Tag Archives: large smelly boys

Bob Hicks, General, Journalism

My fellow Scatterers: the state of the blog

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English: Lithograph by Edward W. Clay. Praises Andrew Jackson for his destroying the Second Bank of the United States with his "Removal Notice" (removal of federal deposits). Nicolas Biddle portrayed as The Devil, along with several speculators and hirelings, flee as the bank collapses while Jackson's supporters cheer.

On this very day two years ago — on February 8, 2008 — a fine strapping lad was loosed upon the world, and immediately started yawping. Yes, its name was Art Scatter, and it was born right here in river city: in Puddletown, Oregon, brave bubble of liberality, Do It Yourself center of the universe, fearless exposer of itself to art, curious keeper of the weird.

Call us sentimental, but we’ve been thinking a lot about our friend Art, this thing we call a blog. For one thing, why is it still here?

A lot of blogs burn bright for a while and then flame out. Many are simply places to vent steam, or casual public diaries, or vanity projects. Well, almost all, including this one, are the latter at least to a certain degree. After all, nobody’s making any money out of this thing.

English: Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897Art Scatter has changed a lot over its two years. It was the brainchild of Barry Johnson, my friend and longtime arts section compatriot at The Oregonian, who was looking for a way to explore new approaches to journalism outside of the print world. Barry brought me and his friend Vernon Peterson, a lawyer and talented literary critic, into the project, which was planned to be not too taxing on anyone because there would be three people to fill the virtual space.

Life moved on, and both Barry and Vernon departed for other projects. That left me wondering what to do with the thing, and wondering, sometimes, whether I was letting it eat up far too much of my time. In a very real sense my wife, Laura Grimes, saved the blog when she began to post her own witty and moving observations, eventually under the nom de plume of Mrs. Scatter. How could I not keep Art Scatter going? I was fascinated by how Mrs. Scatter’s adventures were going to turn out. Besides, she injected a bracing shot of humor into the blog, the humor that I have known and loved for more than twenty years.

Martha Ullman West, the noted dance critic who had written a couple of pieces for us, began to contribute more, and that added to the conversation. But I realized that if the thing was going to keep going, it was going to be largely up to me.

So. Why was I doing this?

  • First, writing’s a habit. I do it reflexively, if not always reflectively. Just can’t seem to help myself.
  • Second, it’s fun.
  • Third, it allows me scope to write about a lot of things in a lot of ways that were rarely possible during my years in daily journalism.
  • Fourth, it keeps me connected to my community and allows me to have a voice in a few things that go on in this little corner of the world. Good lord, I’ve made friends through this thing!
  • Fifth, it helps me discover my post-newspaper writing voice. I can feel that voice waking up inside me, gradually realizing that it’s no longer bound by the newspaper straitjacket unless it chooses to be. I can hear it trying out new things, even whooping it up now and again. Good for you, voice. Let ‘er rip.

Slowly, mostly accidentally, the blog has developed its own personality. The characters of Mr. and Mrs. Scatter just sort of announced themselves. The Large Smelly Boys pushed their way into the mix. OED, the Older Educated Daughter, made brief visits. We talked about word games and secret societies and oysters on the half-shell. The League of Tough-Guy Arts Observers had its brief day in the sunshine and then wandered off to sleep in a cave: perhaps it’ll wake up and elbow back into the action again. We found we were able to be serious, and flip, and amused, and reflective, and serious and amused again, and somehow get away with it. We began to take a very broad view of just what the word “culture” means.

I’m sure Art Scatter will continue to evolve. It’s already changed in surprising and often delightful ways. It’s opened doors. I know people will drop in and out. Mrs. Scatter’s day job has been busy lately, and I’ve been missing her brilliant reports. (I’m sure you have, too.) Can’t wait for them to return.

And I’ve become convinced of one thing: The blog has to work with my writing career, not against it. I love the freedom and scope that Art Scatter gives me, and I love that it lets me try things out with a regular and forgiving readership. But I also need to make a living, and I do that by writing. This is not a hobby. It’s what I do. So if Art Scatter is my professional exploratory laboratory (and also the locus of a great deal of my pro bono work) I want it to look professional.

Which brings us to Modern, the new design theme that we’ve adopted, yes, today. And which wraps up this semi-impromptu State of the Blog address. Thank you, my fellow Scatterers. Good night, and God bless.

*

Illustrations, from top:

  • Not Mr. Scatter delivering his State of the Blog address. Edward W. Clay’s lithograph celebrates President Andrew Jackson’s destruction of the Second Bank of the United States with his “Removal Notice” (removal of federal deposits). Well done, Andy! Wikimedia Commons.
  • Not Baby Art Scatter. Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897. Wikimedia Commons.
General, Laura Grimes

A Screenplay with a Sweet Subtext, in One Act

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Mr. and Mrs. Scatter, together again

The Pantsless Brother (TPB), who was so concerned about Mrs. Scatter overexposing his predicament about getting gas out of his pants, recently said, “So you haven’t written for a coupla weeks.”

Charles Deemer commented on Mr. Scatter’s recent post about – in no particular order – hairy beasts, barista whelps, a little town some miles south of Portland known to locals as “San Francisco,” and Harrison Ford’s tendency to shout in irritation.

