Summer of the Stones

Erik Lilleby crawls out from the rock he's been hiding under to talk a little bit about his "Summer of the Stones."

Houston Holds Serve: Wimbledon Doesn't Care About Fireworks

 It may be the Fourth of July, but that won't stop Mike Houston from providing you instant insight into what is going on at Wimbledon.

Newark Afternoons

Matt Domino weighs in, briefly, on the recent passing of singing legend Whitney Houston.

Puddles of The Super Bowl

The Puddles of Myself team shares their thoughts on the Super Bowl in a feature directly ripped off from Grantland.

The Relationship Room with Dr. Scales: Post-Coital Cuddle?

Dr. Kerri Scales joins us once again for her Wednesday take on what works in a relationship and what doesn't.

Help!: A Review of Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

The first line on Helplessness Blues, the fantastic new album by Fleet Foxes, is “so now I am older, than my mother and father, when they had their daughter, so what does that say about me?” It is the best lyric of the past fifteen years and perhaps the most apropos to this current generation of youth that is seeing the population rate slowly move to an inverse pyramid—that is to say we are doing things later than before, including having kids. We can learn things better and quicker than our parents or our grandparents; we can go to the far ends of the Earth with easier access, though with perhaps more fear, and embark on more adventures than our mothers and fathers ever imagined. However, we seem to lack the want or desire to manifest love or to start families. We have the urge and the vague longing for deep love, but not the means to make it real. We contain the notion of family, but not the understanding of what it takes to be a parent. Our lives are multifaceted and without limits, but we can’t seem to remember what it is that people actually do. And maybe that’s what Helplessness Blues are.

*                          *                        *                         *                        *                       *

When I was in San Francisco on vacation last month, I did the Cliff Walk starting at Sunset Park and heading up to Baker Beach. It was a sunny day and the wind blew as it does in San Francisco—in rising sporadic gusts that are at first warm and then briskly cold. I walked with a girl who I once loved. We climbed stairs made from roots and walked underneath shade. There were spots of sunlight and the flowers were fragrant. I would’ve sweat if I wasn’t so comfortable walking in my sneakers at a good pace. We talked about and around things like people who once loved each other do, recognizing the shape of the other, remembering an attachment, but not noticing the finer details, the fact that those two people walking side by side hadn’t existed five years earlier.

At one point, as we walked up and down hills, we talked about an old friend of hers who had changed.

“She yelled at me for even listening to pop music,” my old love said.

“That’s crazy. Everyone has to listen to pop music even just in passing. It’s just what you do.”

“Exactly,” she said, wiping her brow. “And especially when we used to work in the café and make fun of them together.”

I picked up a walking stick and followed behind her as she walked down the path. She continued to talk about her friend.

“She’ll like only listen to the most indie music, the most obscure. And only drink microbrews and eat only completely organic things. All of that is fine, don’t get me wrong, I love good  beer as much as anyone else and eating healthy too. But it’s like you can take the fun out of things if you go too far. You know?”

A view of the Pacific suddenly appeared. You could see the green rounded peaks of Marin and the wind ripping across the water and waves.

“It’s something I’ve thought about,” I said. “Life can be pretty simple.”

She laughed. “You’re one to talk.”

I poked the stick in the dirt as we rose up another hill.

“I know I have a history of reading into things, but I mean that a pop song can just be a pop song. Sure there are plenty of good beers out there, but you can just drink a beer and that can be it. You can just walk somewhere or talk to someone. Life is obviously messy, but there are simple things in it. We can want something simple. We can just get dinner.”

“Right. No, I totally get it.”

We continued walking and eventually the path led to an extraordinarily affluent neighborhood that stood on the cliffs. Each home was more intricate and elaborate than the next, with gates at each driveway and little gatehouses. Vines grew over and along wooden and metal gates, homes and doors were painted solid reds and blues of varying shades. Some homes were white. We walked down to a little beach and, with strong wind blowing in our faces, we ate sandwiches on rocks looking at the Pacific.

“This is what you wanted, right?” she asked.

“Yes.”

We ate quietly and drank water, watching a Spanish family climb into the small waves to get to a larger rock. That was the best time we had.

