Puddles of My Fiction: "Baby Shower"

A short story from Matt Domino.

The Return of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Every few months or so, I like to take stock of what has occurred in music, sports, cultural and in my general mindset and create a list that is broken up into three distinct categories: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.  So, on this night of an NBA Draft with two Good players, a lot of Bad players and a TON of Ugly players, I feel that it is only my duty to weigh in on what has been Good, Bad and Ugly in the past four to five months.

The Good:

-The Boston Celtics memorable and gutsy run to the NBA Finals.  Sometimes glorious, sometimes excruciating, but always exciting and (if you're an NBA fan) thought-provoking. I'll definitely remember the 2010 NBA Celtics for Good and Bad.

- The 30-Day Countdown to Season 4 of Mad Men has begun.

- The NCAA Tournament.  Perhaps the most exciting NCAA Tournament in the history of college basketball.  There were too many buzzer beaters, under achieving and mediocre teams to count.  Who knew that mediocrity would ever lead to excitement?

- The neverending efforts of Janelle Sing, which can also be seen here  and here.  I'm telling you all: never stop working at those creative endeavors. If you don't stop, you'll never lose.

- Tinkers by Paul Harding.  I can not say enough about this book.  Just read it please.

- The Wall Street Ferry to Yankee Stadium.  Who knew?

- Ms. Farrell being added to the Mad Men website.  Meaning, hopefully, that America's new hearthrob (at least in my mind) will be a big part of Season 4.

- Brinsley Schwartz's version of "What's So Funny ('Bout Peace, Love and Understanding)?"

- Landon Donovan's goal.  C'mon.

- Newport, RI.

- John Williams' Stoner. An excerpt: "In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt and an embarassed nostalgia.  Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and the intelligenct and the heart."

- Treme.  One of the best stories about a city since Ulysses.  Including a very "Wandering Rocksesque" Episode.

- Blitzen Trapper's fifth album Destroyer of the Void.

- The cover art for the new Walkmen album, Lisbon.

- The beach.

- Rondo's diving steal/layup against the Orlando Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals.

- Air.

- The Garnett to Pierce to Rondo play in the 2010 NBA Finals.

- The smell of a tree.

- Mad Men Season 4 coming on July 25, 2010.


The Bad:

- Kobe Bryant's performance in Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals.

- Backlash to the Lost series finale.  C'mon it was just a show.  It had Sayeed and Sawyer and Hurley and Jack and Kate and Mr. Eko and Locke and Desmond and Ben Linus and the Smoke Monster and Boone and Shannon and Libby and Vincent the Dog and Michael and Walt and...

- Time.  It's always just passing isn't it?  So depressing.

- The Lebron James sweepstakes.

- The oil spill. C'mon.

- The phantom penalty/offsides called against the U.S. in the Slovenia Game.  Awful.  We all thought basketball was bad.

- My exclusion from the Top 20 Writers Under 40 List published by the New Yorker.

- Mad Men being overshadowed by the attention given to Breaking Bad.  Just you wait until Season 4.

- The commercials for ABC's summer programming.

- The fact that I am not a TV writer when ABC is pumping out shows like The Gates and Rookie Blue.  I'm not bitter but, c'mon that stuff is terrible.

- The New York State Government.  Makes you long for the corrupt politics of Willie Stark, "Kingfish" Huey Long, or Boss Tweed.  At least times were simpler.

- Apple Stores.  That just has to be hell on earth, no?

- Michael Jordan's anti-semitic moustache.

- Hitting peak garbage smell season in New York City.

- The Haiti Earthquake. 


And now, of course, it is THE UGLY:

 

Alright, my Puddlers.  I should be back with another Puddles of My Podcast tomorrow.  If not, have a great weekend. Enjoy the heat and enjoy the thunderstorms if they come.  Watch the U.S. try to beat Ghana and make sure to vote on the newest Puddles of Poll on the sidebar of the blog.  I do pay attention to what you have to say about the blog.

Until the next time.

Puddles of My Podcast - Episode 11

It's been built up, been talked about, been rambled about over several beers and Season 1 DVDs at 4:00 in the morning, but now here it is - Puddles of Myself presents to you Puddles of My Podcast: The Gilmore Girls Edition. In this episode, I welcome Erik Lilleby, master quipper, nihilist and late night coffee drinker and novel reader, as well as the multi-talented artist Janelle sing to discuss the classic WB dramedy known as Gilmore Girls.  Be advised, if you do not follow the show Gilmore Girls, you will definitely enjoy this because of the witty banter that is used in order to explain some of the intricacies of the show. For those that know the show, in this episode we discuss, Lane Kim, Emily Gilmore as the best character on the show, Rory's boyfriends, Luke or Christopher, Suki's rapid weight gain and loss, and the top 5 Gilmore Girls moments - plus, KIRK! So, please sit back and enjoy this podcast with a big cup of coffee as Lorelai and Rory would at Luke's.  This is the podcast that kicked open the door to a generation's consciousness.

Weekend

Alright, everyone, I am getting this second post up as I had promised earlier this morning/last night. I have started contributing to this website Brooklyn Exposed, and this article about Cobble Hill was one of the first column ideas I had pitched to them.  The actual article as it will appear will be slightly different from the way it will appear here, but I am going to put it up for your weekend enjoyment - you know, just something to think about.

Before we get to that, I just want to mention three things:

1. This weekend I will be sitting down with Erik Lilleby and Janelle Sing who has also started her own blog, Giovanni and Giotto and we will be discussing the popular television show Gilmore Girls. Both Janelle and Erik are old friends of mine and they are probably two of the foremost minds on the show Gilmore Girls in the United States of America. This round-table podcast has been in the works for a few weeks now, so I am looking forward to it and preparing diligently with my Gilmore Girl research to pose the tough questions to these pundits.

2. Monday will most likely see the next basketball column as there are some interesting storylines that are developing in each Conference Semifinal Series and I need to take the weekend to see how some of those storylines play out.  Tonight, should be a must see night of basketball as the Celtics and the Cavaliers square off on ESPN at 7:00 PM with their series tied at 1-1 and the series shifting back to Boston for two games.  There has been plenty of speculation about Lebron's injured elbow as well as the Celtics finally rediscovering that their team dynamic revolves around Rajon Rondo and the fact that he is now the best player on their team, rather than Pierce, Allen or Garnett.

The second game of the night will be the Phoenix Suns taking on the San Antonio Spurs.  The Suns are up 2-0 in the series, but now the series is going back to San Antonion for two games.  The Spurs have traditionally owned the Suns, but this year's Phoenix team seems different and will definitely be a tough out.  I think we are looking at a Lakers vs. Suns Western Conference Finals series, which I sort of hope the Suns win.

3. The podcast download battle between Nick Mencia and Erik Lilleby is now tied at 24 downloads a piece as we head into the weekend.  Who will get bored this weekend and push one podcast over the top? I have had two page visits that emnated from internet connections in Pakistan, will there be a third? And will that third one choose to download the voice of Nick Mencia? Or will it be Erik Lilleby? These are the suspenseful things you come to this blog for.  Who needs Lost when you have Puddles of Myself?

