Not a damn thing wrong with Prosecco.
June 2006 Archives
One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
--Iris Murdoch
When I last visited my mom's house at Christmastime, she had two huge boxes of photos she'd recovered from my grandmother's room after she died. My grandmother was a minister's wife most of her life, so many of the photos are of people only tangentially related to anyone we know -- churchgoers and family members of churchgoers.
Because I love old photos even when don't know anyone in them, I brought a big stack home. For lack of anything better to do with them, I thought I'd post a few of the highlights here.
This first photo is of a good old-fashioned Midwestern baptism. The strange sense of voyeurism, the cultish subject, the colors, the composition -- all of these are extremely creepy to me. Therefore, I had to have it.
We shall call her Rose, and a rose she shall carry all the days of her life.
I took to calling this nameless infant "Grandpa Swartz Baby."
Can you guess why? (Wish I could find a better picture, but trust me: it's uncanny.)
Two weddings: "Goth Way Before You Were" and "Beautiful on the Inside."
And finally, here is one of someone I know and love: my mom. I commented about how stylish she was, and she just grinned and said, "You better believe I was!"
Kim, if you ever see this, you HAVE to click on this link. It's practically peanut butter porn (link completely safe for public viewing)!
Last Saturday afternoon, three friends and I visited one of our regular dining establishments in Long Island City. As it was a beautiful day, we headed for a table in the otherwise-empty garden (the term “garden” is always relative in New York, but relatively speaking, it’s a nice one). We ordered food and socially-acceptable midday alcoholic beverages – mimosas, bloody marys, coffees with various liqueurs. We were a spirited but not abnormally rambunctious group of friends, full of the usual banter punctuated with laughter.
About a half-hour into our visit, we began to hear indeterminate conversational sounds, as if from a television or radio, coming from over the wooden fence. Two minutes or so in, my friend Anthony looked stricken, “Emily, that’s your laugh!” Conversation stopped. We listened more closely. One by one, we began to make out our own voices in a recording from five minutes before.
What the hell?
Whenever the server or the restaurant owner walked out, the playback stopped, only to begin again when she left. As it became obvious that someone was paying very close attention, we got bolder, “Turn it up! I can’t hear myself!” The volume went up. The quality was astounding, as if recorded on professional equipment.
Realizing he might sound truly pathological, Anthony went to investigate with the owner. She immediately sighed, “Oh, the neighbor again. He’s a sound engineer and total freak who is trying to harass all my customers.” She asked if she could take our names and numbers and told us she planned to call 311. “You’re just lucky he didn’t bang the pots and pans this time,” she said.
In the meantime, here are a few great vids from YouTube.
This Mercury Rev video for "In a Funny Way" makes me smile every time, from the first moment a furry animal touches a guitar string. Plus, Mercury Rev reminds me of college, which is always pleasant at my advancing age.
The Slits, "Typical Girls." Why haven't I always been into this band?
Nina Simone's "For a While." Don't watch this one if you have suicidal tendencies.