*                          *                        *                         *                        *                       *

Fleet Foxes’ first album, Ragged Wood, could have almost been the soundtrack to the summer of 2008. Their EP Sun Giant had caused plenty of buzz and had caught me off guard when a friend sent it to me, causing me to have one of those “Where did these guys come from?” moments that you have from time to time with a new band. So, when Ragged Wood came out in June of 2008, I and most of my friends had been looking forward to it and were pleased to find out how terrific it was. It was my first summer in Brooklyn and it turned out to be one of the best of my life. Most of us had been out of college for a year and had gotten through the initial blast of post-college depression without much harm. The weather was beautiful and there was plenty of music to see in McCarren Park. I’d run at the track after work as the sun set and then meet friends afterwards at a bar somewhere. We’d spend time at my apartment or on my roof and listen to Ragged Wood. Or, I’d play the album in my down time while I cleaned the apartment without a shirt on, looking forward to drinking a beer outside during the day and getting a tan. The music was pastoral and delicate and seemed to immediately fit right into the canon of Americana music. Songs like “White Winter Hymnal” and “Ragged Wood” had some kind of simplicity and innocence that emnated from them. The group singing and harmonies were something that had not been used so prevelantly in recent years in music. I never even paid attention to the lyrics because the album created such a strong mood, a mood that was carefree and tailor made for the great summer I was having, the first summer of truly feeling like I might actually be an independent adult.

And now Helplessness Blues starts in medias res with that fantastic first line. The “so” suggests that a story has been started before we came in and now here we are, feeling insecure about being older than our parents were when they had their first child, when the had seemingly made the decision to grow up, to care about a life that they created. This is followed by Pecknold’s lament of “oh, man that I used to be, oh man, oh my, oh me,” which sounds very much like any person in their mid to late twenties who goes to work every day and then gets drunk on the weekends and tries to remember what it was to actually like and enjoy things and not just live in a world of waiting for night: waiting for work to end or waiting for it to be time to go out.

There is a darkness to the songs on this album. It is not something sinister or even darkly spiritual—one doesn’t get a sense of questioning their entire existence or the terrible things they are capable of doing. Instead, there is a sense of stock-taking. It is brooding music that is buoyed by the harmonies and the “folk” playing that have been carried over from Ragged Wood. The music on Helplessness Blues reminds me of late-era Simon and Garfunkel more than anything. Where the harmonies on Ragged Wood were so prevelant and startling that they almost seemed forced, though welcome and well-done. After repeated listens, Ragged Wood became a style of music that one played—a back to basics, folky independent rock that wouldn’t be complete without the angelic group harmonies. When you listen to Helplessness Blues a handful of times, you are left with the feeling that what you are listening to is important, that whatever you take from the songs will end up meaning something to you, that this album will be something that you return to in ten years. The harmonies are still there, but they are used to compliment the complexities of the subject matter and the sensations that the band are attempting to give word and music to. There is an heoric, rambling, cinematic quality to “Battery Kinzie” that wouldn’t have appeared on Ragged Wood. Likewise, “Lorelai,” using a Bob Dylan chord progression, is a song that is meaner, more concretely visual and haunting in its presentation of thinking about someone that you can’t love anymore. Who hasn’t spent part of their twenties having long nights with dreams about a lost love? Having dreams so vibrant that they could be real and that makes whatever loss you are feeling fresher than it felt before you went to sleep after a few beers

*                          *                        *                         *                        *                       *

When I finished the Cliff Walk in San Francisco, we waited for a bus in Sunset Park to take us back to the part of the city she lived in. We were both slightly red from the sun and our legs were tired. A slow wind blew along the desolate streets picking up sand and dirt. I thought of Jack Nicholson in Chinatown and for some reason I started humming a song that an acquaintance of mine had written.

“What are you humming?” my old love asked.

“This song ‘Take My Car.’ This guy that I know wrote it. Tony Wain.”

She looked away back to the sun over the Pacific. “Don’t know him.”

“He’s a good guy. One of those good people you meet sometimes.”

“Just good Topeka people,” she said.

I recognized the line from a movie I liked. “Do you want to see me feed a mouse to my snake?” I said playing along.