Anyway,  here is the article:

Stoop to Conquer: An Afternoon in Cobble Hill
By Matt Domino

Let’s say you’re 24 years old and it’s a beautiful day in late April; the sky is absolutely clear and you have recently resigned from an office job you detested in order to pursue your creative passions.  Let’s say this life decision has led you to save all the extra money you have in order to pay the rent in Williamsburg. With all of this established, how, you might ask, can one enjoy a relatively cheap day out in Cobble Hill?  This is precisely what my friend and I were able to accomplish a few Saturdays ago.

“Let’s get lost somewhere tomorrow,” my friend texted me on a Friday night.  The idea sounded fine to me and I had been meaning to wander around Cobble Hill ever since the winter weather had broken at the end of March.  So, my friend came over with a basket containing bread, cheese, soppressata and mint leaves.  The mint leaves were to be used to make mint juleps in preparation for a Kentucky Derby Day party she was putting on the following week. I bought the bourbon and we mixed a batch of slightly sweet mint juleps in an old lemonade bottle.  With all our supplies set, we hopped on a right on time G train heading south.  We got off at Bergen Street and walked east towards the water and Court Street.

After hitting the pleasant bustle of Court Street, my friend turned to me and said, “We should find a park.”  I’d been to Cobble Hill before, but I couldn’t remember a park.  However, walking down Congress Street and passing each of the regal and inviting brownstones, we came to the tiny Cobble Hill Park.  The park is located at the square of Congress Street, Clinton Street, Verandah Place, and Henry Street.  There is only a small plot of grass, but it is in a quiet square that is surrounded on one side by brownstones and on the other by colonial looking apartment buildings that might belong in Providence.   So, we sat and ripped pieces of bread with our cut soppressata and cheese and ate them as a lunch in the sun, with sips of slow warming mint julep.

We sat, talked and tanned in the park before getting antsy at the thought of discovering more of the neighborhood.  At the southwest end of the park, we went south on the sun-dappled Clinton Street, passing stoops that led to large well-kept wooden doors, the likes of which we do not often see in Williamsburg. We continued down Clinton, turning west on Union and then south onto Court Street. We stopped into G. Esposito and Sons Pork Store just to marvel at their selection of cured meats and other Italian delicacies that far surpassed our modest picnic.  My friend spotted a flea market on the side of P.S. 58, which is directly across from the playground at Carroll Park, where we milled around people selling Egyptian clothing and tiny, self printed baby jumpers, one of which our friend bought for a mutual friend of ours who is expecting.

The allure of Smith Street caught my companion and we doubled back north.  Friends of ours were going to join us for dinner so we wanted to scout ahead.  The best prospect we both agreed on was Grocery (288 Smith Street) with its take on the French bistro menu and its affordable prix fixe early dinner menu.  Smith Street is also packed with boutique clothiers and I found myself popping in and out of each one as my friend (a budding designer herself) wanted to view the goods.  We were both especially impressed by the clothes at Smith & Butler, which left us muttering, “Some day, some day” as we walked out to take tiny sips of mint julep.

We decided to do one more swoop through the neighborhood before picking a place to eat dinner, so we headed back up to Court Street by way of Warren and again admired the impressive homes.  We thought about a friend of ours who had just bought a house and wondered what it would be like to raise kids in one of these impressive and well maintained buildings with their stretching stoops and staircases.  At the corner of Degraw and Court, we spotted free samples of food outside of Sal’s Pizzeria. They were giving out pulled pork and jerk chicken on grilled pieces of flat bread.  At that point, I peeked in and caught a glance of what looked to be some tremendous looking authentic brick oven pizza.  My mouth was watering so I suggested we turn down Degraw back towards Clinton to escape all of the food.

The friends we were meeting for dinner called us as we walked along Clinton and suggested that we go to Prime Meats. I had heard that Prime Meats was a fantastic restaurant, although a bit pricey.  However, I decided that you are only young once and that I could scrounge up the rent money somehow.  I told my friend to come and pick us up so that we could all have a terrific dinner.

As my friend and I sat on the bottom step of one of the brownstone stoops, taking in some of the last light of the evening, I looked at one of the windows of a home across the way.  Again, I wondered what it would be like to live in one of these buildings.  With no job, a rent to pay and nothing but the freedom to decide how I would next make my income, I figured that I had plenty of time to find the best way to make it through one of these well lacquered wood doors and, that someday soon, I could peek my head past the lace curtains draped across one of these windows.

“Great day,” my friend said.

“I know,” I looked at her. “And we haven’t even eaten dinner yet.”

What Goes On

Alright all my Puddlers, I am back to do one of my standard roundups for the week.  These roundups come on random days, so don't expect them on specific days.  However, what you can start expecting is to look on this blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays and find a new Podcast of Myself, which will now actually be called PUDDLES OF MY PODCAST. So, please be sure to update your iTunes updates and feeds.  The rest of this blog will be updated accordingly.

This was an action packed weekend with things that caught my interest as well as occurances in the NBA.  I know that I have been sort of deluging (word?) you all with the NBA content over the past week or so, but once I finish my coverage of the Lakers/Thunder series, you will be seeing a lot more music coverage.  However, I will get to all that in my bullet points.

One last word, the title of this post comes from the Velvet Underground song "What Goes On," not the Beatles song by the same name.  Just wanted to be clear on that.

Brass tax:

- Now that I am out of my office job, I am trying to piece together my life as a freelance writer.  One of my jobs will be articles coming out in the soon to be launched, Trashcan Magazine. The website is only a prototype for now, however, the hard issues of the magazine will be in a subway station near you starting this June 2010.  In the next few weeks or so, you can start looking for short articles of mine about the NBA and teaching your girlfriend how to understand football at the website, Made Man. Now, you might say, "Oh, Domino. You wrote for that website because it is like Mad Men." And that would be totally wrong.  I am contributing to that website because they pay me.

- Speaking of blogs, I just found a gem of a blog that has led me to find some gems of albums that have really bulked out my music catalogue.  I will provide you with some reviews of specific albums (as well as my musings) in the near future.  However, the blog can be found here.  I was even able to find an album by my main man Jesse "Ed" Davis.

- On the topic of music with a lot of soul and also some testosterone, Treme. This show is absolutely fantastic so far.  The season is only three episodes in and I have been enjoying it thoroughly.  I have not watched much of the Wire and I know that makes me an idiot.  However, I am going to compile them all in some manner so I can watch them all at one time - or I can just wait until they cycle through the whole series again on HBO On Demand.  The acting is fantastic (even Steve Zahn's annoying character) and the breadth of the characters that the narrative covers seems to be in the same Tolstoyan vein that got the literary scholars so in favor of the Wire.  Plus it features basketball star Jamal Wallace from Finding Forester.

- Now for some other links and places I have enjoyed stumbling across in the past week.  First up is the new Brooklyn blog, Brooklyn Exposed.  I had a chance to speak to the owner of this site, Sharon Beason, and she is trying to provide information that links up all of the neighborhoods in Brooklyn so that there is a reliable and consolidated source that can point you in different directions and means of navigating Brooklyn by neighborhood, whether it is by events, restaurants, museum exhibits, or spaces of outdoor enjoyment.  Ms. Beason owns her own Brooklyn-based business as well, the Brooklyn Concierge.

- The second link that was given to me was the blog of one Juliet Train Totten.  Her blog was passed to me by Janelle Sing and the name of Juliet's blog is rosiebegosi.  Juliet Train Totten is also part of Poppies and Posies, which Janelle and I discussed on her podcast episode.

