SOLEMates

Well, 2019 is here, and I hope I'll be forgiven for believing that the rest of the calendar cycle now has its work cut out for it trying to live up to the sky-high bar which these first few weeks have set.

The Cooks of Lowell had the second weekend of the year circled on our planners since last July as the date of the 2019 Disney World Marathon in sunny Orlando, FL, a running foray that us crazy runner types had made a couple times in the past and had never come home from disappointed. This year, however, was shaping up to be a special trip before ever a step had been run in preparation, for reasons that happened to be (not coincidentally) linked.
Firstly, we were being joined on our travels by the family of my girlfriend Katie Durkin, whose mom Kate and sister Sarah -- only half as crazy -- had signed up for the Disney Half Marathon the day before our scheduled 26.2, and whose dad Jim was holding down the chEARing squad with my mom Jackie. The sane brains in both families aren't hard to pick out.

Dependent on their wonderful company, however, was the other reason this trip was shaping up to be an unforgettable one for me personally, a reason which motivated me through every single step of the months-long training cycle. It was darn near one of the hardest things I've ever had to do to keep it bottled up as a secret, but now that the word's out, let me announce here in my happiest and loudest possible tones, to the readers in the front row and the cheap seats,

LADIES AND GENTS, YOURS TRULY GOT ENGAGED!!!!

As the old folks say, when you know, you know, and I've known that Ms. Katie Durkin and I were *IT* for a very long time indeed. She is the exclamation point burst of color in my life, and after using Pennywise as an excuse to hold her hand all smooth-like way back on our first date (after she used picturebooks as an excuse to reach out and network), the laughter and joy in my days has gone UP like a house that’s balloon-propelled towards Paradise Falls.

This being the kind of person one generally wants to have around in life, I'd been concocting scenarios of one sort or another where I could get down on one knee and ask that biggest of questions to my best friend, in the kind of memorable way she deserved. Both of us being Disney fanatics, the Mouse House natch seemed like it checked that box pretty neatly, so before a single registration had been filed or hotel deposit put down, the wheels in my head were already turning.
Like I said, I'm surprised my tongue didn't split in half after all the times biting it to keep the secret, but somehow, someway, we passed through TSA in Boston's Logan Airport last Thursday morning with one diamond ring and parental blessing in-tow, and we took off (with all the usual airline delays) towards those palm tree groves that make you realize, "huh, maybe those snowbird people are onto something..."

If there was one moment that threatened the whole weekend, it was this one. I've got my eyes on you, Mouse.

Taking advantage of a slight divergence in plans on Friday morning as the Durkins all headed off to the RunDisney expo for some race swag, the Cooks (and Heather's Stonehill roomie, Zoe Lavoie, who I hope has become a full Disney convert through the experience) scoped out Animal Kingdom park as the site for some real-life magic that afternoon. Knowing that Katie -- animal lover of all things in Nature, and the newest and brightest star over at the Lowell Parks and Conservation Trust offices -- lists The Lion King as one of her all-time favorite movies, my dad and I headed over to the Festival of the Lion King live show to see if any of the workers there wanted to become our new best friend.
This hero in question turned out to be (according to his nametag) Diego from the University of Virginia, who told us that he'd not only make us all "family of the day," with front-row seating for the show itself, but that he'd personally escort us backstage afterwards, in his own words, "to make some magic happen." Diego, I don't know if this can or ever will get back to you, but I don't think I'd be able to thank you or repay you enough if I tried for the rest of my days. You're a credit to everything the Disney Parks are supposed to be about, and your involvement helped cement the picturebook proposal I'd been envisioning and that Katie deserved.
"Does that work for you?" he asked as we shook hands.
Brother, you betcha.

We joined back up with the Durkins, enjoyed the goosebump-inducing show from our front-row vantage point, followed Diego backstage to meet the costumed dancers and performers, and then... well, I'll let the pictures tell it.

