There were ghosts, certainly, in the voice of the man by the window, asking for leftovers, and ghosts in the eyes of the thin boy with the ball-cap, just sitting there. There were ghosts in the motions of my brother’s arms, scars of over-medication in his musculature, surely, and ghosts in the tired voices and tortured steps of the nurses and assistants.
I came with gifts — two Mountain Goats CDs and a cheeseburger (apparently there is something of a fast foot black market in there — the woman with wild eyes and always headphones came into the kitchen as we were eating and placed what I assumed was an entirely fictitious phone call to a friend to order a Whopper). I came with expectations, vague ideas about what the place would be. I have been there before, but never in the main areas, and never by myself. I came on the bus, with my music loud.
I met Jimmy, the big man with the small voice who follows my brother around like a puppy, angels in his eyes. I met my brother’s budding love interest, whom the nurses said I resembled, much to my embarrassment. It was our cherubic cheeks, they said. I blushed.
We played cribbage and drank decaffeinated iced tea. A man yelled in broken English about Catholic church. Jimmy wanted a dollar for a Diet Coke.
1
Many a time driving over the Coast Range,
down the cool side–hemlock, spruce, then shore pine–
I’ve known something I should have said one time:
“If we hadn’t met, then everything would have to change.”
2
We were judged; our shadows knew our height,
and after dark, exact, the air confirmed
all with its move or stillness:
we both were trapped on an odd-shaped island.
3
Sleet persuades a traveler: I all night
know no under the earth escape
even when the sky goes back remote.
Walking till the stars forget, I look out
4
And watch the smoke at Astoria and Seaside
cringing along the coast, and barefoot gulls
designing the sand: “Go flat, go flat,”–the waves;
the little boat, the mild riding light,
5
The sand going democratic, trading places down the wind,
everything distancing away. Finding this
took all this time, and you’re not even here.
Though we met, everything had to change.
By day I am a mild-mannered customer service representative for a little online music company called CD Baby. We’re starting to do some cool things, including this crazy little thing called Podcasting where you make a radio show that people download and listen to at their convenience. I have the distinct privilege of editing the top sellers podcast, which you can find by clicking on the link below (opens in iTunes):
Like David Byrne, I hate “world music.” It brings to mind either dreadlocked white dudes and hemp necklaces or terrible Putamayo compilations and chardonnay-sipping Pearl district-dwelling scumbag yuppies. Either way, dickbags.
Sunshine is exploding out of the ocean, and the fishes and dolphins are all spouting little jets of water from their mouths in intricate patterns. You’re on a boat sailing through it but you don’t get wet, just tan.
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One guitar, some clackity sticks and two voices somehow become an orchestra. Every song on this album is between 2:30 and 2:50 in length. Presumably that is approximately the capacity of a 78 rpm record?
First off, my apologies to those of you for whom this is utterly boring or irrelevant. Actually I take it back. I’ll not apologize. You can deal with it.
Marc Ambinder is a political reporter for the Atlantic, a card-carrying member of the Gang of 500. He writes insightfully, if somewhat conventionally, and I enjoy his blog casually. But his post about the recent White House news conference is absolutely phenomenal, the kind of insider-baseball I go gooey for. Here he is talking about the credentialing process:
Sometimes, if we’re interviewing senior officials, we’re given “A” passes. There two types; “A” alone, and “A” with the words “ESCORT”.” The regular “A” pass can get you anywhere in the West Wing except for the Oval Office, the Cabinet Room and a few other corners and crannies. Last week, as I sat waiting in the West Wing lobby for an appointment, I noticed that Ret. Gen. Scott Gration, the President’s point person on Sudan, had the same pass as I did. Richard Holbrooke, the increasingly powerful envoy to Af-Pak-everywhere else, rushed through the lobby. He wasn’t wearing a pass. He yelled at an assistant that he “needed to go catch up with Hillary.” Also — somewhat weirdly, as I waited, I listened to a Marine guard and the uniformed Secret Service agent on duty quietly argue about the torture memos.
And then this: an exchange between two white house correspondents:
There’s a moment — usually with about two minutes to go — where four or five network correspondents, standing feet apart, talk over each other, saying much the same thing. Then you hear the voice of CBS’s Mark Knoller, who gives a last minute radio update. Then the same from ABC’s Ann Compton.
Ed Henry finished his stand-up early. Only NBC’s Chuck Todd and CBS’s Chip Reid were left standing.
Chuck groaned. He knew that he and Chip were about to stumble over one another.
Chuck then realized that everyone was looking at him. He informed his producer of this.
Then he joked that someone was going to Twitter the conversation. (I did.)
Chip, who has sworn off Twitter and has never been on Facebook, dryly wondered how many people would read it.
Chuck misheard Chip, thinking that Chip was talking about ratings.
So Chuck struck back, saying something like: “Do we really want to get into a ratings comparison?”
Everyone from the photogs to members of Obama’s staff said “Oooooh.”
I don’t know why this stuff appeals to me so. Ultimately, none of this matters in big picture terms — no decisions are being made here, no policy crafted. But the machinations of this small cabal of politicos somehow seem to bear a deep relevance to my life. I follow them on blogs and tweets and podcasts. I know their names and who they don’t get along with. I can identify Chuck Todd, Mark Halperin, Ana Marie Cox (my love), Chip Reid (total dick), and dozens of other DC denizens not merely by sight, but probably by voice or writing style.
The way I follow politics, and more specifically political journalism, seems somewhat similar to the way some people follow sports. Yeah, I’ve got my team, but I also have an appreciation for the style and stories of players all around the league.
