Making A Scene: Learning to Love Bargnani

 Passing the New York summer in the wake of the Bargnani signing.

A Second Look at "Second Wind"

 

Looking back at Bill Russell's 1979 memoir.

Pick Up

Listen to Matt Domino read a new short story.

The Walloped and the Walloper

Life can wallop anybody, but Alex Theoharides (@Minne_Pop) explains what exactly that means to him.

Accidentally Like a Martyr

 In his latest metaphysical post, Matt Domino meanders through and around topics such as work, Teju Cole, spring, Dennis Linde, The Wire, basketball and Waren Zevon.

Love and the NBA

Alex Theoharides (@Minne_Pop) sorts through his heartbreak to ruminate on Ricky Rubio's injury, the Minnesota Timberwolves, love, and writing.

Movin' Out

Matt Domino returns from his own All-Star break with a post that explains what Billy Joel, Jeremy Lin, the Knicks, Long Island and moving in New York City all have in common. Trust him.

"Leave the ball, will you, George?"

Scott Howard joins the Puddles of Myself team to provide the first installment in his coverage of high school basketball in New York's five boroughs.

The T-Wolves Primer

Alex Theoharides (@Minne_Pop) takes a moment of breath from his T-Wolves mania to provide an easy-to-read team guide for the 2012 Minnesota Timberwolves.

Growing Up

Memorial Day has become the holiday that I most associate with America. It’s not for any military or patriotic reasons, but more for that fact of what it represents—what little traditions we enact year after year that give it a meaning and definition in our lives as the official start of summer.

The Memorial Day weekend truly starts on the Monday before the weekend, when you exchange plans with your coworkers and your friends. The week drags on until you come to that sleepy first “Summer Friday” (at least in New York). Then you get a ride with your friends or hop a train, bus or plane to go home or to go meet with old friends by the beach somewhere. Perhaps you have some new friends from college or the adult life you are beginning to form for yourself and their parents have a country house somewhere, so that is where you go to find quiet and a barbeque. Or maybe there is some timeshare that has been in your family for years and you can enjoy that luxury. Or, one of your childhood friends bought a house in Providence with his fiancée and you can go there for your weekend sanctuary. No matter where you go, its usually a hot, sunny Friday and you will undoubtedly be sitting in traffic for more than two hours. Yes, even if you are flying.

This year, I went to my friend Jeff’s house in Providence. My friends and I had done the same thing last year because Jeff had just bought the house with his fiancée and we had to have a housewarming weekend since the rest of us couldn’t even fathom having a house or being engaged, but that’s what Jeff had always wanted in some way.  We all want to own a house in one way or another, but having a home was just something that had always been integral to who Jeff was. So last year we went up and had fun: went to beaches, took videos, ate lobster, got drunk, got sunburnt. In the end, we had a memorable time. So much so that I still remember driving home late on Memorial Day itself through the mist of the Connecticut night and feeling so terribly hopeless. I was going back to a new job that was promising, but I felt restless looking out at the houses and unknown streets in the stubborn night. There were countless corners with lawns and sprinklers and low-hanging trees.  There were countless youthful romances and heartbreaks next to every hedgerow.  There were streetlamps that stood beside the street in a purely American fashion and I already missed my friends. However, I consoled myself, as I have since, by remembering that we had plenty of years left to continue having good times.

This year, some friends couldn’t make it because of work and also because of a lack of money, which was mainly due to the bad economy but partly due to laziness. Jeff was a little frustrated when we spoke the Friday morning before I left.

“No one picks up their phone.”

“That’s just the way it is, man. They probably feel bad they couldn’t come.”

“Just weird is all. I’m only getting a pony keg though.”

“Too bad the Finals don’t start until next week.”

“I know. Just call me when you get to New Haven, Domino.”

I left work at 1:30, already running late to meet my friend and her pretty friend from college who were parked by Grand Central Station with a trunk full of fresh bagels and some smoked fish I’d bought from Russ and Daughters the night before with the girl I was somewhat seeing. The plan was to ride up the FDR and hopefully catch minimal traffic until we got to the Hutchinson where, in a perfect world, there would be no traffic. I was listening to a live bootleg of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” from Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1975. The live version of the song had taken on such a different complexion than the straight country, but none the less revealing and joyous, album version. I was sweating and felt the need to shout some of the new lyrics Dylan had added into the overwhelming humidity in the air:

Well I’m feeling a little bit scattered,

And your love is all that matters

‘Cause tonight I’ll be staying here with you.

People were rushing in every direction trying to make trains and buses. Girls’ dresses were suddenly appearing in my vision for the first time all season, in their yellows, greens, purples, oranges and slim blacks, as something utterly real, important and present. I could make out the light perspiration on the backs of women. I saw little kids hopping along with their instinctual energy and love of summer. I felt like Stephen Dedalus at the Sandymount Strand watching the birdgirl in the waters.

—Heavenly God! cried Stephen's soul, in an outburst of profane joy.

I felt my soul doing the same and I thought of my work, and of the girl I’d been seeing, and felt that perhaps I was just a bit scattered as well and hoping it was perhaps that love that would be all that mattered.

I heard a shout. I turned around and saw my friend sticking her head out the window and waving. I pulled my headphones out from my ears and hopped in the car.

“What ya didn’t see us?” my friend asked.

“I was listening to this Dylan.”

“We got the bagels.”

“Beautiful. You guys are beautiful.”

My friend’s pretty friend turned around from the passenger seat.

“Hey, Matt, how the hell have you been?”

“Good, Maria. I’ve been good.”

My friend wove through traffic like a professional and we were suddenly on the FDR, then slowly moving on the Bruckner. I figured out a shortcut through Pelham Park that got us to the Hutchinson and soon we were moving, not at any great speed, but we were moving along as well as you can hope to move on a highway on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend.

A few hours later, Maria was driving the car while my friend slept in the passenger seat. We were passing New Haven and she explained that she’d grown up outside of that downtrodden city and closer to the Long Island Sound.  The traffic had all but dissipated and we were starting to cut across the state on I-95. I sat in the back seat as Maria told me about the different exits along the highway. I asked her about the Connecticut shore and she explained its merits to me. She told me about a childhood best friend of hers who lived off one of the exits we passed and how that friend later went to the same college she did but that they never spoke. I asked Maria about her job in the government and she told me her beliefs, which were practical but articulated with passion, which made them more interesting to me since I am easily swayed by anyone who talks about something with passion. Especially a girl like her who knew about politics and world affairs, while I know nothing about anything civic or political.  I tried to weigh in where I could and she was more than polite towards my points while illuminating me on think tanks and the different countries who are involved with the Human Rights League and why Cuba should be re-incorporated into our foreign policies. Finally, she told me how her dad commuted all the way to New Jersey each day.

“I did it with him for two months one summer and it was terrible,” she said. “I told him he was crazy for doing it.”

“Why does he do it?” I asked.

“Well, he told me. He said, ‘I like where I live and I like my job and I’m not willing to give either of those things up.’”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“No, you can’t.”

We were both quiet as she continued to drive and I think at one point I dozed off amid the humming of the highway and the sunset.

At about seven o’clock we pulled up to Jeff’s house. It was a humid, but pleasant twilight on his quiet suburban street. The birds were chirping in the trees and I heard a child’s laugh and squeal from an open window somewhere. Jeff and his fiancée greeted us in aprons at the screened front door. A thought passed through my head, that Jeff’s fiancée looked as pretty as she ever had at that moment.

“I’m cooking lobsters and some fish,” Jeff said. “Lots of beer in the fridge.”

I checked the refrigerator—he was right. I grabbed two beers for us while the girls drank wine. We all paced about the kitchen, as people will do when they first arrive at the home of a friend or a loved one after a long drive. Jeff stood at the center of it all, leaning his thin frame over the burners. He seasoned the blackfish with Cajun spices and began to sear them, while steam came from the lobster pot. Maria, my friend and I set the table and Jeff’s fiancée brought out a bottle of champagne. I uncorked the bottled and poured champagne in glasses. Jeff came in from the kitchen with the lobsters and set them down.