What did Mr. Deemer say? To quote: “I don’t know of a blog with a sweeter subtext. I want to write the screenplay.”

That led Mr. and Mrs. Scatter to ruminate about what subtext he could be talking about. Meeting hairy beasts in the woods? Meeting barista whelps? A glitzed-out hotel in San Fran? Yelling dialogue?

Ah, sweet mystery of wife!Mrs. Scatter preferred to take the more romantic view and suggest the sweet subtext just might be relying on blog comments to send a message to her far-flung long-lost husband to pick up milk on the way home.

It’s true. Mr. and Mrs. Scatter have been toiling lately in diverse locales and occasionally blowing kisses to each other through the windows of passing motorcars. By coincidence, just yesterday, Mr. and Mrs. Scatter were going in separate directions to hobnob with blog buddies – Mrs. Scatter to have coffee with MTC and Mr. Scatter to have lunch with MUW.

As Mrs. Scatter stood in the shower with warm water cascading over her back and the soft hum of the fan filling the air, she thought about how much she appreciated the few precious minutes she had with her beloved husband before hightailing it out of the house.

She began to wonder what a screenplay with a sweet subtext would look like. She began to wonder if it was possible, without giving too much away, to share a rare behind-the-scenes peek of Mr. and Mrs. Scatter, of the delicate nuances of their romantic tryst, of the all-important underpinnings of their strong marriage.

Mrs. Scatter tried not to think of the baskets full of clean laundry sitting in the middle of the living room and tried not to wonder whether Mr. Scatter would have time to fold it or whether she would have to strong-arm the Large Smelly Boys. Instead, she tried to imagine a sweet, sweet subtext.

And then, as if on cue, as if the screenplay were writing itself, this absolutely true, completely unaltered exchange happened. Mr. Deemer, we are so here to help you.

(This dialogue has not been edited for brevity or clarity. This is reality blogging, people. Normally, the dialogue would be upper- and lowercase, but that’s just not the case here.)

A Screenplay with a Sweet Subtext, in One Act

0. INT. ART SCATTER WORLD HEADQUARTERS. BATHROOM. MORNING.
Silence, except for the gentle sound of streaming water and the soft hum of a fan. Steam envelops the elegant bathroom with clean, monochromatic colors and antique tile floor. A skylight frames a cheerful view of blue sky and bare tree branches swaying ever so slightly in the breeze. A bluebird flits from branch to branch.

MR. SCATTER

Heard from a long way off behind a closed door. (Incoherent blah blah blah.)

Startled, MRS. SCATTER rinses shampoo from her face.

MRS. SCATTER

WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU! THE FAN’S ON! COME CLOSER AND YELL LOUDER!!!!

MR. SCATTER

Heard through the door, closer this time. SOMEONE SCREWED UP THE KITCHEN LIGHTS AGAIN!

MRS. SCATTER

WHAT? Confused for a moment. OH! YOU MEAN THE LIGHT SWITCHES AREN’T THE RIGHT UP AND DOWN?

MR. SCATTER

YAH! THEY’RE ALL SCREWED UP! SOMEONE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO LEAVE THE CORRECT ONE UP AND THE CORRECT ONE DOWN!

MRS. SCATTER

Reaching for the conditioner. GO AWAY! THAT DOESN’T MATTER!

Clomping footsteps heard retreating from the bathroom door.

MR. SCATTER

(Harumphing grumbles.)

MRS. SCATTER

BUT THE TOILET PAPER BETTER GO OVER!

MR. SCATTER

Heard from afar, like a faint echo, from a bit down the hall. WELL, OF COURSE! WE’RE MARRIED! WE GOTTA AGREE ON THAT!

****

— Laura Grimes

General, Laura Grimes

Blogging by the seat of our pants: Part Two

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Gas station in Pie-Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Photo: Russell Lee via Library of Congress. Wikimedia Commons

In honor of the guerrilla tactics of people climbing onto MAX trains without wearing pants, we’ll pretend we have an important news angle and tell this tale:

My brother* showed up at my house wearing pajama pants.

We hugged. He hauled his suitcase into the guest room. He was casual for a while and then felt compelled to come clean. He looked away, paused a long time, then said, “Ummm … I hate to tell you this …”

Slowly, he started to tell how a short way into his long drive he had stopped to fill the gas tank. He was in a certain state to the north of Oregon** where people have to fill their own tanks. He didn’t want to get his hands dirty and smell like gasoline for the whole trip so he used a paper napkin to grip the pump.

The gas tank filled. As he removed the pump the napkin started blowing around so he grabbed it, accidentally engaged the pump and spilled gas all over his pickup truck and pants.

Scrunched in the cab, he opened his suitcase and got out his pajama bottoms.

Wikimedia CommonsAs he was taking off his pants they started to vibrate. His phone was ringing.*** It was his daughter.

“Where are you, Dad?”

“I’m, uh, at a gas station.”

Of course, he was neglecting to provide a key piece of information. One tiny prepositional phrase would have made that statement completely truthful. So let’s try it again. What he really should have said was:

“I’m, uh, at a gas station … IN MY UNDERWEAR!”

He finished the call and changed his pants. He stuffed the gas-soaked pants into a large, black plastic garbage bag.

He continued on his way. The cab smelled like gas. He pulled over.

