2005 Stages and Exhibits

1. Remy Bumppo's Humble Boy at Victory Gardens (March 11). Fine production of an extremely clever variation on Hamlet. Set in the contemporary English countryside, Hamlet is an Oxford student, his recently deceased father is an entomologist who loved bees. We saw this show with Julie Lewis, who gave us our first "congratulations" card on the occasion of our announcement that Mari was pregnant. This was the best theater event of the year for me. The rest of the events on this list are presented in no particular order.
2. Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, produced by the TimeLine Theater Company. We saw this challenging, 3-person play about Werner Heisenberg's visit to Niels Bohr in 1941 with Fernando and Lisa (whose wedding we attended on July 17th this year). I dig non-fiction period drama.
3. John Malkovich in Lost Land at Steppenwolf (April 6th) The play (set in Romania during World War One) was not memorable, but Malkovich’s command of the stage was (from what I've read, that, it sounds like Mr. Malkovich is an ass). We saw the second act from the first row.
3. Jack Lewis (seen in the picture at left) as Vronsky in the Vitalist Theater production of Anna Karenina at the Belmont Arts Center. Best production Jack has been in? Great cast. I'd love to see Jack take command of Malkovich.
4. Man of La Mancha at the Court Theater (September 30). Great set, awful Cervantes. He was an annuciating, basso profundo robot with an opera background and absolutely zero acting ability. What a disappointment! The actor who sang 'To Each His Dulcinea" was good.
5. The Dean Evans Show at the Neo-Futurarium (July). Silly, fun. Maybe the first time I’ve been to a play alone (Mari was in Spain). One of the guests was a man who had met Kevin Bacon. We all got to meet him, making me a man who has met a man who has met Kevin Bacon.
6. Jack as Agamemnon in Iphigenia at Aulis in the Rogue's Oresteia. Three plays in one day. I saw most of them with Ruth. Jack was good. Ruth and I also saw "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" at the Neo-Futurarium.
7. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. I enjoyed watching black and white footage of record-breaking high school football legends. And Braniff commercials. (I think I may have flown on Braniff when I was a lad; I had forgotten it existed.)
8. Mari and I saw Marjane Satrapi (author of Persepolis) speak at the Women and Children’s book store. She was annoyingly smug (Marjane, not Mari).
9. On July 27th, Mari and I saw Three Broadway Divas (Jan Horvath, Jodi Benson and Debbie Gravitte) at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion (designed by Frank Gehry) in Grant Park. We took our lawn chairs and filled out “Do You Know Your Spouse?” quizzes before the show (we did). This summer I decided that Grant Park is my favorite park in the world. I later returned with Brian and Ruth and each time I had a burger with Horkheimer cheddar cheese at the Grant Park Grill (more on that in my Best Meals of 2005 posting).
10. On July 28th, Mari and I saw Bodyworlds (plastinated humans) and Mysteries of the Nile at the Museum of Science and Industry. To be completely honest, I found Bodyworlds to be more impressive in theory than in person. Impressing me with science is so hard.

2005: The Year in Tune

This next installment of my 2005 Time Capsule concerns the new pop music that entered my ears and lingered there last year. Almost all of the approximately 40 mp3s I added to my collection this year were given to me by Lisa and Brian as birthday and Christmas gifts based on request lists that I had given them (thanks again, guys). The lists themselves were inspired by the music that plays in my various “offices” around the city.