“I tried a new way of boiling them. Boiled them for twenty minutes. It’s a little long. Not sure if this will be good or not.”

We toasted to Jeff and Sara, to new friends (Maria had never met them), to Memorial Day Weekend and to summer in general.  The lobster was good, as was everything else. The wood of the dining room table shone under the light and the door to their sunroom was open, letting in a slow breeze that had picked up with the onset of night. My friend went up to change since she and Maria were going to an alumni dance at their college, so Jeff, Maria and I talked about famous political dictators while Jeff’s fiancée talked on the phone in the sunroom.

“Did you know that Time has only given out four red X’s?” I said.

“What’s a red X?” Jeff asked.

“It’s for when a dictator is killed.”

“That’s right.” Maria said.

“There’s one for Hitler, Sadaam, and that other Al Qaida guy they killed five years ago.”

“Al-Zarqawi,” Maria said.

“Who’s the fourth?”

“Japan,” I said.

“No Stalin? He was the worst.”

“Completely,” Maria said.

They continued to talk about Stalin’s legacy in Russia, a country that Jeff had always loved due to some vague family lineage, while I got up to wash dishes in the kitchen.

Later, Jeff and I were drinking a few more beers when my friend and Maria came down in their dresses to go to the alumni dance. They both looked very clean and pretty and for whatever reason reminded me of a new bar of soap pulled right out of the box. Their dresses had pockets on the side. I wasn’t sure if it was an old-fashioned style, but I loved it—maybe it was just a country style that made sense. There was something absolutely right about seeing two pretty girls in dresses going to an alumni dance at their college in a New England city. I wanted something very badly at that moment, I wasn’t sure if it was love, a woman or to sit in a cool breeze with a beer, but it was palpable and I felt very much like a teenage boy on summer vacation. Then, they were gone to their dance.

Jeff, his fiancée and I sat in the sunroom drinking and talking. Some of his fiancée’s friends came over and I tried to keep up with the conversation, but I was tired. Jeff and I talked about how our friend Chris was going to be coming with his girlfriend the next morning. We were trying to decide on the best beach to go to since I was adamant on swimming over Memorial Day Weekend. I found myself looking at my phone and waiting for the time to reach 1:00 AM so that I could allow myself to go to sleep. However, I managed to stay up so that Jeff and I found ourselves awake at 2:00. I was drinking one last unnecessary beer and we were talking about the NBA. In that moment, standing there with my old friend, talking about basketball, I thought about the NBA as a thing and how it had already been in my life for about twenty years and been a shared passion for Jeff and I for about fifteen years. How we’d seen the end of Michael Jordan, the full career of Shaq, the flash of brilliance that was Penny Hardaway, the saga of Kobe Bryant, the quiet efficiency and intelligence of the San Antonio Spurs, the rebirth of the Celtics and now the era of the Miami Heat. And it amazed me that Jeff and I would get older and grayer and the games would still be on. We’d be wearing different clothes and he’d have his wife and there’d be kids, we’d talk about the players of that time, the great teams, how certain players could play better, and then we’d quietly murmur about how much we loved the NBA. In that moment, with that vision of some future so present in my mind, I wasn’t sure what my life would be filled with or how full I’d let it become, but Jeff would be there and there would be things like basketball to talk about, so perhaps it could be good.

I finished my beer and we both took full glasses of water to bed. He went in with his fiancee and I went into the guest room. In the quiet of the room, I folded my clothes neatly and placed them on the top of the dresser. For some reason, I felt the need to pull back the curtains in the room and look out onto the back lawn, probably because I never got to do a simple action like that in my apartment. In the garden, I made out the shape of the large lemur statue that Jeff’s cousin had sculpted for him. I smiled thinking of Jeff’s cousin and his thick Brooklyn accent and then let the curtain close. I put two of the decorative pillows from the bed on the floor, pulled back the soft duvet and lay down. I slept immediately under my friend’s roof.

*                        *                        *                       *                        *                              *

The next morning I woke up and listened for footsteps.  I heard someone walk down the stairs to the first floor. I listened for voices and wished secretly that I could be alone, which is something I wish for even on weekends with close friends.  I saw the sun peeking behind the curtains and I quickly got over that desire.  When I walked downstairs, I saw Jeff, his fiancée, my friend and Maria all sitting in the sunroom. My friend and Maria were sitting side-by-side on the couch wearing gym t-shirts and plaid shorts. They both had their legs propped up on the wicker coffee table. We talked about plans for the day. Maria had to meet some of her friends she hadn’t seen in awhile. She borrowed Janelle’s car to go out. I had a vague sensation of wanting her to stay and sit with us all day, but I wasn’t sure what emotion it was tied to, so I figured it wasn’t that important to me.

Inevitably, we started talking about Jeff’s wedding. A wedding is something that you have to talk about, no matter how far away it is.  Jeff and his fiancée explained the setup of the farm where they were getting married. They told us about the arrival party, the cocktail hour at the wedding, the dinner, the ten-piece band, the after party and the farewell brunch the day after the wedding. It was going to be a weekend of celebration. I pictured the ceremony on a grassy lawn in front of the big lake. The leaves on the trees were changing even though it was only early September. Jeff was wearing a tuxedo, but he looked like we had when we went to our prom in high school. All of my other friends were there too, looking exactly as we had in high school. We posed for pictures and pretended to punch each other in the stomach. I pictured my parents at the ceremony too. I already imagined my drunk and the speech I would give; the speech that would make someone love me, or make some old relative say, “Now, that’s a smart young man.”

“I want a wedding,” my friend said.

We laughed, but I understood what she meant.

“So, we’re going to Colt State Park?” Jeff asked.

“Yeah, lets just do that.”

“We should get ready now then before Chris gets here.”

“Nah,” I said. “Let’s just wait until they get here.”

And before we knew it, they were there. Chris brought in a bag of groceries that included a few six-packs of tall, Narragansett Summer Ales. Narragansett is not a great beer, but I have a soft spot for it whenever I go to Rhode Island. It may be because it is some symbol of that water-filled state, but it has a very clean label with nice writing on it and drinking the beer out of the bottle tastes very good. The Summer Ales that Chris brought were even better than the regular Narragansetts, so we set to drinking them in the early afternoon.

Jeff showed off the new wood finish he did on the roof of his sunroom because Chris was good at building things and intuitive when it came to tools and crafts. We laughed a lot and made fun of Jeff’s neighbor who Jeff described as “an asshole.”  It got sunny and then cloudy; wind blew through the sunroom. I put on Before the Flood, the Bob Dylan and the Band live album from 1974 and tried to make Chris’ girlfriend laugh because she has a good sense of humor and can give confidence to someone who just wants to make a small room of people and friends laugh. I changed shirts and when I came down, Jeff was sawing pieces of wood and starting a fire in his little clay oven out on the patio. He stopped to go get groceries with my friend since it was close to dinnertime. Chris and I were outside alone for a second.

“I don’t worry about you,” he said.

“Thank you, man.”

“It’s an intuitive thing and I know you know that.”

“I do. And you know I feel the same way.”

“I miss you sometimes you son of a bitch.”

“Yeah right.”

We laughed and drank more beer.

“This is a good session beer,” Chris said.

Jeff and my friend came back with steaks and a lot more beer. Maria appeared from the back gate with a friend of hers from Brown. They sat down as Jeff started cooking steaks and sausages that Chris had brought. Jeff’s fiancée set a long table with salad and leftover rice from the night before. She brought out a homemade pizza that Jeff had whipped together.

“Steaks are done,” Jeff said.

“Thanks for all this, Jeff,” I said.

“Uh, Matt, what about me?” Jeff’s fiancée said.

“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I know I’ll never be forgiven.”

“Domino,” she said.

We toasted to the meal and to the pleasant night and the fact that all of these different people were sitting around the table together.  Maria’s friend explained his start-up energy company. It had something to do with harnessing energy from the water. It sounded like a good idea and, even in that very moment, I wished that I had paid attention better.  The guy was nice and he was from a family of architects in San Francisco, so I trusted him.

Dinner ended and my friend, Maria and Maria’s friend from college all had to leave. We said our goodbyes.