He put the black plastic bag in the back of the pickup.

He continued on his way. The black plastic bag started blowing around. He pulled over.

To anchor the black plastic bag, he wedged (wedgied?) it in the side of the tailgate and shut it. He complained how putting up the tailgate produced extra drag and lowered his gas mileage. (Did he miss the irony of producing extra drag?)

Then he came to why he was telling me all this (as if he could keep quiet and not give me blackmail fodder for the rest of his life): “I’m not sure what to do with my pants.”

I stopped laughing long enough (not really) and went to the Google and typed in “How to get gas out of pants.”****

Of course I was being goofy, and was slightly disappointed Large Smelly Boys didn’t pop up on top, but the first item was titled, no kidding, “How to get gas out of pants.”*****

Tip No. 1 suggested laying the pants out in the sun. Like that’s going to happen in January in Oregon.******

We looked out the window at the rain. We considered how attractive a pair of smelly jeans would look splayed out on the front porch. We decided to hang them in the garage.

After a brief discussion about spontaneous combustion, I got the key, opened the industrial-strength lock on the garage and my brother hung the pants over a handcart.

Afterward, he settled in at the dining table with his pajama pants and a warm drink. Like he really needed to say it, but he did anyway, thankfully giving me a great quote: “You know the whole irony of it? I was trying to keep my hands clean.”

Epilogue: He left yesterday. As he was packing up, he asked – you can’t make this stuff up –” “Do you have the key to my pants?”*******

***************

* Yes, Art Scatter regulars will know him as the same brother who has sprayed cold water on me with a garden hose while I was in a second-story shower and cleaned puked pasta out of my sink.
** Geography points if you can name the state above Oregon.
*** Imagine the headline: “Cell Phone Ignites Pants.”
**** For journalistic integrity, I really typed in “How to get gasoline out of pants,” but who cares?
***** For journalistic integrity, it was really titled “How to get gasoline out of clothing,” but who cares?
****** Geography points if you can name why it’s nearly impossible to lay out gasoline-soaked pants in the sun in January in Oregon.
******* Extra credit if anyone has the key to his pants.

***************

My brother was worried about telling me all this because he didn’t want a big public ordeal. I promised I would only tell his story, show his picture, and give his name, phone number and e-mail.

I was kidding him, but here’s a picture of him anyway:

Laura was the adoring kid sister even back then.

I was kidding him, but here are his initials anyway (props to the Large Smelly Boys and Mr. Scatter):

Tough Rat Gonads
Two Rowdy Gerbils
Twin Reproductive Glands
Terminate Religious Guppies
Tranquilizer Reaches Gut
Testosterone Rattles Girlfriend
Totally Real Gore
Teacher’s Really Gruesome
Toss Rocks at Goliath
Teeth Get Rotten
Totally Rad, Girl
The Robust Girls
That Rascally Gal
Tch! Really, Guys?
Timberwolves Rally Gazillions
Tiny Rectal Glitch
Tonic Rattles Gizzards

— Laura Grimes

***************

PHOTOS, from top:

  • This is not the station where Laura’s brother stopped to gas up. Nor is this his pickup, although he might prefer it. And the men hanging around did not help him change pants. But the photo was taken in Pie Town, New Mexico, in 1940, and we don’t get many chances to type “Pie Town.” Photo: Russell Lee via Library of Commerce. Wikimedia Commons.
  • These are not the pants that got soaked with gasoline when Laura’s brother was trying to be all Felix Unger. But we think it’s nice that the parts are labeled. Wikimedia Commons.
  • Laura and her brother. She was the adoring kid sister even back then.


Environment, General, Laura Grimes

Penny dreadful, part 4: DIY port-a-potties

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An ancient Roman public toilet. Wikimedia Commons

E-mail to colleague first thing: “I won’t be at the office this morning. I’m getting new toilets.”

And just in time. The hard-to-lift boxes had to get out of the Large Smelly Boymobile before Dungeons & Dragons Dad picked up six Large Smelly D&D Players.

Sound familiar?

The last story started there but veered to pants. And kilts.

Mr. Scatter pointed out in a baffled, you-gotta-be-kidding voice, “You don’t talk about toilets again?”

Mrs. Scatter: “Uh … no.”

Mr. Scatter: “What happened to the toilets?” (As if he personally doesn’t know how the story ends and what’s in our bathrooms.)

Mrs. Scatter: “Uh … I ended up talking about pants.”

Mr. Scatter (in the same incredulous voice): “When are you going to finish talking about toilets?” (As if this were a perfectly normal question.)

Mrs. Scatter: “Uh … in another post.”

Let’s refresh the story so far – including the wayback blog parchment days ago:

Which somehow brings us to chauffeuring toilets all over town.

An 1800s Dutch bidet with Chinese porcelain. Wikimedia Commons

  • On a sunny Sunday afternoon, two muscly guys lifted two heavy big boxes full of spanking new toilets into the Large Smelly Boymobile.
  • The two boxes were way too heavy to get back out of the Large Smelly Boymobile.
  • The two boxes were way too big to leave around the house.
  • The two heavy overbig boxes were left in the van.
  • I called a plumber and left a message.
  • I drove the two heavy overbig boxes to the office.
  • I started to worry when I didn’t hear back from the plumber.
  • I drove the two heavy overbig boxes to a meeting with a lot of colleagues.
  • I drove the two heavy overbig boxes to a board member’s house.
  • The plumber called, and we made an appointment for Thursday morning.
  • Thursday was perfect, I thought. Just in time to get the hard-to-lift boxes out of the Large Smelly Boymobile before Dungeons & Dragons Dad picked up six Large Smelly D&D Players.

