Recently on This Recording

In Which You Want To Be A Man, Don't You? Wait, Do You?

2010-02-09T13:57:33Z

The Big Game

by GREGORY SIDMAN

Boy, oh boy...to be a man. Seems to hold a lot of resonance today. And Sunday’s Superbowl commercials have an affinity for transmitting the typical nostalgic, saudade kind of resonance about coming to terms with the fact that most men aren’t the archetype of how men “should” or could be — self-reliant, self-confident, dominant, charismatic and, essentially free Americans.

I mean all of this in a vague, non-analytical, unsystematic, improperly researched, balls-in-your-face, hastily put together kind of way. I’m dipping into this with a thick brush, and I’m taking broad strokes. I’m writing this like a man. In fact, I’ve half forgotten which ads lead to these thoughts. And I only watched the game till halftime. And I was half-watching, anyway.

But, luckily, the most poignant commercials were limited in number, were almost broadcast consecutively and at the exact moment when I was paying extra special close attention: the Dodge Charger “Man’s Last Stand” ad and the Dove “You’re a Man” ad. The depictions of masculinity, and even the products hocked, are almost at odds — or they at least point to a duality of rough play and cleanliness.

At odds, except for one deep down little bit of emotion that strings them both together, tight like Siamese twins: the utter dissatisfaction with the inane details of being a grown up; those details which seem to get in the way of ‘being a man’; which are so common and pervasive that they seem to consume the existence of men, which forces men to not be men.

As a way to cope with this sad narrative, this mirror of their banality, men, of course, have a few options: drive away from your wife, kids and sense of responsibility as fast as you can in a Dodge; wash yourself obsessively with a bar of Dove, attempting to clean your filthy life from your body and your memory.

And as a third option, as shown in the 10,000 Bud Light commercials broadcast within a four hour period: drink yourself numb, and casually conceal your alcoholism and prosaic self-hatred with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. An ironic sense of humor which acknowledges the fact that you don’t feel as if you stack up against classic examples of American masculinity — and that it’s easier not to try.

Commercials play with male assumptions about grown up, manly masculinity the way boys play with toys. And obviously, they only let guys in the playhouse if they know the magic password. By the way...do you know the magic password? You think it’s Charger? Nope. Dove? Nah-uh. Flo.tv? Wrong.

It’s less obscure, and you probably say it every day when you wake up: “I hate myself.” You can hate your life, your wife, your job, your car, friends and parents too, but first things first: hate yourself.

Hate yourself with the same uninspired self-pity as Robin Williams’ Peter Banning hates himself in Hook. Hate yourself, buy a car, and never grow up. Boy, oh boy — now that growing up without growing old has been replaced with growing old without growing up, we’re all lost boys.

Gregory Sidman is a contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in Los Angeles. This is his first appearance in these pages.

photo by Lilja and Inga Birgisdóttir"Boy Lilikoi" - Jónsi (mp3)

"Ammaelolnidur" - Jónsi (mp3)

"Happiness" - Jónsi & Alex (mp3)

In Which We Also Prefer Ballet Flats To High Heels

2010-02-08T13:00:00Z

The Object of Their Affections

by ADA KAPLAN

I've spent a lot of time this week thinking about the fact that I love two men, and that two men love me. I’ve actually been thinking too much about this fact for the last two years. There are good weeks and bad weeks, and this was an eventful one. For one thing, they’re both in L.A. now, and my intention for the new year was to free myself at last of this complicated and heartbreaking binary, but everything I do seems to make things worse. One of these men was my boyfriend for many years, and then neither of them were, and then the other man was, and now neither of them are again. This is because my latest solution is to “be on my own.” So I suppose I am single, though I wonder whether it’s possible to feel less so.

Elisa Sighicelli, Santiago: Curtain Tryptich, 2000I have illusions, that I’m concentrating on my work, that I don’t need a man, that I am independent. I must uphold these illusions in order to believe in myself, as something other than the center of this enduring amorous sideshow. I call it a sideshow because it seems from the outside that’s how it must look, but to me, it’s my life. And I need my life to be about more than being the object of these affections, even if, truly, it isn’t.

I’m ashamed. Whatever women may think, it doesn’t feel good to listen to a man you love and respect beg or cry, or tell you to pick him because he brought a superior toy to your cats. What it does is make you despise yourself. It’s the fault of a weak and indecisive mind, possessed of delusions of intellect and ambition, but moored in that loathsome covenant of female want. How important, really, is it to feel beautiful? To be loved? Important enough to ravage the pride of two strong, kind men? They’ve chosen to remain in the situation, and I have never lied to either of them, but I implicate myself.

So far being alone has meant trying to explain why. It’s something about feeling responsible for the whole thing, and shouldering so much love, that I’ve forgotten how love should feel, when it isn’t jealous or concerned with others, or sad. There was a day around Christmastime, when I made my alone decision, that I felt my life regain a sense of levity. I actually jumped up and down in my childhood room. This only lasted a day.

Untitled (The Party Is Over)Being alone has meant buying an old lady roller cart so that I can wheel groceries into my apartment and a rubber gadget that allows me to open jars on my own. Being alone has meant failing at being alone, and convincing myself that I’m not at all interested in sex. This is mostly true, but there’s still a real part of me that cares. And if I cave and spend the night at the most recent boyfriend’s house, then I will pass the morning, which I intended to spend writing and working, because I am a serious independent woman whose priority is working and writing, as I did today, googling the 22-year-old girl who told him she wants to “bone down,” whom I've met briefly, only to be reminded by a fancy magazine that she is the daughter of a big producer, and prefers ballet flats to heels. He asks me what he should do about other women. I want to scream, but I say I can’t tell him what to do. Why? he says. They always ask me why. He only wants to be with me, he says, why can’t I just be with him. It’s a question I’ve heard from each side many times. The answer is because I love them both. And because I don’t have the heart, because I lack the strength, to choose, I have to say no.

After I spent the morning browsing hipster photo blogs, I cried. I looked at the manuscript of my book and wanted to burn the thing for being so futile and uninteresting. I imagined my life, and their lives, unfolding. They were married to beautiful women in ballet flats. They were carrying toddlers on their shoulders. I was glad for them, glad they were free of me, but also reminded of the scene in Legends of the Fall when Susannah sees Tristan with his happy family at the state fair, and goes home, sits down at her lovely vanity, chops her hair off, and shoots herself in the head.

I imagine myself married to one of these men, and seeing the other at the state fair with his happy family. It’s bad. Then I switch them, and it’s just as bad, Even if they can’t have me, I know they want me to live.

Ada Kaplan is a contributor to This Recording. This is her first appearance in these pages. She is a writer living in Los Angeles.