- Ah, yes, speaking of podcasts.  Tomorrow, I will be putting up a podcast with my good friend, Professor Jon Ellowitz.  This episode may be my favorite so far.  The topics get a little heady, but we do get to talk about R.L. Stine.  Thursday, I will be putting up a podcast with my former college roommate and the current lead singer of The Sanctuaries, Mr. David Aaron Stern. Those of you who read this blog and know both David and myself have most likely been either looking forward to this episode or dreading it more than life itself.  However, the question you have to ask yourself is, why are you already listening to it?

- This week I will be recording two or three new podcasts.  One is with my friend Andrew Hage where we will be discussing the current New York technology scene as detailed in New York Magazine.  The second should be with the lead singer of Tony Castles, Paul Sicilian, and that will be completely devoted to the NBA.  The third will be with a friend of mine, Jenna Morse, and we will be discussing film in general as well as a film she recently finished.

- Tonight, I am going to start on the recent Pultizer Prize winning novel, Tinkers by Paul Harding, who studied at the New York State Summer Writer's Institute at Skidmore College - as did I. You can read an interview with Mr. Harding here or a New York Times article about him, here. I sent him an e-mail to congratulate him on his success - I'll let you know if I hear back.

- On Saturday, I spent the day wandering around in Cobble Hill.  Fantastic neighborhood.  You should really just go there when the weather is nice. At night, I got a chance to eat at the restaurant Prime Meats, which was pretty damn good and gave me a bit of a food hangover because I ate so  much.  Being there also caused me to miss my coverage of Game 4 of the Thunder/Lakers series, which brings me to..

- The NBA.  What can I say? Many of the first round series are not as close as one would have hoped. It looks like the Spurs and Jazz may run away with their respective series and it seems like the Cavaliers will dispatch of the Bulls tomorrow night.  However, a few points:

1. Lebron did have a terrific game on Sunday.  That three pointer he casually made from just inside halfcourt was pretty special.  It looked just like a regular jump shot. Lebron gained my respect on Sunday because for the first time in his career, he looked less like a little kid and more like someone who really cared about winning a championship. Don't get me wrong, infectious joy is terrific, but it usually doesn't make you a champion.  Joy only takes you halfway there.

2.  A man that has already been there is Dwyane Wade and he showed why on Sunday. Wade submitted one of the top "take over the game" performances in NBA Playoff history.  After the Heat blew a 21 point lead the let the Celtics take a six point lead going into the fourth quarter, Wade single handedly delayed Miami's elimination by scoring 20 points in the fourth quarter and 46 points for the game.  He paired that with 5 rebounds and 5 assists.  Wade was 5 of 7 from three point range and just reminded everyone why he is so dangerous.  Wade is averaging 30 points for the series and shooting over 50% and they are down 3-1 to the Celtics.  If you give Wade one other competent player, and if he puts up the same numbers that he is right now, the Heat are sweeping any team they play. I stand by that. People love to talk about Lebron, but Wade already won a title.  When you play with bad teams, it is easy for the public to forget.

3. Lakers/Thunder.  The Thunder absolutely stomped on the Lakers on Saturday night.  What interests me is the fact that the Lakers have not outrightly beat the Thunder in any game so far in the series, wheras the Thunder beat the Lakers on Saturday night.  We'll see how Kobe is going to rally his team for Game 5 in L.A. tomorrow night.  No one on Los Angeles can cover Westbrook and as much as this series will rest in Kevin Durant's capable hands, so much of it will come down to Westbrook.  If the Thunder let Westbrook control the game for them, then they can definitely beat the Lakers.  This series is starting to have a Golden State Warriors vs. Dallas Mavericks feel from 2007. That is what I expected and if Oklahoma City pulls out the win tomorrow night, then things will get very interesting.


Ok, that is the roundup for today. Stick with me this week as I have tons of stuff to throw your way.


Now, the next installment of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt. This is the last installment from Section Two of Part Two of the novel.  After this section, we move on to the perspective of two grave diggers at the funeral of Rose O'Donnell, the matriarch of the family.  However, enjoy this installment you are about to read:





High towered signs for Best Buy and Home Depot passed by Mr. Kosciuzko’s window.  Through the highway trees, Peter could see the humble and blue sided homes of the town of Centerreach with their chain linked fences.  They were nothing like the homes from the Three Villages.  Their town had remained snug and sheltered from the influence of strip malls and hastily built homes.  Their town progenated an old Long Island – fishing villages, established families of many generations with homes on bluffs and colonial sign posts, horse farms and the stink of salt.  It was a place where a family like the O’Donnells could exist.  Peter wondered if there were still many places like it in America.  Maybe that was what this generation saw around them.  There was no orange tinted America left for these kids, there were only the rapid flashing images of the world – dead bodies in Iraq, grim Muslims in Afghanistan, the gleam of Japan, and the red shroud of China.  And why would you want to stop to create a family in that world of possibility and death?  Mr. Kosciuzko looked in the rearview mirror at Ben O’Donnell and his poised jaw.  Why would you risk loving someone to see them die, to engage in these ageless rituals of burial and mourning? 

Peter felt his heart throb or skip a beat.  This sensation with the sun shining and the passing of trees and homes in the heat made him feel as though he were on to some great truth.  If only he could stop the car to write it down.  These kids were smart, they knew the risks of love and death.  Mr. Kosciuzko thought of the funerals of his mother and father.  His father had died when Chris was a baby, so he did not have to explain it to him, did not have to explain that “Grampa was dead.”  Peter could still wallow in his grief then, in the fact that his father had died and that he was now the patriach of his family.  That thought was a burden - something he did not want then, but a role he had since, he felt, grown into.  The thought that there would be no more consults for advice about being a husband, no more phone calls asking his father about his knee or his golf game.  He’d cradled his father’s sapphire tie pin when they lowered the coffin – his mother crying on his shoulder.  Then his mother too had passed.  Chis was ten or so and Sonya had been five or six.  It was harder then to explain that they would not be going to grandma’s to sleep over anymore, that grandma wouldn’t be making them a little blanket nest of the floor of her bedroom for them to sleep on so they wouldn’t be scared. 

Mr. Kosciuzko sighed.  He put his right signal on, turned his head back to check his blind spot and merged lanes. He itched his right armpit.  You missed the people you loved terribly – there was no escaping that.  When the children were little and Peter’s parents would come to visit, Chris and Sonya would grab onto their grandparents’ legs when it was time for them to leave.  It was that same sensation that lived in and was shared by all people – the desire to hold on, to not let someone go.  Because it wasn’t the phantoms in horror stories with red faces and claws that were scary, it was the real live ghosts of someone who was there and not there – that was the fear you truly felt.

The divider rolled down and Ben O’Donnell put his head up to the space.

“Hey, Pete,” he said softly.

“How’re you holding up, Ben?” Mr. Kosciuzko asked.

“Oh, we’re just fine back here. Fine. Smooth ride.”

“I’m glad.”

“Would you mind turning the air up a bit?”

“No problem at all. Thanks for asking.”

Ben O’Donnell nodded.  He reached his hand through the space.

“Sorry about keeping this thing up.” He paused. “It just feels right.”