Job well done, memories made, now we're all set to go hom-- WAIT WHAT?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE STILL HAVE A MARATHON TO RUN??
Well of course... even though everything after the most important "yes" head nod in my life would've been gravy, we didn't train all those miles in the freezing New England colds for nothing! So it was off for a blissful day or two in the parks to chEAR on Sarah and Kate on their outstanding Half Marathon Saturday morning, then carbs on carbs on carbs to prepare for our 3am Sunday wake-up.

Accompanied by the cutest Lilo & Stitch father-daughter pairing you'd find this side of a Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, we walked to the Marathon starting line together, ready to Go the Distance. I'll let the pics take over here, so scroll on through as few or as many of the most special memories a lot of us will probably notch over our running careers, and I'll see you on the other side for one final word.

If the Seven Dwarves needed re-casting, there's a top contender for Happy right in the middle here

ANYONE REMEMBER US??

Things at Mile 15 were looking grave

Like I said, the rest of 2019 has a tough act to follow now. If there's anything I'm sure of, though, it's that I've got the bestest best partner in all the kingdoms to experience it alongside. Katie, I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of your *Herculean* accomplishment in finishing your first (but maybe not your last?) marathon. Having run all the way there with you, step for step, I know what a struggle and what a triumph it was at all times, but when you crossed that finish line, you earned every stitch of your finisher ears, and every ounce of gold in your medal. Dad and Heather, the same goes for you: this is nothing new, but I couldn't be more honored to be in the most incredible family this side of...well... The Incredibles!!
Now that we're back in the slap-in-the-face cold of the frozen North, our hearts are full of love and gratitude for the outpouring of well wishes and congratulatory messages we've received since announcing the happy news over the weekend. Both of us are truly lucky to be surrounded by such caring circles, and we can't wait to share everything on this new upcoming adventure that is MARRIAGE with each of you. Stay tuned for lots more updates and happy memories, but in the meantime, thanks for reading, and for supporting us crazy kids on our travels!!


SHE SAID YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Frankie, My Dear

             So, a fun fact for you reader-types out there: two hundred and two years ago on this very night, between the hours of 2am and 3am  (a fact which has been verified by astronomers who are much, much smarter than humans should ever be and can somehow actually calculate such things), a nineteen year old girl jolted out of her sleep in a cold sweat, while rain and hurricane winds lashed outside at her windows. She was staying at a Genevan villa for the summer with her poet husband, along with their mutual poet friend and a doctor, who had all challenged each other to see who could spin the best ghost yarn over a stormy weekend when they had nothing else better to do. This girl, who had come up blank while the others wrote circles around her -- the doctor, as a matter of fact, wrote the first ever work of vampire fiction, some seventy years before Bram Stoker came along with his offering -- had just had a nightmare so vivid and unnerving that, when she put it to paper, it was enough to beat out all the other participants' entries to become the scariest story produced in that one feverish weekend. As taken from her notebook: 

"I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."

          This girl was Mary Shelley, patron feminist of goths and hipsters the world around, and at nineteen years old, she had just created the genre of science fiction, over a weekend, on a dare.

           
           And now, for the biggest whiplash between settings and dramatic tableaus you're likely to encounter today:

           Over the course of my elementary-middle school years, few events in the rotation of school months could be relied on to bring me as much excitement as the annual Scholastic book fairs. In the preceding weeks, I’d comb through the advance catalogs provided by the school with a red marker, circling and prioritizing and saving up allowance money for the day when Scholastic representatives, those strange and wonderful tribes of roving salespeople, descended into the school’s tiny library with book caravans in their wake. On the day itself, I’d wander wide-eyed through the makeshift aisles and calculate (with math skills that haven’t improved much in the time since) just how far the crumpled wad of dollar bills in my fist could be stretched to allow for the biggest stack of books to bring to the register.

