#if i had a nickel for every time someone assumed my wife and i are sisters

[sparrow-in-the-field]

Not sure if it'll make it in my fic, but I think it'd be funny to have a scene where Don and Bobby are caught being coupley but get away with it because of heteronormativity.

Like maybe they're in Don's room, studying together (not a euphemism, actually studying because they are in college after all), and they're alone and on the small twin bed together, so they might as well cuddle. Don resting against the headboard, Bobby in his arms, his back against his chest. Maybe Don's chin is resting on Bobby's shoulder as they look at the same book, cheeks pressed together.

Then whoever Don's roommate is comes in without knocking first (let's say Chuck for a namesake).

Bobby and Don freeze, staring at him, waiting for the ball to drop, for him to react dramatically.

Maybe Chuck's tired and he just stands there for a moment. "What are you guys doing?" His tone is casual.

A pause.

"Studying?" Bobby tries hesitantly.

"Oh. Yeah, I just came to grab my books actually," Chuck says. They watch as he grabs his bag and leaves the room, no further remarks, completely unfazed.

Bobby looks over his shoulder at Don. They both burst into laughter, Don hugging Bobby closer.

[hops-hunny]

Distance Makes the Heart Grow

CHAPTER 1

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Mafia Boss!Neville Longbottom x Reader

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 1.8k

Summary: (Y/n) lives a normal life. But that’s the issue, it’s normal, it’s plain, and it’s growing boring. Everyday she wishes for something, anything to spice up her life. But, when her old school friend (and crush) shows up at her bakery with a new look (and what looks like a new life), what will it bring for her? Will their puppy love grow? Will his big secret lead to the end of them or will it spark a new beginning?

Warnings: None for this chapter!

A/N: Nothing major happens in this chapter, this is sorta just like the beginning stages.

(Y/n) let out a load groan, hand searching aimlessly for the alarm clock on her side table. “Where is it?!” she continued to slap her hand around on her table, many objects falling to the floor before her hand finally landed on the right one, the rooster noises ceasing as her hand collided with the big snooze button. She rolled over, sighing as she stared at her speckled ceiling. “Perhaps I really should take the time to learn how to use the alarm on my phone.” it wasn’t that she was bad with technology persay. It’s just if it was produced after the year of 2008 you could forget it. Could you really blame her though? During all her years at Hogwarts, she had never made the switch her fellow classmates made with modern technology. Sure she had a smart phone but the only thing she could manage to do with it is call, text, and make notes in the notes app (something she had just recently learned as well).

Unwillingly, she crawled out of bed, stretching as she let out a large yawn, bones snapping and cracking like a New Year’s firework. She made her way to the bathroom, looking into the same mirror she always did, watching the light in the center flicker the same way as always. Life for (Y/n) was seemingly unchanging. Day after day, month after month, was spent exactly the same. She’d wake up, get ready for work, and then travel a few blocks down the street to open the bakery. Her bakery.

It wasn’t that (Y/n) didn’t enjoy what she did. She happened to enjoy her job very much. All her friends at Hogwart’s had encouraged her, giving her the push she need to travel the journey of opening her own business. It was something she had always wanted to do but her parents begged her not to. In their words they didn’t want ‘an over zealous and unrealistic’ daughter on ther hands. However, their rude words simply were fuel to the fire. During her 5th year, she began to busk tables at various shops in Hogsmeade. It was hard work, balancing long shifts at 3 different shops and still maintaining decent scores in each class. But, she knew if she couldn’t handle that then there was no way she’d be able to handle running a bakery. So day in and day out she’d work, and work, and work and by the end of her 7th year she had a decent amount of money saved up! 

The first issue had been finding a place in a good area that would gain traction and attention while the second one was finding someone willing to sell to someone fresh out of school with no prior business experience. She’d spoken to many people in various different places, some good, and some bad before she finally had been blessed with the chance of meeting Mary and her wife Denise. It was a miracle really. (Y/n) was short on the money, exponentially so however, Mary had sold to her anyways. She said she saw a passion in the girl that she hadn’t seen for a very long time and that it was something she wanted to help foster considering she had had her time to live her dreams and explore passions of her own. So with that, a handshape was exchanged for a beat up envolope filled with the entirety of the girl’s life savings. She had invested every nickel and dime she had ever earned into the place and she prayed it wouldn’t blow up in her face.

Which brought her to where she was today: a proud owner of a highly successful business. And of course, with great business comes a nice chunk of money which caught her parents’ attention. They had began to call her everyday but when that they didn’t work, they showed up at her shop unannounced. At first, she had felt warm inside. Her usual cold and distant parents had come to visit her! However, when they started crunching out numbers and percentages, that short lived happiness was replaced by irritation in which she quickly kicked them out, placing a charm on the building that when they’d attempt to enter (if they really, truly, had the balls to come back), their bodies would be flung right back onto the sidewalk into the heaping piles of trash on the city side walks. Now, (Y/n) was by no means wealthy, but she made a nice amount of money to be engaging in something she enjoyed so heavily, which is why she was confused where they had gotten the idea she had money to share with the main two people who were the cause of her insecurities. Plus, every extra dollar she had she put right back into the shop. Paying her workers, building maintenance, ingredients. She wasn’t a fan of having too much money, her family had shown her what that could cause (and how easily you could lose it all). 

Yet still sometimes she found herself wishing she could live the lavish lifestyle her parents once did. She mainly dreamed more so of the more engaging parts instead of the status and power that came with it. As she frosted various different cakes with thick buttercream, her mind would wonder to vivid imagery of beautiful hotel rooms, with breath taking views. Michelin five star meals, coated in delicious cream sauces. Endless adventure waiting to be discovered.

And yet here she was, sitting at a table as she stuffed her face with a raspberry marzipan cupcake. It was a Wednesday, first one of the month and as per usual, her and Twyla were set together, sampling cakes, chocolates, and other treats for the upcoming days. Wednesday had been the official day  they had chosen due to the slowed flow of people that would come in. (Y/n) liked to have a different theme each day of the week. The customers lived for it and she had massed a group of frequenters who came each day, wondering what the theme would be that day.

“You know boss, I’ve gotta say it. Working here and sampling all these cakes with you is giving me quite the ass!” Twyla said, turning around as she wiggled her ass in the girl’s face for emphasis. (Y/n) giggled, rolling her eyes as she swatted at the girl, missing as she jumped away from her last minute. “Hey! You gotta take me out to dinner first for that.”

“Just because we’re sampling cakes doesn’t mean that the store is closed! Anyone could walk in at any moment and would you really want that to be their first experience here?” she asked, eyes scanning the silver platter in front of them. She decided on the new dessert flavored chocolates she had been working on. Popping it into her mouth, she let out a moan of approval.

“I mean, I dont’ see why not! We’d definitely make a lot more money with a cake like mine!” the blue haired girl said, sitting down as she grabbed a chocolate as well. “Besides, I don’t think those little noises you’re making would help the scene.” she stated, snickering as the girl across from her tensed up.

“It-it’s not like that! The chocolate- it just- I just- ugh!” she stuttered out, huffing as she crossed her arms over her chest, pouting at the girl. “If you’re gonna keep being mean we can end this process. Just tell me what you think of the blueberry pie chocolate so I can know if we’re adding it to tomorrow’s spread.”

“Oh come on (Y/n) it’s good! Every first Wednesday we sit here, you overly critique yourself, then me and Tiana end up picking out our favorites for the next day!” Twyla was right, even their patterns for trying new things remained the same. (Y/n) wiped her messy hand on her aprons, sighing as she stood up to go back to her position behind the counter. Her employee followed, grabbing the platter to put back into the kitchen before joining her boss behind the counter.

“You’re right. I swear everyday is beginning to feel the same.” She opened her notepad, beginning to take inventory of the sweets they had in the display counter. “I’m grateful for everything I have, I really am. But sometimes I just wish I could have something, anything���.”

“New?” the green eyed girl added, catching the (h/c) haired girl’s attention. She nodded, looking at the girl who had snuck a cookie out of the glass case. “I feel ya, girl. Everyday feels the same. Sometimes even when new people come in, I can already tell how they’re going to be. How they’ll act, what they’ll order, what method of payment they’ll use.” (Y/n) eyed the girl up, raising a brow.

“Are you sure you’re not just using legilimens?” she questioned, watching as the girl shifted on her feet, scratching the back of her neck.

“Okay so maybe I do sometimes. But a lot of the times I don’t! Like the other day this weird guy came in and- woah. (Y/n) I don’t wanna freak you out but I have a feeling those hotties in suits across the street are going to be walking in here soon.” Twyla said, in an uncharacteristically quiet tone. The shorter girl followed her friend’s gaze, looking out the glass doors across the street. Three unfamiliar men were crossing over, all in suits that she could only assume cost as much as four months of rent. However, the one in the middle really caught her eye.

Before she knew it, the bell chimed and the three of them made their way in. They looked very out of place in the brightly decorated shop. The one in the middle looked the most important, towering over the other two men. He had dark slicked back hair, an eyebrow piercing, and tattoos that were visible on his neck and hands (which had a few beautiful looking rings on them (none of which were a wedding band…)), yet his hazel eyes held a soft look to them. To his left was a redhead boy, freckles danced all along his face. His eyes were bloodshot from god knows what. He had tattoos as well (not as many as the middle man) and a few unique ear piercings. The guy to the hot tall guy’s right was attractive too but not nearly as serious looking as the other two. In fact, he was humming a song under his breath, a smile causing the tattoo on the right side of his face to crease. 

As she went to open her mouth to greet them, the man in the middle eye’s grew wide, his mouth gaping as he stared at her. He walked closer, examining her face closely which caused her to grow confused.

“I’m...I’m sorry. Do I know you?” she asked.

“(Y/n)?” she gasped at the sound of the familiar voice, her notepad and pen dropping from her hands. She made her way around the counter, staring up at the tall man.

“Neville?!”

NEXT||

TAGSLIST: @vayeya11 @pink-hufflepuff @clancyscookies @beewitchedlou @nevillelongbottomsgirlfriend @redpanda-poetry @vibingaesthetically

[slythraco]

Julian Albert - SFW ALPHABET

Author’s note: Took a break in my requests to write this ! Might do the NSFW version if you’d like it ! Let me know if you would like to see this with his other characters too 😉 have fun !

Masterlist

————————

A = Attraction (how do they show their attracted to you?)

Julian is not really the expressive type, always preferred to hide his feelings and emotions behind a wall of coldness and anger. So making you understand he likes you was quite a challenge for him. He started by complimenting you sometimes, which surprised you every time.

He would also help you with your work without you asking, then make it pass like a act of kindness because he’s in his ‘good day’ rather then assuming the real reason.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/why not?)

Yes ! Absolutely, Julian and you always talk about finding a family one day. Even if he’s scared of the idea of being a father, you’re always there to comfort him, knowing he would make an amazing father.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Julian is a sucker for cuddles, he just love feeling your body against his. Every time you’re not far away from each other (and in private) he just feel the need to take you in his arms. So when you’re both at work, he take a break just to meet you at your desk who is literally 2 meters away and give you a good hug before going back.

When you’re home, he loves to sit in bed, his back against the headboard, you between his legs while you read a book together. This position gives him room to kiss your neck and collarbones, but he can also touch your thighs or higher if he doesn’t feel like reading.

D = Dates (What are dates like with them?)

It’s all or nothing, he can either prepare the best night ever, Diner with candles, Sky gazing after a good meal, date in a gastronomic restaurant or just share a glass of whine at his home while dance to random musics. But you like these both ways of doing it. A good moment with Julian is always good to take.

E = Emotions (Do they express their emotions? If so, how?)

It was a big problem in the beginning of your relationship, the fact that he didn’t really open up to you to show his feelings. He was still protecting himself from getting hurt. But once he did it one time, and finally realises that you would never in any circonstances, judge him or leave him for what he truly feels. He became the most expressive person he’s ever been, he tells you everything that’s on his mind and it makes him very happy to have found someone to talk to about what’s going trough his mind. And you’re probably the only person that gets to see him like that.

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love)

One day you got attacked by a meta-human, you got harmed a little bit but it was enough to make Julian scared and start freaking out. That’s when he realised how much he didn’t to lose you and how deeply in love he was.

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

Gentle in his gesture, yes. Gentle in his words, no. Hear me out. Julian is the most attentive person, the last thing he wants is to hurt so when he’s hugging you or kissing you, it’s gentle and full of his love.

But sometimes, when he gets angry or is in a bad mood he can get rude in his words or get violent. Careful, he could never lay a hand on you, he would breaks things around him rather then get physical to you. But yeah, be prepared he can get really rude to you but he will always regret what he said and always excuse himself until you forgive him but he would certainly blame himself for the rest of his life.

H = Hands (Do they hold hands? If so, how?)

Yes, everywhere, Julian is not really into PDA but if there’s one thing to steal from it it’s this. When you’re walking outside, arriving at work, sitting next to each other, he always find a way to grab your hand and it’s honestly, adorable.

I = Impression (What was their first impression of you?)

Being his colleague, Joe had to warned him of your your coming in the office. It kinda bored Julian at first, knowing he’d have to share his lab with another person annoyed him but as soon as he saw you, all his bad thinking flew away.

He found you really nice, intelligent and way more punctual than Allen. And also really beautiful, you blew him away by your intelligence also. He really thought you were too good to be true.

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

Yes, Julian is a really insecure person, he’s always scared of loosing you so when he sees you talking to another men he would almost always ask you about him afterwards.

If the person your talking to gets a little bit too touchy for his taste he would intervene and either call you by your affectionate nickname (my love, my heart, my darling,...) or he would kiss you to make it clear who you belong to.

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who intiated the first kiss?)

His kisses are always gentle and full of love or passionate, he’s mostly the one to kiss you first just because he can’t contain himself when you’re around him. He could spend his whole life kissing your lips.

L = Love language (What are their love languages?)

Gifts, gifts, gifts. He loves to cover you with gifts. He likes to buy you little things that remind him of you. That’s his way of telling you he loves you.

M = Mornings (Are they a morning person? What are they like in the morning?)

It depends, on day work, since Julian is very focused on punctuality he can gets pretty stressful in the morning. Running everywhere to be ready in time, and make sure he tie is perfect.

But I’m off days, he’s the biggest lazy guy in town. Mostly because he loves just to lay in bed and cuddle with you rather then get up and start the day.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil you? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

Like I said before, Julian loves to buy you things so yes he spoils you A LOT ! And when you want him to buy you something, he can’t resist, always wanting to put a smile on your face.

O = Open (Do they say everything about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or overtime?)

Like mention before, It took a while to Julian to finally open up to you but as soon as he feels safe enough, he tells you everything !

P = Patience (Do they have patience? Are they angered easily?)

Julian has zero patience, he gets mad when he doesn’t have what he wants right now. It amuse you sometimes so you tease him with it but it’s is at your own risk.

Q = Quaint (What’s their favorite non modern thing to do?)

Julian as a disc record player in his appartement, he loves to listen to old vinyl with you. You learns to dance a slow with him thanks to it.

R = Remember (What’s their favorite moment in the relationship?)

It’s hard to choose but probably the day you accepted to be his girlfriend, it was such a magical day. He prepared a wonderful date that night, he made a whole delicious meal for you to to share together in his appartement. You slowed dance in his living-room and then his kisses you for the first time before asking you to be his after admitting his feeling to you. You spent the rest of the night cuddling and kissing like teenagers, it really is an amazing memory.

S = Security (How protective are they?)

