Funny Pages
This American Life got me again.
Maybe I should make the whole This American Life thing a regular weekly feature. It's going to happen--I'm going to write about it, so expect it. Like people who blog their reactions to TV shows. I don't get to watch TV, so bear with my podcast obsessions.
Anyway, the episode is called "Kid Logic" about the way things work in the minds of children. It is mostly funny, but also moving (aren't they all?). Two moments of tears--the first misty eyed, the second, and I am literally sobbing.
It was the last story about a four-year-old whose father is diagnosed with a rare brain disease that literally shrinks his brain, such that his facilities degenrerate over the course of several years until he has the capabilities of an infant. He reached that final state at the age of forty-five. The story is narrated by his wife, the four-year-old's mother.
At one point the child speaks.
Little boy voice: "I don't have a dad to read the comics to me". Such a simple loss. Such a major loss.
It sounds maudlin the way that I am telling it. But really, it's not sentimental at all. It is honest and real, and in its own way, kind of brutal. Wherin lies my obsession with This American Life. They have captured the art of story-telling in a way that we should strive for in the theater. Honest, real and brutal.
I don't exactly remember if my dad readthe funnies to me or if I read them to him. Or maybe it was mom who read the funnies. One way or the other, those brightly colored Sunday paper funnies were a major part of the weekend, as dad was making scrambled eggs, with cheese for my brother, no cheese for me.
The wife/mother tells her story artfully, eloquently. She loved this man. She loves this little boy.
This is why my heart breaks just a little bit more. In my experience, finding someone to spend a life with is a daunting task. It slays me to hear of someone that finds this, and then loses it much too early. It's just not fair. My fifth grade teacher told me that life wasn't fair. That doesn't make it any better. They deserved more time.
"Someday we'll shuffle off to the grave together, wrinkled and slow, two old companions still pinching each other's butts."
-Jose Rivera
References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot
Maybe I should make the whole This American Life thing a regular weekly feature. It's going to happen--I'm going to write about it, so expect it. Like people who blog their reactions to TV shows. I don't get to watch TV, so bear with my podcast obsessions.
Anyway, the episode is called "Kid Logic" about the way things work in the minds of children. It is mostly funny, but also moving (aren't they all?). Two moments of tears--the first misty eyed, the second, and I am literally sobbing.
It was the last story about a four-year-old whose father is diagnosed with a rare brain disease that literally shrinks his brain, such that his facilities degenrerate over the course of several years until he has the capabilities of an infant. He reached that final state at the age of forty-five. The story is narrated by his wife, the four-year-old's mother.
At one point the child speaks.
Little boy voice: "I don't have a dad to read the comics to me". Such a simple loss. Such a major loss.
It sounds maudlin the way that I am telling it. But really, it's not sentimental at all. It is honest and real, and in its own way, kind of brutal. Wherin lies my obsession with This American Life. They have captured the art of story-telling in a way that we should strive for in the theater. Honest, real and brutal.
I don't exactly remember if my dad readthe funnies to me or if I read them to him. Or maybe it was mom who read the funnies. One way or the other, those brightly colored Sunday paper funnies were a major part of the weekend, as dad was making scrambled eggs, with cheese for my brother, no cheese for me.
The wife/mother tells her story artfully, eloquently. She loved this man. She loves this little boy.
This is why my heart breaks just a little bit more. In my experience, finding someone to spend a life with is a daunting task. It slays me to hear of someone that finds this, and then loses it much too early. It's just not fair. My fifth grade teacher told me that life wasn't fair. That doesn't make it any better. They deserved more time.
"Someday we'll shuffle off to the grave together, wrinkled and slow, two old companions still pinching each other's butts."
-Jose Rivera
References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot
posted by SAS @ 1:18 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
But if she had it to do all over again knowing what she knows now, would she do it again anyhow?
I heard this one as well. I totally cried. The little boy was so eloquent and wise beyond his years.
sas, think you might get a chuckle from the 2 TAL-related links listed here.
http://tinyurl.com/3ex3tj
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