P Fable

As part of my new schedule, I figured another alliterative day wouldn't hurt, so I bring you "fabulous Fridays." (I also want to include a "parenting advice" day, but don't know when to do that - they're all parenting advice if you're smart enough to learn from my mistakes.)

Two porcupines were cuddling. Said she, “Do you really love me?”
He answered, “Ouch. What do you think?”
At which she said, “Probably not or you wouldn’t always be so grumpy,” and pouted.

Posing

I usually cut up magazines for future inspiration. Either to practice adding captions or for collages.
Last night, for some reason or another, I was "fun daddy" again. We just finished banging on pots and then using them as basketball hoops when I decided to slow things down and cut up a magazine. While doing so I had the idea of using pictures from the magazines for posing. (Partially, I was inspired by something I saw Demetri Martin do on Comedy Central's Motherload.)
I think I'm on to something here, so I made a set on Flickr, which I'll keep public and add to as inspiration strikes us.
I can't wait to do more, but the kids lost interest because they have a hard time planning their poses (as you'll be able to see in the set). Still, I enjoy it, so we'll be doing more.

Trash without borders

Coco’s school is part of a very worthwhile program. “A Clean Walk to School” invites us to pick up trash on our way to school in order to become more conscious of our environment and to let us learn that we are part of a community and lots of other good things I can’t think of right now.

But

I think three- and four-year-olds are a little young for this. I think it was just last week that I asked him to drop the cigarette butt he was exploring or to not put Halloween candy trash in his mouth.
In other words, I’m still having a difficult time making him understand that you don’t just pick up anything you see on the ground. I’d rather not be sending a mixed message at this time.
Not that you think I’m a totally asocial [expletive], I did teach the kids the unwritten urban law that once you touch trash you find on the street it becomes your trash and if you drop it you are the one littering, so you better put it in the trash. Not in your mouth! Here, give it to me, I’ll hold on to it until we get to a trash can.

Now, those middle-school brats at the playground in front of our building are another story entirely. I still think they should make all those who come to class late from recess pick up all the lunchtime trash. With their teeth.

Slow News day at the NYTimes

Yesterday's NYTimes had some delightful items in the Business section. First, there's a lengthy article about airplane boarding techniques. No, not a how-to for space pirates, but mathematical models on getting people in and out more efficiently. It appears that the Basque sheep-herding techniques are still the best. (Yes, the Basque sheep have boarding passes.)
Then there's an(other) article I didn't read, but I looked at the headlines and pictures. It's about an investor who would prefer to remain anonymous and behind the scenes. So of course they publish a picture they got of him from a synagogue bulletin or something and I'm guessing the rest of the article details every last bit of his life that he's been trying to keep a secret. Yay, journalism!

Coco Tuesday

For a brief time, we had an art installation in our central gallery. I believe it was a statement about the digestive act and the cycle of life and the futility of dental hygiene, but I may be mistaken.
In any case, I realized that it would be hard to get it into a museum because it is one of those thoughtful pieces which refuse to let you define where “art” ends and “regular life” picks up.
Also, the label itself would be a nightmare for a curator:
“Did You Floss?”
Coco – Nov. 2006
Mixed media (Sodium Fluoride, Sorbitol, Water, Hydrated Silica, Glycerin, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Flavor, Xanthian Gum, Sodium Saccharin, Carbomer, Sodium Hydroxide, FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Red No. 3 [phew])
on Polyurethane.

Book blurb

As you may know, I listen to the New York Times Book Review podcast every week. It’s really worth while. Now, if I could only figure out how to work for them…
Anyway, toward the end of the podcast, they had a bit about Richard Ford and novelists who review (and pan) his work.

Apparently (according to the story, legend, myth, take your pick) a publicist sent him a copy of a novel for the purpose of a book-jacket blurb. But the novelist had written a negative review of Ford’s book, so Ford had his wife take the book out back and shoot it with a pistol. And then, here’s the kicker, he requested another copy so he could shoot it himself.

Now, if the publicist had been worth his or her salt, the blurb would have come from the phone call requesting the second copy. And the book jacket would have said something like,
“…gratifying…a blast…” R. Ford.

New blog schedule and Madge-day the first

I’m trying a new thing with this blog now. We’ll see how well it works. I’ve made myself a schedule so that every weekday has its own theme (more or less). And Mondays are for Madge – it’s the only day I could make alliterative, so I figured why not.

