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Sunday, May 8th, 2011
Ellen and I went out to a club last night, for the first time in a while, to see a band we had never heard of... What a great time! What a great find! I'm a fan now.
Ellen heard from Shelley on Wednesday that their old friend John was playing guitar with The Shirts on Stanton St. on Saturday, and did we want to meet her. So we did! The opening band was Suzanne Real, backed up by John on guitar and the bassist and drummer from The Shirts. A hot set but not very many people were there yet... The club really filled up for The Shirts' set though. Ellen and I were surprised to find ourselves dancing, starting early in the set when Artie Lamonica (the guitarist on the left above) sang his new song "Mochaccino" -- an addictive beat and a fun lyric. I was dancing my trademark, spastic I-can't-dance step (which I have not had occasion to use for a long time now), Ellen a more reserved swaying to the beat, but it got us together in the rhythm. And it was all right. The Shirts played an hour set and I could have listened to them for another couple of hours. I'm listening to their record now (the new one, the one that was on sale at the merch table, the one that John is playing on) and having a blast. Recommend it.
 Oh: John was not in the spotlight much during The Shirts' set -- he played some stellar solos, but the lighting guy was not on the ball -- but I got a nicely impressionistic photo of him during the opening set:
posted afternoon of May 8th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, March 20th, 2011
Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano BuendÃa would remember that distant afternoon when his father had taken him to learn about ice.
Ellen and I have decided to start reading a book together -- one I have read before, one that she is reading for the first time, the book which inspired this blog's butterfly logo. She is reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in translation, I'll be reading Cien años de soledad in the original. Our goal is to read one chapter every week, and my goal is to post notes on the week's chapter every weekend.
Why now? Why GarcÃa Márquez?... Just happenstance I guess. I've been carrying the book around in my backpack lately, reading bits of it on the train in to work, savoring the language and the imagery. Yesterday I mentioned it to Ellen and asked if she had ever read it; she has not but said she'd be interested in reading it if I have the translation. And lo and behold, I do! Looking forward to sharing it...
posted morning of March 20th, 2011: Respond
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Saturday, March 5th, 2011
Ellen and Sylvia gave me a lovely jigsaw puzzle for Valentine's Day -- an unusual puzzle in that the edges were the hardest part to assemble. Most puzzles, I do the edge first, then fill in the middle; with this one, I had to start with some of the easy-to-recognize bits in the middle and work outward. The puzzle sat for a week or more with everything complete except for the edges (and, well, except for that annoyingly lost piece in the middle there)... You can click the photo to see a few in-progress pics.
posted morning of March 5th, 2011: Respond
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Saturday, August 14th, 2010
Ellen and I spent the past week in Mexico City -- our first vacation by ourselves since 2001! A great time, wandering through the neighborhoods and the parks -- the above picture is from the courtyard of the Palacio Nacional, on our first day there; click through for many more photos.I surprised myself by being able to speak Spanish a little more clearly and correctly than I thought I would be able to, and by not being able to understand spoken Spanish quite as well as I thought I would be able to. We both got a lot of practice with speaking and understanding the language.
posted morning of August 14th, 2010: 3 responses
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Sunday, November 29th, 2009
 Ellen's project for the last couple of months has been organizing with the South Orange/Maplewood Bicycle Coalition -- the goal is to make our towns a better, friendlier place for riding. The group hosted its first community ride today, from Meadowbrook Park in South Orange to Maplewood town center, and it went off without a hitch.
Turnout was huge, about twice as many people as expected -- Ellen thinks there were at least 50 people riding. It was a real kick to be riding down the street in such a big pack. This should definitely get us noticed -- time to push for more bike lanes!
posted afternoon of November 29th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
Spent the weekend in Atlantic City with Ellen's family -- happy 90th birthday, Lou! Here is a picture I took of Ellen and Sylvia on the boardwalk last night, that I'm pretty happy with: This reminds me a lot of the picture I took of Sylvia early last year:...Leads me to the conclusion that sunsets are just generally very pretty and a very good subject for photography.
posted afternoon of November 22nd, 2009: Respond
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Ellen sent me a link to this beautiful poem, written by her old teacher Raymond Federman at the very end of his life, in the spring time:
A Matter of Enthusiasm
I am rereading Malone Dies
just to mock death a little
and boost my cancerous spirit.
I shall soon be quite dead at last
Malone tells us at the beginning
of his story.
What a superb opening
what a fabulous sentence.
With such a sentence
Malone announces his death
and at the same time delays it.
In fact all of Malone's story
is but an adjournment.
Malone even manages
to defer his death
until the end of eternity.
That
soon is such a vague word.
How much time is soon?
How does one measure soon?
Normal people say
I'll be dead in ten years
or I'll be dead before I'm eighty
or I'll be dead by the end of this week
Quite dead at last
Malone specifies.
Unlike Malone prone in bed
scribbling the story of his death
with his little pencil stub
normal standing people
like to be precise
concerning their death.