          It was on one of these Christmas-like occasions that I first noticed a book cover that would come to haunt my imagination in the times between lying down and falling asleep, for many nights to follow: gazing with hatred directly through the plane of the cover at unsuspecting passers-by, a stitched, mangled figure was making his way through a hellscape of a swamp, under the words Great Illustrated Classics: FRANKENSTEIN. As is sometimes the way with kids, rather than run from the frightening and unsettling content which the ominous cover promised lay inside, I immediately picked it up and added it to my stack for that year. Now, over a decade or more later, I can’t remember a single one of the other books I brought home with me that day. The ones I circled with red marker have long since been donated or stored away, but Frankenstein nestled itself DEEP into my consciousness – maybe even subconsciousness – and has lurked there ever since.

           Mary Shelley's waking nightmare descended through two centuries to land there on top of my little book pile, and realistically, I was too young for it. Way too young. There’s not much gore in the plot, so much as Gothic creepiness, but that’s what probably unsettled me so deeply; it’s not a non-stop murderous rampage of limbs being ripped apart – kids are so inundated with layers of unreality in superhero movies and sci-fi video games now, how scary would that even be, I wonder? – it’s an obsessive man trudging through misty city streets with grave-mud on his boots. The Monster (far more articulate and philosophical in his book form than Hollywood would lead you to believe) doesn’t use any R-rated language; instead, he learns language by hiding for shelter in the crawlspace of a mountain cottage and listening in on the happy family inside. That crawlspace just happened to be identical to the one on the other side of the same wall where I laid my head down on the pillow every night… so you BET I lay awake there on several occasions, certain that a wretched, reanimated being crouched down just feet away, listening through the panels to pick up snatches of language.

          What most unsettled me, however, was that the “Creature” promised by both the nightmarish book cover and general society to be a brutish, rampaging villain, deserving of fear and hatred, was nowhere to be found. This being, abandoned by his creator at birth without a name (to the headache of all English majors in the centuries since), was nothing whatsoever like the moaning, stiff-limbed, flat-topped and bolt-necked caricature known around the world. Legendary makeup artist Jack Pierce used his brush and spirit gum appliances to sculpt that interpretation onto the canvas of Boris Karloff, who then entered into immortality with his performances in the golden age of Universal Horror. It’s a totally brilliant and wonderful creation in and of itself, but in terms of adapting its source material, it may as well be a totally different character altogether. At the risk of reverting into lecturing teacher mode, the Creature in the book is superhumanly fast and strong, with flowing locks of black hair, a tendency to quote passages from Milton’s Christian epic Paradise Lost, and, most importantly, a broken heart. He should be, physical scarrings from his creation process aside, the epitome of the lonely Romantic hero that dominated the age in which Mary Shelley wrote her masterpiece, but the irony is that no one can get past those deformities, that otherness, and he is consequently reviled.

           That outcasting really got under my skin, and has ever since; yes, the Creature descends into some less-than-savory courses of action as the novel unfolds, arguably earning himself the Monster moniker he’d been mislabeled with for so long after one or two acts of revenge against his maker, but – to my reading, anyways – there was always reasoning and sometimes even justification behind such behavior. Met with horror, rejection, and oftentimes outright violence during his every interaction with humanity, it’s really only a matter of time before the empty page of his newly-reanimated brain begins to give it all back in kind. You think I’m a Monster? Fine. I’ll give you one, then. For this reason, the Creature has always been a lightning-rod of sorts for outcasts, misfits, and anyone else shunned by general society as “other.” 

           Case in point: in the Karloff films (and parodied spectacularly in Mel Brooks’ & Gene Wilder’s masterpiece spoof Young Frankenstein) Frankenstein the scientist demands for his hunchbacked lab assistant go to the local medical college to find a brain suitable for transplant into his waiting creation. A “normal” brain is initially chosen, but then smashes to pieces in an accident, causing the hunchback to double back and pick out an “abnormal” brain instead (in the Brooks/Wilder film, the hunchback tells Frankenstein it’s from “Abby someone.” “Abby someone? Abby who?” “Abby…normal... I'm almost sure that was the name”). On a macro level, that seems a pretty apt statement for the movie, and for Frankenstein lore as a whole: abnormality reigns. The movies' scenery tilts in at 45 degree expressionistic angles that seem to trap viewers within their frames, the percussion section of their soundtrack is supplied at one point by a beating heart stimulated by electrodes, the actors' performances range from camp to manic hysteria. It's all weird and mesmerizing and not quite able to be pinned down satisfactorily, a glorious tightrope between dream and Mary Shelley's original nightmare.

