Monsoon Wednesday

[RFK Stadium-Washington D.C., July 23, 2008]

D.C. United, at best, is a mediocre soccer team this year...playing in a mediocre league, when compared to the standards of European play. Nevertheless, it is our home team. So we gladly accepted a neighbor's invitation to join them and a score of other families for a match against the Houston Dynamo, the league champions. The original game was scheduled for early June. Rained out. Rescheduled for yesterday, July 22. Power outages at RFK stadium cancelled that game. Rescheduled for this evening. So we headed into D.C. against the grain of rush hour to enjoy the event. What are the odds...right?

Well, before the deluge disrupted play, we soaked in a few notable events. The kids participated in a pre-game activity that had them in the middle of the pitch as the national anthem was played. We saw "Darth Hooligan," one of the famous crazy fans. Best of all...you know those crazy t-shirt launchers that run around at sporting events catapulting cotton towards the stands or rafters. Well, the launchers approached our section and I saw the t-shirt coming right at me. The camera was in my left hand, and before I could decide how to shift it around Daniela made a major league one-hand grab. She caught it. Minutes later...the skies opened up and we donned our rain gear. Houston led 1-0 at the 53rd minute...when lightning struck a transformer and most of lights went out. So...we headed home. Play resumed hours later, and Houston won 2-0.

If you want to survey our copy of Sports Inundated at your own pace, click here.

11... Once... upon a time

She wanted a toe-nail polish theme for this past weekend's affair...a conjoined celebration, a dual fête...two sets of parents sharing resources and combining forces, one preteen posse prancing poolside. So Daniela baked, and Lori (half of the other parental coefficient) frosted. Then, I decorated. The meticulous piping and detailing took time. But, it was well-spent pondering her dulcet dispositions and all the recent tumbling along the adolescent balance beam.

Daily, she serenades us with pleas for a cell phone and henna tattoos. I search her expressive eyes and see traces of me...long ago...the ectomorphic architecture, the penchant for pleasant and logical argumentation, the predilection for pralines and other sweets, the collection of comic books.

I smile and enjoy the delicate friendship that unravels alongside her transformation. Later, after the pool party, after she's opened the gifts, she whispers..."Papa, we have to talk about the cell phone." I smirk. She giggles. "Later," I tell her. "Later," she winks self-assuredly, a sassy sorceress at work manipulating 41 years of cell growth...condensing bone and tissue, ligaments and lipids, enamel and cartilage...effortlessly wrapping them around her finger.

You can join the chlorinated celebration by splashing here.

The Joker...

My senses are still sizzling a mere hour and a half after viewing the latest Batman epic, The Dark Knight. Yes. I read many of the reviews praising Heath Ledger's role. Yes. I expected something phenomenal. Well...the scarred scaramouch did more than the fandango. Each time he graced the stage, Gotham's gracioso wreaked havoc on boundaries and borders that usually grant coherence to our conceptions of chaos, anarchy, madness...logic, rationality, structure. (And he did it with a masterful subtlety...in intonations, and in gestures.)

Freudian labels, for example, have often been (mis)placed. Amateurish assessments have slapped the Joker into the tidy category of the Id...in opposition to the Batman, often caved into the tidy category of the Superego. The problem with this often facile reading of the comic book characters and their appearance in film is not with the Freudian terms, but rather with the categorizers who gloss over the porous complexion of these tensions. This film treated the viewer to a tantric tango, a visceral vacillation...where both characters flirted with lawlessness, and were seduced by order. The Joker and Batman choreograph an assault on the senses, an interplay of erosion...dismantling our faith in opposites, dissolving our adherence to dualities.

This cinematic reification of syncretism may scar you a bit, and simultaneously manage to put a smile on my face...as you laugh in fear, or scream in relief.

Veiled Vicissitudes

Masks and masquerades lure me into a speculative trance. Whether a procession of dissimulation, a parade of impersonation, or a pageantry of revelation, I marvel at the transformative tendencies they gift the bearer. Here is a series of impressions along the canals in Venice, recent arrivals in my overcrowded inbox.



I have scrolled through these motionless performances...peering, unsuccessfully, attempting to discern a trace, a trait, a telltale of the hidden. However, my attempts to expose that which was masked were mere exorcisms of the imaginary. The most rewarding task turned out to be a fathoming of the facades themselves. I settled for surface readings, and absorbed every fold of the costumed spectacles...the textures of coyness, temptation, seduction, pride, insecurity, arrogance, loneliness, apprehension, deference and more...posing and posturing alongside the gondolas and bridges...islands of sinew and silk dotting the Adriatic aqua-scape. These Venetian visages...I envy their camouflage.

Mojito Mojo

Taking a cue from my cousin in California, I decided to summon the island flavors...un hechizo con o sin permiso. A few friends came over and the pestle pressed...lime, against mint, against sugar, and produced an aromatic medley of granulated squishes and citric squirts. Crushed ice cubes and cascades of DonQ Cristal, ended the evocation.
I stirred the fluorescent straw...my mind meandering a bit, to Macbeth. Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble. I smiled...a bit of the Bard to banish this upcoming week's bureaucratic banalities. But, I needed something less bewitching. So my mind drifted from the stirring itself to the currents of rum, the whirlpools of mint, and the reefs of lime...dissolving myself slowly, into a better outlook, swaying with the undertow of an emergent optimism.
In the end, we all laughed, and talked for hours. Picaresque pleasantries of a sort, our banter played Sancho Panza to the dwindling amounts of DonQ. Tomorrow, most of us begin our weekly toils and troubles. Some of us may even be tempted to tilt at a few windmills.... Cheers to you and your mojo, however it may be invoked.