell.

Morning Brew cites a story from Nature about what people believe about our moral decline.  The study cited by Morning Brew is deep, but Brew does a great job summarizing a great point.  When people are asked how they were treated yesterday, positive answers have remained the same between 2005 and 2020.  The world is burning, according to all the screens constantly vomiting in our ears.  But our neighborhood and community are doing fine, and most days, we are treated well and treat others well.

The next time you find yourself in any group that starts proclaiming more terrible news based on what the loudest screens told them, ask a few simple questions:

If most of those things are true for you and for most of the people you know, why focus on the outliers who want you to believe some other narrative?

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An orchestra of all healthcare providers is the highlight of this clip.  The orchestra started as a way for providers to relieve stress during the pandemic.  The music is beautiful, and the message is even more powerful.

In the TV show Happy Days, there was a large jukebox in the corner of Arnold's; if you wanted to hear music at your favorite bar or restaurant, you put a dime in a jukebox and picked out your favorite song.  As the years went by, we moved away from the jukebox to a preformatted music selection by a commercial company; the bar or restaurant paid a subscription for the technology to play a constant stream of music.  I won't add the service called Muzak as it was an abomination of music, to begin with, and if you need that, go hang out in an elevator.

In some joints, bartenders controlled a stereo.  As a bartender, you were both a drink mixer and DJ; your audience would tell you how you were doing.  The golden age of CDs helped with the stage; a fast change or, even better, a multiple-disc stereo would allow you to quickly play a track of several CDs. 

Now we have streaming and playlists, and in the age of the endless stream, some are telling restaurants to stop with the same song, playlist, and sound everywhere.  In a story by a local NYC favorite, Hell Gate writer Adlan Jackson tells us what's in the playlist queue.

The girls in Boy Genius have something to say, and it helps to explain why the record is so well done.  All three singer/songwriters are impressive – put 'em together, and it's a supergroup.  This article from The Atlantic, written by Spencer Kornhaber, goes a little deeper into the process, the inspiration, and why they all work well together. 

Punching Dreams.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

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