Strange Days Indeed

Beckett Using his new tooth:

Regular readers of this column (in its previous incarnation as an email letter) will recall the time when Bruce thought it would be fun to attend a conference at Dartmouth during the autumn foliage (and have Jeanne along), but neglected to reserve a hotel room, and ended up spending the night camping in a tent in torrential rain which created a huge puddle (lake?) which came four inches up the side of our air mattress. Perhaps my life is destined to a kind of Nietzschean eternal recurrence of the same.

Recently yours truly was invited to give a talk at Hahvahd. They are clearly on a different budget than UMass because they offered to put me and Jeanne up in a bed and breakfast close to Harvard Square for two nights. So we decided to make a family outing of it on Hahvahd’s dime. We would go down in Friday evening, and on Saturday afternoon, while I tried to elucidate the finer points of Japanese modern dance, Jeanne and Beckett would tour the neighborhood, and then we would all visit friends in Boston the next day. Everything seemed set for a great weekend. But then Beckett decided that it would be an appropriate time to get croup, a 103 degree fever, and cut his first tooth the few days before the talk. We had him on antibiotics and the doctor cleared him to travel, but cautioned us that the seal-cough of the croup could scare Beckett so we should immediately comfort him in the night and not make any attempts to do any “Ferberizing.” Our parenting philosophy doesn’t align with Ferber, but we have made some attempts at sleep training, so we resolved to be extra gentle on poor Beckett.

We made the drive to Cambridge and checked into the bed and breakfast, only to find the promised queen-sized bed was actually a full, and Beckett refused to sleep in his pack-n-play. What is more, he would only sleep touching one of us and even then thrashed around and flailed all night long. At about 2 AM I decided that this was not conducive to my giving a good talk the next day, so I yielded the bed to him and Jeanne and took the little half-mattress out of his pack-n-play and one blanket and retreated to the floor. So yes, the night before my debut at Hahvahd, I slept half of the night with a little teething febrile croupy boy pounding on me, and the other half of the night half on a pack-n-play mattress on the floor. As I gave my talk, I couldn’t help but feel some sort of strange satisfaction at the appropriateness of the guy who gives a presentation on weird Japanese modern dance having slept the previous night hanging off the edge of a three-by-two pack-n-play mattress. As they say in the commercial—It doesn’t get any better than this. Or as John Lennon says—Nobody told me there’d be days like these.

Things that go Bonk

I'm sorry this is sideways, but Aunt Allisa, this is for you. Try turning your monitor on its side.

Beckett can talk!!!...Japanese

We are proud to announce that Beckett has just passed the sixth month mark and has demonstrated advanced verbal skills as he can definitively say several vocabulary words. They turn out to be all Japanese which makes the accomplishment that much more impressive. His first word was very clearly “eiga” which means “movie” in Japanese, leading us to conclude that he is going to be a worthy successor to his father who studies theater and dance, and also that he will fit right in with the current generation of visual media obsessed kids. He then followed this up with “aita,” “haita,” and “daita” which are respectively the past tense for “opened,” “wore shoes or socks,” (Yes, you got that right--"wore shoes or socks"--I told you he was advanced) and “hugged.” The fact that he has mastered the past tense in Japanese is even awe-inspiring. We are anxiously waiting for such words as “taita” (cooked), “kaita” (wrote), “saita” (bloomed), “naita” (cried—although he seems to do this just fine already), “maita” (twisted or sowed), and “yaita” (fried). In due time we are planning to work on the present tense, and also on Japanese verbs which have different conjugations. Meanwhile, we have nicknamed his stuffed dog, “Daita” (hugged) to describe what Beckett has begun doing to him on a nightly basis—perhaps squished would be even more accurate, but Beckett hasn’t shown any signs of saying “squished” yet.

Beckett with Reading material which undoubtedly enables him to speak Japanese at an early age
(Spots and Dots is the name of the book)















Addendum: Beckett can also say DaDaDaDa. This should have one more piece of incontrovertible evidence about how smart Beckett is, but as it is, no thanks to Nate and Paul, we have been calling me, Papa. So now its obvious that he doesn't mean "Dad" by this, but he is merely babbling. We are waiting for the Japanese word for Papa, "Chichi" to pop out any day now--just as soon as he gets to Japanese nouns.