She laughed and we were both quiet as the small electric sign in the bus stop said that there were three more minutes until the bus came. I tried to whistle but my lips were dry and I decided that there was nothing to say.

*                          *                        *                         *                        *                       *

Your twenties are supposed to be the best and worst time of your life; too many movies and songs have tried to capture the aimless feeling of having youth, freedom and not a lot of money. But there is something absolutely attractive about it time and time again. We all look great in our twenties, we are allowed to make mistakes, pick the wrong job, the wrong apartment and the wrong lovers. Everything is at stake and yet nothing is at stake because we have no mortgage, no children, we having nothing to worry about but making money, paying the rent, getting laid and getting drunk. Yet, you listen to a song like “Battery Kinzie” on Helplessness Blues, a song that may not be as obviously poignant as some of the other track, and you can’t help but remember that the whole point of getting to the age of thirty is that you have to learn what it is that is important to take with you. When I hear the song, I think of myself has that heroic loner that I’ve always wanted to be, truly wandering and not caring where I end up. But the truth of the matter is that I know that’s not how it works. You end up wandering through your life, but you are not alone, you just pare things down to the essentials, to what is absolutely important. You find those simple things and you love the hell out of them because they are simple and they can be enjoyed. That’s what you do, even if it means realizing that you don’t recognize people, places and things that were once immensely important to you. And if someone tells you that loving something simple is boring, then they have no sense of adventure.

Free Forest City Redemption Project Day 8: I'm The Little Man

It's Day 7 of the Free Forest City Redemption Project and its another early taste of spring outside.  The best thing to do would be to download all of the Forest City tracks that have been posted so far and take yourself and your iPod for a walk somewhere. It'll do you good to listen to these tracks, especially today's entry, "I'm The Little Man."  This track was written solely by guitarist Ted Robinson and may be the best melody under one minute that Paul McCartney never wrote.  Well maybe the best melody under one minute that Ween never wrote. In either case you can't lose.

On a side note, my roommate's band, Motel Motel, will be breaking up after about five years existence.  They are going on a nationwide farewell tour starting this week, so please check them out whether I know you in New York or don't know you somewhere else in California, Minnesota or New Mexico. This was a great band (Especially live. To my knowledge, no other band of their level, in the Brooklyn geographic, in the demographic of 20-28 years old, played tighter or better live), whose second album The Big Island was under-appreciated. Their fans will miss them.

There's a lot of other great stuff going on in music, sports, culture, stupid ideas and personal epiphany that I'm anxious to tackle when I'm back to regular posting; including a new contest that involves a reward, beer and blog comments.  However, until then keep enjoying the Free Forest City Redemption Project.

And today, enjoy "I'm The Little Man."

M.I.A. (Not her, but I think she is sexy?)

Now, I know I have been missing in action for some time; I apologize for this. The last month has been very busy. I got my first vacation time from my job in the year I have been working there so I headed down to Virginia and other parts for a week or so, which kept me from updating anything. But also, I have been working on big music event that will be going on June 12, 2009 in DUMBO. The event is called the Brooklyn Invitational. My friend and I have booked six bands to play. Two or three of which I have mentioned on this very blog (Tony Castles, Motel Motel and Boogie Boarder). You can find all of the information about the event and these bands at the official Brooklyn Invitational blogsite -

THE BROOKLYN INVITATIONAL

Now as far as blog matters are concerned on this blog from blog to blog to blog to blog to blog to.
I have a few posts stocked up for you all (who all?). Namely, a review of the new Wilco album and how it will make you understand the band in toto (#1 NY Times Crossword answer). Also a review of the NBA Finals and my take on the Cleveland Cavalier (read LeBron James) collapse that is occuring. Then, ramblings on Faulker followed by a return to music with a review of the now released Grizzly Bear album Veckatimest.

So stay tuned. I will not treat you wrong, though I may become neglectful and busy, I will never abuse.

Now, the next installment of "From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt"



James

“Everything look in order for tomorrow?” Eve asks me.

“Yeah, I think so. She did a good job getting everything set up beforehand.”

“She was a very organized woman wasn’t she?

We’re sitting on the floor in my room, on the black carpet. The lamp in the corner is on. I can hear Tom and dad laughing downstairs. Sounds travel in this house; they always have. The rain on my window: pit, pit, pit, slowly. Are Liza and Maggie packing up their rooms too? This house needs to be empty by Wednesday.