He globally trust you so he’s not really overly protective, unless you propose you help to the flash team. Even more since you got attacked by a meta not long ago, this is the only time he can get really protective.

Otherwise he’s just normally protective, telling you to be careful when you come back late from work, etc. But it’s always in a cute and loving way never toxic or anything, he just cares about your safety like any boyfriend would.

T = Talking (what do they like to talk about?)

Obviously, sciences and all of that, but he also loves to talk about you, he always want to know more about you, your past, your family. Every little knew information about you makes him really happy.

U = Ugly (Whats a bad habit of theirs?)

Criticising EVERYTHING and everyone. That’s one of us default he always finds someone to say about something (especially Barry Allen), he can be either funny because we all know how sassy Julian is but it can be annoying sometimes.

V = Vaunt (Do they like to show you off?)

Yes ! He’s always so happy to present you as his girlfriend. He’s so proud to have you by his side. The worst thing is when someone goes to him and say ‘No way, you’re really dating Y/N’ with that, you’re stuck with him for an eternity, he will be doomed to hear him boast of having a wife as brilliant as you.

W = Whole (Do they feel incomplete without you?)

Absolutely, Julian would be lost without you. You’re his everything, all he does is to make you happy so yes.

X = Xylophone (What’s a song that reminds of your guy’s relationship?)

Can’t help falling in love - Elvis Presley

You two danced to this song the night he kissed you for the first time.

Y = Yuck (What’s something they hate that you do?)

Teasing him, you love to make him crazy and angry because let’s face it, Julian angry is the sexiest thing ever.

Z = Zzz (Are they a heavy or a light sleeper ?)

Heavy sleeper for sure, when he finally leaves work and get to bed, you never hear about him again before he wakes up the next day.

[thisdayinfavrd]

June 8, 2009

"Why do you need to hold your teddy bear on the subway anyway?" I asked my 4-year-old, as I clutched my iPhone tenderly to my chest.   @adamisacson (Adam Isacson) – 117

15-year-old Jim weeps as 29-year-old Jim stands in the shower with a naked, soapy woman and talks about coding. (Woman weeps too.)   @CcSteff (Stephanie) – 114

You know it's going to be a rough day when you see a unicorn sharpening its horn. And muttering.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 109

Pro Tip: You can free up 9 characters in your tweet by omitting "Pro Tip: ".   @Zaius13 (Damn Dirty Ape) – 82

The way I ate that corn crab soup, I pretty much made it my bisque.   @katefeetie (one katie please) – 79

That donut has as much similarity to a real donut as a handjob does to sex. I'll take it, but with a wistful look on my eye.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 70

Sunday night. Across America, diligent people take a quiet moment to plan for the week ahead.  These people don't have kids. Smug assholes.   @adamisacson (Adam Isacson) – 67

There's someone at the door who looks like a mixture of me and that girl from summer camp with the gimpy leg. Curse you, Boone's Farm.   @fireland (Joshua Allen) – 67

Sonia Sotomayor broke her ankle this morning. She said it wasn't painful but her opinion was later overruled 5-4.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 62

That does it. I'm going next door to confront my jerk neighbor about his slow-ass Wifi.   @sloganeerist (jtdobbs dur) – 61

I'm marrying a guy whose last name is Lee and naming all my kids adverbs.  Blatant Lee.  Arguab Lee.  Anal Lee.  Obvious Lee.   @myracles (myr) – 60

Sorry, that PETA got involved, sir. I called them because I mistook your wife's muffin top for a manatee cruelly stuffed into jean shorts.   @awryone (Josh Donoghue) – 58

It's hard to find common ground with family if you don't share interests in things like Nascar or scuba diving or being a total asshole.   @CranberryPerson (N/A) – 56

If I had a nickel for every time my neighbor let his dog crap on my lawn I'd have enough nickels to put in a sock and beat him with it.   @abigvictory (Michele Catalano) – 55

A Canadian in America. Postscript. Returned to Canada. As pleasant as my time was, everyone having buttons for eyes was too unnerving.   @sween (Jason Sweeney) – 53

Love when he gives me a cheery "Hi Dad!" except when I am peeking in to see if he's asleep and it's safe to go put the moves on his mom.   @CranberryPerson (N/A) – 51

Some douchenipple in the gym locker room got overzealous with his body spray and now I smell like Monday.   @Zaius13 (Damn Dirty Ape) – 51

I no longer have any desire to sneak across the North Korean border.   @badbanana (Tim Siedell) – 50

When I get SMS'd from a number I don't know, I just assume it's from Neko Case. Which seems really healthy.   @hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann) – 50

Every time a woman has her kids taken away because of a dirty house, I do worry. Not enough to clean, but I do close my curtains tighter.   @hoosiergirl (hoosiergirl) – 49

[kiss-my-freckle]

Dialogues

1x2 -

Red: Watch yourself with her, Donald. She hates men, and cops most of all.

1x3 -

Red: I prefer to play with myself in private.

Liz: He’s a myth. Red: That’s what they said about Deep Throat … and the G-Spot.

1x5 -

Red: She owns that nightclub. Last time I was there, we had a great deal of fun, until she tried to strangle me with her stocking.

Red: Or just bend over any available piece of furniture and let her slap you on the ass. She loves that.

Red: He knows you better than I do, and I know where that lovely little freckle is.

1x6 -

Red: Because Yuri talks faster than a cheerleader after a nooner under the grandstands. Probably not a metaphor you understand.

1x8 -

Red: Oh, my God. I’ve never been more scared of a woman in my life. She was thrilling in bed. What a pair of legs. I think she played field hockey in college.  

1x14 -

Red: I had a little talk with Rasil. We had a few laughs, compared notes about you. He told me all about that delightful thing you do with a trouser belt, which was a bit hurtful, since I was pretty sure it was our thing.

1x18 -

Vlad: You slept with my wife. Red: How is Fadila? Vlad, it was a mistake. I can easily blame it on the hashish and the grappa, but the truth is - may I speak freely? You’re better off without her. She’s fickle.

1x19 -

Red: Calculus. I can’t even think about derivatives without thinking of that tutor in manor hall. Cindy something-or-other. Never wore a brassiere. Always a bounce in her step.

1x20 -

Red: Ah. Smells like decadence and vice.

2x1 -

Red: They know your habits, the banks you use, the pills you pop, the men or women you sleep with.

Red: Lord Baltimore. Aren’t you a surprisingly saucy minx.

Samar: Aren’t we confident today? Red: I’m confident every day. Samar: And I thought we had nothing in common.

2x7 -

Red: Keep your plum covered. We’re not alone.

2x10 -

Red: Luther, I never thought I’d enjoy having anything in my mouth as much as Petty Officer Virginia Sherman, but this - My God! It tastes so good! I hesitate to swallow, and I certainly don’t want to spit it out.

2x2 -

Red: Mmm! Tastes just like Patty Sutton.

2x3 -

Red: Titillating. But what Laskin and Russo do with or to one another in their spare time is none of my concern. Red: A threesome? Interesting. Based on his sartorial splendor, I gather this is Mr. Vargas. Does that even look like real hair?

Red: You poor thing. Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. It boggles the imagination. B.B., you don’t look well. Are you alright? Let me guess: irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath, perhaps a little tingling in your nether regions? Those drinks you’ve been enjoying on the house? They weren’t from the house. They were from me. I hope you don’t mind. I took the liberty of adding a special surprise ingredient, something to treat any localized dysfunction you may be suffering. Has the little man been falling down on the job? It’s a miracle drug, not so much for a glutton with a bum heart, however. But look on the bright side, you’ll die with a marvelous erection.

2x11 -

Red: The other one, the watercolorist, she - legs like a shot-putter. She gets me in this headlock. I black out. Next thing I know, I wake up - no sheets, vaseline everywhere. The lipstick on the mirror overhead reads, “Same time next year?” I haven’t missed an art expo in Basel since.

Red: Ah. A Russian milonga. Watch closely, Lizzy. Everything you need to know about negotiation is there in the tango milonga. At the outset, they are opponents. Each has something the other wants. They size one another up, assessing risk, setting boundaries, challenging each other to breach them. A sensuous battle - violence and sex balanced on the blade of a knife. Nothing given that is not earned - nothing taken that is not given. This is the pure essence of negotiation. Not a poker game, but a milonga. A tango. A seduction.

Red: And I assure you my bed accommodates a broad spectrum of behavior.

2x12 -

Red: Samar, my dear, bump in the road I can help smooth over, or have the clouds finally parted and this is a social call?

2x14 -

Red: Careful there, boys. You don’t want to bruise the merchandise.

Red: Really, I’m all for being thorough, but at this point, you’re just taking the nickel tour.

Red: Oh, the Dinky. No matter the time of day, that damn train is always full of hungover frat boys and co-eds in the throes of morning-after regret.

Red: Good heavens, Earl. You’ve never had any feeling in your heart, but now it looks like there isn’t much going on below the waist. Earl: I do all right. The wheelchair is just a little memento of our time together in Bolivia. Red: No hard feelings, I trust.

2x18 -

Red: Because, Mr. Jasper, you strike me as a man who would prefer to pitch rather than catch.

2x20 -

Red: Don’t look so glum, Kenneth. You just spent 10 minutes being ridden hard by Agent Navabi. I’d die for five.

2x21 -

Red: She makes her real money consulting. Costs a fortune. She did, however, let me name a lipstick color - “Fire In The Hole.”

Kimberly: I can only tell you what they’re doing. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you who they’re doing it to.

3x7 -

Hasaan: What do you want? Red: Well, another spin of the bottle in Melanie Reichman’s basement, but, I’ll settle for you.

3x8 -

Red: When’s the last time you got any of that, Pablo? Or have you? Pablo: We share everything.

Red: No wonder Cash doesn’t trust you with anything more important than babysitting. Pablo: That’s big talk coming from a guy who’s -

3x9 -

Red: I prefer that slight curve at the small of the back, the swell of a breast, the soft nape of the neck to quicken my heartbeat.

3x21 -

Cynthia: I read his e-mails. Ever since I found him with the nanny, I look at everything. Samuel: We don’t even have a nanny! It was a movie. Red: A nanny movie? Cynthia: Not just nannies. Schoolteachers, nurses, and a ridiculous threesome with two completely unbelievable policewomen. Samuel: Cynthia, they’re just movies. I have never cheated on you. And besides, I don’t think he wants to hear about it. Red: Yes, I want to hear about it. All about it. Unfortunately, I do need to hear about your contract with Halcyon. So business first, and then, Cynthia, I’ll be all ears.

Red: I had an enlightening meeting with Samuel Rand today. More to the point, with his wife, Cynthia.

Scottie: Howard didn’t take that job. We haven’t had sex in four years. We’re rarely in the same country, let alone the same bed. Red: What bed have you been occupying? Scottie: I’ve been assuming a larger role in a management position lately. Red: You don’t say.

Red: You have it all wrong, dear. I didn’t come to kill you. I came here because you and I are about to climb into bed together, just for a quickie.

3x23 -

Red: Aram… set him up with someone, for God’s sake. He’s like a kid with his first erection on the school bus.

4x7 -

Red: My sympathies to your significant other. And if your flag is flying at half mast, rest assured, I find in the privacy of one’s boudoir, pleasing others is the key to pleasing oneself.

4x14 -

Red: Oh, my goodness. This is tedious. I’d give almost anything to have a scratch. But seeing as how, given your profession, David, you might be more inclined to squeeze them rather than scratch them, I won’t impose. I’ll just wait for the next break.

David: Forget having your testicles scratched. You’ve been castrated.

4x20 -

Red: Baldur, you and I are deal-makers. We buy low and sell high. Getting that cruise line on the cheap was better than sex with your mistress. Either of them. I’m a little down on my luck. A penny stock. Invest in me now and when I rise, you’ll be able to afford three mistresses.

4x22 -

Red: I do wonder what else Donald’s men will find in your nightstand. Are you a vibrator kind of gal, Laurel? We’ll see.

5x1 -

Car guy: How’d she do? Red: Like Bergita Olofson in her parents’ rumpus room on a Saturday night.

5x2 -

Cooper: No, he’s playing grab-ass by the pool between naps and happy hour.

5x10 -

Isaacson: Bite me. Red: Hmm. A woman after my own heart.

5x12 -

Red: Joro spiders. In Japanese folklore, the joro is said to be able to change its appearance to that of a beautiful woman who seduces men, binding them in her web before devouring them. Hence its name “joro-gumo,” or “whore spider.”

5x13 -

Red: Imagine the confidence a man has to have in his own genitals to take on a nickname like “Big Willie.”

5x15 -

Red: Yes. Very impressive. What a gymnasium - a real shrine to athleticism. I can just feel the testosterone.

Fagen: You promised me a sure thing, gives me Viagra, and all I have to show for it is a four-hour erection.

[deleted scene]

Smokey: You’re a sucker, Red.  Everyone thinks you’re soooo tough with the hat and the shades and the people you kill but I know better.  Circus folk know a sucker when we see one.  You’re a sucker.  You’re a sucker for the pets, you’re a sucker for Heddie. And God knows why, you’re even a sucker for me. Red: I suppose I am.   Smokey: Well, that’s good for me. I’ll follow you anywhere. Red: Well, let's start in the back. I believe we have some cash to count.

5x19 -

Red: This apartment. Right here. Oh. My God. To have been the proverbial fly on Clyde Tolson’s duvet. Liz: Clyde Tolson lived here? J. Edgar Hoover’s lover? Red: This was their secret hideaway. Imagine the conversations. Cooing over JFK’s lovers. Slandering Dr. King. What peignoir to wear to bed. When I saw the apartment was for sale, I couldn’t resist. Liz: You own the apartment where the homophobic head of the FBI carried on his affair with his boyfriend? Red: Allegedly. I wouldn’t admit this in mixed company, but J. Edgar and I have a surprising amount in common. For instance, we both always get our man.

5x21 -

Red: I’ve heard steroids make your penis shrink. Have you found that to be the case?

Liz: Gonzalez called you. Red: His guard, actually. We developed something of a bond.

6x2 -

Red: Through five marriages, numerous lovers, allegedly both male and female.

Red: Cary Grant once said after a particularly evocative LSD trip, “I imagined myself as a giant penis launching off from Earth - “like a spaceship.”

6x4 -

Red: Baldomero, what do you say we call this whole thing off? What happened in Iztapalapa was a terrible mistake. I regret it dearly, and I had no idea she was your mother. Baldomero: You were in my bed. There was a picture of me on the nightstand. Red: Okay, in our defense, it was incredibly dark, and we’d been drinking heavily. Honestly, I regret the entire weekend. Of course, don’t tell your mother that.

[impalaimagining]

PittCon Saturday

(holy shit y’all this was so much to remember from this morning until now. sorry if I forgot anything) Also this is obnoxiously long so this one gets a cut. #You’reWelcome

Read Friday’s here.

Part One: 

No Rob Benedict. Rich makes promises of him later.

ROB BENEDICT!!! He walked out with Briana and she claims she planned the whole thing.

Briana, Kim, and Gil didn’t have anyone lined up for questions. Briana threatened period talk. Gil blushed. 

Questions for Briana today instead of Kim. Briana does a little victory thing every time someone says, “My question is for Bri.” Kim mocks her from yesterday and says, “I’m gonna answer it anyway.”

Gil is third-wheelin’ it, hard. 

Gil addresses the whole thing that happened with the butt grabbing. He wanted to “nip it in the bud because it was weighing very heavily” on him. Apparently I missed that last night because I had no idea what he was even talking about when he said it. He’s a great guy. Try not to fault him for one little slip, yeah? He’s human. Cut the man some slack. 

