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  • Down Colorful Hill

    What's the PMS color for uninspired? Eleven chromatically appropriate songs to ponder by…

    1. Red — Elbow
    I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be hearing Guy Garvey's Peter Gabriel-esque voice chiming, "You're a tragedy starting to happen" in my head all day today. This is one of several truly exceptional songs from Elbow's debut Asleep in the Back, which Amazon described as "11 tracks of rain-sodden misery blown up into (a) breed of gracefully elegiac fatalism" — which certainly sounds like a good time to me.

    2.Orange Fell — Trashcan Sinatras
    Back in the strange and dark days of the early 1990s, The Trashcan Sinatras first album Cake came bounding into my life with an unfettered joy unlike anything I'd ever encountered — a pure and wondrous fusion of cheery harmonies, chiming guitars and intricate wordplay. For several years, it played constantly on my stereo as a counterpoint to fellow Scotsmen The Blue Nile's Hats, which was every bit as gloriously "seeing the moonlight reflected in a street puddle at 3am" as Cake was "walking through the bright early morning sunshine with love in your heart and a smile on your face." 

    All of which made the release of their second album I've Seen Everything a source of both excitement and trepidation for me. How could any follow-up match the pleasure the first had brought me? Yeah, it could be a triumphant evolution of the sound they'd already established… or it could just as easily be a flat rehash of their debut, or the stereotypical "difficult second album" where an attempt at artistic growth comes off as awkward, uneven and unsuccessful. Fortunately, it turned out I had no reason to worry: I've Seen Everything was a total success on its own merits, blending the acoustic sound and lovely harmonies of the first album with the space and maturity to allow the band's underlying sense of melancholy to rise to the surface — as Orange Fell illustrates beautifully. Fifteen years later, it still works… the slow build to that gorgeous crescendo gets me every time.

    3.Yellow — Isobella
    I know absolutely nothing about this band, other than the fact that they were one of Clairecords earlier post-shoegaze signings and their debut Akasha is as pleasant an example of the genre as any you'll hear. Sorry: I know this entry sucks. But it's still a nice song.

    4. God's Green Earth — Idaho
    Also known as "how I fell hopelessly in love with the desolate and gorgeous music of Idaho at first sight."  My recommendation: play loud… the great empty spaces in the music and resonance of Jeff Martin's voice are a thousand times more enticing and effective when not reduced to background music-volume.  Then, pass Go and proceed directly to wherever you can start buying Idaho CDs — Year After Year or Levitate are terrific places to begin.

    5. Silent Blue — Midsummer
    My favorite song that nobody knows, from a split CD that nobody owns, by an obscure band from Whittier, CA… a smallish city outside of LA probably best known as the hometown of Richard Nixon. That being said, this is a tremendous song — one that deserves to be heard. Over and over. Loudly.

    6. Indigo is Blue — Catherine Wheel
    I don't have to explain The Catherine Wheel to you, do I? Good, because if we don't have that point of common understanding to work forward from… I just don't know if this relationship is going to work. Sing it with me now: "Sometiiiiiiimes… I fade away…"

    7. Violet —Hole
    Remember when Courtney Love was culturally relevant? Yeah, I know… it seems like a million years ago. And yes, I know that – unlike virtually everything else in this mix – this is a song you already know, and probably know well. Nevertheless, I felt it warranted inclusion, if only because a) this is the only song I own that has the word "violet" in the title, and was necessary to facilitate the ROY G. BIV aspect of this exercise in wasted time; and b) it's a fucking great, great, great song. I don't care what a raving lunatic Courtney Love turned out to be… this is a viciously powerful song, and always a good use of 3:25 of your time.

    8. White Winter Hymnal — Fleet Foxes 
    Paige already wrote about this at great length — and using a far more in-depth, metatextual approach than I can hope to muster — so instead I'll just leave you with a reiteration of what I said in my brief, stupid album review (see right): this is the most perfect 2 1/2 minutes of music you'll hear this year.

