My daughter had her Field Day at school yesterday, and I was glad to see that the level of excitement that this event inspired in me when I was her age, was represented in my kid’s enthusiasm as well. The other thing that our Field Days had in common was that the ultimate event of the afternoon was the intra-class Tug-of-War. I dare say that this is the last non-PC competition left in today’s modern and self esteem conscious Field Day. Don’t get me wrong – Field Day when I was growing up was a dog-eat-dog, Lord of the Flies, nerd humiliating event that could leave deep emotional scars if you embarrassed yourself on the yard. Today, it’s more geared to fun and inclusion for everyone, with classes competing against each other, rather than individual students. But man! That Tug-of-War is still a brutal event, with the loser class being dragged across the grass, then taunted by the cheers of the winners. Yeah, and my kid’s class won the Tug-of-War, so there’s that.
Anyone remember The Ritz Brothers? I was watching an old, like 2nd Season episode of MST3k, and Crow made a joke referencing them, and like a lightening bolt, I remembered who they are. The fast answer is that they were a comedy team of brothers who worked from the 1920’s up to the 1970’s. They were more of a nightclub act, but they did make some movies and film shorts, along with a few TV appearances. It would be easy to compare them to The Marx Brothers, but that’s not really fair once you see their form of comedy. Sadly, I think they are slowly fading away from the American Comedy lexicon which is unfortunate. Anyway, check them out.
And a Happy Father’s Day out there to all the dads, and to my friends who are dads, and especially to my Dad. May we all enjoy our day celebrating our Father-stature, but we all know that you never get a day off when being a dad. But, I’m cool with it.
It was long overdue, but I have started the process of updating my website. It has been nagging at me for a while now – that my page is rather basic, and not the best showing of who I am. The more I blog, and submit stories, the more that I know that people will be coming by to see what I am all about. My numbers are up, by the way. I have equaled the total views of 2022, in the first six months of 2023. So, there is more traffic on my site. Sure, maybe half of it is bots for China and Pakistan, but still…
Updating my website, and talking about myself are not my strong suits. Doing all of this makes me very self-conscious, and after a few minutes of working on it, I end up feeling frustrated and embarrassed. Frustrated because the look of my website never feels “professional” enough, and embarrassed because I can’t shake this thought in the back of my head that “why the fuck would anyone care what I have to say?” Now, I know that the more effort I put into the site, the better it will look, and who the fuck cares what anyone thinks?
Oh! I did sign up for AdSense, so ads will now be on the site. I hate to brag, but after a day, I have earned nearly a whole penny! The other reason for doing this is that I haven’t found a good side hustle yet. I might start dog walking soon, unless the traffic keeps growing on this site, then all bets are off.
In the end, I’m probably going to keep monkeying around with this site off and on for the next month. I’m open to suggestions of what to do, or who’s sites I should check out for inspiration, so drop me a comment or message. And you might as well “like” and “subscribe” while you are at it.
This week’s short story from The New Yorker is “Civil Disturbance” by Said Sayrafiezadeh, an author I never have read before until today. It’s a competent short story that does a very good job of creating an unnamed fictional city that the characters exist in, which by extent, gives the protagonist ample breath of motion to go on his journey.
This is a first-person story, and the narrator also is unnamed, like the city. He and his girlfriend Molly, are out canvassing for their favorite candidate three days before the mayoral election. Molly works for the candidate’s campaign, as she has a clipboard of voter information, while the narrator give off a feeling of more “along for the ride” with his girlfriend. They bicker with each other, also implying that their relationship is near ending. The narrator works at a gym, a membership salesman, and his job skills come in handy speaking to potential voters when they answer the door. It happens that they come across a former high school classmate of the narrator’s. The classmate’s name is Bryce, who was a straight-A student that the narrator bullied in high school. Bryce works at the Wal-Mart next to the narrator’s gym, and happens to support a third-party candidate. The next day Bryce shows up to the gym looking to join, which the narrator is ready to upsell him, but then starts to have a change of conscious, only to have the power go out – blamed on the incumbent mayor. That night the narrator and Molly go out, and he throws bricks in the windows of the house that didn’t answer the door, which includes Bryce’s home.