Part Two: 

Rob scolds Rich for not telling us about the “I <3 KoC” shirts. Debates about whether it’s pronounced like Coke or like cock. “Wear that to Grandma’s house.” “One of those things will kill you!” 

Matt, Rob, and Rich bounce off of one another unbelievably well. 

Pssst, Matt Cohen is fucking attracccttiivveeeee

Questions about other projects and hobbies come up. Matt says he wants to get into racing again. Racing is in his future. Richard says he’s a lot like his father. His father was a lawyer. Rob used to have his own baseball league. With himself. He made up teams like “The Colors” and “Other Things.”

Rob and Rich are besties and it makes my life. 

The pilot for Skyward is streaming now on Amazon. Rich said there’s a part already sketched out for Rob if the show continues. It wasn’t his idea to include Rob, but he wanted to eventually anyway. 

Part Three:

Mark Sheppard is either consistently grouchy or was very tired/cranky today.

Almost all of his answers boiled down to one word, so that was the one word he used, and then moved on. He probably answered more questions on his own than Misha and Jake did combines just because of how fast he was moving. 

He said fuck Creation’s rules and walked around the crowd most of the time. Also joked about how when he was more powerful (and important), they never would’ve allowed that. (sad face on my part)

A fan asks how he feels about Fergus’s deal and how he lost his soul, what he sold it for. He doesn’t laugh. Just says, “If you want to ask about my penis, there are other ways to do it. I can’t relate to Fergus, if that’s what you’re asking.”

His favorite line is “Where’s your moose?” 

“You’re good, but I’m Crowley,” was improv. 

Talking about his wife and daughter made him light up like a Christmas tree. It was adorable. 

Everyone thinks he hates cats. He got very snarky about it. “Did I say I hate cats? No. I don’t hate anything. I hate Misha. Oops.”

He thinks Crowley came full circle. There wasn’t much else for him to do in the series, he thinks. 

He doesn’t understand the logic behind Rowena being Crowley’s mother.When Rowena dies at the hands of Lucifer (the first time), Mark said the line, “Always thought I’d be the one to do it,” felt very right in that moment.

Part Four: 

Jake Abel has the bubbliest butt in the entire cast. To quote myself from earlier today, “You could bounce a fuckin nickel off of that thing.”

He’s been creating plotlines and ways to bring Adam back. New plans are made every time he comes to a convention. Currently, we’re looking at an Adam spinoff in which he and his mother are resurrected (him from Hell, her from Heaven) and become hunters. They have “opposing forces!” as Jake said, and the story would follow the way they got the opposing forces to work together for the same common purpose.

This man is insane. 

He kept reminding us that he was in a weird mood because his flight didn’t get in until 4am.

Sleepy Jake is the cutest. 

Talk of Percy Jackson. 

Lots of talk about bringing Adam back. 

Part Five: 

MISHA. FREAKIN. COLLINS.

Guys. I’ve never been more amazed by one person’s smile and overall attitude. He’s so cheery and bright and uugghhh Misha.

He tells a story about his dad, and then says that he had to tell his children about his parents’ (brief, I think?) split, but he doesn’t want it to sound like that’s the only way marriages can end. The next day, his son went to school and told the teacher, “I want my parents to get a divorce.” I literally have no idea if this is true, but it’s what Misha told us.

Fake spoilers for Season 13, but he told us that he was filming it last night. Jared and Jensen still fuck with him to no end. 

“We were filming. Jared was on the bed, and we were doing something we don’t usually do on Supernatural.” *cue roars from the audience*

I think he tried to fight someone in the crowd. I have photos of his bulgy eyes and sassy jawline. Yeah, it’s a thing. 

MY PHOTO OP WITH HIM !!!!!!!!!

I was going to show him the photo of himself standing in front of the whiteboard with his drawing of Maison and the dandelion. Creation doesn’t allow phones in the photo op rooms so I had to put it in my pocket, which was fine.

I walked up and asked the woman if I could show him something. She said, “Sure, just make it quick!” Again, I get it. Not a problem. 

I’m standing there waiting with my arm pulled out of my sleeve to show him my tattoo. I walk up and I’m greeted with the most amazing smile and such a soft “hi.” 

I blurt out, “I NEED TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING!” *shoves my arm towards him* *silence from Misha as he stares*

His mouth kind of popped open when he realized what it was. His eyes are so freakin’ blue and I know because he looked me directly in them and told me, “That’s amazing.” 

My heart is racing, but I lean and and we hug and Chris snaps the photo. I step to walk away and Misha grabs my hands (!!!!!!!!!) I turn and look up at him (because damn he’s tall! He’s right, he’s just surrounded by giants.) and he squeezes my hands. “That’s amazing.” It’s so quiet and I blink for a second. “Thank you.” I get another tight hand squeeze and thank him before running into the hallway and crying. (*inhale* I’m okay, really.)

HUGE HUGE HUGE FUCKIN’ THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED MONEY TO GET ME THAT OP. I LOVE YOU ALL AND IF/WHEN I MEET YOU GUYS, HUGS ALL AROUND.

On to the auto. I showed him the tattoo again, quickly spat out, ”I know I showed it to you at the photo ops but...!”  and he drew a heart next to his name when he signed it. I got another “That’s amazing. Thank you so much.” and that friggin smile

I still don’t know if he knows the tattoo is his handwriting. I assume he could tell when he looked at it, especially for how long he looked at it. But *shrugs* maybe one day I’ll tell him.

While waiting for Misha’s op, I MET @HIGHONPASTRIES (whose tumblr is literally not working this weekend, just FYI)!!! There’s a selfie to prove it. Will be posted later.

Part Six: 

SNS

Jake introduces the band. First starts by demanding that we chant, “Bring Adam back,” over and over again. Chant quickly turns into, “Lou-den Swain.”

I didn’t know I needed a fuckin’ KAZOO. *cough cough* @torn-and-frayed @nichelle-my-belle-spn-con-blog (still waiting for the kazoo tip to make an appearance)

Rob Benedict sang half a song without a microphone. Don’t know why. It just wasn’t working. 

MATT COHEN WINKED AS HE RAN PAST ME Y’ALL. Camera was too slow to capture it but if anyone has that wink, good God send it this way, please.

Sam Smith popped out! Just to introduce Kim though - no singing. 

Kim Rhodes was so nervous and I just want to hug her and tell her she’s amazing. 

Briana was wearing LEATHER BOOTS UP TO HER HIPS. #YAAAASSSS

Gil McKinney. That fuckin’ man. Making me cry and shit, two days in a row. 

Drunk Matt Cohen is a thing of my dreams. 

Lots of guest appearances within the band. Chris on bass, Rich on bass, Adam from Creation on keys, Rich on guitar and the mic. Nobody takes Billy’s guitar from him though ;) 

Whipping Post sans Jensen. Still fuckin’ awesome. 

Fare Thee Well!!!! Rob prefaced it with a spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the episode yet. *giggle*

Rob cried singing She Waits. Then said he loves us so much it’s unreal. This man is pure and good and needs to be protected at all costs. 

They played my faaave song. It’s called Amazing. 

Kazoo song. Also known as Medicated. Someone had an amplifier for their kazoo. Rob was very impressed. Cast members are getting better at the kazoo solo. Rob isn’t happy about it. “This isn’t as fun when you guys are gooood.” 

Questions? Comments? Anything? If you’re at the con, come find me and say hi! I’ll be in (or around) seat D25! :) 

TOMORROW I MEET JARED AND JENSEN Y’ALL THIS IS ITTTTT. *quietly crying bc tomorrow is the end*

*falls into bed and immediately starts snoring* P.S. Cons are exhausting in the best possible way.

[promptbomb]

Ink and Paint : Chapter 3

Pairing: Ryan Haywood x Reader Previous Chapters:  One // Two Word Count: 1,814  Prompt: You came to Los Santos to pursue a dream of becoming a tattoo artist. Things haven’t quite worked out as you planned and now you find yourself working a graveyard shift at Pandemonium Ink. Things are typically quiet, that is until one of the cities most infamous criminals come through the door.

You weren’t entirely sure what to expect, but it probably wasn’t this.

There was a chance you had a skewed idea of how we would look given his criminal behavior, not to mention having met him the last time. Disheveled and dirty with stone cold eyes and an expression that could turn from calm to scary at the flick of the switch. But the man that stood before you this evening looked utterly...pedestrian. He was much more cleaned up from the last time you met, and boy did he clean up well. Beneath all that sweat and paint was an almost charmingly handsome face.You now realized how he was able to get around so easily despite being one of the city’s most wanted. Dressed in a loose fitting t-shirt and blue jeans, hair worked into a slightly messy bun, he could be any sort of average person walking the streets.

With his hands shoved into his pockets, he approached you, an almost timid expression cracking into an uneasy half-smile. “Hey.”

Your brows lift and you give him a look over once more, just to make sure you weren’t fooling yourself. “Hey, yourself.” You feel like you should be more at ease. He seems to be in a much better mood than the other night. But so far this encounter felt a lot more awkward having figured out who he was. “They told me you called ahead and said you were coming in.”

His stance shifts and he runs a hand along the top of his head, loosening dozens of small strands of hair from his bun and sending them into his face. “Yeah, I wanted to make sure you were here so I could...apologize.”

Apologize?

“Oh!” your voice nearly cracks, burdened by your own surprise. Having been so caught up in finding out who he was you neglected to run through a scenario like this. “No, you don’t need to do that, not at all.” Your forced laughter seems nervous but he seems not to notice as you continue, thank goodness. “Honestly, I should be apologizing to you. It’s not really my place to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do.”

He interrupts before you can say anymore, “No, you were right. My mind wasn’t in the best of places the other night. If I had gone anywhere else I’d probably be stuck with something I don’t want.” His half smile widens. For such a dangerous man he was incredibly sweet. “If anything you should feel commended on keeping someone from doing something they might regret. I think it shows you have real respect for your craft. I admire that.”

You feel warmth rises to your cheeks. This was not how you imagined this conversation to turn out, and had not prepared for it in the slightest. It truly was night and day between the man you had imagined to be walking through the door and the man who stood before you now. You almost feel bad that you had been running simulations about beating him down with a baseball bat now. “Thank you. If it means anything, I thought it was amazing that you wanted to get something for your friend. After all, you’re going to wear it forever, so it should mean something, yeah?” A glistening comes to his eyes and you realize that the subject was still fresh, despite how well put together he seemed tonight. “So, roses, right?”

His gaze follows you as you come around the counter, sketchbook already in hand and turned to the first of several sketches you had prepared. “You remember that much?”

“Well,” you smile and hand him the book as you walk the both of you towards the sitting area. “You’d be surprised the lasting impressing you leave on someone.” After he casts you a strange look you quickly add, “When you’re angry at them, I mean.”

Silence. Oh man, things had been going so well up to this point. And then he begins to chuckle, catching you completely off guard once again. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before actually.” You breathe a slight sigh of relief and when another bout of silence comes up as he overlooks your sketches you’re much less nervous. “There are...nice.”

“Nice?” The tone of his voice lets you know that he’s being sincere, however, “But it’s not what you’re wanting.” He appears apologetic but you’re not mad. You hadn’t really known what he wanted anyway and at least, now, you knew what he didn’t want. “That’s ok. That’s why we do these consultations. So let’s start fresh.” You offer him a smile and hold out your hand for your sketchbook, which he delivers. You flip through the sketches until you come to a clean page. “Maybe we can start by getting all the technical stuff out of the way, like finding out where you want to put it.”

“I was thinking here if that’s alright.” You watch as his hand comes to his chest, resting over his heart. It’s plainly obvious that this friend meant a lot to him.

“That’s great.” You nod to confirm his choice. “It’s actually a pretty good place for a first tattoo.” It’ll also offer you a fairly large canvas. “Did you have any idea what sort of style you wanted?”

“Not really.” If you had a nickel for every time someone said that. It wasn’t so uncommon for someone to come in with a general idea. That why they had the flash art on the wall. If anything it gave the customer a reference of what they might want. You’re about to suggest for him to look over the wall when he speaks up. “Although, when I was looking through your portfolio the other night there was something that caught my eye. It looked a lot like a painting.”

Mentally, you begin to flip through the pages of your portfolio, a careful and handpick selection of your best work when you were an apprentice. You recalled a piece that you had done just before you had left for Los Santos, a bluejay in watercolors. You fish the physical copy of your portfolio out of the pile and find it, not wanting to assume. “This one?” You ask as you show him.

He reaches for the book and begins to nod, looking over the piece once again. “Yes! That’s it. That’s the one.” His hand comes to rest on the page and again you see his eyes begin to swell with pain. “I don’t know why but there was something about this one I liked best.”

“Believe it or not that was a memorial piece as well.” He looks up at you as you continue, “A man came in one day at the place I apprenticed at. He had just lost his wife after a long illness and just wanted something to keep with him that always reminded him of her.” You smile softly, it was a good memory despite being so sad. “He told me she loved to bird watch. Even when she was sick in bed she would look out the window and watch the birds. When she died he said he remember there was a blue jay sitting on the windowsill that she usually looked out of. He felt like it was a sign.”

“He told you all that? Seems kind of personal.”

You offer him a shrug, “Sometimes people want to talk about the reason they’re getting a tattoo. I think it can be therapeutic.” It’s apparent that’s not something he wants to talk about. You suppose, given his profession, maybe he can’t. “But that’s just some people. Every experience is different. For instance, you look pretty tough, but you might cry.”

A change of subject seems to pull him out of the somberness of the conversation and he chuckles once again, “I doubt that. I have a pretty high threshold for pain.”

“Ooh, that’s what they all say.” You threaten with a grin. “Alright, so, colors?”

“I like what you did with the blue jay, to be honest.”

“We can do blue roses.” You tell him. “Actually, I think that would be really fitting. Blue roses symbolize immortality, and you are sort of immortalizing your friend forever in your skin.”

He appears to be pleased with this, “Sounds perfect. When do we start?”

Already you have several ideas swarming in your mind, you almost want to skip the sketching phase and go straight to tattooing. In all the excitement of getting to do your own work you had completely forgotten about being afraid of him early, in fact, you had forgotten about him being a criminal altogether. Still, it was best not rush so quickly, “I can work on some sketches and we can begin as early as tomorrow night if I come up with something you like.”

“I have no doubt you’ll come up with something great.” You feel yourself blush again and he smiles, seemingly noticing it this time around.

The two of you stand and you make your way to the counter again, pulling out a large scheduling book. Your ledger so far had been empty. “Alright, I just need to get a little personal information, like name and number.”

He seems apprehensive and you realize that he might not want anyone to have that sort of information, whether he knew that you knew who he was or not. “How about I just give you my number and you can put me down as Ryan?”

You don’t argue with that, surprised that he’d offer that much. “Sure.” You hand him your sketchbook and watch as he scrawls his number across the corner of one of the pages. “I’d prefer you not call me unless it’s important though.”

“No problem.” You assure him. “Then, I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow night, Ryan.”

He flicks his hand in a slight salute, “Until then.” And promptly walks out the door.

The rest of your shift at Pandemonium passes without incident, but for once you’re glad for the quiet. You begin to pour yourself into sketching, filling pages with roses and splashes of blue, trying to find that magical moment when everything seems to click together. You can’t explain why you suddenly feel so enveloped in this project. Perhaps it was because it was your first real piece since you came to the city. Perhaps it was simply because, after everything that had happened that one evening, Ryan still wanted you to be the one to ink him. You felt pride, maybe even a little bit of arrogance knowing that the feared Vagabond of Los Santos was soon to be wearing your work.