This past week I’ve been listening to these songs with an ear toward choosing my favorites. Although at one point I thought about producing a Casey Casem-style top 10 list, I’ve resigned myself to presenting the finalists as a group. While all of these songs are new to me this year (or newly appreciated by me this year), some of them have been around for decades. In fact, I believe that out of all the songs I added to my collection this year, only about a dozen were released in the last ten years and only one was actually released in 2005 (“Sitting, Waiting, Wishing,” by Jack Johnson—which I got to know because the video used to play before the trailers at the Evanston theater I go to). Anyway, here are my top ten tracks of 2005 (with some info I picked up from yahoo! about the performers):

1. "Life Less Ordinary" (2004) by Carbon Leaf. Five-piece Richmond, VA, band has been playing their brand of Celtic roots rock along the East Coast since the mid-'90s.
2. "Somebody Told Me "(2004) The Killers. Las Vegas foursome. Apparently this song became popular during the summer of 2004.
3. "Since You’ve Been Gone" (2004) by Kelly Clarkson. I’m not proud of this one, but honesty compels me to include it. What can I say? The tune is catchy. We all know her story
4. "I’d Rather Dance" (2004) by The Kings of Convenience. I actually caught this song on Carson Daly’s show—which I never watch. Norway-based indie-pop duo. Odd performing style. The ugly one sings and wanders around the stage in a semi-oblivious daze. And gyrates a little bit.
5. "Amsterdam" (2003) by Guster. Boston trio met at Tufts University in 1992.
6. "A Dios Le Pido" (2002) by Juanes. Like Shakira and my wife, Juanes is from Colombia.
7. "Hazy Shade of Winter" (1987) by The Bangles. This 4-woman band was formed in L.A. in the '80s (2 of the harmonists are sisters). The song, though, was originally performed by Paul Simon in the '60s.
8. "Stuck in the Middle with You" (1972) by the Stealers Wheel. Hyped as Britain's answer to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the 2 lead singers of this band actually met as teenagers in Paisley, Scotland. The band didn't stick together for long (3 years). Gerry Rafferty went on to score a hit with "Baker Street" in 1978.
9. "Undun" (1969) by The Guess Who. Canadian superstars of the '60s and '70s got their start in Winnipeg. Their biggest hit was "American Woman." The band's demise began when the drummer became a Mormon.
10. "Son of a Preacher Man" (1969) by Dusty Springfield. Pop diva of the '60s was born Mary O'Brien. Died in 1999.

I also acquired 4 New CDs in 2005: 1. Natural (2003) by Celso Fonseca (copied from Lisa). Pedro Almodovar first introduced me to Mr. Fonseca in the wonderful film Talk to Her .2. Sacred Love (2003) by Sting (copied from Lisa). After a long fallow period, I am enjoying Sting again.3. Meet the Beatles (1963) and Please, Please Me (1963) by the Beatles (given to me at Christmas by Lisa and Melissa). Now that the free mp3 download years are a thing of the past, I think I’m going to try to acquire the complete Beatles oeuvre on CD. Maybe I’ll buy one or two year over the next decade--in the order they were originally released?

It's a Boy!

Congratulations to Jack and Julie (seen here at Ann Sather's last month with Emilio and a small fruit dish with slices of kiwi, melon, and cantaloupe in it), who learned yesterday that the new Lewis--due in June--will have a gender (male, as it turns out). Jack tells me he is already working on his front yard football playbook and he wants Emilio on his team (because of his vertical leap).

Emilio Goes to the Movies

Today, the smiling gentlemen seen in the photograph at right, enjoyed his first movie outing with his movie-loving mother and me. As Mari learned last week, every Tuesday at 11 a.m. the Loews Cineplex on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago invites parents with small infants to come to a showing of a first-run film. The lights are dimmed, but not darkened, and the volume is turned down a bit, and, as we learned, most parents park their strollers outside. I counted about 25 families in the room with us--some with babies even younger than Emilio--and it was fun to meet and share notes with other parents before and after the show (I overheard one mother say that her healthy daughter was in the 75th percentile in terms of head size, the 50th percentile in terms of height, and the 25th percentile in terms of weight!) . At times, the cooings and hootings and whimperings of the various babies in the room sounded to me like an orchestra warming up before a performance, but while I might have been stressed out by such distractions at a regular viewing, in this context it was just cute. Throughout the movie, you could see moms and dads moving into the aisles from time to time to walk their babies around to calm them down (I proudly took my place in that parade). Some of the parents I introduced myself to had come back several times and I am sure Emilio and Maria and I will be back as well. The movie we saw--appropriately enough, given Emilio's Spanish heritage--was The Matador. For a review, see my movie blog.