"Not Made For Love (Leo Zero remix)" - Metronomy (mp3)

"Not Made For Love (Astronomer remix)" - Metronomy (mp3)

"Not Made For Love (Alalai remix)" - Metronomy (mp3)

In Which We Like Taking A Picture Every Day

2010-02-07T17:06:27Z

garry winogrand The Tastes of Jennifer Beals

The art critic and novelist Robert J. Hughes interviewed Jennifer Beals about her love of photography:

Actress Jennifer Beals first rose to stardom while she was a student at Yale and appeared in the 1983 hit movie Flashdance, playing a welder by day and an exotic dancer by night. In real life, Ms. Beals also has a keen interest in art, particularly photography.

She says, however, that due to the demands of raising her daughter she doesn't practice that craft as much as she did in the past, when she "photographed every day." Here, she lists five books of photography she admires.

The Family of Man by Edward Steichen and Carl Sandburg

The book was tied to a 1955 exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

"I first saw this book when I was a little girl," Ms. Beals says.

"It creates the cycle of humanity starting with birth, chronicles the good and the great and the not-so-great, the difficult and universal elements of what it is to be human."

Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski

"I encountered it in college," Ms. Beals says.

Pictures in this book "made me more aware of how we exist within our environment."

kertesz

Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Early Work by Peter Galassi

Ms. Beals admires Mr. Cartier-Bresson's "ability to hold two opposites with the same photograph, of struggle and joy and alienation and belonging," she says.

"It jibes with me now as an actor, in terms of being interested in paying attention to life."

Teenage by Joseph Szabo

"This is a great book," Ms. Beals says.

"It's this amazing document of what it is to be in high school at that time, for almost anybody.

"Even though it's from the '70s to the late '80s, you recognize people you went to high school with."

Coincidences by Sarah Moon

"She started as a fashion photographer, and the images are really dreamlike," Ms. Beals says.

"There's a sensation that something just happened and is about to happen, and you're in that transitional gap.

The technique is astounding."

"Playin' In Her Hair" - The-Dream (mp3)

"Falsetto" - The-Dream (mp3)

"She Needs My Love" - The-Dream (mp3)

"Rockin' That Shit (remix)" - The-Dream ft. Fabulous (mp3)

In Which The Players Are More Interesting Than The Commercials

2010-02-05T14:38:02Z

Super Bowl Character Sketches

by J. RYAN STRADAL

SCOTT FUJITA

When Scott Fujita, outside linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, was six weeks old, his white parents put him up for adoption, and he ended up as the son of Rod and Helen Fujita.

Rod was born in a Japanese internment camp during WWII and raised Scott amidst Japanese culture and tradition. Without one known blood relative, Scott adopted the culture of the parents that adopted him; from a young age, Scott would say “Japanese” when someone asked him his background. Today, Scott is, among other things, an advocate for awareness & education of the Japanese-American forced relocation and internment camps. Scott is also an outspoken supporter of GLBT rights, a public stance that’s insanely rare among active professional athletes.

Scott’s job during the Super Bowl will be to shut down Dallas Clark’s intermediate routes and make open-field stops on Joseph Addai and Donald Brown when they run off-tackle. The Saints will try to match him up with leaner, faster guys like Austin Collie and Pierre Garçon on slot routes and quick outs. Wish him well.

JONATHAN VILMA

Jonathan Vilma, Middle Linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, is the child of Haitian immigrants, as you may know from the PSAs. On Super Bowl Sunday, it’ll probably be brought up 4,000 times.

To turn the Saints success into money for the relief effort, he created a limited edition t-shirt for the Saints playoff run, with the proceeds from sales going to Haiti. He has yet to start his own foundation or charity for the cause like opponent and fellow Haitian Pierre Garcon, but he could and probably will.

Jonathan’s always said if he wasn’t a football player he’d be a banker or financial planner, and he’s already started, launching a program called Financial 51 to teach school-age and college kids on smart saving and financial planning. It’s up and running in Miami and New Orleans so far, and it’s worked well enough that he’s spreading it to the NFL.

Within two years of retirement, 78% of NFL players are bankrupt or under severe financial distress, so yeah, they need it, if you can believe it. Jonathan also models for RocaWear (not a merchandising deal – a modeling gig) and is a spokesman (and a model) for UnderArmour.

As the middle linebacker, Vilma is the quarterback of the defense. Watch him, and not Peyton Manning, for at least one drive during the Super Bowl and check out what kinds of furiously intense and split-second head games the two men are playing with each other. Maybe it looks uncomplicated, but you’d rather take a staple gun to your chode than replace either of these men for one play.

They say there’s only 11 minutes of actual “game” during a football game, but they’re wrong. This tete-a-tete between quarterback and middle linebacker is the equivalent of watching a player’s eyes during a chess match, if the pieces tried to kill each other, and their actions resulted in wanton crying and unnecessary financial ruin for some of the spectators. Enjoy.

PIERRE GARÇON

Pierre Garçon, Wide Receiver for the Indianapolis Colts, is also a child of Haitian immigrants. On the back of his jersey, there’s an awesome cedilla under the “ç” in Garçon. This makes it my third favorite piece of sports apparel ever.

He’s the guy who’s been holding up a Haitian flag after every Colts victory. He started a Haitian relief organization called the Pierre Garçon Helping Hands Foundation, and he plans to go to Haiti after football season.

Garçon played football at a Division III school called Mt. Union. Attending Mt. Union to become an NFL player is a bit like attending an online college to become a quantum physicist. Mt. Union has only produced four other NFL players ever, and only two since the 1920s. The odds have always been stacked against this guy.

He is also widely considered to be one of the most affable, funniest, and most approachable players on the team. He seems to give an interview to just about anyone with ten minutes and a blog. You don’t always get a great sense of Pierre in these interviews, but the questions usually suck.

In the Super Bowl, Pierre will be split out wide pretty much all the time. Saints safety Darren Sharper, playing close to the line, might double-team Pierre or bump him off his routes. Watch for Sharper playing a deep zone in the Tampa-2, where he’ll try to cut off Garçon’s route and go for the pick 6. Your Super Bowl party will go nuts.

REGGIE BUSH

Reggie Bush, running back for the New Orleans Saints, is second to Peyton Manning in NFL endorsement deals, shilling for, among others, Pepsi, General Motors, Red Bull, and Subway. He is dating Kim Kardashian; they’ve been seen around South Beach shopping together this week.

Reggie is in Ciara’s music video for “Like A Boy” and appears on the cover of two different video games. He has had dinner with Condoleeza Rice. According to his Twitter feed, he wonders, “How is Legion? Should I go see it? Or wait for DVD?” The case about whether Reggie and his family received gifts in violation of NCAA policies while Reggie was at USC is going to trial this year.