Maybe if you weren’t so wrapped up in the fantasy of it all you would have noticed the unmarked police car that was sitting outside Pandemonium when you left after you shift.

[evanaaml]

EVGN

Chapter 6: Detour

Once Team EVGN, Terra, and Acqua left the woods in the pickup truck, it was like the events prior had never happened; the day still went on as expected. Animals kept on running about. Birds continued to chirp in the trees. The sun went on shining down over the world. Life was as it should be.

Funny how a fight to the death put something like this into perspective.

It was now past noon, Terra figured they’d reach his and Acqua’s home in a few hours. Assuming, of course, that no other Grimm would appear. The hunters, although more relaxed, kept an eye out for danger. There was no telling what would happen now that there were active Grimm about.

For the time being at least, the drive was peaceful. Eallgréne and Nickel sat in the cab of the truck with Terra behind the wheel. Nickel had the window down and was letting the breeze blow through his hair as his hat rested on his lap. Eallgréne sat in the middle, a bit squeezed in, but content. The wind blowing through the open windows helped him feel less enclosed.

Behind Eallgréne was a small, rectangular window, which was slid open to allow communication with the girls in the bed of the truck. There they laid across, (Violette on the driver’s side, Gael on the passenger side), using the sides of the bed to support them. Acqua sat directly under the window, asking questions to the huntresses; something that she had been doing since they left the forest. She was in awe of them and kept wondering what their profession was like.

“So you both must be, like, SUPER strong to swing those weapons, right!?”, Acqua asked. Gael and Violette blushed a bit at the remark. They were both flattered by the compliments, and it meant more coming from a child who looked up to them.

When hunters first start out, they’re no more than teenagers, trying to become like the hunters they hear about and admire. So after the years of training and struggling, it’s a culture shock to them when they, in turn, become the hunters that the younger generation look up to. It was somewhat embarrassing, and the two women now felt what it must have been like for the hunters they ogled as kids and teens.

“Well, you do have to have some fitness to be a huntress”, Gael said with a blush, not wanting to come off like a show off.

“Is it ok if I try to pick it up?”, Acqua asked, pointing to Llamrei, which laid beside Violette, going down the length of the truck bed. Violette looked at her lance, then to Acqua.

“Well, it’s not sharp like Gael’s weapon, so I suppose it’s safe enough, come here”, Violette allowed. Acqua cheered and carefully moved closer to Violette, making sure not to trip while the truck was moving. She sat just in front of Violette, (with the knight making sure she was balanced), and wrapped her hands around Llamrei’s hilt. Gael watched with joy as the child attempted to pick up the long weapon. While she managed to lift the handle and base of the weapon off the bed of the truck, she struggled to get it any higher than that. Eventually, she released the handle, collapsing in exhaustion.

“That’s a lot heavier than I thought!”, Acqua admitted.

“It was a good try, sweetie”, Gael said supportingly. Violette nodded.

“Indeed it was. You should be quite proud of yourself, Lady Acqua”, Violette added. Acqua smiled at the cute title given to her. Terra, overhearing the conversation from the cab, smiled to himself.

“My daughter’s takin’ a liking to your partners”, Terra noted. Eallgréne chuckled.

“And they’ve takin’ a liking to her as well”, Eallgréne replied.

“So you said you were on your way to Vale, right? What for?”, Terra asked.

“Visiting family and friends, mostly. I have a sister who lives there who I haven’t seen in awhile. Maybe we’ll pick up a job while we’re there, too", Eallgréne answered. He intentionally left out details of the mission, which Nickel picked up on. There was no need to drag this family into matters. Terra certainly had no reason to suspect that they were hiding anything, and left it at that.

“Well we were lucky that you all decided to make that trip. Let me tell you, what those Grimm could have done to us doesn’t come close to what my wife would have done to me if something happened to Acqua”, Terra joked. Nickel scoffed.

“Mrs. runs the house, does she?”, Nickel asked. Terra chuckled.

“Pretty much. She doesn’t like me traveling these long, risky distances to sell our goods; likes it even less when Acqua comes. But she understands that its our living. We love where we live, and don’t mind working to sustain ourselves. But living a bit aways from any town really takes a toll on you as far as Grimm are concerned”, Terra explained.

“No hunters living in your area?”, Eallgréne asked.

“Not a lot of people in general, much less hunters. A couple people within walking distance, but for the most part we’re just farmers with a lot of open land. Makes it quiet, but also dangerous”, Terra replied.

“Have the farmers hired hunters to clear out the area?”, Nickel asked.

“Every now and then we do. But you have to understand, lien is hard to save up for farmers. Many of us are just squeaking by with what we got. And up until recently, the Grimm haven’t been a huge issue. This attack wasn’t the only one, there were a couple since the beginning of the month…can’t think of a time where attacks were that frequent”, Terra explained.

“Well, if those Beowolves were the cause, they won’t be a problem anymore”, Nickel stated.

“Let’s hope you’re right”, Terra said.

“Does beg the question though of where they came from. This area isn’t the only one to have sudden Grimm arrivals. It seems like they’re multiplying. But why now?”, Eallgréne asked aloud. Nickel and Terra couldn’t come up with an answer.

Meanwhile, Acqua continued to chat with the lady hunters. As she did, she took note of Gael’s fox ears, and although she didn’t want to come off as rude, she couldn’t help but stare. Gael, having a quick eye, noticed easily; but didn’t mind. She was accustomed to people staring. It was actually refreshing in this case; Acqua seemed genuinely curious, and not judgmental like most people were.

“…Would you like a closer look?”, Gael asked. Acqua, embarrassed that she had been spotted looking, blushed.

“I-I’m sorry”, Acqua replied. Gael giggled.

“No, it’s ok sweetie. Here”, Gael said. She moved closer to Acqua and tilted her head towards Acqua. With the cat out of the bag now, she had no reason to be shy, and so got a closer look at Gael’s ears. The ears twisted this way and that, Gael intentionally moving them for the little girl. Acqua looked at them in wonder.

“Is it hard? Moving them like that? I can’t move my ears”, Acqua admitted. Gael smiled.

“It’s not too hard. I can’t move my human ears either. But my fox ears are different; I can move them easily, and I can hear out of them better too”, Gael explained. Acqua appeared amazed at these facts. To her, it was no different than having a super power; one outside of a hunter’s semblance.

Acqua found that she couldn’t resist, and she reached up, scratching Gael behind the ears. Upon doing this, Gael immediately smiled and sighed. Acqua giggled.

“My dog likes being scratched there too”, Acqua admitted. Hearing this, Terra turned his head to see Acqua scratching Gael.

“Acqua! Don’t be rude! I’m so sorry, mam, we don’t have faunus in our area; she’s never learned how to be social with them. She doesn’t mean to be disrespectful”, Terra explained, apologizing sincerely.

“Oh, no! It’s alright, I promise! She’s not being disrespectful. She’s genuinely curious, which is perfectly acceptable for someone her age. And I’m sure she’ll learn well with you as a father”, Gael assured. Terra, knowing now that she was ok with Acqua’s curiosity, smiled in response.

“Well, if it’s alright by you. Thank you”, Terra said. Gael leaned down towards Acqua, who was now worried that she might have been unintentionally insulting to her.

“By the way, a lot of faunus are too embarrassed to admit this, but pretty much all of us LOVE to be scratched behind the ears”, Gael confided with a wink. Acqua giggled and reached up to scratch Gael behind the ears again. Hitting the sweet spot, Gael all but collapsed, leaning further towards Acqua to get scratched. Violette couldn’t control her fits of giggles; she could easily see Gael’s leg twitching. Seeing this from the cab, Eallgréne and Nickel laughed.

“Looks like Acqua found Gael’s weak spot, took her down in one move!”, Nickel said with a laugh.

“Well, Gael is Miss one-hit KO”, Eallgréne joked.

“I’m about to take YOU out in one-hit in a second, bub!”, Gael yelled from the bed of the truck. Terra and Nickel burst into laughter at the threat.

“Sounds like you’ve all been friends for a long time”, Terra stated.

“Yeah, you can say that. Back in hunter school, Gael and I were paired up as partners, then we were teamed with Nickel and Violette, so we’ve all known each other for almost a decade”, Eallgréne explained.

“Well you all seem inseparable, nice to see a camaraderie like that among friends and teammates”, Terra stated.

“Yeah…inseparable”, Eallgréne replied. Hearing the words Terra said so easily struck a cord within Eallgréne. Not wanting to keep the conversation going, he kept silent, looking down at the floor of the cab. He was lost in thought, and it was picked up on by Nickel sitting next to him. The hunter sighed, turning to glance back at his partner in the bed of the truck. Their minds were in the same place. Violette’s eyes met his, and they both knew what the other was thinking.

Violette then looked down to Gael, who was at this time still being scratched by an entertained Acqua. However, the faunus’ attention was no longer focused on the girl, but instead on the words of her former partner.

It was times like this that she cursed herself for being born with hearing like hers. She spaced out, thinking back to a time long gone. Seeing her like this concerned Violette. She knew all too well what her friend was thinking about, and she didn’t want her to return to that kind of state of mind again.

Not like before.

It was an uneventful trip the rest of the way. Little more was discussed amongst the group; with the exception of Acqua, who couldn’t help but ask more and more questions to the women she looked up to. Just before the sun began its descent, they had reached their destination.

Acqua and Terra’s home was immediately on the side of the road, with the driveway extending right into it. The house itself fit the ideal picture of home to the hunters, with a wooden porch and a white picket fence along the sides. It was a two-story building with white siding, green shutters, and a brick chimney poking out of the black-shingled roof. Off to the right was a large red barn, which housed, (what the hunters assumed), their farm equipment or animals. All behind the house were massive fields of corn and wheat, with smaller sections divided up for other produce.

Terra pulled into the driveway and turned the engine off. As he did, he turned to the men beside him.

“Welcome to our little home. It’s not much, but it’s ours”, Terra exclaimed.

“It’s a wonderful home, Terra”, Eallgréne complimented. The girls hopped out of the back of the truck just as the screen door to the house opened.

Out walked a young woman, about Terra’s age. She wore a white apron over a green short-sleeved shirt and a long, peach colored skirt. She had long brown hair and bright green eyes. She stopped on the porch when she noticed the group of hunters.

“Mommy! Look at my new friends!”, Acqua beckoned.

“Yes, I see dear. Hello, nice to meet you”, the woman said politely as she walked down the porch steps. It was clear she was confused to see this group arrive unexpectedly at her doorstep, but didn’t let it dissuade her hospitality.

“Everyone, I’d like you to meet my wife, and Acqua’s mother, Ciel. Sweetie, these are Eallgréne, Gael, Nickel, and Violette”, Terra introduced. Team EVGN took their bows or waved to Ciel, who waved back to them with a smile.

“Yeah, they saved us from Grimm!”, Acqua admitted bluntly. The sudden admission immediately caused Ciel to lose her smile and have more cause for concern. Terra sighed, hoping to ease her into the situation. So much for that.

“Oh no! Are you two ok!? You’re not hurt, are you!?”, Ciel asked in concern.

“Yes, dear. We’re both ok, thanks to them. The Grimm ran us off the road, but these hunters helped us”, Terra explained, trying to play off the danger to ease her conscience. Ciel looked to her husband and daughter with fear, confusion, and concern, but eventually sighed. Seeing that Acqua and Terra were clearly alright, she tried to calm down. Her heart was still racing from the fear, but it would subside.

“Well, as long as you’re ok”, Ciel said. She then turned to the hunters. “Thank you all so much for helping my family. I’m truly grateful, I don’t know what I would have done if anything would have happened to them. Will you be staying with us tonight?”.

“I hope it’s ok, I offered them the chance to rest up here for the night. They’re on their way to Vale, so since I’m going there anyway, it’ll save them a trip. Plus, well, Acqua kinda wants them to have a sleepover now”, Terra explained. The later statement prompted a slight giggle from Ciel.

“Well, if Acqua insists, then I guess we don’t have a choice in the matter. But no, that makes sense. And it’s the least we can do for you for helping us”, Ciel said, agreeing with her husband’s reasoning.

“Your hospitality is greatly appreciated. I promise we’ll be as small a burden as possible”, Eallgréne replied.

“Well, most of us at least”, Gael said with a smirk, turning to Nickel.

“WELL, ALRIGHT! No need to give them that kind of presumption!”, Nickel complained. This prompted a laugh from the group.

“I’m sure you’ll be a fine house guest…though I do request that you not smoke inside”, Ciel stated, pointing to Nickel’s cigar. By this point, it was nothing more than a smoldering nub; having been smoked since they departed the woods. Nickel shrugged, removing the cigar from his mouth and extinguishing it.

“Not a problem”, Nickel said. Suddenly, the sound of a dog barking echoed from the house. In the time that Ciel began talking to the group, Acqua had run in quick and grabbed their pet, and was now running down the stairs with it right beside her. It was a golden retriever, with a red bandana tied around its neck. Acqua and the dog approached the group.

“This is Copper! Say hi to my friends, Copper!“, Acqua said to the dog. The retriever looked at the group and whined in an excited manner, its tail wagging furiously. Acqua then began scratching Copper behind the ear, much like she did with Gael earlier. The dog panted and leaned into the scratch, closing its eyes and looking like it was smiling. Acqua giggled. “See, he likes it too”. Gael giggled as well.

“It’s nice to meet you, Copper. My family has a ton of pets too. Always nice to run into a puppers”, Gael replied. Acqua stopped scratching Copper and the dog looked at the new guests more intently. His tail wagged more in excitement as he approached the group.

The dog walked up to Eallgréne and looked up at the archer. He smiled, patting the dog on the head briefly. On normal accounts he would have given more attention to the dog, but he was still in conversation with Acqua’s parents, and so stopped shortly. Copper then approached Nickel. He smelled the hunter, but then sneezed from the smell of smoke and moved on, (this prompted laughter from a couple of the people). Copper then reached Gael, and was immediately drawn to her. Sensing the animal traits, the dog immediately became more excited, jumping up on Gael and trying to lick her face. Gael smiled and hugged the dog.

“Hehe, he’s adorable! A friendly floofer!”, Gael said with glee. Gael had a fondness for animals, but dogs were among her favorites. Copper hopped down and Acqua grabbed Gael and Violette by their hands.

“Come on, I’ll show you around! Let’s go, Copper!”, Acqua declared, tugging the women on. The girls, followed closely by the retriever, then walked towards the house. The men and Ciel watched the group with a shared smile across their faces.

“I think it’ll be tough for her to see you all leave tomorrow, she’s already become good friends with you all”, Ciel said with a smile.

“She’s a good child”, Eallgréne stated.

“She is. One thing I don’t like about this area, as much as I love it, is that there aren’t a lot of kids around. Thankfully she has her school to play and socialize, but even still she doesn’t get to be around a lot of people. This is good for her”, Ciel explained.

“I’m sure the girls will make sure she gets a lot of attention tonight”, Nickel said.

“Well let us get moving then. We’ll set up a place for you all tonight and then we can work on dinner. Hope you don’t mind sleeping on couches, we don’t have enough beds for everyone”, Terra explained. Nickel laughed.

“Do you know how many times we’re all stuck sleeping outside on the ground or in sleazy motels while on missions? A couch in a nice house like this will feel like a night in a resort to us”, Nickel explained. Eallgréne laughed.

