John Hodgman on Only Children

I am an only child. And when you are an only child you have an unusual relationship with your parents. There are only the three of you, and you come to rely on one another for company as much as for anything else. You spend a lot of time traveling together, going to movies together, and watching public television together, with your dinner in your lap. Your mother and father are not so much your parents as they are your weird, older roommates. Or better, a pair of older cats who wander in and out of the rooms of your house. They silently judge you, but they can't stop you from whatever it is you're going to do.

—John Hodgman, from "Downton Abbey with Cats," The New Yorker, 1/13/14

 The New Yorker characterized this as a "Shouts and Murmurs" humor piece, but it was far wiser and deeper than those pieces tend to be. (It begins, "Look, I never want to tell stories about my children, because it always seems a little lazy. Children tend to be sort of dumb, and, in the end, the stories are always the same: children say hilarious things, and I am old and dying." That's funny, sure, but it also cuts close to the bone.)

And the paragraph I've quoted above made me realize how little writing I've read about the experience of being an only child -- despite the Internet-enabled proliferation of first-person essays about coming-of-age and parenting and all that stuff. And, even though only children make up an increasing share of the population (about 20% of American kids these days will be only children) there still seems to be a sense that it's "better" for children to have siblings, or that being an only child is not "ideal." Think of how newlywed couples get asked "Are you planning to have kids?" not "Are you planning to have a kid?" (Which is pretty presumptuous on the part of the asker – there's no guarantee that any couple will be able to have one healthy child, much less multiple children.) I'm trying to think of ways I can personally help dismantle the stigma around having only one child, without coming across as an agenda-driven douchebag.

But I know I am agenda-driven, because I'm an only child who never wished for siblings, and I feel like many of my better qualities (my creativity and ability to spend time by myself) are attributable to my being an only child. Some people may read the Hodgman quote above and discount it because it's part of a "humor" piece; others may read it and say "Look, it says that only children have an 'unusual' relationship with their parents; I don't want that for my child." But I feel that my life was enriched by being around adults so much at a young age, and if my parents were "a pair of older cats" -- well, I've always been a cat person.

Revisiting Christopher Durang

Anyone else do the thing where you buy someone a book for their birthday or Christmas, and then the book you choose looks so interesting that you end up reading it yourself before giving it to them? My youngest cousin turned 15 this month, and he's a theater kid, so I decided I ought to give him some Christopher Durang. (I absolutely love having a teenage theater fan in the family and I am relishing my self-appointed role as "cool twenty-something cousin.") But then I couldn't resist reading the book myself before I sent it off to my cousin -- being careful not to get it dirty or break the spine, of course.

Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater: Two Plays by Christopher Durang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I first encountered these plays when I was in high school and Christopher Durang was a favorite among the theater kids. I laughed at the irreverent, naughty absurdities of "Baby with the Bathwater," and a friend of mine did the "Laughing Wild" tuna fish monologue in acting class. Returning to these plays ten years later, I am no longer so enchanted by their kooky irrationality, but I am more attuned to their undercurrents of sorrow and outrage. I can also see their flaws a little more clearly: as Durang notes in his afterword, both of these plays were originally written as one-acts and then expanded into full-lengths, and especially in the case of "Baby with the Bathwater," the seams show.

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Arthur Miller, and My Grandfather

I am currently in the middle of reading Arthur Miller's autobiography, Timebends. I cannot honestly say that Miller is one of my all-time favorite playwrights, but at the same time, very few playwrights of his stature have written such a thorough autobiography, and he worked at such an interesting time in the American theater, that I felt it would be good to read it.

Timebends is an appropriate title for this work--its chronology jumps around so that, for instance, Miller talks about the triumph of Death of a Salesman in chapter 3, but doesn't describe the first play he ever wrote until chapter 4. And I guess it's appropriate that Miller uses this technique: as The New Yorker recently reminded us, "We are now so familiar with the theatrical trope of flashing back and forth in time within a character's mind that we've forgotten we owe the device to [Death of a Salesman]." The book is dense (six hundred pages) and it takes a while to get used to the time-bendy rhythm of it; admittedly, the first part of the book, about Miller's childhood, can get tedious.

Fortunately, I have an additional reason to want to learn about Arthur Miller's boyhood, apart from the fact that he was a playwright. You see, my maternal grandfather and Miller were born about a year apart, and both grew up in New York City Jewish families. (There are some differences of course: Miller's was an upper-middle-class family that lost everything in the Depression, whereas my grandfather's family was never well-off.) When they grew up, they looked a little bit alike--tall, lanky men in thick-framed eyeglasses--and both broke out of the narrow ethnic community where they'd been raised, and married Catholic women. I get the impression that their personalities were similar, too. Both Miller and my grandfather were very serious men, I think; both felt guilty for surviving the Holocaust, even though neither of them were ever in any real danger; both were proudly liberal, and very concerned with the moral and intellectual side of things. At the same time as Miller was defending human rights as president of PEN, my grandfather (who owned a Manhattan greengrocery) was driving around in a truck that said "We boycott the produce of South Africa because of its cruel racial laws."