Madge doesn’t like her picture taken anymore. You may have wondered why all the pictures on the blog are of Coco. Now you know. It’s too bad because we all know she’ll be wondering, when she’s older, why there aren’t any pictures of her at age 7.
I’ve made her sign an affidavit, so I’m covered.
She got her report card on Friday. We can’t figure out how she feels about it. For ease of parenting, I’ll just tell myself that she doesn’t place much weight on being judged by her teachers. After all, she’s a much harsher judge of what she does than anyone else is. (How much of it is attention-grabbing, I don’t know.)
Hair-brushing and tooth-brushing is still an issue. Maybe we should just cut off her teeth and put caps on her hair.
She likes to play board games, which is great. But one of my many parenting challenges is how hard to play against her. It’s the classic dilemma. I don’t want her to get discouraged, but I also don’t want to get bored. Ideally, I want to play so she learns.
Oh, yes, and I’m a bad loser. That’s because I don’t have much practice at it.
I have the feeling, though, that she’ll make me get better at it soon.
Now that I think of it, you know what’s the worst? When I make sure I don’t win a game and then she gloats about the stupid mistakes I’ve made.
Half a school day today and parent-teacher conferences. Fun stuff. We’ll see how the kids behave outside the door while I’m inside, talking to the teacher.
That was the first Madge Monday. Comments?
Don’t forget, I take requests. And tip the wait staff – T-Bone, that means it wouldn’t hurt to bring Jen some flowers today. (You’re welcome, Jen.)

Unforgivable

I saw an ad for this today and couldn't believe what I read.

The copy was this:

"LIFE WITHOUT PASSION IS UNFORGIVABLE"

SeanJohn [in that swirly signature of his]

UNFORGIVABLE

THE FRAGRANCE FOR MEN FROM SEAN JOHN

How does copy like this help to sell the product? What the text is saying is, "We don't give a sh*t about what we do. Buy it anyway."

Coco update

Thanks, T-Bone, for your comment and request.
I probably should have regular days of the week for kid updates, since they tend to be the more popular entries anyway.
I feel weird about that, mostly because the blog is about me, dammit. But also because I feel I’m just transcribing what is happening around me without actually “being a writer” – but I know that’s crap. After all, it’s what I observe and make of it.
Since the “Coco update” seems to be my “Free Bird,” here’s something:
Coco’s teachers are impressed with his ability to squiggle out some letters. “Impressed” meaning: “We’ve got to tell this guy something positive about his kid, let’s agree on the ability to draw. He’ll buy that.” And yesterday he upped the ante by drawing Darth Vader (and himself and Madge). But he shouldn’t be taking all the credit for his Vader drawing – I taught him the trick. He asked me how to and I said, “The helmet is just an upside-down letter U. Then you put in some circle eyes and a rectangle mouth with lines in it.” And he bought it.
Again, I have ulterior motives. I can’t draw well at all – at least I don’t think so. But I can read art books (both history and how-to), and it appears that something artists (by this I mean skilled drafts-people, not people with enough guts to call anything they produce and aesthetic creation) do which others don’t is see the underlying shapes and relationships in objects (and then, of course, they have the ability to translate this vision into lines or colors on a page). So I figure if I point out breaking things into their shapes, maybe he’ll save himself a few steps in his development as an illustrator.
I figure another step is to not be stingy with sketches (neither in the “wasted” paper nor in the amount of sketches needed to work on an ease of making lines go together).
Anyway, enjoy his “art.”

And if you meant a health-update: Coco is fine, though he has a cold, like we all do. He is scheduled for a 48-hr EEG next week (one of the reasons I got his hair cut – that stuff is sticky). We’ll see how that goes. On the one hand, I won’t be blogging that weekend because I’ll probably be in the hospital with him (unless he switches to Julie – but right now he has requested me. Well, not me so much as my eyebrows which he still rubs for comfort.). On the other hand, I’m sure there will be plenty of material coming from that stint. You can already start wishing us luck for that weekend. It’ll be his first time off the meds since his seizures last March.

old-school blog followup

Writing what I did yesterday, I didn’t realize what I was setting myself up for.

“Post-limerick lethargy” – When bedtime rolled around, I fell asleep in my clothes next to Coco. At least I saved myself the time getting dressed this morning.