Sound familiar?

The plumber arrived. He made a bunch of noise in the bathroom and then said, “Where do you want the old toilets?”

“Great,” I said. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

I opened the back of the van and realized a chunk of my day would be shot getting rid of crappy porcelain.

The plumber’s boss arrived.

We got two new toilets that flush and don’t wiggle.

*******

After the plumbers left, I zeroed in and got a bunch of work done. The clock ticked away. It inched into the afternoon. Long past lunchtime. And then I remembered. I had old toilets in the back of the van. I had to drive to the recycling center in the hell-and-gone suburbs and be back in time for D&D Dad to take the van. It was either that or he would have to chauffeur six Large Smelly Boys while two toilets clunked around.

I had a deadline. I had to scoot. As one of the plumbers said, “Be careful around the curves. That bowl can go flying.”

To be continued … one more time.

— Laura Grimes

***************

Illustrations, from top:

An ancient Roman public toilet: The group approach was perhaps the rise and fall of the Roman Empire … going … going … gone. Wikimedia Commons

An 1800s Dutch bidet with Chinese porcelain: A creative mix and match elevates the idea of crappy porcelain. Wikimedia Commons

Bob Hicks, Film, General, Music, Theater

Scatter happy holidays edition: puzzling out the season

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Santa Claus jigsaw puzzle (detail)

Here at Art Scatter World Headquarters we’re used to friends and associates grumping about Christmas and the holidays. “Bah,” they say. And again, “Humbug.” A seasonal deficit disorder afflicts our closest circles of civilization, and we’ve learned to grump along with the chorus, just to keep things running smoothly.

But the truth is, we sort of like the holiday season. Yesterday afternoon the Scatter Inner Circle brought home its Christmas tree and got the lights and some of the ornaments artfully arranged before settling in to watch Christmas in the Clouds, an affable, low-key romantic comedy about life at an American Indian-operated resort lodge, with terrific wintry scenery from the grounds of the Sundance Institute in Utah. Graham Greene plays a vegetarian chef who tries to scare all of his customers out of ordering meat, and M. Emmett Walsh plays a foul-tempered drunk who has a change of heart, and the DVD arrived from friends in New Mexico who sent it just because they’d enjoyed it and wanted to share it, and that’s kind of what the holidays are about, isn’t it?

Of course Mr. Scatter is way behind on shopping (and several things need to be sent, which requires the sort of logistical hoop-jumping that often ties Mr. Scatter’s brain, if not his stomach, into knots). And many dozen cookies remain to be baked: The Small Large Smelly Boy insists. Never mind. It’ll all get done. Holiday CDs are pretty much in continual loop here at AS world headquarters (we’ve been listening to 16th and 17th century carols from the Baltimore Consort) and some members of the inner brain trust have been doing serious damage to the national eggnog supply.

The picture of Santa Claus above is a detail from a jigsaw puzzle assembled over Thanksgiving weekend in Port Angeles, Washington, mainly by a junior member of the Scatter clan. The corporate brain trust discovered a shop in downtown P.A. that specializes in mostly used jigsaw puzzles — and actually assembles every puzzle before offering it for sale, to make sure no pieces are missing. It’s apparently an obsession. This particular puzzle comes from a little artisanal outfit in Kansas City called Hallmark. If our records show that you’ve been good, we’ll run a photo of the whole completed puzzle before the season ends.

***************

Among other things, December is a month of beautiful music, and in Portland there is far more of it than a person can hope to take in. We regret, for instance, missing the medieval caroling of the women’s ensemble In Mulieribus, Portland’s answer to the Anonymous 4, and London’s Tallis Scholars, who know how to put the pedal to the pedagogy and make it soar.

On Friday night the Scatter clan braved the threat of ice and trekked to the Aladdin Theatre for Holidays with the Trail Band. It was well worth it. We hadn’t seen the Trail Band in a few years, and it was worth making the reacquaintance. The Trail Band is the baby of Marv and Rindy Ross, who back in the 1980s had a shot of national success as leaders of the pop group Quarterflash, and earlier were the core of the terrific bar band Seafood Mama. Since starting the Trail Band 16 years ago to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Oregon Trail, they’ve been digging deeper and wider into the roots of popular music, and the result is a smart brand of musical eclecticism that is what it is and doesn’t really care what the tastemakers think.

The holiday show featured a great lineup including the highly talented guitarist Cal Scott (who’s also blowing a mean cornet these days); Phil and Gayle Neuman of the Oregon Renaissance Band, who bring the likes of pennywhistles and flageolets to the party; fine fiddler Skip Parente; the subtle and attentive drummer/percusussionist Dan Stueber; and Mick Doherty, who rescues the hammered dulcimer from the yellowing pages of history and revives it as an exciting contemporary instrument. Plus, guest shots from actor/comedian Scott Parker, who gives the nativity story a hilarious spin; flash guitarist Doug Fraser, the Rosses’ old Quarterflash sidekick, who rocks and roars through a funky little ditty called Mustang Santa; and the hugely talented Michele Mariana, whose warm, deeply measured Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas brought pulses in the house to a halt.

