I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: NADA SURF-“When I Was Young” (2011).

This is a new song from Nada Surf’s new album (due out in January 2012).  Nada Surf aren’t changing much from their tried and true sense of pop hooks, but this is a slower, statelier song (with strings!).  It features a challenging-to-sing-along-with chorus (“I wonder what was that world I was dreaming of”).

It’s a bit longer and slower than my preferred Surf songs, although I can see it working well in the middle of an album.  About two minutes in, the guitars kick in and the song really comes to life.  It’s catchy and fun and has me excited for their new disc.

[READ: October 23, 2011] “Memory Laps”

This article came around the same time that our tickets for Sedaris’ upcoming performance at Raritan Valley Community College arrived in our mailbox (nicely timed, that).

It did make me wonder if I shouldn’t be reading anymore of these pieces, since I don’t want to spoil the humor of Sedaris live (although I think Sedaris is funniest when delivering his pieces–his monotone is just wonderful–even if I have heard them before).  And plus, the show is not until April, so chances are I’ll have forgotten about it by then.

This essay is all about young David when he was on the swim team (this guy has done so much in his life–who knew he was a swimmer too?).  The crux of the essay is that David’s father never praised him for his swimming; instead, he heaped tons of praise on David’s teammate Greg Sakas (I wonder if names have been changed in these essays). 

True, Sakas was pretty great, and he won every meet, but even when, on that one freakish instance when David beat Greg, David’s father was unimpressed, saying that Greg must have been ill or something.

And so this amusing essay about swimming (my favorite line comes from his mother: “[You’re] not the best, maybe, but so what?  Who wants to be the best at something you do in a bathing suit?”) is really an essay about how he could never gain his father’s approval. 

I personally can’t relate to this because my dad was always supportive of me, but it makes me scrutinize my own behavior towards my kids (I doubt they will ever question my approval). 

The strange thing about this essay (as with many Sedaris essays) is that a story that seems so amusing in so many ways (him dragging a Barbie out of the back window of the station wagon, him arguing with his father about Donny Osmond) actually reveals a very sad story underneath.  And when you finally get to the last paragraph, it’s no longer funny.

It even makes you wonder sometimes if Sedaris is mislabeled as a humorist.