Peter was moved by the sentiment.  Ben O’Donnell was a good man.

“Of course. By all means. I get it all the time.”

Ben  O’Donnell laughed softly.   He patted Mr. Kosciuzko with his fingertips and rolled the divider back up. Signs for the L.I.E. appeared on the right.  Ben O’Donnell was a good man.  Mr. Kosciuzko remembered how Ben had held himself with dignity when his son Tom had tried to drown himself in the creek by the train tracks.  He showed no sorrow, but never seemed hard.  Everyone expected Ben to turn back to his drinking then, but he surprised them all.  Ben had stayed away from the bars once Rose made him quick drinking.  However, he had come into the Country Corner after it happened.  He ordered a club soda.  He had come in “just to get a breath of fresh air.”  And he sipped at the club soda and looked at the NBA highlights on the TV. To lose a child would be the ultimate loneliness.  Mr. Kosciuzko could barely wrap his mind around the thought.  He wondered what terror or loneliness Tom O’Donnell had felt to throw himself into the frozen creek to die.  What question was he looking to answer?  What question had he failed to answer?

Mr. Kosciuzko merged onto the access road for the L.I.E.  He passed Pete’s nursery on the right.  He signalled left and merged onto the interstate.  You had to forgive your children.  He knew that he would eventually forgive  Sonya for what she had done; for all she had done.  For maybe she did understand the importance of moving through life and loving.  Maybe she had loved Lee and the fact that she had gotten pregnant was just bad timing – she wasn’t ready to take that risk, to put her stakes down with him.  But if she moved to San Francisco to live, wasn’t that love?  And if it was, then how could you turn your back on it?  When was true love supposed to occur? How could you give it a sell by date?  Maybe that was what the youth were victims of.  An internet that let you Google, “When am I supposed to fall in love?”

Peter pushed the gas and moved into the left lane heading east.  He passed a truck.  He wished he could tell it all in a story.  Why it was important to love and to risk it all by having a family and investing yourself in another person. Mr. Kosciuzko thought himself a smart man, maybe as smart as Sonya or Maggie O’Donnell, and had bought into love.  He remembered seeing Ellen on their first date.  They had gone to one of the college bars in Oneonta. It was called the Rat.  He’d been nervous to ask her out for months in their European History class, but he had to do it.  Then she showed up at the bar, wearing a red blouse that made her skin especially tan and the freckles on her face seem so – impossible.  He had to excuse himself to vomit in the bathroom.  After he frantically chewed gum, he went back out and asked if he could kiss her. It was the boldest thing he had perhaps done in his entire life  before or since.  And she obliged.  It was over then.

Mr.  Kosciuzko accelerated eastward into the sun.  That was what life was for, he felt it strongly. It was love, it was family.  If you weren’t tugged in a million directions by people you loved, then you weren’t experiencing life.  He knew the universe was made of light and love; books had taught him that much and he felt that much.  Highway trees and exit signs flew past.  He felt, too, that Ben O’Donnell believed the same thing deeply.  That was what they shared, or what Peter felt they shared when he saw Ben’s jaw working and the character behind it.  Their children would learn someday.  All children would learn someday.  Although he’d been a teacher, he could not teach that.  Mr. Kosciuzko gripped the steering wheel tight and looked at another car he passed – a Subaru.  Perhaps he had been a failure.  He’d underachieved and been prone to inaction.  But he’d loved and tried his best to be loved.  He’d fished with his father and made love to his wife, he’d bathed his children and drunken a beer.  Peter felt his heart flutter in the glare of the sun.  It was like white flowers and the pull of an eloquent sentence.  He pitied and envied the O’Donnells.  All he could do was to put his foot on the gas.  If only he could write it all down in a story – to put word to it all.  But he couldn’t pull over now.  He had to bring the O’Donnells to their funeral.

Podcast of Myself Episode 4

This is the fourth episode of the Puddles of Myself podcast aka Podcast of Myself.  In this episode, I welcome a long-time friend and creative soundboard, the artist Janelle Sing.  In our conversation, Janelle and I bounce around topics such as Mrs. Krinsky's 2000-2001 first period English class,  the new Gorillaz album, the 12 paintings in 12 hours excercise, the importance of painting technique, her collaborations and current projects as well as the music of Beiruit.  Wait until next time when we touch on Gilmore Girls.

This One's On Me

After a series of podcasts and two more polished posts yesterday, I want to do a bit of a mixture of comments and thoughts, some links and then a  little more of From Here to the Last Mound of Dirt, which is currently being pitched to literary agents around New York City - we will see if anyone bites. Now to the random assorted thoughts:

- The picture above is courtesy of the blog jonberrydesign. This guy has a pretty entertaining blog with some good photo documentation of his life.  And I mean, that picture - you don't get any more ridiculous than that.

- As if you couldn't tell, I loved the Allen Iverson documentary No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson that aired last night on ESPN as part of the 30 for 30 documentary series.  I thought it was just absolutely perfectly done and was riveted for the entire sixty plus minutes.  To hear some insight on the making of the documentary, you can hear a podcast that Bill Simmons conducted with the director, Steve James at his website.

- While you are there, also listen to Bill's podcast with TV critic Tim Goodman from the San Francisco Chronicle.  Bill and Tim breakdown Conan's decision to choose TBS as his home over potential suitors in FOX and FX.  There are some really insightful comments to listen to. Its the second best podcast on the internet after Podcast of Myself.

- Going back to No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, I have been getting some positive feedback on the post and I just want to thank those of you who have sent your comments. Especially Adam Kalker who sent me a Facebook message out of the blue when he found the write-up via a Google search.  Its good to get that kind of news, so thanks again, Adam.

- Tomorrow the next episode of Podcast of Myself will be going up and it is a discussion with my friend and artist Janelle Sing. On the podcast, Janelle mentions a few websites that you may want to check out, so I am going to plug them here.  The first is her colleague and collaborator Andrew McNay who I have had the pleasure of meeting once or twice.  He also has another website that you can view here. The second reference that she makes is to Poppies and Posies, which is an event planning enterprise she recently did some work with, which we discuss on the podcast. So take a look at a few of these things and then take a listen to the podcast once it is up tomorrow.

- During my podcast with Janelle Sing, I left out a discussion that we were having prior to the actual recording and I want to connect that to my post on Joanna Newsom and She and Him from yesterday.  Now, prepare to indulge me here.  Janelle and I had been discussing the state of an "independant woman" in today's world and when a girl/woman is indeed an "independant woman."  Now, I am no feminist scholar and I have always been attracted to women who are strong and independant, but that term seems to have become lost recently.  When I say lost, I mean lost in the following way: Take the Joanna Newsom song "Good Intentions Paving Company".  That song ends with the following line "when I only want for you to pull over and hold me until I can't remember my own name." Now, of course, Newsom is a recording artist and she may be inhabiting different characters and speakers when she sings, but if we are to take the lyrics on face value, then it would see odd that a woman who I find to be bold, intelligent and in every way independent (though, of course I don't know her personally) is espousing losing herself in another identity. If you follow the narrative of the song, this identity is a man, which strikes one as absolutely dependent.  The point is this, that in the past 20 years or so, the idea of an independent woman has become such a commodity, a good to be stocked up, a badge to wear (Destiny Child, Beyonce, etc.) that is has lost the original ability to encapsulate a tender moment that all people share - a moment of true interaction, love, a moment of rest and solace with another person.  It is OK to lose yourself with someone else that you feel love for or are in love with and in doing so, you will not lose your independent woman badge. All you have to do is retain that terrific intelligence, boldness and passionate nature that so many independent women have.  I'd like to think that those items are beyond becoming commodities, but then again, no sentiment, idea or theme truly is beyond objectification.  In any event, that is a muddled thought for someone to get angry at or agree with.

