Maybe it’s just me, and the people I talk to, but everybody I speak to (and especially the people I read) keep talking about everything happening at the DNC in terms of its effect on an unknown Other; namely, the undecided, therefore uninformed, voter. For example, in re: Michelle Obama, opiners might say: “That was a good speech… it will convince people that she’s just a devoted wife and mother.” But these people saying that don’t see themselves as being among the
“people” to be convinced, and, further, they don’t actually believe she’s just a devoted wife or mother. They believe, based on their prior predilections, that she’s either a unusually talented, fiercely intelligent, alpha female, or that she’s an angry radical with quasi racist grievances.
In other words, the subext of all convention commentary — including, I sometimes think, my own — is “Will the rubes buy this?”
The problem is, I don’t know any rubes. Neither do any of the commentators, pundits, etc. To be more specific, nobody I know, and nobody I read in the major papers or minor blogs, professes to even be willing to change their mind about the candidates, parties, or election based anything they see or hear at the convention. It’s all a dumbshow for… somebody else. Who? Nobody really knows, but man, are people trying hard to convince them. So I ask you: do you know anybody — either in person, or online, or in print — who honestly doesn’t know who to vote for this fall, and is watching the DNC — or will be watching the RNC — to make up their minds?
The playwright Jonathan Reynolds has a line in one of his plays that goes something like: “If, at any time in your life, you were overweight, you will spend the rest of your life obsessing about it.” This has been true in my experience. I was a chubby, inactive kid, always picked last to play kickball, always dreading gym, constantly overeating, because, I guess, that was one physical activity I could do well. I lost the weight in high school, during a dangerously obsessive period of dieting, then gained a lot of it back, and then spent, oh, the next twenty years gaining the weight, losing the weight, and constantly kicking my own behind about it, which is hard to do with love-handles.
Then, about four years ago, I started running seriously, and that turned into an lifestyle change, or obsession, or addiction, depending on how miserable it is outside at 6 AM when I head out to do the miles. On October 12th, I’m going to run my fourth consecutive Chicago Marathon, my fifth marathon overall. My goal is to run it (again) under 3 hours, twenty minutes, 59 seconds, and thus re-qualify for the Boston Marathon in April.
But that’s not the only reason I’m running it. I’m also running it because of the interesting hallucinations that tend to kick in around mile 23. But that’s not all! I’m also running as the honorary Team Captain for the Healthy Schools Campaign, a Chicago based non-profit that works to improve nutrition and exercise programs in schools. This to me makes wonderful sense, because what a kid learns while young stays with her. Despite the evidence in my own home, I don’t believe the natural state of the human child is to lounge on the couch watching “Lazytown” whilst eating chicken fingers. I think kids can be taught that good food is delicious, and that physical activity is far, far more than just another way to separate the cliques in school. Kids naturally want to run, and they naturally want to eat what’s healthy. We’ve managed to someone train that out of them, and HSC does its best to undo the damage.
If you’re thinking you’d like to run in October, but couldn’t get in to the race, you can still register for one of the charity bibs HSC is offering. You can also run for them in a variety of other races. See here.
Over the weekend, we were pleased to throw a book party for our friend and colleague Emily Ecton, author of the new novel for young readers, Boots and Pieces. Emily lives and breathes kid lit, and this is her first published contribution to the field. Like all the best writers, she wrote the book that she wanted to read. I admire her for that, and bitterly, enviously loathe her for already having written the two sequels.
Since the book is for young readers, and I happened to have a young reader lying around (literally, usually on the new couch in the playroom) I asked her to prepare a review to share with others at the party. Here it is:
Boots and Pieces just might have been the funniest book I’ve ever read. What’s so amazing about it is how it’s so funny and still frightening and suspenseful. And the characters are, like, wow. [Addressing the author].I mean, how did you come up with them? It’s amazing. I have only two more words to say about Boots and Pieces. It Rocks!
Ron Rosenbaum, author of the very good book “Explaining Hitler” and Slate columnist, doesn’t like our show. He also doesn’t like crossword puzzles. He also doesn’t like fluorescent lights, and has a variety of strong opinions on a variety of topics, which is to be expected. This is fine. I long ago realized that we can’t please everyone with what we do, and remain thankful that we please enough people to keep doing it.
However, such casual hostility does leave a bad taste in my mouth, so to wash it out, I take a look at this remarkable site, maintained by a fan who I shall not call obsessive, but merely devoted. Thank you, sir!*
* I don’t know if it’s really a guy, but you just gotta figure, right?
My old friend Bill Corbett posts something kind about my book, here.
Bill and I are the two members (that I know of) of a very small club: Ivy League educated playwrights who moved to Minneapolis in the 1990s and then ended up getting semi-famous for completely different media careers with a nerdy demographic; myself in public radio, him on Mystery Science Theater 3000. We’re also about the same height. I’m considering minting some badges for this club.
I am tempted to go on about his charms, abilities, etc. in return for his being so generous to me, but instead shall say just two things:
He wrote one of the finest lines of dialogue ever, from his play “The Big Slam,” which he then, foolishly, cut from the final draft: “Get him, Driller Killer! Get him!”
Today, a week after the incident described here, I got back on the bike and rode to work. Same route. Nothing happened, of course. A lovely day, with folks out enjoying the weather. It was kind of… disappointing, really.
As I left the house today, I walked by a cooler filled with water bottles on our deck and said to myself, “Hey, why not bring a water bottle, it’s hot, I might want it.” Stuck one in my bag. I have never done this before.
On the El train heading into the city, I was listening to music on my iPhone, and trying to get the web-browser to display Obama’s speech to the VFW today. It wouldn’t load, and I was getting mighty frustrated, let me tell you. Guy standing next to me (it was a crowded train) — mid-twenties, in a Wisconsin casino t-shirt, scruffy but not anything beyond Gen-Y style — says, “Is that also a phone?”
“Sure,” I say, and launch into my usual iPhone addict’s spiel — it’s a web-browser! It’s an iPod! It’s my new best friend! — and he listens politely, and we discuss various cell phone providers, and then he says, “Hey, could you call my mother for me? I need to have her meet me at the train. I’ve been away all weekend.”
So I dial the number he gives me and a woman answers, and I say, “Hi, I’m standing here with your son, he needs you to pick him up at the train station.” And the guy yells, “It’s me, Tony! I need you to pick me up!” and of course he’s shouting, she’s saying, “What? What?” and so I hand the thing over, and he starts shouting into the phone, “I need you to pick me up! I can’t hear you? Can you be at the train station in two hours?” And he’s having this conversation, and I thinking of the key scene in “Training Day” when the gangsters convince Ethan Hawke to give them his gun, and I’m thinking that at the next stop the door is on this side, so if I stand between him and the door he won’t be able to run away with the phone, but at the stop after that the door is on the other side, so maybe I’ll get ready to grab him by his shirt, and can I remember any of those aikido moves…
But eventually Tony says, “I have to go, I’m talking on this man’s phone,” and he gives it back to me, and I pocket it safely, and of course I ask him for his story. Which is after the jump…
Just got word that an essay I wrote and recorded a while ago, about my email addiction, will be aired on “All Things Considered” tonight. Tune in, and I’ll post a link and transcript here later on.
