My dog smells awful. Even when we bathe her, we only get 48 hours, tops, of the dog not smelling. Then like some sort of magic, the dog begins to take on an odor. Within seven days after the bath, the dog is back to being the little gray bag of stinkiness.
And we love her.
She’s great with people and kids, but she cannot be around other dogs because she wants to rip their faces off. Sure, you could say it’s a little dog thing, but when we our neighbor watches the dog and walks her, the dog is just a pure, wonderful angel from heaven. The neighbor won’t say it, but the issue is us. If the dog is only aggressive when she is around us, then we must be the cause. It’s beyond annoying because she’s such a good dog with people…
But we love the dog.
The dog is sleeping at the end of the bed as I write this. Every now and then, she’ll open an eye and look at me, only to go back to sleep. Most days, the dog is with my wife, under her feet and desk. The dog has imprinted on my wife, clearly thinks she’s the Alpha around here, not that I would completely disagree with that. So, when the dog follows me around, either the wife is gone, or… Actually, I’m not sure why the dog is with me today. Perhaps that dog wanted to sleep on the bed, and I just happen to be here.
Photo illustration by Hana Mendel for The New Yorker
First of all, when I read a story that has to do with a grown man and a large insect, I can’t help but think of “The Metamorphosis” by Kafka. And I have run into more stories than I can count about men and bugs. (Kafka created a secret literary genre that no one talks about.) It’s unfair to Patrick Langley that I immediately made that comparison when I started reading “Life with Spider,” but when I finished the story, I think Langley was counting on me to do that, so he could mess with my head.
“Life with Spider” is a story about Fletcher Hardy and his bug-like creature called Spider, even though it is not a spider. We are told off the bat that Hardy, not his real name, has given permission to the narrator to tell the story, provided that we aren’t able to figure out who the “real” Hardy is. It’s an interesting framing of the story as everything that Fletcher says and does, in essence, is told to us second hand. Several specific details are given about Hardy; who his family is, where they live, what he does, and what they do, and so on. It made me wonder if the narrator was lying to “throw me off.”
Either way, we learn that Hardy is being visited by a six-legged insect like creature, which will not leave him alone. Hardy convinces his friend, the narrator, to help get rid of the creature. I don’t want to give away too many details, leave a few surprises, but I am sure you can surmise that Hardy and the narrator survive, as they are telling this story.
I enjoyed this story even though it did befuddle me. I mentioned the one above about the details and if the narrator was reliable. But the big question for me about this story was, what was Spider? Did it represent something specific? Was it death? Since the two main characters were young men transitioning into adulthood, was Spider a metaphor for their transition? Possibly, Spider was a manifietation of their friendship? Was I supposed to think about Kafka? Am I thinking too hard about Kafka? And the story had a “Dead Chick in the Basket*” ending, which maybe made sense? Or maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense?
What “Life with Spider” reminded me of was some of the more fantastical stories from The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. Both had a sense of play, humor, and the humans in the stories react with a relative sense rationalism to their extreme situations. I didn’t need “Life with Spider” to make sense or tie up all the loose ends neatly, because the enjoyment was trying to figure out a mystery that would never get completely solved.
* “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.”
I got to do something last night with my daughter that I have been looking forward to for years. We went to a presentation of four works-in-progress puppet shows. The venue was Dixon Place down in the Lower East Side, and the showing was part of their Puppet Blok series. And, it was a school night, so this was a very special occasion. My daughter got to experience the world of puppets that I had been in, and meet some of the people I have been working with for over 15 years.
The kid has known since forever that puppetry was the “thing” that I did in New York, but for most of the time when she thought of Dad and puppets, she was thinking “Muppets.” Slowly, as she’s grown, and I have shown her videos, and pictures of the type of work I was involved in. Some of it was traditional puppets, and some of it was mime, and other shows were more about movement and physical theatre. I never did marionettes because that is a hard skill to hone, and those guys are crazy.