Reggie has done quite a bit for Hurricane Katrina relief. He donated enough money to keep a special-needs school in Metairie open. He personally funded a new football field where six local high schools play their games. He donated Hummers to the police department in Slidell so they could travel through the flooded streets.

He was out in public distributing food. He donated 25% of his jersey sales to Katrina-related charities. Perhaps that sounds picayune, but in 2006 Reggie Bush had the top selling NFL jersey. In fact, he had the top-selling jersey in any sport that year.

Reggie won the Heisman Trophy in college. He was the second overall pick in 2006 and signed a contract worth tens of millions of dollars. After his Katrina work and a promising rookie year, to say he has not performed up to expectations is to trifle with a football fan’s affinity for superlatives.

Going into this season, he was not even a starting running back. He was a ludicrously expensive role player, widely considered to be a bust. In the Super Bowl, if Reggie scores at least one TD and the Saints win, he'll be considered worth every penny.

AUSTIN COLLIE

Austin Collie, Wide Receiver for the Indianapolis Colts, started his rookie season at age 24 because he took two years off for a Mormon mission in Buenos Aires. Austin had a 3.9 GPA in high school and turned down a scholarship at Stanford to attend Brigham Young. You can guess who he credits for ever.

His wife Brooke started a blog on blogspot that has since between switched over to “invite only” after some kind of incident involving embarrassing photos. On the field, he is exceptionally good for a rookie. This year, he led all NFL rookies in receiving touchdowns, with seven, and tied for the lead in receptions, with 60.

Even so, Peyton Manning is known to be hard on Austin and yells at him a lot. Austin says he doesn’t mind; Austin’s both Canadian by birth and a surfer in the off-season, which may help explain his famously mellow temperament.

During the Super Bowl, the Colts will try to put him in the slot and line him up against a slower opponent, like linebacker Scott Fujita, unless Jonathan Vilma notices in time, and gets a defensive back like Tracy Porter or Jabari Greer over to cover Collie in time, depending on the formation.

GARY BRACKETT

Gary Brackett, middle linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts, had a hell of a path to becoming a professional athlete. He attended Rutgers, but not for football – he joined the team as a walk-on. He wasn’t drafted out of college, and had to sign with the Colts for a few thousand bucks as a long-shot free agent in 2003. The Colts drafted two other linebackers that year.

For the layperson, that’s a bit like interviewing for one job against two people who are related to the boss and were flown in & put up in a hotel while you drove 700 miles and slept in your car in a parking lot. Gary is now the captain of the team’s entire defense.

Starting his rookie year in 2003, over a 17-month period, Gary also lost his father, mother, and brother.

Gary’s father was a PTSD-stricken Vietnam vet who had to watch Gary’s high school games from his car because he couldn’t handle crowds. He died of a heart attack. Gary’s mother died of a stroke after a routine hysterectomy. Gary’s older brother died of T-cell leukemia despite blood marrow transfusions from Gary.

When he takes the field, he pumps his fist against his chest three times, for each of them.

In 2007, Gary founded a charity called the IMPACT foundation to help children with dead and dying parents. He was awarded the Arthur S. Arkush Humanitarian Award in 2009 for his work. Through this charity, he also provides children in Indianapolis hospitals with books, computers, and games.

During the Super Bowl, when Gary tackles Reggie Bush, bear in mind that Reggie is being tackled by a man who, unlike Reggie, had nothing handed to him, who’s fought through all kinds of personal tragedy, and has made a fraction of the money. Then watch as each man returns to his respective huddle, as if nothing else matters but the next play, and know they are right.

PEYTON MANNING

Peyton Manning you may already know. He is the man whose level of attractiveness/charisma relative to his face-time on TV commercials is completely skewed and morally discouraging.

His father, Archie Manning, played in the NFL from 1971 to 1984, almost entirely for the Saints, and never won a damn thing. Now Peyton is in his second Super Bowl, trying to beat the team he first cheered for, the team his father gave his life and body to, the team whose legacy of defeat Peyton endured through six hard formative years.

We are told that the city of New Orleans needs this, that the Saints need this, that maybe even Archie Manning needs this. Peyton will not let it happen. Peyton will do everything in his power to deny a city, a team, and his own father a beautifully scripted catharsis. It is not the storybook ending we want. It is sports.

J. Ryan Stradal is a contributor to This Recording. He is a writer in Los Angeles. This is his first appearance in these pages.

"Before The Earth Was Round" - OK Go (mp3)

"I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe" - OK Go (mp3)

"White Knuckles" - OK Go (mp3)

In Which That Out Of Body Experience Just Might Be Your Death

2010-02-04T15:03:08Z

What Happens In The Vortex

by MOLLY LAMBERT

James Ray is a great name for a murderer, isn't it? James Arthur Ray. J.A.R. It's so hardboiled sounding, like a James M. Cain or Mickey Spillane character.

"I fully know, for me, that there is no blame. Every single thing is your responsibility and nothing is your fault." - James Ray, before he supervised three deaths in Sedona

Man it has been a bad season for poseur prophets. Andrew Young wishes he'd worked for this guy instead. Was this a hippie flavored Milgram experiment? How do you think James Ray's dick size compares to John Edwards and Greg Oden?

James Ray should hook up with Rielle Hunter and go on the lam like a crystal-powered Bonnie and Clyde. I'm sure The Secret and their natural cocktail of adrenaline and DMT will prevent them from being arrested.

There are so many grisly factors involved in this tragedy; cultiness, malignant narcissism, magical thinking, new age bullshit, raping cultural practices.

I can't do better than these quotes from his wikipedia:

James Ray is an advocate of the Law of Attraction; his teachings have been described as "including a mix of spirituality, motivational speaking, and quantum physics". In response to critics who asked if Holocaust victims were, in Ray's view, thinking incorrectly, Ray stated in a 2007 interview: "I know people of the Jewish faith and heritage who don't necessarily believe the Holocaust was bad. Now that might be shocking to you but I have people on record who have said, hey there's a lot of good things that came out of that, a lot of lessons, a lot of opportunities for the world."

If you don't break your hand, you can't break on through (to the other side)Former attendees of Ray's seminars have reported unsafe practices and lack of properly trained medical staff in 2005. A New Jersey woman shattered her hand after she was pressured by Ray to participate in a quasi-martial arts board-breaking exercise. After several unsuccessful untrained attempts, the woman sustained multiple fractures during the seminar that was held at Disney World.

Oh weird none of that sounds sketchy at allIn July 2009, Colleen Conaway attended a seminar hosted by James Ray International in which the attendees were directed to dress as homeless people. She fell to her death at the Horton Plaza Mall in San Diego. She died as a result of injuries, and according to police, she had no identification on her person.