Oh how they would love
to know in advance
the exact date and time
of their death.
How relieved they would be
to know exactly when
they would depart from
the great cunt of existence
in Malone's own words
to plunge into the great lie
of the afterlife.
How happy they would be
if when they emerge into life
the good doctor
or the one responsible
for having expelled them
into existence
would tell them you will die at 15:30
on December 22, 1989.
Could Sam have written
I shall soon be quite dead at last
had he known in advance
when he would change tense?
Certainly not
because as Malone tells us
a bit further in his story
I shall die tepid
without enthusiasm.
Does that mean on the contrary
of those idiots on this bitch of an earth
who explode themselves with fervor
to reach the illusion of paradise
while taking with them other mortals
that Malone's lack of enthusiasm
towards his own death is a clever way
of delaying the act of dying?
A lack of enthusiasm for something
is always a way of postponing
the terms of that something.
The soon of Malone mocks
the permanence of death
and his lack of enthusiasm
ridicules the expression at last.
And so before he reaches the end
of the first page of his story
Malone has already succeeded
in postponing his death to
Saint John the Baptist's Day
and even the Fourteenth of July.
Malone even believes he might be able
to resist until the
Transfiguration
not to speak of the Assumption
which certainly throws some doubt
as to what really happened
on that mythical day
or what will happen to Malone
if he manages to hang on until then.
In fact Malone defies his own death
by giving himself
birth into death
as he explains at the end of his story.
All is ready. Except me. I am being
given, if I may venture the expression,
birth to into death, such is my impression.
The feet are clear already,
of the great cunt of existence.
Favorable presentation I trust.
My head will be the last to die.
Haul in your hands. I can't.
The render rents, My story ended
I'll be living yet. Promising lag.
That is the end of me. I shall say I no more.
Nothing more to add this evening.
Malone said it all for me.
I can go to sleep calmly now.
Good night everybody.
I thank Robert Archambeau of Samizdat blog for sharing this poem, and Ellen for sending it to me.
posted evening of November 18th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, October 18th, 2009
Ellen and I spent most of the weekend setting up our dining room to paint it: covering the floor with newspaper and drop-cloths, taping edges and corners, and applying primer. It's not a huge room but it's a fairly intimidating job because of how the room is put together: lots of molding everywhere that requires attentive care and the use of a brush instead of a roller, including an insane crown molding that has 12 surfaces -- besides the crown molding there is a chair rail and a baseboard, and three doorways and a window. There will be a whole lot of taping, too, which we have not even started yet; for now we are priming everything together. We made pretty good progress! Finished off a can of primer, we've done everything except one section of crown molding and most of the ceiling. we'll finish that up tomorrow night and then the fun of applying the actual colors begins. Ellen is primarily in charge of the color selection, with input from her friend Lisa and (a bit) from me -- she has settled on some colors from the Benjamin Moore catalog that look pretty nice to me, I will try and find them online and link to a sample.
posted evening of October 18th, 2009: 2 responses
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Saturday, June 6th, 2009
Well: today, Ellen and I have been married for 16 years. Our marriage can get its driver's license now! Happy Anniversary, Ellen! An interesting thing about this year is, right now it's almost precisely 8 years that Sylvia has been in our family; so this is a tipping point: from now on, more than half of our time as a married couple will be as parents.
posted morning of June 6th, 2009: 5 responses
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Thursday, May 7th, 2009
 Congratulations are due to Ellen's class at 1199, which participated in the "Selected Shorts: All Write!" program at Symphony Space today. The way the program was set up, students from all over the city and urban area submitted poems and short stories; the ones that were selected for inclusion were read onstage by professional actors. Afterwards the students all went up onstage to introduce themselves. From Ellen's class, Jeanne Dieng's poem "White" was selected as was the collaborative poem "I Remember, an Homage to Joe Brainard":
I remember having the same outfit as my sister every holiday.
I remember dying my hair light brown and it turned out green.
I remember a 600 pound lady that lived in my building who always paid me to run to the store for her. (I went at least five times a day.)
I remember when my great-aunt drank lemon squash and said, "Ah, that hit the spot!"
I remember that I only had one uniform to go to school. Every Wednesday evening I had to wash it and iron it to wear to school the next day.
I remember when we got our first TV. All the neighborhood kids came over to watch cartoons. It was black and white.
I remember tying my shoe laces for the first time. The bunny ears were my favorite and the easiest to do.
I remember when I got the keys to my first apartment, smelling the fresh wood and pine.
I remember when I was five, walking with my sister to Martin's Park in East Orange (it is called Paul Robeson Stadium now) to ride the merry-go-round.
I remember back home in Haiti at my school every Monday they had inspection. They looked at our nails, shoes, our uniform with a red skirt and white blouse. The blouse had to be clean. It was embarrassing for some.
I remember the cool breeze of August brushing your bare skin.
I remember my first time in America. I came with the expectation of picking money off the ground.
posted evening of May 7th, 2009: 1 response
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