Been thinking about this quote since I saw it yesterday, so I’m preserving it here (where else?). Gonna try to blog more, even if I know it’s broadcasting into the void.
Blogging is small-p political again, today. It’s come back round. It’s a statement to put your words in a place where they are not subject to someone else’s algorithm telling you what success looks like; when you blog, your words are not a vote for the values of someone else’s platform.
Apparently it’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week. So in the interests of making mental quirks more visible and less taboo, I’ll share that I’ve got Tourette Syndrome!1 Let’s learn some more about it, shall we?
Tourette Syndrome isn’t as rare as you think. It’s entirely possible you’ve had it your entire life without realizing, as I did until my late 30s, when I described my behavior to a therapist and she suggested it. “Huh,” I thought, “I guess having the exact symptoms of a thing COULD mean that I have the thing.” It was so baked into my inner life that I’d never even considered it!
Definitionally, Tourette’s involves multiple physical tics and—most famously—at least one involuntary verbal tic. You’re certainly thinking of curse words right now, as it lives in the popular imagination: who doesn’t love a random “FUCK!” screamed out at grandma’s funeral? But that turns out to be a separate phenomenon called coprolalia, which is only loosely associated with Tourette’s. The verbal tic can be anything at all, which is where it gets fun.
Continue reading White Ravioli.
I’ve often said that the worst part of moving to Amsterdam was getting used to it. Occasionally I’ll show around a visiting friend and have that moment of “Oh yeah, it is one of the prettiest cities on earth.” Mostly, though, I’m just heading to the grocery store.
That’s partly why I wasn’t buzzy with anticipation as the date approached for the ceremony that would permanently replace my American nationality with Dutch-American. I’ve been here over four years already; married a Dutch citizen; bought a Dutch house; slowly learned the Dutch language.1 I’m not sure what it’s like to feel Dutch, but I’ve been Dutch for a while now. This felt like a progression, not a sea change.
Still, paperwork means something. Most importantly: I can never be forced out of my adopted homeland or think of myself as less-than for being an immigrant. Most usefully: I can skip the customs line at Schiphol! Equally valid reasons to be excited when I got the letter telling me the king had approved my application for citizenship.
Continue reading Kevin Molenaar
It’s kind of charming to me that after 50 damn years of filmmaking, it’s still a coin-flip whether a Ridley Scott movie is going to be good or not. Sir Ridley’s not like Steven Spielberg, who mostly keeps knocking them out of the park; nor Cameron Crowe, who released “Almost Famous” and then forgot how moviemaking works. He tiptoes down the middle, daring you to believe in him with an “American Gangster” and then pooping out a “Robin Hood.”
So you’d be forgiven for thinking a lega-sequel to his 2000 blockbuster “Gladiator” would fall on the poop side of the line. It seems like nobody outside of the Hollywood bean-counting office was asking for this. But he’s done it, folks; he’s managed to make a big dumb watchable action movie!
Continue reading Shoulda Used “2” Instead of “II” Just to Mess With UsAbout one million years ago, a glacier punched its way through the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin, leaving behind a long, curved valley and two small lakes to remember it by.
Then about 1,500 years ago, a guy called Cóemgen settled in that same valley—by then unimaginatively named the “Glen of Two Lakes,” or Gleann Dá Loch—so he could live out a cloistered monastic life. Virtually nothing has survived about Cóemgen except for fantastical, sometimes amusing, legends. In one, he dropped a book in the lake only for a friendly otter to return it; in another, he rolled around in nettles to quell his carnal passions for a lovely maiden and encouraged her to do the same. (Girl, run.)
Cóemgen’s desire for hermitage backfired spectacularly, since he gained followers and fame, and well, here we are talking about him. By the 10th century the valley featured an entire “monastic city,” today a set of scattered ruins punctuated by a 30-meter stone tower. After the English showed up with their extremely weird language, Gleann Dá Loch became “Glendalough,” and Cóemgen became “Kevin.” That’s right: on the longest possible timeline, I’m this guy’s namesake.
