Love is a Mixtape

I have known about this book for a long time. I have known who Rob Sheffield is from those VH-1 marathons and always liked what he had to say. But somehow I never picked this book up till now. Shocking, really, given the title and my fervant belief that a mix tape is the best gift ever.


"Have you ever been in a car with a southern girl blasting through South Carolina when Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Call Me the Breeze' comes on the radio? Sunday afternoon, sun out, windows down, nowhere to hurry back to? I never had. I was twenty three. Renee turned up the radio and began screaming along. Renee was driving. She always preferred driving, since she said I drove like an old Irish lady. I thought to myself, Well, I have wasted my whole life up to this moment. Any other car I've ever been in was just to get me here, any road I've ever been on was just to get me here, any other passenger seat I've ever sat on, I was just riding here. I barely recognized this girl sitting next to me, just screaming along to the piano solo.



I thought, There is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment. I could count the places I would not rather be. I've always wanted to see New Zealand, but I'd rather be here. The majestic ruins of Machu Picchu? I'd rather be here. A hillside in Cuenca, Spain sipping coffee and watching leaves fall? Not even close. There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is this girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we drive fast enough the universe will lose track of us and forget to stick us somewhere else.

But I've read it now and was floored by its depth. See I missed the part in the subtitle about loss so was unprepared for its frank, unvarnished look at bereavement. I thought it was a love story, and it is, but it's also so much more.

"I never planned to get married when I was only twenty five and I'm not sure exactly how it happened -neither of us officially proposed, or anything dramatic like that. It started off as a playful fantasy we talked about. Then the fantasy became a plan, the way fantasies sometimes do, and the plan became a future. It didn't hit us as the climax of anything, just the celebration of something that had already happened to us. I guess we hoped the celebration would help us understand what had happened."

The trouble with coming so late to the party is that I can't offer myself as Sheffield's #1 fan, I wouldn't even be 101 at this point. But please count me among the many for in his blurring of love and music I read a kindred spirit.

Ground Zero Mosque-What I Believe

First of all let's get a few facts straight. This arguement is far too fraught with emotion and overheated press coverage to avoid high feeling entirely but I want to be clear.

1) The proposal is not just for a mosque it's a whole community center. Yes, it will include religious worship but also conference facilities and a health club.

2) It's not at Ground Zero. As the above picture shows it's two blocks away on a side street. I'm not saying that area was uneffected by the attack on 9/11, it was a Burlington Coat Factory store that was so heavily damaged it had to close, but it's not actually on the site of the former World Trade Center. And at only 13 stories once the Freedom Tower is built I think it will actually be pretty dwarfed.

3) The group who want the property have a similiar facility that's a neighborhood fixture further uptown. It's an older, smaller building and they are looking to expand because it has been so popular. These folks aren't new to the neighborhood or looking to build there only to make a point. Yes, they are Muslims, unlike the 9/11 hijackers. They were Muslim the same way the Crusaders were Christian-a fringe element that gets the tenants of a great religion horribly, horribly wrong. As former President Bush said (and don't we make strange bedfellows) "Al Quaida is not Islam".

I marshal these 3 arguements to support my position not just for allowing this community center to be built but for supporting it wholeheartedly. Seperate from any showy memorial actually on site I think this kind of thriving normalcy is exactly what that neighborhood needs. I think it would amply and neatly demonstrate the very qualities that make America great-freedom and tolerance-that angered the attackers in the first place. In my opinion, life goes on is the most powerful finger we can give the terrorists.

And, as this arguement gets more and more heated, I would also offer that memorials are always tricky. Think back to the contest to design the Vietnam Memorial. Maya Lin's winning design was hugely controversial, called 'ugly' and 'the black gash of shame'. Now, 20+ years later, it's a highlight of the Mall in Washington and Lin's design is seen as nothing short of revolutionary, completely changing the way America, and the world, think about memorial art.

Everyone wants a say in this, which is fair as 9/11 happened to all Americans, but I hope in the spitting heat of arguement we can again demonstrate what the late Shelby Foote called 'our great genius' - compromise.

