I have a pretty new niece, Laxmi Sade, latest addition to canopy of angels-on-earth. She's a Sagittarius like me, so she has a bow - pink - and she's wearing it in her hair these days. I'm aiming mine to shoot down rhyme from the firmament. There are flocks and constellations passing over all the time.

She wears this astonished look, her mother says - constant shock, two big bug-eyes lolling at everything around her. My ears feel that way now. I'm flabbergasted. I'm floored. I'm flummoxed. Like I've never heard this Eagles song before, like I've never really listened this Elton John song before, like I've never perceived this Fleetwood Mac song before - the way the drum hits on the "1 and", like a thump of a hard brush against soft flesh. My ears have been opened; I'm a believer, a wholy catholic believer. There's no impulse toward discrimination at a moment like this. I don't even know what that means. It is just a wondrous world of sound, raw and alive and emotional. It is so palpable and beautiful, the stakes are so high, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.