Fifty years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, preceded only by dogs and rockets.
Twenty years ago, in a profoundly less celebrated event, I started learning Russian in a public high school classroom in San Francisco. The first essay I ever translated from our Russian textbooks was a short and roundly positive piece on Gagarin, of course. And so, for me, Russian and Gagarin and Soviets have always been one bundle. He was the best kind of man, and stood above the very bad system that had produced him. Happy anniversary, Yuri. Hope you’re out there in the playing in the cosmos somewhere with that space-dog.
Thanks to Dasha for passing on this lovely little video tone-poem:
Busy, busy around here, but the overwhelming event of the last week was the birth, after just the right amount of gestation, of my first nephew ever: baby Charlie.
I am now not just a father. I am an uncle.
Becoming an uncle may mean different things to different people. They say some people aren’t close to their siblings, but I can’t say I know what that’s like. My brother and I are quite unlike each other in a few ways, and we’ve had our disagreements, but even in conflict we were close. And we’re certainly close now. And that’s translated onto my relationship, I think, with this unmet neonate mewling into the South Florida steam this morning. His birth is not the birth of my own children. But it feels more like that than I would have imagined.
As an aside about what it means to have a child–today is actually my brother’s birthday. But I’m really not focusing on that at all. The new kid, with a birthday three days before his father, will forevermore overshadow his father’s once-big day. Sigh.
Uncle is, by the way, a kind of a great role. It’s like being a grandparent, but your joints don’t ache. You have no responsibility toward the child–save their physical safety in your presence–but all the advantages of loving and being loved. You get to be a character actor in the child’s life, which itself seems satisfying: I’m thinking of those rich, brief parts Paul Giamatti gets to play.
Part of my joy at this new assignment must also be due to my remarkable luck with my own uncles. They include the ones I grew up with: the joke-telling, song-singing, bird-flipping lawyer from San Francisco; the hard-living, sweet-hearted goatherd from Jersey by way of Southcentral France. Later additions include a glacier-climbing rock drummer from Madrid who is just a few years older than me, and a gentle Rabbi who studies Kabbalah and mentors inmates. They can all be, at times, either friend or family. And, importantly, they present alternative visions of manhood, offered without judgment, to compare and contrast with your father.
There is a reason, I think, why the Spaniards call each other tio the way Conchs call each other bubba. It’s a comfort role, being an uncle. I am incredibly excited about it.
And yet, in my first reality-check about the job, I have realized that I am booked for so much work and travel and work-travel that I won’t even be able to visit this sweet boy for at least another month. Meanwhile, I may have to fire up UncleWagon.com just to keep track of my emotions about the whole thing.
Mazel tov, brother. And, of course, happy birthday.
It’s hard to know how closely the people who read this blog pay attention to what we’re up to. It’s easy to imagine extremes: either everyone notices everything (as we do) or no one notices anything (I haven’t read any of Matt’s posts in six months). I know it’s likely more toward the latter, but hey, we can always hope.
Either way, we figured now was a good time to point out a few changes that we’ve implemented here at DadWagon. First, as Matt mentioned earlier, the relocation of our corporate headquarters to China has come off without a hitch. As soon as Nathan gets out of detention for economic crimes we’ll be firing on all cylinders.
Next, and perhaps most important, we’ve allowed the pace of things here to slow just a bit. Instead of offering about fifteen posts per week, we’ve cut down to five or six. Did you notice? Do you care? Want more, less, or exactly the same? We’d like to know.
The theory here was, first and foremost, we’re lazy and we’d like to do less. But beyond that, we thought perhaps concentrating on publishing less and publishing better might be a good idea. Don’t know if we achieved that this week, but it was the goal. In that light, then, please consider the skill, effort, and sheer talent and will that went into this items:
That’s it, folks. Short, sweet, and we think, absolutely perfect. What about you? Feedback is appreciated here, even if we totally ignore it or merely make fun of it. Let us know what you think.
And while you’re at it, why not follow us on Twitter (@dadwagon) or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/DadWagon). We obsessively count the numbers as a way to judge our merit as human beings. Help us out.
As I wrote about earlier this week, I’ve been a little obsessed with the question of how to balance my responsibilities as a father whose kids (presumably) need him and as a journalist who sometimes needs to go into (presumably, somewhat) dangerous situations.
Who better to talk with, then, than Robert King, subject of the documentary “Shooting Robert King“, which came out on DVD last fall?The movie follows him over 15 years through three wars, from his early 20’s to his current situation: still a photojournalist, still going to dangerous places, but also a husband and father of a young son.
Because Robert is a bit of a multimedia fanatic (you can support his newest multimedia project on Kickstarter), he suggested we do our Q&A as a recorded Skype chat. It’s worth watching for Robert’s views on war, kids and the anti-parent bias of the news media.
