Flaming Pablum

The End of Summer Survey 2022

Cripes, how is it Labor Day Weekend, already? Alright, then, well I guess it’s high time to dust off this meaningless exercise. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Defining Moment of Summer 2022:
This was actually a pretty busy, goddamn summer for us. After two comparatively quiet summers wherein we largely sequestered ourselves at the Lamb Cottage out in Quogue to wait for the vengeful wraith of COVID-19 to pass over us, 2022 promised to be different. With my wife positively gagging to travel, we made plans to break the summer up with our first big, fuckoff vacation since 2019, albeit one that would have to wait until our son Oliver finished his stint as a counselor’s aide up at his camp in Vermont. We decided to go to Greece. Compounding all that, halfway through the summer, my daughter Charlotte made her decision to attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, so suddenly we had multiple trips on the books. As a result of that, we decided to forego the Lamb Cottage (we simply couldn’t afford it, with everything else going on) and squatted at my mother’s place in Quogue, in between working and our trips. We were never in one spot for very long, which was actually kind of liberating.

With all this in mind, it’s exceptionally difficult to pinpoint a solitary moment, but I’ll have a stab at it.

I might suggest that my defining moment of Summer 2022 was realizing that the tomatoes on offer from the breakfast bar at our hotel on the island of Paros in the azure splendor of the Aegean Sea were quite possibly the most amazing things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Never mind what you think you know about tomatoes. These were these brilliantly lush, astonishingly flavorful and perfectly formed orbs of fresh deliciousness that pretty much knocked me right off my goddamn chair, every morning. Augmented with some sliced cucumber, a dusting of oregano and lashings of olive oil (I prefer “Sparta,” if you’re doing the grocery shopping, …. and you have to pronounce it like Gerard Butler in a foul mood), and you’ve got yourself a bowl of food that is photogenic, healthy and satisfyingly tasty in a manner that rivals even the most ribald of unmentionable pleasures. Like the sublimest of heroin hits (or so I’ve read), I will invariably spend the rest of my life trying to replicate the experience, always fail and die heartbroken.

Best Purchase of Summer 2022:
I tell ya what WOULD have been the best purchase! That would have been if I’d had the friggin’ foresight to buy myself a huge, fuckoff bottle of the afore-cited Sparta Olive Oil, … but I didn’t. I believe I can find some if I go to Queens, though.

With most of our money fueling our multiple trips to Vermont, Greece and Scotland, this year, I can’t say I did a lot of libidinous spending, although I’ll cop to splurging on some deluxe, surround-sound re-releases of albums by XTC, Dukes of Stratosphear, KISS and Yes, all remixed by studio wizard Steven Wilson. Several years back (2014, maybe?), I’d picked up Wilson’s re-mixing of XTC’s crucial Drums & Wires but, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this, never really got around to giving said re-release a proper, attentive listen until a long bus trip this summer. Unlike a standard-issue remastering — wherein the end result simply sounds like a louder version of the album as you remember it, Wilson’s lushly detailed remixes genuinely offer whole new, multi-dimensional listening experiences. Hearing Wilson’s re-rending of Drums & Wires was like that moment in “The Wizard of Oz” wherein the film shifts from black and white into maddening technicolor. There was space and depth and expanse like I’d never gotten from the record before, revealing all sorts of sonic filigree that had previously been buried in the comparatively claustrophobic original. Drums came rumbling from overhead, guitars chopped, clanged and careened off walls, Andy Partidge’s hiccupy yelp darted around, dueling with Colin Moulding’s sinuous bass lines, all kinetically flowing around like slippery fish in an aquarium. Put simply, I was entirely blown away. When I was back in the WiFi, I immediately sought out more, discovering Steven Wilson’s Instagram page, and immediately ordering similar remixed editions of XTC’s Black Sea and Skylarking, the collected discography of the Dukes of The Stratosphear (XTC’s psychedelic alter egos), Fragile by Yes and the super-mega-whatever anniversary edition box set of Destroyer by KISS. This last one was, somewhat typically, a bit of a let-down, as Wilson’s version is contained only on a BluRay disc, and I lack the hardware to play that particular format. Leave it to KISS to rip you off, am I right?

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2022:
The only movie we went to was Baz Lurman’s Elvis movie, … which felt like one, long trailer. I mean, it was enjoyable, I suppose, but not really a massive cinematic achievement or anything.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2022:
I’m not complaining, but I can’t say anyone gave me any gifts over the course of the summer.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2022:
My organization underwent a surprise “course correction,” and 10% or our workforce was laid off. I was away when it went down, and thus didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to some of my now newly former colleagues.

