Book Reports, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 13.07.2022

I made myself a cocktail this morning. Not to worry, it was a quarter-inch of cold brew with a bit of milk. I sat by our front window in my favorite chair, slowly sipping, and read about Katy Tur’s latest memoir. Her father, Bob, was a mess. I drink Earl Grey in the morning with my oatmeal or Grape Nuts (I alternate every day), half a banana, and some walnuts. I got a good night’s sleep but still felt a little tired, so I changed my morning routine by adding the cocktail. It was a pleasant 15 minutes....

Book Reports, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 26.08.2003

The waves were tiny our first day at the New Jersey shore and the water was surprisingly cold--that numbing cold you never get used to. We'd heard the Gulf Stream was unusually frigid this year. Our neighbor, Joan, had just returned from the beach with tales of wearing a wet suit in order to stay warm in the water.

This made me nostalgic for the Pacific. You expect the water to be icy in the Pacific. Big waves and cold water. I'm not one of those polar bear types, the ones who run into glacial waters as fast as they can, jumping head first into an oncoming wave. I'm a tiptoer. I stand where the salt water meets my ankles for hours, moving incrementally deeper every few minutes. It's excruciating slow. The Atlantic is usually so much more inviting. But not this year.

How ironic to stay right at the beach yet take hours preparing yourself to walk the 50 feet to the shore. You can look out your window and watch the sunrise over the water. But getting everyone in the family anointed with sun block over every exposed area of our bodies takes the better part of the morning. It makes the view seem like a movie. You know it's real somewhere, just not where you are.

Book Reports, Commuting with Nature / 09.01.2003

I was deep into Howard Rheingold's new book, Smart Mobs, when I looked up and discovered that twelve other people in the subway car were reading it as well. As I raised my eyes, everyone lowered their books to give me a knowing glance. Was this a peer-to-peer network Howard and Cory Doctorow were talking about? Persistant and ubiquitous communication. The wireless net on the Red Line just coming into Union Station. Howard's books were the nodes. Parts of my new community got off, but more walked in. Almost everyone now sported a turquoise-covered hardback up against their nose. I was...

Book Reports, Fairly Odd Parents-Present, Idiosyncratic Celebrations, Worker's Comp / 26.12.2002

Was it visions of sugarplums that made my Christmas Eve day commute to work so sweet? Or was it President Bush's "pardon" for all us Federal workers one half day of freedom for the upcoming holiday? No, as I looked around the subway car I realized everyone was contentedly reading the Health section of the Washington Post. More specifically, they were reading The Happy Heretic, an article about Dr. Martin Seligman's new book, Authentic Happiness. Wellbeing saturated the underground air. With Christmas just past and New Year's up next, the burden of marking time (more specifically, marking this point in my...

Artistic Tendencies, Book Reports, News Outta My Control / 11.09.2002

We are lucky enough to know that we are more than our losses. Jenna Jacobs, Wife of Ariel Jacobswho was killed at the WTC In Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Everything is Illuminated, Foer's American protagonist, Jonathan, searches for the Ukrainian woman who hid and protected his grandfather from the Nazis during World War II. But it is Alex, Jonathan's Ukrainian guide, who ultimately understands the meaning behind the search. His narration and letters to Jonathan become our guide. His broken English is hard to understand but if we read carefully we are rewarded with insight and meaning. During the past year I have...

Book Reports, Professional Auteurism / 20.03.2002

Do I Know You? Inside each one of us, laid out like a grid, is a network of complementary, anatomical, psychological, hormonal, and linguistic structures, which in turn allow us to function—I’m paraphrasing Dr. Kai here—within a larger social system made up of its own equivalent and parallel structures, and somewhere within this mesh of inner grid and outer grid lie those gray, baggy pockets of indeterminancy which we call human behavior. My own behavior had been very gray. Mr. Statler in Robert Cohen’s Oscillations How does one describe their first f2f? Is it like recounting one’s first kiss? Face-to-face, for those of...

Book Reports, Commuting with Nature, Fairly Odd Parents-Present / 02.03.2002

I am an actor. I act in morality plays. I am a street performer of sorts, displaying my lessons on the DC subway. I captivate some, yet most are captives. My daughter is both my unwitting foil and the object of my ulterior motives. While my focus is on her (just yesterday, we performed a One Act about a nearby little girl whose father was no where to be found), she teaches our captives what they need to know. Her admonishments are clearly enunciated, perfectly timed, and to the point. Recently, in that famous scene from our wildly popular delight...

Book Reports, Commuting with Nature / 08.02.2002

My ride into work this morning: I take the subway but it's elevated much of the way in. It's getting lighter earlier and my commute and the sunrise are almost in sync. I'd say by next Wednesday it should be rising just as we come to the surface. When waiting for my morning train I usually position myself towards the middle of the platform. That way I'm perfectly situated to transfer to another line at the Metro Center stop. Today, however, the train was pulling into my station just as my daughter and I exited the elevator. So we raced to...