“Yes, she liked everything to be in place.”

“Did she like me, James?”

I look at Eve in my dark room. Even with the top light of the lamp illuminating the blue walls and the white ceiling, it’s dark. Yes, of course mom liked her. She would’ve loved to be a grandmother to Eve’s child.

“Marry that girl, James. You’ll both make such handsome children.”

She always said things like that in an old-fashioned way. Handsome children. I think she might’ve been jealous of Eve in a way for taking me away. But maybe I’m being to full of myself thinking that way. I should say something instead of just packing these books.

“Of course she did.”

“Are you sure?”

“You knew that didn’t you.”

“It was tough to tell.”

This confuses me because I thought that mom was always warm and welcoming of her into the family. She never said a bad thing about Eve to me not once. But as honest and eloquent as mom could be, you always got a sense that there was a certain silence she kept. She could’ve had reservations about it, I’m sure that a lot of women do when their children get married, sons or daughters. But with the way that dad welcomed her into the family I figured mom must’ve felt the same. Maybe he knows something about it.

“She could be quiet at times, but I’m positive she loved you as much as my dad does.”

She nods at me and places a few more books in the box. The one on top is an old child’s book of mine with quick retellings of the Greek myths. The cover is brown and the print is old looking. It’s been old since I was young. There is a picture of what is supposed to be an ancient Greek looking depiction of Zeus’ face. Eve’s pushes the books down in the box and the cardboard rubs: eek, sccrrp. She’s quiet and her thin eyebrows are drawn down. I know she’s working something out. I know something is coming. Is it what I think it is? I should’ve been honest from the start. She exhales, closes her mouth, her lips part again.

“I sort of wish we could’ve had a baby before she died.”

I feel somewhat relieved and at the same time, I feel even guiltier. I’ll tell her after the funeral. I’m too wound up and concerned about what will happen tomorrow. What kind of behavior dad will be on. What kind of behavior we’ll all be on. Uncle Connor will no doubt be there and they haven’t spoken I don’t think in twenty years at least.

“We couldn’t have known how things turned.”

“I know,” she says. “It would’ve been nice. I know she wanted to be a grandmother.”

“Yeah, I think Maggie knew that enough.”

Eve laughs and then sighs again. She has so many different sighs. I can’t decide which one I like the best, but part of me says it’s the sexual sigh. And I know that’s right even if I don’t want to admit it.

“I feel bad for your sister,” she says.

“Why is that?”

“It seems like your mom put a lot of pressure on her as far as that’s concerned.”

It’s true. There was a lot of pressure put on Maggie, but more pressure put on me. She was the oldest, but she made it clear a long time ago where her priorities were. They belonged in Morocco or New Zealand or Iceland or the far side of Siberia. Whatever was on the other side of the lens.

“No more pressure than the rest of us.”

“I don’t know. I just think being the oldest and a girl maybe your mom expected more out of her. Expected her to be more of a traditional woman maybe?”

It’s amazing how intuitive she can be sometimes. I don’t know if what she just said is true. But it’s not because it isn’t. I never paid attention to that part of the relationship between mom and Maggie. I figured mom accepted who Maggie was after so long and especially after she broke up with Jake. We’d all figured he would be the one to settle her down a little. I liked him a hell of a lot. What is he doing now anyway?

“That could be. I never really thought about it.”

“I don’t know. I just kind of got that feeling. Your mom was intimidating in a way.”

“I never heard anyone say that. You think that?”

“Yeah. I do.”

I’m quiet thinking about it. Thinking about my mom cooking a pork roast on a Wednesday night when I’d come home sweaty and wet from some late March practice. The afternoons still cold and dark. There would be grass stuck to the elastic bands at the bottom of my green sweatpants. I’d put the stick down by the back door and my cleats outside and mom was by the oven. Everything smelled warm and roasting potatoes. I’ll never forget that sensation. That’s one of the things you can’t get back. Is it wrong to associate mom with cooking meat?

“I’m sorry if she was.”

Eve laughs. “It’s nothing to be sorry about…I just…”

She holds off.

