"No more pencils, no more books..."

My kids inform me that they would like their ritual marking the end of the school year to include shaking up cans of root beer and then throwing them up in the air and hoping that they explode.

If that's all that goes on at the end of the school year throughout their lives, well, I can live with that.

"Many Things are in Europe..."

"... such as reindeer, the Eiffel Tower, and bagpipes." Well, I guess that just about covers it. (Needless to say, we didn't write the script!). Here's some footage of Eva's final kindergarten program.

Peter Aidu, playing Steve Reich's "Piano Phase"

Here is an astonishing bit of artistry from Russian pianist Peter Aidu. Steve Reich is a minimalist who composed a number of pieces using tape loops that were played at slightly different speeds, which resulted in each track weaving in and out of phase with the other(s). The effect is uniquely dissonant and vertiginous. Much the same effect is produced in this piece, which was originally composed for two pianos (and, it goes without saying, two pianists). I'm not aware of anyone else that has played it simultaneously on two pianos. The recording is from www.archive.org. Just in case you don't believe that's one pianist without any special effects, here's a video of another performance of the work, courtesy of http://www.top-40.org/top09/top09.html (I prefer the audio-only version, but it's interesting to see Aidu actually playing. Come to think of it, if you're a really adventurous soul, you could play the audio clip and the video clip at [almost!] the same time and double your phase-shifting pleasure!).

Monday Poem--"I Carry My Words"

I carry my words around
like loose change in my pocket.
Spending a few here and there;
getting a few in return;
wishing I had a few more.
But some of them I can’t get rid of.
Like an “x” in Scrabble
or a “q” without a “u,”
no one seems to want them,
although they promise a jackpot
if only the bars, or cherries, or oranges,
would magically line up,
and just the right sentence
would appear for them.
So, I try to slip “pusillanimous” or “avuncular”
into a poem
only to find that,
like Canadian quarters in a vending machine,
they keep coming back,
unwanted, unceremoniously refused,
by readers who know better
than to be taken in
by some clod with a thesaurus.
So, here I am, writing another poem,
trying to persuade you,
munificent lector,
to accept these humble tokens,
to make them your own,
to add them to your menagerie
of pulchritudinous yet otiose gems.
Please, just take the execrable things off my hands.

Street Animation from Buenos Aires

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

News Flash: Bela Lugosi, Still Dead

I've often thought that there's some interesting theorizing to be done about the old Bauhaus classic, "Bela Lugosi's Dead." If Bela Lugosi is, metonymically speaking, death itself, does that mean that death is somehow vanquished or conquered? Is the song an affirmation of the eventual triumph of life over death? Or does Bela Lugosi's death betoken some kind of second death, a more radical death beyond death itself? Well, perhaps the time has come for younger generations of music fans to deal with these vexing questions and who better to pose them than Peter Murphy, Trent Reznor, and TV on the Radio?

Monday Poem--"In Praise of small gods"

What ancient system of mythology contained so many as 330 million gods and goddesses? As in mythology, so in chronology, the Hindoos stand unrivaled. Their pantheon is as capacious and extensive as their antiquity is unfathomable and prehistoric.(Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as They Are [1881])

Three hundred and thirty million gods are not enough

for the things I have in mind.

Don't get me wrong:

three hundred and thirty million divinities is nothing to sneeze at.

(Ksupa be praised!)

But in addition to the many faces of Lord Brahma

--creator, self-born, lord of sacrifices--

I have discovered today that the god of artichokes

has not yet been rendered his due:

this garlic-braised artichoke, lightly brushed with lime,

has vanquished my agnosticism forever.

May his name, whatever his name may be, be exalted.

(I had already known that the rosemary chicken was holy.)



And while we are at it, let us light a candle

to the tiny and tender god of these Thursday afternoons,

when the lightest breeze, lofting the lightest hint of lilac

from my neighbor's tree, drifts through my open window,

and a cloud wheels by, and a distant dog barks,

and I can just catch the strains of somebody, somewhere,

playing Bach on the piano, as I sit at the table

and push back my plate, and reflect that I have no need to dream,

for these dear gods accompany me now.

Siblinghood: Signs of the Times

Competing signs on the doors of Eva and the boys. First, the boys' sign went up:


Then, Eva's sign:


Translation: "None of Alex's friends and Simon's friends too. If Alex or Simon comes into my bedroom, they will be punished."

Let it be noted: this family runs a tight ship.