    9. Grey Turns White — Ultra Vivid Scene
    It's not even my favorite "grey" song of all time – that would be American Music Club's "Blue and Grey Shirt," which I already abused for similar purposes here. That being said, I've always enjoyed UVS, a "band" consisting of Kurt Ralske (who has since evolved into a fairly acclaimed multimedia artist) and the sadomasochistic demons running through his skull. 

    10. Christians in Black — Rogue Wave
    A lovely little slice of neo-Nick Drake from our pals in Rogue Wave, a band I'd read about for years and resisted (for no apparent reason) as something I wouldn't like… until I actually got my hands on Asleep at Heaven's Gate earlier this year and… uh… really liked it a lot. All of which proves nothing other than, sometimes (despite what Chuck D. might tell you) you can believe the hype. 

    11. …Of Love and Colors — Lisa Germano
    From her crowd-pleaser album Geek The Girl,which details Germano's awful, horrifying stalker experience and subsequent descent into profound depression. Dark, dark, dark. And yes, I enjoy it a lot.


    Thus endeth the exercise.

  • And the hits just keep on comin’

    Words I wasn't necessarily expecting to hear last night:

    "The neurologist gave him some brochures on Alzheimer's."

  • Flotsam

    • My friend ElF was admitted to one of the Boston area's many fine hospitals on Monday night, and spent a couple of eventful days being poked, prodded and tested. The good news is that they released her on Wednesday evening, and she's now back home with her husband and son — and breathing (for the moment, at least) a lot more easily. They're supposed to come to our house for dinner on Sunday, at which point I'll see if I can plug her breathing passages back up with steak.
    • I finally got around to seeing The Orphanage last night, after two months of watching it gather dust in a Netflix envelope next to my TV. And yes, it's just as good as you've heard. TheWife fell asleep on the couch about 10 minutes into the film (as she is wont to do), so I found myself sitting alone in the dark, enraptured as I went from intrigued to deeply spooked to profoundly anxious to scary-movie-shocked and then, finally, to deeply sad — when TheWife woke up just as the movie was ending, she found me sitting there with tears rolling down my cheeks. Like Pan's Labyrinth, this one is going to stay with me for a while.
    • Speaking of movies, I'll also give a hearty thumbs-up to Sunshine, Danny Boyle's (28 Days Later, Trainspotting) elegant and often beautiful entry into the science fiction world. At times calling to mind the elegaic pace and tone of Silent Running, and at others the stunning visuals and jarring shocks of Event Horizon, this is by no means a typical SF film (e.g. an action adventure that happens to be set in space). And, most importantly, it looks real — unlike, say, Beowulf, which cost something close to a billion dollars to make but never for a moment looks less than completely fake, everything in Sunshine looks utterly convincing… you never question it for a second, or say to yourself "that bit of CGI must have cost them a fortune." Wesley Morris' review in the Globe last year hooked my interest, and I'm truly glad that I finally got the opportunity to follow through and see it for myself.
    • Speaking of Beowulf… well, okay: big chunks of it kinda sucked, or didn't make sense. BUT: Crispin Glover's Grendel, for my money, is one of the great movie monsters of all time — impossibly violent and destructive, but screaming in very real and heartbreaking agony almost every moment he's on the screen. In a lot of ways, it called to mind Karloff's creature from Frankenstein: unmistakably a monster, but no less tragic or doomed for that label.
    • Speaking of… oh, wait. We actually weren't speaking about people gettin' knocked up, but now that I've broached the topic please join me in congratulating your pal and mine Jonniker on finally spilling the beans on her forthcoming journey into a world of endless terror parenthood. As one of the chosen few who was clued in ahead of time – and sworn to silence – it's wonderful to see her now squirming with gratitude and discomfort at the massive waves of good vibes and well wishes streaming toward her through the interweb. Ah, the joys of going public…

  • Two pointless stories that involve drinking. (Kind of.)

    A weekend in two parts:

    1. On Friday night, as I began to settle into a typical weekend kickoff at Castle TwoBusy – e.g. drunken orgies, weasel fights, formal attire and, or course, boatloads of child-on-child violence – I found myself with a brief moment of freedom. As is generally the case, I used it to check my e-mail. And what did I find, but a brief missive from an actual, live, blogging-type individual — and, what' s more, an actual, live, blogging-type individual who was in the area and wondered if I might be able to tear myself free of my normal state duties in order to partake of a beverage or two.