“What?” I say.
“I don’t just wish we would’ve had a baby for your mother. I wish we weren’t having such trouble. I mean I really thought the last time…”

I put my arm around her back and pull her close to me. She’s starting to cry. She’s crying into my armpit. With my right hand I rub her back, with my left hand I rub her thigh. Her jeans are soft and worn in. She looks up at me, her face red and moist.

“Don’t you wish it were easier?”

“Of course I do,” I say. “I want kids as much as you do.”

She breathes in her nose, sucking up the loosened snot and making that gurgling stuffy nose sound. She nuzzles against my arm and armpit and I love the way it feels. But what is wrong with me? If I love even the sound of her snot and her puffy crying face then why am I afraid of her child? Our child. What don’t I want to give up? I’m already married; I didn’t have cold feet about that. I don’t miss any bachelor life. I’ve never been afraid to make the next step in my life, but something is holding me back right now. What would mom say?

“You hid my child from me? How could you do that? What is wrong with you?” Eve says.

I’m in court and handcuffed. There is a judge looming in front of me. He wears a wig like an old British aristocrat.

“We find the defendant guilty of cowardice. One of the high treasons of American society.”

He slams the gavel and the guards carry me away by the armpits.

Eve nuzzles me some more and puts her arms around me. She squeezes me tight. I wrap her up too and pull her close. I take in the shampoo of her hair. It still brings me back to our first date when she only kissed me and then gave me a hug. That long hug when all I could smell was her shampoo. That soapy smell like flowers. I knew it was artificial but so artificial that it was realer than real. More natural than natural. Each time I smell it that first love and nausea comes back to me. Even here and now on my floor where I used to pass out drunk or lay with caked sweat from practice when I didn’t even have a clue about her or that she would be pregnant and I’d be hiding from my wife.

I’ll tell her after the funeral.

1/2 Bird Bowl Part 2

Super Bowl Sunday. A terrible football game will be taking place at about 6:38 PM tonight. The guy who did "The Wrestler" song is going to be doing the halftime show. This game should be an awful rerun of the 2006 Super Bowl - The Steelers vs. The Seahawks (known to my friends and I as the bad Joo Joo Super Bowl but that is another story). This time we have another overachieving bird from the beautiful NFC West division taking on a predatory Steelers team that only rises to the occasion when the competition in the AFC is down a notch. Get your Roethlisburgers ready, this one will make you puke.

Thank God, then, that Sunday morning featured another classic Nadal v. Federer match in tennis. This one from the Australian Open. I hated tennis growing up. My family is part Greek so of course I loved watching Pete Sampras with his strange Grecian charms, five o'clock shadow and white sneakers. The rest of it though was for the Cardinals. My great uncle used to watch tennis all the time at family gatherings and make everyone watch it - this frustrated me to no end when there was a cartoon on or usually a better sporting event. So it comes as a shocker that I am now becoming a tennis fan. This is solely because of Nadal v. Federer. There are only a few times in sports when a rivalry can be a truly riveting event, half the time what people qualify as rivalries in sports are not even true rivalries. This has been. Their games compliment each other quite well and Nadal's unintentional comedy is off the chart. The Wimbledon final from last summer was the best match of all time and this morning's final was certainly up there. The whole match had you on the edge of your seat. However, this rivalry is coming close to one-sided unless Federer starts picking up some big wins. Nadal is truly impressive.

Anyway, that is it for the sports rant. Enjoy the game today if you can and drink 100 beers for me.

Below is my newest poem.


Whither America?


Whither America? The sound of the gas-stove
And she drank peppermint tea with honey
Talking about snow shoeing in the Catskills
Where once Rip Van Washington slept in dust.

There the wood cabins lie in the clearings
Where your friends set foot on the paths
They had thrust themselves further on,
The paths the dogs had laid in earnest,
The tracks we’d all imagined in the great shadow
Of our Brooklyns and our Manhattans and Chicagos
The places we could dunk our heads under cold streams.

Whither America? The key dropped from an open window
She pulled you close by the geranium pot
Wearing a grey skirt ruffled by the knees
With your arms on her back and two feet in the air.