Try as we might, we just can’t grump about a show like that.

***************

On Saturday night Mr. Scatter and his younger lad went to Northwest Children’s Theater and School to see the company’s musical play Narnia, based on C.S. Lewis’s children’s fantasy The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A small review ran in Monday morning’s Oregonian; here’s the link to my much longer online review on Oregon Live, in which I touch lightly on the phenomenon of Christian parable in 20th/21st century kids’ lit, from Tolkien to Lewis to L’Engle to Rowling.

How, you might wonder if you followed the link, did Robert Frost get into the mix of the longer essay? Credit goes to the book group with which I’m loosely associated, an erudite and genial collection of lawyers, writers, classical musicians and even an actor who gather once a month to eat, drink and do lit talk. One member happens to be a noted Morris dancer; a couple have been getting their jollies recently by writing dueling sonnets based on rousing biblical tales.

December in this group is poetry month, and this year’s reading choice was Frost. So the ice man was fresh in my mind when I sat down to write about Lewis’s ice queen, and I discovered that Frost fit the discussion neatly. Fire and ice, baby. You can’t get much more Narnian than that.

And, oh yes: Father Christmas puts in an appearance in Lewis’s tale. He’s very welcome, thank you.

General, Laura Grimes

Penny dreadful, part 3: skirting the issue

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Highland soldier, 1744. Shot 'em? Darned near kilt 'em!/Wikimedia Commons

E-mail to colleague first thing: “I won’t be at the office this morning. I’m getting new toilets.”

And just in time. The hard-to-lift boxes had to get out of the Large Smelly Boymobile before Dungeons & Dragons Dad has to pick up six Large Smelly D&D Players.

On a recent sunny Sunday morning, I got out of the shower, slipped on my fuzzy slippers, flushed the toilet, heard an all-too-familiar gurgle, said something that toilets are supposed to dispose of, and while I stood there wearing only my fuzzy slippers (don’t picture that) and plunging mightily away, I thought, That does it. I’m driving to hell-and-gone suburbs today to buy new toilets.

Did I say it was sunny? I had planned to finally rake those leaves moldering by the day in the backyard. I had fancied maybe baking. Instead I hollered up the stairs to one of the Large Smelly Boys, “Get your pants on! We’re buying toilets!”

What was in it for him? Felix/Martha wanted Christmas lights.

And pants that actually fit.

Pantalone in 1550. Illustration: Maurice Sand, 1860/Wikimedia CommonsIn 3 months we had been to no fewer than 6 Boy Pant Stores (otherwise known as Chasms of Hell), some of them multiple times, and many more online shopping sites. None of the pants were the right size, the right color, the right material, the right no-buttons, the right pockets, the right plain ordinary solid-color no-frills gotta-fit STUPID PANTS!

The list? No patterns, no buttons, no logos, no zippers. No sweats, no jeans, no fabric that’s slick. No green, no red, no gray, no black. Only blue, only khaki, only khaki that’s light. No brown, no yellow, no any other khaki. No belts, no words, no stripes, no strings. No cammo. No danglies. No so-many pockets. No baggy ugliness.

This wasn’t my list. I would have lived with baggy ugliness. As long as the pants fit in the washing machine. I would have lived with so-many pockets you could pack away a deluxe salad bar making sure the kidney beans were always stashed separately from the mini-corns. I just wanted pants on my kid that didn’t fit like capris and didn’t have rips up the wazzoo.

After our first neverending Brush With Pants-Shopping Death, I posted this on Facebook:

“I’ve been to hell and it involves shopping for boy pants. Stores: 4. Pants: 0.”

Then the sympathy votes rolled in. A sampling:

OMG, I SOOOO share this hell!

Try kilts.

If they like them, they don’t fit. If they fit, they don’t like them.

Worse than bras?

Oh, just put them in sweat pants!

Pants shopping here tonight: Stores: 1, Pants: 1. Target, baby!

That did it. By then I had had more Brushes With Pants-Shopping Death. I finally had to respond:

“Been there! Done that! No luck! Stores: 5. Pants: 0. We’ve even gone online to find the right size in the right color only to have a rude, red “out of stock” sign pop up. Wearing only skivvies is perfectly acceptable at school, right?”

Days, weeks, months went by. I was getting queries how it was going. Finally, I posted an update:

“Stores: 6. Pants: 0. Online shopping: Zilch. My son now wears capri pants and doing laundry every few nights is getting old. I’m liking the kilt trend more all the time, but he wouldn’t be caught dead in plaid.”

Then flowed the kilt comments. As if they helped. I got links to online kilt stores. As if they helped.

Black Watch kilt: Stylish, manly, and dig that purse in front. Wikimedia CommonsSo by Sunday, THREE MONTHS after our first scary non-encounter, Mr. Ripped-Up Capri-Wearing Smarty Pants had good reason to go with me to shop for toilets. Even as his Felix/Martha persona really wanted to buy Christmas lights. Because he desperately needed to not look like a waif from a Dickens novel. He needed pants. We had finally found 3 that worked. We had to go back to ONE store for the FOURTH time to find the rest. And guess what?

