"I love his work..."

John Hughes has died. Another casualty in the list of losses 2009 has brought us. Most important for me was his relationship with my brother, to whom he was profoundly warm and generous from the instant he moved to Chicago to record music. (For more on this, see Josh's blog entry.)

I only knew Mr Hughes through Josh's stories, through his sons (two of the most effortlessly kind and honorable people I've ever met), and most importantly, through his movies.

There is going to be a lot of talk about his work as "addressing a generation" or touching the lives of teenagers in the 80s before moving on to more broad, cartoonish work in the 90s. So I won't go much into that here. I'm sure there's a kernel of truth to statements like that.

In the Hughes work I like the best, there's a constant bittersweet strain. And it's not the one that most critics notice: the longing, the awkwardness, the anxiety of being young, in love, and a little despairing: the pain one goes through before finally getting what one wants (the gorgeous senior, the stylish yet sensitive upper class guy, the whole day of sticking it to the high school authorities.) Critics who weren't paying attention derided the resolution of some of Hughes's work as "too sweet".

But they're missing the point: the sweetness in all of Hughes's movies is the source of the bitterness. Any moment of sweetness his characters find is fleeting, fragile, and even when they achieve it, we know as well as they do that their happiness can't last. The pain comes not from unrequited longing, but from knowing that even if you get what you want, it will only be for a time.

At its best, Hughes's work captured the sense of what it is to be young, knowing you won't always be, and knowing that there's a time limit on the beauty you find. His movies are about the immanence of loss as well as the delicious, over-matched glimmers of hope that we may, if only for a moment, receive what we long for.

To that end: three videos, from the Hughes works I liked best. But not in any sort of order. Enjoy.

The Psychedelic Furs: "Pretty in Pink"




Thompson Twins: "If You Were Here"




Simple Minds: "Don't You Forget About Me"




The Pretty in Pink Soundtrack is destined for the iPod heavy rotation for quite some time to come, I'd say...

Music For You

Because, why not? Why not, after all?





Because any day is a good day to take in some Pylon-- especially their growling, raging dance song "Stop It".






Because dance music really used to sound like this. Really.





And because you have to love a band whose members decided to stop playing rather than tour with U2. Is such an anti-market stance possible today?

And also because, as much as I like the happy, twee giggly summertime funstuff music being produced today (really, I do! It's nice!), sometimes you just want to hear a young Athens art student snarling "No rock and roll--nononono!"

And because I owned this album twice. Once was on a cassette. I played it over and over again until a 98-degree New Orleans September day melted it in the tapedeck of my dad's Datsun 210 Hatchback.

So I got another one. It's vinyl. I still have it. When I play it I still get pale ghostly visceral reminders of how big and wild and anarchic and fun the world might be. My hair doesn't stand on end quite as it did when I was 16, but there's still a twitching, and a desire to stay out all night killing brain cells and ruining my hearing.

Some Views From the Summer

Hey Kids!

Want to see what a real summer working as a kayak guide looks like?!

Get a load of this:

My ride/home/office/gear warehouse:















Not the most secure or comfortable, but I've had worse. And in some ways, it has been perfect.


My neighbor:
















She was trying to have some breakfast on the north side of Orcas Island.


A sunset:
















That's not me out there-- that time. But plenty of times, it is...


My Fourth of July:

















Sunset






















Fireworks.



















Freakshow who parked me in at Roche Harbor.

I mean, really. Really?!?, Are you kidding me?!

I almost left a nasty note. I wrote one, but then I just kept it. The point of the nasty note is the writing of the nasty note. Actually leaving it would be much less satisfactory overall.

More photos at my flickr site here.

Class Evals

I'm going to spare you the ones that mention how unspeakably brilliant, engaging, accessible and witty I am, because if you're reading this you know that already. I'm just going to include the one by the student who gave me lousy marks.

Here goes: "Too much reading. You have to read a book a week. A book a week."

I'm not going to discuss the type of so-called mind that can produce a statement such as the above.

Instead, I would like to inform my readers that this was for a class which met once a week for three hours. We did not, in fact, read a book a week every week (in fact, some books took two weeks, and some we only partially read). I didn't assign any book longer than 250 pages for the weekly assignments, and most were less than 200. We watched three movies. Three. (To adapt the student's form of expression...)

Evidently that was too much scholarly effort for this university student.

And yet, the university is going to take this sniveling imbecile student's comments seriously in regard to the quality of my teaching.

Never mind the extensive, careful lectures and discussions I assembled so that the little dear wouldn't be too addled by the mysteries of Text or dazzled by the endless reflection of the Sign as applied to Nature. Never mind the myriad ways I sought to cushion the intellectual blow.

