An Archival Print

I recently had a conversation with a friend (Hi, Beth!) and we talked about our children and watching them grow into little individuals. That got me thinking, as so many things do, about a poem. It's by one of my favorites, William Stafford:

An Archival Print

God snaps your picture--don't look away--
this room right now, your face tilted
exactly as it is before you can think
or control it. Go ahead, let it betray
all the secret emergencies and still hold
that partial disguise you call your character.

Even your lip, they say, the way it curves
or doesn't, or can't decide, will deliver
bales of evidence. The camera, wide open,
stands ready; The exposure is thirty-five years
or so--after that you have become
whatever the veneer is, all the way through.

Now you want to explain. Your mother
was a certain--how to express it?--influence.
Yes. And your father, whatever he was,
you couldn't change that. No. And your town
of course had its limits. Go on, keep talking--
Hold it. Don't move. That's you forever.

Film at 11.

The wife, who is a better human than myself, has beat me to the punch where posting videos of our offspring is concerned. Go and watch the first one and prepare to need an insulin shot when you're done. And for those who are wondering: yes, that sound you hear at about the :20 second mark is our son blowing a respectable fart.

Photo parade

So, so many new photos up on our flickr page. No titles or captions yet, but we'll get those done before too long. Enjoy!

Today is my dad's birthday. If he were alive, he'd be 71. He died nine years ago.

My mom's birthday is on January 6--Twelfth Night, or Three King's Day, depending on your cultural bias. She's been gone seven years now.

I miss them both more than I could have ever guessed.

Quote of the day

Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.
-Willa Cather
-One of Ours

The Price is (Exactly) Right.

A month of silence and then, BAM, two posts in one night. And this one, God help me, is about The Price is Right. There was a time in my life when I watch this show compulsively. For a few years there in the late '90s I watched it every day. If there was a TV nearby, I was watching folks come on down. So you'll understand why this video piqued my interest. These are the final moments of the Showcase Showdown. (I'm going to assume you've never watched the show and write a quick rundown of this segment.) Two contestants are each shown a bunch of fabulous prizes, they each guess what they think their showcase is worth. Normally people are within, say, a thousand dollars of the actual price. If they guess within $100 dollars of the price (without going over) they win both showcases. This happens fairly rarely. What the man in the video does is something that no one else in the history of the show has ever done: he guesses the price of his showcase exactly.



Somewhere, Bob Barker is seething that it was Drew Carey and not him that hosted this episode.

Neglect

I have been absent from this blog for a while. For a while there it really seemed to be a habit, but I guess when you have a little one things get away from you. That's probably a good thing, come to think of it; I'd be a bad father if I sat at the computer while Oscar sat in his bouncer, crying from hunger. "Hold on a minute, mister, I just need a minute more to blog about this!"

My presence here will be scarce for the foreseeable future. Melissa and I are trying to get ready for Christmas, our first with Oscar--and Melissa's mom will be here, too; there are a couple of comics proposals that were supposed to be written a while ago; and I've started work on my year-end mix CD. The CD always takes me way more time than I plan on or want it to. Also--and, yes, this is an important use of my time--I'm trying to find the time to read the three books I find myself in the middle of.

I should mention that, due mostly to its get-in-and-get-out nature, I am more active on twitter right now if you really feel you need your daily dose of Adam.

And now, off to be productive.