Last night, the kid got to have her first experience in seeing what it was that her father did. And I was especially happy that we chose last night because two good friends were showing their work, and both of them are very talented women who I have worked for. I wanted my daughter to see women being themselves, out front, creating art, and leading their projects.
I was also a little nervous that the kid would get bored with the show. I learned a while ago that just because something is important to me, doesn’t mean it will be important to her. I’m not looking for her to want to become an artist or a performer. I just would like for her to have an appreciation of the arts, and the creative process. And works at this stage can be rough, very much “in progress,” and still a ways from a final form.
But I needn’t have been concerned. She got it. She was into it. She was a great audience member as well. All four of the pieces engaged her, and lead her not to ask a bunch of questions, but to tell me how each piece made her feel. At the talk back after the show, she was a little shy to give her comments, but she whispered them to me, and I spoke up for her. Yeah, she got it.
And it was a late night. We were riding the D train home, and she snuggled up next to be with her show program in her hand. I’m pretty sure she had a good time. I got what I wanted, which was to share a part of me with the kid.
You know how much Taylor Swift I listened to this weekend? And this has nothing to do with the Kansas City/Baltimore game on Sunday. I was the “Dad Taxi” and, oh, did I get my own version of The Eras Tour in the car. Yes, two Tween-girls were eating candy, chatting non-stop between singing Taylor songs, and it was like I wasn’t even there.
And I couldn’t have been happier.
I had no idea what to expect when I found out the kid was going to be a girl all those years ago. I had two older brothers, so my childhood was nothing but boy things. I can admit I was nervous about raising a girl, but not afraid to do it. I just knew that I was going to enter a place of parenting that I had no frame of reference, and that’s not bad – it’s just a challenge.
I know that I only have a few years left of her openly acting like she likes me. I know what will come next and that’s okay. I want her to be her own person, and she has to pull away from me to accomplish that. It’s not like she’s going away, but if she’s just a little bit like the adolescent that I was, then she will be in her room all the time, listening to really “deep” music, and no one will be able to understand her. (I was pretty pretentious and obnoxious all at the same time.) But if she’s also like me, she’ll come to the other side of it, and will still talk to me. I got closer to my parents the older I got.
But for now, I got be witness her getting excited about music and being with her friends. Maybe I did eavesdrop, but it was surprisingly reassuring to hear her voice her opinions and make some pretty funny jokes. Watching the kid grow up.
I’m not giving anything away here, as my kid’s birthday isn’t too far away. It’s a known secret in our house, and the kid is expecting something from us. And I want to do something for her, because birthdays should be fun, no matter how old you get – Everyone should get to have at least one day a year where they feel special. But being that she is still a kid, birthdays mean that other children will be involved.
Today, my task was to complete the acquiring of items for the goodie bags. To accomplish this, I would have to leave Harlem and head down to the Lower East Side and the Village. And I was looking forward to this because I don’t leave my neighborhood as much as I used to.
I don’t mind the subway ride down to Delancey Street, and popping out on the street, I always feel turned around, even though I have been down there hundreds of times. One of the first rehearsals I had when I moved to New York wasn’t too far from there, and in 2006, I think there was only one condo tower around. I walked over to Economy Candy (The greatest candy store on God’s sugary Earth!) to get the treats for the goodie bags, and that joint is just down the street from the Paul’s Boutique corner.
Over in the Village I stopped by a local party store to pick up signs, and other stuff to decorate. I was struck by how many closed up store fronts were around there, even though there’s lots of construction happening. It seems like people are willing to spend millions on condos down there, but there won’t be anywhere to go and shop, or hang out.
All that said, even on a rain and not so cold January overcast day, I still enjoy walking around this City. I am still fascinated by the people, and the sounds I hear, and the way each block can have a different vibe and attitude. At one of my lowest points in my life, when my mother was sick and I knew what was coming, I would walk all over Manhattan, and just be in and around people and the City. There is something comforting for me in being enveloped by this place, and just walking along and experiencing it. It was true for Poe, and Whitman, and even Brando and Kerouac; all walking the streets, seeing what they could see.
