Quality

Fifteen guys with advanced degrees in political science, economics and military history could not have done what Winston Churchill did. The entire output of every boy band in history — yes, this includes all incarnations of Menudo — could not match the emotion, craftsmanship and complexity of a single solid album by Radiohead, or Charles Mingus, or Leonard Cohen.

Imagine you've made something beautiful that is now on display in a gallery in London. Two dozen sloppy, deeply referenced, fawning compliments from observers couldn't equal a few well-chosen words from someone who knows you.

"Your father would have loved that."

Quality satisfies the need at hand, as efficiently as possible. It's not redundant, or needlessly flashy, or hard to understand. It's direct.

When you experi ence and truly understand something of real quality, the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Whether it's a perfectly timed bit of sketch comedy, or the jeweled loveliness of a particularly green dragonfly, quality is moving. Quality can be as humble as a buttery croissant flaking apart into perfect layers in your mouth, or as ostentatious as a 500-man royal procession going off without a hitch. Quality can be the flawless nuclear destruction of a city that kills hundreds of thousands of civilians — quality does its thing with efficiency, with no regard for morality.

God makes quality — look at the cockroach, universal survivor. People make quality — look at the Great Pyramid of Egypt. There are things in this world that are perfectly calibrated, and they reap whatever stakes lie on the table.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)