WE SCORED!!!! We’re not in RIP CITY anymore, people! We’re in PANTS CITY now!

Afterward, we went to a nearby coffee shop. We sipped smoothies. We celebrated our glorious pants success. And you wouldn’t believe what walked in the door.

A guy dressed in full kilt regalia! He had the kilt, the tall knee-high socks with plaid ribbons, the tam-o-shanter, the nifty jacket, even the jaunty leather pouch.

I couldn’t help but think: Back-to-school shopping wouldn’t have to stretch to Christmas season if I could just get my Large Smelly Boy to wear a skirt.

To be continued …

— Laura Grimes

***************

PHOTOS, from top:

  • Highland soldier, 1744. Shot ’em? Darned near kilt ’em! From “Clans and Tartans — Collins Pocket Reference,” Glasgow, 1995. An early picture of a Government Tartan great quilt. The plaid protects the musket from rain and wind. Where Large Smelly Boys are concerned, unfortunately, nothing protects from wind./Wikimedia Commons
  • Pantalone in 1550. Now, that’s a pair of pants. One piece, one color, just throw on a cape and you’re ready to go. Illustration: Maurice Sand, 1860/Wikimedia Commons
  • Black Watch kilt. Stylish, manly, and dig that purse in front. Wikimedia Commons
Film, Food, General, Laura Grimes

‘Rocky Horror’ and the finer points of parenting

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The midnight movie of choice

My younger Large Smelly Boy plans birthday parties with the frightening precision of an engineer. Felix Unger? Meet Martha Stewart.

He begins months in advance, poring over magazines and listing all the activities he wants to do and all the recipes he wants to make. He redoes his lists. He designs his invitations. He insists it won’t rain and that he will be the one to splay open the pita. What he doesn’t do on a spreadsheet he makes up for with a timeline.

So it went that on a recent day when my calendar was crammed to the gills I found myself in Craft Store Hell tracking down adorable sparkly gold drawstring bags that he insisted meant everything to his idea of Party Perfection.

Before that, it was Household Goods Box Store Hell and a phone conversation that went something like this:

Me: They have piñatas, which means we don’t have to make one from papier mache, right? Do you want one?

Him: (Evasive mumble mumble.)

Wait ... aren't pinatas from Mexico? Stan Shebs/Wikimedia CommonsMe: They have a pirate, a fish, a parrot, a mermaid and … let’s see … a penguin. Which one do you want?

Him: (Evasive mumble mumble.)

Me: Do you want a piñata?

Me: This is your chance to get a piñata.

Me: You realize I’m not going to have time to do the papier mache, right?

Me: Do you want a penguin?

Me: I’m going to have to leave now.

Him: Wait! What do they have again?

Me: A pirate, a fish, a parrot, a mermaid and a penguin.

Him: What?

Me: A pirate, a fish, a parrot, a mermaid and a penguin.

I loaded a penguin in the back end of the Large Smelly Boymobile.

***

We bought three large bags of candy for the piñata and for Halloween night. I casually say bought, for picking out just the right packages required a frenzied fit of worry. I’m still sort of amazed we didn’t spend the night surrounded by Snickers Bars and Butterfingers.

They only come in a package deal ...Who knew small packages of Reese’s Pieces don’t come in individual bags? They can only be bought in a mixture of candy. We discovered this only after looking over Every. Single. Box. Of. Candy. In. The. Aisle. Candy mixtures that include distasteful candies apparently do not equal Party Perfection. This is a problem. This requires looking through all the mixture bags to find one with the most Reese’s Pieces and the fewest distasteful candies.

A few days before the party I came home and the penguin was sitting on the dining table and the large bags were nearly empty of candy. The LSB had pawed through the bags, picked out his favorite pieces and stuffed them all in the piñata. Only the Twizzlers and Milk Duds were left.

This had been a giant mound of candy I had envisioned would be doled out among many dozen trick-or-treaters who could rampage at will through the neighborhood stoked up on high-fructose corn syrup.

Instead, now most of it was in the butt of a penguin that would be whacked open, and it would be divvied up among six Large Smelly Tweenagers who would be confined to my living room for several hours.

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General, Laura Grimes, Music

Schlepping high culture in the Large Smelly Boymobile

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Haiqiong Deng, zheng (but not Dungeons & Dragons) virtuoso

Haiqiong Deng, zheng (but not Dungeons & Dragons) virtuoso.

While my brain has been on sizzle in other realms of the arts world, apparently a blog has been going on in my own house. The entire world can check in on what my current first husband has been up to, but I’m afraid to say I’ve been rather ignorant about it.

I feel a little sheepish about writing, actually. Recently, Mr. Scatter wisely and broadly covered America’s current fascination with Chinese culture, Martha Ullman West (otherwise known as Art Scatter’s highest paid correspondent) boldly encompassed the week’s vast dance scene and … me? Well, let me tell you about Cheez-Its.

***

A week ago Monday, Haiqiong Deng took a break from her concert tour to fly in from Boston and perform in Third Angle‘s China Music Now concerts.