The attendees, who had paid up to $10,000 to participate in the retreat, had fasted for 36 hours during a vision quest exercise before the next day's sweat lodge. During this vision quest, participants were left alone in the Arizona desert with a sleeping bag, although Ray offered them Peruvian ponchos for an additional $250.

Native American experts on sweat lodges have criticized the reported construction and conduct of the lodge as not meeting traditional ways ("bastardized", "mocked" and "desecrated"). Indian leaders expressed concerns and prayers for the dead and injured. They say the ceremony is their way of life and not a religion, as white men see it.

The ceremony should only be in sanctioned lodge carriers hands from legitimate nations. Traditionally, a typical leader has 4 to 8 years of apprenticeship before being allowed to care for people in a lodge. Participants are instructed to call out whenever they feel uncomfortable, and the ceremony is usually stopped to help them.

why must you bring the Na'vi race into your fucked up bullshit, mestizo?The lodge was said to be unusually built from non-breathable materials. Charging for the ceremony was said to be inappropriate. The number of participants was criticized as too high and the ceremony length was said to be too long. Respect to elders' oversight was said to be important for avoiding unfortunate events. The tragedy was characterized as "plain carelessness", with a disregard for the participants safety and outright negligence.

TEAM BUILDING = DEATH!!!

Lessons learned: be careful what you twitter. All this shit about conquering death and having an out of body experience, well, it sounds like Jonestown talk.

L. Ron Hubbard, evil ginger of note

P.T. Anderson's new movie is reportedly focused on a spiritual swindler, to be played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and speculatively modeled after L. Ron Hubbard. I'm sure he is monitoring this story with interest. Some of the photos of James Ray's live lectures reminded me a lot of Frank T.J. Mackey, one of a handful of great performances by (princess dianetica) Tom Cruise.

Why are so many people so hungry to be led? Why aren't people who believe that they are channeling god considered mentally ill? Why does fucked up shit always have to happen in the desert? Isn't the east coast bias bad enough as it is?

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here, and twitters here.

"A Woman Alone With The Blues" - Peggy Lee (mp3)

"Love Me Or Leave Me" - Peggy Lee (mp3)

"I Didn't Know What Time It Was" - Peggy Lee (mp3)

In Which Lost Starts A Race War In Its Season Premiere

2010-02-03T16:56:48Z

White Paradise

by DICK CHENEY

Lost

Season Six

Kaltxì. Ngaru lu fpom srak. Fì-skxawng-ìri tsap’alute sengi oe. Tsun oe nga-hu nì-Na’vi pängkxo a fì-’u oe-ru prrte’ lu.

What's that? You haven't taken the Introduction to Na'vi course I've been offering at the Learning Annex since Jesus's birthday came and went? No matter, as soon children will be communicating entirely in Na'vi, a language that has no word for pedophile, champion, and, strangely, sandwich.

let me help you dig her grave - we can make a kissing game out of it With Lost back on the airwaves, I am back on This Recording with a contract that permits me to make fun of Lambert for being a ginger as often as I like. Since my thoughts about how revolting I find Evangeline Lilly haven't graced these pages in awhile, much has changed. My Obama jokes are no longer as amusing since our country Chinua Achebed all over my pantaloons. This is a time for all Americans to live together or die alone like Shepard Smith or Jennifer Garner in Valentine's Day.

In response to the revolutionary debut of Avatar, two serious changes have come about in my post-vice-presidential life. First, my dietician now knows exactly what I'm talking about when I tell him I want Sam Worthington's body. Second, the white majority that produces Lost is finally realizing that it's OK to be racist. Racism is the only thing that can save us from four more years of BO apologizing for the billions he gave to banks during his State of the Union.

Outward racism is all the rage these days. Vanity Fair highlighted the most promising eating disorders in Hollywood and they didn't even tab the girl from Precious. On a scale of one-to-ten how surprised would you be if you found out Graydon Carter owned slaves?

what's the na'vi word for three-way? Lost has taken up the James Cameron-related charge to make fools of people of color with the most naïve aplomb since Joss Whedon told Fox execs that everyone would enjoy Dollhouse. Last night's two hour long Lost premiere began with Jack on a plane, condescendingly observing the show's only interracial couple, regaling them with smiles and plaudits alike. He was about five seconds away from handing Rose and Bernard a nickel - Everything That Rises Must Converge-style.

From there we went back to the island. Somehow detonating a hydrogen bomb didn't fix everyone's problems, although it did work wonders as a time travel device, taking the cast from 1977 to 2010 with everyone alive and Kate somehow in a tree. In the ensuing fracas, Sawyer blood-kissed Juliet and it was astonishingly only the third most awkward kiss of 2010 after Margene and Benny Hendrickson's Big Love smooch and Jenna Elfman kissing anyone.

"let's watch keeping the faith on DVD and observe how hot I was before scientology!"Hugo Reyes, the show's only surviving Latino character, is continually depicted as a slow-witted consumer of chicken who despite great verbal faculty in some areas, reverts to "dudes" and "come on" faster than B.J. Novak tricks girls. Don't get me started on the show's Asian characters. I'm not exactly well-educated enough to completely explain why depicting a Korean man as a glorified thug and an Asian-American as a medium is more objectionable than giving the native population on Pandora dreads for hair, but it just feels wrong.

why didn't I think of sending messages like this? how the f do you subpoena an ankh?Now that we know the man in black is in fact the smoke monster, his battle with Jacob is starting to more closely resemble a race war than a feud between two gods. AWB (Acting While Black) on Lost is considered a faux pas at best. When I was in Cali for the Chargers game a few weeks ago I saw the character formerly known as Walt at a tumblr meet up. It was so depressing I wanted to fly him to Waikiki and play chess with him for hours.

This wasn't the only thing that felt a little awry last night. The dramatic opening pan through miles of underwater CGI looked awful, and the rest of the two hour episode was shot on about three sets. Lost is starting to resemble the output of a very serious improv troupe with the director calling from offstage, "OK, Evangeline, in this scene Kate wants to run. Do you copy? She is going to run from her problems instead of dealing with them. Do you need a second with that?"