I would sigh, but instead I think I might just bang my head into the desk a few times.

Or maybe I'll just prepare to meet this student again one day-- most likely in a position of some substantial authority.

It's my fault, after all. I passed the kid (with a D, I think)...

I saw three deer

...at my campsite on San Juan today. Three blacktails: a doe and two fauns. The doe slinked out of the brush near where I was dripping coffee for breakfast. She looked at me with caution-- not as if she were afraid of me hurting her, but as if she didn't want to startle me, wake me up, disturb my breakfast.

I squatted and turned my head, making myself look small and unthreatening. She crept out of the brush, two spotted fawns scampering with excitement next to her.

It's the kind of thing I would have called my father to tell him about last summer-- and I almost tried to today. I had pulled his number up on my cell phone before my bleary, early-morning brain remembered.

It made me think of this poem by Donald Hall:

White Apples

when my father had been dead a week
I woke
with his voice in my ear
I sat up in bed
and held my breath
and stared at the pale closed door

white apples and the taste of stone

if he called again
I would put on my coat and galoshes

Tomorrow I leave on the first of six sea kayaking trips over the next couple of months. The trips are shorter this year, to my dismay, but should be fun all the same...

Richmond Minor Eustis, Nov. 24, 1945- May 30 2009

This runs Tuesday and Wednesday in the Times-Pic. It was the most difficult thing I've had to write-- for many reasons.

I don't feel capable of writing much more about this right now. There is, of course, much more to say, but somehow it feels trivial to write about it in this medium. I may write more about my father's death later, but I doubt it will be here.

I am resigning myself to missing this man every day for the rest of my life.

Richmond Minor Eustis, a lawyer, died Saturday in his home in New Orleans after surviving cancer for nearly two years. He was 63.

The son of David Eustis and Molly Minor Eustis, Richmond Eustis was born in New Orleans and graduated from Isidore Newman School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia, where he was a member of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, and he earned a JD from Tulane University Law School.

An expert in corporate and admiralty litigation, Eustis began practice at Phelps, Dunbar, then joined Monroe & Lemann, where he became a partner. He later founded the firm Eustis, O’Keefe & Gleason, where he practiced until shortly before his death. He was a member of the Maritime Institute and the Louisiana Bar Association, and was admitted to federal practice before the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

His survivors include his wife of 38 years, Catherine Baños Eustis; two daughters, Julie Eustis Vaicius of New Orleans and Molly Minor Eustis of New York City; two sons, Richmond Minor Eustis, Jr. of Baton Rouge and Joshua Leeds Eustis of Chicago, IL; his brother David Leeds Eustis of New Orleans; his sister, Kate Eustis of Birmingham, AL; son-in-law, Christian Vaicius; two grandchildren, Lucy and James Vaicius, and more than a score of adoring nieces and nephews. His family and friends were gathered around him as he died.

Eustis served on the board of the Children’s Bureau and the New Orleans Board of Trade, and was an advisor to family-owned White Plantation. He was a member of the Inns of Court, the Sons of the Revolution, the Louisiana Club, and the Boston Club.

In addition to his legal work and his board work, Eustis enjoyed working outside in his yard or around his Lafourche Parish house. Blessed with what he liked to call “a trivial mind,” he was fond of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, of punning humor, and of the dogs who flocked to him.

He also was one of a handful of people expert in the history, repair and maintenance of traditional Carnival flambeaux.

A funeral service will take place Friday at noon at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1329 Jackson Ave., in New Orleans—the church where as a boy Eustis served as acolyte. Burial will follow at Metairie Cemetery. Visitation will begin at 11 in the church.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to one of the following groups: the Trinity Episcopal Church Medical Mission, 1329 Jackson Ave. 70130, the Kellermann Foundation/Bwindi Community Health Center—Uganda, P.O. Box 1901 Penn Valley, CA 95946, or the Delta Chapter of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity at the University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400314, Charlottesville, VA 22904.

Chris Paul is Better Than You

Don't feel bad-- he's better than everyone else too. I want to see the Hornets go far, far into the post season (saddled though they are with a thin bench and fragile key players). Sure, there's the whole "support-the-local-guys" thing. But mostly I just want the chance to see CP3 work this kind of magic for a few more months.

Want some proof?



I don't know how they just chose ten. Paul does something astounding every game-- even in the ones the Hornets lose.

The first playoff game is Sunday on TNT versus Denver. It starts at 9:30 (Central). I guess I'm going to be up late...