“Madge on a play date” – Nary had I walked a block towards picking her up that I received a phone call from the other mom. Madge was wondering when we would come to get her. We are psychically connected or something. The reason I was a little late follows.

“Reading A.J. Liebling.” – As soon as I hit “Publish Post” Coco woke up. And I believe he has growing pains because occasionally he’ll whine for long stretches of time about his knees hurting him. Oddly, a band-aid (properly themed, of course) will fix the matter, but it still returns sporadically. Then, when he finally calmed down and we went to pick her up (it took quite a while because, well, I was concerned and he was still sleepy and whiny and [BLEEP]ing frustrating) and we all came home and I thought, “Well, maybe now you can read a little,” I couldn’t find the book.
It has since been found, thanks for your concern.

Finally, I do find it odd that, when a quiet moment comes along, I’m usually too stunned to appreciate it or do something with it. So much energy goes into creating five minutes of calm that my brain is too fried and frazzled to remember what on earth I wanted to do when I “finally had some time to myself.” Then, when I do remember, I forget which of the seventeen-thousand, three-hundred and fifty-two items I wanted to do first.

It’s like opening a cupboard and forgetting what you were looking for, then remembering that your shoe has been untied for the last ten minutes and then whacking your head on the open door when you unbend from tying it.

Not that that has ever happened to me.

details from yesterday's messy blog

I believe I was a bit negligent in my blogging duties yesterday.

Here are links for Mr. Klein and for the Liebling book.

And, to give you a taste for the Liebling (really, you ought to read it, it is awesome):

From “Westbound Tanker,” at the end of a paragraph about the silence at his meals with Captain Petersen,

Once, in an effort to make talk, I asked him, “How would you say, ‘Please pass me the butter, Mr. Petersen,’ in Norwegian?” He said, “We don’t use ‘please’ or ‘mister.’ It sounds too polite. And you never have to say ‘pass me’ something in a Norwegian house, because the people force food on you, so if you say ‘pass’ they would think they forgot something and their feelings would be hurt. The word for butter is smor.”

“A Good Appetite” (Opening paragraph)

The Proust madeleine phenomenon is now as firmly established in folklore as Newton’s apple or Watt’s steam kettle. The man ate a tea biscuit, the taste evoked memories, he wrote a book. This is capable of expression by the formula TMB, for Taste > Memory > Book. Some time ago, when I began to read a book called The Food of France, by Waverly Root, I had an inverse experience: BMT, for Book > Memory > Taste. Happily, the tastes the The Food of France re-created for me – small birds, stewed rabbit, stuffed tripe, Cote Rotie, and Tavel – were more robust than that of the madeleine, which Larousse defines as “a light cak made with sugar, flour, lemon juice, brandy, and eggs.” (The quantity of brandy in a madeleine would not furnish a gnat with an alcohol rub.) In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world’s loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiners Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sautéed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh-picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island duck, he might a written a masterpiece.

old-school blog

Here is the kind of entry I'd rather not be writing, but it slipped out. It's Thursday, so I have my post-limerick lethargy. Forgive me.

Madge is at a play date and Coco fell asleep on the way home, so now I’m not sure what to do with myself. Ordinarily I’d try to nap, too, but I need to be awake to pick up Madge.
Isn’t my life hard?
I could read, since that’s a quiet activity that wouldn’t wake up the little guy – who got a haircut today and looks extra cute. I’d take a picture, but that might wake him up.
So it’s off to book-land. As always, I’m in the middle of a ton of books and magazines, but I think I’ll go back to the A.J. Liebling I started the other day.
It really is getting impossible to keep up with all the projects I begin.
I figure when what I’m doing feels like homework, it’s time to do something else. Because we don’t have actual TV, watching DVDs can feel like homework, too. “Well, netflix sent it, so now I have to watch it.”
But you know what’s liberating? Just turning the thing off and sending it back.
That said, let me tell you about Mr. Klein, a movie with Alain Delon that I watched while Julie was out of town. It’s a good thing she didn’t watch it. Unresolved movies drive her crazy. I’d say the movie is Kafkaesque, but it always shies away from being as metaphorical as that.
Here’s the deal. It’s France, WWII (1942). Alain Delon (Robert Klein – pronounced “clah”) buys art from Jews who are scrounging together money to pay for an escape. He buys low, obviously. After one such transaction, there is a Jewish newspaper at his front door. And the rest of the movie is a non-thriller thriller, trying to prove he’s not Jewish.
There are some great moments in it. But it gets frustrating.
Anyone who’s seen it, send me an email about your impressions.
Do I recommend it? If you like spending two hours saying “what the f--- is going on here?” then, sure.
But there are plenty other movies out there.
Off to read Liebling – an activity which I highly recommend.

