“A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.”
~ Robert Frost
Today is National Virus Appreciation Day. Divinipotent Daily can find nothing appreciative to say about viruses and instead will use this day to appreciate eccentrics.
Erik Satie (1866–1925), the composer best known for his three "Gymnopédies," was a notorious eccentric whose oeuvre included titles such as "Driveling Preludes for a Dog," "Jack-in-the-Box" and "Dried Embryos." Seemingly benign titles also held surprises. Satie instructed pianists attempting his composition "Vexations" to rest well before playing it "840 times in succession." When Satie died, dozens of identical umbrellas, 12 identical velvet suits and 84 identical handkerchiefs were found in his home. Some may call this obsessive-compulsive disorder; Divinipotent Daily calls it blissful eccentricity.
With his upturned waxed mustache, cape and walking stick, surrealist Salvador Dali (1904–1989) was another unusual specimen whose odd exploits are the stuff of legend. Of his many bizarre pronouncements, Divinipotent Daily is most fond of this one: “The naked truth about me is to the naked truth of Salvador Dali as an old ukelele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts.”
Eccentrics are mocked, abused and medicated for their idiosyncratic ways, but they know the truth. As Dali said, "I am not strange, I am just not normal." May they prosper.
“Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained.”
~ John Stuart Mill
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