No More Paranoia for Us New Parents

Beckett caught his first illness. We had been rigorously washing his toys every time his friend was over and feeling a little paranoid, so finally now that he has passed the six month mark, we decided that we could relax a little. Well it turns out that we weren’t paranoid, because our friend’s son came over to be babysat and had a runny nose, and within a day of sharing toys with him, Beckett had come down with his first runny nose. Now he comes trailing clouds of glorious mucus behind him. We also then picked up the cold, so I like to think of this as contributing to the closeness of our little family. I have ascertained that one way to get him to put up with having his nose blown is to blow mine first and then wipe his so he can be just like me. Our newest motto: “The Family that blows together, grows together!!”

Beckett mouthing every toy in sight to share germs:

Our New Mop

Its a dirty little secret that we don't really like to have noised around too much, but we really decided to have a child because of all of the free labor we could get out of him down the road. I figure that some day, we can have him clean the bathrooms once morning a week, vacuum, take out the trash, sweep, and we will still have several mornings a week left over for odd jobs. Maybe we will even buy a cow and have him milk every morning and night. At the moment though, he hasn't quite advanced that far in his skill levels, but he has begun to scoot backwards around the house in preparation for real crawling, so we decided to use him as a new mop.











There is one other plus about this arrangement. This new mop comes with an opening that spews forth its own milky white cleaning solution and special scrubbers to spread the cleaning solution around and work it into the cracks. When it gets finished buffing the floor, you can't imagine the shine!?!

Me and Maxi-Me

[Just who is calling the shots here?]

There is a funny part in the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which an earthling finds out that humans are only the third most intelligent life form on the planet (after mice and dolphins), and that the entire earth is actually a very complex experiment concocted by the mice to see what the humans will do. The mice spend their time running on wheels and faking like they don't know their way through mazes to see how the humans will react. Recently, I feel as though perhaps I am actually only the third most intelligent life form in the family. Of course there is Jeanne, who obviously ranks above me, but perhaps she is not really in charge either...

[The Head Chef being held up to view
the culinary concoction and otherwise
assisted by the sous chef in the kitchen.]

One of Beckett's new tricks is that he turns himself around in my arms to face out before I think to do it. My brother Ken told me that babies like to face out and see the world and see what we are seeing, so when Beckett came along, I just made it a habit of carrying him facing out all the time unless there was some specific reason to carry him in some other way, such as cradling him, or burping him. Up until now, I didn't think much about it. I just did it. But now he started turn himself outward right as soon as I pick him up--as if I haven't faced him in the proper direction quickly enough. So I end up feeling like a chauffeur. This feeling is heightened when he grabs one of my fingers in each hand. Then I feel like the character Linguini in the movie Ratatouille with Remy (AKA Beckett) steering me from his pilot's seat and using my fingers to indicate whether I should turn left or right rather than pulling my hair.



[While he sits safely in the lap of his personal servant and attends to pressing business on his amazingly fast micro-computer, Me allows Maxi-me to play with a large toy computer that looks real so Maxi-Me can feel that he is just like Me.]

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

There is a venerable and much-discussed joke about two Jews who meet in a train station in Galicia. The version I know goes like this: Schlemiel and Schlimazel meet in a train station in Galicia. Schlemiel asks, “Where are you going my friend?” Schlimazel thinks to himself—I am going to Krakow, but if I tell him, he will want to come with me and talk my ear off, so I think I’ll tell him I’m going to Lemberg. Then he thinks—but if I tell him I am going to Lemberg, he will know that I am lying to him and that I am going to Krakow and he will come with me and talk my ear off, so I think I’ll tell him that I am going to Krakow and he will think I am going to Lemberg. So he answers, “I’m headed to Krakow.” Schlemiel bursts out, “You liar. You said you are going to Krakow when you are going to Krakow.”*

This joke describes my 40th birthday. Jeanne and I have been trying to throw surprise parties for each other for the past ten years (with more success on her part in actually making it a surprise). A week ago, I asked her if we had plans for watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, and she immediately replied yes, and then was evasive about the plans, so I thought that she must be planning a party for me. On about Thursday, Jeanne told me that she had just been too busy and wasn’t able to plan a party for me, but she doesn’t want me to think she doesn’t love me. Alarm bells go off in my head. Is she just saying this so I will be thrown off the scent? Is she really planning me a party and just saying she isn’t?

