Revisiting What Is Hard To Revisit

ESPN's Eric Neel has a long piece on former San Francisco Giants closer Robb Nen's struggles in 2002, when he kept pitching -- and usually pitching well -- even though his arm was completely shot. It partakes of all the clichés that make statistically inclined baseball followers shudder, but moved me nonetheless. Indeed, it moved me to share something that I've kept to myself until now, to which I'm devoting the entry right after this one.

The Morning After: October 27th, 2002

The father of one of Skylar's friends from Gymboree photographed me a number of times at her birthday party in 2002. Because he was taking so many shots, I didn't even register the ones of me. As a result, they capture expressions that have nothing to do with the camera. Can you guess what I'm thinking about?

As someone who is spending a great deal of time thinking about the "documentary impulse" lately, I am delighted to have a photo of me that records my response -- and a completely unstaged response at that -- to a weekend I will always remember as sweet and sour.

Sonic Youth

I love the fact that, when I put on a Sonic Youth album, my daughter immediately gravitates to her art workshop and starts work on a project. Like me, she hears their perpetually disintegrating and rebuilding wall of sound as an injunction to go into the inner space where productivity has nothing to do with the perfect.

It's Santa Ana Time

Joan Didion has a long piece in today's New York Times in which she reflects on the sudden and unexpected death of her husband in 2003. Any publication by Didion is a noteworthy event in my world, but this one seems particularly important, given the way it intersects with themes in her fiction and non-fiction alike.

( For the belated archivists out there. . . )