An observation

We tell white lies to keep others in the dark.

(Can you tell I'm procrastinating on my limerick production?)

Protecting the innocent

I’ve always wondered about the phrase, “The names have been altered to protect the innocent.”
You may have noticed that I tend to abbreviate names unless I think the person in question doesn’t mind being named. As in yesterday’s post, when I responded to a comment by “Jen.” I figured using the name “Jen” was fair game. (So far, no complaints from “her” – let’s preserve the internet’s glorious anonymity, right?)
But the phrase I mentioned above is really just a euphemism for, “The names have been altered to avoid unnecessary lawsuits.”
Because, really, if the names are altered, it is precisely the innocent who get incriminated. No matter how inventive you get with names, there’s bound to be someone who actually has that name – or who might change his or her name legally in order to sue, you never know. “Yeah, hi. My name is Fecklehead Pecklingsbottom III and I resent having been made a diabetic in your novel. Here’s my bill.”
If you want to protect the “innocent,” use the correct names. After all, these people did something that made you want to write about them. In other words, they’re guilty of something.
If they were truly innocent, getting their names mentioned in a bit of writing shouldn’t tarnish their image. Or they might not have been as innocent as they thought.

TV, again

Jen, Jen, Jen.
There are plenty of chinks in our armor. TV is a problem that will never be adequately solved. One thing I am trying to do – and was reminded of it when we had the sleepover – is to get them be able to evaluate movies and shows as good or bad.
See, our sleepover guest seemed quite used to having a TV on as background noise. While the movie was on, she got up and started playing with dolls and Play-Doh. I let it go because she was a guest. But usually I jump on the kids to either watch or turn it off.
Maybe, just maybe, they'll realize that shows and movies are things that are made by people and can be criticized by people. And maybe they'll realize that they could make them too, when they get older and can get their hands on some equipment.
Only once or twice, though, have they admitted that the thing they were watching was actually “bad,” even though you could tell that using “TV” or “movie” and “bad” in the same sentence almost made them blow a mental fuse.
Anyway, today is Election Day, which means the schools are closed (since the schools are the balloting places). How that makes it easier for anyone to get out and vote is a mystery to me. Maybe they don’t want domestic people at the polls.
Julie had her first ever exit poll interview today. Those things aren’t myths, after all.
But my point is, with Election Day, Madge sick with a cold, and Julie out of town for the night, we made a little Tuesday trip to the Video Store.
We’ve already watched Tom and Jerry. Now we’re watching as the Empire Strikes Back at those pesky rebels.

Fork me

I really just got the Sauerkraut pictured here so I could blog about it. (I didn't have my camera with me at the store.) It tasted quite good, so it was worth it.

I got it because of the writing under the picture. You can't really make it out on this size picture, but the little brown words say "serving suggestion" in French and German.

The makers of this Weinkraut (or Choucroute) appear to have the following serving suggestion: with a fork.

And I had my straw ready to go.

Tickets, please

Finally, I can let something else go that I’ve always meant to look up.
Blogs are great that way.
I was once at a hairdresser in San Francisco and a lady came in to make an appointment.
He told her she was going to get a ticket because she parked in the crosswalk. She said, at least it was better than parking at a hydrant.
(Or some such thing. My memory is rather hazy on the matter. )
The point is that I was amazed that some people are so experienced in getting tickets that they know what kind of ticket is a bargain compared to another.
A couple weekends ago a friend was over and something she said reminded me of this incident. She had said that she parked where she did because her boyfriend (the cop) could get her out of a $50 ticket, but not a $100 one. (Again, the details are fuzzy but the gist is accurate.)
I finally looked up the prices of tickets in SF and in NYC on their respective governmental websites. Crosswalks and stop signs and fire hydrants all cost about the same ($75 in SF, $115 in NYC, if you want to know, which you probably don’t).
But really, what I learned is, if you find yourself in Manhattan, you’re best off never stopping your car. The cops can basically charge you what they want at their own discretion.

