It’s ontology porn.

Sam wrote a really lovely culture opener for this week's New York - it's a review about a book you might never read, but the essay itself is a harkening back to one of the things he does best: a good, old-fashioned, literary personal essay. I think you'll like it.

Miles of Stones.

While the 'spiritual' conversion occurred a few months back, our boy, our sweet, sweet boy turned actually two years old yesterday.

We can hardly believe Beck has been a part of our family for two whole years. He's brought us so much joy and so very much miniature-Sam action - totally worth the illogical, tantrumy moments (like when he screamed for 30 minutes because he found it impossible to hold two matchbox cars AND drink from his milk cup at the same time. An indignity that was only deepened when mama offered to help him drink the milk or hold the cars for the time it would take to get a swig of milk).

Here is a quick glimpse of our small, but fun birthday celebration:



And a few birthday pictures, too. There are more birthday related videos on our youtube channel, if you are interested.

For Immediate Release.

Sam just walked downstairs looking like this:


Not sure what to do. Advice appreciated.

Altogether now.

Peter and Deanie are visiting Beacon from Oregon this week & we've been doing all sorts of small things like introducing them to Pete Seeger, getting on the front page of the local paper, you know, that kind of stuff. We also went strawberry picking (see some pictures here) and had this exciting encounter with a turkey:



And then, somewhat unrelatedly, there's this - a new installment of Sam's Reading Room over at Vulture. A bunch of posts are up already, including David Rees' crazyass powerpoint slides. Get in on it before it goes all viral.

Ming-ming-ming. Ming-ming.

And, oh, how we did. At about 3:15 pm.


We took a little impromtu road trip to D.C. this week. We talked to people about Paula Poundstone, we drank iced coffee all over DuPont Circle, we swam in the hotel pool. It was delightful, and totally not like us.


Something that is very much like us: Beckett has started to master the air guitar (more like one of us than the other - I'll let you take a minute to guess who). The noise that his air guitar makes is: Ming. As in: ming-ming-ming (as he strums his stomach). I've been trying to capture it on video all week, but Beck has developed a very unfortunate allergy to cameras. For example, this:

is the face he made when I tried to capture his unbearable cuteness at the park today.

Oh: Tony.

I'm going to confess something to you now: I don't really like theater. I find it all a little too dramatic, and usually very long. There have been a few shows I've really enjoyed: Movin' Out (who doesn't love a Billy Joel musical?), Frankie and Jonny at the Claire de Lune (b/c I got to see Stanley Tucci NAKED! which seems maybe more like a downside, now that I think about it, but was somehow thrilling at the time), and Cabaret (Neil Patrick Harris' last performance - and he brought the house down (and did it with a broken ankle)). As for the rest - eh.

If you're with me on this, and even if you aren't, Sam's friend and critic at the New York Times, Dwight Garner, has a cover story on the Sunday paper this week about the experience of reading plays in print as opposed seeing them acted to on stage.

Hats.

Beacon enjoyed the annual hat parade this weekend. Unfortunately, Beck didn't get to show off his helmet - the parade took place during his nap time. We did cruise around Main St., sporting the A's cap, hunting motorcycles, when he woke up. We were reliving the motorcycle moments this morning when Gretta announced she wasn't really interested in riding on a motorcycle. She explained: "I know girls can ride on motorcycles, I'm just not that kind of girl."

Enough about the kids...

It's all about David Letterman this week.

Unstoppable blogging machine.

(new haircut!)

Have you ever in your whole life seen a blog updated so frequently? I don't think so. And I'm pretty sure you don't want to challenge me on this, otherwise I might have to kick your @ss in wrestling, like this:



Those kids learned everything they know about wrestling from yours truly.