Emilio Slides

Today Emilio and I had fun
with a slow-mo pillow slide
and a leather landing.
Tommorow, it's
Matador at the
"Reel Moms" matinee
with Mari
(we hope).

Top 2005 Reads

1. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Fine description of a dysfunctional Midwestern family. That Mr. Franzen spurned Oprah's invitation to make The Corrections one of her book club choices strikes me as exceedingly odd.2. The Inner Circle by T. C. Boyle. The amazing adventures of Alfred Kinsey, the hyper-rational sexologist who is portrayed here as a visionary who also happens to have his head up his ass.
3. Festivus by Daniel O’Keefe. Surprisingly familiar oddity about home-made family rituals. O'Keefe was a writer on Seinfeld.
4. The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. Longfellow and his Harvard homies—get to know ‘em. Period mystery. Lite reading.

Day 73: Smiles

Emilio had a good day today. He's gaining strength in his legs and likes to stand up on my thighs while I hold his torso. He's also starting to echo Mari when she says "ah-goo." He's eating a lot--a mixture of mother's milk and formula--and spitting up little. We've started to notice that he stares steadily at the TV when it's on, so we're making an effort to keep his head pointed away from the boob tube. Emilio slept for a long stretch last night and I had the chance to observe--as Mari has many times before--the way he sometimes laughs in his sleep. When he starts to wake up, he makes lots of silly faces and when he's fed and clean and alert, he can be encouraged to smile. In short, the three of us just having a grand time of it.

Nude Sarsgaard Reads Paper in the Dark

If you recorded this week's mildly amusing episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by Peter Sarsgaard and you're a lukewarm fan of the show, I recommend that you watch the opening sketch and Sarsgaard's monologue and then fastforward to Weekend Update. If you want more, check out the Pirate Convention and the Fairemont Suites Inn sketches.

A more detailed review . . .
1. 360 with Anderson Cooper. Average. Darrell Hammond was good as Jesse Jackson (". . . and the dessert cart moves on.") I like to make fun of Anderson Cooper's self-love ("and the shimmering blue pools that are his eyes"). It's hard to take Mr. Cooper seriously after getting to know him first through the reality show The Mole, which he treated with the same seriousness that he treats world news now.
2. Opening monologue with Peter Sarsgaard as the creepy host was good--2 ha's. Love the image of the creepy nude guy reading a newspaper alone in the dark.
3. Nelson's Baby Toupees. One grin.
4. Love to see Kristen Wiig back as the enthusiasticTarget cashier promoting Valentine goods. Where did that weird character come from?
4. Pirate Convention. Silly. One ha. I love the way Chris Parnell committed to his non-speaking role. It is easy to miss if you're not a Parnell fan.
5. Carol at the Art Gallery. Not funny. I'm not a Horatio Sanz fan.
6. The Young Chuck Norris. Average.
7. Cat Fancy magazine (satire of Shattered Glass). Blah.
8. The Strokes. Naaah.
9. Weekend Update. Decent. Nice cameo by Drew Barrymore.
10. Gays in Space. Not very good. I really miss Maya Rudolph singing the opening theme.
11. Fairemont Suites Inn. Surprisingly good duet by Mr. Sarsgaard and Ms. Dratch. One ha.
12. NSA. Blah.
13. The Strokes Again. Naah again (better than the first, though).
14. SARS guard. Semi-grin. Forgettable.