“He’s not wrong. It’s more than enough for us all”, Eallgréne added.

“That’s good to know. Well, enough standing around then. Feel free to freshen up in our bathroom and make yourselves at home”, Ciel stated. With that, the remainder of the group walked towards the house.

It wasn’t long before the sun began its descent. Team EVGN took the time they had to clean themselves up and prepare for the night. The fight had worn them down and made them filthy; nothing felt better than a warm shower to them. The group also helped prepare their makeshift beds by moving furniture around the house, and even helped with the cooking when the time came.

The rest of the time was spent relaxing. Gael and Eallgréne, still recovering from the aura transfer, did the most resting, which proved difficult for Gael, as she yearned to play with Acqua more and did so when she could despite it.

Dinner was had at their dinning room table, which luckily was large enough for the group of seven. A spread of bread, vegetables, fruit, and a large ham was placed around the table. Team EVGN, appreciative for such a meal, thanked their hosts and dug in.

The meal lasted longer than expected, with conversation taking up a lot of the time. Tales of past missions and adventures were told, which entertained Acqua, and even the parents quite a bit. They weren’t used to company, much less such an interesting group, and it was a pleasant experience for the family. The style of discussion was also varied. From Eallgréne’s modest approach towards his exploits, to Violette’s imaginative words, everyone had their own unique take. Nickel’s proved to be the most entertaining; not just for what stories were told, but for his constant “word substitution” with the child present.

When they had finally finished, the team helped with cleaning up and prepared for bed. Knowing that Ciel was uncomfortable with their weapons laying about in the open, the group agreed to keep them out of view in a closet to put her at ease. The hunters would spend the night in the living room, which was the largest of the rooms in the house. The girls would share the large couch, each taking an end. Nickel and Eallgréne each had their own, smaller couches to sleep on. Acqua, despite having her own bed to sleep in, wished to stay downstairs with the group, (so that she could experience the “sleepover” she wanted). She laid on the floor with Copper on a pile of pillows and blankets. With the parents heading upstairs for the night, they wished the group a good night’s rest and departed.

Whether they would get that good night’s rest, of course, was still up to debate.

Acqua was excited for the sleepover; something she never had before. And admittedly, her excitement rubbed off on the hunters. Gael and Violette had gotten close to Acqua over the day, and seeing how excited and happy she was made them equally joyous. Nickel and Eallgréne were more subdued, but it was undeniable that they too were sharing in Acqua’s emotions.

“So, what are the things you like most about being a hunter!?”, Acqua asked, making sure to speak somewhat softly so as to not wake her parents. The hunters all smiled on hearing the question; they knew, or rather, just about knew, what it was that strived them.

“I think it’s a combination of things. I don’t feel that the average hunter loves what they do for only one reason”, Gael explained. Acqua listened in intently, hugging her pillow tightly. Gael went on. “With me, I love the adventure, but, I also love helping people…I always felt like I was destined for more, not just to live my life in Menagerie. I wanted to see the world, meet new people, go on adventures. And…well, I guess, when all is said and done, I want to look back at my life, with fond memories of adventures past, and say that with all the people I helped…the people I made a bond with…that I have no regrets”.

Acqua’s eyes widened on the explanation. To feel something so heartfelt meant a lot to the little girl. Being a hunter was something many children aspired to. It was no different to them than being a hero of legends and myths. But too often, imagination and lore seemed to give people the wrong assumption of what it truly meant to be a hunter. To hear that perspective from one first-hand, and for it to be exactly as she imagined, it truly made Acqua feel in awe.

“Well put, Gael”, Violette, (who sat on the opposite end of the long couch), replied. Gael blushed slightly. Acqua turned to Violette.

“What about you, Violette?”, Acqua asked. Violette put her finger to her chin in deep thought.

“Hmm, well, I’d have to say it’s the distinctive experiences. Not everyone can say they were a hunter. We’re a select group. And, as Gael put it, if I’m able to help those in need while also doing something that’s truly one-of-a-kind, then I’ll take it”, Violette answered. Acqua giggled.

“Hehe, I guess someone who is unique likes to do unique things, huh?”, Acqua asked. Violette smiled.

“Very, truly”, Violette replied with a wink. Acqua then looked to Nickel, who laid on his own couch, his feet hanging over one end. His hands were crossed, supporting the back of his head. He turned to Acqua when it fell silent to see her looking at him, and chuckled.

“I don’t think you’d want to know why I do it”, Nickel replied. Eallgréne, who was on the opposite side of the room from him, smirked.

“Still following that old mantra of yours from school? What was it again?”, Eallgréne asked. Nickel smiled.

“Live fast, die young, and look good doing it”, Nickel replied. The two men laughed to themselves at the response. Gael and Violette sighed; it was just like Nickel to have an answer like that. Which made it all the more surprising when he added to it. “But, seriously?…I like being active. I never liked sitting around, being in one place for too long. My family business, it involves a lot of that. I love the business, but it’s not my style. Being a hunter, constantly on the move, constantly fighting, constantly having your heart race; I can’t get enough of it”.

With Nickel’s answer, that left only one person left. Acqua turned to Eallgréne, leaning over a sleepy Copper to do so.

“What about you?”, Acqua asked. Eallgréne was silent for a moment. He took the question to heart, and thought about how best to phrase it to Acqua.

“What is it I like about being a hunter? Well, for me, it’s less about what I like and more about why I do it. I do this…because I have to”, Eallgréne replied.

“You have to? Why?”, Acqua asked, her head tilted in confusion. Eallgréne turned towards the little girl, giving her more of his attention.

“This world of ours, when you think of it, what are your thoughts? When I think of it, I think…it’s a beautiful place. It truly is. As are many of the people and animals that inhabit it. But, there is a darkness that plagues it. The Grimm namely, but other sources of evil are out there too. I’ve seen, first hand, what this darkness is like. And I believe that I have the capabilities to help put an end to it. Maybe not by myself, but I can do my fair share. So that people like you, can appreciate the beauty this world and its inhabitants have to offer, without fear of that darkness…that’s my favorite part of being a hunter…to say that I made a difference”, Eallgréne replied. Acqua smiled at the answer. Though it wasn’t as visible, Gael did the same.

“Wow…“, Acqua said in amazement. She then looked off to the side, as if in deep thought. Team Evergreen noticed this.

“You look like you’ve got something on your mind”, Eallgréne stated. Acqua turned to look at the archer.

“Well…it’s just…”, Acqua said before trailing off. Eallgréne could tell she was nervous over something. He gave her a reassuring look, and she finally lamented. “…do you think I can be a huntress?”.

There was a moment of silence between the teammates. The question came out of nowhere, and threw them off guard. There was no real easy way to answer this question. Not just because of the difficulty of becoming one, but the danger involved.

“Is this something you just decided? Or have you thought of this before?”, Gael finally asked. Acqua turned to her.

“Sorta both, I guess? I didn’t think about being a huntress…but I thought about the things that make you all like it before. And I guess…if being a huntress is what it takes to do those things…then it’s what I want to do too?”, Acqua explained. The team looked to one another, trying to figure out what the others were thinking.

“Listen kid, being a huntress, it’s a he-…it’s a tough job”, Nickel said, catching himself from saying something the others might take as foul language. “Not everyone can become one. You’re young, so no one can say you aren’t made for it yet. But it’s still not an easy job”.

"There’s a lot to be proud about, and like, about being a huntress. But it’s still not something I’d recommend to anyone”, Eallgréne stated.

“How come?”, Acqua asked.

“Because we understand from experience what it’s like. We’ve been through a lot over the years, sweetie. We’ve all pushed our bodies beyond our limits, put ourselves in life-threatening situations…and experienced loss of the worst kinds…being a huntress is noble, but it’s not for the faint of heart”, Gael explained.

“So…you’re saying…that I shouldn’t be one?”, Acqua asked, almost sounding crushed. Violette shook her head.

“Not at all, Lady Acqua. What we’re saying is, it’s something you need to put a lot of thought into. What helps with you is that you’re young. You have years to think it over. Do so; and, hopefully, by the time you’re old enough, you’ll know if it’s right for you”, Violette detailed. Acqua thought over the explanation, and eventually nodded.

“Ok, I’ll do that…thank you”, Acqua replied. The group all nodded in response.

“Take the decision to heart, and in time, you’ll know if it’s your destiny”, Gael said. Eallgréne turned back into the couch.

“Alright everyone. Time to hit the hay. Tomorrow is a big day for us, and we’ll need our rest”, Eallgréne stated.

“That’s right…tomorrow, we return to Vale, and Beacon”, Violette stated. The group settled in and tried to sleep. But the words Violette said weighed on them heavier than they thought. To return to where their journey started, where they first met.

It was gonna be a long night.

I want to close this chapter by thanking, (once again), @gaelfox and @ss61noah for their help in getting me back on my feet. For those who didn’t know, I was suffering heavily from a bout of depression, a common thing that comes from my OCD. I was alone, I was scared, and I was down. I reached out for help, and they both showed concern and care for me. The smallest actions can have the biggest impact on you when you need it most. I ask that you don’t ignore the signs. If you have a friend, or family, or even know a stranger who seems to be suffering with something, lend help. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, a body to hug. Mental health awareness is a big thing, please spread the word, thank you.

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – November 25, 2019

My pop picks are usually a combination of three things: what I am listening to, reading, and watching. But last week I happily combined all three. That is, I went to NYC last week and saw two shows. The first was Cyrano, starring Game of Thrones superstar Peter Dinklage in the title role, with Jasmine Cephas Jones as Roxanne. She was Peggy in the original Hamilton cast and has an amazing voice. The music was written by Aaron and Bryce Dessner, two members of my favorite band, The National, with lyrics by lead singer Matt Berninger and his wife Carin Besser. Erica Schmidt, Dinklage’s wife, directs. Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play is light, dated, and melodramatic, but this production was delightful. Dinklage owns the stage, a master, and his deep bass voice, not all that great for singing, but commanding in the delivery of every line, was somehow a plaintive and resonant counterpoint to Cephas Jones’ soaring voice. In the original Cyrano, the title character’s large nose marks him as outsider and ”other,” but Dinklage was born with achondroplasia, the cause of his dwarfism, and there is a kind of resonance in his performance that feels like pain not acted, but known. Deeply. It takes this rather lightweight play and gives it depth. Even if it didn’t, not everything has to be deep and profound – there is joy in seeing something executed so darn well. Cyrano was delightfully satisfying.

The other show was the much lauded Aaron Sorkin rendition of To Kill a Mockingbird, starring another actor at the very top of his game, Ed Harris. This is a Mockingbird for our times, one in which iconic Atticus Finch’s idealistic “you have to live in someone else’s skin” feels naive in the face of hateful racism and anti-Semitism. The Black characters in the play get more voice, if not agency, in the stage play than they do in the book, especially housekeeper Calpurnia, who voices incredulity at Finch’s faith in his neighbors and reminds us that he does not pay the price of his patience. She does. And Tom Robinson, the Black man falsely accused of rape – “convicted at the moment he was accused,” Whatever West Wing was for Sorkin – and I dearly loved that show – this is a play for a broken United States, where racism abounds and does so with sanction by those in power. As our daughter said, “I think Trump broke Aaron Sorkin.” It was as powerful a thing I’ve seen on stage in years.  

With both plays, I was reminded of the magic that is live theater. 

Archive 

October 31, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

It drove his critics crazy that Obama was the coolest president we ever had and his summer 2019 playlist on Spotify simply confirms that reality. It has been on repeat for me. From Drake to Lizzo (God I love her) to Steely Dan to Raphael Saadiq to Sinatra (who I skip every time – I’m not buying the nostalgia), his carefully curated list reflects not only his infinite coolness, but the breadth of his interests and generosity of taste. I love the music, but I love even more the image of Michelle and him rocking out somewhere far from Washington’s madness, as much as I miss them both.

What I’m reading: 

I struggled with Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo for the first 50 pages, worried that she’d drag out every tired trope of Mid-Eastern society, but I fell for her main characters and their journey as refugees from Syria to England. Parts of this book were hard to read and very dark, because that is the plight of so many refugees and she doesn’t shy away from those realities and the enormous toll they take on displaced people. It’s a hard read, but there is light too – in resilience, in love, in friendships, the small tender gestures of people tossed together in a heartless world. Lefteri volunteered in Greek refugee programs, spent a lot of interviewing people, and the book feels true, and importantly, heartfelt.

What I’m watching:

Soap opera meets Shakespeare, deliciously malevolent and operatic, Succession has been our favorite series this season. Loosely based on the Murdochs and their media empire (don’t believe the denials), this was our must watch television on Sunday nights, filling the void left by Game of Thrones. The acting is over-the-top good, the frequent comedy dark, the writing brilliant, and the music superb. We found ourselves quoting lines after every episode. Like the hilarious; “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.” Watch it so we can talk about that season 2 finale.

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading: 

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J from President's Corner https://ift.tt/2DdB0zl via IFTTT

[fundedjustice]

The Vigneault's have no choice but to fight on

I cannot understand why this is happening to us. I really believed that by now, a rational and sensible county worker would step forward and admit that our case was handled poorly and stop this attack.  Instead it get's more nightmarish daily as the rules and accusations keep changing.

Many friends have given generously and we are overwhelmed with appreciation.  I am launching this new campaign because we will run out of money before we get to the hearing and the caseworker has unlimited resources at her disposal - next week she will file a motion to stop us from using THIS resource to ask for financial help. I am embarrassed that I must make this plea. Please pray that our house will sell quickly and we will then have sufficient resources to continue this fight.

They have accused me a saying disparaging things about the department. I have nothing but respect and appreciation for what CPS is attempting to do and their very good intention to protect children.  We have worked with many wonderful workers from CPS whose professional demeanor and tireless efforts have blessed our family.

 It is because of my respect for these good workers that it breaks my heart to see one caseworker drag down the good reputations of the many.  Somebody needs to step forward and realize the damage that this caseworker is doing to our family.  She knows every secret thing about us, she knows we are broke and broken and she is hitting at our most vulnerable weaknesses.

For those who are not familiar with our story, Teresa and I are under a hostile attack from Child Protective Services. One of our sons has severe Reactive Attachment Disorder. Many will say that RAD is a rare problem but NOT to a foster or adoptive family. These poor children have been rejected and neglected and are seriously damaged. Logic tells us that they just need to be loved in a family setting. Unfortunately that is the worst trigger for a child with RAD. These kids do well in an institution, a school or even any other family but in the family where he or she is loved, the child becomes an expert at manipulation.

A RAD child really believes that he will be rejected again and so he begins to punish the loving mom (the nurturing enemy) for all the times that his bio mom did not protect him. Our son was burned, beaten, starved and attacked by dogs before he was five years old. How could we turn away from the opportunity to give him a healthy family?

Unfortunately, he and his bio sister turned on my loving wife. They manipulated, triangulated and even physically hurt our pets, other children and us. We have had deputies, police, detectives, case workers, social workers in our house often. I continued to hold out hope that they would get better with love. They only got worse.

There comes a point where a family with RAD kids runs out of options. There are residential treatment centers where these kids can receive help. The average treatment lasts six to nine months and costs $210 a day. I wish I would have known that three years ago. I quit my job to keep Teresa and kids safe and have been living off my pension. That pension is now gone.

