thoughtcrumbs : march 2002

From stating the obvious:

"Rainy Day Fun and Games for Toddler and Total Bastard" -- available now from So New Media -- is the tender, heart-warming story of a criminally inept father and the emotional damage he wreaks on his sons. It has been widely praised by people only marginally related to me, invited comparisons to "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" in that the titles have several letters in common, and is currently being used by the Bush Administration to promote abstinence.

At the National Aquarium in Baltimore, three French tourists were standing behind me. We were looking at a group of fish from California, who, according to the sign, are born female, and switch to male at age eight. One guy translated the sign to French for his friends. Here's what he said (translated back to English): "All the little fisheez are born girls. But then, at the age of eight, they swim en masse to Sweden, where they all have a little operation. And then they swim back as boys."

Also from Baltimore: When I introduced myself to the class and told them I was from Oregon, their first question was whether I drove a monster truck.

Spent last week in Baltimore for a conference on library and museum web projects. Also got to visit my friend Jess, who has honed her shouting and smiling skills via Teach for America. Her seventh graders are darling, but exasperating. In a project where they were to draw the Chesapeake Bay full of pollution, one kid drew a brilliant scene depicting the limos of P. Diddy, Master P, and Eminem leaking motor oil off the roadway.

Italian For Beginners made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Didn't have the visual punch of Amelie, but it was full of adorable Danish misfits, which is a close second.

Oh, there are times when I wished I lived in San Francisco. See Maggie's 3.17.02 post.

Beginning to enjoy big city perks -- went to two notable concerts last week.

First was Rufus Wainwright at the Aladdin, which was appropriately worldly and mysterious but gritty, much like Rufus himself. Lanky and pouty, Rufus live didn't much resemble the pretty boy on the cover of Poses, or the punk darling on the liner of his self-titled album. My nurse friend who attended the concert with me confirmed that that was one unhealthy-looking boy. Let's hope that he's just road weary, and that those dangerous cravings he alludes to in Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk are unfulfilled.

At least he tells good stories. In particular, Portland is his favorite city in the Northwest . . . for the flophouses. Not quite sure to which flophouses he's referring, but Karren and I are thinking the Burnside area around Spartacus. Portlandians, what say you? Rebel Prince is about a particular Portland flophouse, where Rufus imagines lazing around waiting for the next sailor off the boat. (Better watch my usage of flophouse, or I'll end up with all kinds of the wrong web traffic.)

Martha, Rufus's sister, who opened and sang backup, was as captivating as her brother. With a high rubbery voice reminiscent of Patsy Cline or Joey Lauren Adams, she'd slide up into entrancing suspended chords. Their innate ability to harmonize in seconds and fourths and sevenths leads me to believe their famous folk singer parents began musical training prenatally. Their trio of One Man Guy with cutie pie Teddy Thompson was enthralling -- the song's loneliness is allayed by the holistic harmony of the three.

We were a surprisingly sedate crowd; my hot tea was in no danger of spilling, even during the encore of Instant Pleasure (a butt-wiggling funk romp that begins "I don't want somebody to love me/Just give me sex whenever I want it"). Don't we all.

Second concert was Dashboard Confessional at the Crystal Ballroom. With the exception of the second opening band's (whose name escapes me, sorry) jazzy cover of Ice Ice Baby, it was a long wait through the three opening acts until singer-songwriter Chris Carrabba (Dashboard Confessional) took the stage. And from then on, it was one big singalong. Not your typical groupies-shouting-and-annoying-the-more-mature-audience-and-performer deal, but a satisfying though bizarre zoo of well-articulated lyrics and in-tune singing, encouraged by the performer. Dashboard Confessional corralled the audience, only occasionally taking a few soft lines for himself. He deftly worked the crowd to emphasize salient phrases, like the one about him wishing he was making out with anyone right then in Screaming Infidelities, the only song whose lyrics I even slightly knew.

Cult experience? Perhaps. Chris looked like an unassuming Jason Priestly, and had hundreds of nineteen year old girls and their boyfriends (really!) singing his every word. I was right there with 'em on Screaming Infidelities. Unfortunately, he seemed to have only three formulae for his songs, and I was constantly thinking "didn't he already play that one?" But whatever he's doing, it's working, and as long as he doesn't mind having a fan base a decade younger than himself, then more power to him.