- Sticking on the topic of podcasts, if you don't watch the Ricky Gervais Show on HBO, which is essentially an animation of his extremely popular podcast with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington, you should really try to locate an HBO distributor and watch some of the episodes or track down the podcasts.  The most recent episode where Stephen and Ricky read out of Karl's diary is absolutely terrific.  They even make mention of a classic literary figure that gets overlooked (except in Joyce) Samuel Pepys.

- Baseball season has started.  Yankees vs. Phillies World Series rematch is imminent. Who is going to beat either of them honestly?

- Finally, the NBA playoffs start this Sunday.  I am going to try to give a comprehensive rundown and some picks either by Sunday or soon after before the series really start to dig in and take shape.  However, my initial impressions are that the Celtics look terrible; the Thunder are going to give the Lakers more of a run than people are letting on; Orlando may just upset Cleveland again because the offseason speculation is going to build and build to a fever pitch as the playoffs go on; the Spurs and Mavericks are poised to make a run with the Mavericks possibly coming out of the West. The Lakers may pull it all together, but they are going to have a tougher run this year than the past two years.  Every series is going to be entertaining as hell, though.  Watch it.

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

The traffic slowed up again at the turning light onto Nicolls Road.  Mr Kosciuzko looked at the Domino’s Pizza out of his window.  He focused on the logo and realized that it had been changed to Papa John’s – he’d passed it so many times. He leaned back in his driver’s seat and pushed his cap up as they idled. He caught Maggie O’Donnell’s red hair once more, it was almost unavoidable, just as was thinking of his daughter.  The fact that they did not speak, did not stop him from thinking of her. 
He rememered the phone call. She called him in the middle of the night.

“Dad?”

“What’s up, honey?” He pictured her in some sparsely furnished San Franciscan apartment with a red spiral staircase.

“I’m at the train station.”

“Where? Stony Brook?”

“No, Dad. Here.”

“What’re you doing there?” He’d felt the dryness of his throat.  He padded to get a drink of water.

“I don’t really know, Dad.”

The electric green light on the stove shone 2:14.  That meant 11:14 there.

“Are you alright?”

“I think so,” she’d sounded tired. He heard the station noise behind.  The sound of people talking in a large room with a high ceiling.  The sound of ongoing sound.

    “You sound tired.”

    “Dad.”

    “Is Lee alright?” He held a glass under the faucet.  It had nutcrackers on it.  Ellen brought them out when the weather turned and the holidays approached.

    “That’s the first time you’ve asked that,” she’d sounded impressed.

    He took a drink and pressed his hand on the counter.  His feet were cold.

    “Well, you don’t call me at two that often.”

    “I’m pregnant, Dad.”

    Peter cradled his glass against the armpit seam of his t-shirt.  He hadn’t known how to react.  He looked at his water in the dark.  He felt a great joy fill him – the same joy he felt when reading an eloquent sentence or seeing white blossoms on a tree in mid-April.  It was the feeling he had always though of as the melancholy of creation.  That same feeling Little Chandler had considered the melancholy of the poet’s soul or the artist’s soul as they stood before the easel or page.  He himself had never created anything but his children and he had not felt a melancholy at those moments – it was more duty and the heat of his loins.  But then, maybe the creation of a child was a prolonged melancholy – a melancholy of creation and of life.  Perhaps the throbbing he felt with the blossoms, the refined language and his children were all in fact that melancholy that is life.  Peter had sipped his water. He felt the moment he was in fill around him – his wife’s choice of glassware, the small window above the sink, the  draft on his feet.  He remembered to speak.

    “Oh, honey.”

    “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m going to take care of it.” Her voice had an edge.  She was attempting to assume responsibility, but it didn’t fit.

    “What does that mean?”

    “Dad.”

    “Does Lee know?”

    She was quiet and the noise of the station returned to fill the space. “Now you’re so interested in Lee.”

    The wind rattled the windows.  He’d heard the sound of branches brushing each other.  The last remaining wind chimes struck and sounded like a ghost.  He walked away from the window.

    “Honey, I can’t say I approve of this.”

    More station noise had filled the receiver; he thought he heard a woman announce a train going to Los Angeles.

    “I can’t stay here. I can’t have this.”

    “Why? Why can’t you?” He sat on the floor with the glass of water between his legs.  It hurt his knees and his lower back to sit on the floor.

    “Because I’ve got to go. This is who I am.  My train is here."

    “Sonya,” no response. “Sonya.”

    Mr. Kosciuzko picked up speed as the light showed a left turn signal.  He followed the slow sloping turns of the drivers ahead of him as they merged onto Nicolls Road under the train trestle and past the North Entrance to the university.  There were white flowers spelling out “SBU” by the North Entrance sign.   Peter pushed the limo up to sixty.  He imagined his daughter driving from the cornfields of Iowa across the Missippi, through the long blue grass of Kentucky and the mountains of Virginia before she landed snug in the nation’s capital.  She was like one of those wandering men from Old America, from the Depression or earlier, that he’d admired in old movies.  He imagined her, with her brown hair in a bun with hairpins, innocent, and a satchel over her shoulder. The difference was that she was his daughter and she wasn’t innocent and he didn’t want her to wander.  She had to wander and that was what he had wanted to encourage in her, albeit simply intellectually.  She wandered in her action and her decision and Mr. Kosciuzko saw that as a fundamental reaction to her pregnancy.  Sonya had loved Lee – maybe – but when she knew the child was inside of her, instead of life she saw the nails being driven in, the force of circumstance and responsibility.

Peter pushed the limo through stoplights until it reached the intersection of Nicolls Road and Nesconset Highway.  The trees on the side of the highway were still lush wth their deep summer green and Mr. Kosciuzko’s back felt hot.  He adjusted the air conditioning.  Sonya was like the rest of the kids of this new generation.  She was intelligent like Maggie O’Donnell sitting behind him.  Sonya was full of the same ambition too.  She wanted the entire experience of the world and had enough education to have a tangible view of the earth and history – the sphere of the plane graspable in ones hands, so that if you squeezed hard enough, the ruins of Rome, the pyramids of Egypt, the secrets of Confucius and Christ, the prehistoric mystery of a morning haze would all come bursting out, like the nectar of a fruit; they could drink it all.  However, it did not always work that way – more often than not, it was you that was gripped and compressed to the breaking point.  There were governments and taxes, financial institutions with mortgages giving you a way to buy a home and build a dream, but making you a servant to payments towards established orders.  The dreams of being a philosopher or musician died with the grocery bills and a leak from the upstairs bathroom.  He thought of Sonya coming home to her apartment after a day of work. What kind of kitchen table did she have? Did she have one? And if so, what bills lay waiting for her there?  Would these children know the value of something simple to get them past the vicegrip, the mess of their nectar?  Would they know the pleasure of a cold beer and the feel of finished wood on their forearms and wrists?  The stupid things that had shape and were real and not made out of the stars and spirals of imagination and ambition?