One of our social workers suggested that we contact CPS to see if the county could get behind a plan to get our son into residual treatment. A caseworker came to the house and interviewed each of our children and Teresa and me. I had read that in some cases when parents reach out to CPS that instead of help, CPS charges the parents with neglect and takes their children away. I brought this up to the caseworker who I believed was really trying to get help for our son. She put a paper in front of me that said, "Parents are no longer willing/capable to care for children." I protested, I told her that wasn't right, that those words are too harsh. I told her I was afraid someone will come in and take our kids away.

She looked at me and put her hands on her chest and said, "Bob, this is me, I'm the only on who sees this. No one is going to take your kids away. I know this sounds harsh but this is how we have to word it in order to get the process going." Assuming she meant the process of finding help for our son - I signed the paper.

Signing that paper gave her the ability to lie, deceive and devastate our family with impunity. A few days later she tricked us into coming to the county building for what we thought was a discussion of our son with RAD, instead they separated from our youngest sons and took them away.

With your help, our friends and church family, we were able to get a lawyer, he's a good lawyer with experience in this area. He was able to argue for us to get our youngest back but now we are facing a trial to protect all of our children. Not content to wait for the trial, the caseworker has harassed school teachers, doctors, therapists and manipulated information to make us look like the worst of parents. They have filed a contempt motion and created false narratives in order to nickel and dime us to death and it is working.

We need more money to keep fighting. The majority of CPS case workers we have known over the years are wonderful people. They are doing the Lord's work. There are too many children in the system and too few of these overworked workers to protect them. The tools at their disposal are inefficient. It reminds me of 17th century dentistry. Their instruments are blunt and do more damage than good. Every now and then a caseworker comes along who isn't so much interested in keeping children safe as taking control over a family. I've warned people about these types and I hate myself for falling into the trap of this one.

The system is broken. We need to draw attention to the weaknesses in CPS. It's also very important to educate the public about the great damage that RAD kids can wreak on a family. Our story is not unique, that is the saddest aspect of all of this. This has happened to others and it will keep happening.

If you can find it in your hearts we need money quickly. Three thousand dollars bought 12 hours of work and now we need another five thousand dollars to continue. If you can't give, then please pray for us. If you know any other adoptive families, ask if you can help them - watch their kids for a day or just let them hear an adult voice.

Thank you dear friends,

Bob and Teresa Vigneault

PS, if you are interested here is a story (one of many) that nearly mirrors exactly what we have been through and where we are at.

Funded Justice

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[beingmad2017-blog]

Finances And Money Can Make or Break a Marriage

New Post has been published on https://beingmad.org/finances-can-make-or-break-a-marriage/

Finances And Money Can Make or Break a Marriage

Most first marriage starts with high hopes and dreams that the uninitiated lovers share in the boundless enthusiasm. Such optimism often includes an assumed trust and faith in one another. At the beginning of a new life together it can be easier to share assets and debts equally. As the marriage progresses and years are added to the relationship there are many factors that contribute to a decline in enthusiasm for sharing the money equally such as egos, selfishness, varied ideas about necessities versus wants, etc. Adversity sets in, as it does for all of us. Perhaps there are problems holding a job, or health issues arise, or maybe accidents occur or maybe it is as simple as mistakes which are made while balancing the checkbook. As troubles tax, a couple’s finances resentment might build as one or both partners look back and wonder if they could have been more prosperous by staying single. If finances are kept separate the chances of working through such adversity together are lessened. Isolated into what’s yours is yours and whats mine is mine people feel alone and disheartened even though they share life with another person through marriage. On the other hand, if finances are shared both partners are equally responsible for the successful financial outcome of the union. By jointly holding the money each spouse seeks the inputs and wisdom of the other to manage the accounts for maximum profit. What challenges one faces both faces together. What success one achieves both enjoy together.

“When you get married you become one.” “Money is a key area that helps bring unity.” David Ramsey, Financial Expert. “… spouses should combine all finances and work together towards common agreed upon goals… Separate money equals greed. The bottom line is this: couples that plan their lives and finances together are much more successful financially and with their relationships.” –Marriage and Money – Dave Ramsey vs. Suze Orman, March 20, 2012

The old saying goes ‘There is no I in a team’. Is marriage a contract between me and me, I and I, or is marriage about us, our, us? Going into life together can be tremendously beneficial to both partners. When two become one in all things each becomes more than they are by themselves. Math changes from 1+1=2 to 2 together = anything is possible. Many families have a tradition of saving their nickels and dimes to use to go on vacation. It strikes one as ridiculous to consider each family member saving to go on vacation separately. Mom saves to go see Grandma and Dad save to go camping and Marsha saves for Disneyland while little Johnny saves to go to the ice cream parlor down the street. Agreeing upon a mutual activity takes negotiation and more effort than going on separate vacations, but it also builds shared memories that are held precious later.

This is not to say that one partner should demure in passiveness and yield to their spouse all financial opinions and decisions. Often there are stark differences in the perspective each companion users to view resource usage and risk management with. One spouse may be analytical in nature and the other might make their decisions from more of an emotional base. Such dissimilar viewpoints can make it challenging to reach an equilibrium both are comfortable with. It may seem easier just to separate finances. However, such a decision can result in grave consequences. “Divorce attorneys have told me that when money is the issue that brings a couple into see them, as it often is, the specific issue is usually that the husband and wife were living separate financial lives. Want to mess up your marriage? Live separate financial lives.” How to Mess Up Your Marriage, Monday, December 12th, 2011, Matt Bell, author of Money and Marriage.

Is there more to a union of two souls than that of corporate mergers? Ironically, finances are often merged in shared business arrangements yet there are some who recommend the opposite approach for couples as if married companions are “… Independent Operators, my term for pairs who keep their accounts entirely separate.” Jessica Crouse.

Healthy marriages are built upon compromise, respect for each other, and the willingness to entertain the thought that together you are smarter than you are separate. Nature witnesses to the efficacy of sharing the resources- even birds and animals bring home the bacon to be shared with the whole pride. Think about the survival rate of any animal species that behaved as if each was responsible separately for their maintenance and subsistence. “Life is not 50:50, nor should it be… when did this degrade from a marriage to a micromanaged contractual partnership?… I see a continuum from the first bit of separate money in a marriage to basically living as roommates.” Evolving Personal Finance: The Slippery Slope of Separate Money.

Sometimes we might find ourselves wondering why some people make the financial decisions they do. During the recent housing crisis, many opinions were expressed via twitter, internet forums, and even talk shows about where the responsibility rested for so many foreclosures. Terms like ‘predatory lenders’ and ‘irresponsible borrowers’ were bandied about. It is natural to become coach quarterbacks and passenger seat drivers when viewing problems others encounter, especially when we had no contribution to such problems. How easy it becomes to do the same with a spouse when married partners hold the finances separately. Harboring criticism instead of openly communicating about financial troubles does little to foster unity in marriage.

“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). Today it seems as if half of society would amend these Biblical verses to ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, except financially; and they shall become one flesh’ and ‘So they are no longer two, except the bank accounts, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate, except the money’.

In this world of hyper-competition stress rules. If children are part of a marriage the love and joy that come to parents can also be accompanied by even more stress as the demands on available resources grow. If outside influences threaten the financial stability of the family stress levels rises even higher. Money is one of the major contributors to divorce, and it’s easy to see why. Many people are constantly worried about taking care of their families, and as they grow older taking care of themselves through retirement. Such worry can breed fear. Fear can eat at the faith and trust in one another that was assumed at the start of the life together. As faith and trust erode the bonds of matrimony can begin to resemble chains tied to a sinking vessel where it becomes ‘every man for himself’. However, if couples are committed to each other ‘for richer, for poorer’ they can lean on each other for the strength necessary to endure and overcome the challenges of life in these modern times. Years of struggle and effort together can help forge a tie that can defy financial obstacles in favor of the security such strong bonds ensure. Such security might not be financially based, but instead, it might find a strong foundation in emotion. This means that sometimes spouses have to choose what is most important to them- money or love.

While comparing the pros and cons of united versus separate finances in marriage a clear conclusion emerges that supports the unified approach. Consider the following from Engaged Marriage: “Reasons Why a Joint Bank Account is Best: Encourages regular communication about finances. Built-in accountability partner on spending matters. Fosters unity in money matters. Strong sense of working together to meet financial goals. Clear that all household income is treated as “our” money. No conflict or administrative work in ‘splitting up the bills’… The use of a single joint account also encourages (requires, really) open communication about your finances, which is absolutely critical to a successful marriage.” –Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts? By Dustin of Engaged Marriage.

A proponent of separate marital finances might argue that many of the benefits outlined herein can still be enjoyed even if spouses are not one with money. Without performing the work necessary for financial harmony it is like trying to describe the taste of salt to someone who has never experienced it before. There is just no substitute for experiencing the rewards other than doing the work it takes for two people to harmoniously live together financially. Communication can become improved as each works to understand the others’ point of view. Sacrifice can enhance mutual appreciation as companions work to compromise with each other. Trust grows as each spouse strives to achieve mutual goals set together. Sharing money in marriage is an opportunity, not a burden.

In summation, money can make or break a marriage. Just like most issues in life we can use it to achieve positive results or let it use us in which case negative results often occur. The easy road might seem to be the separation of the marriage finances. However, putting aside the possible negative consequences a couple thus engaged will miss out on the opportunities to build an even stronger relationship with their spouse through working together in good faith and trust in one another. It does require work and sometimes it is hard. A couple will not realize the rewards of such hard work by avoiding the same through keeping their finances separate. That trust and faith in each other that was assumed at the start of their life together can, through such hard work, grow into absolute confidence as the years accumulate.

[myupdatesystems-blog]

Finances Can Make or Break a Marriage

New Post has been published on https://myupdatesystems.com/2017/04/10/finances-can-make-or-break-a-marriage/

Finances Can Make or Break a Marriage

Most first marriages start with high hopes and dreams that the uninitiated lovers share in the boundless enthusiasm. Such optimism often includes an assumed trust and faith in one another. At the beginning of a new life together it can be easier to share assets and debts equally. As the marriage progresses and years are added to the relationship there are many factors that contribute to a decline in enthusiasm for sharing the money equally such as egos, selfishness, varied ideas about necessities versus wants, etc. Adversity sets in, as it does for all of us. Perhaps there are problems holding a job, or health issues arise, or maybe accidents occur or maybe it is as simple as mistakes which are made while balancing the checkbook. As troubles tax, a couple’s finances resentment might build as one or both partners look back and wonder if they could have been more prosperous by staying single. If finances are kept separate the chances of working through such adversity together are lessened. Isolated into what’s yours is yours and whats mine is mine people feel alone and disheartened even though they share life with another person through marriage. On the other hand, if finances are shared both partners are equally responsible for the successful financial outcome of the union. By jointly holding the money each spouse seeks the inputs and wisdom of the other to manage the accounts for maximum profit. What challenges one faces both faces together. What success one achieves both enjoy together.

“When you get married you become one.” “Money is a key area that helps bring unity.” David Ramsey, Financial Expert. “… spouses should combine all finances and work together towards common agreed upon goals… Separate money equals greed. The bottom line is this: couples that plan their lives and finances together are much more successful financially and with their relationships.” –Marriage and Money – Dave Ramsey vs. Suze Orman, March 20, 2012

The old saying goes ‘There is no I in a team’. Is marriage a contract between me and me, I and I, or is marriage about us, our, us? Going into life together can be tremendously beneficial to both partners. When two become one in all things each becomes more than they are by themselves. Math changes from 1+1=2 to 2 together = anything is possible. Many families have a tradition of saving their nickels and dimes to use to go on vacation. It strikes one as ridiculous to consider each family member saving to go on vacation separately. Mom saves to go see Grandma and Dad save to go camping and Marsha saves for Disneyland while little Johnny saves to go to the ice cream parlor down the street. Agreeing upon a mutual activity takes negotiation and more effort than going on separate vacations, but it also builds shared memories that are held precious later.

This is not to say that one partner should demure in passiveness and yield to their spouse all financial opinions and decisions. Often there are stark differences in the perspective each companion users to view resource usage and risk management with. One spouse may be analytical in nature and the other might make their decisions from more of an emotional base. Such dissimilar viewpoints can make it challenging to reach an equilibrium both are comfortable with. It may seem easier just to separate finances. However, such a decision can result in grave consequences. “Divorce attorneys have told me that when money is the issue that brings a couple into see them, as it often is, the specific issue is usually that the husband and wife were living separate financial lives. Want to mess up your marriage? Live separate financial lives.” How to Mess Up Your Marriage, Monday, December 12th, 2011, Matt Bell, author of Money and Marriage.

Is there more to a union of two souls than that of corporate mergers? Ironically, finances are often merged in shared business arrangements yet there are some who recommend the opposite approach for couples as if married companions are “… Independent Operators, my term for pairs who keep their accounts entirely separate.” Jessica Crouse.

Healthy marriages are built upon compromise, respect for each other, and the willingness to entertain the thought that together you are smarter than you are separate. Nature witnesses to the efficacy of sharing the resources- even birds and animals bring home the bacon to be shared with the whole pride. Think about the survival rate of any animal species that behaved as if each was responsible separately for their maintenance and subsistence. “Life is not 50:50, nor should it be… when did this degrade from a marriage to a micromanaged contractual partnership?… I see a continuum from the first bit of separate money in a marriage to basically living as roommates.” Evolving Personal Finance: The Slippery Slope of Separate Money.

Sometimes we might find ourselves wondering why some people make the financial decisions they do. During the recent housing crisis, many opinions were expressed via twitter, internet forums, and even talk shows about where the responsibility rested for so many foreclosures. Terms like ‘predatory lenders’ and ‘irresponsible borrowers’ were bandied about. It is natural to become coach quarterbacks and passenger seat drivers when viewing problems others encounter, especially when we had no contribution to such problems. How easy it becomes to do the same with a spouse when married partners hold the finances separately. Harboring criticism instead of openly communicating about financial troubles does little to foster unity in marriage.

“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). Today it seems as if half of society would amend these Biblical verses to ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, except financially; and they shall become one flesh’ and ‘So they are no longer two, except the bank accounts, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate, except the money’.

In this world of hyper competition stress rules. If children are part of a marriage the love and joy that come to parents can also be accompanied by even more stress as the demands on available resources grow. If outside influences threaten the financial stability of the family stress levels rises even higher. Money is one of the major contributors to divorce, and it’s easy to see why. Many people are constantly worried about taking care of their families, and as they grow older taking care of themselves through retirement. Such worry can breed fear. Fear can eat at the faith and trust in one another that was assumed at the start of a life together. As faith and trust erode the bonds of matrimony can begin to resemble chains tied to a sinking vessel where it becomes ‘every man for himself’. However, if couples are committed to each other ‘for richer, for poorer’ they can lean on each other for the strength necessary to endure and overcome the challenges of life in these modern times. Years of struggle and effort together can help forge a tie that can defy financial obstacles in favor of the security such strong bonds ensure. Such security might not be financially based, but instead, it might find a strong foundation in emotion. This means that sometimes spouses have to choose what is most important to them- money or love.

While comparing the pros and cons of united versus separate finances in marriage a clear conclusion emerges that supports the unified approach. Consider the following from Engaged Marriage: “Reasons Why a Joint Bank Account is Best: Encourages regular communication about finances. Built-in accountability partner on spending matters. Fosters unity in money matters. Strong sense of working together to meet financial goals. Clear that all household income is treated as “our” money. No conflict or administrative work in ‘splitting up the bills’… The use of a single joint account also encourages (requires, really) open communication about your finances, which is absolutely critical to a successful marriage.” –Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts? By Dustin of Engaged Marriage.