“You should come down to D.C. sometime,” Maria said.

“Sure.”

“She’ll never come,” she motioned to my friend and laughed.

“Sure she will. I’ll come whenever.”

I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.

*                        *                        *                       *                        *                              *

Later that night we were all drinking beer in the sunroom. Jeff’s fiancée brought out wine that she and Chris’ girlfriend shared.

“What?” Chris said. “Is that a lemur statue out there?”

“Oh,” Jeff’s fiancée said. “Yeah, Albert made it for Jeff.”

“Al!” Chris said and laughed. “How is he?”

“He’s got a cute little kid now.”

“I didn’t know he made art.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t so much anymore. But he can still make sculptures and things when he has free time,” Jeff said.

“That’s better,” I said.

“What do you mean, Domino?”

“I mean, its better to just make something that somebody likes.  Sometimes that’s better than anything else. Any art.”

I thought of the Bob Dylan bootleg I loved and I wasn’t sure I even believed what I had just said. Or, at least I wondered if it were even true or not.

Well I’m feeling a little bit scattered,

And your love is all that matters

‘Cause tonight I’ll be staying here with you.

“Here’s a beer, Dom,” Chris said, handing me a very cold, perspiring regular Narragansett.

“I love ‘Gansetts!” I said.

“Domino,” Jeff’s fiancée said. “You’re the only person I know who loves Narragansetts.”

I hugged the bottle.

Under each regular Narragansett cap was a riddle using pictures. We spent the next few hours figuring out the riddles and drinking more beer.  First Jeff’s fiancée went to bed, then Chris’ girlfriend. Then just Jeff, Chris and I sat out in the sunroom. We were all tired and a light rain was beginning to fall outside. I motioned to say something to both of them, but finished off an unnecessary beer first.

“Should we go to bed?”

Chris gave a large muscular nod from the chair he was slumped in.  We went into the kitchen to get glasses of water.  Jeff made a quick little sandwich for he and Chris using a half of a bagel. He put some of the smoked fish I brought on each quarter and spread a little plain cream cheese on.

“You want any, Domino?”

“No. You disgust me.”

We all walked upstairs slowly and went to bed. I folded my clothes and lay down alone under the soft duvet. I thought about the lemur statue out in the garden and was soon asleep. I wasn’t sure how late it was.

*                        *                        *                       *                        *                              *

We ate eggs and bacon the next morning. The bacon, when cooked, smelled of thick maple syrup and it was delicious. After we ate eggs and bacon, Jeff, Chris, Chris’ girlfriend and I went out to grab some supplies while Jeff’s fiancée showered and prepared for their big barbeque. Chris and I went into a crowded local bakery with a foolish list of supplies I had scribbled out to make everyone laugh.  We bought baguettes, five large chocolate chip cookies and one raspberry Danish that I promised Chris I would get him.  We laughed while waiting on line.

Back at the house, Jeff and his fiancée playfully yelled at each other while they made orzo salad. I helped them clean up the counter space and told Jeff’s fiancée that she had planned and made plenty of side dishes for the guests. Everything seemed eerily familiar to me, but I was enjoying myself helping her clean and prepare. Chris and his girlfriend had to leave to go to a party for her family. Jeff and I saw them out to the car. Jeff’s neighbor was outside with her baby and her brown standard poodle. The sun emerged strongly from behind the clouds and the baby chirped from its mother’s arms. Jeff and I said goodbye to Chris as they pulled out of the driveway. I felt a little sad, but went inside and took a shower.

Guests arrived for the barbeque, including one of Jeff’s friends from college who had the same first name as me and whom I liked a lot. He came with his girlfriend too. The sun was hot and all of a sudden there were a lot of people on the back patio that I didn’t know, but they looked nice and were friendly and young and sat around tables. Jeff’s fiancée had prepared enough side dishes and there was plenty of beer. I talked with a guy I’d met the year before about working in print. He was a nice guy and we joked about a lot of things and tried to be comfortable talking with each other for an extended period of time, which isn’t always an easy thing to do with someone.

I sat with Jeff’s friend from college, Matt, and his girlfriend.

“Jeff said you needed a ride to White Plains to catch a train,” Matt asked.

“Can you help me out? If its not too much trouble?”

“You got it.”

So, we talked. They had both just graduated law school, so we talked about that. We talked about the wedding. Soon it got darker and Jeff started another fire. One of the guests was drunk and tried to explain to me why he wasn’t a homophobe. I knew he was drunk and I was feeling flush with drink and the sense of upcoming summer and celebration that I was in the mood to be patient and listen. Besides, it was a nice night and Jeff had a fire burning.

The night got late and I started a movement to begin cleaning. However, all the girls took over and formed a line near the sink in the kitchen. The water over the sink ran hot and steam rose up and fogged the window. I had to go to the bathroom, so I hesitantly moved through the long row of girls talking loudly. I walked with my shoulders shrugging as if I knew nothing of washing dishes or anything domestic. I reached the bathroom and took a piss. And as fast as the line had started, as fast as the ritual had appeared, the girls and everyone else started filing out.  The drunk guy and his girlfriend stayed awhile but they soon walked home.

Everyone was getting ready for bed, when I reminded Jeff and his fiancée that I had stashed the cookies from earlier in the day. I pulled them out of their hiding spot by the dryer and put them in the microwave.

“They don’t need it, Domino!” Jeff stood in front of the microwave.

“Trust me.”

“Domino.”

“Trust me.”

I put the cookies flat on a paper towel and put them in the microwave for thirty-five seconds.

“Get out that milk we bought,” I said.

The microwave stopped and I pulled out the cookies.  Jeff, his fiancée, Matt, his girlfriend and I started pulling at the cookies. The chocolate chips were warm, gooey and delicious and soon it was a feeding frenzy until the last bit was gone. I quickly crumpled up the paper towel and threw it away.

“Damn you, Domino,” Jeff’s fiancée said.

“You know that was good.”

“You’re right.”

We all went up to bed in our respective spots. Our stomachs filled with milk and rapidly eaten chocolate chip cookies.

*                        *                        *                       *                        *                              *

On Memorial Day morning, the five of us sat around leisurely drinking coffee with the sense of impending departure that hangs over any Memorial Day.  We ate the remainder of my smoked fishes and the last of the bagels. We had coffee and I showered. When I got downstairs, I saw Matt drinking a beer, so I decided to have one too. More coffee was poured. We said we would leave, but then we stayed. Finally, it was about 1:00 PM and it was time to go. I collected all my things and grabbed my sneakers from the sunroom. I had the feeling I was forgetting something, but I went through my mental checklist and found that I had everything. We said our goodbyes and I didn’t feel that initial sadness rise up because I knew that I’d be seeing Jeff and his fiancée soon enough anyway. Or maybe it was because things were a little bit more scattered in general and there was no way to be truly sad.

I got into the back seat of Matt’s car.

“We’re going to stop in New Haven,” he said. “I’ve got to move some stuff out of my apartment and take it to White Plains.”

“Sounds great,” I said.

Matt turned on some Spoon and I listened to he and his girlfriend playfully bicker back and forth. We were stuck in traffic for a few hours and I thought about watching the NBA Finals the next night. By the time we got to New Haven the sun had started completely shining, giving the area around the college a completely refreshing and collegiate feel.

“I can’t believe this is such a terrible place,” I said.

“That’s what you think at first,” Matt said. “And then you see someone get stabbed across the street.”

We stopped at his apartment, which was in the top floor of an old Victorian home. We walked up creaking back steps. The apartment had a distinctly "end of the school year" feel to it. There were boxes everywhere and unwashed dishes in the sink and around the kitchen. Windows were open and fans were buzzing. Everything was very quiet and you could hear the birds chirping outside.

“This place is disgusting,” Matt’s girlfriend said.

“Well, then grab some stuff and we can get out of here quickly.”

