This Is The Story Of How We Begin To Remember

I’ve always liked Paul Simon, in part because I can remember listening to “You Can Call Me Al” on family car rides and “Rhythm of the Saints” was the first album I heard when I left the Wyoming wilderness after three weeks. But any sentimentality he invokes is a credit to him anyway. His music creates memories.

I bring this up because Jon Pareles has an essay about Simon in the Times today. The point of the story is Simons’s upcoming shows at B.A.M., but Pareles underlines Simon’s struggles as a career musician. Even though the piece is mostly flattering, Pareles isn’t afraid to remind us of the stuff we’ve willfully forgotten from Simons’s oeuvre.

But the piece is a reminder: If you want a career in making things, you can’t just make one good thing. You have to keep creating. Not everything is going to be great. That’s just part of the deal.

Quarter Life Happiness

I’m working from my Dad’s office today. It’s not quite Aronauer

Musical Notes

Let’s party like it’s 2003: The Strokes are kind of awesome. I’ve been listening to “Room On Fire” again this week; it’s a such an effective album. The Strokes make the kind of music they set out to make, and do it well.

Andrew Bird has an essay about songwriting on nytimes.com. I wish it were interesting! But I’m excited for his new album, which apparently he’s recording next week.

Possibly Offensive Thoughts About Retards

At the Brooklyn Library, there are always some handicapped kids just chilling. Seeing disabled people makes me feel uncomfortable. Why can’t everyone look, sound and act just like me? But my unease is just situational. Once I walk by them, I can stop thinking about the genetic lottery known as life.

(Obviously, being retarded does not preclude one from a fulfilling life. It’s just that being retarded is harder than not being retarded.)

When I was 16, I went hiking in Wyoming for the summer. I thought the outdoors would do me some good. The only problem was that I had never been hiking before and I was the weakest person on my trip. Every morning we’d split into two groups and no one would want to be with me. :(, right? At the time, I remember thinking that since I had to be with myself every day, I’d always be in the slow group. That was also :(.

One possible benefit to being retarded: Not having an existential crisis at 16.

How Much Is Left?

The size of art changes the way we experience it. (By size, I mean length or running time, and by art, I mean all forms of artistic expression.) I don’t know if this is a good thing or bad thing, but it’s a thing.

Further: It’s not just that we feel differently about a three hour movie versus a ninety minute movie. It’s that knowing there’s an hour left changes the way we feel at the 120 minute or 30 minute mark.

Just Saying

Having an anonymous email address is another level.

First Time For First Saturday

My subway stop’s claim to fame is the Brooklyn Museum, but I’ve only been once. Every first Saturday they hold a free party and open up the museum. For the past year and a half I’ve had a standing date with myself of meaning to go, but never quite making it.

Well, it’s a new era. The BK Museum has an exhibition of Japanese prints for the next short while. I’ve been into Japan and Haruki Murakami since reading his story, “New York Mining Disaster.”

I definitely have a skewed and limited view of Japan, but from what I know, the country seems so gangster.

Last Thing About The Gladwell Moth Story

It’s weird when a personal obsession takes on a life of its own. I imagine raising kids is sort of like that. But regarding Malcolm Gladwell (who again, I like and respect a lot) and his story at the Moth: To me, it doesn’t matter if the story is true or not. He’s making a joke about journalism ethics. Journalism is something I take seriously, perhaps too seriously. To me, it’s as if he’s making a joke about rape or robbing homeless people: It’s just in poor taste.

Gladwell was in my dream last night. He was working behind the desk at a car rental agency and was helping me get a van for Atlantic City. (In the dream, no one called me about going to Atlantic City. My subconscious is so obvious.) At first it was really awkward, because he gave me this look, like I know you and you’ve said bad things about me behind my back. And in real life, that’s sort of true because I talked to him at the Moth gala and maybe he remembers what I look like. But after the initial awkwardness in my dream, he was friendly and even open to my suggestions about his next novel.

Recently, I asked the host of a party quite loudly how many STDs he had had. So when I get all uptight, I find it strange, too. Last night I was talking to a friend, and went off again about my Facebook friend’s casually racist picture. I haven’t spoken to this Facebook friend in over a year, and I really want to email her and tell her she’s everything that’s wrong with rich, white New Yorkers. But I’m exhibiting some self-control by passive-aggressively blogging about it.

Working from home in sweatpants, it’s easy to forget that I’m in a public forum. Yesterday I wrote something commending Ben McGrath for his work at the New Yorker. Some people agreed with me, but others went after him. All I wanted to say was, Hey, Ben McGrath is awesome, not, Hey, this is your chance to tell Ben McGrath he sucks.

So anyway, Ben McGrath, Malcolm Gladwell, if you have Google alerts on your names (and I couldn’t judge you if you did) and you’re reading this: Neither of you suck. You’re both great writers. Casually racist Facebook friend, however, you do suck and based on your Facebook captioning skills, you’re probably a bad writer as well.

The Trend Story I've Been Waiting Six Years For

A capella is lame. [

Late At Night

Buffalo Tom were The Shins of their day. That episode of My So-Called Life where Jordan disses Angela at their concert is classic. Sadly, what’s below isn’t that scene. I still listen to their album. It’s not bad.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zGj0vrPxFc

Just A Hypothetical

If your mom told you she had you to get a piece of lint out of her belly button, would you be offended? I mean, at least your existence had definite purpose.