"lefleuer, your dick is about .038 oden. you're welcome"In many ways, this interminable premiere was a just a tying up of loose ends. Now that Elizabeth Mitchell has a new acting job staring at CGI spaceships (ABC tried to Avatar-up V with little success), she doesn't need to make vague and unhelpful suggestions about LeFleur harboring long lost feelings for Kate. She was a broken record with that stuff. If television has taught us anything, it's that the timely death of a lover opens up a multitude of romantic possibilities. At the very least, John Edwards has this to look forward to.

the long con beginsJosh Holloway looks like he's been chasing ass in L.A. since last season ended, and his obsession with Jack was never the show's most successful storyline. Jack isn't all that sympathetic, and Sawyer is about as appealing as a widower with blood all over his face can be. Jack's arrogant dismissal of Locke's paralysis was typical for doctors. They always think they're the best at everything. It's so predictable. Now that Sawyer is about as compelling as a Cabbage patch kid, this show needs a protagonist, stat.

if there is any one thing this show needs, it is ian mcshane Of course the most annoying moment of the premiere was when every d-bag in the world whispered to his friends, "That guy was on Deadwood!" when John Hawke s showed up to interpret the vague directions of the Asian warlord Other who controls the fountain of the youth. Jesus guys, even Ponce de Leon thinks that's a bunch of racist crap. James Cameron is cringing, and he invented racism.

"at least I'll be able to find acting work after this show ends"Also put out to pasture for most of the episode was Sayid. Despite the weird moment where he told everyone to get out of the way as he kicked down the bathroom door of Oceanic Flight 815 to save Driveshaft and Jack and the crew looked at him like he had a box-cutter, Sayid is the only minority with a slightly positive portrayal. Actually they've been portraying him as a vicious murderer and torturer for the last five seasons, so I take that back.

Reinventing yourself is a subject near and dear to my heart. Y'all knew me as a boisterous, controlling, megalomaniacal vice president who loved e-mail, gchat, and Lost spoilers. In my new life, I spend most of the day pounding Buffalo Trace and snacking on chimichangas. Lost may be insane and contradictory, but above all it is familiar. You always know where you stand with respect to Lost, which is more than I can say for my wife Lynne.

OK see you next week. I will spend every day between now and next Tuesday trying to believably photoshop myself onto Greg Oden's body.

Dick Cheney is the former vice president of the United States and the senior contributor to This Recording.

did our penises just touch

In Which We Keep Doing What We're Doing

2010-02-02T15:33:34Z

Whatever Happened to the Swagger?

by JESSICA FERRI

These days, it seems like twee indie-rock is just what people want to listen to. That, or Susan Boyle, or Lady Gaga. But really just twee indie-rock, played by dudes in sweater-vests, or dudes and ladies in sweet sweet vintage duds. Listen, I'm not a hater, I'm one of those girls and I really enjoy beautiful music. OK? I do.

Nice album, guys. Really.That said, what I've always loved is rock stars. Come home with me to my mother's house. In it you will find my childhood bedroom, covered wall-to-wall (and ceiling to ceiling) with Blink182 posters (ages 14-16). Later, in my more mature years (16-18) I was really into The Who and Led Zeppelin but mostly just how tight Robert Plant's jeans were and how you could totally see his package. At that point, I wasn't entirely sure what a "package" was, but, you know, whatever.

Whoa.Then this band came out, called The Strokes. They released an album in 2001 (16) but I probably didn't really listen to it until I was 17. My friend Amanda handed me a burned (!) copy and (full disclosure) I never bought the album. But boy I wore that burned CD-R out. As I sat in my car driving to Starbucks or to Target listening to Is This It? I wondered where these boys came from. Then NYLON magazine did a story on them and saw them for the first time. My eyes probably just bounced right out of my head: I had never seen dudes who looked like that before. I guess they were hipsters? I don't even know at this point things have gotten so complicated. But they were tall, thin, sort-of dirty, dark looking boys in tight jeans and t-shirts and converse with jean jackets with holes in them. To say I fell in love is putting it mildly.

Mm-mm good.I grew up in a place where dudes wore cargo pants. Cargo pants and fucking oversized shirts and baseball hats. They put fishhooks in their hats and wore big white tennis shoes and listened to Eminem and Dave Matthews and drove jeep wranglers and flew the Confederate flag. Be still my heart, not. The only guys worth having an actual conversation with were gay, or punk (and let's face it I was not about to bring home a guy with yellow hair and a ring through his tongue to dinner).

No offense.Luckily for my eye-candy needs I moved to New York in 2003 and I've been fine ever since. I rarely have to look at cargo pants, and that's great. Sure, there are some downsides, like almost every guy looks like a Stroke so it's hard to tell them apart, and women in New York are so fucking gorgeous and cool that's it's difficult to compete. People find me interesting because I have a weird accent, don't have a trust fund, and I like to think I'm funny.

Typical New York Woman.A few weeks ago, I went to see Julian Casablancas (former lead-singer of The Strokes) at Terminal 5 (this place is fucking huge) on his first tour for his first solo record, Phrazes for the Young. I didn't really know what to expect, how many people would be there, or if people were still obsessed with The Strokes. In my experience, everyone listens to Vampire Weekend and The Dirty Projectors and Lady Gaga. But whoa. Upon arrival at Terminal 5 it was pretty obvious that people love Julian Casablancas. The whole place filled up (I guess it was sold-out) in an odd mix of people my age (got the Strokes album at 16) and current NYU undergrads.

It was more crowded than this.Julian was surprised, too. He took the stage and immediately uttered "Holy shit, guys," and continued to make exclamations on how he couldn't believe how many people were there. "Fuck, guys," he said. "I mean, fuck, it's really good to see you."

So, news-flash: Julian Casablancas is really hot. I think I had managed to bury all of my 16-year-old obsession / hipster-crazed love mongering sometime ago, because even when Julian appeared I was like "yeah, whatever, there he is." Then I noticed he was wearing an outfit made entirely of leather that made him look kind of like Elvis. His prowess jumping on and off the stage in these ultra-tight leather pants was really, really impressive. His hair was dirty and all in his face, and he sang into the microphone like it was some combination of a phallus and a really beautiful woman's mouth. Suddenly, it was all coming back to me, there was this flush of heat and sweat and everyone was screaming and I was like, oh, so THIS is what a rockstar is. This is rockstar swagger.

YeahBecause I had forgotten — I had forgotten what it was like to stand in an audience and feel the bass and be totally in love with the dude with the microphone because he has so much fucking confidence that you feel like magnetically pulled to him. I've been to some great shows in New York, where there were dudes playing guitar and singing, and yeah, I was like oh, he has a nice voice or, that was pretty. But I was never like "I want to have sex with that dude." Julian Casablancas has it, man. He has that swagger. I don't think you have to have a dick for it, either, guys, just fyi.

Case in point. Vagina-swagger. Consider this a petition. Twee guys, keep doing what you're doing. It's fine. And plenty of ladies like sweet melodies with cardigans. But can I just be the first to say that some of us really dig the swagger? You don't even have to be an asshole. Just get up there, put on some leather, and rock.

Jessica Ferri is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She blogs here.