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Don’t Stop Loving Me Now by Floating Action
What is that thing that happens when a song ambushes you? There’s usually not one thing. In this case it’s the whip like guitar lick that curls around the sharp edges of this driving chorus and slips into your bloodstream like mercury. It’s the tambourine that doesn’t stop. On this recording (available for free from the Park The Van Records website, where you can also buy their phenomenal new self-titled album) it’s the way organ and guitar shamble in almost sheepishly under the sounds of the club before building into a whole clattering mountain of high harmonies and southy guitars.
It’s the audience member who you can hear at the end of the song yell simply, “Good song!”
Thanks to Said the Gramophone for turning me on to this, and dozens of other fantastic bands.
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I’ve been thinking a little bit about songs and poems and about how line breaks can refine or create meaning.
Think of the song, “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.” Sam says,
You think about the life you and Sam will live–him singing “You Send Me” at your wedding and looking all the way through your eyes into your quiet places the whole time. Your honeymoon: Barbados. White sand. Your children’s glowing faces as you drop them off for the first day of school.
Aging, and the smoke that begins to cloud his voice as the years pile on. Your wrinkles, gentle at first and then severe, that his trembling fingers trace when you make love in that relentless tired way the elderly do.
His funeral, the tears carving canyons down your cheeks. The white rose you leave to wilt in the dirt by his headstone.
And then Sam says, “for sentimental reasons,” and it’s all gone in a flash.
So Deafkitties and I were talking (or rather, instant messaging) yesterday about our favorite idiomatic expressions. We both have extensive lists. In the process of this exchange, though, we stumbled across a rich vein of colloquialism: the inducement to relax. These utterances, while rarely effective in their stated purpose (calming or soothing an excitable soul) are often very satisfying to say. Here are the top 10 we could come up with:
10) Hold your horses Not strictly speaking a command to relax, but often used thusly. Question: in this allegory, where are these horses located. If I’m holding my horses, where should I lay my hands?
9) Simmer down
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8) Take a chill pill Man, I just wish when people said this to me they had a Xanax in an outstretched palm.
7) Don’t get your panties in a bunch I don’t wear panties, so I really don’t know about this. But if getting your panties in a bunch feels anything like getting your zebra-stripe butt-floss in a bunch, this is probably pretty good advice.
6) Cool out The classics will never go out of style.
5) Don’t flip your lid Among the most visual of the collection. Makes you think of Grover busting the fuck out of his garbage can and being all “GRRROWR!” That dude was a total dick, right? Grouch is just another word for “asshole” but the Sesame Street tried to pawn it off as some kind of charming eccentricity. It’s not charming, Oscar. Stop being a dick.
4) Keep your pants/shirt on Some traditionalists insist on the more staid “shirt” as the article of clothing one is being urged to not remove. To me, pants tell a much more interesting story.
3) Don’t have a cow [man] Bart Simpson implores you not to experiment with animal husbandry.
2) Cool your jets You are burning me with your exhaust, and here you are, already on the deck of the aircraft carrier. Can you please turn down the gas a little? KTHXBAI!
1) Curb your dog King of chillax, because it makes the recipient feel ridiculous for getting worked up. Your anger? It is a yappy little chihuahua. Kindly keep it from pissing on my sneaks.
Bonus Material:
Honorable Mention) Get a grip Would be in the top 10 if the top 10 hadn’t already been written when we remembered it. For the perfect visual interpretation, Aerosmith has you covered.
Also, here are the original lists of our favorite idioms that were the point of departure for this wacky list:
Deafkitties:
“Now we’re talkin!”
“Hard to say”
“Jump the gun”
“I’ll be damned” [often preceded by "well", commonly shortened to "I'll be"]
“Up shit creek without a paddle”
Ben Moral:
“Flip the script”
“Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes”
“Throw it against the wall and see what sticks”
and the consensus pick for greatest idiom of all time:
I worked for a polling and market research company for three years. It was a bullshit job, but it put me through 2 years of college.
I was the guy who calls you, the guy who asks if you’re a registered voter, what kind of scotch you prefer, how much money you make, whether or not you were aware that Al Gore is a communist, etc. One of the most common questions we would ask is this:
“Overall, would you say the country is headed in the right direction, or are we off on the wrong track?”
I had a lot of time to ponder the construction of this, as it appeared on almost every political poll we would run. Word for word. Right direction. Wrong track. This is the extended metaphor we use, as a society (or at least the one used by the political media that represent our society). We are some kind of locomotive. There are two ways this locomotive could be going: the right direction, or the wrong track. The question turns what is clearly a fuzzy and gray issue into a nicely black and white answer. There are no shades. There is no maybe.
For a long time, the train has been seemingly irreversibly on the wrong track. Things have been bad. But they are better. Even in the midst of the worst economic collapse in generations, they are better.
But despite the binary formulation of the question, things aren’t suddenly better. Disbursed across the aggregate of the mass of American thought, that shift, that very real moment of epiphany becomes a curve of discovery.
For me, it all flipped on November 4th, 2008. In one joyous moment, or one joyous evening, the sins of the previous eight years were washed away and America was born again, into this brave new world mewling and wet. For some it probably flipped on Jan 20th, 2009, when we ogled Aretha’s hat and cried as the promise was kept. I guess for some people it flipped some time before or since. But look at it. That is awesome. That is people believing again. That is progress. Shit man.
When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.
- Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
I feel blessed to know so many people as good as spring itself. Thanks for being wonderful, gang.
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