          That's also probably one of the main reasons I've never really been able to escape Frankenstein since that time of first discovery: it challenges you, asks the biggest possible questions about creation and death and what we owe to each other here in the time in-between... but since those questions can't be answered by any human, it remains rewardingly mysterious in the end. Assigned readings in high school, a focused college seminar, and countless late night movie viewings have all given me a greater sense of context for all things Frankenstein -- for example, did you know that James Whale, the Universal films director, filled his masterpieces with LGBTQ overtones that are now surprisingly (but commendably) overt for their release dates in the 1930s? -- but that prevailing sense of mystery and spookiness means that this story still has a primal immediacy with every encounter.  I'm still there, hardly daring to breath beneath my covers, because I'm certain some behemoth is lurking just feet away, with a soul that's even more hurt and damaged than his patchwork anatomy. Anyone who's ever had to go through periods with that same perspective from the outside looking in... aka my time in middle school when I discovered Frankenstein in the first place... aka a young woman author in Geneva whose attempts at writing a ghost story are being scoffed at by the men around her... can understand why the Creature and his situation there ring such a bell, and it's one of the things I think all Frankenstein studies deserve such attention for.

The Creature finds his solitude, his voice, his sense of self-expression through books and reading. As someone who's still chasing down the sheer adrenaline high of those Scholastic fairs all these years later, I can't thank Mary Shelley enough for crafting this book for all of us who choose to do the same.
Go find what makes you "other," abnormal, Monstrous. Go chase it down and unleash it on the world. In the end, it's what makes us each of us, and the world at large, so much more ALIIIIIIIIVE.

Pros at Cons

I hope it's no surprise at this point to anyone reading this that the Cooks, and many in their extended social spheres, are what can be kindly described as "pop culture connoisseurs." Alternatively, we also answer to "comic book fans," "movie buffs," or most succinctly, "geeks." Put some respect on it, thank you very much.

An avid subscriber to actor/writer Simon Pegg's views about geekdom for many years now, I've always worn my excitement to all things superheroes, sci-fi & suchlike on my size-medium sleeve, and I'm happy to report that, pop culture-wise, certainly, the rest of the mainstream world finally seems to be catching on to this good thing we've been raving about since we were old enough to run around the house in Spider-Man pajamas (just me?). A fun fact for any who haven't already heard it: rather than the traditional route of One Fish, Two Fish or The Very Hungry Caterpillar, this humble author actually learned to read in the pages of comic books. At a vulnerably impressionable age, my dad Patrick got me a then-new copy of The Essential Spider-Man, a black-&-white anthology reprint of twenty-five or so original Spider-Man comics from the early 1960s... that selfsame frayed volume retains a spot of prominence on a shelf in my bedroom, a decent amount of its pages bearing the chocolate fingerprint stains of six-year-old fingers, and rarely do more than a few months go past at a time before I take it down and thumb through it again.

Given such an upbringing, therefore, it should be no surprise that the Cooks and all manner of extended friends and family have added a pilgrimage to Comic-Con as part of their annual schedule for the past few years now -- and where better place to have it than our own beloved Beantown?

If you're a people-watcher (I could personally list it as a resume skill), there really is no more unique event to walk around at, open-mouthed, for the whole calendar year. We all had our cameras constantly at the ready to pose with the thousands of "cosplayers" -- people who dress up in startlingly elaborate and detailed costumes of their favorite fictional characters -- who made the convention center feel like a Mos Eisley cantina of comic book characters come to life.

Scroll through at your leisure at some of the craziest or most incredible sights we saw that day --including more than a few celebrity guest cameos! -- but just like they do in Marvel movies, make sure you don't leave till after the end credits have gone and the house lights come up.

WARNING: dad jokes, fanboy insider references, and puns galore ahead. You've been warned.

