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R. Kelly: Bump N' Grind
I went to see Jonathan Messinger lead an installment of his "The Dollar Store Show" reading series a couple of weeks ago at McNally Robinson. Jonathan and I worked together a few years back in the now-defunct Chicago offices of AOL CityGuide (formerly AOL Digital City). The system that brought us together was pretty messed up, even by today's permalancing standards; technically, we worked for a temp agency, which meant we had to leave after a year so AOL wouldn't become obligated to treat us as actual employees. The revolving door and surprisingly fair pay made for a young, collegial staff. Everyone I worked with was talented and clever, with diverse and fervent interests outside of work. We threw going-away parties constantly, inviting current and former staffers. We took long lunches on Tuesdays to walk down from the John Hancock building to the Virgin Megastore on Michigan Avenue and browse new CDs. We shared our favorite albums on the company server. We grumbled about that morning's Pitchfork reviews. Fritz and I started a blog. Jonathan turned me onto Jonathan Richman. It was one hell of a first job.
But this post isn't about that job. It's about Jonathan's new book, Hiding Out, which I've had since the reading but only had time to get through this weekend while up at a friend's cabin in the Adirondacks. The whole thing is, well, GREAT-- poignant and off-kilter, witty and warm, haunted by strange phobias but all the more human for them, told in the voice of the sort of ultimately optimistic but still slightly cynical friend who might turn you onto Jonathan Richman. The humor is the kind that hurts, in your guts and chest both.
Fool me into believing, I don't care if you're deceiving me.
Red House Painters: Katy Song
I hope Jonathan won't mind my posting this brief snippet:
It’s all because of my poor reflexes. A case of having little physical skill, sure, and maybe a short attention span. But there I was, hungover on a Sunday morning, in one of those indoor sports facilities that you never think you’ll see the inside of, with the walled soccer fields and artificial turf like hot steel wool. Huge pictures of athletes you’ve never heard of adorn the walls, tricking you into thinking you look like them. But you don’t, you look like me; tired and still not entirely clear on why you’re playing in this league, some five games into the season. Unshaven, unenthusiastic, nearly undead. My headache, the one from the hangover, had me running in zig zags. Every time I turned I would flinch and my body would lurch in another direction. So it wasn’t a surprise, in retrospect. It took me off-guard, but I should have known it would happen.
There was a guy on the other team wearing the Brazil national team jersey—it didn’t even say Ronaldo on the back. It was some obscure player, I found out later, the guy was such a fan. But for a moment, I stared at the back of his jersey, at the name, Azofeifa. Such a name, Azofeifa. Beats the name on the back of my T-shirt, Terry. I was staring at the name Azofeifa, wondering if this guy, Azofeifa, if he could possibly be a member of the Brazilian team, his shorts blue and new enough, his socks pulled high enough. And as I was thinking this, just watching him, Azofeifa—such a name!—wondering if I was in the presence of greatness and playing against a World Cup competitor, as this thought crossed my mind I saw the ball emerge, in the air, in my peripheral vision, and I saw Azofeifa take two confident strides away from me and then, something magical happened—and I’d like for you to understand the magic of it before I tell you the consequences, because the magic is the best part—Azofeifa took two confident strides away from me, and as the ball knuckled through the air, no spin at all, just a flat and boring thing, I watched Azofeifa leap, his left leg kicking in front of him like a ballerina, and I noticed that his thigh muscle, I believe it’s called a quadriceps, was of such girth and animal litheness that I quivered, but then, his torso realigned, so it looked like he was reclining in the air, parallel to the ground, just buffeted by the wind, gravity at the whim of Azofeifa, and as his left leg hastened back down he lifted his right so that it emerged above him, an obtuse angle on the Azofeifa plane, and again with the suppleness of the quad, and the kick, connecting with the ball and sending this object, appearing two-dimensional before he touched it, but now, in Azofeifa’s universe, it was a living thing, spinning with a celestial speed and growing larger by the second, it could only be described as magic, this bicycle kick that defied physical laws in a most real way, and the ball now coming alive and growing so large that it was there, in front of my face, and here we see the consequences of my momentary obsession with Azofeifa, my reflexes so poor, my headache so monstrous, my fleeting love for Azofeifa so pure, that I couldn’t even shutter my eyelids, and the ball hit my bare yellow eyeball and it is here, of course, that I stop remembering.
You can read a longer excerpt of the story in PDF form here. But you should really buy it here.
See you next Tuesday, you is a punk.
McCarthy: Keep an Open Mind or Else