We made several trips up and down in the heat, taking out dress shirts, ties, half full bottles of liquor, pots, pans and a fishing pole, which Matt forced his girlfriend to take in her car. Then, Matt and I got in his car, while his girlfriend got in hers and we set off for White Plains. There was no traffic on the Merritt so Matt and I flew. We made small talk. We talked about the summer. He explained the intricacies of living in New Haven and told me some stories of danger. We talked about Jeff and other mutual friends we shared. We also talked about fishing. It was a nice conversation that had no awkward stops to it, only natural ones, which was a reassuring thing to happen in a conversation between two guys who had been brought together by a shared friend. Before I knew it, it was 5 o’clock and I was at the White Plains train station.

“I’ll see you soon, my man,” I said waving Matt off.

He gave a nod in his baseball cap and sunglasses and took off.

I waited for the train in the golden light of the late afternoon. The sun was filtering through the trees and I thought about all the times I had taken the Metro North. How at different times it had signaled ultimate heartbreak, an escape, a chore, and a drunken late spring afternoon reverie. I put on my headphones and began listening to the Bob Dylan bootleg from 1975. I listened to Bob wail and change the lyrics to his songs. I listened to him change the tempo.

Well I’m feeling a little bit scattered,

And your love is all that matters

‘Cause tonight I’ll be staying here with you.

I kept listening on the train and watching the trees pass by. I remembered the lemur statue in Jeff’s yard and what I had said about it. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe it isn't just enough to simply make something that someone enjoys. Here was Bob Dylan, taking songs that people knew and loved, and then completely changing them. He rearranged the tempo so that the song took on a new meaning. He sang the lyrics with different emphasis, so that the songs took on a deeper meaning, maybe even a truer meaning than their original form. From the sound of the crowd, it seemed like audience enjoyed the new versions (how could you not with that backing band and especially those drums). Whether they liked it or not, it didn’t seem to matter to Dylan, all that mattered was that it sounded like he was having the best time of his life.  As if he were saying to the world and to himself, “now this is what ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’ was supposed to sound like. I just couldn’t do it like this before.” There is a truth to the enjoyment of creating something and giving it to someone for their enjoyment—it is an act of care, of love. But perhaps that isn’t better than art, even if it is just something completely different than art.

When I got back to the city, I walked around the streets of my neighborhood in the last red light of the day; I wasn’t ready to go home yet. The smell of charcoal was in the air. I saw little girls taking large steps on the front stoops of their apartment buildings. It was Memorial Day without a doubt. I had just had a great weekend with old friends, their new loved ones, and other people who were nice and just trying to make their own way through this world and have their own Memorial Day weekends. I thought of the girl I was somewhat seeing and how I thought I might be able to love her, if that was even possible.

In front of me, a guy was walking his old, trodding, yellow dog. They walked slowly side by side toward the setting sun and I felt as scattered as I’d ever felt. I was wondering what mattered. I was pretty sure that I understood, but I couldn’t be quite sure. In any case, it was another Memorial Day.

A Total Eclipse of the Mark

We've made it through another week, my Puddlers. We've seen the highs and the lows of Montauk, basketball, gender roles and now we've made it to Mr. Mark Jack.  In review, this may be my favorite week of Puddles of all time, due to the sheer diversity and humanistic breadth of the posts. I'll let you take a look back and be the judge. Do you have anything better to do this weekend? You don't like basketball as much as I do so of course not.

Now read up and let Mr. Mark Jack take you there.

Useable Friday

Mark Jack

Unsustainabilities

The smallest kindnesses are the most good. Great kindnesses create anxiety in all those unfortunate to be within a small radius of the great kindness. The small favor or gift is easily overlooked and thereby easily enjoyed. At traditional gift-giving times, even the smallest gift is noticed and so becomes tedious and overbearing, which in itself—the combination of mundane and profane—is interesting. It is interesting due to the fact that it is so far from the actuality of the notion of the gift itself. Eventually, one is considered a scrooge for disliking holidays and feels a martyr for the small kindnesses given throughout the year that go unnoticed.

∆

I sat at the bar yesterday, overhearing conversations.

A man had purchased an app; presumably it was for the phone he fingered possessively, that kept track of how many days he’d gone without smoking. Maybe it also estimated the money he had saved. I’m not sure. He was bragging about the money he hadn’t spent as if he had earned it. I wonder how much money he spent on a glorified calculator/calendar.

An involved debate took place with good cheer to my left. The topic: what vodka tasted best/what vodka bottle had the best design for ease of pouring from the standpoint of bartenders. Sorry Absolut, no one can handle your girth, your wee little neck.

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Taxes are Topics.

Apparently there is a lot of wage theft out there. There are far too many freelancers who don’t make their own hours and don’t have their own equipment, which could be written off. I don’t see any way around calling this wage theft. Also, why do service industry employees almost never get paid sick days or vacation?

Abolition of the Wage System!

There are buses out there in New York asking me intrusive and presumptive questions. Well, one question: Are you free from sin?

Precision is important and so I’m wanting to ask a bus for definitions, but...nothing.

Are you free from sin? Asks another.

Clearly not.

Yesterday—always yesterday—I waited for thirty minutes for a bus to come. Eventually I turned and walked away, having decided to take another route or go by a different means to my destination. I turned at the last moment of bus stop visibility to see two buses arrive at the stop I’d just left. I turned and ran but both buses left before I could return over the distance I’d just walked. I yelled entreaties, but to no avail. I yelled curses. The same response. There are hypocrites everywhere.

If I’m gonna be green, I’ve gotta be conscious of every move I make. In the world are signs, everywhere there are signs telling me whether or not I’m part of the elect.

Edwards is every concerned environmentalist’s favorite writer. Don’t lie.

I just need to say that I’m terribly afraid of exposure.

Mark.

The Perfect Manhattan: A Review of Angles by the Strokes

This past weekend I watched Woody Allen’s Manhattan for the first time. My first inclination, as it always is with anything related to Woody Allen, was to become annoyed and exasperated. Here were neurotic (of course) over-intelligent characters; a woman who was smart but couldn’t articulate her own emotions; and a young girl with the poise and confidence of a thirty-three year old woman. These sort of characters represented the kind of artificiality I have always attributed to the Woody Allen “New York” films—aristocratic, artistic, intelligent people that go to overexaggerated lengths to display those elements of our human necessity.  Overexaggeration is very much required in fiction—art is not necessarily life.  However, I do look for the subtle touch and while some may think that Allen has it, I don’t. All this being said, I can appreciate the fact that the movie is a “love letter” of sorts to New York City.  How Woody wanted to shoot it in black and white so that it resembled some untouchable image of glamour from the silver-screen of his poor Coney Island youth.  And he does accomplish this feat: the Queensboro Bridge sunrise scene; the cab ride at night; the horse carriage scene (straight Great Gatsby); the Central Park in the rain with newspapers over the head moment; the sitting in the courtyard reading the Sunday papers shots. Manhattan, more than anything else, is a movie that presents an image of the New York we want to believe in. Manhattan shows the term “New York” in moving images—that the images or narrative may or may not resemble truth is another matter (I still believe more firmly in the summer dusk shots in Rosemary’s Baby as my actual lasting memory of New York). What actually matters is that this film, this piece of art, makes New York into a manageable object. For the moments of the movie the city can be held in our hand and even though it is precious and brittle, it strikes some chord in us—a prolonged feeling that has to mean something.

On Saturday, I woke up more hung-over than I wanted to be. I’d poured two bottles of coconut water down my throat (even though I hate coconut water) at 4:00 AM in order to combat any kind of hangover, yet I still woke up feeling hazy and dehydrated. So, I drank water and watched college basketball. Then, I attempted to play basketball with my friends.  My ball was deflated so naturally the idea fell flat. I watched another hour of basketball and then decided to go buy a pump, which is what one does when they want to inflate a basketball. So, I stepped out into the sun and walked along Manhattan Avenue to go to the sports store in Greenpoint to buy a pump. Along the way, I sized up the basketball courts near McCarren Park to see if there was a full-court game that I could inject myself into.  The courts were fairly packed so I made a note that I would walk all the way to Franklin Street near the water in Greenpoint to play at the park there. I stopped along Manhattan and bought a cheap Spaulding pump and continued on my way.  The mid-afternoon breeze kicked up in the shade but it smelled of Easter. Flowers had been on my nose because the weather had been warm and my work is full of women who love interior design and my boss has an office full of fresh flowers at all times. I passed Peter Pan Bakery and smelled confectioner sugar in the air so my weak stomach growled. I continued on Manhattan and then turned down Greenpoint Avenue where the sun shone stronger in the street, so I edged off along the car-line and stood where the light broke onto the concrete. The sun made my skin feel tight and I watched as two guys about my age giggled while they passed an Asian man who was holding the door open for another Asian man at a poultry slaughterhouse.

