Track 5: More Wack

A whack is a blow, as in, a whack to the head. Wack signifies something that’s somewhat curious, different, strange or oddball, which is always more interesting than any whack. I asked Mark to do the sequencing for this album, and he unwittingly put the three t-shirt-inscribed songs together. At six words, this is my second shortest song.

Please god, make me more wack

This is a serious non-serious request. I truly believe goofyness is one of personkind’s most powerful survival tools. It facilitates play, another of personkind’s most powerful tools. I read a book on the subject of play a few years back. I think it was even called Play. One section was about a naturalist who lived next to, and studied, a group of grizzly bears in Alaska for several years. He found the most playful bears to be the most successful and long-lived. The authors made the excellent point that a playful creature is far better adapted to dealing with new and surprising circumstances. I think there is a link between non-playfulness and dogmatism. The less playful, the more dogmatic.

I just found that scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain, unless it is done in play, in which case it takes only 10 to 20 repetitions. The book also said that the only occasions on which the entire brain lights up in maximum activity is in REM sleep and in play.