2005: A Year on the Tube

So this is the fourth year in a row that I’ve done a time capsule. It started out as something I wanted to do on New Year’s Eve and share with the other family members I could recruit to join me in the ritual. The ritual never got off the ground, I’m sorry to say, and the recruiting effort didn’t go so well, either, but I’ve kept on capsuling and I’m still hoping that the idea will catch on with my nearest and dearest. Melissa has been my most reliable supporter so far and she was the first to post a time capsule in this new Era of the Blog. Rumor has it that Mari and Lisa will be publishing their own time capsules any day now. Meanwhile, my time capsule has grown more and more elaborate each year and this year is no different. Thus, I will be publishing it in a series of installments over a number of days and I will be adding another satellite blog (http://www.sfbdoessports.blogspot.com/) to handle some of the run-off.

And now, without further ado, here’s the first installment of my 2005 Time Capsule:

MOST WATCHED TV SHOWS
I Never Miss . . .
1. Deadwood (HBO). Some were turned off by the cursing. I notice it less than the hyper-elegant Victorian turns of phrase, which I find amusing. (Robin Weigert plays Calamity Jane.)
2. Rome (HBO). Sometimes silly in a Rocky and Bullwinkle way, but I dig the period fiction.
3. Foyle’s War (BBC). The Battle for Britain is the World War II back drop for this detective series. (Michael Kitchen plays Detective Chief Superintendent Foyle.)
4. Unscripted (HBO) Documentary-style soap opera (produced by Steven Soderbergh and produced and directed by George Clooney) focuses on 3 young wannabe actors in Hollywood. Frank Langella plays the evil drama instructor with frightening success. (Jennifer Hall plays one of the wannabe actors--herself.
5. Project Greenlight (Bravo). It’s fun to root for the artist-idealist (John Gulager, the novice director of the silly horror film Feast) and revile the arrogant philistines who sabotage his efforts (what a vile casting director!).
6. Extras (HBO) Not as good as The Office and I don’t like Ricky Gervais’s actress sidekick much, but as long as Ricky’s on the screen, I’m usually approaching a giggle.

DVR Regulars
1. The Daily Show (Comedy Central). I like the news commentary best, but I think John Stewart is too soft on the bad guys in his interview sections (he’s too generous with the “You’re a good man” summations--his Zell Miller closer). The comedy sketches are often too mean for my taste--mean to ordinary people, that is; I don't mind mean to powerful people (like Zell).
2. Meet the Press (NBC). I used to think Tim Russert was a good battler, but he went through a streak in which he struck out a lot.
3. This Week (ABC). Stephanopoulos does a good job of cutting through the clutter. George Will’s worldview is reprehensible, but his delivery is funny.
4. The Spy (BBC). Silly reality show, but I loved the winning performance by Nicola Jackson, the charming Scottish spy-in-training (and the gabby Irish lad—before he got kicked off).
5. Saturday Night Live (NBC) I’m willing to sit through the boring bits (and sometimes there’s a lot of it) to get to the good stuff.

Best SNL Hosts:
1. Alec Baldwin (Tylenol BM, Brokeback Goldmine, The Tony Bennett Show, The Man Who Married a Hot Dog, Santa’s Workshop)
2. Will Ferrell (Will Backstage--the opener, Celebrity Jeopardy, Oracle Conclave, Robert Goulet)
3. Dane Cook (Opening Monologue, West Bedford Drama Club, Wool Sweater, 44-Hour Coma)

4. Jack Black (Sbarro, Opening Monologue: King Kong Song, Channel 5 Photo Shoot)
5. Tom Brady (The Bad Thrower, Tom Brady’s Falafel House)
Other good host moments: Topher Grace at the Beaver Ranch Brothel with Rachel Dratch; Jason Lee as the Soaking Wet Killer

Best SNL Commercials: (in no particular order)
1. Lettuce
2. Woomba
3. MorganStanley
4. Taco Town
5. JJ Casuals
6. Medicare
7. Dr. Porkenheimer’s Boner Juice (Tom Brady)
8. Federline (Ashton Kutcher)