A proponent of separate marital finances might argue that many of the benefits outlined herein can still be enjoyed even if spouses are not one with money. Without performing the work necessary for financial harmony it is like trying to describe the taste of salt to someone who has never experienced it before. There is just no substitute for experiencing the rewards other than doing the work it takes for two people to harmoniously live together financially. Communication can become improved as each works to understand the others’ point of view. Sacrifice can enhance mutual appreciation as companions work to compromise with each other. Trust grows as each spouse strives to achieve mutual goals set together. Sharing money in marriage is an opportunity, not a burden.

In summation, money can make or break a marriage. Just like most issues in life we can use it to achieve positive results or let it use us in which case negative results often occur. The easy road might seem to be the separation of the marriage finances. However, putting aside the possible negative consequences a couple thus engaged will miss out on the opportunities to build an even stronger relationship with their spouse through working together in good faith and trust in one another. It does require work and sometimes it is hard. A couple will not realize the rewards of such hard work by avoiding the same through keeping their finances separate. That trust and faith in each other that was assumed at the start of their life together can, through such hard work, grow into absolute confidence as the years accumulate. I like the following quotation about shared marital finances and conclude with it as follows: “Call me weird, but I just don’t understand the logic of this. Call me old-fashioned, but I think marriage should be a partnership. Call me crazy, but I think separating your finances is a bad idea… (what) you are saying to each other is “I mostly trust you, but not with my money.” With this sort of attitude, how could you possibly fail??? ‘sarcasm drip, drip'” –Separate Finances: A Recipe for Marital Disaster, By Greg | August 28, 2012, | Debt, Income, Saving Money on Club Thrifty.

[baburaja97-blog]

New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/finances-can-make-or-break-a-marriage/

Finances Can Make or Break a Marriage

Alternative Financing options

Most first marriages start with high hopes and dreams that the uninitiated lovers share in the boundless enthusiasm. Such optimism often includes an assumed trust and faith in one another. At the beginning of a new life together it can be easier to share assets and debts equally. As the marriage progresses and years are added to the relationship there are many factors that contribute to a decline in enthusiasm for sharing the money equally such as egos, selfishness, varied ideas about necessities versus wants, etc. Adversity sets in, as it does for all of us. Perhaps there are problems holding a job, or health issues arise, or maybe accidents occur or maybe it is as simple as mistakes which are made while balancing the checkbook. As troubles tax, a couple’s finances resentment might build as one or both partners look back and wonder if they could have been more prosperous by staying single. If finances are kept separate the chances of working through such adversity together are lessened. Isolated into what’s yours is yours and whats mine is mine people feel alone and disheartened even though they share life with another person through marriage. On the other hand, if finances are shared both partners are equally responsible for the successful financial outcome of the union. By jointly holding the money each spouse seeks the inputs and wisdom of the other to manage the accounts for maximum profit. What challenges one faces both faces together. What success one achieves both enjoy together.

“When you get married you become one.” “Money is a key area that helps bring unity.” David Ramsey, Financial Expert. “… spouses should combine all finances and work together towards common agreed upon goals… Separate money equals greed. The bottom line is this: couples that plan their lives and finances together are much more successful financially and with their relationships.” –Marriage and Money – Dave Ramsey vs. Suze Orman, March 20, 2012

The old saying goes ‘There is no I in a team’. Is marriage a contract between me and me, I and I, or is marriage about us, our, us? Going into life together can be tremendously beneficial to both partners. When two become one in all things each becomes more than they are by themselves. Math changes from 1+1=2 to 2 together = anything is possible. Many families have a tradition of saving their nickels and dimes to use to go on vacation. It strikes one as ridiculous to consider each family member saving to go on vacation separately. Mom saves to go see Grandma and Dad save to go camping and Marsha save for Disneyland while little Johnny saves to go to the ice cream parlor down the street. Agreeing upon a mutual activity takes negotiation and more effort than going on separate vacations, but it also builds shared memories that are held precious later.

This is not to say that one partner should demure in passiveness and yield to their spouse all financial opinions and decisions. Often there are stark differences in the perspective each companion users to view resource usage and risk management with. One spouse may be analytical in nature and the other might make their decisions from more of an emotional base. Such dissimilar viewpoints can make it challenging to reach an equilibrium both are comfortable with. It may seem easier just to separate finances. However, such a decision can result in grave consequences. “Divorce attorneys have told me that when money is the issue that brings a couple into see them, as it often is, the specific issue is usually that the husband and wife were living separate financial lives. Want to mess up your marriage? Live separate financial lives.” How to Mess Up Your Marriage, Monday, December 12th, 2011, Matt Bell, author of Money and Marriage.

Is there more to a union of two souls than that of corporate mergers? Ironically, finances are often merged in shared business arrangements yet there are some who recommend the opposite approach for couples as if married companions are “… Independent Operators, my term for pairs who keep their accounts entirely separate.” Jessica Crouse.

Healthy marriages are built upon compromise, respect for each other, and the willingness to entertain the thought that together you are smarter than you are separate. Nature witnesses to the efficacy of sharing the resources- even birds and animals bring home the bacon to be shared with the whole pride. Think about the survival rate of any animal species that behaved as if each was responsible separately for their maintenance and subsistence. “Life is not 50:50, nor should it be… when did this degrade from a marriage to a micromanaged contractual partnership?… I see a continuum from the first bit of separate money in a marriage to basically living as roommates.” Evolving Personal Finance: The Slippery Slope of Separate Money.

Sometimes we might find ourselves wondering why some people make the financial decisions they do. During the recent housing crisis, many opinions were expressed via twitter, internet forums, and even talk shows about where the responsibility rested for so many foreclosures. Terms like ‘predatory lenders’ and ‘irresponsible borrowers’ were bandied about. It is natural to become coach quarterbacks and passenger seat drivers when viewing problems others encounter, especially when we had no contribution to such problems. How easy it becomes to do the same with a spouse when married partners hold the finances separately. Harboring criticism instead of openly communicating about financial troubles does little to foster unity in marriage.

“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). Today it seems as if half of society would amend these Biblical verses to ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife, except financially; and they shall become one flesh’ and ‘So they are no longer two, except the bank accounts, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate, except the money’.

In this world of hyper-competition stress rules. If children are part of a marriage the love and joy that come to parents can also be accompanied by even more stress as the demands on available resources grow. If outside influences threaten the financial stability of the family stress levels rises even higher. Money is one of the major contributors to divorce, and it’s easy to see why. Many people are constantly worried about taking care of their families, and as they grow older taking care of themselves through retirement. Such worry can breed fear. Fear can eat at the faith and trust in one another that was assumed at the start of the life together. As faith and trust erode the bonds of matrimony can begin to resemble chains tied to a sinking vessel where it becomes ‘every man for himself’. However, if couples are committed to each other ‘for richer, for poorer’ they can lean on each other for the strength necessary to endure and overcome the challenges of life in these modern times. Years of struggle and effort together can help forge a tie that can defy financial obstacles in favor of the security such strong bonds ensure. Such security might not be financially based, but instead, it might find a strong foundation in emotion. This means that sometimes spouses have to choose what is most important to them- money or love.

While comparing the pros and cons of united versus separate finances in marriage a clear conclusion emerges that supports the unified approach. Consider the following from Engaged Marriage: “Reasons Why a Joint Bank Account is Best: Encourages regular communication about finances. Built-in accountability partner on spending matters. Fosters unity in money matters. Strong sense of working together to meet financial goals. Clear that all household income is treated as “our” money. No conflict or administrative work in ‘splitting up the bills’… The use of a single joint account also encourages (requires, really) open communication about your finances, which is absolutely critical to a successful marriage.” –Should Married Couples Have Joint or Separate Bank Accounts? By Dustin of Engaged Marriage.

A proponent of separate marital finances might argue that many of the benefits outlined herein can still be enjoyed even if spouses are not one with money. Without performing the work necessary for financial harmony it is like trying to describe the taste of salt to someone who has never experienced it before. There is just no substitute for experiencing the rewards other than doing the work it takes for two people to harmoniously live together financially. Communication can become improved as each works to understand the others’ point of view. Sacrifice can enhance mutual appreciation as companions work to compromise with each other. Trust grows as each spouse strives to achieve mutual goals set together. Sharing money in marriage is an opportunity, not a burden.

In summation, money can make or break a marriage. Just like most issues in life we can use it to achieve positive results or let it use us in which case negative results often occur. The easy road might seem to be a separation of the marriage finances. However, putting aside the possible negative consequences a couple thus engaged will miss out on the opportunities to build an even stronger relationship with their spouse through working together in good faith and trust in one another. It does require work and sometimes it is hard. A couple will not realize the rewards of such hard work by avoiding the same through keeping their finances separate.

[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks – October 31

October 31, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

It drove his critics crazy that Obama was the coolest president we ever had and his summer 2019 playlist on Spotify simply confirms that reality. It has been on repeat for me. From Drake to Lizzo (God I love her) to Steely Dan to Raphael Saadiq to Sinatra (who I skip every time – I’m not buying the nostalgia), his carefully curated list reflects not only his infinite coolness, but the breadth of his interests and generosity of taste. I love the music, but I love even more the image of Michelle and him rocking out somewhere far from Washington’s madness, as much as I miss them both.

What I’m reading: 

I struggled with Christy Lefteri’s The Beekeeper of Aleppo for the first 50 pages, worried that she’d drag out every tired trope of Mid-Eastern society, but I fell for her main characters and their journey as refugees from Syria to England. Parts of this book were hard to read and very dark, because that is the plight of so many refugees and she doesn’t shy away from those realities and the enormous toll they take on displaced people. It’s a hard read, but there is light too – in resilience, in love, in friendships, the small tender gestures of people tossed together in a heartless world. Lefteri volunteered in Greek refugee programs, spent a lot of interviewing people, and the book feels true, and importantly, heartfelt.

What I’m watching:

Soap opera meets Shakespeare, deliciously malevolent and operatic, Succession has been our favorite series this season. Loosely based on the Murdochs and their media empire (don’t believe the denials), this was our must watch television on Sunday nights, filling the void left by Game of Thrones. The acting is over-the-top good, the frequent comedy dark, the writing brilliant, and the music superb. We found ourselves quoting lines after every episode. Like the hilarious; “You don’t hear much about syphilis these days. Very much the Myspace of STDs.” Watch it so we can talk about that season 2 finale.

Archive 

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading: 

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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[thesnhuup]

Pop Picks — August 30, 2019

August 30, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but the New York Times new 1619 podcast is just terrific, as is the whole project, which observes the sale of the first enslaved human beings on our shores 400 years ago. The first episode, “The Fight for a True Democracy” is a remarkable overview (in a mere 44 minutes) of the centrality of racism and slavery in the American story over those 400 years. It should be mandatory listening in every high school in the country. I’m eager for the next episodes. Side note: I am addicted to The Daily podcast, which gives more color and detail to the NY Times stories I read in print (yes, print), and reminds me of how smart and thoughtful are those journalists who give us real news. We need them now more than ever.

What I’m reading: 

Colson Whitehead has done it again. The Nickel Boys, his new novel, is a worthy successor to his masterpiece The Underground Railroad, and because it is closer to our time, based on the real-life horrors of a Florida reform school, and written a time of resurgent White Supremacy, it hits even harder and with more urgency than its predecessor. Maybe because we can read Underground Railroad with a sense of “that was history,” but one can’t read Nickel Boys without the lurking feeling that such horrors persist today and the monsters that perpetrate such horrors walk among us. They often hold press conferences.

What I’m watching:

Queer Eye, the Netflix remake of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy some ten years later, is wondrously entertaining, but it also feels adroitly aligned with our dysfunctional times. Episode three has a conversation with Karamo Brown, one of the fab five, and a Georgia small town cop (and Trump supporter) that feels unscripted and unexpected and reminds us of how little actual conversation seems to be taking place in our divided country. Oh, for more car rides such as the one they take in that moment, when a chasm is bridged, if only for a few minutes. Set in the South, it is often a refreshing and affirming response to what it means to be male at a time of toxic masculinity and the overdue catharsis and pain of the #MeToo movement. Did I mention? It’s really fun.

Archive 

July 1, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

The National remains my favorite band and probably 50% of my listening time is a National album or playlist. Their new album I Am Easy To Find feels like a turning point record for the band, going from the moody, outsider introspection and doubt of lead singer Matt Berninger to something that feels more adult, sophisticated, and wiser. I might have titled it Women Help The Band Grow Up. Matt is no longer the center of The National’s universe and he frequently cedes the mic to the many women who accompany and often lead on the long, their longest, album. They include Gail Ann Dorsey (who sang with Bowie for a long time), who is amazing, and a number of the songs were written by Carin Besser, Berninger’s wife. I especially love the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the arrangements, and the sheer complexity and coherence of the work. It still amazes me when I meet someone who does not know The National. My heart breaks for them just a little.

What I’m reading: 

Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of Homer’s Iliad through the lens of a captive Trojan queen, Briseis. As a reviewer in The Atlantic writes, it answers the question “What does war mean to women?” We know the answer and it has always been true, whether it is the casual and assumed rape of captive women in this ancient war story or the use of rape in modern day Congo, Syria, or any other conflict zone. Yet literature almost never gives voice to the women – almost always minor characters at best — and their unspeakable suffering. Barker does it here for Briseis, for Hector’s wife Andromache, and for the other women who understand that the death of their men is tragedy, but what they then endure is worse. Think of it ancient literature having its own #MeToo moment. The NY Times’ Geraldine Brooks did not much like the novel. I did. Very much.

What I’m watching: 

The BBC-HBO limited series Years and Years is breathtaking, scary, and absolutely familiar. It’s as if Black Mirrorand Children of Men had a baby and it precisely captures the zeitgeist, the current sense that the world is spinning out of control and things are coming at us too fast. It is a near future (Trump has been re-elected and Brexit has occurred finally)…not dystopia exactly, but damn close. The closing scene of last week’s first episode (there are 6 episodes and it’s on every Monday) shows nuclear war breaking out between China and the U.S. Yikes! The scope of this show is wide and there is a big, baggy feel to it – but I love the ambition even if I’m not looking forward to the nightmares.

May 19, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

I usually go to music here, but I was really moved by this podcast of a Davis Brooks talk at the Commonwealth Club in Silicon Valley: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/david-brooks-quest-moral-life.  While I have long found myself distant from his political stance, he has come through a dark night of the soul and emerged with a wonderful clarity about calling, community, and not happiness (that most superficial of goals), but fulfillment and meaning, found in community and human kinship of many kinds. I immediately sent it to my kids.

What I’m reading: 

Susan Orlean’s wonderful The Library Book, a love song to libraries told through the story of the LA Central Library.  It brought back cherished memories of my many hours in beloved libraries — as a kid in the Waltham Public Library, a high schooler in the Farber Library at Brandeis (Lil Farber years later became a mentor of mine), and the cathedral-like Bapst Library at BC when I was a graduate student. Yes, I was a nerd. This is a love song to books certainly, but a reminder that libraries are so, so much more.  It is a reminder that libraries are less about a place or being a repository of information and, like America at its best, an idea and ideal. By the way, oh to write like her.

