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PHILIP GLASS / METAMORPHOSIS TWO

Sat in the parking lot this afternoon, waiting for Becca to pick up a prescription. First time with two occupanted carseats, neither enormously happy as we waited. Trying to mentally arrange and prioritize everything I must do over the next few months - changes with The Company, with The Family, with house renovations and lesson plans and planning for the unexpected...

...and I was overwhelmed.

So I put on some David Byrne. Life is Long.

And remembered everything I love, including music and the two rascals in the back seat.

MYSTERIES OF LOVE / ANGELO BADELEMENTI

I was reminded of those things that I do well - namely, taking little things that I love, and mashing them into a communal, bonding experience that is just part of our lives. Taking the things I love and sharing them with others, and making that act of sharing a ritualistic bond. The songs and artists we have listened to with Magdelana the last three years is uncountable - music has been such an embedded part of our lives that it is unconscious act.

Wake up. Brew some joseph. Push play. Dance. There. It's a good day already.

ROYKSOPP'S NIGHT OUT / ROYKSOPP

Yesterday, as Magdelana cuddled with new baby brother Johannes X, she informed him,

Baby Brother, we're listening to Tom Waits...I'm just teasing you. It's not Tom Waits! It's...uhh, I don't remember who this is!

me: It's Devotchka.

her, giggling. Oh yeah...it's Devotchka, Baby Brother.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST / ENNIO MORRICONE

I've been reading a terrific book by Michael Chabon, which I will probably refer to frequently in the future. Manhood for Amateurs. One of the best memoirs/non-fiction work I have read, ever. An extraordinarily unique and vivid, but simple and honest perspective about tiny aspects of family life, and what it all means in the context of larger ontological issues and pop culture. He turns that spotlight into a highbeam that is honest, sometimes hilarious, and most of all, authentic.

Authentic in the sense of someone who is truly writing about his life experience, and writing his family into it as characters, but as unscripted narrative; in a way that comes across as creatively reflective of his skittering roles over time as Father-Son-Child-Spouse; an honest, deliberately focused mirror on his family's life...but a mirror that reflects the lives of people he still loves and lives with, not characters in the distant past...

DJ KRUSH / DAY'S END

...maybe all along, part of my desire to have so many children was the longing for a fan club to belong to, for imaginative fellowship, for the society of passionate amateurs like me. In my children, I have found a band of companions...

- Manhood for Amateurs, pp. 296-97

WICHITA VORTEX SUTRA / PHILIP GLASS

So as we chugged up the hill this afternoon and Johnny Cash's The First Time I Saw Your Face gently blasted through the rain, I choked up a little and thought of my fan club. Our little fan club, with four now. And our big fan clubs surrounding us, with the swirling relationships they involve.

I like fan clubs. I like mine.

Also, if anybody ever reads this blog, I need you to buy me a copy of Mr. Chabon's book so I can return mine to the library...

Now, I am going to dance with my new son. Who just pooped, if my ears are hearing correctly.