    Now, as you might have guessed by my gentle nature and gratuitous (if creative) usage of the word "fuck," I am very much a shy and retiring type — a meek and sheltered woodland creature, generally not given to venturing out into the cruel and terrifying darkness (the wooded roadways of suburban Boston are rife with nocturnal predators, like coyotes, cougars and… uh… cougars) after a hard week of holding my breath and not getting fired.

    But. An invitation? To go out? On a Friday night, like real people do? And from an actual, live, blogging-type individual, thereby providing me with my long-awaited opportunity to prove (to myself, if no one else) that all four of you out there reading this are something more than products of my fevered (read: psychotic, delusional) imagination? Count me in!

    And so, with the full blessing and buy-off of the Castle TwoBusy Executive Team, I shuffled off this mortal coil out of my humble home for a long-awaited beer with the man, the myth, the legend… Mr. Big Dubya.

    What can I tell you? It was everything I dreamed it would be and more — he looked resplendent and dazzling in his orange polo shirt, I looked moonstruck and starry-eyed in my pink chiffon and lace, and together we tripped the light fantastic until the first rays of dawn took us by surprise and we parted, saddened by the parting but changed forevermore by the experience…

    By which I mean to say: we shot the breeze over a Dogfish Head or three (on tap!) for several hours, and it was cool. We talked kids, we talked work, we talked Celtics, we badmouthed all of you (well, actually that was just him… I tried vigorously to defend you, but ultimately he beat me into submission), and then we called it a night and promised to find some way to do it again when the opportunity presents itself.

    Score one for the web as legit social networking tool.

    2. On Sunday morning (which would be this morning, in fact) TheWife took off bright and early for the wilds of New Hampshire – where she planned to spend the day with her former college roommate (who hates me… no, wait: who fucking hates me — yes, that's more accurate) who'd come east from CA to visit family – leaving me to die to take care of our three wonderful children. She'd only been gone for about 15 minutes (and I'd only started contemplating how I'd keep my homegrown Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse entertained for the next 8-10 hours) when our phone rang.

    I picked it up, fully expecting to hear TheWife's dulcet tones — perhaps reminding me about some task I needed to attend to above/beyond keeping our children successfully alive for the remainder of the day. But instead I was greeted by the ragged voice of our friend ElF. She wasn't feeling good, she said. She needed help.

    I should clarify here: ElF is a) a friend of ours; b) the mother to one of TheHurricane's friends; c) a terrifyingly brilliant physician; and d) someone who's had some ongoing health issues, and who last Thursday night called us borderline-frantic because she'd been feeling awful, had gone to get checked on at one of Boston's world-class hospitals, had heard a litany of possibly awful things going on with her, and then – against her physicians' advice – had left the hospital to go home and take care of her son… only, a few hours later, to find herself once again short of breath, feeling awful, and unable to figure out what to do with herself.

    Ever hear the adage that doctors make the worst patients? Having known a few physicians in my life, I can say for a fact that it's entirely true — and in ElF's case, she was too blinded by a racing pulse/intellect/whatever to recognize that, per common sense, where she really belonged was the hospital. Nevertheless, over the course of a couple of phone calls – wherein we offered to do anything and everything we could to help, up to and including coming over to watch her son or picking her up and driving her to the hospital – she and her husband JiF decided to wait it out overnight and go get checked out again the next day. So… TheWife and I were left completely flustered, but (of course) we respected their wishes and presumed we'd hear back from them at some point with an update.

    Then the phone rang this morning. And ElF was having the same kinds of symptoms and scariness she'd been experiencing last week. And her husband JiF was actually down on the Cape running. And she was once again confused and overwhelmed and unable to catch her breath but still unable/unwilling to step back and see that, hey: maybe this would be a good time to head back to the hospital.

