I realize I am just a bit behind on posting photos of my children here. To rectify that, here is the first of a series of gallery posts from last year.
It was a beautiful day in September and it made sense to drag the children out in their finest rainbow dresses to the playground. Well, Cheeks didn’t wear a rainbow dress; she was dressed like a tiny Mrs. Roper. As one does.
Enjoy the photos after the jump.
Yesterday I took Penny to the doctor. She’d been getting these low-grade fevers for a few days and then bouncing back, having some throat issues that were causing her to gag on her food, and was just kind of inconsistent in temperament. More inconsistent than is normal for a 4 year old, at least. Nothing too bad, but off for long enough that we decided a doctor visit was warranted.
The drive from our house to the pediatrician office is about 30 minutes, beach traffic permitting. And that means plenty of time for music.
The thought of Frozen II on loop yet again filled me with dread, so I made a quick playlist of albums that I anticipated she wouldn’t hate and wouldn’t end up with me yelling at Android Auto to play “Lost In the Woods” ten minutes into our drive.
The first album on that playlist was Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips. An all-time great album, to be sure. One that I’ve listened to maybe 80 million times, no exaggeration. And why aren’t The Flaming Lips more discussed? They’ve been putting out great records for decades, but no one talks about them. It’s weird, right? It’s not like they’re a band who put out a few records in the late 80s and then disappeared. No, they’ve been consistently making new work since 1986. I hear more talk about Neutral Milk Hotel and they only put out two records in the 1990s. It’s wild! Talk about The Flaming Lips!
Anyway.
We were driving down the highway, I put on the record, and halfway through the first track, “Fight Test”, she says, “I like this music, daddy.”
“Did you just say you liked this, kiddo?”
“Yeah! I like this music.”
I tell you I have had some successes as a parent, but this was a special one. I felt like I really hit the mark with my gamble with this album, one that is pretty high in my own personal favorites.
During “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1” I explained to her that this song was about a girl who fights evil robots to protect the boy who is singing, knowing full well that orienting her understanding of the song in the terms of a heroic girl would help her appreciate it. And I wasn’t lying. That is what the song is about, at least at the level of understanding of a young girl. I could have talked to her about struggling and overwhelming odds and caring for our loved ones who fight for us and she might have understood a little, but telling her it was about a girl who fought robots to save a boy sent the idea right home.
The appointment went smoothly. She was COVID/RSV/strep negative. It was a relief that we don’t have to look forward to that joy smashing through the house again.
On our way back home, we listened to the driving playlist again which had reached Pulp’s This Is Hardcore when she pipes up behind me. “Daddy, can we listen to the girl and the robot song again?”
“Really??” I asked. “You got it, sweet girl.”
After the song, I skipped over “Yoshimi Pt. 2” and “In The Morning of the Magicians”, but she made me go back to the latter track because she “liked that one”.
What a car ride! After so many years of inane, mind-numbing children’s music, to be able to listen to something with Penny that I love and that she enjoyed was such a pleasure. It’s funny how these silly little moments can feel so profound and rewarding against the daily grind of parenting.
We went to the diner close to the house for lunch. She got french toast and chocolate milk and I got an omelette with home fries and rye toast.
David Lynch has died. If you run in the same media circles I do, this will come as no surprise to you. I won’t bore you with my waxing poetic about how important his work is to me (very) or how much I admire that he was able to do all the things he was (a lot) or how great of a loss this is to everyone who cares about art (huge).
No, I’ll take this moment to share one of my very favorite David Lynch moments, a moment which is directly responsible for the unironic addition of “get real” to my personal lexicon.
Let’s all go make something weird and important.
Rest well, David Lynch.
My kids are obsessed with Frozen and its sequel Frozen II. Mina will request “Elsha” the very first thing upon waking up in the morning or returning home from daycare or as soon as she’s finished throwing her unwanted blueberries on the floor at dinner. It is relentless.
So, as you might imagine, the music from the movies is a constant stowaway in my head. And as much as I think “Let It Go” is a banger of a karaoke song and that “Lost In the Woods” is a hilarious Peter Cetera riff, I am not always happy to have the snippets of the other songs I only partially know bouncing around my consciousness.
The particular song that inspired this post is from the second film. It’s called “Show Yourself”. It’s sung by Idina Menzel as Elsha and it’s very, very catchy. Beatrice especially loves this one. We have a bunch of videos of her belting it at the top of her lungs. It’s really quite endearing how strongly it sings to her little soul.
When Menzel sings the line “Show yourself!”, it resolves in a way that, in my mind, connects to Paul Simon’s iconic hit “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”. You know the song. We all know the song. Everyone knows the song. It’s been playing non-stop since its 1972 release.
The mental mash-up, the music portmanteau goes a little like “Show yourself! I don’t know where I’m going, I’m on my way, I’m taking me time but I don’t know where”. Try it. It’ll get stuck in your head, too.
All done?
Good.
As you can imagine, such a potent musical melange wouldn’t stay sequestered in my head. When I am doing chores around the house the music escapes, and that means that Sarah has to endure it, also.
“Oh, god, I hate Simon & Garfunkel!” she said to me.
“I mean, yeah, goodbye to Rosie! Queen of corona!” I said.
“Yuck! I hate that song. There’s only one Simon & Garfunkel song I like.” We started to search through Spotify to find the song she was thinking about, but without success.
Then I had a thought, “Maybe it’s just a Paul Simon song?”
Then we found it. “Yes! This one! I love this song!” she said.
“This song?! This is the song you love??”
And do you want to know what the super hot Paul Simon jam my wife absolutely loves is?
It’s this:
Wow. You think you know someone and then you learn that their favorite Paul Simon song is “You Can Call Me Al”.
Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you’re fortunate enough to spend these dark winter nights with people you love, no matter what you celebrate or don’t celebrate. It’s a time for chosen families, for friends, and for people who love the hell out of you no matter what.
So put your feet up, eat something delicious, and sing loudly.
We also got to celebrate Mina’s first birthday this March. She’s proving to be an incredibly pleasant little girl, all smiles and laughs with very little unprovoked freaking out. If she is melting down, something is wrong.
Fortunately, he birthday was free of freak outs. We were also dealing with lingering daycare plague, so we delayed her birthday party until the second half of April. This nice thing about tiny kids is that they have no idea what “time” or “dates” are, so making them wait to celebrate their birthdays until it makes most sense for everyone is totally fine. Parenting!
Enjoy some photos after the jump.
Hey all! It’s been pretty quiet here on the old Black Laser front for the last few months. And there’s a very good reason for that which I will get into in a later post. For now, let’s rewind the calendar dial way back to January 2024.
Penny and Bea turned three this year and we threw them an age-appropriate party. They had cake and ice cream and got presents. And that’s pretty much it. They had a great time. We took some photos. We made some memories. All in all, a successful third birthday for a couple of little girls.
Enjoy the photos after the jump.
Happy New Year, everyone! I was fumbling around the internet recently and came across a post on Fstoppers that provides a framework about how to process your creative output from last year and your creative goals for this year. I thought it would be fun and interesting to go through this list here to share with you all.
Note that I am going to change some of the photography-specific language in the questions to be broad. I’m a photographer, sure, but I’m also a bunch of other things all lumped together.
Ok? Ok! Cool! Let’s get going.
So that’s about it. Some optimization for this coming year. Some places I’d like to put more juice. You know what would also be great? Getting a job. Or jobs. I’ve been seriously underemployed since Verdant collapsed and that is driving me nuts. But I’ll save that for Failure State: Verdant Construction whenever I get around to writing that.