And a little anecdote to top things off (remember this one, Julie?):
I parked illegally one time (only once, yeah) when we were borrowing my parents’ car in Berlin. Of course, when we came out of the post office or bank or wherever we were, there was a cop by the car, doing the well-known “circling of the vehicle” followed by the “pulling out of the pad and pen” accompanied by the “disapproving headshake.” I, of course addressed him in my best broken German, saying that I’m visiting from the U.S. and don’t understand German no-parking signs.
He informed me that, well, he’ll be nice this time, but it would be a (at the time) 40DM ticket (about $20), and wouldn’t that be a lot of money for a ticket.
My instinct was to snort and quote him the going rates over here. But then I realized that I’d be better off transforming my snort into a sign and nod of agreement, saving me the trouble of paying a ticket.
Ah, good times.

NYC Marathon

I went to see the New York Marathon today (and, boy, are my eyes tired).
It’s not really a big deal. I just had to walk to the end of our block and the runners actually came to me. We live right by Mile 7.
When I told Julie I wanted to go check it out, she said, “Why?”
And I had no answer. I guess I wanted some second-hand fitness.
(By the way: second-hand smoke comes from second-hand cigarettes.)
Or I want to watch guys live out their mid-life crisis the inexpensive way. In other words, they’re too cheap for new car payments. Or alimony.
Really, it’s more fun to watch the audience than the race itself. It’s as if the audience is intentionally taunting the runners. We all stand around, hugging our coffee cups for warmth, maybe snacking on a bagel or some fruit (the farmer’s market is nearby) and complain about the hardship of not being able to see clearly, or being too cold or being inconvenienced because we’re there before noon. It's a miracle the runners don't stop occasionally to slap complaining bystanders. But I guess they have someplace to be. Urgently.
Meanwhile, the first runners zoom by. At the 7 mile mark, the time read 35 minutes (more or less). Yikes! I’ve only ever run so fast for about three minutes, or however long it takes for “The Theme from The Magnificent Seven” to finish playing on my iPod.
At this point, I feel I ought to commit to being a couch potato and just enjoying my cookies, hot chocolate, and extra winter padding, or I really ought to get to the gym more often. I’ve found a great new bakery, too. Guess which way my belly is going?
My favorite part of watching is watching the families of runners. “Look. There’s daddy.” “Daddy doesn’t look so good.”
And that, I guess, is Julie’s second point. (The first is that runners never look happy.) This sport developed from a guy delivering a message from Marathon to Athens (if I remember correctly – well, Marathon to someplace else in Greece – I’m pretty sure I have the Marathon part right). So far, so good. But I think he did it naked because his armor weighed too much. And when he got to Athens (or wherever he was going) he died.
Where, along the way of hearing this story, does the human mind go, “Oh, that sounds like something I’d like to do every year”?
What’s next? The Montblanc free-fall? The Tucson stirrup-drag? The Caribbean keel-haul?
I think I'll reenact the essence of Marathon. Instead of running 26.2 miles, I'll keep circling the block until my cellphone finds strong enough signal to place a call. With any luck I'll be able to do it in less than three hours.

Now. Here’s why I’m no good as a stand-up (yet). I wrote all these “jokes” today. I remembered the one about the iPod and the one about second-hand fitness. (Not the one about second-hand cigarettes, which I still find funny.) I also said something about watching the Marathon in SF and seeing runners on their cell-phones. I’m also still waiting for a joke to come to me about the audience taunting the runners.

I really ought to rehearse more.

TV, but only sort of

Okay, Jen, here's the deal.
We do have a TV, but only since two weeks ago, when our movie-playing laptop finally died.
It stood us in good stead. But, more than a year ago, the battery failed. Then the power cord went out. And finally the kids were stronger than the disc loading tray. R.I.P.
So we got a TV and a DVD player instead.
But!
I'm still being stubborn and have not set any channels on the thing. Nor have I upgraded our internet cable to include TV cable as well.
We're still holding out, in other words.
We watch Seinfeld episodes from the lovely DVD set I got for my birthday.
(A selfless gift from my loving wife.)

playdate update

I just fed them some peanut butter sandwiches and cookies.
Now I'm exhausted.
See, the carbs gave them a quick boost. They played dress-up, put on some ballet music, and for some reason I wound up being the prince who twirls and lifts and dips and pulls a back muscle and wimpers on the ground.
Okay, the last part was exaggerated. But their majesties are getting more comfortable with my presence and I'm not sure I'll survive the weekend.