Welcome to Letters from Quotidia 2026, Weekend Supplement…what number to give it? It is the first for this year but the 13th since I began rolling out the Letters again- so let’s just call it number thirteen in the sequence. We have only a few weeks left in the roll out, so let’s not complicate the nomenclature further.

The Letters have undergone a number of name changes over the years that would be too tedious to enumerate. And anyway, I rather like the number 13- I am not a triskaidekaphobiac (Try saying that trippingly off the tongue with a few wines inside you!) So, a belated welcome to the new year. Do your resolutions lie around you in a broken heap? Perhaps you are a shining example of the triumph of the will? Or like me, you didn’t bother to make any at all?

Whatever the case may be- let the Letter begin! First, to dispel this tosh about 13 being unlucky. If it is it is, but mostly humanity has managed to negotiate 13 in any of its guises, iterations and manifestations with no discernible ill-effect. However, pusillanimity personified as I am, I would not choose to attend a dinner like that held in New York City in 1881 where an influential group of New Yorkers, led by US Civil War veteran Captain William Fowler, came together to put an end to this and other superstitions. They formed a dinner cabaret club, which they called the Thirteen Club. At the first meeting, on January 13 at 8:13 p.m., thirteen people sat down to dine in Room 13 of the venue. The guests walked under a ladder to enter the room and were seated among piles of spilled salt.

Ah! No more of 13- let’s talk 61- the number of years ago when the first song of this Supplement was released. It was on Bringing It All Back Home. This was Bob Dylan’s first LP release of 1965. The second of that year, Highway 61 Revisited, confirmed me as a Dylan fan, which I have remained all of my life. The song I refer to, She Belongs To Me, is a simple 12-bar blues with lyrics that captivated me then but which I had never sung until this Letter! The subject of the song is variously identified as Dylan’s girlfriend Suzi Rotolo, or Joan Baez, or Sarah Lowndes his soon-to-be wife, or Nico, among others.

There is an alternative interpretation which I incline to: the song is a hymn of thanksgiving to the Muse- the feminine principle of inspiration who is mysterious, unapproachable and who can be implacable and cruel if subjected to examination or insult. I might add that I depend utterly on the Muse to unclog the springs of my creativity so they may flow clear again! The title is misleading, – she belongs to no one, rather, we belong to her. On a personal note, I also identify her with a girl I met in Cushendall in 1965 and who is, all these years later, my wife still. [insert song]

What is it about numbers? They are the basis for that most rigorous and pure of the sciences- mathematics. At the same time, they are central to that least rational of beliefs- numerology. Children have counting games and when they grow up some of them go on to indulge in numbers, a form of gambling which flourished in America and elsewhere for many years where punters were fleeced by racketeers who made fortunes from their clients.

Then governments of all stripes began to cash in on the greedy and the gullible who see picking numbers in lotto as a short-cut to easy wealth. The fourth book of the Old Testament is called Numbers and recalls how the Israelites were counted to determine just how many able-bodied men would be available to conquer the Promised Land. The Ones and Zeros of the digital domain shape our lives in just about every way you can name- or number!

Poets, of course, use numbers in all sorts of ways but for this post I’ll confine myself to the poem Number Man by Carl Sandburg- a poet I have used in several other Letters. He addresses it (for the ghost of Johann Sebastian Bach) He was born to wonder about numbers.// He balanced fives against tens/and made them sleep together and love each other.// He took sixes and sevens/ and set them wrangling and fighting/ over raw bones.// He woke up twos and fours/ out of baby sleep/ and touched them back to sleep.// He managed eights and nines,/ gave them prophet beards,/ marched them into mists and mountains.// He added all the numbers he knew,/ multiplied them by new-found numbers/ and called it a prayer of Numbers.// For each of a million cipher silences/ he dug up a mate number/ for a candle light in the dark.// He knew love numbers, luck numbers,/ how the sea and the stars/ are made and held by numbers.// He died from the wonder of numbering./ He said good-by as if good-by is a number.//

Yet again, proof that we owe so much to our poets and our composers. Music is, indeed, mathematical. Back in the mid-1990s I wrote a song inspired by a children’s skipping rhyme called, Counting Game. It can be found on Letters From Quotidia, Episode 68. Thirty years later, here’s another song about counting- I’m Counting on You. [insert song]

What really counts? I suppose it depends on who you ask and at what stage of life they are at. A narcissist at any age will give you a different response to someone altruistic. A parent may respond differently to those without children. Culture determines to some extent a response as might the historical period. For those starving or dying of thirst, a scrap of food or drink of water may be the only thing that counts. For each individual, the only thing that matters is what counts for you!

She Belongs To Me (Words and Music Bob Dylan)

She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist,
She don’t look back.

She’s got everything she needs, she’s an artist,
She don’t look back.
She can take the dark out of the nighttime,
And paint the daytime black.

You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees.
You will start out standing
Proud to steal her anything she sees.
But you’ll wind up peeking through her keyhole
Down upon your knees.

She never stumbles, she’s got no place to fall.
She never stumbles, she’s got no place to fall.
She’s nobody’s child, the Law can’t touch her at all.

She wears an Egyptian ring that sparkles before she speaks.
She wears an Egyptian ring that sparkles before she speaks.
She’s a hypnotist collector; you are a walking antique.

Bow down to her on Sunday,
Salute her when her birthday comes.
Bow down to her on Sunday,
Salute her when her birthday comes.
For Halloween give her a trumpet,
And for Christmas, buy her a drum.

I’m Counting on You (Words and Music by Quentin Bega)

I’m counting on you to keep me always on the track

To keep me on the straight and narrow and never to be slack

I’m counting on you that you will always have my back

When I’m assailed by enemies and under fierce attack

I’m counting on you that when I have lost the knack

Of living as I should you’ll give me everything I lack

I’m counting on you that when I’m about to crack

When I’m about to give up and fading to black

When every season is winter and the cold is pressing in

When there’s no reason to avoid all those entanglements of sin

When every path is lost and brambles tear the skin

Where nowhere offers solace or silence only din

Where all you hear is anguish and howls of suffering

Where nothing is revealed of hope and you are cowering…  Ohhh Yeah

I’m counting on you to lead me ever toward the light

Avoiding dire shadows and dangers of the night

I’m counting on you to show me only what is right

To keep that destination ever in my sight

I’m counting on you that if I am in a plight

You’ll pull me from that quicksand, and you will hold me tight

I’m counting on you that when overcome with fright

You’ll take me by the hand and clothe me in shining white

[chorus]

I’m counting on you to lift me up when e’er I fall

To be there when I need you when my back’s against the wall

I’m counting on you to be my shelter from the squall

That you will build me up whenever I am feeling small

I’m counting on you to support me in a brawl

Especially when I’m knocked down and I can barely crawl

I’m counting on you that even through the pall

That I’ll find my way back to you- I will hear you call

Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.

Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.