    I basically offered to throw my kids in my truck and head over there immediately, but she put me off. "I need to think about this," she said. "I need to think about my breathing some more." Fine — call me back. I quickly showered and threw clothes on my kids: we were ready to rock. I have a 7-passenger vehicle… I could grab her AND her son, and drive us all into the city. Fuck it: I was ready for anything. I waited. I waited. Finally, I tracked down her unlisted number (yeah, that  was helpful… and yes, TheWife was not overjoyed when I called her to tell her what was going on (and get the number)) and called her. She answered: still short of breath, still confused, still not able to make a decision.

    I decided it wasn't time to beat around the bush and give her more room to outthink the issue. "Let me ask you a question," I said. "If I called you up, and asked you – as a doctor – what your opinion was if TheWife had all of your symptoms and was now feeling awful again, unable to draw a full breath… the whole 9 yards: what would you advise?"

    "I'd tell her to go to the ER," she said.

    "Bingo. I'll be there in 10 minutes."

    It didn't end up being that simple – we played another round or two of phone tag – but ultimately I ended up coming over to their house (with my brood in tow) to watch her son while one of her neighbors drove her in to another of Boston's fine hospitals for… well, for whatever they needed to do.

    And that's how, at about 9:00 this morning, I found myself alone with not three… but four small children, and without a clue as to how to entertain them, or how long it would be until help arrived.

    So. We wrestled. We played with trucks. They threw basketballs at my head. They rode up and down and around the driveway on their little bikes. They put together train sets. They demanded snacks. They dem
    anded juice. (I emptied every frickin' drop of juice in their house, btw. Because that's just the way we roll.) I stole a moment away to hop on their son's little computer (squatting down to sit on his little chair in front of his little desk) to make a fantasy baseball trade (Reyes/J. Encarnacion for Prince Fielder/R. Weeks… I feel pretty good about it). I ducked, parried, bounced, sang and played, all in a not-at-all-desperate attempt to keep my mind off of the reason I was there in the first place — and, more importantly, to keep their son's mind off why his mother (who he knows is sick) was suddenly gone.

    And then, three and a half hours later, the phone rang. It was ElF. "They took 17 blood samples," she said. "I think I'm empty." But her breathing was back to normal, and she was feeling better. And while they still weren't sure what was going on – there was some mention of tiny little pulmonary embolisms and some kind of complications involving pre-existing cardio issues – nobody seemed to think she was going to drop dead on the spot. So she and her neighbor were heading back home.

    And she walked in,and gave her son a huge hug, and then gave me one to match. "I don't need your hugs," I said manfully. "We took our payment in juice." And then we fed all the kids lunch. And then JiF came back from his run on the Cape, and shrugged off the whole thing. And then Butterfly covered herself and her shirt in liquid yogurt… and Rabbit had an accident running to the potty… and TheHurricane stripped off his shirt so he could match Butterfly… and, finally, ElF's son said, "I'd like you to go now."

    So I loaded my shirtless/pantless children back into my truck – to be honest, at this point I felt like we were Steinbeckian Okies, and if I'd pulled out a chaw of tobacco and stuck it into my cheek it would have only served to complete the picture – and left ElF and family behind with my best wishes, my promises to be available again 24/7 at the drop of a hat, a house in shambles, and – of course – no juice.

    And how was your weekend?

  • Please forgive the following gratuitous abuse of punctuation

    Hi! Hey! How are ya? Great! So so SO glad to hear it! Wanna know what I've been doing? It's been the most super-fun time ever! 