Song That Best Sums Up Summer 2022:
Well, in terms of new stuff, I really liked “Cracker Island” by Gorillaz, “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg and, yet another great song by a stupidly-named band, “Scratchcard Lanyard” by Dry Cleaning, but if there was one song that summed up the summer for me, it might be “Rip It Up” by Orange Juice, which I listened to a lot in advance of our trip to Scotland. Julian Cope finally released a studio version of “Cunts Can Fuck Off,” but it doesn’t measure up, to me, to his widely circulated live renditions of the track.

Happiest Memory of Summer 2022:
Y’know, they’re still both teenagers, which means that whatever it was that we were up to, at the time, there was still the requisite amount of eye-rolling, pushback and petulance, but having both of our kids with us on the trip to Greece was genuinely blissful, for the wife and I.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’ll say most bittersweet, rather than sad, but having to say goodbye to our daughter Charlotte in Scotland for her international student induction was exceptionally hard, not least in that the temporary housing we left her at (albeit only for two weeks before she moved into her official dorm) wasn’t quite as picturesque as the rest of the campus (more brutalist internment camp than old world gothic masonry). My wife had been a rock for the whole time we were there, but fell apart at the final moment, which meant I had to be the composed one. I fell apart, meanwhile, on the plane ride home.

Scariest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’d been advised to bring my work phone and laptop on both of my trips. I grumbled about it, but ultimately complied. A day after landing in Edinburgh, I dutifully checked my email, in the morning, to see what had been transpiring in my short absence from the office. In my inbox was a letter from the president and CEO of the organization, informing us that they were laying off 10% of the staff (as mentioned above). For several minutes, I genuinely feared that I wouldn’t have a job to come home to (and this while delivering my daughter to a university and all that that entails). I was shortly reassured by my manager that I was still employed and started breathing normally, again, but …. yeah, that was a shock to the system.

That said, I did have another moment that's worth adding here. On our third day on the island of Paros, my wife had booked us a boat-tour on a catamaran around the island and surrounding waters. It was an incomparably lovely day, and we dropped anchor three or four times to swim off the boat. Now, both of my children are lithe, fit, robustly healthy teenagers. They wasted no time in diving right into the disarmingly cerulean waters of the Aegean, followed in immediate course by my wife.

Then it came my turn. 

Not wanting to be a party pooper (and this is tragically on video, I hate to say), I followed suit and plunged into the water. Instantly submerged in the cool water, I felt an immediate sense of impossible insignificance. We were anchored in a beautiful lagoon, but the winds had picked up during the morning, and the water was summarily a little choppy. I surfaced and found myself about a yard from the boat. After orienting myself, I was suddenly another couple of yards from the boat. While my children happily swam about, I started privately wondering if, as a 54-year-old in frankly not as great shape as I could be in, I might have a problem sustaining the stamina to make my way back to the boat. I was having flashbacks to "Open Water 2," a genuinely disquieting 2006 thriller wherein a group of pleasure boaters find themselves unable to make it back onto their yacht after jumping in for a swim without putting a ladder down. I also didn't want to be the guy that had to be helped back up. I paddled about a bit and discreetly re-boarded the boat with my heart pounding. 

When we dropped anchor a second time in a more open channel, I couldn't do it. I sat on the edge of the boat and watched my wife and children frolic in the waves, but could not bring myself to jump back into those crystal waters. It wasn't a fear of any sea life or anything (you could see clearly to the bottom -- there was none). It was that paralyzing fear of my own smallness in the vastness of the sea and my insecurity that I'd have the strength to save myself. It was a strangely chilling experience. When we dropped anchor a third time in a placid little cove (see below), I knew I had to overcome this problem before it consumed me. With the waters calmer than before, I again jumped in. My kids immediately swam off to explore some nearby caves (that was never on the menu for me), but I stayed near the boat, doing a few laps around the vessel and trying to regain my composure. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2022:
Transitional

Mission Accomplished

With heavy but hopeful hearts, we said goodbye to this beautiful little girl last night to let her start her next, ambitious chapter at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Not only a revered and prestigious institution, St. Andrews is also breathtakingly picturesque (see below for a small sample of same).

While I am quite indescribably melancholy at the moment, I could not possibly be prouder or more excited about all that she’s achieved and what lies ahead for her. Onward, Charlotte.

 

Greece is The Word

Hello again, all. I have returned from the cerulean splendor of Greece.

I, of course, have loads of anecdotes, observations, cheeky asides and ruminations to share about our vacation to that beautiful place, but I’m still quite jetlagged, scrambled and tryikng to manage re-entry with a minimum of turbulence, so I think I’m just going to let some photos tell the story, for now. Suffice to say, it is indeed a magical destination that is well worth your time. We spend four or five days on Paros Island and four or five days in Athens.