What To Read

“Nails Never Fails” by Ben McGrath in this week’s New Yorker. He proves that great writing is great regardless of the subject. Who is Lenny “Nails” Dykstra? A hilarious character. But I only care because McGrath makes me. It’s a fantastic and engaging profile. It reminds me why I love non-fiction.

Whores Suddenly Relatable To NYT Audience

Ms. O’Donnell, 25, is a Williamsburg hipster with entrancing blue eyes who carries an NPR tote bag and might offer up a few pleasantries on the Whole Foods checkout line before turning back to her Junot Diaz novel.

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Sound Mind, Sound Body And Other Lies

I exercise a lot. Not that I have a six pack or anything—I eat a lot, too—but I wear a sports bra maybe five times a week. Part of the reason is that everyone in my family is in good shape. My dad often asks me if “guns like this”—referring to his arms—could be bought in a store. They cannot.

But mostly working out provides me with the illusion that my life is together. If I can run five miles, and make time to go running, that means I must be doing something right. This balances out a lot of the stuff I do that’s wrong. Last week, after one of the saddest meals I’ve ever eaten, a tuna sandwich from the Brooklyn library, I had two glasses of wine. And then I was accidentally wasted and it was like 8 pm on a weeknight. But I went running that morning and the next afternoon, so obviously I’m on top of my shit.

In other news, I wish “Writing the Great American Novel For Dummies” existed. I have no idea what I’m doing. I did go running today, though. Everything is under control.

A Thing I Hate

Sometimes to fill up space, the New Yorker runs a few lines from another news outlet that has a glaring mistake. If you don’t catch the joke, the joke is on you, because you’re just as dumb as the copy editors who let the error go through. For me, any humor is lost in the tension of trying to find it.

Caught Ya

There’s an option on Facebook that allows you to be online without saying so on your profile. Why self-incriminate?

Embarrassing Details About My Dad’s Life

Everyone in my family is retarded over our dog, Clint. He’s affable and handsome, even if a little neurotic. And no one is more retarded over Clint, or more neurotic about him, than my dad. Once, I took Clint for a hike and he half-jokingly warned my friends using a kitchen knife to bring him back safely. As for me, his daughter, well, he figured I could fend for myself.

Of course, I love Clint, too. I was happy to celebrate his birthday at the party my dad arranged for him and I don’t mind saying hello to the Clinter when my dad puts me on the phone with him.

So yesterday I called my dad up, and he was out with Clint. I asked how the dog was, and my dad said, quite seriously, “You know, he’s really very special,” an insight I hear, and mock, every time I go home.

And what struck me is that no amount of ridicule from his children, wife or friends could make my dad love Clint any less, or at least be any less vocal about it. He loves that dog with all his heart and isn’t afraid to say it. Clint is that special.

Janet Malcolm Explains The Appeal Of Roald Dahl

What makes classic children’s literature so appealing (to all ages) is its undeviating loyalty to the world of the child. In the best children’s books, parents never share the limelight with their children; if they are not killed off on page 1, they are cast in the pitifully minor roles that actual parents play in their children’s imaginative lives.

-Advanced Placement, Janet Malcolm, New Yorker. Now I kind of want to read Gossip Girl.

"Take Your Pen, Write It Down. I Love The Teenagers"

The Teenagers are a French Pop band with goofy and self-referential lyrics. Like “French Kiss,” about how the “no one puts baby in the corner moment” in Dirty Dancing is the perfect time for a French kiss. So true. Well, I assume it’s true. I wasn’t that popular in camp.

A line in their song “Wheel of Fortune” pretty much sums up my view on religion and is so featured in the most important spot on my Facebook page, my religious views. Yes, this spot is more significant than my relationship status, because a person’s relationship with God triumphs all others. Duh.

Anyway, the line is “If Shannon Doherty stayed on 90210/Maybe she would have never met Alyssa Milano”

Okay, silly. But I’m a huge 90210 fan. This is serious. Brenda, the character, left 90210 the zip code to go to London to pursue acting. Shannon Doherty, the actress, left 90210 the show and went on to star on the less popular and culturally insignificant Charmed, with Alyssa Milano.

The lyric doesn’t say that leaving 90210 was worth it for Shannon Doherty because she met Alyssa Milano; it doesn’t make any judgment on the value of the Doherty-Milano relationship. But the fact is that because Shannon Doherty did leave 90210, she was able to meet Alyssa Milano. The lyric isn’t ironically optimistic like Candide. It’s not even saying that things happen for a reason. It’s just saying that every decision has unforeseen outcomes.

Personally, I believe that meeting Alyssa Milano was worth Shannon Doherty leaving 90210. Life would be too depressing if we had to worry about what would have happened had she continued on at California University with the rest of the gang.

Why Kelefa Sanneh Is Going To The New Yorker

Sentences like this:

[O.A.R.] spent two and a half hours entertaining a high-spirited (should that hyphen be a comma?) crowd of collegiate and pre-collegiate revelers.

Sanneh has been one of my favorite writers for a while. The fact that the New Yorker noticed too gives me faith in this crumbling profession.