    • Last Friday, TheCompany had a surprise layoff! Even in the lucrative seal-clubbing industry, the downturn in the economy is hitting hard. Still, we didn't see this coming! All of a sudden, several of my colleagues and friends – including Bouvier and, most painfully, Swoosh – were gone! Poof! Boy, was I surprised! (As were, for the record, Swoosh and the other newly-decapitated.) In no time flat, we went from the little seal-clubbing company that could to… well, something that may or may not survive the year. Bridges were burned, long-time friendships ended in what felt (to some) like betrayal… it sure was colorful! I felt like throwing up everywhere! Especially because I had NO idea this was happening, unlike last time!   
    • BLAM! My head just exploded! 
    • And then I spent all weekend wondering if the reason I was still around was because I've been a part of this seal-clubbing enterprise from the beginning and TheCEO and ThePrez feel some sense of obligation to me, and not because I'm actually considered a part of the long-term solution! Because this is a time of hints and allegations, when meetings are happening behind closed doors and power is shifting! And jiminy gee willikers, I was sure feeling out of the loop! So I spent the whole weekend feeling vaguely nauseous and profoundly troubled! I even updated my resume for the first time in 5ish years! And added to my LinkedIn account! And started looking online to figure out what prospects I might have!
    • Then I came in on Monday and had a long talk with TheCEO, and shared some of my… uh… concerns… and basically got talked down from the ledge. Phew! Glad that's over! You know, except for the "watching our friends get axed" thing, which is still not something I think I'll ever get comfortable with (or would want to, for that matter).
    • And did I mention that my friend and office-mate Koko was on vacation last Friday and Monday, so I got to call him (as he relaxed/boozed/sexed it up in some grotty, forgotten corner of the Berkshires) with the news? Boy howdy, was he excited! "This fucking sucks," he said. Yup! And then, when he finally got back on Tuesday, I told him how troubled I'd been over the weekend, to the extent of revamping my resume, etc., but had talked to TheCEO and now I felt better! Hooray! So he went and talked to TheExecVP (the third part of TheCompany's holy trinity) and told her that I'd been working on my resume over the weekend!
    • BLAM! My head just exploded again! 
    • For the record, Koko felt a little abashed when I subsequently pointed out to him that the "I worked on my resume over the weekend" story was something I'd told him in confidence, and not a fun factoid I'd necessarily wanted him to repeat to TheCompany's executive team. Oops!
    • BLAM! BLAM! BLAMBLAMBLAM! 
    • On an eerily parallel note, TheWife's new job is also starting off with a similar bang — as her lunch last Friday with her new company's CEO was highlighted by the revelation that they're having layoffs, too! Hooray! And she gets to do some picking and choosing in terms of who does/doesn't get the axe! Hooray! Welcome to your new job! Hooray! 
    • And finally, today is TheHurricane's last day at his Preschool — a place I'd felt immense terror and apprehension about when he first entered two years ago, but which has made just an insanely positive difference in his life. This morning, in fact, we had our final meeting with his program director and main teacher/aide, during which time we all marveled at how much progress he's made… not just over the past two years, but even over the past 6 months, and how he's in good shape heading into Kindergarten next month. (He's starting K! BLAM! BLAM! BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!) And then, as we said goodbye to them and left the Preschool for the last time, I felt my eye twitching in a way that suggested that in a different world – one where I had a heart and a soul, rather than a great aching black chasm in my chest – I might've actually teared up a bit. 
    • Fortunately, a minute later my eye stopped twitching, the great empty chasm in my chest began to roar as it normally does, and I ran over a bunch of rabbits and squirrels on my way to work! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

  • 5/6, 10/10

    PortsmouthbreweryJul08
    We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming of pointless sarcasm and photos of beer.

    But enough about me. How are you?

    Um. Anyhow… last week marked TheWife’s first brush with unemployment since the dark, distant days of 1997 — a time of plague and pestilence, when millions thumped their tubs to the turbulent strains of Chumbawumba, the Green Bay Packers and their recently retired QB/Vicodin fiend Brett Favre spanked my beloved New England Patriots, and a pretty brunette in San Francisco waited in vain for her dashing, handsome and ultimately doomed boyfriend to get his ass in gear and start buying diamond rings. (Tragically, TheGirlfriend had another full year of waiting to go before the aforementioned dashing and handsome ass actually got in gear.)

    So: how did we choose to celebrate her weeklong failure to bring home the bacon? By setting our credit cards aflame. On flame with rock and roll! In short, TheWife decided to take her forthcoming entrée into the executive world as an excuse to buy clothes. Lots of new clothes. Which meant outlet shopping. Lots of outlet shopping.