O, the Wind and Rain

I found myself thinking about the Garcia and Grisman song "Dreadful Wind and Rain" today.  It was definitely a crappy day, but as I trudged home from work burning the 8:00 PM oil, and let the snow pelt down onto my hair and into my eyes, I felt a certain refreshment in the walk.  My boots held strong and didn't slip in the slush at all.  And maybe it is the intensity of my days, but walking in the cold and the snow eases my soul. Perhaps it is just that vision of an object, something white and small and fragile, falling gently through the air, that moves me or causes a stillness in my soul - because you don't often just get to see that.  Maybe that's what Joyce was talking about in "The Dead."

Nah, couldn't be.

Anyway, after that devastating Walkmen post, its time to just mention a few points of interest for all ye faithful that follow mine blog.

First, I would like to share a bit of just absolute genius with you.  This comes from a news story about NBA Star, Caron Butler recently of the Dallas Mavericks - and recently of my NBA Trade Deadline Breakdown - and how the NBA has banned him from chewing straws during games, a hobby he has done for years.  Later in the story, it is revealed that another habit of Caron's was outlawed.  Just read:

In summer 2009, Butler blogged on NBA.com that he had lost 11 pounds just by giving up his daily "addiction" of drinking at least six 12-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew.

"I was going through withdrawals," Butler said on NBA.com. "... Honestly, those first two weeks without the Dew [were] the roughest two weeks of my life. I'm talking headaches, sweats and everything."

Butler said he used to drink the caffeinated soda before Wizards practice and would "knock back two" before games.

Genius.  Just absolute pure genius.

Continuing on the NBA path, if you haven't read the past two Bill Simmons columns, then you really should. He just has his finger on the NBA pulse and provides insights into the league and its players and innerworkings that can only be found on this blog otherwise.  No, you didn't buy that?  Ok, its true he is the best NBA writer out there.  You can read his Trade Value Column or his NBA Quick Fix Column.


In other links, my friend Janelle Sing reminded me of the website of a former classmate of ours in high school.   His name is Brett Jutkiewicz and he has plenty of terrific shorts and features on this website to keep you entertained for hours.  I hadn't seen him in years until this past summer when I ran into him during a pickup basketball game at the gym in that Catholic school on North 7th between Driggs and Bedford. Who knew?

Anyway, coming up we will have more about that theme of history and taking one's place in it yet remaning fluid and not static.  How sports fits in to all that is the challenge I will have to think up.  There is something that ties Joyce and Peyton Manning together, you better believe me.  We'll also have some good book talk.  I've been focusing on my Thomas Wolfe to provide a now honest opinion of a writer I once blindly admired.  I'll write something good.  Of course as basketball season moves closer and closer to the playoffs I will keep you on the edge of your seat especially when Wade comes to the Garden in April and I have less than front row seats, but the advantage of a notebook.

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



Liza stood up and flattened her skirt against her thighs, the fabric felt soft and cool.  She listened to her shoes as they pushed the carpet on the way to the kneeler.  She reached it and knelt.  When she looked up at the coffin, she first felt nothing.  Liza groped within herself to try and connect the finished wood and gold she saw in front of her, with the final resting place of her mother.  She closed her eyes and pressed her lips close to her pressed knuckles.  The touch made her smile reflexively.  It just looks like a big bed.  An uncomfortable bed, too.  I wouldn’t want to be put into one of those.  But would I want them to burn me?  This is my mother!  Her mind soon turned to thoughts of beds, of James’ big bed with the black blanket and white sheets, to Maggie’s bed that still had that blue and brown patchwork quilt, to her own bed with the white and fluffy douvet, and the pink striped sheets.  But then, her mind led her to Christmas morning.  She was only seven and with the shape of 6:57 from the clock beside her bed behind her she’d moved into the hallway.  Her small feet had padded on the carpet, down the hall to her parents’ room.  She reached up and pulled down the curved handle and the white door swung open to darkness.  At first she saw the red numbers in the darkness of her parents’ room. 6:56.  Then, she felt the first tinge of coldness in her little feet. “I used to carry you around in my pocket. Did you know that?”  That’s what he used to say to me and then mom would just nod at him and smile.  Nod and smile. I feel like much of a girl’s life is spent nodding and smiling.  And is that right or wrong? Even though her feet were cold, her cotton pajama leggings - with Disney figures embroidered in them - kept her warm.  There was The Little Mermaid on her thin thigh, Princess Jasmine on her undefined calf, and Minnie Mouse pointing toward her ankle.  She padded onward toward the dark, soft, square mass that stood outlined in the room. 6:57.  When she was close enough, she slowed her movement and lifted her right, leg onto the bed.  The quilt was soft and cool with air.  She shook this off and raised her other leg up.  She made sure that every move was light.  It made her almost giggle aloud when she heard her father’s snort from further ahead.  There was a tightness to the quilt right by where his feet were.  She could make out their shape; she even touched one, curious if there would be a reaction.  One foot flinched.  The valley between her mother’s form and her father’s form was open.  She lay down in it, listening to the sounds of her parents sleeping.  As she looked up, she saw the darkness turn to ceiling – the off-white color she knew when she’d run in and jump on the bed after school.  The light slowly showed its true color.  All the dark forms of objects she knew were becoming grey, if only in slow progressions of shade.  She couldn’t lay in the valley any longer.  She turned toward her father first and jumped on his shoulder.

“MARY CHRISTMAS!”

He didn’t budge and the room’s grey became a dull orange of the morning.  She heard her mother stir and mumble.  But, then, it was her father who she wanted to wake.  So she redoubled her efforts, propelling and sprawling herself gently across her father’s shoulder like children often do.  His shoulder gave slightly and she could feel its softness.  It seemed, to her, that with each shove she gave her father, each press of the matress, a sort of smell was released out into the room.  The first description would have been stinky, then perhaps stale, but that morning, as she lay and smelt her father’s arm while he woke, she realized that that smell was what she smelled like.  Liza was dismayed, slightly, because a little girl didn’t smell like what her father smelled like: sweat, sleep, laundry, whiskers, his nose.  Little girls were supposed to smell like soap and small touches of their mother’s hug and perfume.  However she was proud of it, because if she smelled like her father, then James smelled like him too, Tom, Maggie, and even her mother – maybe that was the smell of them all, the smell of their home.

Liza opened her eyes.  She had been pulled so far away from the moment.  However, the coffin was sitting exactly where it had been.  That wasn’t even praying, what I was doing.  Those were just memories coming back to me.  Its amazing how I can put memories onto that coffin, onto what is and is not my mother and make them part of me in a way.  Liza readjusted herself on the kneeler and closed her eyes.  She set herself to pray in the way she’d been taught in religion class.  Dear Lord, please take care of my mother as you bring her into this new world she is about to enter.  Please let my father get over this loss easily and also Maggie, James and Tom.  Eve too.  I don’t know how we are going to do it, but we need to try.  I know I can say it better than this, Lord, but I’m sure you understand how tired my brain is.  Liza couldn’t help but open her eyes.  She looked at the coffin again.  Her mind was wandering. Kneeling and praying were not going to help her, she couldn’t formulate a prayer.  I’m sorry, Lord.  I just want to lay between the valley of my mother and father.  She felt stale and she made the sign of the cross.  As she rose, she flattened her skirt against her legs once more.  She hoped that the touch, the smoothness of the fabric would bring her goosebumps, that it would make her feel something important – or at least make her feel alright.  However, she felt nothing.  She bowed her head and clasped her hands as she sat.