Around the corner the full moon is over Christmas lights,
The neon piles of ice melt in the moist winter
Of Civil War beards and thick maroon scarves
Where boys and girls in slim black pants smile
Because they’ve known the snow entrenched season
That the picture books showed them in class –
The St. Petersburg and Moscow furies of their music
And the frozen Valley Forge December memories
With raw red feet and long tattered coats.

Wither America? The reel of a spinning bicycle spoke,
She and her girlfriend walk dogs in the Village
Where Gaslight photos make their hair rise up in cotton candy tufts
And all they want to do is shop for a stroller or crib.

Art galleries open up the front page of the daily news and
While most of their friends freelance or have no jobs,
The two women sit by their bicycles in the dusk
Watching the sun on the piers and along the narrow waterline
Letting New Jersey call out in pain to Oakland on the last page,
But the snowstorm is going to come in on Wednesday
The snowstorm is going to come in and make everything silent –
No jobs, no cribs or strollers, just white and the hair of the dog.

Whither America? The feel of a statue at summer’s high noon.
The courtyard butterflies won’t stop for the green berries
Neither will the smokers in the sunroom watching soap operas -
The woman in the straw-hat will, she’ll pick them all.

When you think of death all day your cheese platters won’t take,
The wood bases and berries won’t taste as sweet
Their flavor won’t stand above the warehouse walkways
When the girlfriend holds you both arm in arm in happiness
Knowing she did good hosting dinner for different groups –
Conversation over candles and Argentinean fillets.
Digestion is the afterlife of friendship and drunkenness
So make the best of all the secondhand smoke and sex
That juts out of the music, the mercury and moustaches.

Whither America? The hair curls in the shower drain
Letting the water fill the tub at the end of a long spring
With lobsters and purple lighthouse flowers and beestings,
Things that won’t leave you alone at the onset of February.

The underwear underneath the window belonged to her
Navy and filled with longing like anything left behind
He threw them out on the way to work in April’s relief
And she always hated strip malls with their Iowa parking lots
Their stained Stop and Shop façades and neons
She could learn that desolation means the same thing
In the Texas panhandle as it does in the rice marshes of China,
Further around to the cracked olive hills of Spain
So too does love in this life or one from two times ago.
But they both moved away wearing different sunglasses
And we never received a postcard from either of them.

Whither America? The press of a hug before midnight
The wreaths are falling from the white doorframes
Beer bottles threaten to break the table and your eyes
While you try to let the embraces leave in single file.

What makes blonde hair and stories of boyfriends
Make you feel like a father with your burnt coffee mug?
No matter how many days you try to sleep in you will never
Figure out that mysterious love that stabs you at the stoplight
The one that balloons you up for some mysterious reason
The one that deflates you as the laughs come so easy and
Fade gently out the door leaving you sitting Indian style on the carpet
Not sad but desirous of a question that has no words
Made up of apples, baby powder, arousal, the whispers
On a back deck or light snow falling on a quiet lane.
So keep walking and let the secret follow you along.

Whither America? The mother and child reunion
The red hat placed against the broad coffin’s sheen upholstery,
Make-ups, scarves and handbags sitting against chair legs
While the animal crying only comes at the very beginning and end.

Salt the roads because tonight the mist turns into black ice
The car washes will do a brisk business this weekend to the dusk
With mothers driving in and out with their kids to let their cars
Pass under the scrubbers as if it were an amusement ride.
Your mother can foresee the emptiness next to the fireplace
But you can tell her it isn’t so, if she knows more than you about love
You have the leg up for studying the movement of death,
Though you can’t let things die, you know how death
Marries love – the gaze toward the stars or snow gently falling.
The ottoman sits squat on the paneled wooden floor
And you can love your mother with all of your heart
But she feels things you never will, though you can try
Your soul will never move away from the ceremony -
The marriage of love and death in the grocery line.

Whither America? The sound of the gas-stove and
The pant of rain on the road from the basement window.
I want to put the satchel to my shoulder one more time
To let all of these stories pass from my chest like blood
Inching in the rifts made by my boots with every smile
And kiss and hug that have come across my path.
The view from the Seine will never make me forget
Those lean-tos you all built with whiskey in your packs
The friendly smile on the underground train platform,
Bus glass covering your heads while you shivered in November
I won’t let the blood get away from me; I’ll let it go.
Heartache shouldn’t be buried with the purple knit afghan
It stays with death and love - the marriage in the middle of the day -
The mother and child reunion at the nearest exit of the highway
Me standing by the fireplace, bleeding in the light.