    I took last Monday and Tuesday off from work to join her in a little consumerism-fueled married-people bonding time, which led us through 5 of the 6 New England states (sorry, Vermont), across the blood- and khaki-stained floors of more Ann Taylors, Ann Taylor Lofts (little did I suspect that they offer COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CLOTHES OMG OMG from Ann Taylor proper), Gaps and other similar chambers of horror than I’d prefer to remember, and – at long last – to the promised land: a brewery at the end of the rainbow. To my male friends in New England, a word of wisdom: outlet shopping in Kittery, ME is not an event fraught with pain and damnation, because just south – only moments away, over the scenic Piscataqua Bridge – lies the timeless beauty of Portsmouth, NH… and the Portsmouth Brewery. 10 beers on tap. All of ’em good… all of ’em shown in this sampler (photographed during one of the brief moments when it lay full on our table, before TheWife and I descended upon it and consumed the happy little beers in the spirit of hyenas set free on a busload of honey-of-a-hams. And yes, I’m going to stick with that metaphor.).

    But the time for being footloose and fancy-free is over. For me, it was only a 2-day respite from my daily grind – although, to be truthful, I’m always happy to return to the joys of working in the seal clubbing industry – and for TheWife, it was a brief and tantalizing glimpse into a life of leisure, wealth and freedom that (realistically) she may never see again. 

    Anyhow. Fun while it lasted.

  • Another beautiful morning in early September

    They tumbled from his hands, a torrent of colors twisting and turning, catching the light in a way only his eyes could see.

    A few feet and a million miles away, we sat. The urge to do anything but was almost unbearable. I wanted – with a terrible, deep-set desperation – to fly across the room. To pull them from the air, to take his hands in mine, to hold them still and calm whatever compulsions that drove him. That had driven us all here.

    He watched them fall. Listened to the syncopation, the impact, as they struck the carpet like hard pellets of rain. And then swiftly gathered them once more into his small hands. He lifted them up, and for a moment he held them high. They pointed out between his fingers, waxy shards of colored glass. And then, again, he opened his fists and watched gravity take hold.

    Four pairs of eyes watched him carefully. Analyzed, agonized, watched him watching the crayons tumble to the floor. Notes were taken. Frantic, silent prayers held tongues unused to prayer. 

    It felt like forever.

    A voice I did not recognize: “Let’s draw a picture.” Her eyes were kind, and deeply focused, as she searched his face. Trying to capture his gaze. To make contact. But in that moment, there was no world other than that of crayons falling through the air. A gentle half-smile on his lips. His grey-blue eyes lost in wonder and fascination. Whether or not he heard his name in her voice, her invitations to play, to draw, to engage and react, his eyes did not waver. There was no other world.

    She reached forward and began to gather them from his lap and the floor before him. He raised his voice in protest, a cry that did not find words but resonated across the room, unmistakable in intent and message. “It’s okay, buddy,” we said. We understood. We knew what he meant. We reassured him: everything is fine. 

    (These are the three most magical words in the language. They dissipate fear. Vanish unspoken terrors. Soothe anxiety. Make the bad thoughts go away.)

    Tiny tears formed at the corners of his eyes. Our hearts held fast, clenched tight in our chests, sheer force of will and hope against hope the only adherents keeping them from splintering like rotten ice, from falling apart once and forevermore. 

    She spoke again. “Okay, now we’ll play a new game.” Redirection. “We’re going to play with some blocks now.” She pulled a clear plastic cylinder from the case. Inside were small plastic blocks; white on some sides, blue on others. “Would you like to play blocks with me?” Her eyes again searched his face, looking for contact, for response. He calmed; focused on the blocks. She repeated, “Would you like to play blocks with me?” 

    My wife could not help herself. She spoke his name. “Do you want to play blocks?” she asked him. Pushing him. Engage. Please. Engage.

    “Yeah,” he said. His small voice. A half-smile dancing once more across his face. 

    The woman nodded. The cylinder opened and the blocks poured out. Before she could even begin to ask, he began to stack. “You’re stacking!” she said. “How high can you stack?” His eyes on the blocks. Watching carefully. Task-focused. Four high. Five. Six. Collapse.