Sunday came around, and she proposed going to a movie. In my mind, this sounded like the kind of alternate activity you propose when you have planned a party, so I assented readily. I was driving on the way over to the movie, and I kept supposing that at any moment, she would say something like: “Hey lets stop by X’s place and see if they want to come,” or “I’m hungry, can we just stop into X restaurant and pick up a little snack for the movie.” Such a sentence never happened. We went to the movie. We met no one we know. We watched the entire movie. We went home. No one was waiting for us at home with the movies being an excuse to get us out of the house. I had the feeling like:
You liar, you said we were going to the movies when we were going to the movies.
You liar, you said you weren’t planning a party when you aren’t planning a party.

Monday is uneventful. Tuesday roles around. I begin to get poems and limericks via email from everyone I know. Ahh. Here is the birthday surprise. Now I know what Jeanne was planning—email poetry. It was a great day getting poetry from everybody.** However, late in the day our friends Nina and Karsten invite me over to their house for a simple birthday dinner since Jeanne has to go to dinner with a seminar speaker. The alarm bells go off again. I haven’t seen this seminar speaker. How do I know there is really a speaker at all? This sounds like a good alternative plan for a surprise party. I accept the invitation, and at about 5:40, send Jeanne off to her “dinner with the seminar speaker” while Beckett and I go over to Karsten and Nina’s. We get there and there is no one there besides the two of them. I wonder if some people will burst out of the back room. No one does. We eat a delightful meal—jerk chicken if you care. We have nice conversation. We even have ten different kind of brownies that Nina bought at a bake sale, but no one else shows up. No one bursts out of any closets. No balloons, and certainly no Jeanne. At about 7:15, Beckett reaches the end of his rope and needs to go to bed. He and I go home. No one is waiting for us. No one has used the opportunity to sneak into the house and put together a surprise party. An hour later, Jeanne comes home from dinner with the seminar speaker. She doesn’t bring anyone in tow. Once again:
You liar, you invited me over for a simple birthday meal when you were going to cook a simple birthday meal.
You liar, you said you were going to go eat with the seminar speaker when you were going to eat with the seminar speaker.

Wednesday arrives. Jeanne has planned for us to take infant CPR at the local hospital. I don’t think anything of it. I am excited to take the class, since we plan to start swimming lessons with Beckett in about six weeks. I pick up Jeanne at work at 5 PM. Once again, I am driving. This time I am not even considering the possibility that there is anything other than infant CPR on the horizon. Then Jeanne says, “I’m starving. I called ahead and got us a chicken burrito at Mi Tierra (our favorite Mexican restaurant).” I’m to the point where I don’t know whether warning bells should be going off in my head or not. Is this just going to be one more of those not-lie lies or is this finally the lie? Jeanne sends me in to get the food. I head up to the counter to ask for the take-out. I get half way through the question when I get grabbed from behind and informed by Jeanne that the take-out is in the next room over. I look over to see a bunch of our friends sitting at tables. We have a wonderful evening with twenty of our good friends (including the two who had treated me to a simple dinner the night before). This includes a huge birthday cake with an RIP tombstone on it, forty candles which I did not successfully blow out, everyone fighting over the chance to hold Beckett, Beckett getting over stimulated and reaching the end of his rope and screaming. I guess in the end, Jeanne was just a good old fashioned liar.

* Freud’s version in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious goes like this:

Two Jews met in a railway carriage at a station in Galicia. “Where are you going?” asked one. To Cracow” was the answer. “What a liar you are!” broke out the other. “If you say you are going to Cracow, you want me to believe you’re going to Lemberg. But I know that in fact you’re going to Cracow. So why are you lying to me?”

** The list of limericks and other poetry is long, but in case you are interested, here they are (in roughly reverse order of receipt):

Four decades young
Four decades old
Bruce Baird is middle-aged
But we won't tell a soul

Some think it's young
Some think it's old
I think it must be great
Like porridge in a bowl

--Eva

My brother in law isn’t a prude
Sometimes he swims in the nude
He’ll wear a pink coat
Not much gets his goat
He’s really a pretty great dude!