"How to Hang A Warhol" - Little Joy (mp3)

"Don't Watch Me Dancing" - Little Joy (mp3)

"Play the Part" - Little Joy (mp3)

In Which I'm A Little More Country Than That

2010-02-01T15:56:42Z

It Was The Pleasure Of My Life

by MOLLY LAMBERT

I am the common woman. Confused by whothefuckall was at the Grammys? I'm here to help you sort it out. Songs from the billboard 100. Nothing on the pop, rock, or rap side of the fence, no Cascada or Daughtry or Iyaz. Just pure country magic.

Til Summer Comes Around - Keith Urban

Keith Urban, where the fuck did you come from? Australia, obviously, but also what is this MOR hybrid countrypolitan balladeering genre that is so clearly dominating the charts? Why doesn't he have an Australian accent? Is this Avatar? Nicole Kidman is basically a ten foot tall alien. The part about the ferris wheel reminds me of the movie FEAR when Marky Mark fbangs Reese. The wave sounds are a classy touch, an allusion to Don Henley's "Boys Of Summer" perhaps? It makes no sense that he sings about the 4th of July. Don't you mean Australia Day? LOL country star whose last name is Urban.

Key Lyric: "The boardwalk's quiet and the carnival rides/are as empty as my broken heart tonight."

Highway 20 Ride - Zac Brown Band

Country songs about divorce are usually a slam dunk. This is just "eh." I don't know what genre this is considered. It's pretty fucking close to the folkier side of indie rock with all the other bearded sad guys, but also very reminiscent of sorority girl music. Maybe the genre should just be called Bonaroo. This Zac Brown character sings too silkily for my taste, but I realize he's going for a James Taylor thing. Which is not my bag, but hey! I guess it's lots of other people's, so more whatevers 2 ya ZBB.

Key Lyric: "Son, there’s things I haven't told you/Your mom and me couldn't get along"

A Little More Country Than That - Easton Corbin

For some reason based on the title I imagined this would be a real barnstormer, but it's another one of these stupid wistful ballads by a guy in a baseball cap. Countryness is associated with monogamy and old guys. The lyrics are creaky with references to creek poles and channel cats, and a first name shout out to "Hank." A real grower.

Key Lyric: "I just want to make sure you just know who your gettin' under this ol' hat/Cause girl I'm just not the kind of two time or play games behind your back/I'm a little more country than that"

Hillbilly Bone - Blake Shelton ft. Trace Adkins

Alright! Here come the grooves! First some New York city bashing (they've never heard of Conway Twitty! they don't eat grits or greens!) This is by far the most embarrassing song on the countdown yet. Chorus of "Hillbilly Bone Ba Bone Ba Bone Bone" both makes me LOL and gives me severe embarrassment. The video takes place in a fancy resturant where the singers are clearly out of place (because hats?), another trope often seen in rap videos (new money vs. old money). Trace Adkins is undeniably cool. Country street cred from his wikipedia: "He was involved in a number of bar room incidents, and was also shot in the heart and lungs by his second wife."

Key Lyric: "Ain't nothing wrong just getting on your Hillbilly bone-ba-bone-ba-bone bone/Hillbilly bone-ba-bone-ba-bone bone/Hillbilly bone-ba-bone-ba-bone bone"

American Saturday Night - Brad Paisley

I guess Brad Paisley is trying to convince us he's some sort of cool new tolerant Republican with this song about how America is a melting pot, but apparently made up of primarily European nationalities? I have always found the melting pot metaphor semi-horrifying because it makes me think about human beings being melted down like fondue, and therefore also sort of cannibalism. Brad Paisley has another song right now called "Welcome To The Future" about Obama. I'll believe it when I hear your views on gay marriage and abortion, mister! Great video, motion effects rival "Pon De Floor."

Key Lyric: "It's like we're all living' in a big ol' cup/Just fire up the blender, mix it all up."

Do I - Luke Bryan

I'll let the YouTube comments speak on this one:

dawnmarie1989 (11 minutes ago) I feel like this song was written for me! I cry to it every night! relationships are so complicated and get way more complicated when you get cheated on. A person can only put so much into a relationship before they get sick of getting nothing in return!

CountryGurl4lif31 (50 minutes ago) i wish my boyfriend and i still felt the same way when we first met...now everything is going down hill.

kwingy51 (1 day ago) dude your lucky you have a girl. treat her well dude cause not having anyone to hold is the worst thing ever

angie71499 (2 days ago) my ex sang this song to me i dont know if i should take him back or not plz help me and give me some advice plzzzzzz :(

medzman86 (5 days ago) dude i know EXACTLY how you feel...my gf of 5.5 yrs left me 5 months ago and it STILL hurts...ur not alone bro

Key Lyric: "Do I turn you on at all when I kiss you baby?"

I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes - Dierks Bentley

Mainstream country music is primarily about monogamy and its discontents, the way rap music is about bachelorhood. Dierks Bentey is really tolerable, even with a ball chain necklace. This is another one of those earnest love making tunes. For some reason I can only imagine the title being said in a super date rapey voice. For a sex jam, it is not really very sexy. Somebody needs to send Dierks a copy of 12 Play.

Key Lyric: "You can make me work for it girl if you want to/Just leave a trail for me to follow you into the bedroom"

Consider Me Gone - Reba McEntire

Not just a lady but the baddest ginger betch. I used to watch her sitcom Reba all the time. This is not the greatest Reba song of all time, but it's a nice enough showcase for her amazing voice and phrasings and the bridge is pretty good. I love how country music tends to honor and respect its female legends.

Key Lyric: "If you don't get drunk on my kiss/If you think you can do better than this"

History In The Making - Darius Rucker

Is it racist that I thought this might be an Obama song? It's not. It's just another "aren't relationships awesome" jam, which seems to be the dominant theme of this genre (aside from the other major theme, "aren't relationships terrible") This song is hella mediocre but I ain't mad at ya Hootie.

Key Lyric: "Inside, baby inside/Can you feel the butterflies?"

Southern Voice - Tim McGraw

Second reference to Hank. First reference to Chuck Berry! McGraw namechecks Southerners from Willie Faulkner to the Allman Brothers. He follows up a mention of Dolly Parton with a shoutout to Rosa Parks. Don't you know how much trouble Outkast got in for that, Tim? No fronting on the fucking majesty of this bridge:

Jesus is my friend
America is my home
Sweet iced tea and Jerry Lee
Daytona Beach
That's what gets to me
I can feel it in my bones

Although word up Timbograw, claiming Michael Jordan for the South is iffy as hell.

Key Lyrics: "Hank Aaron smacked it, Michael Jordan dunked it/Pocahontas tracked it, Jack Daniels drunk it."