There was a lot to like in this story. It flowed well, and had some nice touches of humor in it. The story was efficient on the whole, and worked with a minimum number of characters, who were clearly defined with understandable intentions. I also enjoyed how Molly would say something, and then the narrator would use that saying later in the story, showing he was listening, and applying what she said, though not in the correct way. And I was fascinated by this fictional city – it felt lived in, rundown, and struggling.
Yet, something kept nagging at me about this story which kept me from committing to it. One was that it did, sort of, have a “Dead Chick in the Basket*” moment at the end, where it is shared with us why this former high school jock became a gym membership salesman. I don’t think this information was needed about the character because we know that he is emotionally stinted, stuck reliving his past high school glories, and how that has affected his present situation. Knowing it was his coach who pushed him in that direction actually provides no new emotional insight on the character. The second issue took me a moment, but when I reread the story it hit me; this dumb jock talks like a writer. I offer this example; “Today’s particular conflict had been set in motion by the banal-”. Yeah… sorry, but no. The narrator doesn’t say “dude,” or “bro” or use any sports metaphors in describing any situations he’s in. The character is “jock” in name only – not in thought or action.
And that was it. Too bad as well, because I did enjoy what this story was saying about elections, politics, and how people interact with each other. Also, like I said before, Sayrafiezadeh did create a very lived in fictional city, that I was intrigued by, and wanted to know more about. I have a feeling that I will search out his other works, because there is something here, even if this story wasn’t completely even.
* “Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a clichéd writing device where the final paragraph of a short story contains new information about a character which is meant to make the reader view the actions, statements, or feelings of that character in a different light. The first known use of this device was in J.D. Salinger’s short story “Just Before the War with the Eskimos.”
“Tautology” is my word of the day. In fact, I can admit that today happens to be the first time I have ever heard the word “tautology.” I read the word in a response someone was making to why libertarianism is a failed political philosophy; it was full of tautology, the person said.
What the hell is “tautology,” I wondered?
And Google told me:
“noun – the saying of the same thing twice in different words, generally considered to be a fault of style (e.g., they arrived one after the other in succession).
In logic, it is a statement that is true by necessity or by virtue of its logical form. (e.g., All logical propositions are reducible to either tautologies or contradictions.)”
Who knew, right!?!?
I had taken a couple of philosophy classes in college, and I really enjoyed it. I got rather lost when it came to Spinoza and Kant, but on the whole I thought I did well with grasping concepts. I felt that philosophy helped me as a theatre major by giving me a different type of context to put the characters I played in.
So when I saw “tautology” today, I had a little bit of a learning thrill come over me. You know when you were a kid and you’d get all excited about learning something new; it was a little like that. This is a new concept that I was fascinated to start learning more about, and the philosophical implications of it.
It’s been awhile since I had a feeling of wonder come over me. As I started getting older, I came to believe that those opportunities of experience were no longer possible. I have become more jaded than I would like to admit, and some experiences have left me feeling cold.
Not sure what changed in me today. Maybe it was just as simple as being curious and wanting to learn.
Actually, I have noticed that writing a blog on Monday’s has become harder and harder for me over the past 6 months. For two years, I was solid about getting a blog post done five days a week. Quality may have been one thing, but as for quantity, I was as constant as the North Star. Yet something happened, where now completely a blog on Monday by 11am is a near impossibility.
Our family routine hasn’t changed in any major way, and I have not taken on any new responsibilities as stay at home dad. Still, I have lost the gap of time I used to have in the morning. I know the fault is with me, so I must conclude that I am drawing out my tasks and not making the time anymore.
I am writing something today so it’s not like I have wasted my time.
Still, I feel myself becoming a little less focused.
I was planning on doing a Jami Attenburg “1,000 Words of Summer” type of project for myself in July. (It’s where you write 1000 words a day for 30 days. There is more to it than that, but that’s the gist.) my original intention was to see what 31,000 words on the same subject would look like, and to “complete” a large project. But now I’m thinking that I need to reaffirm some positive writing habits, and get back to working.