Wonder Woman, finally opting for some non-invisible means of transportation

GET YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF ME, YOU DAMN DIRTY APE

"Whosoever holds this hammer --

-- if he be worthy --

-- shall possess the power of THOR!"

For all you Neil Gaiman fans out there -- Coraline's Other Mother, because there's no way your nightmares tonight could get any scarier, right?

... Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
"Georgieeeeeee....."

With so many things wrong in this neighborhood, who you gonna call?

Did someone call for a Doctor?

*REGENERATION*

"Come with me."

*REGENERATION*

"I am not a doctor. I am the Doctor."

"No, no, no, dear me, no. I am the Doctor. The original, you might say."

*REGENERATION*

I for one think it's about time there was finally a woman at the controls of the TARDIS. Time and space can't hurry up quick enough, Doctor 13. 

But in the meantime, Heather's content to just swoon  here over Doctor 11, the single-handed savior of the bowtie industry and Heather's major longtime crush: the super-cool and friendly Matt Smith...

And then fistbump with his bestie traveling Companion, the equally cool and exponentially more Scottish Karen Gillan (those red locks of hers are also beneath the badass purple baldness of Nebula, for all you Guardians of the Galaxy people out there!)

Far off in another corner of a galaxy far, far away, this trio had the privilege to meet and have a full conversation with the man fluent in over six million forms of communication -- the uber-posh and downright pleasant Mr. Anthony Daniels, Star Wars' iconic C-3PO himself.

And a good thing we did, too, or there would've been no one to shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level for us.

Where there's C-3PO, OF COURSE there has to be his number one friend and rusty bucket of bolts, R2-D2.

Less friendly was (this INCREDIBLE cosplay of) reformed Empire droid K2-SO, who kept delivering slaps in the face to Rebel scum

"Quiet! And there's a fresh one if you mouth off again."

The costumes here were all truly of the First Order

Punch it.I gotta admit -- sitting in the pilot's chair of the Millenium Falcon (with Nien Nunb even in the background!) was, as they say, "a bit of a moment."

In a day full of them, thanks in part to these amazing Amazons.

For lunch: chimichangas all around

As prepared by the only deadliest sharpest finest adamantium cutlery.

For lunch costs, and all the other MAJOR dents in our bank accounts caused by the armfuls of swag we each brought home afterwards, the preferred method of payment was "checks with little poodles on them," property of Bikini Bottom's most ticklish reformed criminal mastermind

In terms of the wickedest being beneath the waves, however, there was only one contender. Heather and I were speechless.

Zachary, no help at all, just kept joking at the situation.

With all these villains lurking around, there was only one team who could Assemble to Avenge the day. After years and years, I finally got to join their number!

As you've no doubt gathered from this barrage of pics (chosen from out of, I promise you, dozens, if not hundreds more), it really is something of an event to be a part of. In my opinion, it's the kind of event you should want to be a part of, nowadays especially.

Simultaneous to these goings-on in our cool corner of the world, rioters and protesters were clashing in Charlottesville, VA, with heartbreaking results. While I'll take any opportunity I can to talk your ear off about the latest plot details for the upcoming Avengers movies, I can't lie and say that I was undisturbed or willfully asleep to the historic and horrible events that were happening elsewhere; they struck a jarring chord with me, deeply, as some idealistic part of me hopes also happened to all decent Americans. The narrative on display there (and on your news station of choice, most likely, in the week now since), of naked hatred, prejudice, exclusivity, and violence, should have had no business here in 2017... but we're long since past any false ideas of "there's no way this could have happened in our country" anymore.  It did happen, and in doing so, the proverbial rock of American society was upturned to thrust an ugly, ugly underside into the spotlight. As uncomfortable as it was - and is, and will be - for many of us to confront it, it's been there all along, and not everyone has been so privileged as to be able to ignore it until now, not when it exists as an entrenched part of the system for so many.