Jeanne married a man from Utah
He wears clothes akin to a bra
He cares for their boy
Their true pride and joy
And in him there’s hardly a flaw!

My brother Bruce is a collector of junk
But he’s not allowed to keep much in his trunk
He’s got papers so old
Some women would scold
But I think the collectors a HUNK!

Bruce boils bones in his pot
Cooks them all savory and hot
Stews things all day
That I’d throw away
But is his soup garbage? It’s not!!

He can draw a great hippo in chalk
My children are part of his flock
He is so much fun
In rain or in sun
But boy can that man ever talk!!

--The Nathans (AKA Allisa)

Uncle Bruce

By: Emma & Caleb

B- Beckett Fan (c)

R- Radical (e)

U- Useful (e)

C- Cool (e)

E- Everybody’s Hero ©

--Emma and Caleb

A new daddy Bruce has become
And Beckett is cute as they come!
But to Bruce it’s a worry
Cuz he’s now turning 40
And he’s almost a grandpa-Ho Hum

--Luke

Bruce is a really great guy,
and we’re here to tell you why.
He studies the Japanese stage
and 4-‘s a really good age
His beloved is named Jeanne
and Baby Beckett’s no longer so teeny.
He writes a wacky Christmas letter
and his cooking is even better.

--Krista, Machael, Zeke, and Rafi.


There was a young Mormon from Utah
Who went all the way East to view Butoh
He liked it so much he couldn’t forget it
We all feel sorry for young master Beckett

--Stephen



みどり児を
見つめる父の
まなざしと
あつき想いの
はなの穴

Rough Translation

The warm thoughts
And gaze
Of a father staring
At his newborn...
...And papa’s big nostrils

--Ayana


A Japanese scholar named Bruce
now researches just Mother Goose.
He once was quite sporty
but now is forty
and suffers sleep deprivation abuse.

Classical References Bruce doth quote
while walking with Beckett in tote.
Students think he is well read
but he has no street cred
while wearing that crazy pink coat.

--Scott


Bruce is a very dear friend

Who gave what he could till the end

But now that he's forty

He's begun to turn warty

And says that's no longer the trend!

--Aleric


Bruce Baird, Bruce Baird, what do you see,
I see gray hairs looking at me

Gray hairs, gray hairs, what do you see,
I see red reading glasses looking at me

Red reading glasses, red reading glasses, what do you see,
I see black crow feet looking at me

Black crow feet, black crow feet, what do you see,
I see a green new dad looking at me!

--Karsten and Nina


Dr. Baird hits four decades;
Mitt presidential ...
Might there be Mor(mon) to come?

--Sean


#1
There once was a new dad who's old
whose prose was unnaturally bold.
He uses his wits (much as his time permits)
to make sure his life's fully extolled.

#2
Not all of your friends are on time,
and some of us can't even rhyme,
but we're friends just the same, and we sing the refrain
"Happy birthday, dear Bruce. You're sublime."

--Nate and Cath


There once was a fellow named Brucey
One half of a couple named jeucy
I hear that he's forty
Still looking quite sporty
So Jeanne will give him a goosey.

--Dedee


Here’s to Bruce my amazing old friend
It’s to him my first limerick I send.
Just think of this quickly
When you’re turning 50,
Beckett will be just past 10!

--Beckie


There once was a man who loved free expression
A student of culture for his profession
He kept the crowds guessin'
With the quirks of his dressin'
And his knack for post-modern digression!

--Rachel


From Einstein:

relativity
sun's green and blue quick across
the slow falling earth

A walk:

concrete, brick, concrete
a bottle cap a bronze leaf
sidewalk in sunshine

--Jason


It's the day to turn forty for Bruce,
His vibrant young manhood he let loose.
To the drug store he bound
incredible cures he thus found.
helping balding tummys that pooch.

--Diana


There once was a man named Bruce
who wore his shirts a bit loose
He had a grand birthday
that ended a fun way
when his wife gave him a bit of a goose.

--Lisa


kisama no unchi ga stinky

so watch what you do with that pinky

turning 40 is grand

if you still have a plan

and its never too late to turn kinky

--Rob


Bruce, the birthday boy
Horray for celebrations
with poems and cake!

