Dispatch No. 28
The other Sugar Plum Fairy
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Recent stories: The Zeno Paradox | Reading In The Nude
Missed something? Sketchbook | Stories | Dispatches | Series
Non-Sequiturs (photo edition)
Define “excellence” — A scene from the gym. I’m not sure this expresses the right sentiment.
Them was the salad days - I guess gardening season is over.
Like What? - The southern-most land owned by China is the island of Hainan. With its warm climate, it shares a latitude with Laos and northern Vietnam. It’s beautiful, no doubt—but the comparison I kept hearing gave me pause. Over and over, people insisted, “It’s just like Florida.” …Sure, if everyone in Florida spoke Mandarin.
Fever Dreams - We’re pretty lax about TV when the kids are sick. Plenty of liquids and a laptop by the bed usually keep them content as they doze (don’t @ me). Lately, I’ve been introducing my oldest to Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and he loves it. Why wouldn’t he? At 4 years old, he’s the perfect audience for its wacky, colorful characters and the fantastic puppets by Wayne White. So, when he asked to watch the Pee-Wee movies during a recent sick day, I didn’t think twice.
That night, however, screams echoed through the house as he sat bolt-upright. The closet—no, the entire wall—was apparently too close and getting closer. No amount of reassuring, even measuring the distance, could change his mind. Again and again, his screams woke the house. Each time he would just stare at the wall, horrified, as if it were coming for him.
The next morning, he informed us that Pee-Wee would no longer be welcome during sick time—or any time ever again.
Cabazon - where the dinosaurs from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure live.
Hey, Babe…
Do you remember your first time hearing Walk on the Wild Side? I do. It slipped into my head when I was in 6th grade. Instead of a headboard, I had a boombox bought with prize money from selling ads for our school yearbook. Every night after that, I left the radio playing softly as I fell asleep. In fact, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally stopped playing music all night.
Back then, in the middle of the night, I’d be half-awake and hear a song. Sometimes, it would blend into my dreams. Less often, I’d press record, capturing it on a chock-a-block mixtape I kept filling day by day with little snippets of music. It was like blindly discovering trinkets I’d only later realize were gems. But I could never quite catch the elusive Lou Reed and his “colored girls” singing do-do-do. That sliding bass and scat-like drum felt like entering a secret world, maybe one meant only to be glimpsed in a dream.
It was like catching a fleeting moment while driving by an alley—blinking as you try to process it, unsure of what your eyes just saw. Sugar Plum Fairy, Holly, and Candy were crazy characters from a world I couldn’t imagine. They felt like side-quest characters in a beat-poet Lewis Carroll story. And Little Joe—was he (or she) real? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that I wanted to hear that dreamy sound again and again.
When the saxophone twirled at the end, teetering between mournful and joyful, I knew the movie of Lou’s words was almost over. I’d drift back to sleep as the night DJ rattled off the overnight weather or spun another track. By then, the street urchins of Lou’s world had disappeared into the subway, waving goodbye through the dingy window as the tracks carried them away.
More from Tiny Worlds
I loved the descriptions of the music in Hey Babe, especially the “movie of Lou Reeds words”. I’ve often thought of Lou Reed songs are 3-minute novels, so this really resonated with me.
…great memories and anecdotes man…i wonder if large marge got yr youngun…i know she did me in quite a few points of my youth…