Letters to Cleo – "Here & Now" (1995)

Thecomfortofaknowledge

    ofariseabovethesky

Butcouldneverparallelthechallenge

    ofanacquisitioninthe

Here and now, here and now

From a recent article in USA Today:

Could picking your nose be bad for your brain? According to one report, it could be possible. . . .

A recent review paper published in the journal Biomolecules explored the potential relationship between nose-picking and the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, which may be related via neuroinflammation.

Recent evidence suggests that neuroinflammation, or the swelling of nervous tissue, including tissue in the brain, may play at least a partial role in Alzheimer’s disease.  According to the paper's authors, beta-amyloid, a protein believed to be a factor in causing Alzheimer's, may be produced by the brain in response to certain pathogens.

One way for these pathogens to get into your nose and interact with your brain? A dirty finger up the nostril.

Oh, sh*t!  (It’s TOO LATE now – I needed to hear this years ago!)

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However, there is hope that you and I aren’t doomed to suffer from Alzheimer’s.  Here’s the concluding paragraph of the journal article that is referenced in the USA Today news story:

Understanding the potential role of olfactory pathogen entry in AD-associated neuroinflammation opens up new avenues for prevention. . . . [T]he improvement of hand hygiene might be an easy prevention step, as learned from the COVID-19 epidemic.  One of the lessons learned from COVID-19 is the value of hand hygiene through frequent hand washing and the use of hand sanitizers, and we suggest these routine hygienic procedures be mandatory for the incurable nose-picker.

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Letters to Cleo formed in Boston in 1990.  From Wikipedia:

The name “Letters to Cleo” is a reference to [lead singer Kay] Hanley's childhood pen pal.  They spent their summers together in Canada, and they wrote each other letters to keep in touch over a ten-year period.  At some point Cleo moved without giving Hanley her new mailing address, and Hanley's letters to Cleo were returned to sender.  Hanley rediscovered a box of these letters during the band-naming process, and the band adopted the name.  Hanley called it “the least crappy of all the names” they came up with at the time.

Letters to Cleo

“Here & Now” was released on the group’s first album, Aurora Gory Alice, in 1995.  It became a hit after being featured on the Melrose Place soundtrack.

Click here to listen to “Here & Now.”  Feel free to attempt to sing the lyrics quoted at the beginning of this post, but my bet is that you won’t be able to keep up with Kay Hanley.  (I know I wasn’t.)

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.