Holding the Bomb
“He gave me the Freudian slip.”
It’s for the Best: The Autobiography of Donald Rogers
I Just Love to Stare at People on the Internet; I Want to Touch Them: A Guide to Social Etiquette by Donald Rogers
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
New Music
My roommates will tell you that these three titles have been all that I have listened to for the past week.
I highly recommend Surfer Blood, and although I do not know how to talk about music, all I can say is that they sound like their name. How great is that?
Have One On Me is really spectacular. I wasn't as crazy for it as I thought I would be, but it quickly grew on me. What I find extremely beautiful, and what Newsom does so well, is how she captures the feel of the northern California landscape, “I was tired of being drunk/ my face cracked like a joke./ So I swung through here/ like a brace of jackrabbits/ with their necks all broke”. By far, my favorite song has to be "Good Intentions Paving Company". How can you not love it with lyrics like these, “I did not mean to shout, Just drive,/ just get us out, dead or alive./ the road is too long to mention--/Lord, it’s something to see!--/ laid down by the Good Intentions Paving Company." I mean, right?
You can listen to that song here:
Finally, there's Charlotte Gainsbourg. Take my word for it, it's good. 'Nough said.
I highly recommend Surfer Blood, and although I do not know how to talk about music, all I can say is that they sound like their name. How great is that? 
Have One On Me is really spectacular. I wasn't as crazy for it as I thought I would be, but it quickly grew on me. What I find extremely beautiful, and what Newsom does so well, is how she captures the feel of the northern California landscape, “I was tired of being drunk/ my face cracked like a joke./ So I swung through here/ like a brace of jackrabbits/ with their necks all broke”. By far, my favorite song has to be "Good Intentions Paving Company". How can you not love it with lyrics like these, “I did not mean to shout, Just drive,/ just get us out, dead or alive./ the road is too long to mention--/Lord, it’s something to see!--/ laid down by the Good Intentions Paving Company." I mean, right?
You can listen to that song here:
Finally, there's Charlotte Gainsbourg. Take my word for it, it's good. 'Nough said.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Is this how you write an ending?
When I arrive home, I let the faucet run, filling the bathtub. From the kitchen I bring the salt, and pour it in, watching it dissolve in the water.
I dip my feet.
Heather’s favorite movie, and my own, has always been Splash. After finishing the credits and rewinding the cassette, it’s Heather’s idea to draw a bath with salt. We would become mermaids at home. Sitting at the edge of the tub, our ankles beneath the warm water, we wait. The bathroom door left open, our father comes in. What are you doing? he asks, and Heather happily explains.
“Your grandmother,” he says, “my mother, was a mermaid. Did you know? She came out of the waters of Sidon. The city with the castle in the sea. She met my father, had me and my brothers, and like she came, she left.”
He leaves us too, closing the door behind him. “Did you hear that?” Heather asks. Yes, I did, I tell her. She rests her head on my boney shoulder, and I wrap my arms around her small frame. We close our eyes and wait for our transformation.
There are some things I admit I will never understand. I understand the tangible. I understand how railroads and telephone wires across the land kept people connected, in touch. How mobile devices, radio waves, signal towers and satellites do this I cannot.
Under the shower, I rinse the salt from my skin, and the traces of anything else. After drying myself with a towel, I pick up the phone and dial the last known number that connected me to my father. In my bedroom, I listen to the phone ring endlessly. I hang up and dial again, and again, and again. As I listen to the tone, I think of all the things I could say to him, but already my throat closes up. I imagine my father in bed with the woman whose name was below his on the bank statement that came to the house that one day. She holds him closer as they listen to his cell phone vibrating on the wooden nightstand. I imagine the radio waves from my phone, my voice digitalized and combined with millions of others, as expanding half circles that reach their destination to reach another destination, these half circles crashing upon my father and the other woman, like waves onto the pier.
I dip my feet.
Heather’s favorite movie, and my own, has always been Splash. After finishing the credits and rewinding the cassette, it’s Heather’s idea to draw a bath with salt. We would become mermaids at home. Sitting at the edge of the tub, our ankles beneath the warm water, we wait. The bathroom door left open, our father comes in. What are you doing? he asks, and Heather happily explains.
“Your grandmother,” he says, “my mother, was a mermaid. Did you know? She came out of the waters of Sidon. The city with the castle in the sea. She met my father, had me and my brothers, and like she came, she left.”
He leaves us too, closing the door behind him. “Did you hear that?” Heather asks. Yes, I did, I tell her. She rests her head on my boney shoulder, and I wrap my arms around her small frame. We close our eyes and wait for our transformation.
There are some things I admit I will never understand. I understand the tangible. I understand how railroads and telephone wires across the land kept people connected, in touch. How mobile devices, radio waves, signal towers and satellites do this I cannot.
Under the shower, I rinse the salt from my skin, and the traces of anything else. After drying myself with a towel, I pick up the phone and dial the last known number that connected me to my father. In my bedroom, I listen to the phone ring endlessly. I hang up and dial again, and again, and again. As I listen to the tone, I think of all the things I could say to him, but already my throat closes up. I imagine my father in bed with the woman whose name was below his on the bank statement that came to the house that one day. She holds him closer as they listen to his cell phone vibrating on the wooden nightstand. I imagine the radio waves from my phone, my voice digitalized and combined with millions of others, as expanding half circles that reach their destination to reach another destination, these half circles crashing upon my father and the other woman, like waves onto the pier.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
