Looking at the title, I think it is true every year, though this year the next crisis seems close.

Once again in 2019 we viewed the fireworks in San Jose, and once again the display did not disappoint. There were several new colors in the yellow/orange spectrum, including maize, mustard, peach, and amber. Each spark seemed extra bright, as though colorful light bulbs were exploding in the sky. The coolest new action was a spiral, or corkscrew, or pinwheel, sort of a curled-up spring spinning madly and unwinding. Most of the individual shots made huge displays, yet a lot of the time there were multiples shot at once, and both the ground and air displays were generous in both son et lumiere.

Good thing too, since it was preceded by at least an hour of terrible live music spewing out over a low-quality, badly-balanced, deafening sound system. One fellow in our party so battered he decamped to watch the display from a few blocks away. The rest of us were trying to remember why we forgot about the bad music last year, and therefore didn’t warn him, and of course the reason was obvious once the pyrotechnics started: the quality of that display drove the pregame blather from our minds.

This event, like most things in our lives, was in a safe location, so we left our stuff for repeated long intervals during the wait for sunset, thereby avoiding exposure to most of the three hours of various sorts of audio assault. We ate Mexican food in San Pedro Square then took a walk through Plaza de Cesar Chavez, which includes an array of person-sized fountains one can walk among, or through, depending on one’s desired wetness level. Folks who waited in the field played card games, read, or picnicked. Many people, at least fifty of them, danced.

So the dancing people were having a good time, and clearly thought the music was great. Are we wrong? Are we snobs? Are we aging out of enjoyment outside of our comfort zones? Are we unable to appreciate new things? Are we evolutionarily weak, because the sound system made our ears ache? Are we cultural dinosaurs, venting a last gasp of vitriol as we are cleared away by an asteroid of New Sound?

I meant volcano. I subscribe to the volcano theory of dinosaur extinction. But you get the idea.

This large crowd event somehow highlighted our differences, even as we gathered for a common purpose. Everything seems to do that in America now. I can’t remember, though, whether it was always that way, just like I can’t remember how we contacted people before cell phones. Perhaps when there aren’t differences, it’s because some groups of people aren’t even in attendance. That was also true of these fireworks: Despite being in the heart of Silicon Valley, this is not predominantly a geek event like, say, the March for Science was, but much more of a working class and family gathering, and quite diverse.

Except for the mainstream music.