United Airlines Boieng 767-300/Wikimedia CommonsHaiqiong (hiCHONG) is a virtuoso on the zheng (chung), an ancient Chinese instrument similar to a zither. Hers has 21 strings, each with a bridge that can be moved. For weeks it had been the big mystery instrument to me. I knew it was big, but I didn’t know how big. I couldn’t wait to hear what it sounded like.

When the Third Angle staff (I’m the managing director) were figuring who could pick her up from the airport, we had two questions to consider: Who wasn’t playing in the symphony that night, and who has a vehicle long enough to fit a zheng in it.

Guess what? I won.

A prime example of low cultureI was thrilled. And then panic set in. Did I have enough time to clean up the Cheez-Its?

Once a week, Mr. Scatter picks up six Large Smelly Sixth-Graders and schleps them to Dungeons and Dragons. You’ve heard of Soccer Moms? He’s a D&D Dad.

The boys pile in and then immediately grab for snacks and juice boxes. They’re usually pretty good about stuffing the trash into the garbage sack, but it’s six boisterous boys and crumbs fly.

A few hours before I was to meet Haiqiong at the airport, I realized I wouldn’t have time to get the van cleaned, but I had a few minutes to give it a once-over and open up the cargo hold. It was dusk and getting hard to see, but as soon as I plunked the back seat down one brilliant-orange square Cheez-It practically glowed.

I picked it up, noticed the van’s bulging trash sack and then threw it all in a garbage can. I took note that I didn’t have a replacement bag, but I told myself I’d worry about it later.

***

The baggage claim area at Portland International Airport has a sign: “Many bags look alike, please check tags.”

Haiqiong and I were chatty nonstop. People were everywhere, lots of luggage was going around the conveyer belt and we were chatty chatty chatty. She stopped at one point and grabbed a big suitcase off the belt and then we went on chatting. I occasionally eyed the conveyer belt for what I knew must be a hard-to-miss large something. I was curious. This was an important piece of Third Angle’s program. We flew her in specially to play it. What did it look like?

The crowd got thinner and thinner. The luggage disappeared bit by bit. And we continued to chat.

Dungeons & Dragons miniatures: NOT high culture/Wikimedia CommonsAnd then after a while, I got this eerie feeling. I looked around. Nobody was there and not a single piece of luggage was going around the belt. Where was it?

As I tried to quell this horribly unsettled feeling, I looked everywhere and then looked some more. I finally noticed a corral of luggage in a restricted area in a far corner. I got closer. No weird overlarge bag. I got closer. Nothing but rising panic. I got closer. And finally … it came into view: Behind a mound of luggage one really long green bag sat by itself. Relief washed over me.

When I told a uniformed worker the green bag was ours, she pointed to a green suitcase and said, “You mean that one?”

“No,” I said, pointing, “THAT one.” She took one look at the bag — about one foot by two feet by six feet plus — and waved me around the barrier to get it myself.

The zheng was surprisingly light.

***

On Thursday morning I fired up the van, started to pull out of the driveway and then hit the brakes. I pulled back into the driveway, walked into the house and stood in front of Mr. Scatter. He looked up.

The Large Smelly Boymobile (or reasonable facsimile)“You need the van. It’s D&D day. And by the way, it doesn’t have any gas. Sorry. Gotta go.”

But early in the afternoon in the office it hit me. The van had a bunch of boxes in it that I needed, including one very important sign for the concert that night. Mr. Scatter probably wouldn’t be back from D&D in time for me to get it. And I had left the back seat folded down so that there weren’t enough seats for the Large Smelly D&D Boys.

I made a phone call. How to get the boxes? Mr. Scatter had just filled the van with gas, he had put the back seat up and would drop by the office. Gawd, I love this man.

***

This is not Haiqiong Deng's zheng. It's the one on Wikimedia Commons.“Can you schlep the zheng?” the Not-So-Mysterious Jane said after the concert late Friday night. “It needs to get back to the hotel.”

“Schlep the zheng? Sure.”

I walked to get the van, my heels clicking on the sidewalk. When I opened it and looked around I suddenly remembered I had never replaced the garbage sack and the whole D&D gang had been in the van the day before. The back seat was littered with empty Cheez-It bags and juice cartons. I quickly stuffed it all in the snack bag and stashed it under a console.

It would have to do. It was time to schlep the zheng and one world-class virtuoso.

— Laura Grimes

Bob Hicks, Cities, General

Portland dresses up for the high-fashion parade

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Joe Btfsplk, honorary grand marshal of Portland’s High Fashion Parade.

I was shocked — shocked! — this morning when I sat down to make my daily blog rounds and discovered Mighty Toy Cannon’s report at Culture Shock on Portland’s rankings in Travel + Leisure magazine’s latest assessment of America’s Favorite Cities.

Sitting in my plaid pajama bottoms and red T-shirt (not the best choice, granted, in a household with a 16-pound white lap cat) I tugged with frustration at my hair — which, all right, was already a trifle on the unkempt side, and three weeks overdue for a trim.

The nerve! There it was, as Mr. Cannon so indignantly pointed out: Portland, 17th out of 30 cities for “Attractive People.” As the magazine so delicately put it, Portlanders “… may not conform to most visitors’ standards of ‘normal’ beauty.”

Mrs. Scatter was lucky she’d departed for her spacious corner office overlooking the sartorial splendors of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, or she’d have got an earful.