I turned onto Franklin and saw people sitting at tables outside of the Pencil Factory, a bar on the corner. I looked at the table where I had sat on a date on a warm bright evening with a very pretty actress late in the summer of 2009. I remembered that I’d wanted to care more about her, but couldn’t and felt sad. So, I continued on past new boutique shops until I finally reached the park. I passed couples kissing on benches and sat down to pump my basketball. Parents were watching their children slide down the yellow slide and I decided to pull up my socks and tuck the legs of my pants into my sneakers.  I surveyed the court and felt the coolness of the fading sun.  There were a few high school kids playing and one solitary Polish man awkwardly shooting foul shots. I decided I’d walk down Franklin along the water where it was warm. I knew there were courts on Grand and Wythe that might be open.

As I continued on Franklin, I thought about the long route I used to run when I wasn’t working. How I ran from my apartment to McCarren Park and looped around the back part of the park on the dirt path before I shot up to Greenpoint and looped McGolrick Park and then ran up to the power plant at the border of Long Island City and then ran down Franklin before I cut up the secret decade that is Guernsey Street where I then looped the McCarren dirt path before heading home again. That whole route represented some elemental desire in myself to be better, but what it really did was illustrate the unconscious boundaries that my life had set for me. I walked and passed Diamond Bar where my two friends had their wedding reception and we lifted them up in chairs before we closed down the bar. It was a place where I confessed my friendship to another friend and someone asked me:

“Why are you so nostalgic all the time?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you enjoy pain?”

“I don’t see myself that way.”

“I know. You’re funny.”

“I don’t know why I’m so nostalgic.”

“I know. You’re a fucking smart ass.”

The sun was starting to get low in the sky over the East River as I passed the park. There were lesbians walking in front of me and I wished the ice cream carts of the summer were there, though I didn’t miss any of the waterfront music. I grabbed the bars in front of the park and almost wished they wouldn’t have any concerts again because they were missing the point, but then I remembered that if I thought that then I would be missing the point, so I continued to walk.  The fully built high rises made the street quiet, contained and shielded from the waterwind. There were new wineshops and pharmacies and everything looked quiet, nice and paid for, which made me feel at ease. It occurred to me then that living in a place for three years is a longer time than you imagine and that if you don’t walk on certain streets often enough you can forget that they exist or that you had moments with friends on them.

I reached the courts at Grand and Wythe and they were filled with kids playing with their fathers or uncles or whomever. I knew that I just wanted to shoot by myself so I decided to go to the courts right next to the BQE near Meeker and Metropolitan. I knew I’d be able to practice my post moves and my back-down dribble in peace there. As I walked up Grand Street I noticed a rustic home furnishings store next to an Italian restaurant. I looked at the restored sinks in the window and decided that whenever I owned a home that I would have interesting slabs of wood in my kitchen to cut meat and vegetables on and that I would have a deep kitchen sink to wash dishes and pans in. I walked aimlessly along Grand before cutting down to Metropolitan where I saw two guys about four years older than me throw a leg of meat at the fourth story of a deluxe condominium building while the sun was still out.  I felt sad, but hungry because there were so many good new restaurants on the street.

When I reached the courts at Meeker and Metropolitan, I noticed thankfully that there was an open court for me to play on. I took off my sweatshirt and warmed up by practicing the spin on my shot with one hand.  Then I shot bank shots from either side of the paint until I felt loose. I dribbled behind the back a little bit and shot some fancy layups. Then, I practiced my steps on a back-down dribble on the right side of the court before I spun and shot a jumper in the paint. I practiced this move a few times on the right and then on the left. At times imagining I was Magic Johnson or, even more realistically, I was Ray Felton. I was working on spin moves when a Latino father asked if I wanted to play with his group. I said yes, even though I didn’t want to because they were all thick looking Latino guys who seemed to play too loose and without passion. I was right as they messed around. I didn’t even want to break a sweat. I broke free and got layups and didn’t have to play much defense like you do in a bad pickup game. After awhile, I got into a few arguments with the guy who asked me to play because he said my first step was illegal, when it was actually not. When you receive the ball, you do not have to dribble if you make a step and move to the basket in one motion. Since we argued a few times, we threw punches. Luckily I didn’t get beat up because there was a child there who had to go to the bathroom. So, I left and started walking with my newly pumped ball in my bag and my stylish black jacket pulled around my beat up grey sweatshirt.

As I was walking up Metropolitan and the cold of the night was edging in, I passed a bar. Light still glared over the roofs of buildings. As I passed the bar, I heard “Last Nite” by the Strokes playing. Women were sitting at the bar and my vision was obscured by the shade. They looked pretty and the bar looked neat and it was still light out. Cars passed on my left and I knew that all the restaurants would be serving dinner and that these people in the bar would soon want to eat somewhere. “Last Nite” was playing and I realized everything that I had believed about the Strokes was true.

The next day, Angles, the long-awaited fourth album by the Strokes leaked and I listened to it all day. What you will hear about this new Strokes album is that it is uneven. That much of the sound is very derivative of the 80’s. You will read reviews that say this album is an album of a band in transition. That they have laid a new sonic blueprint that their songwriting has to grow into. You will read reviews that say the album feels too assembled. Each of these reviews will be true, but the fact of the matter is that this is the best album the Strokes have made. You can go back and listen to Is This It? and there is a batch of great simple songs, but those songs don’t want to be anything.  The world made “Last Nite” what it is. When you listen to that album again, there is no punch or muscle. I’m not saying that they lack polish or that its necessary. What I am saying is that you should just listen to it again on loud speakers and realize how that album was a missile that was shot tentatively. People like you and I made the impact mean what it did.

I wrote earlier this week that the 2010-2011 Miami Heat were not meant to ever play a basketball game. In many ways the Strokes were meant to never make a record. They were doomed to fail or fall short of expectations as soon as their first album came out. Of course Room on Fire seemed stale, it was made by a band that wasn’t supposed to grow slowly. It was made by the band that made Is This It? the album that was supposed to save a new century. And then when they tried to grow it was inevitable that First Impressions of Earth would fail since no one wanted them to make a record that didn’t sound like the first two.  I’m not trying to defend this band for the mistakes they made or am I trying to excuse myself from expecting too much from them. They were supposed to be the Beatles for our generation. Even though they had five members, we knew each of them individually. We knew them by look and attitude and even by girlfriend in Fab’s case. To the sixteen year old version of myself, they represented an image whose presence meant that something in the world made sense—these were legitimate rock n’ rollers who dressed the part (Stylish but not trashy or hiding wealth. Look, when the Beatles were rich, they dressed cool. They just had better senses of humor. If all bands had good senses of humor and handled their wealth we’d all be in a better place). Even as recently as two years ago when we had no idea if they’d even make another album, I was at bar with someone who said the following:

“I was at the bar with a Stroke.”

“Who? Julian? Fab?”

“Nah, man. It was Nick.”

“How’d he look? With it?”

“He looked like a Stroke.”

In a world full of bands that rise to the surface and subside thanks to a favorable run through the Pitchfork, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Pitchfork.tv, Rolling Stone gauntlet, there is no band that we still talk about in the same terms that we talk about the Strokes. Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire may sell out arenas, but in so many ways they will never be the Strokes. And perhaps those bands are more accomplished than the Strokes will ever be, but they will never be the Strokes. We’ll never know them or care about them as individuals (Vampire Weekend has a shot. Their Columbia pedigree is a handicap unfortunately).

