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It's afternoon and I cannot concentrate, lost in a time loop of every loss ever, a sadness that feels real but is more likely exhaustion from staying out late so I decide to take a nap. But the dog upstairs is barking, barking, barking, barking, howling, and after about twenty minutes a neighbor opens her door and shouts SILENCE! The word reverberates in the hall, louder than the dog's bark, I can almost feel the vibration against the wall, which is against the head of my bed, which is the end of nap time, and I get up, and make coffee against the sleepiness that I have failed to kill naturally, and I feel like I've been tired forever but of course that is not true, it just feels true.

And the dog upstairs is barking again now after about ten minutes of silence, barking and howling, and twenty minutes of barking and howling pass and I've finished my coffee and started to work and the neighbor opens her door and shouts SILENCE and I think the whole day will be loops like this. I remind myself that every moment is really just a moment, just standing there alone, disconnected by time and space from other moments, even if it looks the same; I also remind myself that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and I have to think about that, the same as I do every time this thought loops through my brain: the truth of now and the truth of history. I don't even have time to think about the future.

And in the time it has taken me to forget to work, lost in pondering, the dog upstairs is barking again, barking and barking and howling, how can they leave him alone all day, and the neighbor shouts again, and I consider posting a sign in the building vestibule pointing out that the dog does not probably understand the language of humans, or in any case, doesn't understand or remember that silence now means silence forever. I often pretend to not understand the language of humans as well, although I am terrible about forgetting or pretending to forget, because I always remember.

Of course in addition to forgetting that someone told him to stop barking, he also forgets that his owner is coming home ever, which is why after a brief pause he is barking again, barking at the wind, howling at his fear of being alone forever, barking and howling. I had an interesting conversation with his owner, who swears it is not her dog who cries all day, not her dog being shouted at, but one of the other dogs in the building. And to be fair when this one gets really frantic he can set them all off; if for example you come home late and drop your keys in the hallway the whole building erupts in terror and defensive maneuvers. But right now it's just this one dog, barking and howling at his absolute abandonment, because he doesn't remember how this morning he was loved and I think that maybe living in the moment has greater disadvantages than living with a brain full of memory loops, and the neighbor opens her door and shouts SILENCE and I get my earplugs out and go back to work. 

art and artists and my overuse of the word "interesting"

Apparently they're making a movie about David Foster Wallace. I don't understand. I remember... was it Salinger who complained about how people knew more about Percy Bysshe Shelley than they did about his poetry? Well... here's the thing: Two vast and trunkless legs of zzzz that sexy monster Byron, though, amiright? Sometimes art is interesting, sometimes artists are more interesting. I would think that ideally your art is more interesting than you are, since that's what will survive (to the extent that anything survives, see also: Ozymandius). Although you get some artists and the reason their art survives is because their lives were interesting. But with Wallace, is his life really that interesting? I mean, I'm sorry, is he more interesting than his art? Because I don't think he was; in fact I think he worked pretty hard to not be, to put this voice into his essays that was both extraordinarily personal and self deflecting at the same time. It makes me sad to see people so increasingly fascinated with him as a person when I feel like they probably haven't read anything he wrote beyond This Is Water. 

Ironically in a conversation with Squire two days ago, regarding a comment someone had made about keeping good music under wraps, so as to protect it from "teenage fangirls"; I wrote "Great art is not cheapened by having stupid people like it... [If you're looking at art at the same time as a group of unappreciative schoolkids], the art itself isn't diminished, just your experience of it in that moment. And maybe in that school group there is one kid who is changed, who becomes a slightly better person. Do you keep the art out of the museum because somebody ignorant might see it? Or do you put it in the museum for that one kid? Because I would argue that art is PRECISELY FOR that one kid, you know? and the more people art reaches, the more likely that it can transform people."

So I'm here all "these people don't DESERVE to watch a film about him" and on the other hand, who am I to say, if some How I Met Your Mother fan who had never heard of Wallace comes to at least TRY Infinite Jest or A Supposedly Fun Thing, then that's good, right? His work will not be tarnished by a movie. And at least the movie is based on an interview with actual him instead of cobbled kiss-and-tell interviews with people who knew him. So I don't know. I'm uncomfortable. But I'm not going to dismiss the idea out of hand. I always felt like I knew him; I did not. That was part of his gift, that voice that felt like he was standing right beside you, telling you what he saw so that you could see it, too. I'm not unhappy if other people feel that way. The world is lonely enough; when we hear the voices of great artists, however we come to hear those voices, it becomes less so. I hope.

