Category: Uncategorized

  • 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.

  • Short Story Review: “Yogurt Days” by Jamie Quatro

    (The short story “Yogurt Days” by Jamie Quatro appeared in the August 7th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (SPOILERS! Though I think you know that, and I should stop announcing it now…)

    Illustration by Alex Merto;

    Source photograph by Bonnie Taylor Barry / Shutterstock

    Ah… religion and faith, and rules and guidelines, and patriarchy and pragmatism. This all has to do with Christianity and not religion in general. Christianity does get a bad rap in most fiction – used mainly to highlight the hypocrisy in human nature. Every now and then we get a work of fiction that is nuanced toward its representation of Christianity in the world around us. That’s what I felt reading “Yogurt Days” by Jamie Quatro – a story that is strong on theme, ideas, and structure. While the prose is adequate for the piece, Quatro strength is in taking all the tricks that are taught in writing classes, and uses them effectively to accomplish her goal of delivery a solid story that is honest, and even a tad melancholic.

    This is a story about faith, and the actions behind faith, and those motivations. The story is about the narrator’s mother who has more faith than sense, and is blessed with an affluent lifestyle which allows her to survive with that disposition. This mother isn’t a bad person at all, and the narrator, even as a child, is aware of that. The story jumps from the past to the present, and how the past situation is still influencing the narrator in the present.

    I said writing tricks because that’s what they are, but it works. The opening sentence is a textbook in making the reader want to find out more. The first paragraph previews the theme of the story. An early example of the mother’s faith is given to show why she behaves the way she does. There is the breaking up of, what could have been, a simple linear story through time jumps, in essence to create more drama, but also pad out the story. I’m not saying this to be mean, or to imply this is a “color-by-number” story, but to say that Quatro’s structure is easy to follow, and allows us to know that this story is going to land.

    But what Quatro does very well, and I think it is a strength of the story, is that by using this standard structure, it gives the story freedom to flow and bring life to little truths about faith, or the illusion of faith, and how faith can even infect the unfaithful. And best of all, in the middle of this story, the daughter (narrator) forgives the mother for her past transgressions. I think most writers would have made this the climax of the story, but I appreciated that this type of cliché was avoided. Instead, by putting the forgiveness in the middle, what we received was a better understanding of how faith had influenced the narrator’s life, along with a better understanding of the relationship between mother and daughter.

  • ODDS and ENDS: UNION!, American Folklore, and Ice Cream

    (Casey Jones you better watch your speed!)

    Oh, shit! The actors joined the strike! Yup, SAG-AFTRA is on the picket line with the WGA, and now no one gets pretty new movies and shows this Fall! I hope you’re happy Studios! Both sides will make their case over the next few weeks, seeing who can build up the bigger public support, and then the real negotiations will begin. The truth of the matter is that the delivery of entertainment has changed. The traditional way for studios to earn income (movie theatres, cable, and ad tv) has declined and streaming hasn’t closed the gap, though that’s how everyone wants to get their entertainment. But I will also point out there are only five media corporations in the US, and it’s been that way for a very long time, so if they aren’t making money, that’s on them. It’s not like there is a ton competition out in the market. Media is an oligopoly so they are in control for how it all works. The studios could solve this tomorrow; stop paying your C-Suite hundreds of millions of dollars. Sorry, but CEO’s can only have two mansions, one Learjet, and one yacht from here on out. We all will have to make sacrifices to survive.

    And when was the last time you thought about American Folklore? Like, Casey Jones, Paul Bunyan, and John Henry. They don’t teach that stuff in school anymore. I asked my daughter about it, and she has no idea what I was talking about. I can’t prove this, but I have this weird feeling that schools were teaching American Folklore as a form of propaganda, to get us kids to believe that there was a mythology to American development and enguiniety, instead of teaching us that our past was a whole lot more about exploitation and exclusion. I can’t prove it, but these people who pushed the Folklore might have been the same people that killed teaching us kids the metric system.

    Ice cream really is the best. Doesn’t matter the season, ice cream is perfect.

  • That Feeling of the Last Day of School (Unedited)

    Outside of Christmas, my birthday, Halloween, Easter and Thanksgiving – The Last Day of School was the best day of the year! That feeling of elation of being done with school, learning, teachers, the other students, and the start of Summer vacation, is an experience that, try as I might, I can never recreate. I worked for a conservatory and a college, and the last day of classes at those institutions never had that same feeling either. When I was a kid, the last day of school was and final end point – a clearly defined conclusion. Working at a school on the last day of classes, all we could think about was getting ready for classes to resume. I tried piggybacking off of my kid’s last day of school, but the feeling I get is that I need to come up with things for her to do over vacation. No real elation in that.

    But maybe, we adults aren’t supposed to regain that feeling? Like, no matter how much fun I have with my kid around Christmas time, I never feel like that eight-year-old kid that got a Star Wars AT-AT Walker from Santa. For one thing, kids are the center of attention at Christmas, and my role changed to parent – and as such with a different role, then I should expect to have a different experience. No real revelation there, right?

    As I get older, I am wary of trying to “recapture” an old feeling. Everything in life changes, and so do feelings. When I revisit places of past glories and happiness, the feelings that come over me are twinges of sadness, lightly salted with the acknowledgement of the joy I had once encountered there. Melancholy isn’t to far away either. I keep thinking that full-blown happiness will come back to me in those situations, but it doesn’t. What I left with is the feeling that I want to move on. And even then, it is still had to say goodbye to the places of your past.

    But as I was reminded today by an old friend, moving forward, getting out there and trying for new experiences is the only way to keep alive and connected.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Field Day, The Ritz Brothers, and Father’s Day

    (I’m still on the line…)

    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.