What I’m watching: 

What else? Game of Thrones, like any sensible human being. This last season is disappointing in many ways and the drop off in the writing post George R.R. Martin is as clear as was the drop off in the post-Sorkin West Wing. I would be willing to bet that if Martin has been writing the last season, Sansa and Tyrion would have committed suicide in the crypt. That said, we fans are deeply invested and even the flaws are giving us so much to discuss and debate. In that sense, the real gift of this last season is the enjoyment between episodes, like the old pre-streaming days when we all arrived at work after the latest episode of the Sopranos to discuss what we had all seen the night before. I will say this, the last two episodes — full of battle and gore – have been visually stunning. Whether the torches of the Dothraki being extinguished in the distance or Arya riding through rubble and flame on a white horse, rarely has the series ascended to such visual grandeur.

March 28, 2019

What I’m listening to: 

There is a lovely piece played in a scene from A Place Called Home that I tracked down. It’s Erik Satie’s 3 Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1, played by the wonderful pianist Klára Körmendi. Satie composed this piece in 1888 and it was considered avant-garde and anti-Romantic. It’s minimalism and bit of dissonance sound fresh and contemporary to my ears and while not a huge Classical music fan, I’ve fallen in love with the Körmendi playlist on Spotify. When you need an alternative to hours of Cardi B.

What I’m reading: 

Just finished Esi Edugyan’s 2018 novel Washington Black. Starting on a slave plantation in Barbados, it is a picaresque novel that has elements of Jules Verne, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, and Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. Yes, it strains credulity and there are moments of “huh?”, but I loved it (disclosure: I was in the minority among my fellow book club members) and the first third is a searing depiction of slavery. It’s audacious, sprawling (from Barbados to the Arctic to London to Africa), and the writing, especially about nature, luminous. 

What I’m watching: 

A soap opera. Yes, I’d like to pretend it’s something else, but we are 31 episodes into the Australian drama A Place Called Home and we are so, so addicted. Like “It’s  AM, but can’t we watch just one more episode?” addicted. Despite all the secrets, cliff hangers, intrigue, and “did that just happen?” moments, the core ingredients of any good soap opera, APCH has superb acting, real heft in terms of subject matter (including homophobia, anti-Semitism, sexual assault, and class), touches of our beloved Downton Abbey, and great cars. Beware. If you start, you won’t stop.

February 11, 2019

What I’m listening to:

Raphael Saadiq has been around for quite a while, as a musician, writer, and producer. He’s new to me and I love his old school R&B sound. Like Leon Bridges, he brings a contemporary freshness to the genre, sounding like a young Stevie Wonder (listen to “You’re The One That I Like”). Rock and Roll may be largely dead, but R&B persists – maybe because the former was derivative of the latter and never as good (and I say that as a Rock and Roll fan). I’m embarrassed to only have discovered Saadiq so late in his career, but it’s a delight to have done so.

What I’m reading:

Just finished Marilynne Robinson’s Home, part of her trilogy that includes the Pulitzer Prize winning first novel, Gilead, and the book after Home, Lila. Robinson is often described as a Christian writer, but not in a conventional sense. In this case, she gives us a modern version of the prodigal son and tells the story of what comes after he is welcomed back home. It’s not pretty. Robinson is a self-described Calvinist, thus character begets fate in Robinson’s world view and redemption is at best a question. There is something of Faulkner in her work (I am much taken with his famous “The past is never past” quote after a week in the deep South), her style is masterful, and like Faulkner, she builds with these three novels a whole universe in the small town of Gilead. Start with Gilead to better enjoy Home.

What I’m watching:

Sex Education was the most fun series we’ve seen in ages and we binged watched it on Netflix. A British homage to John Hughes films like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink, it feels like a mash up of American and British high schools. Focusing on the relationship of Maeve, the smart bad girl, and Otis, the virginal and awkward son of a sex therapist (played with brilliance by Gillian Anderson), it is laugh aloud funny and also evolves into more substance and depth (the abortion episode is genius). The sex scenes are somehow raunchy and charming and inoffensive at the same time and while ostensibly about teenagers (it feels like it is explaining contemporary teens to adults in many ways), the adults are compelling in their good and bad ways. It has been renewed for a second season, which is a gift.

January 3, 2019

What I’m listening to:

My listening choices usually refer to music, but this time I’m going with Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast on genius and the song Hallelujah. It tells the story of Leonard Cohen’s much-covered song Hallelujah and uses it as a lens on kinds of genius and creativity. Along the way, he brings in Picasso and Cézanne, Elvis Costello, and more. Gladwell is a good storyteller and if you love pop music, as I do, and Hallelujah, as I do (and you should), you’ll enjoy this podcast. We tend to celebrate the genius who seems inspired in the moment, creating new work like lightning strikes, but this podcast has me appreciating incremental creativity in a new way. It’s compelling and fun at the same time.

What I’m reading:

Just read Clay Christensen’s new book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. This was an advance copy, so soon available. Clay is an old friend and a huge influence on how we have grown SNHU and our approach to innovation. This book is so compelling, because we know attempts at development have so often been a failure and it is often puzzling to understand why some countries with desperate poverty and huge challenges somehow come to thrive (think S. Korea, Singapore, 19th C. America), while others languish. Clay offers a fresh way of thinking about development through the lens of his research on innovation and it is compelling. I bet this book gets a lot of attention, as most of his work does. I also suspect that many in the development community will hate it, as it calls into question the approach and enormous investments we have made in an attempt to lift countries out of poverty. A provocative read and, as always, Clay is a good storyteller.

What I’m watching:

Just watched Leave No Trace and should have guessed that it was directed by Debra Granik. She did Winter’s Bone, the extraordinary movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career. Similarly, this movie features an amazing young actor, Thomasin McKenzie, and visits lives lived on the margins. In this case, a veteran suffering PTSD, and his 13-year-old daughter. The movie is patient, is visually lush, and justly earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (I have a rule to never watch anything under 82%). Everything in this film is under control and beautifully understated (aside from the visuals) – confident acting, confident directing, and so humane. I love the lack of flashbacks, the lack of sensationalism – the movie trusts the viewer, rare in this age of bombast. A lovely film.

December 4, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spending a week in New Zealand, we had endless laughs listening to the Kiwi band, Flight of the Conchords. Lots of comedic bands are funny, but the music is only okay or worse. These guys are funny – hysterical really – and the music is great. They have an uncanny ability to parody almost any style. In both New Zealand and Australia, we found a wry sense of humor that was just delightful and no better captured than with this duo. You don’t have to be in New Zealand to enjoy them.

What I’m reading:

I don’t often reread. For two reasons: A) I have so many books on my “still to be read” pile that it seems daunting to also rereadbooks I loved before, and B) it’s because I loved them once that I’m a little afraid to read them again. That said, I was recently asked to list my favorite book of all time and I answered Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. But I don’t really know if that’s still true (and it’s an impossible question anyway – favorite book? On what day? In what mood?), so I’m rereading it and it feels like being with an old friend. It has one of my very favorite scenes ever: the card game between Levin and Kitty that leads to the proposal and his joyous walking the streets all night.

What I’m watching:

Blindspotting is billed as a buddy-comedy. Wow does that undersell it and the drama is often gripping. I loved Daveed Diggs in Hamilton, didn’t like his character in Black-ish, and think he is transcendent in this film he co-wrote with Rafael Casal, his co-star.  The film is a love song to Oakland in many ways, but also a gut-wrenching indictment of police brutality, systemic racism and bias, and gentrification. The film has the freshness and raw visceral impact of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. A great soundtrack, genre mixing, and energy make it one of my favorite movies of 2018.

October 15, 2018 

What I’m listening to:

We had the opportunity to see our favorite band, The National, live in Dallas two weeks ago. Just after watching Mistaken for Strangers, the documentary sort of about the band. So we’ve spent a lot of time going back into their earlier work, listening to songs we don’t know well, and reaffirming that their musicality, smarts, and sound are both original and astoundingly good. They did not disappoint in concert and it is a good thing their tour ended, as we might just spend all of our time and money following them around. Matt Berninger is a genius and his lead vocals kill me (and because they are in my range, I can actually sing along!). Their arrangements are profoundly good and go right to whatever brain/heart wiring that pulls one in and doesn’t let them go.

What I’m reading:

Who is Richard Powers and why have I only discovered him now, with his 12th book? Overstory is profoundly good, a book that is essential and powerful and makes me look at my everyday world in new ways. In short, a dizzying example of how powerful can be narrative in the hands of a master storyteller. I hesitate to say it’s the best environmental novel I’ve ever read (it is), because that would put this book in a category. It is surely about the natural world, but it is as much about we humans. It’s monumental and elegiac and wondrous at all once. Cancel your day’s schedule and read it now. Then plant a tree. A lot of them.

What I’m watching:

Bo Burnham wrote and directed Eighth Grade and Elsie Fisher is nothing less than amazing as its star (what’s with these new child actors; see Florida Project). It’s funny and painful and touching. It’s also the single best film treatment that I have seen of what it means to grow up in a social media shaped world. It’s a reminder that growing up is hard. Maybe harder now in a world of relentless, layered digital pressure to curate perfect lives that are far removed from the natural messy worlds and selves we actually inhabit. It’s a well-deserved 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and I wonder who dinged it for the missing 2%.

September 7, 2018

What I’m listening to:

With a cover pointing back to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 Licensed to Ill, Eminem’s quietly released Kamikaze is not my usual taste, but I’ve always admired him for his “all out there” willingness to be personal, to call people out, and his sheer genius with language. I thought Daveed Diggs could rap fast, but Eminem is supersonic at moments, and still finds room for melody. Love that he includes Joyner Lucas, whose “I’m Not Racist” gets added to the growing list of simply amazing music videos commenting on race in America. There are endless reasons why I am the least likely Eminem fan, but when no one is around to make fun of me, I’ll put it on again.

What I’m reading:

Lesley Blume’s Everyone Behaves Badly, which is the story behind Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and his time in 1920s Paris (oh, what a time – see Midnight in Paris if you haven’t already). Of course, Blume disabuses my romantic ideas of that time and place and everyone is sort of (or profoundly so) a jerk, especially…no spoiler here…Hemingway. That said, it is a compelling read and coming off the Henry James inspired prose of Mrs. Osmond, it made me appreciate more how groundbreaking was Hemingway’s modern prose style. Like his contemporary Picasso, he reinvented the art and it can be easy to forget, these decades later, how profound was the change and its impact. And it has bullfights.

What I’m watching:

Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is just exceptional. It’s filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, which provides a stunning landscape, and it feels like a classic western reinvented for our times. The main characters are played by the real-life people who inspired this narrative (but feels like a documentary) film. Brady Jandreau, playing himself really, owns the screen. It’s about manhood, honor codes, loss, and resilience – rendered in sensitive, nuanced, and heartfelt ways. It feels like it could be about large swaths of America today. Really powerful.

August 16, 2018

What I’m listening to:

In my Spotify Daily Mix was Percy Sledge’s When A Man Loves A Woman, one of the world’s greatest love songs. Go online and read the story of how the song was discovered and recorded. There are competing accounts, but Sledge said he improvised it after a bad breakup. It has that kind of aching spontaneity. It is another hit from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the GREAT music hotbeds, along with Detroit, Nashville, and Memphis. Our February Board meeting is in Alabama and I may finally have to do the pilgrimage road trip to Muscle Shoals and then Memphis, dropping in for Sunday services at the church where Rev. Al Green still preaches and sings. If the music is all like this, I will be saved.

What I’m reading:

John Banville’s Mrs. Osmond, his homage to literary idol Henry James and an imagined sequel to James’ 1881 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady. Go online and read the first paragraph of Chapter 25. He is…profoundly good. Makes me want to never write again, since anything I attempt will feel like some other, lowly activity in comparison to his mastery of language, image, syntax. This is slow reading, every sentence to be savored.

What I’m watching:

I’ve always respected Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but we just watched the documentary RGB. It is over-the-top great and she is now one of my heroes. A superwoman in many ways and the documentary is really well done. There are lots of scenes of her speaking to crowds and the way young women, especially law students, look at her is touching.  And you can’t help but fall in love with her now late husband Marty. See this movie and be reminded of how important is the Law.

July 23, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Spotify’s Summer Acoustic playlist has been on repeat quite a lot. What a fun way to listen to artists new to me, including The Paper Kites, Hollow Coves, and Fleet Foxes, as well as old favorites like Leon Bridges and Jose Gonzalez. Pretty chill when dialing back to a summer pace, dining on the screen porch or reading a book.

What I’m reading:

Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Stevenson tells of the racial injustice (and the war on the poor our judicial system perpetuates as well) that he discovered as a young graduate from Harvard Law School and his fight to address it. It is in turn heartbreaking, enraging, and inspiring. It is also about mercy and empathy and justice that reads like a novel. Brilliant.

What I’m watching:

Fauda. We watched season one of this Israeli thriller. It was much discussed in Israel because while it focuses on an ex-special agent who comes out of retirement to track down a Palestinian terrorist, it was willing to reveal the complexity, richness, and emotions of Palestinian lives. And the occasional brutality of the Israelis. Pretty controversial stuff in Israel. Lior Raz plays Doron, the main character, and is compelling and tough and often hard to like. He’s a mess. As is the world in which he has to operate. We really liked it, and also felt guilty because while it may have been brave in its treatment of Palestinians within the Israeli context, it falls back into some tired tropes and ultimately falls short on this front.

June 11, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Like everyone else, I’m listening to Pusha T drop the mic on Drake. Okay, not really, but do I get some points for even knowing that? We all walk around with songs that immediately bring us back to a time or a place. Songs are time machines. We are coming up on Father’s Day. My own dad passed away on Father’s Day back in 1994 and I remembering dutifully getting through the wake and funeral and being strong throughout. Then, sitting alone in our kitchen, Don Henley’s The End of the Innocence came on and I lost it. When you lose a parent for the first time (most of us have two after all) we lose our innocence and in that passage, we suddenly feel adult in a new way (no matter how old we are), a longing for our own childhood, and a need to forgive and be forgiven. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll understand. As Wordsworth reminds us in In Memoriam, there are seasons to our grief and, all these years later, this song no longer hits me in the gut, but does transport me back with loving memories of my father. I’ll play it Father’s Day.

What I’m reading:

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. I am not a reader of fantasy or sci-fi, though I understand they can be powerful vehicles for addressing the very real challenges of the world in which we actually live. I’m not sure I know of a more vivid and gripping illustration of that fact than N. K. Jemisin’s Hugo Award winning novel The Fifth Season, first in her Broken Earth trilogy. It is astounding. It is the fantasy parallel to The Underground Railroad, my favorite recent read, a depiction of subjugation, power, casual violence, and a broken world in which our hero(s) struggle, suffer mightily, and still, somehow, give us hope. It is a tour de force book. How can someone be this good a writer? The first 30 pages pained me (always with this genre, one must learn a new, constructed world, and all of its operating physics and systems of order), and then I could not put it down. I panicked as I neared the end, not wanting to finish the book, and quickly ordered the Obelisk Gate, the second novel in the trilogy, and I can tell you now that I’ll be spending some goodly portion of my weekend in Jemisin’s other world.

What I’m watching:

The NBA Finals and perhaps the best basketball player of this generation. I’ve come to deeply respect LeBron James as a person, a force for social good, and now as an extraordinary player at the peak of his powers. His superhuman play during the NBA playoffs now ranks with the all-time greats, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, MJ, Kobe, and the demi-god that was Bill Russell. That his Cavs lost in a 4-game sweep is no surprise. It was a mediocre team being carried on the wide shoulders of James (and matched against one of the greatest teams ever, the Warriors, and the Harry Potter of basketball, Steph Curry) and, in some strange way, his greatness is amplified by the contrast with the rest of his team. It was a great run.

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alicia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia.  It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

April 27, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan.  Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news. 

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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