Angles is the best Strokes album perhaps because of time. One of the best qualities of a Strokes album was that the fifth song turned into the last song in almost an instant. At one moment you are firmly ensconced in the middle of the album, some track with warm guitars strumming all around you, then you are lifted up by the late-placed single on the album, and all of a sudden the whole damn thing is over. Angles gives you that same Strokes feeling. I was a full supporter of First Impressions of Earth but it lacked that phenomenon. So, after such a long time between albums that had that essential Strokes quality, Angles makes you remember it, perhaps in a way that isn’t completely truthful.

But, like I said earlier when talking about Manhattan, maybe truth isn’t exactly the point.  For Manhattan is not the city that many of us know. Manhattan is the city that we like to imagine. It is New York if we could hold it in our hands.  And so the Strokes have always been the New York we want to hold in our hands.  The Strokes are a faulted and perhaps failed rock band.  They are annoying and they make missteps just like Woody Allen has done throughout his entire career, but they still manage to make you feel something that you feel nowhere else. So many people look to New York as something. Either they look to it as the end-all-be-all of human existence or they look to it as a way of life they would never want to be a part of. No matter what perspective you take on the matter, you are still a human and you want to hold New York, as the object that it is, in your hand so that you can regard it and understand your relation to it. When you watch a Woody Allen film and when you listen to a Strokes album you get that opportunity. When I walked past that bar after fighting with a stranger when I didn’t want to, “Last Nite” was playing. It wasn’t triumphant, it was just a reminder that the Strokes will always be there and the Strokes will always be what it is to be young and to be in New York. No one else writes songs like “Under Cover of Darkness” or “Gratisfaction” off Angles. Radiohead may “change the music industry” with each release, but they don’t change your stride with each step you take in the subway on a Tuesday morning in March. When I passed that bar and the sun angled along the rooftops in the oncoming evening, I was not celebrating another day spent in New York, I was lamenting the passing of time and the hope to grow up.  When I heard “Last Nite” coming from the open doors of a shaded, cool, bar it was just another reminder that life is better when  the Strokes are around and, that no matter what missteps they make, they will never go away. Because, even if they don’t reach the heights that other bands who come along do, they captured our imagination and they will always be able to do that, though it may be for small moments at a time going forward. However, having your imagination captured for a moment will always trump anything else in life. And if you don’t believe me, then just watch Manhattan, or maybe Annie Hall, those were the only singles that ever mattered anyway.

Garden Party

I’m a huge basketball fan.

Oh, you already knew that.  Well, in case you didn’t then let me briefly explain.  I’ve had a love affair with the NBA and the game of basketball since I was about seven years old.  I’ve followed NCAA basketball and NBA basketball each year since 1993.  I have memorized players’ names, their stats and most importantly their stories—what colleges they went to, who coached them, how they developed their style and game, how they were known in the locker room among their teammates.  Basketball is a more dynamic sport than baseball and doesn’t rely completely on statistics to tell a story or to keep interest.  It is not as in-your-face masculine as football, but still retains an element of swagger and testosterone style.  Basketball players are put right in front of you on a stage, on the basketball court.  There are no helmets; there is no large outfield. Basketball is ten players, ten abnormally tall and strong players, on a shiny wooden court beneath spotlights.  There is a drama and an excellence to it that strike me as being very important at all times and it is perhaps the best sport to watch live. 

My love affair is particularly strong with the NBA.  I know the histories of all the teams so well that I have grown to love each franchise in its own way.  When you add the fact that this year has been the best basketball season since perhaps 1986-1987 season or the 1991-1992 season, you have to appreciate the fact that I could watch any team, any game on any particular night and be entertained by a game of professional basketball.

So, when the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat played in Boston this past Sunday in their third matchup of the season, my friend Jeff (an equal appreciator of basketball) and I had to go to the game.  The fact that the game was for first-place in the Eastern Conference standings made it even better. As did the fact that the Heat had already lost two games to the Celtics earlier in the season. The fact that the Heat had lost those two contests when they hadn’t yet attained the chemistry they had since gained made it all the more fascinating.

I’m going to save some more of the meaningful stuff regarding friends and sports contests and time for another post. Instead, here I will post some of my observations from a Sunday at the New Boston Garden.

- The New Garden is a classic bit of Boston architecture.  It sort of just blends in with the rest of the buildings around it.  That is to say, it looks weird, but still seems to mesh with that insanely dated architecture and those spiraling staircases of the Lindemann Mental Health Center. That being said, its in a pretty convenient and awesome location right on the water. Its not in the heart of the city like Madison Square Garden, but still pretty good.

- Inside, the arena is so intimate.  When the crowd stands at the beginning of the game it seems like people will spill out onto the court. It really adds a great look to the game environment.  Definitely two thumbs up.

- The most frequently worn jersey at the game wasn’t a Garnett jersey, a Pierce jersey, an Allen jersey or even a vintage Bird jersey (though I did see someone rocking a Bird, Indiana State Sycamores jersey), it was shockingly enough a Rondo jersey.  Now, I love Rondo and I knew that the Boston fans appreciated him, but I didn’t realize how popular he actually was. He deserves it of course, but it was just surprising.

- On the subject of Rondo, he is a freak of nature.  His hustle is insane when going after loose balls.  Jeff and I had seats along the baseline and we got to watch up close when Rondo guarded LeBron in the fourth quarter. Although Rondo is undersized, it was amazing to see his weird sinewy strength and his length give LeBron some problems.  Also, when he flicks a layup with those huge hands, it’s really just something special.

- The Celtics pass really well. It’s fantastic to watch in person.

- You know when you watch a Celtics game on TV and Ray Allen hits a huge three pointer and the crowd just explodes? Yeah, when that happens in person it is very, very loud. The crowd literally roars.  Plus, there is nothing like seeing a smooth Ray Allen three pointer in person. The crowd gets about this loud:

- LeBron in person is a spectacle. He is so large and when he muscles his way through the lane to the basket, you sort of have to take pity on whomever he’s hitting into.  I’ve never really seen anything like it.  I mean we all know that LeBron is an alien and freakishly talented, but to see him in action is something completely different.

- Bosh has a very smooth shot. I don’t know who’s shot is smoother, his or Garnett’s.

- Wade is so sneaky getting to the basket.  He had an off game because he missed a few tip-ins and layups, but the way he figures out how to dart through the lane and along the baseline and get close to the basket is pretty much unparalleled in the game today.  It’s a sort of rare talent that I haven’t been able to place the origins of. Its sort of Barkleyesque in its sneakiness, but Wade obviously lacks the force and the atypical body type that Barkley had.  I’ll think about it some more.

- Watching Wade, Bosh and LeBron communicate with each other after a timeout is so fascinating.  You know that their basketball IQ is so high and that they are speaking at a level above so many of the players on the court that you are just drawn in whenever they are close to each other.  You want to know what exactly they are figuring out as they make hand motions and point to certain spots on the floor.  Probably one of my favorite parts of watching this game and being so close.

- As J.A. Adande pointed out on his Twitter feed, the Heat definitely had an element of cool during the game and it cost them.  They could have taken that game and made a definite statement, but it seemed like they had the approach of, “We’re better now than we were in November. We know we’re better. We don’t have to try too hard to win this game. We’re going to win it because we’re better than we were.” But, they didn’t fight for everything and they lost a game that was very winnable. I’m hoping that was just a “regular season game right before All-Star break” syndrome, but that was a big game and they should have felt the urgency and playoff intensity that was needed. I know the Boston crowd felt it.

- Once again, the Boston crowd is great and the environment is definitely special. I’m glad the Celtics are good and relevant. I will miss this current team when the window closes and I’m very happy that I have now seen them.

Running From Updike and the Boss

There is nothing like having a strong negative opinion about an artist, object or idea. It is a stance that gives you a bizarre, almost perverse sense of power. The kind of opinion I am referring to isn’t born out of ignorance, because when you express this opinion, you know full well what you are doing.  You engage in an argument with your friend or acquaintance who likes a certain band.  They explain why you should enjoy said band and in doing so explain why they personally believe in said band.  As they are doing this, the idea of the band crystallizes in your mind – all of their annoying tendencies, the clichés and tropes they rely on, the repetitive nature of their songs.  All of these traits become completely palpable as an object.  Then, you build up steam.  You feel it rising behind you and before you know it, you have your response to your friend or acquaintance: “Pink Floyd fucking sucks!”  You of course follow that up by mocking their trademark sound and try to win by submission.  However, if you are polite, you finally concede that said band just isn’t your kind of thing.

