Pu Pu Platter For One

If it's cool to walk into your neighborhood bar and have the bartender hand you your drink of choice without asking for your order, then it's decidedly uncool to walk into your neighborhood Yummy Hut and have the guy behind the counter remark on the fact that you've ordered something other than your typical meal of choice, a Pu Pu Platter for One. 

That could depress one a tad.

"E" Is For Elephant Beetle

Huge versions of small things are pretty neat.

"D" Is For Dugong

Thousands of years ago, dugongs may have helped inspire the myth of mermaids.

Cats Of Old San Juan

There are stretches of the bulwark dotted with crumpled kites. Simple kites and fancy kites and kites with crazy colors, all snagged on the wall separating the field above from the footpath below.

And cats. What seemed like hundreds of them. Lazing on the rocks and flickering across the walkway. Looking at you like you're the one out of place, standing there with your camera, tourist that you are.

Lou Barlow

Maybe it's not surprising that the high-water mark of my musical career was left in a Chinese restaurant. (I'm a fan.) Either way, there it is. In a strip mall an hour or so outside Los Angeles. Overlooking a round, family-sized table that once sat Dennis, Catherine, Rael, Dan, Lou Barlow and me.

It was profoundly odd, fumbling with chopsticks in such prestigious company. But in came the lunch specials and away went the empty plates. And slowly as we all ate and talked, maybe a little of that oddness lifted, replaced by the unique sense of peace only a full belly can produce. And maybe I felt like there was no telling where being in a band could take me.

I kept that fortune for years.

"C" Is For Coelacanth

Maybe for every mutation that alters the course of progress there's a thing that stays utterly the same. Just sitting there, too stubborn or aloof to adapt, content with or indifferent to its obsolescence.



And maybe, as sad as it might be for a thing to be stunted so, there's something comforting about its survival. Some part of you that just says, "Phew."

Oh, Dodo

Representing the very notion of extinction is not a sign that things have gone well. And because insult so often seems to accompany injury, maybe it's no surprise that the dodo suffers the additional distinction of being, well, stupid.

As if it chose poorly or lacked some critical bit of common sense... were somehow at fault for becoming defunct. As if it were bad at existing, the way some people are bad at sports.

It all seems weird and cruel. I mean, if you were watching Earth from a distance, watching dodos fossilize while people made jokes and spread rumors about them, you might walk away with an unfavorable impression of those people.

"B" Is For Basking Shark

My poor sister. For years, I made up names for sharks and quizzed her relentlessly on them.

"A" Is For Aye-Aye

In Madagascar, many people believe that if an Aye-aye points its middle finger at you, you're cursed.

Also, no one knows what "Aye-aye" means because the language it was coined in is extinct.

Regarding Serving Sizes

There's no honor in eating an entire 7-oz. bag of Jax Real Cheddar Cheese Curls in one sitting. I have checked.

A Confident Gait

"You have kind of a mosey," he said, having recognized me from the opposite end of a very long hallway. "You know, it's confident." He bounced his head slowly and relaxed his shoulders to demonstrate, smiling.

So I smiled. And, hopefully without sounding too self-deprecating, mentioned that I didn't generally think of myself as a confident fellow.

I don't know. Maybe moseying uses all my confidence up. Burns through it like fuel. So there isn't much left over for more important things.

Of course, if I think about that mosey of mine too much while in mid-stride... well, I might just tumble over.

Enid Caldwell, 1926-2003

If Heaven exists, I wonder if Enid Caldwell ever looks down from it at the park bench dedicated to her memory—the one by the Spy Pond in Arlington, Massachusetts, near the drinking fountain, next to the rocks jutting out into the water—and ponders the inscription:

"A tireless bulb planter and clean-up organizer who loved this pond and all its beauty."

Is she proud and pleased by it? Has some critical detail been forever left out? Is she irked for all eternity?

Either way, I think—and I'm sure you'll agree—that it's a lovely inscription. I think that after I'm gone, I'd be very fortunate to be remembered for such lovely things... or to have such a pleasant object dedicated to my memory.

We'll see.

A Young Matt Savage Develops A Taste For Pop Music

The Bay City Rollers were probably the first thing I liked that wasn't a dinosaur or a truck. (I still like dinosaurs, but have become indifferent to trucks.) They were ruthlessly smiley, wore a lot of tartan and spelled out the word Saturday in a hit song.

I hadn't turned six yet, and it just really worked for me.

Whoosh, Splat

Sometimes it's not falling off the cliff that gets you, but the anxiety you suffer through beforehand while anticipating the drop. After that, plummeting can almost feel like a relief.

Bob Seger

Superstitious is generally not a word used to describe my father. Not by me, anyway. But I have observed, from time to time, things that betray some reverence in him toward what I imagine to be vaguely spiritual or supernatural forces. Behavior that may ultimately stem from some quasi-religious doctrine that he, for the most part, keeps to himself.

On those rare occasions when you do catch him in the act, it's hard not to be struck by his resolve. Though he may not be a man who abides by a great many formal beliefs, those he does abide by are abided by devoutly.