Notable SNL Characters
1. Newcomer Kristen Wiig as Megan Mullaly (at the Spammies), as Judy Garland (at Vincent Price’s Thanksgiving Day Special), as an A-Hole Buying a Christmas Tree
2. Fred Armisen as the Giant Cat
3. Rachel Dratch as Debbie Downer


Former DVR Regulars
1. The Newshour with Jim Lehrer (PBS) Jim & Co. got bumped from my daily routine to make room for Emilio. The point/counterpoint segment with Mark Shields (from the left) and David Brooks (from the right) was usually my favorite part (Tom Olifant made a good stand-in for Shields). I enjoyed Brooks’s disgust with the Bush administration’s callous response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Brooks predicted that the shocking exposure of the nation’s rich/poor divide would lead to a political sea change in the nation, but by January that hope seems grossly optimistic.
2. The Conan O’Brien Show (NBC) I skipped the opening monologue and the sketches in order to watch the interviews, which Conan usually manages to infuse with an appropriate degree of gigglework. Watching Conan, I learned that Lara Flynn Boyle is a banshee. Not a person you’d want to be stuck in an elevator with.
3. The Al Franken Show (Sundance). I don’t always respond to Al’s sense of humor (or his occasionally mainstream politics for that matter), but I appreciate the fury and the fearlessness.
4. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (BBC). For a while, I was reading each of the original short stories on which these one-hour episodes starring Jeremy Brett were based. That didn’t last long, though.

Emilio Turns 70

Emilio got his Social Security card today (day 70 of his young life), which really made me happy. I had been intending to go to the local office to submit the paperwork, but apparently we had submitted the paperwork through the mail and I had forgotten it.

The temperature got up into the fifties today, so it was a good day to get out. When I left for class, Mari strapped Emilio into the Baby Bjorn and took him to meet her friends at the Rochelle Lee Foundation where she often does volunteer work (the organization's goal is "to create lifelong readers among teachers and students"). She figured out that Emilio was big enough to fit into the togs you see at right, so he was stylin'.

It was Emilio's second outing this week, as we went to dinner at a neighborhood restaurant (Charlie's) with Jack and Julie on Monday night (I had the new mac'n'cheese dish, but Mari liked it better than I did). After we left Charlie's, we headed to Sweet Occasions to buy chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cake.

Julie is now nineteen weeks pregnant, so we spent a lot of time talking about parenting stuff, but we also mixed in some Saturday Night Live evaluations. Jack liked Scarlett Johansson's showing better than I did (she hosted last Saturday's episode). I was happy to see the Taco Town commercial again, as it has become one of my favorites ("Pizza? Now that's what I call a taco!"). The highlight of the show for me, though, was the Duluth Live sketch, which featured Will Forte as an overly enthusiastic lead singer of a local rock band performing the new theme song for a Minnesota morning news/talk show.

As for the rest of the sketches . . . 1. I missed the beginning of the opening cartoon by Robert Smigel, but I liked the skewering of Pat Robertson that I saw. 2. The opening monologue was OK. Cute. Decent but not memorable. 3. Taco Town. Chris Parnell does the voice over, so I'm thinking this commercial is his brain child. 4. Deep House Dish. Ugh. 5. Smorgasbord. Double ugh. Jack saw something in it that I didn't. 6. TV Funhouse: Darwin. OK. 7. Mike and Tony’s Chandelier Galaxy. Three ha's. 8. Duluth Live. Will Forte rocks. 9. Death Cab for Cutie was the band. I usually fast forward through the music, but I was surprised to find that I actually liked the first song--"Soul Meets Body" 10. Weekend Update. Nice segment on Alito hearings. Props to Rachel Dratch for her impression of Alito’s teary wife. 11. My Super Sweet Sixteen. Ordinary. 12. Once in a Lifetime Jewelers. Ugh. 13. Tiny, tiny submarine somewhere off the Kumil-Kamchatka Trench. One ha. 14. Death Cab for Cutie again. Not as good as the first song. 15. Mr. Willoughby. Two ha’s.