This sort of chain of events would perfectly describe my relationship to Bruce Springsteen and John Updike over the past ten years of my life. Precisely from when I was sixteen years old and I first read “A & P” and then saw it in a million different anthologies; when I realized that people put way too much faith into Bruce Springsteen right after 9/11.  However, in some bizarre coincidence, over the past few months I have found myself coming around to the work of both of these artists.  My change of heart hasn’t come begrudgingly either.  I have in many ways embraced both Updike and Springsteen forthrightly and, in doing so, I have found my own way to trace similarities between their work.  In specific, I want to focus on Updike’s Rabbit, Run and a trilogy of Springsteen songs off Born in the USA: “I’m Going Down,” “Glory Days,” and “Dancing in the Dark.”  The tie-in of these different snapshots for two prodigious (well, maybe Updike is truly more prodigious) and beloved artists has been able, at least in feel, to articulate a strange impalpable feeling that I have always struggled to define or express: that feeling is entrapment.  When I say “entrapment,” there is no element or air of espionage – it is the “entrapment” of the soul, of those strange and powerful moments when we see the light fade and the possibility for maneuvering, for finding that other way out of the room, strictly and firmly disappear.  What does that momentary loss mean?  How do we overcome it? And most importantly, what does it teach us about humanity?  What does it teach us about the soul?

John Updike was always a writer I chose to stay away from and it was mainly due to his reputation. I, as I foolishly do from time to time, grouped him in with a bunch of writers of the mid-20^th century such as Philip Roth or Thomas Pynchon (someone he is nothing like) and Don Delillo.  I frowned on his reputation for writing gratuitous sex scenes and disapproved of his affiliation with the New Yorker, classifying it as some kind of mid-century snobbery that was fit for those post-modernists and other hacks who made their careers because “they were lucky and sucked.”  I was in a word “unfair” to Mr. Updike.  Unfortunately, it was upon his death and the subsequent press that that event garnered when I decided to pay him due attention.  I read about his prodigious ability and hard work ethic.  I admired his outward desire to write for “a dusty bookshelf in a town somewhere east of Kansas.”  I slapped him (and myself) on the back for his appreciation and gratitude towards James Joyce.  Updike, it turned out, was a true man of letters; a man who understood and saw the American tradition, but greatly appreciated the European sensibility and aesthetic.  He was a prodigious and dedicated talent – the kind of which I always imagined and sought myself to be.  Once this vision of the artist had firmly been secured in my mind, it was time to begin actually appreciating his work.  To do this, I decided to turn to one of his first novels.  The one whose tight, direct, present tense style helped to establish is reputation – Rabbit, Run.

Rabbit Angstrom is a former basketball prodigy (like me, well, OK, I’ll let you decide if that’s true or not).  However, there is no place for basketball in his life anymore.  There is no room for basketball in the literal sense or basketball in the figurative sense, basketball as something that one is good at, something that gives one joy and in turn gives the world joy in witnessing that “thing.”  With basketball no longer in his life, Rabbit finds himself restless.  I’m not going to describe or explain the plot.  I’m merely going to discuss this revelation of “basketball” and its approximation in our own lives. For Rabbit, basketball was his youth, it was a way for him to stake his hands into the world and be a part of it. Rabbit was not only a part of the world, but he was an integral element of life in the area of Pennsylvania where he grew up.  He was raised to a level of hero – a natural at the sport of basketball who made the game look beautiful.  What makes Rabbit a compelling character is the fact that he is not a bullish or boorish jock.  He glorifies his playing days, sure, but he also expresses a deep love of the game of basketball; the great rush one gets from the bounce of the ball, the feel of the spring in your thighs and calves, the roundness of the edge of the ball as you grasp it to rise for a layup.  He doesn’t fall into the easy clichés of a faded athlete. Rabbit doesn’t drink.  He appreciates the merits of working, the responsibilities of fatherhood (whether he exemplifies those responsibilities is another thing) and the fact that his glory days are indeed behind him.  Rabbit is a very self-aware character on many levels.

Rabbit is also compelling because he is a failure and he does not take full responsibility for his actions or the situations he finds himself in, though his path to those places may be innocent and misguided enough that any of us can relate to it.  The reason why we relate is precisely because of that element of “basketball” in our lives.  It may be a generalization to say that at one time in any person’s life, they had something they were good at.  There was something that they did that brought a smile to someone else’s face just because he or she was doing what they do best. For athletes, this can extend for a great period of time, like say the joy of watching Michael Jordan, or for a brief period of time, someone like Rabbit, Len Bias or Marcus Dupree. For others perhaps it is a period of tremendous sexual prowess, the artistic ability one exhibited in junior high school, being the fastest kid on the playground, being the student government president at college or the head of a fraternity. For perhaps all of us it is just being a child and the fact that  our parents, upon seeing us sprawling around on the carpet or hearing us chirp up with some indecipherable phrase, could do nothing but smile because we were in our element, we were a new addition to life, to their lives, to the idea of a family, and just being a child made them endlessly happy.  There is a role we fit at one time in our life that stands above all others.  It is our collective “basketball” and very often that period cannot last but a handful of years.

Rabbit is now a man of the everyday.  He has a wife he doesn’t love very much, a job he is apathetic about, a child that he cares and empathizes for but doesn’t necessarily love and yet he still has a heart that drives him and spurns him on, the same heart that pushed him on the basketball court.  It’s this heart that leads him to leave his home for no apparent reason other than he doesn’t feel at home there anymore.  There isn’t the same thrill.  He isn’t pleasing anyone the same way he pleased the spectators on the basketball court.  So, in order try and find a place, he takes up with a “part-time prostitute,” who is really just a woman that has slept with multiple men and maybe taken money afterwards once or twice.  Rabbit can almost make her happy, but in the end he has to return to his wife who is giving birth to his second child.  Rabbit has to succumb to the fact that even though the world is beautiful and there is that constant tugging on our hearts no matter how old we grow, there is still that one time when we shone brighter than the other times of our life.  And that isn’t a sad or bad thing.  It is merely true, because we wouldn’t want anything to burn incredibly brightly for a completely prolonged period of time.  Rabbit comes to vaguely comprehend this idea, but only after he suffers more than a few losses.

Updike relays his story with subtlety and poise. The narration closely focuses on the characters from the present tense and leaves you with an almost modernist feel to the narrative.  Details, colors, objects are relayed with that kaleidoscopic focus/unfocus that the best of the modernists could write with. There is a terrific element of control among the chaos that keeps the pace of the story, but never overwhelms the reader with presence.  Things just happen, which is precisely the point.  Rabbit has entered a point in life where things just happen.  His life no longer has that outside meaning that it once had when he was a basketball star, so now the awareness of action for the character and the repercussions are not as strong as they should be.  Perhaps they never were even at those heights of hardwood stardom.  Rabbit’s world is a world of the mundane and Updike presents that world with the utmost clarity.  We get the sense of a bombed out or soon to be bombed out Pennsylvania town.  There are beat up cars and small streets with cracked sidewalks, small town churches whose congregations are strong on Sundays.  Everything feels immediate and vibrant in its utter hopelessness.  There is a truth to the broken down environment of the world that Updike renders and that Rabbit lives in that calls out to you.  This is a part of Updike’s ability as a writer – it is part of his Joycean skill.  The beat up and normal, the “daily bread” as Joyce once said, becomes the stuff or art, of poetry, of something ephemeral and universal.

Bruce Springsteen is often credited with the same ability of making the mundane streets and cars of suburbia seem like the stuff of poetry, although he has come to that accolade through methods and phrasing that are much more crude.  When it comes to poetry and to heralding the mundane, Springsteen is wildly overrated.  He has made it through the decades on brute force and sweat, while simultaneously overwriting about characters with the same attributes.  And he is successful because he frames these tried and clichéd situations and characters with vibrant, heartfelt rock n’ roll, which is the testament to the format of guitar, drums, earnest vocals and horns to bring the message home.  I’ll never give my heart entirely up to the music of Bruce Springsteen, but I have come to a place where I can admit that sometimes he is just right about certain things.