The larger of the young lunks known collectively as the Large Smelly Boys had taken his carefully curated rumpled clothing and his head of organic free-range pasturage off to high school. (His last haircut was in April or May; we believe he’s planning on attending Halloween functions as Cousin Itt.) The smaller lunk, also a few weeks tardy from the barber chair, is taking on a mildly stylish Prince Valiant look. He’s the fashion pate of the family: All of his T-shirts, the only kind of shirt he wears, must be single-colored and devoid of words or company logos.

The ultimate in Cleveland style./Wikimedia CommonsPortland didn’t do as badly as Cleveland, which rated this jab: “(T)here’s no getting around the fact that its residents are uniformly hideous to look upon.” Ouch! Except for a night spent sleeping on the grassy knoll of a freeway cloverleaf around 1970, I don’t know much about Cleveland. I do know Drew Carey and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame come from there, and I know Mr. Carey usually wears a nice suit and tie. (He still looks like Drew Carey, but he makes himself presentable, and what more should an upscale magazine ask?)

What do Travel + Leisure’s travelers and leisurites want, anyway? It’s not as if Portlanders were babes in the backwoods when it comes to fashion. Just last night Mrs. Scatter and I were driving through our Highly Cultured Pearl District when we spotted an Eddie Bauer outlet. “I thought they went Chapter 11,” I said. Yet, there they were, scant blocks from REI, “the world’s premiere outdoor gear store.” L.L. Bean catalogs arrive at the Scatter house regularly, and I eagerly flip through them to find out which plaids are in fashion this season. You won’t catch me visiting North Portland’s Paul Bunyan statue in last year’s lumberjack shirt.

I own a tuxedo, and I try to make sure to wear it once a year. It blends nicely, I think, with the black turtlenecks and berets at our more cutting-edge neo-Marxist coffee shops. Plus, how many cities can match Portland for the style and lavishness of our tattoo designs? “I like your arm,” I found myself saying the other morning to the newish barista at our neighborhood coffee joint.

She looked at me a little funny, but I assume that’s because she’s new to town.

Bob Hicks, Dance, General, Music

Lithe Talented Dancers wow Large Smelly Boy

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obt_emeralds

“Did you notice how the first lady soloist started dancing just with her hands?”

Intermission had just begun Saturday night at Oregon Ballet Theatre‘s season-opening performance, which had so far consisted of the company premiere of George Balanchine’s green dream of a dance, Emeralds. Mrs. Scatter had scarpered to the coast for one of her intermittent weekends of popping corks and doing crafty stuff with her girlfriends, and Mr. Scatter was in the company of the Small Large Smelly Boy, two weeks shy of his twelfth birthday and taking in his first non-Nutcracker ballet.

“No, Dad,” the SLSB replied patiently. “It was her whole arms.”

So it was.

Those arms belonged to the highly talented Yuka Iino, the fleet princess in this picture-book of a ballet to Alison Roper’s imperial queen.

Premiered in 1967 and seeming older than that (this is definitely a pre-Beatles universe onstage) Balanchine’s ballet is a visual stunner: Karinska’s glittering emerald costumes; the spare vivid set with its falling sweep of white drapery and its lone elegant chandelier high above the stage; the astonishing lighting (originally by Ronald Bates, executed here by OBT’s masterful designer Michael Mazzola) that reminds me somehow of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series, with its conceit that there are old worlds and new worlds, and that in the new ones everything is brighter, more vivid, more cleanly outlined, and the air seems alive.

But the SLSB, freshly showered for the occasion, isn’t looking at the set. He’s looking at feet. This boy is an observer (and, I think, more a classicist than a postmodernist), and he’s captivated by something that’s captivated millions of people for almost two hundred years: toe work.

obt_speak“How do they dance up on their toes like that?” he asked. “Do they have to work a lot to do it? That must be hard!”

“Yes,” I replied. “That’s called dancing en pointe. It’s very hard. You have to practice for years and years. Even professional dancers keep practicing it, all the time. Dancers are athletes, did you know that? They have to be as athletic as anybody in a sport, plus they have to be artists.”

“How do they know what to do?”

“Well, the dancemaker, the choreographer, decides on how they’ll move to the music. There are five basic positions that your feet and legs can take, and then there’s lots of variations and different ways you can combine them. But it all starts with those five positions you need to learn. And you work on those all the time.”

I was afraid the SLSB might be bored by Emeralds. It’s hardly the cutting edge of contemporary ballet, after all, and although I love Gabriel Faure’s music, it can be deep and reserved. Perkiness is not its game.

I shouldn’t have worried. My son’s attention was perfectly focused through this long dance, absorbing it, homing in on particulars. He caught the importance of the shoes in absorbing the impact of the weight and pressure on those elevated feet. (Later, watching Dennis Spaight’s fluid and sassy Ellington Suite, he was also impressed that the dancers can dance in high heels.)

The second act of this expansive evening of dance consisted of 10 shorter pieces, in whole or in excerpt, from the company’s history — including one, a scene from The Sleeping Beauty, performed by the young dancers of the company school. This is OBT’s twentieth anniversary season, and it kicked off with a celebration of the company’s past, although with a gaping hole: For reasons that I don’t understand (I know he was asked) the program includes no dances by James Canfield, artistic director for the company’s first fourteen years.
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