Maggie wasn’t sure what to make of her sister.  Watching her rise and sit, it had immediately struck her that Liza was depressed and taking their mother’s death harder than she’d let on.  Maggie’s vision lingered on Liza’s meek and uncomfortable form.  It didn’t surprise her that Liza might take their mother’s death the hardest. She had been the youngest and the last one in the house – the only one of the children who had not been given the chance to see themselves in a relative distance from their parents and also their home.  She couldn’t be sure, and that also upset Maggie, because it had occurred to her the night before that she didn’t know her sister at all and that she had no way of being able to read her.  Maggie had always taken pride in her perception of people’s demeanors and moods – she felt it enhanced her ability to take a good photo.  However, looking at Liza smooth her skirt once more, she felt that she may have neglected her sister – and perhaps her whole family – for too long.  There was a nervous flutter in her stomach and an image of her quiet apartment appeared before her.  One of her sandals rested under the coffee table, her boots lay on their sides by the door.  A sundress of hers was draped on the couch.  Three stainless steel pans were stacked next to the sink, only the top one was clean.  There was no one there to help her clean.  She could not smell Irish Spring soap.

Grateful Deadline

If there are two things that I love, they are Jam Jerry and the Grateful Dead and the NBA.  So, of course I enjoyed this last week of NBA trade speculation.  How do the Grateful Dead fit in you might ask? I was listening to a lot of From the Mars Hotel the past week - especially album closer, "Ship of Fools."

As far as the trades go, there were a few big ones.  The most notable perhaps being Antawan Jamison going to the Cleveland Cavaliers. There was a lot of speculation that Amar'e Stoudemire was going to be traded from the Suns to the Cavs in an attempt to keep Lebron in Cleveland past this upcoming summer, however that did not pan out.  In the end, it was decided that Antawn would be a better fit for Cleveland and I have to agree with this decision.  Antawan will stretch defenses with his outside shooting, whereas Amar'e would only pack them further in.  This will play well with Lebron's ability to penetrate and kick.  Also, Antawan is a much better defender than Amar'e.  He may be older (33? Wasn't it 1998 just yesterday?), but he has consistently put up 18-20 points per game over his entire career and pulled in about 8 rebounds per game.  Of course, I've been a huge fan of Antawan's since he was a UNC boy.  He was an All-American low post player when he was at UNC, but developed an extremely effective outside game since moving to the pros.  Unfortunately, he has played on many mediocre teams throughout his career and was involved with the underachieving disaster that were the Washington Wizards - now a crazy amalgamation of bench players, Josh Howard, Al Thornton, and a bunch of free salary space.  I'm not a big fan of the Cavaliers and I always have to reluctantly admit to Lebron's transcendance since I am firmly entrenched in the Dwyane Wade camp - better overall player, better competitor, better crunch-time player - but with the addition of Jamison, they become a much more likeable team to me and I believe they do have what it takes to handle the Lakers.  They can easily stick Antawan on Odom if they meet the Lakers in the Finals.  He can also provide some help defense on Gasol and will give Artest trouble if the Lakers try to stick him on Antawan.  It was a savvy pickup.

Other trades included the Mavericks picking up Caron Butler and Brendan  Haywood from the Wizards in exchange for Josh Howard and Drew Gooden (O, lost days of Kansas!) and some other irrelevant trade pieces.  This move makes Dallas significantly better.  Butler gives them all the tools that Josh Howard did with less of Howard's lackadasical tendencies (aka not showing up).  Haywood is another UNC product who provides the Mavericks with an improvement to their interior defense and also helps their rebounding numbers and can give around 10 points a game.  The Mavericks may not be able to overtake the Lakers and may still have trouble finding a way to stop Carmelo if they meet the Nuggets in the playoffs, but they have enough pieces in place now to make a run and to hang tight in a series - and that is all you really need as the Mavs found out in the 2006 Finals when they lost to the Heat (OK, there may have been some questionable officiating and lucky breaks thrown in that equation as well).

The fraud known as Tracy McGrady ended up on the Knicks and looked good in his debut.  It remains to be seen if the Knicks will keep him and his huge contract on the roster into the summer. They picked up McGrady in order to dump his salary in an attempt to lure Lebron and another top notch free agent this summer.  I hope they dump McGrady and let him scratch his way onto another team.  The way he quit on Houston last year with his decision to have surgery was inexcusable.  He has been an overrated player for most of his career (maybe not 2000?) and never delivered anything when it mattered.  I never usually sound off about NBA players, but McGrady deserves it.

The other big trade was the Kings sending Kevin Martin (terrific two guard scorer in the mold of Reggie Miller and Rip Hamilton) to Houston in exchange for Carl Landry (a shame they had to let him go, because I liked him on that front line with Scola, those guys were tough, young and hustled) and a few other pieces.  This was a necessary trade for Houston because they needed to pick up scoring and Martin will certainly add that, and it takes pressure off of Aaron Brooks to score and allows him to focus more on distributing the ball from the point.  I don't know if they have enough left to make a push for the playoffs this year because the West is seriously deep (Jazz getting hot, the Thunder just continuing to surprise with how good they and their high level of team chemistry for being so young), however, if they draft smart and get a healthy Yao back next year, they may be able to make some noise as a higher seed.

In sadder news, the Celtics (I don't know why I've gotten so attached to the Celtics in recent years, I think it stems for my love of Kevin Garnett and watching him in his 2003-2004 MVP season playing against the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals when I was the last one left in my dorm.  Everyone had left me all their remaining beer, which added up to about 70-80 beers, so I polished them off the entire week watching basketball and listening to the Beach Boys, namely Friends and Sunflower. I sang very loudly out my windows and enjoyed the sunshine coming in.  My friend Miles even stopped by on one of the last nights - his mom had a family friend in town and they had stopped over there for a few nights on the way out of town - and we drank beer and whiskey and had a walking adventure around the back roads of Saratoga Springs) gave up Eddie House and some bench players to pick up Nate Robinson.  This trade is basically a wash and doesn't achieve anything for a Celtics team that seems to be floundering in a precarious position since the guards are changing on the team.  Rondo is clearly their best player and one of my top ten favorite players to watch and yet he doesn't have the crunch-time chops yet and still feels the need to defer to Pierce, Allen and Garnett more than he should.  He is developing a devastating behind the back fake and some of his curling layups are just absurd.  Once he can make foul shots and never miss his tear drop in the lane, he will be as close to unstoppable as any other point guard - namely, Chris Paul.  However, there is an awkward shifting of the team focus on the Celtics and I don't see them organizing it at any time soon.  I may be wrong and maybe the team roles and identities will fall  into place, but as for now, there is a cause to be concerned if you wish the Celtics the best - and I do.

