Kurt Vonnegut is not new to the Meaningave Universe - one of the earliest Meaningwave releases was a musical version of an audio book of his deeply prescient dystopian warning on the horrors of enforced equality, Harrison Bergeron. I have long been an enjoyer of his works, and consider Cat’s Cradle one of my favourite books to this day.

I first read of his “If This Isn’t Nice I Don’t Know What Is” philosophy in a collection of short stories, the name of which currently escapes me, that currently resides with most of the things I collected in my first three decades on earth, back in a storage facility in north Wales somewhere, which I look forward to getting back someday. A simple and radically powerful philosophy, gifted to Kurt by his uncle Alex - when you notice something nice, you make a point of pointing it out: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is!”

I’ve carried that with me ever since, and it has served me better than I can tell you. I have been looking forward to turning it into a song since long before Meaningwave was crystalized as an artform and a psychotechnology, and now, here at long last suddenly, it exists, and if that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. 

That’s the Mexican street cat my son Hercules adopted on the cover there. He got to take that blessed neck adornment off this week for the first time all year, and is the living embodiment of the song’s message, awash with appreciation as he is for all of life’s simple pleasures, like being able to run up and down stairs and to lick his own belly if he wishes.

Thank you for being here, brothers and sisters. I hope you enjoy this record, and find it useful in your life which is not, as Alan Watts says, Life is not a journey, but rather a musical thing. And if that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

MEANWHILE…

Speaking of nice! Our JANUARY SALE is now on at www.meaningwave.com! Get 20% off everything with the code JAN at checkout! Enjoy!

LOVE TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!  

AKIRA THE DON, Playa Del Carmen, January 2023

ELSEWHERE IN THE MEANINGWAVE UNIVERSE…

STREAM:MARCUS AURELIUS VINYL TEST PRESSES LISTENING SESSION!
MUSIC VIDEO:UNACCEPTABLE ft. David Goggins