Solace

In the few scattered moments here and there, between playground appointments and edits on my book manuscript, between zoo visits and the gym, I've been reading Dean Olsher's From Square One, a loose series of meditations on life and crossword puzzles. On page 78, he dives into a discussion of Scott Joplin's Solace, which Olsher claims "will dislodge any repressed pain and force it from your body, through your tear ducts when necessary."

Well. Folks pay $99 to have the trained masseuses at Red Door do that, so I thought I'd spring for the 99-cent version on ITunes, and consider myself fortunate. (Feeling cheaper still? You can hear a piano roll version here). But, after listening to it, I'm not really at all sure that I agree with Olsher. It's not that I feel I have a great deal of repressed pain (although I'd prefer it if nobody ever mentioned, again, Sid Bream's winning run against my 1992 Pirates). But the piece simply doesn't strike me - despite its title, and despite Olsher's reaction - as therapeutic.

To each his own, right? Some prefer peas, as Stendhal noted, and some prefer asparagus, and you can't every gainsay the fellow who prefers peas. So when I say that Solace strikes me, above all, as whimsical and offhanded, I figure that Olsher and I are simply in different places.

That said, though, one wouldn't want to always be the odd man out, interpretively speaking. Laughing at Don Giovanni, crying at a Lady Gaga concert: you'd simply feel odd. Which is why it's nice to have a one-year-old who agrees with you on certain basic truths. Like the fact that a warm bath is a good thing. That cubes of fresh mozzarella are a perfect snack on a summer's evening. And that naps simply make sense.

Mr. Olsher, I respect your profound engagement with Joplin. From my point of view, though, it's Cleo's company that currently offers sufficient solace.