Unlike most Northern Californians, I love L.A. Warmer surf wins top draw, but second on the list of reasons why the city of angels rocks is Indie 103. Technically 103.1 on the FM dial, this local radio station features gems like Jonesy’s Jukebox with Steve Jones, Joe Escalante as designated DJ of “Wino Wednesdays” on the last of the famous international morning shows, and daily weather reports from ever-odd David Lynch.

Lynch ends his dramatic readings of meteorological projections with a playfully puzzling “thought for the day.” When I catch these, I frequently find myself returning to whatever image Lynch has signed off with at various points throughout the remainder of the day. I’ll sit in traffic on the 405 or (more happily) paddle out in Malibu, turning the untelling phrase around to try deciphering it from another angle. To be clear, we’re not talking about the big statements here. Lynch isn’t positing profundities about the nature of love or whether war can be just. It’s stuff like: “hear flowers,” “purple elephant,” “lawnmower.” Yeah, yeah. …. I know, just tongue in cheek or head up wherever kitch. Nothing to over intellectualize, nitwit.

True. And yet, have you ever stopped to consider – I mean really consider – the lawnmower? How it works, what it frees the user otherwise to do, the sound it makes, its shadow at dusk, how a squirrel feels about them?

My point is not that either these questions or one’s answers to them (oh yes, please share!) are what actually matter. But I humbly submit that curiosity — even about the seemingly silly and inconsequential aspects of life, as well as the supposedly intractable or inevitable ones – is vital, vibrant, sexy and the absolute core of human greatness.

Which of history’s inventors, explorers, innovators, leaders, and humanitarians didn’t look around and wonder if things could be different. Only a curious mind asks if a world presumed flat might actually be round. Only a curious heart stirs the promise of days without slavery, totalitarianism, and segregation. If you lack the power to imagine alternative realities, you lack the power to bring them to life.

The mind and the heart are muscles. They need to be worked to stay limber, flexible, alert, and strong. Tolerance too springs from seeds sown by curiosity. If you stay open to meanings and modes of inquiry and approach, you’ll understand more about yourself and those who see things strangely.

I’m not a total relativist. I do believe in right and wrong. My spirit breaks when cruel and unfair things happen. California spat up the bitter pill of this past election week, in passing Prop 8. It stings painfully. But I guess I’m trying to wrestle with my own anger and see a path forward. What I’m trying to encourage…or at least what I wish for, is that more people would stop looking at the world with tired eyes. A little more Lynch in the mornings could wake some folks up to how damn fine things start to look when we rub away prejudice, fear, stubbornness or indolence. Curiosity is what opens things up. It makes the child dream and the grown-up dream. All of the best things we’ve accomplished on this planet – and in this remarkable week in America – have come from a “why not?!” So, let’s keep the why nots coming. What’s your audacious lawnmower vision?

Questions About Angels
BY BILLY COLLINS

Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God’s body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.

She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

(Photo: yewenyi Flick photostream_