"THIS IS ... VACATION!"

Ahoy all. There will probably be another slowdown, for a couple of days, as the Flaming Pablum brood is going on holiday for the first time since the ascent of COVID. I say “probably” as I’ve been asked by my organization to “bring my laptop” (gosh, … thanks) in case something needs doing while I’m away, although — for the life of me — I cannot fathom what that scenario would look like. It’s nice to be thought of as crucially indispensable, but surely one or two of my colleagues could handle whatever mess comes down the pike, no?

If the GIF above didn’t already tip you off, we’re bound for Greece for a few days. This will be my first time in this region of the world, so that should be interesting. Unfortunately, the country is currently dealing with a rash of wildfires, at the moment, and — were that not bad enough — is about to endure a massive heat wave right when we’re getting there. Conventional wisdom suggests that Greece in July is already an ill-considered plan, but the die is cast, alas (sorry, that’s a Roman idiom, not Greek).

When not sweating like a someone stuck in an unventilated Trojan Horse or burning myself lobster-red in the bleaching, Hellenic sun, I’m sure I’ll have a marvelous time soaking up the history, cuisine and natural beauty of the place, while also boring my kids into a stupor with mindless quotes from “300." I’ve even started re-reading Homer's “The Iliad.” I say “re-reading,” but, in all candor, my first experience with that epic poem was having it read to me in 7th Grade. Trying to slog through it on the written page is another matter entirely. I’m about a third in with grave doubts about finishing it. But put me under an umbrella with a cocktail and a view of the Aegean Sea, and we’ll see how far I get.

Expect a full report in a few days.

Suddenly, Summer

And just like that, … we’re into the summertime.

Just like last summer, the Flaming Pablum family is neck-deep in activity. My daughter graduated high school, a few weeks back, and my son Oliver finished up his sophomore year, shortly after that. As it happened, that was all going on in tandem with a string of high-pressure projects at work that I was recently moaning about. I managed to wrap those up, as well, although they’re to be followed in swift succession by another slew of challenging tasks. I shouldn’t complain about that, though. It’s all part of the gig.

In the last few days, we drove back up to Vermont to drop our boy back off at camp. He’s going to be a counselor’s assistant, this time around, so I’m no longer worried about him up there (as I was the first time around). He was very much looking forward to it. So long as his shipped trunk arrived (we never got confirmation of that), all should be well. We’ll go back and fetch him again in a little over three weeks.

Today, meanwhile, we’re again putting my daughter on a bus bound for her grandmother’s place out in Long Island. This will free up the apartment for me to have the second of too many colonoscopies. Regular, strong-stomached readers may remember the accounts of my colonoscopic debut last year, wherein my disarmingly blunt gastroenterologist breezily informed me that they’d “found a bunch of stuff up there” and needed to schedule another one “next year.” That’s happening tomorrow. We’ll see how that pans out … pardon the disquieting turn of phrase.

Beyond that, we’re sadly not going to log any time at the Lamb Cottage, this summer. You may remember some of my anecdotes about same, notably my dealings with some high-volume neighbors. While we do indeed love that place, we just couldn’t afford it this year. Instead, in July, after we’ve gotten Oliver back from camp, we’re jetting off to Greece for our first proper vacation in a very long time. Following that, we’ll then be hopping back over the pond to drop my daughter of at her chosen university in Scotland this August. I’m expecting that to be difficult for me, but we’ll see.

In between all of those procedures and maneuvers, both the wife and I will be working away. After two summers of lulling, pandemic-mandated limitation, this summer’s schedule does seem somewhat exhaustingly frenetic, but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m sure, along the way, I’ll be carving out time, here, to ruminate about this and that. Watch this space, as they say.

Cheers, and Happy Summer!

Back to School: A Playlist

Surreally enough, my daughter is now a senior in high school. This means that our lives are currently ruled by the looming prospect of college. Our downtime is largely spent discussing the finer points of the application process, unspooling that tangled ball of red tape that is financial aid and visiting as many college campuses on my daughter’s list of “Likelies,” “Targets” and “Reaches” that we can get to. To say that this is an intimidating process is a herculean understatement.

This coming weekend, the four of us (we’re bringing Charlotte’s little brother Oliver along, as he’ll be in this same position before we know it) to go visit my alma mater, Denison University out in Central Ohio. We made the plan some months ago after the school reached out to my daughter about her fencing. In a strange coincidence, the weekend we planned to visit also turned out to be my reunion weekend. Being that I was already going to be there, how could I NOT go to that? It was turning out to be quite a point on my calendar to look forward to.

But, as fate would have it, much like the Devo show I was all excited about last night, my reunion ended up getting cancelled over COVID-19 concerns.