This bit about the Celtics has me thinking about something I touched on in my recap of the Super Bowl - its the accepting or grasping of one's role and one's part in history that is so prevalant and essential in sports - although, it is essential in art and nearly everything else as well.  I don't know if I have the time at the moment to correctly articulate it and I think it would be better suited to an entire separate post.  There have been plenty of examples of it in contemporary sports, the rise of Lebron and the rest of the 2003 draft class, this 2009-2010 Celtics team,  Federer's dominance in tennis and the inability of any of his peers to try and rise to the opportunities that sport and history have given them to try and etch their name in stone and of course Peyton Manning and his recent defeat in the Super Bowl.  This is all tied into something greater about how we interact with time and what history means in order to reach our potential and to prolong our respective creativities and ability to give to the world and make the most of the materials we are given to work with.  I think I'll let you figure out where I am going to go with this and meanwhile formulate a more polished column to describe it to you all.

In new related to this blog, I want to point out some new additions to my links.  These are part of some Brown University graduate acquaintances I have picked up from my friend Janelle Sing.

The first link is one that I meant to put up a long time ago.  Her friend Phoebe (don't know last name) has a food blog that has generated some steam and even a cookbook deal, it is called Big Girls Small Kitchen. I went to a Chili Throwdown that Phoebe competed in back in November and she placed third from a panel of judges with a damn good chili.  I'd check out the blog/website as it is very helpful even for a dude like me (albeit World's Coolest Dude 2007).

The second link is from a friend of Janelle's I just met named Geddes.  She keeps a blog called Officially an Artist where she posts much of her art work.  She has some great stuff up there including some work that she and Janelle did this past weekend in Providence, which is an excercise called 12 paintings in 12 hours, which is exactly how it sounds.  I believe this is a great excercise, just as Kerouac's bop-prosody and spontaneous were perhaps better as excercises than as a style to build a collection  of work on.  "First thought best thought," as Kerouac said, is admirable, but not necesarrily successful when it comes to art.  "First though best thought" is important for actualizing work, to making your concepts and ideas hard truths that can then be manipulated and molded into a higher art, the art that steals, and shifts in the shadows of prior and current ideals, and finally transcends to to encompass those values and pillars of life, love and the universe that never go away.  In any event, it is a good excercise to be productive and if you look at the blog, you will see that Geddes is certainly productive.

Ok, that's it for me today.  This week we will have all my history and grasping of the moment ramblings, some gushing for the Walkmen and the continued overall greatness that is Puddles of Myself.

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



Douglas Bryant looked at Ben O’Donnell with his hands around his youngest daughter and that enigma of a son – the one who tried to off himself.  He’d seen him take that drink from his flask.  It took everything in his power not to go over there and scold Ben O’Donnell, even if it was his own wife’s funeral.  However, that’s what made the Bryants who they were – cold composure. Funeral Director Bryant checked his watch.  He’d give the general attendees a few more minutes to pay their respects before he ushered them out and allowed the immediates (Rose’s nuclear family) to pay their respects privately.  Then, when they were ready, even that drunk, they’d have the body transported past the house andthen to the place of rest – which was to be out in Calverton if he was not mistaken.  He didn’t quite understand why they were not going to have the requiem mass as most Catholics did.  Especially when he knew that Rose O’Donnell was a dutiful parishioner at St. James.

Douglas Bryant felt the wall against  his back.  Besides the moistness in his armpits, he was comfortable.  He looked at the O’Donnell family sitting together in the front row.  To him, it was a funny thing to have watched those front rows occupied by so many different families over the years.  There had been families stoic in their grief, others who calmly displayed their sorrow with tasteful tears, and still others who put on displays of distress that bordered on something maudlin.  Days and nights of mourning passed and then, if all concerned parties were lucky, no business or interaction had to be done again.  But the chairs remained sitting there in neat rows, and the platform always stood in the front.  These objects marked the space, cleanly and orderly.  And even with the passing of people in and out of the home, Douglas Bryant remained a fixture for them, for the town.  A person who provided a service of death – or more appropriately, memorial – or more optimistically, of closure.
Funeral Director Bryant took a cloth out from his back pocket and lightly tapped the back of his neck.  He checked his watch again.  He’d give them a  few more minutes.  Douglas surveyed the O’Donnell’s.  He did feel bad for them.  Rose O’Donnell was a kind woman.  It seemed as though she knew everyone in the town.  He could recall many meetings he’s had with her in Stop N’ Shop.  She’d catch him by the melons and ask how business was; how Frank was.  She’d even commend him on how he continued on in a line of work that faced him with such everyday sadness.  And he’d weigh his banannas and thank her for that.

It baffled him that a woman of her caliber could stay married to that full-time drunk, or how a son of Rose O’Donnell could try and drown himself in the St. George Creek.  Or, also, how the eldest, Maggie, could be the spitting image of her mother but be so flamboyant, such a rebel and so uncaring for a stable home life.  He’d seen her accolades in the Herald.  He’d also heard the announcement of her broken engagement.  In so many ways, the O’Donnell family was beyond Douglas Bryant’s understanding.  Especially the fact that they had only attended this final wake and that is was the sister-in-law, Erin, who had made all the arrangements.  Nevertheless, it was time to give them their space, it was time to give them their time.

Tom watched as Mr. Bryant walked up to the kneeler in front of his mother’s body.  He whispered to Mrs. Post who was kneeling with her sons Mike and Bryan.  Mrs. Post stood and fixed her long business skirt.  She ushered the boys along and they followed Mr. Bryant, looking uncomfortable in their blue and silver striped ties.  Tom closed his eyes take and seeee and listened to the sound of people exiting the room.  He heard coughs, shuffling of loafers on carpet, the thump of an odd chair leg or three.  With his eyes closed, Tom felt a growing presence within his stomach.  It was as if something were spreading and beating throughout his whole body.  I feel my heart beat rapidly. I feel it even though I didn’t see her when I walked in.  How could I have really hoped she would come? What is it that happened to us last night?  In that dark, the moistness of her chest skin.  My soul was hot – my soul was –is – a flake.  It wasn’t just his heartbeat, he felt the pumping coming from even the small roll of fat right above his groin.  In the darkness of his eyes, fluorescent squares gave way to shifting and grotesque visions of bodies.  He couldn’t control their ebb and flow.  He saw raw flesh, he saw the stink of carcass and the rise of flies in the air.  The form of the crucifix appeared too, but quickly flew out of the sight of his darkened vision.  Tom took a breath.  I breathe and pass the throbbing from my mouth to the air.  It feels like I am breathing too heavily.  I am strange, aren’t I, doc? With his breathing, came an ease.  He smelt the perfume of the flowers all around the room and, reminding himself that flowers did exist and that they were beautiful and fragrant, felt relaxed.  He opened his eyes and looked at the coffin.  His mother’s nose stuck up in profile.  Nothing in him told him what to do, so he felt the curiosity to look behind him.  Uncle Connor was still standing behind Aunt Erin who remained in her seat in the back; they were the only two left.  Tom bowed his head in the direction of his mother.  Then, he felt his father’s hand on his knee.

“What do you say we pray?”

“Sure, dad.”

“Who first?” his father asked.

I want to be the first one to go up.  I’m the one who killed mom, so that gives me the right.  Who would she’ve wanted to be first?

“Well, I’m the oldest,” Maggie said, “so I might as well…”

“No,” Liza said.  Maggie first looked surprised, but quickly smiled at her sister. “I want to be first.”

Maggie held out her arm towards the coffin.