Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Age of Aquariums


"Something's fishy here..."


Aki is always a good sport when we take him with us to do grown-up stuff. A couple of weekends ago, we turned the tables and tagged along with him to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, one of L.A.'s kid-friendliest places.

There's no better way to start off a day at an aquarium than with a nice hot plate of Fish 'n Chips. After we got ourselves stinking with salt, oil, tartar, and malt vinegar, we let Aki try out his sea legs by walking around outside.

He was pretty brave about touching everything, including the sting rays, starfish, and sea urchins. He cooed at the tubby sea lions, and reached out for the colorful lorikeets. But his favorite part, I think, was the shark lagoon.


"Dada, these teeth are kinda big..."


It was also the last day of the Aquarium's Autumn Festival, which featured booths and performances by different Asian cultural groups. The most virtuosic of these was probably a group of Korean girls who literally bent over backwards to show off their percussion chops.

These days As soon as Aki gets his shoes on, it's off to the races. He also wants to hug every kid in sight, and since not every child reacts to this positively, there's a lot of dashing around, blocking, and prying apart involved. Mommy and Daddy are getting a lot more exercise these days!


Who's crabby? Not me!

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Friday, November 13, 2009

Top Tracks of the '00s: The Funeral


Song: The Funeral
Artist: Band of Horses
Album: Everything All the Time
Year: 2006


The Funeral, Band of Horses' blazing anthem off their 2006 album Everything All the Time, starts off like the opposite of a lullaby, hushed and reverent. It has the feel of coming up out of a dream or a fever. Then the band kicks up the wattage, and the brooding lyrics are set off by fierce, defiant, clear-eyed chords and rhythms that peal away any layer of self-pity you might expect from a song with lyrics like "For every occasion, I'll be ready for a funeral."

We spent the second part of our anniversary night at the squeaky-clean Club Nokia in the new L.A. Live complex, swimming in Band of Horses' soaring wall of sound. Sure enough, they played "The Funeral" toward the end of their set of dense, ecstatic songs.

I love Band of Horses' albums, but Bridwell's high, lean, not-too-gritty but not-too-pretty voice is better live, and so is the band: They don't dilute their sound with as much reverb as they do on the albums, and you hear more of their musicality: the Southern rock DNA they share with My Morning Jacket (Band of Horses was formed in Seattle but is now based in Bridwell's native South Carolina), and the folk and indie rock intensity of Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, and alt-country rockers like Uncle Tupelo.



With their skinny, bearded indie look, Band of Horses looks like a cross between a Wes Anderson cast and a bunch of haggard Civil War veterans. In the middle of their set, they treated us to some new songs off the album they're currently recording. We loved a new song featuring band member Ryan Monroe's lead vocals and keyboards, thick with harmonizing that would make Fleet Foxes smile (come to think of it, Monroe looks like he could be a Fleet Fox himself). And another new song even made me think of my favorite band from Minnesota, the late, great Jayhawks.

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Monday, November 9, 2009

No Capes!




For years, holidays didn't mean much more to me than the possibility of a day off, a couple of beers with some buddies, and a September to December sensory assault by the retail sector: costumes, candy, tinsel, and tryptophan.

Then I became a dad.

This happens to people every day, of course, but it often changes people's lives so quickly that they don't even have time to stop and take stock of the ways that their lives are changing.

Well, future parents, take note: Side effects of having a child may include drowsiness, weight gain, and seeing the holiday season with a fresh pair of eyes.


We spent Aki's first real Halloween (he was an eensy-weensy three-weeks old last Halloween) at a couple of Halloween parties. The first was Aki's girlfriend Sonoma's first birthday party, which was at her parents' house in the Glendale hills, complete with games, Hawaiian food, and "round" costumes.



The second party was at Aki's auntie's house in San Marino, where we even rediscovered the fun of door-to-door trick-or-treating. For both Yuri and I, it was the first time we'd gone trick-or-treating in almost 20 years!

When we first started feeding Aki solids, we were surprised at how emotionally satisfying it was to just see your child eat. In the same way, it's incredibly satisfying just to see your child experience the world.


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