We’re still going, of course. Actually, the more I think about it, it’s probably for the best. We can now focus on my daughter’s visit and keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak. I’ll still get to wander around the campus and probably freak out.

In any case, while I don’t normally use Spotify, for the purposes of beefing up this post, I made a needlessly sprawling playlist of the music I concerned myself with during my four years at Denison as a gormless, chicken-chested college dork. Enjoy.

Brûlant Pablum à Paris: Part 2

Just to complete the recap...

The flat we stayed in was literally steps away from the current Picasso museum on Rue de Thorigny in the Marais. We couldn't not go, obviously, it being so damn convenient. As cool as it was, however, Picasso strikes me as an artist that has reached such an iconic level wherein literally every single thing he ever did is now treated like absolute gold. This is not to say that his work isn't striking to the layperson, but we didn't see anything within the collection that was especially well known, so the "wow" factor was slightly diminished. Against my better judgment, I was privately hoping they'd be selling beach towels with "Guernica" on them, but -- to the credit of their taste -- this turned out not to be.

Much to the chagrin of my kids, we made it to the Francis Bacon show at the Pompidou. While m'self and the wife are fans of his work, the kids weren't really buying it (nor is much of Bacon's work especially "kid friendly"), but the element that made it especially tough was the crowd size. Enjoying Bacon's paintings is somewhat difficult when you have people stepping on your feet and breathing down your neck. Still, while not for everyone,if you're a fan of the man's stuff, it's worth seeing.

While they didn't necessarily dig Bacon's splattery grotesqueries, the kids did quite enjoy the view from the top of the Pompidou.

While significantly decreased here in Manhattan, street art is still alive and well in Paris...

Oh yeah, and the French don't like him either....

The day before we left, Peggy & the kids went to do some shopping, letting me off my leash long enough to go track down a punk rock record shop I'd read about across the Beaumarchais in a slightly less salubrious area of Paris. I found Born Bad Records in the end, tucked around a corner on a quiet little street. They didn't really have anything I crucially needed, but I bought a t-shirt to be supportive. Vive Le Rock! 

I will say this. If you're planning a trip to Paris, you very well may have heard about the Bateaux Mouche, which are those boats that sail around the Seine, giving sight-seers a view of the City of Light from the water. While that certainly sounds nice, lemme tell ya.... if you hate tourists as much as I do, avoid the Bateaux Mouche like the plague. It will put you swiftly in touch with your inner xenophobe in no time. Packed with competing hordes of German and Japanese tourists (the former are way more annoying than the latter, I decided), the experience made appreciating the visual splendor on offer very difficult. Don't say you weren't warned.

So, yeah, Paris was just as magical as we're all repeatedly told it should be. I ate like royalty and regained the fleeting remnants of my sanity that have otherwise been robbed of me by the daily grind. That is, of course, when I wasn't squabbling with my teenage daughter, who took a bit of time acclimating to the pointedly unhurried nature of Parisian living ... something native New Yorkers have a harder time adjusting to. In the end, she was heartbroken to have to leave. We all were. 

We will go back. 

Brûlant Pablum à Paris: Part 1

You're probably all getting bored sick of hearing me continuing to invoke Paris, so before any more time goes by, I thought I’d just post a quick recap not unlike the one I did for our trip to Beirut last year.

It should come as zero surprise to anyone who has been lucky enough to go there that our quick trip to Paris was nothing short of delightful. Say what one will about the French, but they do know how to live. If you’ve not been, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

For maximum fromage effect, click on the video below for a suitable soundtrack as you view the pics.

S'amuser

The courtyard of our AirB'n'B on Rue de Thorigny in the Marais...

Oliver enjoys a crepe...

Action at the Louvre....

As is to expected, everyone loses their shit for a glimpse of the "Mona Lisa," which -- to be perfectly candid -- left me a little underwhelmed. In an adjoining gallery, however, I came finally face to face with a painting I'd both studied in high school and adored from the cover of the Pogues' Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, that being Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa." I'd never realized the sheer scope of the painting before, and to see it up close stopped me dead in my tracks. Forget the "Mona Lisa" and check this out!

Just a hairstylist on the Beaumarchais whose name caught my eye...

He is rightly everywhere still...

As first invoked back on this post from way back when, we made it back to surreal taxidermy emporium Deyrolle. To be honest, I'm not sure my kids knew what to make of it. Oliver was certainly intrigued by the beasts on display, but Charlotte -- who is a bit woke, it must be said -- was somewhat horrified by the whole endeavor. I did manage to spot the afore-cited poster for "Squelette de Lapin," but they had none left for sale, alas...

More to come ... watch this space.