My grandpa, or "Papa," as I called him, died about five years ago, without ever having told me, or even his own children, much about his youth. (My mother was in her forties before she learned that Papa grew up in Manhattan, not in the Bronx, as she had always thought. I am not kidding.) So when I read Timebends, and learn about the games Miller played as a boy and the way life was for Jews in 1920s New York, I'm not just learning about the formative years of an important American playwright. I'm also wondering if my grandfather played these same games, saw these same sights, had similar experiences during his own formative years.

The Grandma that Lighted My Life

I'm not trying to be morbid here, with two posts in a row that commemorate the deaths of women I've looked up to...but today is the fifth anniversary of the death of my beloved grandmother, and I can't let that pass unmarked.

I called my grandmother "Nonna" because she was of Italian descent--though born in Massachusetts in 1915. And if I had to sum her up in one phrase, it would be "she liked to make people lawf" (note Boston accent). I've often wondered if I inherited my love of theater from her.

She led a good long life with plenty of interesting stories, but my favorite was always the story about how, as a teenager, she and a friend put together a vaudeville act for a charity benefit show. They called themselves "Two Saps from Saugus," sang, danced, and did comedy. My grandma was pretty tall (as am I!) and her friend was short, so they wore costumes that accentuated this difference. Their first song was an original, by Nonna's friend's father--and seventy years later, these were the only lyrics she could remember:

Took a walk in the pa'k
Stole a kiss in the da'k
Like a doggy did ba'k
You're bananas
Bananas, they call me
Wherever I go
What is the reason?
I'd like to know

But, for their encore, they performed the popular hit song "The Spaniard that Blighted My Life." Nonna even banged a tambourine!

By the time I was a little girl, Nonna had forgotten most of "The Spaniard that Blighted My Life," but I was anxious to hear the rest of the song. I became convinced that the words were there somewhere, locked inside her head, and that they would come to her, sometime, when she was falling asleep or not thinking too hard about it...they'd come. Two days after I told her this, she burst into the room I was sharing with my mom, crowing that she'd remembered all the words. I transcribed them, and present them now:

List to me while I tell you
Of the Spaniard that blighted my life
List to me while I tell you
Of the man who said I'd be his wife

Twas at the bullfight I met him
I was watching his daring display
And while I went out for some peanuts and a program
The dirty dog beat it away, Oh!

If I catch Alfonso Spigoni, the Toreador
With a mighty swipe I'll dislocate his bally jaw
I'll find that fighter, I will, I will
The bounder, the blighter I'll kill, I'll kill
He shall die, he shall die
He shall dee-lee-i die-die-die die-die-die die
He shall die, he shall die
Or I'll plant a bunion
On his Spanish onion
If I catch him bending tonight!
Tonight!
Dee-lee-i die die die die, die-die!

Since then I've found the "real" "Spaniard That Blighted My Life" lyrics online, and this YouTube video of a little girl singing it, which gives a better idea of the tune (not all of it came across in my grandma's old-lady voice).


But I still sing the tune and the words I learned directly from Nonna, not the more "correct" version, because it's more personal. After her funeral, five years ago, we had a memorial luncheon, and I sang it there. And recently, I've discovered that it's a great way of making my housemates "lawf" when they are buried under the stress of too many papers. Maybe it would seem weird to an outsider, that I commemorate my grandma with raucous renditions of a vaudeville song about revenge on a cheating Spaniard (who seems to have an Italian name--really, Alfonso Spigoni?). But she would have loved it. Also she'd have loved that today is Mardi Gras--next to making people laugh, her favorite thing was to cook for them. So we're all eating our beignets and sweet things and thinking sweet thoughts about her.

The curtain falls: Pavarotti

Pavarotti as Nemorino. Image: The New York Times

You may think it's odd when I tell you that Luciano Pavarotti was one of the first celebrities I learned to recognize as a little girl, but you probably didn't grow up with a half-Italian mother who listened to the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts every wintertime Saturday. My mom, like her ancestors before her, is an opera fan. (My grandmother was even named after a famous mezzo.) She's not super-cultivated or super-refined--not the kind of fan who owns scores of CDs and debates various singers' merits at the dinner table--but she likes the great melodies, the great voices, the composers like Mozart, Bizet, and the Italians (Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini...). And for people like my mom, Pavarotti was ideal.