Why Don't We Just Dance - Josh Turner

If you couldn't tell this was Christian pop from the title, well it is. A sexless undanceable "rock" tune sung by a low-voiced god goblin. Advocates turning off the news because it's too depressing. Fuck church, let's dance. As an abstinence jam it has nothing on Jermaine Stewart's "We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off."

Key Lyric: "Guess the little bitty living room ain't gonna look like much/When the lights go down and we move the couch, it's gonna be more than enough"

White Liar - Miranda Lambert

I love Miranda Lambert, and not just because she has my initials and last name. I think she's genuinely talented, with a good weird voice that sounds kind of like Natalie Maines, and, I don't know, she's got spunk. She's like a little country music Veronica Mars. She put out a hit album called "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." There's nothing not to love. This is my favorite song on the countdown thus far. I love songs with plot twists!

Key Lyric: "You said you went out to a bar/and walked some lady to her car/but your face has more to tell/cuz my cousin saw you on the street/with a red head named Bernice/Turns out you don't lie too well"

Cowboy Casanova - Carrie Underwood

I hate when a song has a great title and doesn't live up to its promise. This is from the Shania Twain school of bombastic country pop. The lyrics are really not terrible, but the production style is just so over the top. It was co-written by Mike Elizondo, he of "The Real Slim Shady" and Extraordinary Machine (how's that for a diverse résumé?). The video is set in a bordello and is sort of Moulin Rouge themed, can this style of video please die for a long while? If this were produced differently it could be great.

Key Lyric: He's a good time, cowboy casanova/Leaning up against the record machine/He looks like a cool drink of water/But he's candy-coated misery."

The Truth - Jason Aldean

Maybe I've watched too many of these in a row, but this Jason Aldean jawn is sounding pretty good to me right now. Maybe it's the mournful rock organ or the part about going to Vegas. The chorus is hard to deny, and I like videos where it starts raining at the dramatic climax, which here is Aldean sitting in a lawn chair by a pool getting all rained on. I would murder this shit at karaoke, definitely.

Key Lyric: "Just don't tell em I've gone crazy/That I'm still strung out over you/Tell em anything you want to/Just don't tell em all the truth"

Fearless - Taylor Swift

Taylor really reminds me of Nicki Grant sometimes. She's so weirdly chaste and grossed out by sex for a 20 year old. The apartment she's building sounds like Mariah Carey's butterflies and mermaids palace, but also MJ's Neverland. Maybe she is a pedophile? (JK I don't think TS is a pedo). But I do worry about her. Like girl I know you are really into kissing in rainstorms, but you can't be a fucking princess.

Key Lyric: "And I don't know why but with you I'd dance/In a storm in my best dress, fearless"

Need You Now - Lady Antebellum

This is barely country music. How this falls into that category is beyond me. They're from Nashville? There are mandolins? Basically soft modern rock. Oh, but with a male and female trading off vocals, like "Don't You Want Me." This song is about drunk dialing. Lady Antebellum is such a terrible name. This is so unabashedly corny and pathetic that I'm kinda digging it. I'll bob my head in the drugstore to this.

Key Lyric: "It's a quarter after one I'm all alone and I need you now/And I said I wouldn't call but I'm a little drunk and I need you now"

That's How Country Boys Roll - Billy Currington

Bland as hell. I remember this guy from his duet with Shania, because I was into that song. Especially the spoken intro. I could listen to Shania Twain say "hey Billy, I'm having a party" all day. Shania's like a Kristen Wiig character. Billy Currington gives me a Bradley Cooper vibe. I don't hate this song, but it's just so plodding and grooveless.

Key Lyric: "Yeah, they work, work, work, all week til the job gets done/Weekends they bar-b-que and have a cold one/They run on a big ol’ heart and a pinch of Skoal/That’s how country boys roll"

Didn't You Know How Much I Loved You - Kellie Pickler

A sensitive ballad from Clown Tits McGee.

Key Lyric: "I remember the way you made love to me/Like I was all you'd ever need/Did you change your mind?/Well I didn't change mine"

brand newly minted Grammy award winners Lady Antebellum (L- R) Kill, Fuck, Marry

Winners: After editing this post for way too long, and spending some time with these songs bouncing around my head, the winners are obvious - Miranda Lambert "White Liar," Jason Aldean "The Truth," Tim McGraw "Southern Voice" (that bridge!), Taylor Swift "Fearless," and Easton Corbin "A Little More Country Than That." The Kellie Pickler ballad is also making a successful late break for my brain space. It's true. We all got a hillbilly bone down deep inside. Hillbilly bone ba bone ba bone bone.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here and twitters here.

In Which We Are Either Betty, Veronica or Neither

2010-01-31T17:37:10Z

The Italian Archie

by ALEX CARNEVALE

James Ivory's The Golden Bowl begins with two lovers in the ruins of Rome, explaining why they can't be together. The woman Charlotte (Uma Thurman) has no money. Neither does the man, native to Rome Amerigo (Jeremy Northam). So it is concluded they cannot really be together, despite the exquisite image of their bodies pressed against one another.

A few years later, the man marries Charlotte's girlhood friend Maggie (Kate Beckinsale). This is not in itself a tragedy. The new woman is warm and loving, her father is loaded with cash he plans to spend on building a museum on the Upper East Side of New York City. Amerigo is ostensibly happy with his new arrangement, but then Charlotte appears in his life again in time for his wedding to Maggie.

Early in The Golden Bowl, Charlotte and Amerigo go shopping for a wedding gift for the latter's fiancee. They visit a jewelry store where they see the eponymous Golden Bowl. Charlotte appraises the rest of the collection and pronounces the verdict, whether out of malice or good sense: "There is nothing here that she could wear." The two quarrel about the collapse of their previous relationship. Over time, Charlotte becomes engaged to Maggie's overbearing father. Charlotte and Amerigo then consummate their relationship on the sly.

Adultery is tricky business in the cinema. The male adulterer is rarely approved of. He is largely given a bad rap; he sometimes hurts Richard Gere's feelings. Charlotte's portrayal is no better. Such drama is the kind of illusion only important to the rich. Perhaps the relative economic status of these individuals is immaterial, but as they stroll casually through an epic mansion, their concerns seem less important than the decor. The once-deprived Amerigo stands at attention to the splendor of the other creatures whose world he inhabits. For him, the only real world is Rome. He is always trying to go back there.

Cheating on someone seems exciting, for awhile. Cheating on your wife with her father's wife, even more so. The excitement thus heightened, Amerigo's swarthy attentions are naturally paid to his vivacious blond former lover rather than his brunette wife who so recently, we suspect, had breast enhancement surgery. Such were the strange vicissitudes of life around the turn of the century.