--Leslie


There once was a young man named Bruce,
Who believed it, when told slots were loose.
But now that he's older,
He's learned how to fold, er'
And gambles solely with bear, elk, and moose!

--Monica


Today it is Super Bruce Day
Missmatchin' socks he wears in his shoes, ey,
His Japanese is quite jouzu
Not so small is his "nouzu"
To Germania him lead his way may!

A Traditional Germany one adapted to Burusu:

Hoppe, hoppe Reiter,
wenn er fällt dann schreit er.
Fällt er in den Graben,
fressen ihn die Raben,
und dann geht es irgendwie weiter ...

there once was a guy name him bruce 

who wore mismatched socks in his shoes 

in japan for us he was cookin'
in germany we're still lookin'

--Nick und Silvia


There once was a glib Amherst scholar
Who traveled Japan on their dollar
He learned butoh-fu
But wrote chindogu
Was Beckett's shichiya his collar?

--Ken


A youthful lass, quite articulate
Sharp mind, deep thoughts, won't capitulate
Till forty he turned
Things are harder, he's learned
Now Viagra's a favorite to stimulate

--Ange


Clinton and Obama they roar
He can’t remember, Oh who to vote for?
The Dementia’s kicked in
And he just gives a grin
Now I’m 40 or is it 44……

Luke


Roses are red
Violets are blue
Your crazy socks
Could incite a coup.
by Julie

If catfish aren’t cats
And koalas aren’t bears,
Why are birthday suits
Clothes you can’t wear?
by Julie

Red is the rose
Green is the spruce
Bright mismatched socks
Are oft found on Bruce.
by Lynn

Roses are red
Carnations are pink
Fifty will be here
Before you blink.
by Lynn

You are forty today
What can one say
While being forty is sad
It's not all that bad
It's better than being dead

--Scott


A fellow named Bruce turned forty
And in distress he cried "Lordy!"
But with a wife so fine
And a child so divine
Methinks he should be more sporty!

A fellow named Bruce was clever
He thought he would live forever
At forty he said
I'll ne'er be dead
But alas it's a fruitless endeavor.

--Jack and Kristin


Super Tuesday, his Birthday this year
He was watching the Democrats Cheer
Came a Tear to his Eye
As he realized Oh My!
I am Really turning 40 this year…..

--Luke


Alzheimers, Dimentia, Who Knows?
We Wonder when we look at his Clothes
Pants and shirts are just fine,
Turnin' 40 this time
And his Socks haven't matched since Who Knows?

--Kim


a japanese professor stated bold
"although on this day i turn old;
my phallus is limp
but at least i'm no gimp
and i haven't grown any mold."

--joe and sarah


Schaug, dr Gaudiwurm -
Guatzla un Lufdschlanga
fliagn umanand ...

--Charlotte


With a philosopher’s mind
in a dancer’s body, he took to Butoh
to keep the oneness he is. Born
the day when Richard the Twisted
took the White Castle as his own,
this lithe thinker exercised
in university mind-gyms, wrote
choreography as verse, turned
the heads of his students,
and made his family
and his friends
HAPPY.


BIRTHDAY! “Bruce”

--Bill


Once upon a time
there was a man named bruce living in his prime
But then one day
his hair began to turn grey
When he looked in the mirror
He screamed out in terror
and said o my, whats happened to my lovely locks!!!
to cope with this terrible news
He went to his drawer and mismatched his socks
which was much better than hitting the booze!
He relized that day he was growing old
this had been foretold
But how could it happen to someone so great
Now he would have to watch what he ate
Would he be able to remeber his anniversiary date?
Would he still be able to snorkel and swim
or would he lose the use of a limb.
would trolley rides in the getto be to much
or with this new age whould he be using a crutch
He began to remaniss about his old ways and days
how he loves to watch japennese plays
And get burned with harmfull sun rays
How his sister in law dani gave him so much praise
and he began to cry and sigh
But he could not lie with the turning of fourty he
wondered if he could still be sporty
would he make better decisions
Preventing colitions?
Or would he still get many towings and flat tires?
But if he did he would have learned to carry letherman
pliers
Although he did turn four decades old
Who know what fun the futures holds!!!!!

--Dani