Rocking and Rolling

It's been a long time since Physics 101, but if memory serves, there are four fundamental forces in the universe: the strong force, the weak interaction, electromagnetism, and gravity. To which I respond: "Ok, Mr. Smarty Pants Physicist: how would you classify the force that inexorably draws boys, rocks, and water together? It seems as natural and powerful an impulse as any so-called "electromagnetism" to me. The rule is simple: find the biggest rocks you can carry and make the biggest splash possible, alternating every now and then with smaller ones that you can actually lift without getting a hernia.

We went up Hobble Creek canyon last night for the ward's "Father and Son" cookout. The other attraction at the campsite was to scamper up the face of a fairly steep hill (a 30% grade?) and slide down on one's posterior (for some, the sliding was inadvertent).


Nice reason #341 for living where we do: our picnicking spot up the canyon is located exactly twelve minutes from our house.

The Harriet Tubman Orchestra

Double bonus day today at school: Simon's 2nd grade class put on a play about Harriet Tubman and Alex's 5th grade orchestra had a concert. As for the herky-jerky footage, well, I meant to do that. You see, I wanted to employ a cinematographic style that would complement the delightfully unvarnished and spartan acting performances. And I think you'll agree that I succeeded.

Monday Poem--"Vending Machine"

I have never abused a vending machine of any sort.
Oh, I've given them a gentle nudge a time or two,
when the bag of chips, after I had already paid its ransom,
suddenly changed its mind and broke its own fall
while I could only watch in dismay.
"Okay, then," I once thought, "I'll ransom you again.
Perhaps the brownie above can entice you to drop."
But I hadn't known that you felt so strongly
about staying right where you were.
Then, and only then, did I lean against the glass,
hoping that the two of them, suspended in air,
might be persuaded to tumble down together.
Nothing came of it.
But rather than become a scofflaw,
attacking the machine with a fire extinguisher
and madly scooping up the booty,
I became a philosopher, wandering away
and wondering if this were not a sign
that I was to eat right, exercise, get more sleep.

Now once again I find myself here.
Once again my chips and cookie hang
weightless in space, mocking my naivete,
all but hooting at my simple minded faith
in Hansen Vending Co., trusting them
to keep up their end of the bargain,
to honorably carry out a simple economic transaction
when all that I had asked was to be treated fairly,
with the dignity due
an admittedly doughy, but nevertheless very hungry, man.
And now I feel a shiver of excitement as I look this way and that,
and reach for the brick someone left as a doorstop,
realizing that, for me, a whole new life is about to begin.

Speed Racer!

Look, ma! No training wheels! Happy Mother's Day! Eva follows the boys' example: all of them have learned to ride their bicycles in just one or two days. Here's some footage of Eva's first day on two wheels.

Written on a Post-it Note during a Long Meeting

[Disclaimer: I offer no apologies for the ponderousness of what follows. The image below right is my great-great-grandmother from the Basque Country. The cemetery photograph was taken last week at the Spanish Fork Cemetery. We were searching for the gravestone of Samuel Thompson, my great-great-great-grand uncle and a Mormon pioneer. The photo wasn't posed but notice the almost eerie parallels between Alex and me, which reinforce the point of the post. The video is from Brook Hinton's Trace Garden project (turn your speakers on before playing.]

My ancestors were Mormon pioneers and Basque peasants; French coal merchants and Montana judges. Some are now expressionless faces in blurred photographs; some are weathered inscriptions on a tombstone; some are names and dates on a computer screen or a piece of paper. Most are nameless, faceless, a strand of DNA, a solitary thread in the fabric of the cosmos. They are a single letter in the endless name of God.

They are gone. Their dust is scattered and their names dissolved.

They are not gone. They are here. Their voice is mine, their eyes are mine, their distant cancers lie dormant in my blood. They are a gesture, an involuntary shudder, a way of gripping a knife or a stone. Everything is mine and nothing is mine. They have shown me that I too am a whisper in and beyond time. When I have faded I will join them. And then I will be in the bones and brains and spirits of my children, and my children's children, and those remote, unimaginable generations who will not know enough about me even to wonder who I was, until they too come to join us.

Too Many Blogs ...

... are written by shameless parents motivated by nothing more than a base desire to show off their kids.

This is one of them.

Here is Alex on the cello, playing some theme or other from Lord of the Rings.


And here is Simon, the tormented writer. His current novel, Jimmy the Weirdo, now stands at 91 pages and counting.

Untitled Abstract

Yesterday evening I overheard one parent from Reagan Academy tell another, "We have the best art teacher I've ever seen." We were at an art show at BYU which featured the best work of RA students from 1st to 8th grades. The show was arranged by Steve Pratt, the kids' art teacher, and I must say I think that parent was right. Here's Simon, posing with the abstract piece which Steve selected for the show. Not bad for a kid whose preferred theme is realistic landscapes.