Banging your wife's father's wife is known in some circles as the reverse Oedipus; in other circles it invariably results in a Cleveland Steamer and the severing of all concurrent relationships. Our families naturally become closer together in affluence, and such implausibilities are rapidly rendered most plausible.

Looked at from the other perspective, it is still harder to merit sympathies for the victims of such Biblical indiscretions. Maggie is a naïve imp; she cares for Amerigo's child from a previous whatever with all the aplomb we expect from how the wealthy tolerate weaknesses in the less fortunate. If the would-be victim is already vulnerable, aren't they asking to be taken advantage of?

Anjelica Huston plays the original matchmaker of Maggie and Amerigo, Fanny. No one better channels the way a segment of yourself disappears by how you behave than Huston when she practices her craft. Having set up Maggie and Amerigo, Anjelica's Fanny feels great guilt, even harassing Amerigo when he risks appearing with Charlotte in public: "I have noticed before with you that you like having a thing without liking to call it by its name."

Despite disapproval from such quarters, Amerigo carries on his affair. Naturally, the possibility of love within other love excites him. It excites every man with blood flowing towards his penis. Amerigo becomes the victim of these two feminine ideals. Henry James essentially told us about the first Archie.

Uma Thurman or Charlotte or whatever you insist on calling her, is the escape. Amerigo met a woman who freed him from an entire part of his self-possession. There are reasons, in themselves, to disregard everything you know.

Kate Beckinsale or Molly McAleer or Maggie is the darker, more intensive brew. (Brunettes are always symbols for something or other.) From the moment you start dating her, you have to be good with the idea you will appear in every page of her personal journal, that she will take everything from you and spit out whatever doesn't make sense or reconfirm her view of the world. Such paramours are usually either a tremendous disappointment or the love of your life.

Despite having two female protagonists, emanating from the approximate direction of The Golden Bowl is a rare misogyny. Someone once called a friend of mine a literary misogynist, but this wasn't quite true. The real adulterer is not a misogynist or hypocrite, for he does not pretend to offer any of the comforts of a lover; he manages the abandonment of those comforts. When you find a woman willing to give that up, you can hardly blame the man involved.

The relationship between Charlotte and Nick Nolte's Adam Verver is the most fascinating of those in The Golden Bowl. We all wonder at how relationships begun under shaky premises evolve and develop. Charlotte has no love for Adam; she disdains his museum, she finds his art collecting eccentric in a fashion that deliberately takes attention away from her. In time, they move closer together, eventually becoming intimate. In this case the American identity, in photos and film, the art forms themselves, repossess the people they represent.

This is The Golden Bowl's way of suggesting that all love deserves a context. Everything deserves a context, argued James in every line of his extant prose. His mastery was in making the unappealing overly appealing, and then switching it around again. He was never afraid to push people towards each other, even in hatred, to see how the rest of the world was accommodated by the result.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He is a writer living in New York. He tumbls here and twitters here.

"Simple Line of Decline" - For Love Not Lisa (mp3)

"Travis Hoffmann" - For Love Not Lisa (mp3)

"Traces" - For Love Not Lisa (mp3)

In Which At One Time There Was Only Love Between Them

2010-01-30T15:43:36Z

The Birth Certificate

by BEATRICE EYALES

I slid the tattered brown envelope out of the crisp white one. I opened it and found only three pieces of paper: a short note from my mother and two certificates of live birth. Whereas letters from my mother are never good, her notes always are, and this particular one read: “Hi Bea, hope you are doing fine—your health and your studies. We miss you here. I love you. Mommy”

I set the note aside and examined the other two sheets of paper enclosed. One was patterned with what was probably then the colors of the National Statistics Office of the Philippines, while the other one was shaded with a pale yellow, of whose work—whether time passed or dye—I could not quite make out. If it had been painted by the years, I wouldn’t be surprised. It was clear to me, upon tracing my fingers across my name, the names of my parents, then married, and a certain Dra. Amelia Dacanay—perhaps the very first person to have held me—that these pages have been thinned by time—creases and flaws preserved.

How can I explain it? How can I possibly relay the sensation of seeing yourself for the first time? Of realizing what you are by holding in your hands the very first artifacts of your existence? I saw my parents’ name before the tears welled up. I wondered how they had been on that day, if any sign, any trace of the present bitterness and disdain they hold for each other had been born then. Were they happy? Did they love each other when they held me for the very first time?

It says my mother’s age: 24. My father was 30. So young, I think. My mother was so young. For someone nearing twenty, realizing that her mother was twenty-four when she was born means so much, perhaps too much. If she had known then how the man she married, the father of her first child, would betray her and leave her and detest her by now, what would have been?

Some tears fall.

My chest tightens as I run my fingers across the page, as I wonder whether my mother’s petite body was loved, was worried for, as half of herself faced the grave in childbirth. Having spent much of my childhood hearing my parents’ endless debate on who was at fault and which parent loved us more, it becomes difficult to conjure thoughts of a time when there was only love between them.

I sat at my desk for a while, reviewing each and every detail of the papers, caressing the edges, feeling every crease, touching the printed names as if mere contact would transport me to the time when the ink was fresh, when the truth was different. And then I realized that though much has changed since my conception, some things—the most important ones—remain the same: that we are forever the sons and daughters of our mothers and fathers. That no matter how cruel the fate of our parents may be, we will always be theirs, made of them, made by them, atom by atom, cell by cell. That before we are doctors, lovers, liars, and men, we are children and babies of them. We are daughters first and everything else second. We are not born to be husbands or wives or writers or philosophers. Our first task upon birth in this world is to simply be theirs and be loved and be cared for. Nothing was ever asked of us.

I cry tears of joy and sorrow, of bliss, of guilt, of regret and longing, of hope and of anger. I rejoice upon the discovery of myself and my origin and I grieve, perhaps prematurely, for death. It is true that with life always comes expiration even if it is only in realization. I glance at the age of my parents then and think of how far they have come now, the age of the documents before me. With the discovery of my birth, I have faced the ugly reality of death and of what is to come not only for me.

I set aside my tears for future weeping and pick up the pieces. I am fortunate, I think. Most people are only given the opportunity to finally understand themselves and to really see life only in the face of the most hideous circumstances. I, on the other hand, faced life and death and the beginnings of myself while sitting on a desk in the middle of the night.

I am daughter first, and everything else second.

Beatrice Eyales is a contributor to This Recording. She last wrote in these pages about her father. She is a writer living in Berkeley. She tumbls here.

"Change of Heart" - El Perro del Mar (mp3)

"I Can't Talk About It" - El Perro del Mar (mp3)

"God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)" - El Perro del Mar (mp3)