Monthly Archives: August 2007

Family matters

Goin’ to Jackson

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Lest any of you think the youth of today have no musical taste …

The setting: Uncle Rockford, Aunt Chloe and Aunt Nikki sitting around the breakfast table listening to ’80s music, laughing and reminiscing. Enter stage left, Wilson, 6-year-old nephew and music afficianado. “Something There to Remind Me” by Naked Eyes begins to play…

Uncle Rockford: “Wilson, come ‘ere. Listin to this-what do you think?”

Wilson (after a long pause, eyes fixed in an uncertain gaze upon the computer): “That’s disgusting music.”

(pause as Wilson leaves the room.)

Wilson (said over his shoulder as he walks away): “I’m more in tune with Johnny Cash.”

This fact was confirmed five minutes later when “Jackson” played and Wilson returned to sing along and affirm his allegiance.

Eating

A small and unexpected victory

We packed up most of the contents of the pantry a few days ago, but we hadn’t yet sealed up the boxes. Poppy found one of them this morning and pulled out a bag of dried apples.

“Chips!” she said.

“Would you like a chip?”

“Chips!”

So I opened the bag and handed her a small piece of dried apple. She promptly popped it in and, to my surprise, didn’t spit it back out.

“Mmmmm,” she said.

It took her about 10 minutes to chew up that wee dried apple, but she did chew it up. And now she’s eating her lunch — mashed sweet potato with a little bit of apple sauce stirred in.

Maybe I need to put a bowl of broccoli in a box and leave it where she can find it.

Screen time

"Inland Empire"

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There’s a public-access channel in Columbia that used to run locally produced movies late at night. For the most part, these movies made no sense whatsoever. And so, while I might watch a few minutes of them, I never watched one in its entirety.

Now imagine you have four or five channels. And they’re all showing public-access movies. And you’re flipping through all of your channels, hoping against hope that something that makes sense will come on your TV screen. Instead, you’re bombarded, in 20-second bursts, with:

  • a trio of well-dressed rabbits in a Beckett-esque play.
  • a crying, naked girl sitting on the edge of a bed, clutching a blanket and watching a static-filled TV screen.
  • a disturbing exchange taking place between two blurry-headed figures in a hotel room.
  • a couple of old men screaming at each other in a foreign language.
  • a crazed-looking woman running down the street.

    Yesterday, Rockford brought home a copy of “Inland Empire” from the video store. And that frightful public-access scenario became my reality. I watched the first 15 minutes before I decided I’d had enough. It made me want to punch David Lynch in the face.

    David Lynch has officially been inducted into Club Boycott.

    Rockford was kind enough to turn the movie off, but he says he’s going to watch it tonight after I go to bed. You can expect to read his take on it soon.