As whole ethnic groups and other minorities that make up the basic fabric of our society have faced this latest, horrifyingly blatant round of discrimination, there's been a lot of chatter to the tune of "What can we do against it? How can I, an individual, counter these kind of atrocities?" The most practical answer is probably no further away than a google search and donation (of time and/or money) to a PoC, feminist, LGBTQ+, immigrant/refugee, poverty, and/or general peacekeeping aid group who does that kind of work daily, on the front lines of their respective issues.
But what about the longer-term, harder fix of internal adjustment? What about the soul-searching that's needed to bring us to the other side of this? What behavioral model do we have that's everything opposite to what went down in Virginia (and other places across the country)?

And here's where it all comes back around.

While my Twitter feed was delivering livetime more and more discouraging updates about the state of our beloved country , I needed to look no further than my immediate surroundings at comic-con to find hope again. There, up and down every aisle, thronged dozens deep in places, were tens of thousands of people -- of every creed, color, gender and sexual identity, age, body type, and class -- gathered together, peacefully, in celebration of: what?
Celebration of creativity. Of passion. Of inclusivity. Of a shared community experience. Of modern day heroes, pillars of our 21st century culture: an undocumented immigrant from the planet Krypton who has become a literal embodiment of Americana and the American Dream; a space princess-general who has no time for your male posturing; a team of superpowered mutants, ostracized and persecuted because of their from-birth identity as outsiders; a lower-class Brooklyn kid who, after an issue-one splash cover punching Adolf Hitler unconscious, has been identified since his first appearance with defeating Nazis and everything they stand for. And forget all simple notions of black or white or brown or Asian skin color... there were people walking around that were purple, orange, green, metal, tentacled, scaly, and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't even know about (there was some weird stuff, honestly). These are the ideals we set for ourselves to reach, that we have consciously and societally raised up as the individuals and themes worthy of adoration, no matter how fictional they may be. It's pretty special to see such a large gathering have such unbridled enthusiasm for all those things and more besides, and it's a reason much better than people watching why I'll never tire of going to one of these events.

You may well scream that I've been corrupted by the "liberal Hollywood agenda," that I'm living in a ludicrous fantasy world, that all of this sad rambling is out-of-touch, privileged preaching that has no effect on the actual world we live in.

Well, ok. I respect that.

But what could happen if that comic-con mentality was applied to other things? For every hate-filled gathering by hooded tiki-torchlight, there's a gathering of superheroes populated by the part of humanity that I choose to be a part of, that recognizes, celebrates, and aims to spread positivity to as many people as possible? Could they, say, gather tens of thousands of strong, of literally every sort and type, to march through Boston in a peaceful yet awe-inspiring display of multiculturalism, love, and tolerance, drowning out and altogether preventing the hatred we saw only a week ago in Charlottesville? Or carry on the same fight in smaller, more everyday ways that seldom make the news, but which still allow me to retain hope in a country that never needed to be made great again... because it was already great?

Imagine if that could happen.

"My faith's in people, I guess. Individuals. And I'm happy to say that, for the most part, they haven't let me down. Which is why I can't let them down either. I know you're doing what you believe in, and that's all any of us can do... So no matter what, I promise you, if you need us - if you need me - I'll be there."

Stories from the Desert

We encounter each other in words, words 

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed, 

words to consider, reconsider. 

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark 

the will of some one and then others, who said 

'I need to see what’s on the other side.' 

I know there’s something better down the road. 

We need to find a place where we are safe. 

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

So goes Elizabeth Alexander's spectacular poem Praise Song for the Day, composed specially for the 2008 inauguration of Barack Obama (and found here, for anyone looking for their daily fix of extraordinary poetry). And so began last Sunday's concert in Foxboro's Gillette Stadium, the lines of the poem scrolling up an enormous stage screen to begin a concert event which has finally roused me from my writing slumber. And after all this time, I have to say, it is good to be back. Now, before we delve into the specific circumstances which have revived my efforts to clutter up your social media feeds with my ramblings for the foreseeable future, first--

A story:

I was a music fan from elementary school days, but at first it only meant  listening to movie soundtracks -- with a walkman CD player, in the days when that was still the private-listening music device of choice. I'd pop in The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or Superman and stare out the window on car rides while replaying that CD's respective movie in my head in near-perfect sync to the music.