I hope the revolution will be televised.

If you want to know how I got to have a perfect seventeen year old, I will whisper in your ear that television has been an important part of my child-rearing technique. Among other things, watching television with English subtitles taught him to be a great speller. But maybe more importantly: talking to Squire about difficult stuff was never easy when we tried to do it head on, and so I had to think of ways to approach things sideways. If we lived in the States, we'd have gone for long car rides where we talked about teen angst and teen pregnancy while staring intently at the road, but we're stuck with excellent public transportation and he walks to school so we have to stare intently at the screen instead. 

Partly we watch stuff because it's super entertaining. Battlestar Gallactica, Deadwood, every episode of Star Trek ever, the West Wing, Firefly. We seem particularly interested in the epic formation-of-society types of shows, we like a good battle in outer space, and we are partial to snappy dialogue. 

Some of the best shows we watched were American high school dramas -- specifically I would say Friday Night Lights, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Veronica Mars were helpful. If you don't know how to talk to your kids about bullying, social stratification, economic issues, vampires, sexism, racism,,, well, this triptych has you covered. We learned about people who love sports, witty repartee and trust, romance and heartbreak, the varieties of parent/child relationships. It was easy to talk about heavy issues after we'd seen it happen to other people -- wow, so that was a hard time for Matt... what do you think he could have done differently? Would you have trusted Spike after what he did? Should Veronica tell her father the truth or should she try to protect him? And through talking about these things we were able to practice talking to each other about most serious issues before they even became issues.

On Friday the Veronica Mars movie came out, and we sat on the couch in our old standard formation, popcorn bowl propped between us, and watched every character we loved light the screen. It has been ten years since the show was on, five years since we watched it, and it felt like it had only been days. Weevil! Mac! We got to talk about how some people change, but not a whole lot, just enough to give you hope that we are capable of change. How nice the respect and love that Veronica and her dad have for each other is. And of course some conversation (because we are way meta) about how entertainment gets funded and the future of media etc. It was great. 

That's all. Possibly the best parenting tip I've got, though: television. True story.  

Abiding the Great White Dude

Roger Angell's article in a February New Yorker about getting old (he's 93) started off pretty well and I was really enjoying it. I do not personally want to live that long, I think. I am sharp as a tack and do not wish to have people saying that about me when it is no longer true. People don't keep me around for my good looks, so I am not terribly worried about losing them, but nor am I particularly loved for my slow and easy charm (as I do not have much). Once I've lost my quick wits, I'm of no use to myself or anybody else, and I can't imagine I'll hold on to those into my nineties. Still, there is Angell, keeping it together pretty well, maintaining at least a sharp wit (though whether he is quick I can't say; the article may have taken ages). So in sum: he's getting old and his body is falling apart; this is pretty much what I would expect from getting old and I'm not excited about it but it's not unpredictable. People die around you left and right if you live long enough, and he finds this survivable (I am not sure. I take old people dying pretty well. I deeply resent it when people die young. So I am not sure if I start outliving people in great gulps how I will be.). He's learning different ways of communicating, and I found this part of the article fascinating -- how your thoughts get shorter and you adapt the things you think about to fit that. Short poems and short witticisms, both easily memorized and easily dredged when appropriate. So he's got me, I'm thinking, my mind is with him, and then: THE PENIS. Oh my god, dudes, can you really not write five pages without sticking your penis in there? I just wonder. Fascinating thing you may not have realized about aging dudes: they still like getting it on and talking about it. Which would be ugh I guess a little boring but fine except he does insist on going on about it with that exhausting icky coyness that he's managed to keep off the rest of the article entirely. Sex! It's not just for young people! Nudge nudge! And his wife was totally okay with him doing it with other ladies if she died first! Ladies, Roger is single and primed for action! 

I'll be over here trying to keep my smartypants mouth shut over whether he lies about his age and height on OKCupid. Well, never mind: I can assure you that he does, because the Great White Dude can get old and liverspotty and wise and know all of Auden off by heart, but he's still looking for a nice young woman to cook for him and arrange a porter for the baggage he will insist he does not have. Barf.