    “Good work,” she said. “How about…” but he was already stacking. Four high. Five. Six. Collapse.

    She took his hands in hers. “You’re very good at making towers,” she said. “But let’s try a different block game. Here, watch me.” She pulled the blocks towards her and put three together, horizontally. “I made a train! Choo-choo! Look, I can make it longer!” She added another block. “Would you like to try? Here, make a train!”

    He took the blocks. Began stacking. Four high. Five. Collapse.

    Redirect. “We’re not doing towers anymore. We’re making trains. Here, watch me do it again.” She repeated the process, then pushed the blocks back to him. “Your turn.”

    Four high. Five. Six. Collapse.

    I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. The air felt heavy in my lungs. Leaden. The press of gravity enormous.

    “Maybe we should try a different game.” Redirect. “We can make another tower, okay? But this time, we’ll do it all in one color. Here, watch me.” She constructed a four-block tower, all blue sides facing him. “See? I made a blue tower.” She held up another block. “Some sides are white, and some are blue. I made my tower so it’s all blue.” She pushed the blocks over to him. “Can you make a blue tower?”

    Four high. Five. Six.

    White. Blue. Blue. White. Blue. White. Collapse.

    Four pairs of eyes, watching carefully. The other woman, glancing down at a pad of paper. Her hands busy, taking notes.

    “Alright,” she said. “Maybe this is a good time to ask you some questions.” She looked at us. Her eyes clear behind round lenses. Intelligent. Seeking out ours, trying to engage. 

    Four voices, back and forth. Questions. Answers. Interpretations. Hypotheses. Spin. My wife, keeping her voice steady. Something like confidence. Mine, soft. Careful. Bending in the wrong places. The deafening rush of blood. Concentrating on each breath. Smooth. Steady. Calm. 

    Looking over, watching him play on the floor. Beautiful boy. My skin stretching tight across my jaw, around my eyes. The air so heavy in my lungs. Hearing his mother’s voice, he momentarily glanced up. I gave him a smile. “It’s okay, buddy,” I told him. Everything is fine. My heart swimming in blood and love and terror.

    Questions you never dreamed you would be asked.

    Eventually, they stood. “We’re going to put together our notes, and then we’ll come back in and talk some more.” My eyes on the floor, on my son. Not ready to meet their gaze. And then the door shut, and we were left alone.

    We sat at opposite ends of a small couch. The only question we had for each other: “What do you think?” But no way to answer. What you think. What you know. What you want to believe. Looking at each other, looking away. The little man, sitting on the floor. One leg straight, the other bent at the knee, the sole of his shoe rubbing against his pale calf. An imperfect triangle.

    The blocks, slowly climbing towards the sky. Four. Five. Six. Collapse. Again.

    Forever ticks by in seconds. Terrible, long seconds.

    And then the door opened, and we drew in deep, long breaths. Filled our lungs, as if tasting new air for the last time. And they closed the door, and sat. Looked at us. And spoke.

    “He’s on the spectrum.”

    Four. Five. Six.

    “Autism.”

    Collapse.

  • Suck or No Suck: Summer 2008 Edition

    Yeah, I know — I’ve been remiss about posting. Sorry. I returned from my recent vacation to an F5 twister of workworkwork that instantaneously buried me under a pile of debris, demands and stress. Hooray!


    Subsequently, in lieu of anything of real substance, I bring you a brief recap of all things media I’ve encountered recently, and their relative levels of suckitude…

    SUCK: Semi-Pro, which blew giant rotten whale chunks while still managing to be not quite the worst movie in Well Ferrell’s career (thanks, Kicking and Screaming). The worst thing about it is the fact that there are a lot of great ideas buried in this movie, but they failed on every level to bring any of them to life. The ABA is a great subject for a movie – Terry Pluto’s fantastic oral history of the league, Loose Balls, provides an ungodly amount of quality source materials – and Semi-Pro brings together a solid cast (including OutKast’s Andre 3000 as a quasi-Dr. J) for what should have been a hugely entertaining 90 minutes. Instead… what you get is long stretches of awkward dialogue (including long pauses that presumably allow for audience laughter, but instead serve as increasingly awkward reminders of just how good a time you’re not having), the completely incongruous appearance of Woody Harrelson in a role that appears to have been grafted (unsuccessfully) from a totally different movie, and the realization 45 minutes in that you’re bored stiff… and only halfway through the film. 