But then, as per the usual rite of teen passage, my fanboy symphonies were shot through by the righteous unholy racket of rock'n'roll, and nothing was the same again. Such was its impact on my impressionable young self, as a matter of fact, that I can actually pinpoint the specific album that was the root cause of it all: a sleek black CD, near-sinister in its simple allure, with U2 18 printed in small orange block font across the bottom. I popped it into my trusty little walkman, pressed play, and "Uno, dos, tres, catorce" (that's typical Gaelic counting skills for you)... magic.

Yes, this Irish boy's first popular music exposure came courtesy of the Irish boys, the Dublin lads with a leprechaun pot of triple platinum albums and a Blarney stone-cold claim on the title of "the greatest rock band in the world." For the next however many months after finding that first CD of singles, it was just the walkman and the plastic of the headphones and U2 blasting their soundscapes through the ear canals of a scrawny Lowell middle schooler. Over the decade or more since then, and with the collected works of music as an entity never further away than the nearest smart device, my music tastes have grown and adapted accordingly (there's still only one Boss in charge of my playlists, I don't think anyone reading this will be shocked to know). But U2 will always claim that distinction in my mind of being the first ones to plant their flag, to light that spark.

 For my own voyage of uncharted discovery, it made no difference that the quartet had already been around for 25+ years at that point, or even that my parents -- the ones who had given me the Eden apple CD in the first place -- were both avowed veteran fans in their own right. Lightning had already been striking millions of years before Ben Franklin sent his kite flying, but he still needed to go out and make that discovery for himself; this was me sending up my own fledgling beacon into the musicsphere, the headphone cables acting as the kite string to usher me along to the discovery of one of the modern world's more potent electrical charges: guitar amplifiers dialing up to eleven in service of a story. 

Last Sunday night was a summoning, a re-conducting of that story all over again -- of remembering that feeling of discovery upon first listen. The Joshua Tree is U2's passion project about America, told through wonder-filled and earnest immigrant eyes which see their adopted country for all its joy, hypocrisy, potential, bleakness, and all-encompassing scope. That America and the people in it have changed in the 30 years now since The Joshua Tree's release: everyone in Foxboro sat down with older, wiser ears than the ones that first encountered this particular story way back when... I for one would wager there have been encounters with quite a few more sad stories in the interim. 

Boston: where the green, white, and orange meets the red, white, and blue

But, like the lifecycles in the desert areas from which the album draws its name and iconic imagery, rebirth's a certainty. Freshness, renewal, all that gets brought to the table when you consider, as Bono said during the night, "America's not just a country -- it's an idea." In that sense, The Joshua Tree, like so many other great stories, challenges its listeners (Foxboro attendees included) to pick up where it leaves off to begin telling an even better one; like the type of story displayed during the course of the show when an enormous banner of a Syrian refugee girl's passport photo was literally upheld across the stadium by thousands of  American hands; like the type of story  where a massive screen behind the band flashed images of modern and historical women's rights activists in their efforts for a more equal world while Bono chorused, "baby, baby, baby, light my way." 

It's also the kind of story I've been slack on maintaining on this page here for about a year now. That time has certainly been with its share of ups and downs in equal measure, and many's the time when "ok, time to get back to it!" efforts fallen have by the wayside, leading to a shamefully full unpublished draft folder. But now, the times they are a'changing, it's a hard rain gonna fall (and any other Bob Dylan song title you wanna throw in there), and it's time for met to get back out there with my kite in hand, ready to catch some new electricity and find some new stories to upend my days with in the best possible sense. With grad school all wrapped up for good, and itchy fingers ready to start writing some new stories -- mine, and with hope, more importantly, yours, ours -- I'm happy to announce my return from the desert. And how better for the purposes of this post than with the choruses from two of my very favorite U2 songs:

"I'm wide awake -- wide awake. I'm not sleeping"
because
"I still haven't found what I'm looking for."