My Top 5 Will Forte Characters:
1. The Falconer
2. The Bad Speller
3. Zell Miller
4. The abusive Morgan Stanley broker
5. Tim Calhoun (the lame political candidate)

A Clean Bill of Health

At nine weeks, our little potato weighs 11 lbs. and 8 oz., which is in the 50th percentile of boys his age in the U.S., the doctor tells us. He's in the 55th percentile in terms of height, and in the 40th percentile in terms of head size. At his doctor's appointment today, Emilio got three vaccinations in his thigh. He handled the first with barely a squeak. The second and third, though, were more painful. The nurse advised us to put a small dosis of Baby Tylenol in the nipple of his milk bottle and that seemed to help. The doctor gave us a can of formula which has more rice in it, which, he thinks, may help with Emilio's stomach problems (Emilio is now supplementing his diet of breast milk with one or two bottles of formula a day). He likes his baths.

Rich Corinthian Leather

Today Emilio had his first taste of formula since we left the hospital. He seemed to tolerate it fine, but at his next feeding (which I gave him on the couch you see in the photo), he spit everything up. It soaked through my jeans and my long underwear and even stained the orange boxer shorts I was wearing. It also got down into the seam between the cushions of the couch, but I think I was able to clean it all up (it appears that we were wise to get a leather couch and love seat). Emilio didn't cry, but he got hungry a little later and Maria Jose fed him the rest of his bottle. He's sleeping now--snoring a little bit, actually--in his car seat (which keeps him upright). When he cries, I can sometimes get him back to sleep by placing him on my chest--as in this photo, which Maria Jose took today before I left to work on the syllabus I will give to my students on their first day of class tomorrow.

That's a Smile, Folks!

Mari noticed the first hints of this grin before we left Chicago in December, but I like to think that it was in Texas that Emilio really learned to smile. I tried to take some photos of one of his Fort Worth smiles, but it wasn't until today that I was really able to get the little sucker on film. Ya gotta love it!

Emilio Does Texas

It was eight degrees (-13 centigrade) in Chicago the day before we left (December 19th), but the temperatures hit the eighties (27 degrees centigrade) while we were in Texas, so Mari, Emilio and I hit the swings the first chance we got. When we weren't swinging, we were introducing the Little Potato to his many cousins, aunts, uncle and other extended family members. Even though our social calendar was slammed, we still did not get to see everyone we wanted to see, so we're already looking forward to our next trip southward. Special thanks to John Dan for spending a full day making a tape recording for us, to Aunt Carolyn for driving out to Aledo to pick up that tape for us when we didn't have a car, to Laura for throwing her body between me and the Aledo Police Force, to Brian for taking us to the emergency room and to the airport and to Walmart and to the mall and to Aledo, to Mom and Dad and Lisa and Melissa for the late-night babysitting, to Olivia for meeting us at the airport and helping us change diapers and get Emilio to sleep, to Royce for staying up late wrapping presents with me on Christmas Eve, to Lyndsae for breastfeeding counsel, to everyone in Spain for being patient with our communication lapses, to Ann Showers for loaning us her heirloom cradle, to Jack and Julie for lubricating our plants in Chicago, to Julius Jones for keeping hope alive against the Panthers, to Peter LoCoco for the Cyclone-beater, to D.J. Mbenga for shooting down the walls of heartache, to the Alexis Brothers for their awesome sibling love (Brian and Lisa--that's us in 2007), to Vincent Young for bringing that crystal ball to Texas, to Dairy Queen for the Dipped Cone, to Sonic for the Route 44 Diet Limeade, to Mi Charrito Ray for the sour cream chicken enchilada, to Tommy's for the french fries, to Whataburger for the single no onions, and to all of you who were so generous with gifts, laps, burping shoulders and bottle feedings. I wish us all a year without lard cones, fish oil chasers, newspaper clothes, or gravy head. And let us never forget: an eagle is nothing but a oppossum with feathers.