Month: September 2023

  • ODDS and ENDS: Autumn Morning, Lunch with Friends, and Sports Season

    (In this house, we narrate the dog’s thoughts.)

    Finally, and I mean FINALLY, it was an Autumn Morning around here in New York City. It was in the upper fifties, there was a breeze, you could put a sweater on – all the boxes were checked. For me, a person who hates the heat and humidity of Summer, this was like my birthday and Christmas morning all wrapped in one. Now we can turn the A/C’s off, leave the windows open, hell, maybe even have a cup of hot tea in the afternoon, but that one might still be a month off. Anyway, the season has changed. We are no longer stuck in something, but moving towards something different, and new.

    The other day, a friend from college was in town, and we got together for lunch. This particular friend I hadn’t seen in close to ten years, so I was looking forward to catching up. It was a good time, and I wish it could have been longer, but we made the most of what we had. As I get older, and have more of these catchups with friends, I am still impressed with how much people can change, while at the same time still stay that core person I met twenty years ago.

    It’s sports season for me, which on some level still feels odd for me to say. Growing up, my identity was brooding artist, so I couldn’t like sports. I have evolved out of that (A story for another day) and now I find myself enjoying the sports time of year. The Premiere League has started, as has the NFL. And let’s not forget about the Champions League and all of their exciting corrupt bullshit that is amazing to watch. Baseball is heading for the playoffs, and I will flirt around with following the Knicks, but I never go through with it. As I was sketching out this idea, I started wondering why have I latched on to sports so much in the last ten years? What is it about being middle aged and following as many different competitions as possible? I wonder if there is something to not wanting to admit that the people playing all of these sports are half my age, and by living through their accomplishments, I attempt to regain youthful physicality? Ha! I was never physical! I think it’s because sports are the only appointment TV left.

  • Try Again Tomorrow (Unedited)

    I took the dog to the groomer, and that threw off my entire day.

    I mean it was scheduled. In my calendar, so I knew it was coming. The end result, other that the dog having a very nice “puppy cut,” is that I got nothing dome that I wanted to get done.

    Normally I blog in the morning, but I didn’t get around to it until 6pm today. I didn’t do any journaling, and the sketchbook is just a hope at this point – maybe even a wish.

    But the groomer. Walking the dog twenty blocks to drop her off is what really did it. I know lots of people take their dogs on the subway now, and it doesn’t bother me. But I can’t do it. Only because if another dog got in the car, my dog would go apeshit. That and she’s take a dump on the train. (She once took a huge dump while I was in line at an ATM. That was a good day…) So I have to walk her, and I really don’t mind. I do like our neighborhood.

    Also, this is the closest groomer to our apartment, just in case anyone is wondering…

    Which I know no one is…

    That extra forty blocks really took it outta me. Zapped my energy, and the only thing I kept turning over in my mind was that Lauren Boebert was kicked out of a touring performance of the musical of Beetlejuice in Denver because she was being rowdy and using a vape.

    Ahh…

    Try again tomorrow…

  • Short Story Review: “On the Agenda” by Lore Segal

    (The short story “On the Agenda” by Lore Segal appeared in the September 18th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Riccardo Vecchio

    “On the Agenda” by Lore Segal is an interesting exercise. I read it twice, enjoyed it both times, but I’m still wondering about the ending. Each time I read it, and I can’t put my finger on why, or where the example is in the story, but I kept thinking about French Absurdist one-act theatre. (I was a theatre major, I read a lot of their works.) Something about this story seemed to parallel that. This story isn’t blatantly absurdist. It does have a foot in reality, but there is something off, which works.

    The story is about ladies who lunch, but not the Sondheim “ladies.” The story of these ladies is broken up into sections; the first being “JANUARY: THE FORGETTING OLYMPICS,” which also happens to be an agenda item for the meeting of the ladies. What if forgetting was an Olympic sport? And the ladies give examples of their forgetting, comparing, and expanding this idea. At this point, the story could be about aging. But with the next section “MARCH: NEXT TO GODLINESS” and “JUNE: FUNK” we are given examples of the ladies friendship, and how they are dealing with their forgetting. And again, it all feels purposefully off center, ever so slightly. But when the final section comes along, “NOVEMBER: NO MORE TRAINS” which is broken up into three sections, with the last being the one I questioned the most – It’s a single paragraph with no dialogue, which is different and shorter than all other sections of the whole story. This paragraph thuds the story to a close, help with a rhetorical last question “For now?”

    From the way the story started with that absurdist feeling I had while reading, I never was expecting this to be a story that would wrap up cleanly, or even conclusively for that matter.  But that last paragraph is completely and radically different from the rest of the story – what was the point? Then I remembered the French Absurdists, who sometimes made the point of not having a point, and just ending things.

    Or it’s about death?

    I’m going with death.

  • Twenty-Two Years

    It’s been twenty-two years.

    The day reminds me that there is a divide; what was before, and what came after.

    I never knew the City that was before. I only got the know the City that was after.

    The “post” world.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Hearing, Tottenham’s Start, and If I Drop 10 Pounds…

    (But that is another story…)

    I can admit that I have a hypochondriac streak. If I feel even slightly off, I assume I’m getting sick. And if I’m sick, then I’m clearly going to die. Recently, a new “symptom” has developed, which may not portend my impending demise; I’m having trouble hearing people. I first noticed this with my kid, though I was skeptical as she does make an art form out of mumbling. But now, when my wife speaks to me from across the apartment, it sounds muffled. Normally, I would blame them, but as I get older, I fear Occam’s Razor is swinging more towards me than not. Yet another body part I need to have checked.

    So… Tottenham Hotspur haven’t lost a match yet. Sure, the toughest game they had was against a weakened United, and their first real test will be against Arsenal on September 24th, BUT until then… I’m going to enjoy the fact that they are undefeated!

    … I can button up this one awesome sports coat I have with leather patches on the elbows.