things move around

The little-watched Rocky V.

Kate: Did he just say “Maybe I’ll take you upstairs and violate you like a parking meter”?

Yarb (checks): Yes.

New year’s eve. The kids are in bed, and Kate and I settle down to watch “Rocky IV” on the sofa. It was a tough choice between Rocky IV and the Planet of the Apes marathon on the Sci-Fi channel, but Rocky IV is one of the best movies ever made.

The anguish on Apollo Creed’s wife’s face when Drago drives home the deathblow is, for me, the apogee of the actor’s art.

My daughter used her first obscenity the other day. She heard me say ‘fuck!’ as we missed a bus by seconds having queued for change in Starbucks behind a herd of buffoons. A minute later as we hoofed it along the street she uttered a soft series of fucks from her perch on my shoulders. People were staring so I shushed her and on the spur of the moment suggested she say ‘oh dear’ instead (pathetic, I know). I thought this had done the trick, but two days later she was messing about in the bathroom when I heard the sound of her dropping something heavy and then an adroit, perfectly-timed ‘fuck!’

To tell you the truth, her mother and I are proud. Missing buses, dropping things, who doesn’t medicate their frustration with a ‘fuck’ at times like this? I suppose the trouble is most of a two-year old’s times are like this.

Wait, there’s another thing I have in common with two-year olds.

How many times have I visited the superb Vancouver Aquarium, and stood in its rainforest exhibit, scanning the foliage for one of the reputed resident trio of three-toed sloths? At least 20. But fruitlessly: until today. Late this afternoon, after the throngs had gone, I watched awestruck as one of the exquisite furry creatures traversed the scanty canopy not six feet above my head, oozing mesmerically from the tip of one bent bough to the tip of one opposite, draping and drooping, probing, progressing by invisible integuments, moving with a meditative calmness which was a balm to the quotidian pangs within me. The performance was like a graceful dream in which nothing happens, over and over again, like a late Beckett play, which is nothing in the passing, but on passing, something. And then, unbelievably, I noticed the other two three-toed sloths: one was snoozing atop the tallest tree, the other eating an apple.

I haven’t eaten an apple. But tonight I ate a gingerbread man in the following order: arms, legs, head, torso (neck down).

And last week I had a son, will wonders never cease! He doesn’t make much sense to me, but then, to misquote an ent, he is very small. And the smell! I love the smell of baby in the morning.

Whenever I listen to early R.E.M., it sounds like droning mumbly bollocks. Yet I still listen to it why?

Tonight I heard (and saw) Giora Schmidt play Bruch’s 1st violin concerto - amazing, bluesy, slidey, raw, rejuvenating. The slow movement is so ravishing it’s very hard to ravish it, but Schmidt ravished it. A great violinist. Can you ravish a movement?

Can you?