Which is why Bob Seger was never permitted airtime on the family car radio. Having once had a dream in which he died in a fiery wreck while listening to Bob, my father felt it unwise to tempt fate. And happening upon Bob on the FM dial, he would maybe giggle a bit, then promptly change the station.

So the other day, waiting for my sausage, egg and cheese breakfast wrap, it was no surprise that hearing Against the Wind pipe through the neighborhood diner triggered memories of my father's secret existential struggle with Bob—or, rather, with mysterious powers intent on using Bob toward some mysterious end.

It's a shame, really. The guy's got some pretty cool songs.

"Tawny"

I've never used that word in a sentence. Never uttered it aloud, heard anyone employ it in casual conversation or, truth be told, been bothered by the fact that I can't remember what it means. I willfully ignore it in books, having never encountered an author whose general meaning hinged upon it. And if it quietly went extinct, I doubt I'd one day be at a loss for just the right word and fail to get some spectacularly insightful point across... I'd probably go on describing things just fine.

But, because I once misspelled it in a regional spelling bee, it just kind of stays with me. Or, to put it more accurately, a hazily spelled version of it stays with me, definitely starting with a "t" and most times ending in a "y." It's like having an acquaintance you don't particularly care for in your mind. I guess you could say I'm haunted.

In Fifth Grade, When Metal Was God

Mr. Pokrob didn't know much about heavy metal. This was never more apparent than the night four of us dressed up as Kiss (post-makeup) with every intention of earning a coveted spot in the Stanley T. Williams Middle School annual talent show by lip syncing "Heaven's On Fire." Because on that night, audition night, when we bumped into him on our way to the gymnasium, he proudly exclaimed, maybe attempting to garner our respect, maybe just trying to be friendly, "So, this is the Motley Crue!"

It was an awkward moment for everyone.

Amy & Eugene

New York City and I haven't always seen eye-to-eye on everything. We've had moments when I needed to feel less small and squashable while it insisted on looming a little too menacingly. Nights I wanted quiet when it honked and swore like crazy. And, to be perfectly honest, times I would've preferred to feel a little more hip and cultured when it saw fit to remind me how awkwardly out of touch I really am.

But we've come a long way. And though our differences result in a bit of unease from time to time, we seem to have found a reasonable amount of common ground.

We now agree, for example, that I should have access to foie gras at 3 in the morning (this is key)... That I should still occasionally stay up way too late and drink way too much... And that there should be a uniquely exciting backdrop against which I can enjoy the superb company of Amy and Eugene, my two favorite things about New York City.

Attack!

One or two particularly unpleasant episodes aside, I wouldn't be any kind of authority on the subject of panic. However, I can say with something mildly resembling confidence that the spookiest thing about it is that given the right circumstances (none of them awesome), just wondering or worrying about it can be enough to trigger an attack (extra not awesome).

It goes something like: Hmm, I wonder if... that's funny, I feel kind of... why am I on the floor?

Nothing else can just be willed into existence like that. Like, you can think about kittens as much as you want without one suddenly appearing in your lap.

I can think of a couple parties that would have gone a lot differently were this not true.

Concerning Rabbis

I have only really known two rabbis. One was round and kind and wise and joyful, and told me once that he regarded me as a unique, gifted individual. The other was bony and birdlike, and once told me I was grossly underdressed.

I can't help but feel that these two rabbis in some way cancel each other out. Which is maybe the same thing as not knowing any rabbis at all.

I'll Have The Puffin Feast, Thanks

In Iceland, the landscape is varied and dramatic. Fields of lava rock here, rolling grassy hills there... glaciers way off yonder, highways tunneling under fjords, the works. Though we only stayed long enough to explore what amounted to a pretty small corner of it, it still felt like we were traveling from planet to planet, merrily photographing as we went.

There wasn't time to see the puffins. So I ate some. My friend Maura did not.

Not Thinking About It Too Much

When I was maybe a junior in high school, I attended a three-week writing workshop at Simon's Rock of Bard college in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. It was like camp for kids who liked to write, with classes during the day and free time at night. Though I don't remember much about the classes themselves, I do remember that every morning the lot of us were asked to free-write, which meant writing non-stop without really thinking about it until our allotted time was up. The theory, so far as I can recall, was to limber us up creatively, get our juices flowing.

I hated it. I was no good at it. My juices, it turned out, were far more comfortable on the stopping-and-thinking side of the fence.

Anyways, here's a tiny little song I just wrote. I didn't think about it too much. song

The Fates Of Pretty Songs

It seems like if you write a pretty song—a really pretty song—someone somewhere will eventually be unable to listen to it on account of being reminded of something painful.

Concerning Lunch

A can of baked beans, two hot dogs, some baby bok choy...

If, this afternoon, you were seeking insight into my character and had only my lunch to go by, you'd learn this: that I no longer believe that a can of baked beans and two hot dogs alone suffice as a respectable meal. So, I suppose if you said I was making progress, you'd be kind of right.