Section 3 and the Phillies on the cusp...

Welp, it's October 27th, 2008 and the Philadelphia Phillies might win the world series. I've grown up a Philadelphia sports fan for my whole life and seeing this would be magical, but not as magical as a magic trick most likely - although I saw someone reading a magic trick book on the subway today and I asked him to look at it and some of the tricks didn't seem so hard (it was a Dover Classic edition). If the Phillies do win, I will probably wax poetical about it tomorrow. For now though I am going to contemplate one of the great conundrums of any Philadelphia sports fan: do we take enjoyment in the fact that we have won, or do we prefer the great rage, tragic guilt, and comforting disillusionment that comes with having so many disappointments over the years and excuses to drink and wince as though we were being filmed in a movie. I'm going to think about it and drink a tall Busch beer.

On a side note, tomorrow night I am going to the listening party for the new Animal Collective album Merriweather Post Pavilion. I'll write up a review of that too so anyone that stumbles upon this space that happens to like that kind of thing can read it and enjoy it.

Section 3 of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt is below.


Liza

I hear James and Eve downstairs talking to Dad. I heard them ring and I heard all of their knocks. I like the sound of Eve’s voice. I always have. It’s so womanly, not girlish like mine. Hers is a voice that wraps around you; I can picture her calling kids in for dinner, or on the phone giving permission for a sleep over. Even going out to a store, a young wife calmly putting down some loser that tries to hit on her. A loyal woman with a warm voice. Sort of like mom. But Eve is so much more sleek and stylish. She’s young, alive, and beautiful whereas Mom is…

Never seen Dad like this before, though. No one has except Maggie but she was so young – barely three – and she probably has no memory of it anyway. He’s been drinking since I got here. He still has his normal look. The playfulness he always had that frightened Mom so much. That’s what Maggie told me at least. Why Mom got him off alcohol. There is something different about him, though. His hair looks whiter. You couldn’t tell if you just passed him in the street or if he was doing a checkup on you in his office. But I’m one of his daughters so I know. The circles under his eyes are bolder too. His skin is tan but his face looks purple. He looks like a haunted movie star – a failed celebrity. Pouring that scotch down his throat. Do all guys have that inclination in them, especially as they grow older? Even the ones that don’t drink have the inclination in them I bet; they just use it for something else. That’s why all men need a woman in one way or another. They need someone to control them, to trim the edges. Pull the bottle away from their mouths like Mom did from Dad. I look out the window. The beginning of September is always so beautiful here. The trees are overhanging the streets, canopies of the still full summer leaves, the colors only slightly showing. I see Tom walking up the street. Just got back from his Saturday train ride. He’s a little like an old man that way with his routines. Look at his walk. His strides are full of purpose; he leans forward but holds his shoulders slightly back letting his chest stick out. The collar of his shirt is a little crooked as he walks through the black gate. I can see everything from this room and always could. James and I got the rooms with the best views out into the slope of the front lawn. I turn away from the window and look at the emptiness of the pink walls of my room. I’ll have less stuff to move out since I already had to pack it all up to bring to school. Already I’m back. Some part of me knew that this would happen. That the empty nest would bring Mom to her death even though she was already sick. She could’ve held on longer had I stayed. I walk over to the small light colored-wood shelf along the wall next to my closet. There is a dark wooden dolphin resting on two small dark wood planks of wood. The planks are curved upward so that when you push the dolphin a little it begins to roll and arch as if it were plunging and rising out in the distance of the sea mimicking the waves. But this dolphin is dark wood and swims through the air and all I want to do is cry looking at it, because on the base of this contraption my name is inscribed with the year 1991 alongside it. Below the year is a heart and below that Mom is written. My eyes are becoming moist now and I have to walk over to my bed and lay down on my old purple comforter. But it doesn’t comfort me. I hear Dad laughing downstairs.

There are steps coming slowly upwards. I know their speed. Tom is walking up to his old room too.