Let's Do It Y'all (a reblog)

Join the Wish Stephen A Happy 40th Birthday Project

Please reblog. This is my kid brother Stephen. As you can tell, he loves his birthday. He turns 40 on September 1st and I thought it would be fun if people sent him postcards and/or contributed to his birthday Tumblr to wish him a happy 40th.
He loves his birthday, photos of himself, and cheesy television. Anything combining those things is welcome, and he’d love postcards from where you live or featuring something related to his interests, too.
If you’re good at photoshop or can just add a funny birthday caption, you can contribute something to the HappyBdayStevie Tumblr—multiple subs are encouraged, especially when you read the next paragraph.
He’s really into certain facets of pop culture, especially The Three Stooges and ’70s and ’80s TV. Photoshopping him into, say, a scene from The Three Stooges, Three’s Company, Happy Days, Gimme A Break, Full House, Good Times, Lost in Space, BJ & the Bear, Magnum P.I., Night Court, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, Mr. Belvidere, Webster, A Different World, Family Matters, Perfect Strangers, or Diff’rent Strokes would absolutely rock his world. Yeah, I know; this is gonna be fun.

I’ll be giving him the cards and revealing the Tumblr on his special day, Sept. 1, 2010, so that’s the deadline.

Send postcards to:
Stevie Klym
P.O. Box 656
Woodstock, IL 60098
I only ask that you keep any submissions, virtual or paper, clean and kind in language and imagery. If you have questions, hit me up here. Thanks.

Lean on Pete

Not since John Steinbeck's The Red Pony has a horse been so effectively tortured in the name of literature.

When the horse (read symbol of freedom) is a broken down navicular Quarter Horse named Lean on Pete and the journey involves all a protaganist's worldly possessions numbered in pocket change and canned goods you know you're firmly in Willy Vlautin territory.

Not only is this book tear inducing, it is also panic attack inducing. Anybody who has ever lived on a knife edge budget, anyone who never once took anything from an evicited person's pile for fear it would someday be them, will see their worst fears realized in this novel.

But, we are firmly in Willy Vlautin territory so there is hope. Hope that tomorrow might be better. Hope that a lucky break is just around the corner. And, again because we are in Willy Vlautin territory, that lucky break might be something as small and prosaic as a kind word from a stranger. Or a meal. Or a ride. (Again, shades of Steinbeck especially the kids with the candy scene from The Grapes of Wrath.) I wouldn't presume to speak for the author on matters of religion but I bet his creed starts and ends with The Golden Rule.

One thing I will presume to say is that Willy Vlautin did not write this book to change anyone's behavior-regardless, it has changed mine. Since reading it I have kept the watchful corner of my eye out, looking for those people who, like Charley, might need the small everyday gifts that I am able to give. That all of us are able to give when our eyes are opened enough to see the opportunities to do so.

Captured

I wasn't supposed to take the picture in the first place. There are strict rules about what I can and can't take pictures of.

No surprise photos and especially no sleeping photos.

But.

When you live 2348 miles apart and your dates all have a finite end to bump headlong into with a seperation looming, these kind of pictures become more than just pictures. No matter how blurry or poor their quality they capture that time and when that time is weeks or months over they allow you to go back, if only briefly.

Plus, like most live wires when stilled, he's just so arresting when he's asleep. Whether it's a nap on the couch (quilt pulled up to his chin), under a book (he's not a reader at all but wanted to know what my love of Antarctica was all about) or this one.

We were away on a rockabilly weekend and had been running hard in the hot sun all day, enjoyed three bands, got ourselves thrown out of the closed pool then tumbled, laughing, back into our room for a bath. In the time that it took me to take my face off he was asleep in the tub-all six foot three of him, water running over his feet, his head resting the in soap dish. Yes, he's naked but it's not a sexy picture at all-not with that farmer tan. No, it's a tender one. A wholly private moment, captured and preserved as a talisman againest future loneliness.