This was in the early 1990s--the era of the Three Tenors, when Pavarotti was the world's most famous and beloved opera singer. Our small but growing CD collection had at least eight discs of solo Pavarotti arias, as well as some of his "My Favorite Opera" compilations. And when my mother discovered (probably to her surprise) that her little girl didn't find this kind of music too complex or loud or strange, but really actually LIKED it, we became opera fans together. She'd get picture books from the library that narrated famous opera plots, and tell me the opera trivia she knew: "The tenor is always the good guy, except in Rigoletto."

We would tape the "Live from the Met" TV specials and I would watch them over and over. Mom would always point out Pavarotti (the star attraction) and his trademark handkerchief to me. At the age of 5, I became obsessed with The Elixir of Love starring Pavarotti and Kathleen Battle. I watched it so much I can still hum some of the music--granted, it is a wildly catchy opera.

(Tangent: Kathleen Battle was my introduction to the idea of the "diva". After the stories surfaced about her getting dismissed from the Met for "unprofessional behavior," I couldn't believe that the pretty lady from The Elixir of Love was throwing tantrums and abusing the people who worked with her. Though come to think of it, her character in Elixir was quite a scornful, proud woman herself!)

I even remember Mom, in the kitchen, showing me how to make salad dressing and pointing out the label on the balsamic vinegar: "It comes from Modena--that's where Pavarotti was born!"

And yet--and this is what makes the news of Pavarotti's death today so odd for me--because he was one of the first celebrities I learned to recognize, he also played a part in my understanding of mortality. I think it was because of the disconnect between his voice and his appearance. Here he had this stunning, ringing, powerful, young man's voice encased in a rotund late-middle-aged body that sweated profusely under the spotlights. I don't think I even noticed the dyed beard and eyebrows at the time, but I could sense that he did not have too many more years of performing ahead of him. (This, despite his ebullient personality and my own tender age.) Young children assume that everything is permanent. But watching the aging Pavarotti on television, I realized that that's not so. That there'd come a day (today) when this singer, whom I loved, would no longer be alive.

Ma la voce è immortale.

Pavarotti is still preserved forever young on all the recordings he made. I still recognize his voice more instantaneously than that of any other opera singer, and I still get chills when I listen to "Nessun dorma"--so I try not to do it too much, because I don't ever want to lose that feeling that comes when hearing sublime music sung by a sublime talent.

Bravo, Pavarotti!

UPDATE 9/9: This article from The Observer says a lot of what I was trying to say there about the mortal flesh and the immortal voice...or soul? Check it out, it's good.

My 8-Year-Old Cousin Should Really Have His Own Blog

But since I doubt he does, he'll just have to make a guest appearance on mine.

P. is my godfather's youngest child. Actually, he is the youngest son of a youngest son of a youngest son. Maybe that's what makes him so magical?

He is eight years old and just discovering that life is unfair. We all have to realize this at some point, and he's doing it younger than most. (I think I was in junior high before I realized this. But that's what junior high will do to ya.) He's realized that the first two months of school are always "a waste, cause you're just going over what you did last year" and that learning cursive handwriting is also a waste. He rails against the practice of pricing an item $10.99 instead of $11. "They're tryin' to make you think it's cheaper so they can just get all your money! But it's not ten-ninety-nine, it's eleven, and everyone knows it's a trick! I know only one person who would fall for that--a BABY! Because they don't know any better!"

He hates the long lines at the amusement park, how you can give the carnie your ticket and he'll still make you wait for a few cycles of the Ferris wheel to go around. It's like, he has just realized that as an 8-year-old kid, he really is powerless, subject to the whims and rules of every adult. Even worse, most ADULTS are powerless at times, in the face of queues, bureaucracy, marketing gimmicks, etc... and he's not taking this lightly.

His philosophy: "I wish life was like a buffet. Or a soda machine. Cause you put in your money, and then you choose. Put in the money, and then choose. That way you can figure out what you want and you don't get choiced too early. But no, it's not like that. Life is never like a buffet." (I love the way he talks. "Get choiced"--maybe you've never heard it before but you know exactly what it means.)

Here on this earth, we have to make our choices blindly and then pay the price. And P. has just figured this out.

But yet, he is not cynical, he is not being pessimistic on purpose, and he is certainly not having spoiled, angry tantrums about the world's unfairness. He just sees things clearly and tells 'em like he sees 'em. Sometimes I think he has more integrity than most of the adults I know.

Other favorite comments:

"Nuns are kinda like vampires. With the black capes."

"Peach rings are my major weakness. If I left my peach rings out on my balcony overnight the birds would eat them and get high on the sugar and start tap-dancing."


This kid knows his movies! He talks with great authority about the plots of Transformers, Ratatouille, and Harry Potter 5 before he'd even seen them. He can analyze a movie preview like a very astute 21st-century kid. And then analyze life like an uncorrupted prophet. "He's been here before," says my dad to my uncle. I don't know if I believe in that stuff. But I'm certainly glad he's here now.