Born in the USA is a fine album.  The title track is better as the first song on the album than it is when you hear it on the radio or in a stadium somewhere – it is actually quite harrowing. “Darlington County” is one of the most carefree songs in perhaps the history of rock n’ roll. “I’m On Fire” is meditative and concise and “No Surrender” is inspiring and predates the great sound of those Travelling Wilburys records.  However, where the album really picks up steam, where it really gets everything right is on three of the last four songs of the album: “I’m Going Down,” “Glory Days,” and “Dancing in the Dark.” When you take these three tracks into account as a whole, you get a sad, concrete picture of small town life, of feeling as though there is no way out – feeling that sense of entrapment.

“I’m Going Down,” to me, sounds the way that Rabbit, Run feels.  The track rumbles along on a classic rock n’ roll/rockabilly beat that is completely infectious. It’s a story about a couple that could be married or just long time lovers who are slowly falling apart. The song is all grey skies of  a November morning or the cold, windy bitter evening of February or January in some small town. The song finishes with a simple and devastating verse: “I pull you close but when we kiss I can feel a doubt/I remember back when we started/My kisses used to turn you inside out/I used to drive you to work in the morning/Friday night I'd drive you all around/You used to love to drive me wild/But lately girl you get your kicks from just driving me down.” There is nothing overtly dramatic in those lines, but there is some element of truth, a presentation of a terrible relationship that seems undoubtedly real.  And as much as Springsteen uses the “driving” motif to death in all of his songs, here it feels appropriate. It’s a different detail.  There is an intimacy of driving a lover to work in the morning, either to her job or to the train to go to work.  It suggests a mutual agreement, working together that makes this anonymous couple seem that much more present in the middle of the music.  When that detail is matched with the fact that the girl used to drive the guy wild and now all she wants to do is drive him down, you get the full scope of their misery.  These people are both trapped in a terrible relationship in what feels like a small, working class town where the skies are always impossible grey in the fall and the warmth of the car heater and the living room of some home are never enough in the winter.  All of those elements remind me of the relationship between Rabbit and his wife Janice in Rabbit, Run.

A song of a failed relationship leads into a song literally about failure in “Glory Days.” The parallels between “Glory Days” and Rabbit, Run are obvious, but the poignancy comes with how the song can extend beyond a person who was just a successful athlete or once a beautiful girl in a high school.  Many people are averse to “Glory Days” because it has nearly been played to death and because its bright organ and overproduced drums just seem as obvious as the theme itself.  I’m a sucker for an organ (love that J. Geils Band “Centerfold”), but I can completely understand that criticism. The song is brash; Springsteen sings with a somewhat corny affect; and the fade-out/rock-out is out rightly cheesy. Yet, on repeated listens, what gets you about this song is Springsteen’s ability to make you focus on little details. They are scenes or poses you have seen in movies or heard about characters doing in other songs, but for some reason, Springsteen is able to make them stand out.  In “Glory Days” just like “I’m Goin’ Down,” it is the last verse that truly accomplishes this feat: “Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight and I'm going to drink till I get my fill/And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it/but I probably will/Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture/a little of the glory of, well time slips away/and leaves you with nothing mister but/boring stories of glory days.” We all have glory days in our lives, whether you were a great jock or some kind of prom queen.  The details that hammer it home for me every time are the mention of glory days passing you by in the “wink of a young girl’s eye” and “I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it, but I probably will.”  The first detail gets me because, yes, when I am older, what will most remind me about being young is catching eyes with a young girl my age and all of the promise that a quick encounter can promise, because for the both of you the rest of your lives and the world are ahead of you – glory days are always just around the corner again even if they did already happen when you were in high school.  The second detail gets me because, well, even though I wasn’t an outstanding athlete who lived and died by his accomplishments on the court or on the field, sometimes I just can’t help thinking about those old sports glories and those old tricks I used to play in high school; all the times I used to sneak out and party and go on adventures with my friends – those were all glory days as well and if you think about them or talk about them too much, you’ll end up looking stupid just like a washed up pitcher or shooting guard.  Once again, Bruce is able to make the obvious, the cliché and the boring, seem universal and groundbreaking – that is to say, he hits the truth of the matter.

Finally, there is everyone’s favorite single, “Dancing in the Dark.” Out of the three songs, “Dancing in the Dark” is the best song, not only stylistically, but also formally. It has the best hook, Bruce’s singing threads the fine line between tasteful evocation of the character and becoming overwrought and the production doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the song – this is why it is one of the most liked Springsteen songs even to non-Springsteen fans. It’s hard to explain what exactly is so moving about the song.  It stems mostly from the driving synth melody and also the drums, which are unrelenting. As I’ve documented before, this song also has my favorite Springsteen line, “Man, I’m just tired and bored with myself.”  That line is just one of the many that pop out of the mix of the song.  And at the heart of any good song, that’s what makes it stick.  At so many turns, Springsteen yelps lyrics of desperation like “I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face/Man I ain’t getting nowhere/I’m just living in a dump like this/There’s something happening somewhere/Baby I just know where that is” or “You can’t start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart.”  It’s a feeling of restlessness and it isn’t that well-covered restlessness of youth that Born to Run epitomized.  The restlessness on “Dancing in the Dark” is the same restlessness that Rabbit Angstrom felt.  There is no way out even if you know that the world exists out in the dark and that “there is something happening somewhere.”  Even if you know how to get to that place, you can’t leave because you don’t know the way out.  The funny thing about the song is that the each verse and chorus ooze with a desperation; the narrator is desperately seeking help and he knows what he needs, he suggest that he’s open for any kind of connection any kind of warmth or human interaction, but he just can’t figure it out.  “You can’t start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart.”  It’s advice that should hit us all in the gut.  You can’t hope to make strides forward if you are worried about the little worlds that we create for ourselves falling apart.  They are meant to in a certain way.  Perhaps figuring out what that way is is the key to it all.  By running away, Rabbit Angstrom allowed his world to fall apart.  He was penned in, he was pacing the room just like the singer and the feel of “Dancing in the Dark” suggest.  But when you act, when you decide to start a fire, whatever that fire might be, you have to be prepared to let things burn.  And maybe that was what Rabbit Angstrom was missing.

There is no easy way to connect Updike’s Rabbit, Run and these three songs off Springsteen’s Born in the USA.  However, there is a certain feel that both the book and the album contain.  Really, like most things, the feel is simply about understanding how time changes things and how you need to understand how certain times of your life fit into the overall story of your life.  You can’t become preoccupied with chasing down something you were once good at, the “basketball” of your life.  We are all given certain gifts and we are all given the ability to make someone else happy, to make them smile, even if it is for just a short period of time in our lives – for many of us it is that unconscious period of childhood where our mere existence makes our parents happy. For others of us, hopefully we can achieve that time again when we fall in love with the person we are meant to be with – that doesn’t happen for all of us, though we try our hardest.  And for still others, like Rabbit Angstrom or one of the characters in “Glory Days,” there is a period of youth where some of us excel at a sport or at being beautiful and graceful and young and those postures alone – that feel of running down the basketball court after a steal, catching a touchdown in the back of the end-zone, chasing someone down the line and taking the ball in a soccer game – can make others happy, fill them with joy and inspiration.  However, those moments will inevitably fade for us, even though, out in the strange night of whatever town we live in, they seem to burn on in all the windows that straddle the hillside or the curve along the shore.  We want that inexpressible joy in our lives, that ability to seem vital and important, we want to run and not care about our shortcomings or ourselves.  And there are moments when we can achieve that, but we have to let them pass.  If you spend your life chasing, you have to be prepared for the consequences and to understand what exactly happens when you bring that burn on the inside out into the world itself – that world of cracked pavements and grey upholstered car seats, those impossible misty November mornings and windy, orange February nights.