    NO SUCK: The Kingdom, which was way better than we had any reason to anticipate it would be. Directed by Peter Berg in much the same visual style that he used for Friday Night Lights (world-class book, great (if underappreciated movie), strange show), The Kingdom focuses on an FBI investigative team that is brought into the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (under absurd political pressures and circumstances) to look into a terrorist attack on an American oil company’s employee compound. It’s an interesting plot, but that summary doesn’t begin to do justice to the relentless tension that occasionally breaks into jarring moments of explosive (figuratively and literally) action that literally had TheWife and I sitting on the edge of our couch. This is a thriller in the best possible sense: it gets you intellectually and emotionally involved even as it drags you through a white-knuckle ride where you honestly feel that anything can happen at any time. 

    SUCK: Actually, suck doesn’t begin to describe this, but I was deeply saddened recently to learn that Kris Angylus – half of the husband-wife duo who comprise The Angelic Process – committed suicide in April. Their music, while clearly not everyone’s cup of tea (an impossibly heavy doom-metal exercise in drone and atmosphere that called to mind elements of shoegaze, refreshingly free of the goofy cookie monster vocals that mar so much of that genre), caught and kept my ear well beyond my expectations. While I was trapped in my office on the Fourth of July, I took advantage of the fact that I was the only human being in the building to play Weighing Souls with Sand over and over again at top volume… it kept me focused, angry and motivated. Anyhow, following that, I decided to try to hunt down some of their earlier and even more obscure stuff — only to discover that singer/guitarist/apparently very good guy (per the message boards I skimmed) Kris had succumbed to his depression, leaving behind a devastated wife, a legacy of surprisingly moving music, and a big empty hole where there was once a promising future.

    NO SUCK: I realize that I should probably be embarrassed by this, but honestly I can’t recall the last time I laughed as often or hard as I did at the first couple of episodes of Wipeout. Yeah, I realize that this is a short-term fix, and what leaves me in hysterics now is going to get real old, real fast… but for now, you just can’t beat it when it comes to primal slapstick comedy. 

    NO SUCK: Sigur Ros. I’ve been on something of a Sigur Ros binge, actually. First, their new album (and no, I won’t even attempt to type the title… I’ll just refer you to the review on the right and presume you’ll do the right thing and click through to Amazon and buy it) came out and made me a happy little worker bee. Then I found out they’re going on tour later this year, and as I’ve read that seeing them live is something akin to a religious experience… well, you know where I’ll be on September 19th. And then, to top it all off, I ended up spending a very happy 2ish hours on Saturday night glued to the Sundance Channel, where I’d happened across the strange and lovely documentary about Sigur Ros and Iceland, Heima — which is just a hypnotic, lovely experience. 
    And finally, on a completely different note…
    NO SUCK: TheWife got a new job! After 10+ years of toiling for her international conglomerate – the last several with her noggin wedged up against a multi-faceted glass ceiling – she’s found new employment at a place that… well, when we first started this job search, we basically listed everything she’d hope to find in a different position. A wish list, basically. 

    And the new job? It’s a match on almost every point. Local headquarters. Decent salary. Great title. Good people, and the chance to make a very real impact on a lot of different levels. In short… it’s pretty badass.

    Boo-ya!

  • Raspberry Claws

    Raspclaws

  • Welcome back from vacation. Never do it again.

    Why yes, it’s the Fourth of July. Am I out being festive with my family, perhaps enjoying a leisurely BBQ lunch (as it’s now 12:36pm)? 

    Why, no. Because I’m sitting at my desk. At work. Because, apparently, if I don’t put in about 5-6 hours today the world as we know it will come to an end.

    Good times.