>> is this cup half empty or half full, Mr. Tighe? << It's completely full if you include the air - Daniel Suarez

They’d had so much more luck investing in eccentric B and C students. The rationale was simple: Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it — and were often tainted by it. Especially when success and peer approval beckoned. One did not accidentally graduate from top-tier schools. One strove to get in and to maintain grades once there, and to do that, one usually needed to be a master at conformity. To excel in all the accepted conventions.

to understand a people, you need to wade into their culture. It’s culture that tells their tale. And music is culture.

It’s hard nowadays to get people to believe things. At least good things.