Tag: Art

  • Thoughts on the Kid’s First Broadway Show

    We had been planning this for a while, taking the kid to see HAMILTON on Broadway. It’s her favorite musical – she has the sound track memorized, and we’ve watched the Disney+ filmed musical performance like a hundred times. We had the opportunity to take her to other shows, but we knew HAMILTON was the only “first” show she could have AND we wanted to wait until she was old enough to appreciate what “seeing a Broadway show” really meant.

    Ans last week, was the right time. (If I might add, the middle of the week HAMILTON cast, with a couple of understudies that went on, was great!) The kid was excited, we made a whole evening out of it with dinner before, and souvenirs when we got to the theatre. The kid was bouncing in her seat when the lights started to dim, mouthed along to the songs that she loves, and, though she said she wouldn’t because she knows the show too well, cried like all of us at the end of the show.

    I would love to flatter myself and say that this was a life changing moment, or one of the core moments of her life, but I can’t say that; only she can – and it might still be years before she would say anything like that to me. No, I just provided a platform, and I hope that it inspires or encourages her in some way.

    For me, it was a very big deal. I don’t do a lot of Broadway. Not that I have an issue with it, but my theatrical heart lies Off-Off-Off Broadway, in the little weird and small houses that play strange and experimental shows. I have taken the kid to see those (mainly quirky puppet shows that friends of mine do) so she knows that world of theatre. Now, after having seen a big, huge, famous show on Broadway, I think the kid has been exposed to both ends of the theatre spectrum.

    And I think that’s my job as a parent – helping the kid experience things, and see as much different art as possible. I’m not expecting her to go into the arts, and if she doesn’t, that’s fine. But art and storytelling are important, and can lead to a better understanding of the world around you. Especially when it comes to understanding that we are all the same. We all love, we all hurt, we all give, and we all take.

  • My Place in the Chain

    Boy, did I get yelled at by my daughter this morning, and I didn’t deserve it, but I let her do it. She was angry, not at me, but she did take it out on me. I thought it best to let her express her frustration at having to go to school on a Monday morning.

    She is just now beginning to experience emotions that are much stronger than she can grasp or fully express. I need to pick my battles, clearly, but more importantly, I need to make sure she is given space to figure out what it is that she is feeling.

    Somewhere, way up in the Either of the next plane of existence, my Mother is laughing her ass off right now. Because I fully deserve this. I deserve to get berated by my kid, because I was that kid not too long ago and did this to my mother. And I am sure that she did this to her mother, and so the chain – this cycle – continues on.

    It is humbling, reassuring, and somehow also disconnecting, knowing that everything that I emotionally experience, my child will experience, and that my parents also experienced. That my emotional individuality is kind’a a sham. I’m not original; I’m just like my parents, who were just like their parents, and so on and so on.

  • ODDS and ENDS: In the car with the Dog, Talking The Beatles, and Tottenham Update

    (Must be the clouds in my eyes…)

    Not a bad Autumn morning. Took this while doing the Alt Side Parking dance.

    I brought the dog with me. Everyone loves dog pictures, right?

    Had fun talking and playing Beatle songs with the kid last night. Right now, she’s have fun with “I Am the Walrus” and the lyrics “Coo Coo Ca Choo,” as she’s heard them referenced in other songs, TV shows, and movies. I think for her, it’s like decoding a mystery from the long ago past. She also finds the “Paul is Dead” stuff really weird and funny as well. She wanted me to play my favorite songs, and tell her why I liked them so much. When I got to “Your Mother Should Know” I was struck with how melancholy it made me. Part of it was thinking about my mother, and the music that was popular before she was born, and then thinking how The Beatles are now music that was around before my kid’s mother was born. I felt like I was grasping for a moment that had already passed me.

    How do I feel about the state of Tottenham’s season so far? That’s a good question, that I’m still not sure how to answer. They are doing better than last season. BUT… they are having trouble winning at home. And the Champions League matches haven’t been awful, but it does feel like they can’t get out of their own way. Like, they are playing better, but not smarter. I do believe that if Maddison was out there, then it would be a different story, and they would be top of the table. Yes, I might be delusional.

  • Putting the Things on the Walls

    This weekend, the wife and I finally got around to finishing a task we’ve been meaning to do since the start of August; hanging up our art work in the livingroom. See, we painted the livingroom, and got a new hutch for the corner, and to be honest, we really enjoyed looking at our clean and painted walls.

    And through the whole month of August, we really did mean the put all of our stuff up, but something kept happening. Like, the kid had a soccer match, or we had to run and do some last-minute school shopping, or we just enjoyed the clean and painted walls. Did I mention that? Because we started to enjoy the fact that the walls were bare and just painted. But, we did have a corner in the apartment with all of our art work stacked up, and it was like, you know, constantly reminding us that we hadn’t “really” completed the job in the livingroom.

    So, we started putting things up.

    Some were paintings that I did in my early 20’s, and some were artwork that my wife created. I have two paintings that my uncle did, and we have quite a few of the kid’s art work that we framed. And then we have several quirky things that we have collected over the years. Lots to work with.

    The last time we hung art up, about five years ago, we were covering up some holes and cracks in the walls. So, there wasn’t a theme, unless you count covering up stuff was the theme.

    The wife lead the charge on this project. We have a wall that all about cat stuff. Then there is the wall with all the family pictures. There is the spot between the windows for my uncle’s painting. Then we have a spot for all the kid’s artwork, along with a spot for my paintings. The last wall is nothing but random stuff that we have collected together over twenty years.

    And I will say this; it looks good but it is a little weird; but weird in the good way. It reminded me of what one of my really good friends said to me before I left for New York; Don’t be normal, don’t fit in – Be weird.

    I’m trying to live up to that.

  • Just Some Paint (Unedited)

    Just Some Paint (Unedited)

    The livingroom painting project is done!

    Well… like 80% done, as I still have to paint the ceiling, but that’s for next weekend, and that’s easy.

    So… We’re done!

    It took a little time, as I did start this whole project right before the kid went away to camp. I did that to kill time, and also try to teach her a life skill; how to paint a wall. I mean, at some point she will live someplace that she’ll want to make her own, and though painting isn’t a difficult skill to learn, I would like her to have in her head that this is something she can do.

    Anyway… digressing here…

    The point is that we took our time, but the wife and I painted the livingroom. Not only that, we cleaned everything out. Really got into all the nooks and crannies of the apartment and cleaned. And then the wife had an idea to sand and paint out TV stand, which turned out great. (She has a little more to go on it, but it looks great. Might share a picture of it when it’s done.) But the best part of all of this is that at the end of Sunday night, we were tired, but not exhausted, and we had the self-satisfied feeling of accomplishing something important.

    The last time we painted the livingroom was right before the kid was born. I guess it was called the “Nesting Phase,” but either way, it was fun to get the apartment ready for the kid. Even the wife’s sister came in town to help us get the whole place ready. It’s a fun memory.

    This time around, it felt like we were putting the last few years behind us. There are still ghosts of Covid around our home. This we hung on the walls, or furniture we tried to repurposed to make working from home functional, or home school at least viable. Books came off the shelves and were cleaned, and a new sense of order and comfort began to take root. It was renewing our commitment to make this little Harlem apartment our home for the next decade or more.

    It was just a little paint. Just a little time. Some sweat and listening to my wife’s playlists.