That’s all a mildly interesting history lesson, but Saint Kevin was completely incidental as to how Kiki and I found ourselves getting married in his old stomping grounds, of all places, last week. Despite our love of the stage, neither of us was in the mood for a big wedding; instead, Kiki had the lovely idea that we should elope with our two sisters, hers and mine. Ireland was a logical choice, since my brother-in-law Stephen is Irish1. When I floated the idea to Margaret she immediately recommended Glendalough, where her good friend Susanne owns a retreat venue called Glendalough Sanctuary. So the parts of the wedding fell into place like magical Lego bricks.
Continue reading The Saints, The Snails, The Swallows, and The Sheep
DISCLAIMER: The last thing the world needs is a white man in his 40s opining about Taylor Swift. For the record, this is just a glorified diary entry.
Back in college circa 1999, I was lucky enough to see Weird Al Yankovic in concert. I generally remember having a great time, but all these years later, I have only one specific memory of that show: the first ten seconds, when Weird Al himself ran onstage and started singing “Gump,” and in an instant, the goofy celebrity figure who only existed abstractly in my head became an actual three-dimensional human being. I laughed out loud, simply flabbergasted that this guy was real.
I thought about that moment a lot in the weeks leading up to seeing Taylor Swift in Amsterdam with Kiki and the nieces. Taylor’s become such a pop-culture force of nature that it’s functionally impossible not to have an opinion about her.1 So it seems bizarre that—with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of money—it’s possible to just walk into a place and see her.2 When she finally appeared Thursday night, over a year after we bought the tickets, emerging center-stage from enormous petals like a pop-idol flower, my first thought was: Look how small she is!
Continue reading Paramore Was Great Too
When I lost my job at Mambu last June (baby’s first layoff!), it was only a little bit surprising. I’d done a darn good job making myself valuable there—hell, I’d hosted the company-wide gathering only a few months before. But they’d been taking on water, so to speak, and eventually even the morale officers find themselves holding a paddle.1 I was sad, but already in the Acceptance phase when the fateful Zoom call came.
All things being equal I’d rather *not* be laid off (hot take, I know), but I was less than panicky. I’d gotten my Mambu job rather easily, and I’d chatted with some recruiters before I was even laid off, so I was confident in the job search ahead. As Kiki pointed out, it was kind of them to let me go at the beginning of the summer! I took an impromptu trip home, directed my improv play, made a “Funemployment” list of projects, and started my job search with a casual pickiness that I now regret. “I dunno,” I’d wonder, “do I really want to commute to the other side of Amsterdam?”
Continue reading “Mambu-SITA” Sounds Like a Latin DanceCDK Company is a dance troupe based in The Netherlands (website), and they recently released an extremely energetic dance video to Gotye’s ubiquitous “Somebody That I Used to Know.” The scale of the production is striking, as are the Wes Anderson aesthetics. But the real eye-grabber is the choreography, a sharp, baroque contrast to the plink-plink-plink simplicity of the song.
I don’t even know if I like it! The dance moves are so rapid-fire, so herky-jerky, that it’s hard for my eye to settle (which was their intention). But the physical talent and technical precision involved are undeniable. Plus they’re Dutch! So I watched it twice just the same.
As plans solidify for the all-but-inevitable expansion of I-35 through central Austin, KUT has shared a truly impressive deep dive into TxDOT’s plans. Since the write-up is well over 5,000 words, I thought I’d do a write-up of the write-up and summarize the good, bad, and ugly. TLDR: It’s about 20% good, 60% bad, and 20% ugly.
Let’s start with their physics-defying intention to add four more lanes, which—it is almost universally understood1—will leave traffic worse than it started. Add to that the decade of construction, and it’s hard to argue the widening provides any benefit (though of course many will argue it just the same; meet me in the comments).
Continue reading I’ll Miss the Brontosaurus Bridge, Though
When you live in Europe, you often wake up to the news. I’ll never forget Kiki startling me awake one morning with “Will Smith slapped Chris Rock!” Of course, sometimes the news is bad—occasionally very bad. So it was to wake up to texts from Brad and Lampe telling me Cortney DeAngelo had suddenly, shockingly passed away in her sleep.
When I told my friend Rahel that an Austin improv friend had died, she asked “Were you two close?” I started to type three different responses:
Continue reading Cortney